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Hi Clark

You ask the question that every one who owns someting a little out of the ordinary dreads! good question though

The choice of the builder was simple. Trevor Proctor has been a friend for 18 or so years, he has built for me a number of rifles, all left handed from .270 - through to .500 Jeffery. (sorry forgot to mention the .600 will be a L/H).

Trevor has been in business for over 30 years and in that time has earned a deserved reputation here in that he builds fine rifles and shotguns, only to best quality.

He has a following the world over, you will not hear too much of him in the U.S as his limited production output each year is more than taken up with English clients, however he presently has 5 big calibre magazine rifles under production for Kenya including 2 in .500 Jeffery for the KWS.

A number of contemporary African PH's have rifles either built, or in the case of older doubles, re-built by Trevor.

Names such as Nicky Blunt, John DuPlooy, Abie DuPlooy, Geroge Angelides, Farouk Qureshi, Richard Moller, Mark Jenkins (KWS), Richard Bonham, Gerard Miller, Charlie Wheeler, Tony Fitzjohn (Former assistant of Geroge Adamson) are but a few of his clients.

Trevor also is a shooter, with approximately 20 trips to Africa behind him and a keen deer stalker he has first hand experience of not only what a gun should look like in classic styling, but also what is expected of it under extreme environmental conditions.

Client's in the U.K range from the lowly like myself through to members of the Royal Family.

Mehul has kindly posted some other pictures elsewhere on this site of other work by Trevor including some fine magazine rifles and doubles under build.

As for the calibre, I certainly could have picked a more conventional and arguably far more practical calibre, either in .470 or .500 N.E ( Trevor has two remaining forgings for such calibres left on the shelf and capacity to take further orders for them, these are becoming increasingly rare to source nowadays).

I am already well served with medium to heavy calibre magazine rifles in .375 and .500 and saw no reason to duplicate here.

The .600 was actually, truth be told, as much a romantic idea harboured from an early age and one that has stuck in my mind for many years as a yearning to own such a rifle, I certainly do not need one, infact arguably I don't need any of my rifles, but need alone is no reason not to own one, is it?

The rifle once completed I will hopefully be tried out on buffalo, but the rifle will also be as much an investment and pleasure to own as much as a piece of fine art or oil painting will be.

Sadly these days hand built double rifles here in the U.K cost considerably, I suppose Holland and Holland would be the zenith of such rifle builders, their price for a new Royal Double De-luxe in .600 with sales tax wouldbe approaching, if not exceeding £100,000.00 ($175,000.00U.S). Too much for my humble pockets, that is another reason why Trevor is building it, his prices are some of, if not the lowest, in the U.K at present for double rifles and for fine magazine rifles.

That is not to suggest that in some way quality is lower, as that is not the case, quality is every bit as high as that displayed by H&H, quite simply Trevor works alone, his overheads are much much lower than those of a firm with in total over 100 employees world -wide as H&H have.
The down size to being a one person outfit is that leads times for commissions can run on and limit overall the output for any one year, that said however lead time for a fine magazine rifle is usually less than 6 months and for a double rifle or shotgun from around 12 - 18 months.

One rifle presently under construction is a .470 that will have 16 bore shotgun barrels to accompany it.

My rifle will not be complete for a further period of around 12-15 months, I must learn to be patient, given the response from this thread I will certainly ensure any available pictures are posted thanks to the kind offers from forumites more technically gifted at this than myself.

I will obtain some pictures later this week of the stock blank and of some of the furniture fittings already complete,so that you can get an overall impression of the raw ingredients that go into the building of such a rifle.

Thank you all for the interest and kind comments and questions

JT

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