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When hunting big, dangerous animals, there is a convincing argument to be made that bigger is better and few rifles come bigger than the .600 Nitro Express; very few.
The cartridge itself is a thing to behold: a three-inch case, originally packed with 100 grains of cordite and topped with a bullet weighing 900 grains. It leaves the muzzle at 2,050 feet per second. The energy delivered on impact is a massive 7,600 ft/lbs. Clearly, these proportions and qualities are positively elephantine.
The first .600 was launched onto the market around the time of the First World War, by Jeffery. It was always a specialist’s tool and relatively few have been made to date.
However, collectors have always harboured a deep passion for this; the largest, commercially-produced, hunting cartridge in the world until quite recently. Vintage examples, when they appear, command strong prices.
John Rigby & Co. is fortunate in that it regularly attracts orders from loyal customers that fall into the category of ‘interesting’ and the company considers every non-standard commission a welcome challenge.
If the customer has a vision and Marc Newton and his team of dedicated gunmakers can bring it to life in walnut and steel, they will do everything in their power to make it happen.
To Marc, the more extreme the request, the more boundaries it pushes, the more challenging the tasks involved in making it, the better. It is, he says, the gunmaker’s equivalent of haute couture in the fashion industry. It is also a long way from the traditional, dare we say, conservative tastes of the British gunmaking establishment.
The result of one such request is a spectacular example of this type of headline-grabbing project. Six years in the making, it has now emerged to excite Rigby collectors and rifle-making enthusiasts the world over.
This is not the first rifle Rigby has made with elephant hide as an engraving theme. A .450 magazine rifle was commissioned a decade ago when the idea was raised by the customer. At first, Rigby engravers tested it on a grip cap, then a trigger guard, eventually extending the theme around the rifle and creating something unique.
However, that customer had put a condition on the commission. He stipulated then this would be the only rifle of its kind to emerge from Pensbury Place.
Another good Rigby customer saw the .450 at a gun show and was immediately interested. He asked Marc for another but, due to the original agreement, he had to politely decline.
The only option available that would honour the terms imposed by the first customer but acquiesce to the wishes of the second was to order a Rising Bite double rifle. However, it was impossible to know how much the engraving would cost, as it would be such an involved project.
If he recalls his words at the time correctly, he said; “You’d have to be a psycho to do it but if someone ordered a Rising Bite double rifle, engraved with an elephant skin theme, we could make that”. Without missing a beat, the customer replied: “I’m your psycho”.
A contract was agreed, though a budget could not be set due to the unknowable cost of the engraving. A hefty deposit was paid and work commenced in 2016.
The .600 is built on the very largest frame Rigby employs for the newly re-engineered nitro version of the 1878 Rigby & Bissell patent action, which is so iconic to aficionados of the double rifle.
Building the rifle was not a problem; this, after all, is what the London company is famed for. The engraving was another matter. While the rifle builders got to work, the engravers began to explore their approach.
Rather than just do an impression of elephant hide, Marc provided some samples of the real thing. The three engravers, who are from the same family, working in shifts, actually cut the steel to the patterns of the genuine article; no two surfaces are replicated. Just as on a real animal, every inch of every surface is unique, not a repeated pattern from a template.
Rigby has worked hard to cultivate a small but dedicated number of customers who are supportive of these cutting-edge commissions. Just as Formula 1 technology and practices feed into the wider world of motor vehicle manufacturing, gradually improving and refining everyday models, so these ‘Products of Excellence’ (to borrow a term coined by the late Malcolm Lyle of Holland & Holland) help to ensure that the Rigby team innovates and improves by accepting challenges beyond the skills employed in the making of well-known models with universally applied finishes.
These unique concept builds have to be pitched to the top tier of customers and they are, by definition, expensive. Each concept can only be applied once, or perhaps in a limited edition set of five or 10 iterations at most.
Rigby has, once again, demonstrated to the world that it can meet demand in the sector from exhibition pieces costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, to the price point available to any working man with a love for the brand and a desire to invest in something special with which to hunt deer.
Returning to the elephant hide .600, it will actually be going to Africa in the company of the original elephant-styled .450 magazine rifle; for the two customers have now made one another’s acquaintance and are planning a safari together.
