Rigby Big Game cycling issues

WYORigby said:

TA few follow-up comments:
1. I talked to the salesman again, and apparently this was something that Rigby did by design on the 450 (which is why all of the 450s they received are this way, and none of the 404s). I'm not sure why Rigby decided to do it differently, but apparently it was a conscious decision on the 450, as that also seems to be the experience of most of the 450 owners that have chimed in.

2. As I understand the issue (by description; I have not actually seen it), it is not the bolt hitting the back of follower but rather the follower kicking up some on the front end. Thus, I'm not sure if it is simple as beveling the rear of the follower.

3. Bottom line- it seems like the rifle in question is not defective. It is apparently just designed in a way that some may few as a "feature" (letting you know it is empty) while others may view it as a "bug" (cycling empty for practice is not really a possibility). As the one user commented, this does make for a meaningful distinction between Rigby vs Parkwest(Dakota) for those who are in the market for a 450 and who care strongly about it, one way or another.

Thanks again for all of the prompt responses.

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Interesting. I don’t understand why the follower could/would kick up in the front. Like the military Mausers and others discussed herein, if you want the feature, you would want it to immediately stop the bolt at the back of the follower. It does make some sense if they chose to do this on a PH model rifle chambered in .450R. Much better than closing the action and hearing it go click.

If a non-professional hunter wants to cycle the bolt quite a bit, they could always remove the follower and spring.

RR 314 said:

Interesting. I don’t understand why the follower could/would kick up in the front. Like the military Mausers and others discussed herein, if you want the feature, you would want it to immediately stop the bolt at the back of the follower. It does make some sense if they chose to do this on a PH model rifle chambered in .450R. Much better than closing the action and hearing it go click.

If a non-professional hunter wants to cycle the bolt quite a bit, they could always remove the follower and spring.

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My understanding is that the design of the follower movement pattern--which can result in the front of the follower sticking up out of the magazine a bit--to help ensure reliable feeding of the final round is what causes it to kick up some in front when empty, at least per Rigby's explanation to Cabela's on why all the 450 PHs they received are this way. The 450 follower might behave differently due to a combination of shoulder diameter (and bullet weight) relative to magazine box dimensions, etc. But that is just a guess; I don't think it is something unique to the cartridge itself (as opposed to whatever magazine box geometry Rigby/Mauser is using).

It is entirely understandable why Rigby would priortize feeding of loaded rounds, and do what it takes to make sure the rifle feeds the last round entirely reliably. Just odd that this quirk is unique to Rigby .450s, and not other Rigby rifles (or other manufacturers' like Dakota/Parkwest's 450s).

Beck said:

This confirms what I already suspected. If you order your rifle directly from Rigby, you can choose to have this feature if you want it

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But I didn’t buy the 450 PH directly from Rigby. It was unused , still in the box at the Rigby dealer in Australia . About 5 years ago I heard about it one day and 45 minutes later I owned it for A$9000 (US$6000). The seller was in dire financial straights and I had the cash . It is the best shooting big rifle I own . And I specified nothing with Rigby .

Russ16 said:

I’d definitely be interested in hearing from Righy about this. I could see the benefits but strange they only did it in one caliber if it is intentional.

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It seems weird that Rigby would only do it on the 450 and not the 416 . The 450 is the same case as the 416 just opened up a bit more .

@PCC600 I can see the magazine follower sticking up at the front in the photo you posted?

Aussie_Hunter said:

@PCC600 I can see the magazine follower sticking up at the front in the photo you posted?

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But it does not stop cycling if the bolt with no cartridges in the mag .

All sounds hokey to me that a specific caliber(450) does this but no others? 16k ? I’m just the guy that would say no way to that, but imo there are way better rifles to spend 16k on that is just a rebranded Mauser base plain Jane model rigby.

I was thinking about purchasing one in 450 Rigby a few years ago. I tried one out at DSC and it had that issue, I decided to go another route. I can’t see spending that much for a rifle with an inherent issue.

PCC600 said:

It seems weird that Rigby would only do it on the 450 and not the 416 . The 450 is the same case as the 416 just opened up a bit more .

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Possibly because they assume it's more likely to be a back up rifle for an actual PH.

Call Rigby Monday morning with any questions and if you are satisfied with their answers, you will be able to make an educated decision on whether you want the rifle or not. I have seen Mauser and Mauser style actions that did this as well as some that did not. Never was an issue for me. My BG in 416 does not.

Safe shooting

My guess is this issue has a lot to do with cost and nothing to do with safety. If you follow their safety logic, then the 450 is the only safe rifle they make and all the others which do not have this “feature” are not as safe and should be modified to function like the 450.

My biggest concern with the issue is that if you are in a hunting situation and this were to happen, then the follower is going to end up jammed in the chamber because the shooter is under pressure and trying to force the bolt closed. I love their other calibers, but would not consider a 450 from them in the current state.

If the follower comes up that high in the front of the magazine then the left rail has been taken back too far. Or, in other words, taken back farther forward than it should be.

RR 314 said:

if you want the feature, you would want it to immediately stop the bolt at the back of the follower

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This is exactly right.
The follower lifting in the front would not stop forward bolt movement, unless it is truly hung up on something up front and the bolt is stopped halfway which of course would be a serious flaw.

Those here with other Mausers, commercial sporters preferably, take a look at how the rear left of the follower is beveled and polished to insure smooth forward bolt slide and the front left of the follower has a protrusion that mates with the underside of the rail and keeps the follower below the rail insuring that the last round is fed concentrically on the bore axis.

It shouldn't look like PCC600's photo IMO.

Tex .416 said:

For those of you saying you would remove this safety feature on a dangerous game rifle built for a PH, would like to hear your thinking as to why?

There is no down side to my mind and a huge safety benefit, especially for a PH to let them know they are out of ammo in a high stress scenario.

It is standard on all semi-auto pistols for this same safety reason.

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The disadvantage being with the bolt locked in open position with empty magazine, the shooter is compelled to load the magazine to make the gun operational again. With a beveled follower and snap-over capability, he only has to drop a round in the action and close the bolt. And I agree with Duane Wiebe any DGR that doesn't have snap-over capability is not a DGR. Yes, it would be nice if the gun tells me when the magazine is empty but not so nice if I have to try shoving a round into the magazine while I'm running from a buffalo. At least if I hear a "click" on an empty chamber I can rack the bolt while dropping another cartridge in the chamber without looking at it and probably a lot quicker than stuffing another round in the box.

I'm wondering if there isn't something about the unique dimensions of 450 that may account for this. If this rifle is purposely manufactured with a bolt blocking follower, it is an easy fifteen minute fix with a Dremel tool grinder and a piece of fine grit emery cloth to followup polish. Any gunsmith who charges a hundred bucks is wearing an eye patch and cutlass.

Edit: Nothing unusual about the cartridge. Simply a necked up 416 Rigby. This appears to be a marketing ploy to make buyers think they are purchasing a design specifically desired by professional hunters. Frankly, I don't believe many if any PHs would desire this feature for the above reasons ... unless of course Rigby convinces them it is desirable. Or perhaps Rigby is simply offering the purchaser/PH the option of block-on-empty. It's such an easy fix anyone can change it if desired. But trying to make a "standard" follower into one that blocks on open magazine would require tig welding extra metal on the follower, grinding, fitting, polishing, etc. Yes, I suspect this is just offered as an option for those unwise enough to desire it. The rest can simply pull the follower and modify it if they want.

Either way id try to see if you canf et a few thousa d dollars off the sale price from cabelas. For it being "defective

The other thing to consider is bolt being blocked doesn't automatically mean the magazine is empty. It could mean the gun is jammed. Shooter needs to dismount the rifle and look to see what's going on. Then fiddle with grabbing a round and shoving it into the box. All the while his eyes are moving from what's going on with his rifle, what's going on with the charging animal, and what's going on under his running feet. And he MUST push the round into the magazine under the claw and rail or the bolt won't close. Typically that requires tipping the gun sideways and looking into receiver past/around my fingers/thumb. This is not a useful feature! Military rifles were different. They were reloaded with stripper clips. For the soldier in the trenches, fully reloading with a stripper clip offset the advantage of snap-over on one cartridge in most emergency situations. So yes, it was important for him to know when the rifle was empty. But he didn't have shove cartridges into the magazine one by one.

Ah... The issue is at least partly because follower is too narrow in the shoulder area. Rigby likely used 416 followers for 450 rifles. Looking at the photo, the front of the follower has completely jumped the rail. This could be caused by a blocking follower pushing the follower up the loading ramp. If the follower was proper width, it should not able to be be pushed up above the rail. The bolt should just be stopped at the back of cycle. It appears from the photo that the bolt is started forward when the stoppage occurs?

Again, I suspect this is an easy fix to simply bevel the butt of follower where it meets the bolt face. If someone, for whatever reason, still wanted the bolt blocking feature, they could order a magnum length follower from NECG and properly adjust width as needed. These come with tabs front and rear that can be trimmed to fit the mag box/receiver width more precisely. I modified one for my 404 build on standard Mauser.

Edit: Looking again at the photo it's clear the follower has jumped the rail! See the tab at the end. That should not be visible at all. The tab is supposed to keep the follower below the left feeding rail and force the right side of follower to stay underneath the right rail. It would appear the tab at the back end of the follower is proper width and the only thing that keeps follower and spring from flying out of the gun when the bolt is opened! $15K for this? Shame on you Rigby.

If that’s the follower sticking up in the pic that is most problematic. Yikes.

So reading through the posts again it appears the 450 that Rigby makes has two possible "anomalies": 1) blunt end follower to block the bolt from closing when magazine is empty and 2) follower that is so narrow in the shoulder area that forward end jumps above the feeding rails when the bolt is opened on an empty magazine. Number one has questionable advantage in the field. It tells the shooter the magazine is empty but cancels snap-over as an option for quickly loading an emergency round. Number two anomaly provides no advantage that I can see. Perhaps it helps reloading the first cartridge into the magazine, but I seriously doubt it. Probably complicates loading the first cartridge. I cannot see how it could possibly improve loading the last round into chamber. A narrower cartridge might need some added assistance from follower to point the tip of final cartridge in magazine to chamber. But the 450 is a very thick cartridge with very thick bullet. This is indeed very strange. Appears to be a purposed design. I just can't figure out the purpose.

Just to be clear, this isn't a safety feature. The bolt doesn't "lock" open on the follower so you know you are empty. This is the bolt contacting the follower about 3/4 of an in inch and then gouging the follower with the bottom of the bolt. This takes metal off and creates a burr.

Never, never, never, never buy something like this that needs a repair. If this is "wrong", what else is wrong.
There are better options than a busted Rigby.....