Wonderful! Wonderful that such inspiring arms continue to be produced. The design, the lines, are perfection, the sort of perfection we'd arrived at in magazine rifle stockmaking early-on in that game. It's interesting to note how wood selection has changed in premium rifles. If you bought one of these back in the heyday of such arms, chances are it may well have been stocked with pretty plain walnut, and this was obviously perfectly acceptable back then for their clientele. (What was the price point adjusted for inflation back then?) Not today, the quality of the wood and the demand for such wood has skyrocketed. A person would be tempted to think there was a lot more good walnut to choose from back then, but maybe not given that so much more of what we produced was made from the stuff(?) I also speculate that a look through the ranks of the gunmaker's arts today and the prices being exacted reflects the reality of the changing wealth distribution of society as our trajectory plays-out. More and more cheap plastic guns for the now shrinking middle classes whilst the premium marques don't even bother recognizing any demographic other than the thin cream whose fortunes get ever more swiftly creamier. (Save for Rigby, a bold move. "Will i buy a Triumph this year or a Rigby?" Considerably more realistic.)
I'm intrigued by the idea of the .404 Jeffery calibre as a backup calibre over the .416 and the idea that if Selby had have been carrying one of those when Ruark came calling the balance might have been reversed. Of course there is no such thing as "might have been" - as far as we know.
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