Rigby's 250th Anniversary inspired a recent hunt with a .275 Mauser for boars, and I was able to follow that up with a morning at the local goose swamp yesterday accompanied by the Rising Bite sidelock in my custody.

Still too much water about, with virtually none of the normal magpie goose flight paths setting up as yet.
Occupied my usual early-season spot from first light till well after sunrise but left with clean barrels.

Went looking for some whistle duck action before bailing altogether, and finally found a few birds still flying near the furthest boundary of the reserve.
Managed to bag a brace before things shut down completely as the day began to heat up.

Even this meagre bag was most satisfying as my first field results with such a marvelous example of Rigby's best workmanship from just shy of 140 years ago!
Even in 1887 it was Rigby's 369th rising bite double going by the patent use number on the action.

Now that I've worked out what's going on out at the swamps, I'll give the newly-acquired Jeffery game gun a run on ducks next time and wait for more consistent goose flighting before burning through any more of my bismuth twos!