Thanks, I was trying to get as close to the Gibbs look as possible and whilst they varied quite a bit over the years I selected rightly or wrongly one of the styles that appealed to me the most at the time.

With regard to the rib its doable but there will be a lot of difficult filing work especially around the tight radius that drops down from the shank. If I was going to offer an integral rib I would probably change the contour to a more standard American shape to negate any suicide risk for those on the end of the file. The current barrels have an integral escutcheon for both the forend to screw to and a similar sized lug that a pocket on the underside of the quarter rib locates on providing a very secure recoil stud, so there's no risk of either falling off. But if having an integral rib is a deal breaker then of course I will provide it, its just more time and money.

If you want to see these rifles or actions in the flesh they will be available to view at the Reno SCI show on the New England Custom Guns booth. All going to plan there will be 4 finished rifles on display plus an action or 2 in the flesh for those interested. A picture may convey a thousand words but there's nothing quite like holding one in your hands.