It's past time for an update on this wonderful rifle.

As mentioned above, the rifle shot low with everything I could feed it. Somebody had monkeyed with the rear sight, leaving it filed too low. The existing front sight is so low to the barrel that a new front bead was not an option.

Fortunately we have Mike Rowe. It would be impossible to exaggerate his skills. Mike and I talked about my problem, and he agreed to make a new rear sight. The plan was to drop the rifle off with Mike at the Friendship, Indiana shoot last June and to have it back in time to do some shooting with it and be ready for the stalking rifle shoot in October.

Mike gave me a homework assignment: Load plenty of ammo and fabricate a rear sight blade out of beer can aluminum super-glued to the existing sight. Trim the beer can sight until I get the right elevation on target, and deliver the rifle to him with the beer can sight still glued on. That would give him a benchmark to work from and make his job much faster and easier. I was also told to fire the rifle at 50, 100, and 200 yards so we could know how the bullet flies. This would help with the 200 yard leaf.

I did what I was told, and delivered the rifle to Mike at Friendship along with 40 rounds of ammunition.

My load is:
* 70 gr. of Olde Eynsford 2F, the powder compressed just below the base of the neck;
* a beeswax foundation wad set on the powder;
* a 3/16" thick grease cookie;
* 330 gr. swaged .399" paper patched bullet;
* WLR primer;
* 2.925" OAL.

This load is accurate and does not foul the barrel. It chronographs at 1521 fps.

Here's what they look like:

Actually, the beer can rear sight was much easier to make than I expected. With little effort I sighted the rifle in as I was told to do. I did everything else and carted the rifle to Friendship last June.

Did I mention Mike has one hell of a pair of hands? It wasn't too long before Mike let me know the job was complete. He sent me an email with some photos of the completed rear sight and a 100 yard target.

The sights and 100 yard target looked fine to me!

"Load - Whatever Roscoe had managed to cobble together." Isn't Mike a complementary little Kiwi? - I'll say!

On the phone Mike started instructing me on how he wanted me to fine tune the sights by filing, if necessary. My response, "What if I drive out to Arkansas to pick up the rifle and we shoot it there?" Mike thought a visit would be fun.

Early last August Watson577 and I saddled up and rode to Arkansas for several days of shooting, telling stories, and drinking IPAs in the evenings. The little Rigby was splendid. The 100 yard leaf was perfect. Mike did a little filing on the 200 yard leaf to make it perfect. We had a great time shooting the Rigby and several other rifles every morning.

Here are a few photos from the visit:

Mike at his bench cobbling something together.

At the range shooting his glorious .450 Fraser single shot.

And finally, with an IPA at hand, Mike demonstrates his sure-fire Arkansas method of picking up pussy:

It was a fantastic visit!

When I got home I loaded another big batch of ammo to do some practice and to take to the October match. Here's a 100 yard target I shot last September:

When October rolled around I had a grand time at our Stalking Rifle Match shooting the little Rigby. I didn't set any records, but I had great satisfaction shooting this marvelous little single shot rifle.

Life is good!

Mike, any comments or observations?

Curl