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Please let me give you my opinion of the BIG GAME model.

I have taken the chance and visited the booth of Rigby at the Jagd & Hund show in Dortmund Germany, last week.
The booth was located in the hall 7, where most of the outfitters had there booth too. Directly located opposite of the Blaser safaris booth the Rigby booth (E62) was special as it had a tent and an old Land Rover (I am no LR expert) Model I.
I spend some time at the booth having the pleasure to talk with Patricia Pugh, the financial director of Rigby and to those familiar with Rigby history, a lady which is associated with Rigby since the time it belongs to Paul Roberts.

Rigby is currently offering two different Models of magazine rifles, the “BIG GAME” and the “THE LONDON BEST” .
Both are available in two variants, as single square bridge for open sight and double square bridge for scope mount.
Based on what I was told, THE LONDON BEST is build in the UK as a custom rifle, while the BIG GAME is coming from Germany with very limited options possible.

The BIG GAME model is build as single square bridge in .416” & 450” Rigby calibres both having a barrel length of 22” with the typical Rigby contoured barrel weighing unloaded as per catalogue 10lb 8oz.
The double square bridge model is available in .357” H&H & .416 ”Rigby calibre with a 24” lightweight barrels. The weight of that variant is 10lb, again as per catalogue.

I had the privilege to handle all available models (no .450 Rigby at the booth) and to say the least I was major disappointed with the quality level of the BIG GAME model.

1. The gap at the barrel between the front sight sleeve and the barrel side and also at the muzzle reminds me of cheap monoblock shotguns.
2. The short barrelled .416” where out of balance and where back heavy. Again no .450” available at the Dortmund show, I had been explained that those where currently all in the US, so I could not check if they are in better balance.
3. The checkering of the stock was not too precise.
4. Overall the finish and little engraving (lettering) was very basic
5. The gap with the round polished corners at the hinge of the magazine floor plate is also not of too great workmanship.

In my opinion and expectations even for a working gun at those price level (nearly 9.300 Euro) you can expect more, as this shows to me lack of quality I detail work. I beleave with a few hours more detail work those flaws could be easely adjusted!

Of course THE LONDON BEST has none of these flaws, but at about two and a half time of the price!

Joel,
Based on what I was told from Mrs Pugh, they are not using anymore the actions from Gotfried Prechtl.

Robert

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