CptCurl:
Yes, I have taken several of our German game with it, boar, red deer and roe deer. Sorry, but no tigers or gaur seen at my place recently! The rifle is now regulated for my handload: Horneber .500 3" NE case, 75gr VV N140, foam filler, 445gr Paper patched lead bullet. Keeps them inside 3" at 70m.
Even Paul Roberts had no explanation for the lack of proofmarks, but he had seen other very early Rigby breechloading dr's without them too.So I have no clue yet.
As I told above, the "parts kit" came to me practically in the white, the file-cut top rib worn nearly smooth. As I expected damascus barrels and wanted to learn about the pattern, I first applied damascus browning solution. The barrels showed not a trace of any pattern, but the top and bottom ribs showed a distinct, but simple twist pattern. If you reread Greener or Boothroyd, you see ribmaking was a highly specialized, separate profession in the European guntrade. Apparently the barrelmaker who joined ribs and barrels on working the new-fangled Steel barrels did not bother to have ribs made of the same materiel, but simply used damascus rib blanks he had in stock. As damascus brown does look out of place on homogenous steel, I freshed out the file-cutting on the top rib and then slow rust blacked the thing. As I have done it on some cape-gun barrels for a friend, I can tell you it's a difficult job to first blacken the steel rifle barrel, then polish up and brown the damascus parts without damaging the black. As the pattern would have been nearly invisible on the file-cut top rib anyhow, I did not bother to do this for the narrow bottom rib. IMHO the rifle was finished like this originally.