Reproducing Harry Selby's 416 Rigby

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

I did consider the Model 70 type safety, and I like them a lot and have installed several of them on hunting rifles; but I wanted the same safety I think Harry Selby used. I have never seen a picture (close up) of his rifle, but I have seen another Rigby standard Mauser 416 rifle. It had the standard Mauser safety. Since the rifle Selby bought was an "off the shelf" rifle, I suspect it was the same as or similar to the one I have seen. It also had a beautiful nitre blued extractor that was purplish blue, which I will duplicate either by nitre bluing it or oil bluing it.

I do have double recoil lugs, as the barrel as an integral recoil lug built into it, and at this point, I agree with you that it will be best to leave the front sight as it is and cut the band at the top just wide enough to slide past the front ramp. I will taper it to the barrel, taper the outside of the band, and tin it before soldering it to the barrel. I have thought of using one of the bright green or red rod insert beads, but I think the recoil of the 416 will wreck it pretty quick.

I think I have figured out a way to open the bolt face without a lathe. If it works, I will post pics and gloat, and if it doesn't work, I will buy a new bolt.

Thanks for the comments, Gimp.

jt

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

Today I decided to see if I could open up the bolt face in my lathe under no power. I still haven't figured out which capacitor in my home made static phase convertor is bad, and all my electrical equipment is at the plant 72 miles away. Some time ago, I had to cut the face of a 91 Mauser bolt completely flat. I did it by rotating the chuck by hand. I decided I would open the 98 Mauser bolt the same way. Low and behold, my chuck was frozen up. It was almost 100 degrees here with high humidity, and my shop is not air conditioned. I am going to build a new shop (the old one has rotted away), and I can assure you it will be air conditioned. It took me several hours to free the chuck, and I did some lathe maintenance to boot (Clausen 1500). I will do the actual bolt work tomorrow.

The head of a 416 Rigby case is 0.590" in diameter My once fired Norma cases are 0.588", so I will open the bolt face to 0.592". A dangerous game rifle is not the place to have tight tolerances. The bolt won't have much face rim left, but more than I originally thought. I did some preliminary work with a Bubba Dremel tool (see picture below), so I have very little metal left to remove. Right now, even though the bolt face appears to be opened, the bolt won't close on a fired case. I need to remove a few thousandths of metal from the edge of the bolt face. I will have to cut the bolt handle off to chuck the bolt it into the lathe if the rollers on my steady rest do not completely straddle the extractor ring groove. That is not a problem, but I was going to order a cooler bolt handle from Brownells. I will just have to make my own.

I also made the initial grind on the extractor, but it is evident that it will require a bit of additional work to function flawlessly. As that claw gets shorter, it also gets stiffer - a lot stiffer. The extractor may turn out to be a bit of fun to make work properly.

For those not familiar with the 416 Rigby round, it came in 1911, and was (and is) quite the epitome of a modern round. It has very little body taper, a 45 degree shoulder, and a neck just long enough to hold the bullet in recoil. Weatherby's 460 Weatherby is a belted 416 Rigby case with about one degree less body taper and will hold around 7-8 grains more powder than the Rigby, and is loaded to (I think) 60 to 65, 000 psi versus the 43,000 psi of the Rigby. The Rigby, when handloaded, can approach the 460 in energy, but never exceed. The Rigby has been around over 100 years, and will drop any creature on earth in its tracks most rickity tick. The old steel cased Kynoch solids (the early ones) would penetrate a rhino or a Cape Buffalo from end to end. Most people do not find it pleasant to shoot, but Harry Selby wore out the barrel on his. It took many years and many thousands of rounds, but he did it. He was (is) of slight build, but he could obviously take some punishment. The recoil from a 416 Rigby will definitely get your attention, and this one will NOT have a ported barrel due to the excessive muzzle blast that results.

One of the pics shows the area (shaded) of the receiver ring that must be removed to allow an unfired round to be ejected. This is the "thin" part of the ring where the bolt lug travels before it goes into battery.

I own a small fortune of "pink" stock in a renewable energy company, and if they ever go public, I will sell and go to Africa to hunt Cape Buffalo with my 416 Rigby. That is #1 on my bucket list since I decided Selma Hayak wasn't realistically going to drop in for a fun afternoon. If I die broke, someone will get a fine dangerous game rifle capable of standing toe to toe with any man eating, bone crushing, man stomping creature on earth.

jt

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

I got a call this morning from my neighbor that he needed help disassembling his hay mower. I was setting up to open the bolt face, but in farm country, when a neighbor calls, you go. Finally got back to the bolt when it started raining. While opening the bolt face, I discovered the bolt face was not square with the bolt body. It's not off much, but enough that I will have to square it in the morning. That is a good thing, as the bolt won't close on a fired case (my dies haven't arrived yet). Squaring the bolt face may be just enough to take care of that little issue. The barrel face does hit the receiver face, or is so close a 0.001" wire won't go between them. I also had to cut off the bolt prematurely because I couldn't set up with the steady rest as the rollers were close enough to the extractor ring cut that I was going to round off the edges. Problems always surface in a project like this, so one must be flexible enough to solve the problems. I will make my own bolt, since I can't find my stash of bolt handles (figures).

I plan to make the stock from a very nicely figured blank of American Walnut from a tree stump cut some 15+ years ago. I decided to make a pattern stock first. A pattern stock is used in a duplicating machine to make the real stock. You can use Bondo, glued wood, or anything else to form a stock that meets all your requirements. I have two 90% Springfield stocks I bought super cheap (do we see a pattern here?), and I am going to use one of them to make the pattern stock. The Mauser floorplate (unaltered) dropped right in, but it has a 1/2" barrel channel which will have to be hogged out for the 416 barrel. The receiver mortise requires less work, but it isn't a gimme either. One of the two stocks has some darned nice figure in the buttstock, but some anal retentive goofus cut the grip too short when installing the grip cap (it cost $15 - figures). That, or he was making a rifle for someone with hands like a small child. As usual, the butt is way too long, so I will cut it to length, and use that piece to elongate the grip. After it is checkered, you will have difficulty seeing the glue line. The forearm is too long, and I will cut it to a little over 9" in front of the floorplate. I have some buffalo horn I will use for a forearm tip. I will glass in the receiver and the barrel lug with Devcon Titanium Putty. If you have never used it, it sets up with almost zero shrinkage.

Got my 416 350 grain bullets today. Made up a dummy cartridge. I can hardly wait until the dies get here. Hopefully I will be videoing a test shot next week. That should be a hoot.

I will post more pics tomorrow. I had to unload horse and pig feed in the rain, and I am wet to the bone and dead tired.

jt

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

I finished opening and truing the bolt face this morning. The bolt closes on the fired case now (thank goodness). As it turns out, I did not have to remove but a 0.001" from the bolt face, and it is square. I also welded on my homemade bolt handle (see pic), but I made it too long. My desire was to copy the Model 70 bolt, but I failed miserably, so I gave it a graceful curvature. It is about 1/2" too long. I will deal with it at a later date, and may replace the bolt entirely as I have a half dozen 98 bolts lying around. No clue why, since there are no matching receivers.

I cut off the excess forearm on the stock, and checked to see if my walnut plank (6' x 3' x 3") is still pristine, and it is. I have been wanting to cut a blank out of that board ever since I bought it. There are over a hundred left where I got this one. They are very heavy, and I can pick through them, but it is a laborious process.

As soon as the dies arrive, I will load some some rounds for test firing. One will be a max, or close to max, load. I had rather blow up an old tire rather than my arm.

I am limited by how many pictures I can upload - unfortunately.

jt

[da gimp]

lodge bro that has the place behind us talked it over with his lady, & he decided to start big game hunting in style, the kids can make their own money, Has taken a brown bear in Siberia, Cape Buffalo, huge black maned lion (in his tracks 1 shot), 2 elephants ( 1 shot apiece, brain shots), leopard (fell out of the tree dead) & I think a hippo. Ed has appeared on most of these hunts on Nosler's Magnum TV program. Daam he can shoot, either his double rifle or the bolt gun.

Ed said he could of bought a nice farm for what he'd spent, but I told him that he'd always have the memories.........which is better.

Hope you get a chance to use it too. Might try joining Nosler's hunting club, my understanding is that it is 1st rate, on professional hunters, & safaris.

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

Sounds like your friend has been having too much fun. I hope to make one trip over before I go, and as I said, for Cape Buffalo only. That would probably be all I could afford. My brother's buddy has hunted all over the world, and taken just about every thing imaginable. He is single and makes a very good living. I look at his pictures and yearn for the hunt. Maybe I will make it and maybe not, but I hope to be prepared.

I have been busy with my day job lately, but hope top get back to the 416 this weekend. My dies haven't arrived yet, and I am getting irked a bit. My next step is the test firing of the barreled action. I look forward to hearing her roar. There is nothing as awesome as a big bore dangerous game rifle in my book.

jt

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

I am still waiting on the loading dies, so I thought I would inlet the barreled receiver into the faux stock I picked out. Using a barrel scrapper, a 3/8" flat chisel, a 1/2" rat tail file, and a flat faced body hammer, I got about 90% of it inletted. It only took 1 1/2 hours and cost me nothing. This may be the least expensive rifle I ever built. I still have to buy the recoil compensator and the barrel sling swivel, and they aren't cheap. I found a package of receiver bolts with the little Mauser screws I had stashed away in my parts bin. I really need to AC my shop.

jt

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

It rained today, so I found some time to finish inletting the barreled receiver (pics). I am going to glass bed the entire barreled action, probably in two steps (receiver then barrel). I was going to use Titanium Putty, but it hasn't arrived either. I have some glass bedding materials around, but the release agent has evaporated in the kits. I will use white grease as a release agent, the spray on kind. It is cheap and works very well.

I may have the receiver too tight in the stock and I just might remove more wood. I am going to install two crossbolts, but I think I am going to glass bed first. I was going to use two old Springfield crossbolts, but they may not be wide enough.

I did some quick and dirty fitting of the stock also. I want my eye to line up with the sights when I throw the rifle into the "V" in my shoulder. The way I check it is to close my eyes and throw the rifle to my shoulder, then open my eye. I want to be looking straight down the sight. Grip and LOP must be correct to do this test or you are wasting your time. My normal LOP is pretty short (<12"), but with a heavy recoiling rifle, you want at least 3" of space between your thumb and nose when the rifle is ready to fire or you will get a case of "thumb nose" in recoil, and all that blood splatter is certain to rust your rifle and momentarily detract your attention from that 3,000 pound raging, charging Cape Buffalo in front of you that you managed to miss completely. I still have some adjustment to do, as this stock has way too much excess wood.

I will have a classic little cheekpiece that should look as it has been laid across the butt. I also have to make sure there is no wood in front of my cheek that is going to drag across my face in recoil. That is usually very painful.

I reduced the grip to fit my hand, but I still have a little wood to remove there also. You want the tip of your trigger finger to naturally lay on the trigger when you comfortably grasp the grip with the rifle to your shoulder. If the distance from the tip of the grip to the trigger is too short, your trigger finger will go too far across the trigger. Move the grip tip back, contouring the grip each time, until you are happy with the finger/trigger engagement. It is best to go slow, as it is tough to glue sawdust back onto a stock.

I thought the barrel recoil lug was going to be a problem to inlet, but it was a breeze to cut using nothing but a handheld chisel.

I am going to shorten the bolt and rebend it.

Tools used:
barrel groove scrapper
big rat tailed file
3/8" wood chisel (most work done with chisel)
flat faced body hammer (to bump chisel occasionally)
el cheapo belt sander to remove wood from cheekpiece mucho faster

Total cost today: $0.00
Time consumed: 3-hours

jt

[Marine A5 Sniper Rifle]

I thought I would add the following pictures. I inletted too closely, or closer than I had to since this isn't the final stock (unless it turns out stupendous!). I do have that 03 issue at the rear of the receiver that I must attend to somehow. Suggestions welcomed. The floorplate must be deepened at the rear, as I have a 1/8" space between the rear of the magazine box and the receiver, and a bump fit at the front.

Does anyone have any suggestions on the glass bedding sequence or materials? Since my Titanium Putty is in space somewhere, I am going to use my Brownells kits I have on hand. Maybe I should add something to the mix to strengthen it. 70 ft-lbs of recoil is an eye opener and will beat a poorly fitted stock to pieces. I am particularly concerned about the wood/metal juncture at the rear of the receiver. I may leave a space, but then again that may not be such a good idea with this baby.

I have been using items I have on hand to hold down cost. It appears my total cash outlay will be less than $200 since everything I am using was off an old rifle I already expensed, or something I bought super cheap, like the $15 stock. Of course that doesn't include what I have spent for bullets, dies, and powder. The empty Norma cases came with the barrel.

I will make my own hinged floorplate by modifying one I already made. I want the magazine to hold 3-rounds loaded with 405 gr bullets to an OAL of 3.72". With one in the chamber, that will give me four rounds to expend. I suspect the floorplate/magazine is going to be one trick pony to manufacture.

The first picture shows the forearm contour where the horn tip will attach (black line). I drew that line before I started inletting, so I did pretty good keeping things straight. The second picture shows it is beginning to look like a real rifle.

Enjoy.

jt

[older than dirt]

Very fine looking project so far. By the way, MT your ash tray. LOL