Tinker, with a little work, that small ring of yours should wind up a pound lighter. I should add that part of the reason my commercial M46 is quite a bit lighter than this Rigby is that I modified the sharp-combed, cast-off stock to accomadate left shoulder shooting. That had to have reduced the weight measureably but I never measured it before/after. The 95/96 action starts off lighter than a 98, and if you want, I bet you can get yours well below 6 lbs. In fact, I bet very close to 5. Mine was lighter than 6 lbs until I added a recoil pad and that bumped it up some to dead-on 6 lbs. as it is now.

I suppose if I rasped off the pistol grip knob it might save me another 1 ounce...