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Hi friends,

here I send you an Statement of an good "friend of Heym" Mister T.T. witch helped Heym a lot in the 1980thys and still now too.

It is an part of an long story, but it is exactly what you ask for:

In the early 80s, around 1981 or 82, I learned that Mr. B. had started up an operation in Illinois producing large bore double rifle brass, bullets, and loaded ammunition. One of the first cartridges he decided to make and load was the .470 NE. At that point, I contacted J. and got some samples of his brass and ammo. I contacted P. and told him we needed to get cracking with a double rifle to handle this ammo.
He agreed and got the ball rolling in Germany. I visited the plant when we had something to work with and worked out most of the necessary metalwork details with H., and the stocking details with Herr R. (sp) and Her H. (sp), Heym's two stockmakers at the time.
The first two rifles that were sent to the USA were a boxlock chambered for the .458 Winchester, and a sidelock chambered for the .470NE. I tried to avoid taking orders for rimless cartridges, although we did build a few. P. decided for liability issue reasons, not to produce the big bore guns in sidelock versions. He was concerned about having to replace a bunch of broken stocks.

That, in a nutshell, was how the 88B Safari came into being. As double rifles go, it was an inexpensive rifle, I believe the first ones built sold for $7,600. That price didn't last long though as it pretty quickly escalated up to around 10,000, still inexpensive for a quality double.

I can't remember what year we took the first 88B to SCI, but 1983 must be correct...

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