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I hope you can forgive me when I open a can of worms here.

I don´t like the short foreend at all.

Aesthetically it looks like a rectal syringe and functionally it´s design came from the shotgun.

Rifle shooting demands a more stable position than the snap shooting capability of a shotgun.

Even Rigby´s corrected that on later produced rifles.

Nevertheless the rifle in concern is a beautyful specimen for the art of riflemaking
in those days.

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There certainly is no accounting for taste and in today's world you are correct that most folks don't shoot quickly off-hand like shotgun shooters, but that is exactly what the early Rigby and other English rifle were designed to do. Their balance and hang is way different than most rifles made today. Just as the English SxS shotguns designed for game are way different than todays trap and sporting clays guns.


Here are a couple photos of the Rigby style rifle, built by Lon Paul, that Paul Roberts thought was an early original Rigby, even when he had it in hand.