Harry Selby's Rigby Double - Question

[wildcatter82]

The rifle that got run over, which prompted him to buy his famous 416....does anyone know any specifics of the gun? Several articles mention it being a Rigby best quality 470 and that he bought it like new for ridiculously cheap (even for the day). Was it a Rising Bite? Spadehead? Does anyone know who was the previous owner? Thanks

 

[baxterb]

Harry told me the previous owner was a friend of Jack Block, who was managing director of K&D (and also owned a bunch of hotels), but never mentioned the name. Said he got it for about 100 pounds.

 

[baxterb]

Incidentally, the store just to the left of the big building in the foreground is where Harry bought his 416 Rigby. May & Co.

 

[JvW]

Interesting topic.

Some time ago I did a bit of research for purposes of a magazine article about the rifles used by Harry Selby. In the process I corresponded with Joe Coogan, the well-known American PH who apprenticed under Harry Selby in the 1970's. Joe confirmed that the rifle that was run over was indeed a best-quality Rigby .470. Whether it was an earlier rising-bolt or a later, Webley-made screw-grip spade-head has not, to the best of my knowledge, been recorded.

In Horn of the Hunter, Robert Ruark writes that in addition to his well-known .416 Bolt-action (a post-WW II rifle made on an opened up ex-military M98 action), Selby also used a Rigby .450 No 2 NE double rifle. More on this later.

Another well-known African hunter that also wrote about his use of the .450 No 2 NE was Ian Nyschens. Nyschens was one of the toughest of the tough when it came to elephant hunting in particular and wrote about buying a short-barrelled Rigby .450 No 2 NE in Bulawayo of an older, discontinued model, along with 300 cartridges. It quickly became his favourite double rifle, and it was the rifle that was tragically lost to the Zambezi River in later years (the incident is described in Nyschens' book, Months of the Sun).

Now, the .450 No 2 NE is a rarity, and always was. Not a great many were made as it was a casualty of the 1905 ban that banned (amongst others) .450-calibre rifles in certain British territories. For two of Africa's famous hunters to end up with rifles in the same calibre by the same maker...what were the odds?

I dug deeper and contacted a friend at Rigby. They did some digging and discovered that the only .450 No 2 NE Rigby ever made was made by Webley & Scott for Rigby in 1921 for FW Greswolde-Williams. It was a best-quality ejector, engraved by Harry Kell, and fitted with 26" barrels. The records doesn't state on which action it was made but it would most likely have been a screw-grip sidelock.

Since Nyschens's rifle is still at the bottom of the Zambezi and Harry Selby (according to Joe Coogan) didn't come out of Kenya with a .450 No NE of any sorts, it begs a few questions: did Ruark use a bit of literary license in describing Selby's rifles in Horn of the Hunter? Was Nyschens mistaken? Who knows?

Interestingly, a Rigby sidelock ejector in .450 No 2 NE was offered for sale at the SCI convention 8 or so years ago by a private seller. Because of the calibre, he couldn't give it away.

The truth is still out there...

 

[wildcatter82]

Very interesting stuff, JvW. Thank you for all the info. I do recall reading that Selby's 416 was accompanied by a rarely used 450 #2 for very specific situations. And with Rigby only making one....a mystery indeed.

As for the 470, I've wondered about the rifle's past before Selby, and what became of it after the tire mishap. All that's ever mentioned is the bent beyond repair barrels....surely if the action came out unscathed, someone took advantage of still having a best quality Rigby...