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The solids of yesteryear were for the most part made from gilding metal, which was relatively soft and not as heavy-duty on barrels as steel-jacketed solids. Regulating with softs was fine as the solids of the day probably shot pretty much the same in any event.

Long bar Webley action and Southgate ejectors. Good combination.

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Hard bullets and old rifles are generally not a good mix. Barrel separation, overstressed rifling, and even bursts can occur, although thankfully it doesn't happen frequently. "Hard" should certainly include steel-jacketed solids as well. I know of one vintage .450 NE that burst its barrels in...

Nice rifle!

Actually, the rimmed .400/350 was the reason for the Magnum M98's existence, but close enough. I must admit, I like the new Rigby offering. It's closer in appearance to the pre-WW II Rigby bolt-action rifles than the Big Game. Two classy chamberings as well.

I have a Lee Factory Crimp die as well but rarely use it. You can adjust the seating die to crimp as well, if needed.

I have both RCBS and Lyman die sets. Both work just fine.

Very nice! The most elegant of the pre-war Rigby magazine rifles, in my humble opinion.

The Hydro's leave a much bigger wound trail, in my experience. I've used them on impala, red hartebeest, eland, and buffalo. They penetrate like nothing else and they are soft on older barrels. The faster you can push them, the better. No experience with the CEB, though.

It was never loaded in Britain and therefore never loaded with cordite. Have a look here: https://www.gunsonsafari.com/500-jeffery

No problems at all for me. I much prefer a splinter forend to a beavertail of any sorts. After a couple of shots the barrels heat up, but a cheap pair of gloves in my range bag sorts that out in no time. The barrels are 26" and nicely tapered, so the balance is superb. As the stock was made to...

This is what I went with when I had the chance to order my double. It's in .450 NE.

Many moons ago. Chiredzi River Conservancy, Zimbabwe.

There's a whole chapter on Paradox/Ball & Shot and other similar guns, including extensive reloading data and pressure information, in Graeme Wright's Shooting the British Double Rifle. I know a lot of people who shoot their Paradox guns (to use the H&H term collectively in respect of all of...

Very nice indeed!

Nothing wrong with wanting to own a Heym double rifle. This is an 89B in .450/400 NE next to a vintage George Gibbs .360 No 2 NE (below). You can see where the Heym's DNA comes from.

with the original Aldis scope and leather carrying case

Yes, unfortunately Merkel has a bit of a reputation for after-sales problems. Double discharging seems to be one of the biggest problems, but I've also seen one .500 NE of which the chambers were off-centre. No quick fix with that one, and I cannot recall what the owner did with the rifle.

Not a double, but a very rare .303, nonetheless! A vintage Rigby on a slant-box commercial M98 Oberndorf action with the original Aldis scope and leather carrying case.

Here is a friend's Purdey. Non-ejector self-opening sidelock with a Jones underlever. It was made in 1902 for an English nobleman for "stag shooting" in Scotland, according to the records.

Crawford Fletcher-Jamieson with his H&H Royal .400/450 NE and a zebra from many moons ago. He sold this double and switched over to his now-famous .500 Jeffery bolt-action. A wrist injury made handling the double difficult.

Cast On: stock made for a left-hander, i.e. the stock and comb bends ever so slightly to the left and if the stock has a cheekpiece, it will be on the right-hand side of the butt. Cast Off is the reverse of this.

Bending a Heym's stock is unfortunately not a viable proposition. They have through-bolts.

A friend of mine had an RSM .375 that was engraved like that. He was a PH in Zim and the rifle was a gift from a grateful client for whom my friend found a spectacular lion in one of the lowveld conservancies.

The bullets are in the process of being made (.375 is finished, as is .416, and .470 in the process of happening), so the ammo should again be available in a couple of months.

BELL hasn't been made for some years, and I do recall problems with them, specifically cracks in the neck area. I will have to dig out some old notebooks, but if I remember correctly, annealing before first use basically cured the problem.

The make of the case is a big factor here. Norma brass is very good but have thinner sidewalls than Hornady. A friend gets 3-4 shots out of his Norma .470 brass, but 5-6 shots out of his Hornady .470 brass. I'm shooting a .450 NE and I'm using Bertram brass because it's all I could get hold of...

Just scroll down in the link. https://www.gunsonsafari.com/really-big-sticks

"Gebhard" or "Gebruder"? Nice rifle in a useful calibre!

I agree!

I've had a Safari Express for a number of years and hunted with it quite a bit. I never weighed it but it was a heavy rifle, too heavy for a .375 H&H, in my opinion. It did function flawlessly and shot straight, though. My current .375 H&H is an RSM, one of the last ones made in 2009. It is...

Interesting rifle. Bolsters on a H&H Royal action chambered for anything above .375 is a rarity. Congrats, that is a fine, fine rifle.

I've used Lyman, RCBS and Hornady dies for my .375's. No issues with any of them. As for bullets, I like the 300-grain Swift A-Frame a lot. I've used them on critters as small as impala and as large as buffalo with uniformly excellent results. MV was just under 2 550 fps and I'm fine with that...

Yip, meet Rigby No 4953 in the flesh. The real one. The rifle happens to be in a friend's collection along with lots of other nice English rifles. I took this photograph of it some years ago.

That looks like a custom rifle. It's made on a Brno 602 action, which was used during the Paul Roberts era and certainly wasn't available in the 1920's. Pre-war Rigby's also didn't have a cheekpiece. For 1924, the serial number should be in the 4850-5000 range. It may (may...) be a Jurie Majoor...

I certainly haven't seen them all, but I'll venture to say that perhaps no more than about 10-15% of the vintage .450/400's of either ilk were made on the so-called smaller or scaled action made specifically for the .450/400 and other cartridges with the same case-head diameter. I've only seen...

It's a positive sign, but in order for such a coalition to be able to do anything, 1) the ANC will have to lose (i.e. get less than 50% of the vote in the next election) and not go into a coalition of their own or even "reunite" with Julius & Co to get them over the mark, and 2) be able to stick...

As someone who has lived in Australia for the past year but went back to South Africa for a two-week stay in July, the changes (for the worse) in the country was very much apparent. The water and electricity crises are getting worse and are really, really starting to bite into the South African...

The Lynx scopes marketed in South Africa is, as I understand it, made by Sightron (I stand to be corrected). When I still lived in South Africa, I owned two of them at different times and they never gave me trouble. They are made to a certain price point, though, so don't expect German or...

Some years ago, I shot a big Zimbabwe buffalo bull squarely on the shoulder with a 300-grain A-Frame from my .375. Shooting distance was about 50 yards. The bullet broke the shoulder going in, went through both lungs and the top of the heart, and smashed the opposite shoulder as well. We found...

Most H&H double rifles employed what is known as back-action sidelock actions. This means that the mainspring is behind the tumbler so very little steel has to be removed from the bar of the action. This makes the H&H design one of the strongest out there, especially the Dominion. They are...

I wouldn't shoot FMJ solids through it, Woodleigh or otherwise. Woodleigh softs, no problem. Woodleigh Hydro's, no problem, either.

The J&L Wilkins name was used by the late Chris Soyza to build rifles under. He made a few bolters as well as double rifles up to and including .700 NE.

I think you mean the .450 NE. The .450 No 2 NE was a later development and not by Rigby.

No, not a black powder round, a modern round designed and made for a former (assassinated) Prime Minister of Lebanon.

In theory, such a cartridge already exists in the form of the .700/500 NE Rafiki that was made for Rafik Hariri. I stand to be corrected, but just the one has been made thus far. A friend who had a friend that worked at Westley Richards at the time was told that it was sheer murder to regulate...

SRvet: In short, yes, it opens the door on paper for a cull. Whether it will be done in actual fact remains to be seen.

Production hasn't restarted but will relatively soon. First up is .375, and thereafter the more mainstream offerings. I doubt if FMJ's will be made soon again, and the same goes for many of the real oddballs. Some of the machines have been refurbished and others are in the final stages of...