Reproducing Harry Selby's 416 Rigby

**older than dirt** · 07-31-2011, 07:54

Yes I would be interested in looking at your progress weekly or so. Good luck with it.

**RCS** · 08-01-2011, 07:45

Jim, Check my post on the M1917 forum showing the Maynard Buehler 505 Gibbs conversion of the Enfield. RCS

**Marine A5 Sniper Rifle** · 08-01-2011, 10:40

Wow, what a shoulder blaster that sucker has to be.

jt

**Marine A5 Sniper Rifle** · 08-01-2011, 04:29

I finished fitting the barrel today. Now to open up the bolt face - time to crank up the old lathe. I'll take a few pics and post them later tonight.

jt

**Emri** · 08-02-2011, 06:00

Originally posted by Marine A5 Sniper

I will make the stock from scratch as this will be an iron sighted rifle, with express sights already on the barrel, and I will need less drop than has a scoped rifle.

I also thought I would do a pictorial of the entire job for posterity. Anyone interested in looking at such a project?

If this is the wrong place or no one has any interest in such a project, I will just fade away quietly. Let me know.

jt

Sure Jim !! Would love to see pics of your project. Since this is the Mauser forum, it seems to be the place to do it since you are using a Mauser action. As far as the stock dimensions go, I think you got it backwards. For iron sights only you need more drop. Scopes sit high on the reciever and have less drop. But why don't you get a G&H side mount or some claw mounts and put a nice vintage 2.5X Zeiss or similar scope on it ??

Later,

Emri

**Marine A5 Sniper Rifle** · 08-02-2011, 09:33

I want very little drop to make the recoiling rifle come straight back. Those Weatherby style stocks tend to make the barrel rise which creates greater felt recoil. I will install some kind of compensator in the stock to further reduce felt recoil. I am also going to epoxy a steel pin through the wrist and add a weight in the buttstock. I am going to stick with the iron sights, as a scope into the brow with a 416 Rigby is one chance I don't want to take. I ordered some bullets last night for test firing. I am trying to decide if I want to Blue Pill the puppy, and if so, what Blue Pill to use. The only real issues I have are the right side cut into the front receiver ring, and making the box magazine that will hold three rounds and still feed properly. I was making some preliminary measurements last night, and it appears I have to extend the box back AND forward, and most likely make a longer follower. I will probably weld the floorplate onto the box. I will only get one shot at those rails, so I want everything mechanically completed prior to starting that job.

jt

**Marine A5 Sniper Rifle** · 08-02-2011, 08:09

Final Barrel Fit

After fitting the barrel, I discovered the CZ 550 receiver ring is 0.050" longer than the VZ.24. I had a gap between the barrel and the receiver. I bugged out down to the Burgaw Milling feed store and bought a 0.050" thick 1" machine washer that almost went over the barrel threads. Put it in a vise and ran around the inner circumference a few times and she screwed onto the barrel threads. Screwed on the receiver (torqued to 70 ft-lbs) and it was a perfect fit. Ground down the excess washer flush with the receiver and just finished the 220 grit polish. She looks great!

I ordered a set of Lyman dies and 50-350 gr hard cast RN bullets today (Total of about $60.00, which gives me a total monetary investment to date of $150).

Tools used so far are:
1. Big table vise
2. Dremel tool with grinder
3. 10" Mill bastard file
4. 12" cheater to screw receiver onto barrel
5. 1 sheet 220 grit wet or dry sandpaper
6. Valve lapping grit mixture

Left to do:
1. Open up bolt face
2. Build magazine box/floorplate
3. Make a stock and fit/checker/finish
4. Glass bed receiver and barrel lug
5. Rust blue all metal parts including bolt (I like black bolts)
6. Odds and ends
7. Open rails and receiver to accept and feed a 3.720" 416 Rigby round
8. Order a bolt stop/release for a 98 Mauser (mine is missing)
9. Install Timney trigger w/o safety (on hand)

Any questions? Comments are welcomed, good or bad. Feel free.

Pics are before and after 220 grit polish.

jt

PS
I accidentally added two photos that have nothing to do with this post. Sorry about that.

Attached Files

**Marine A5 Sniper Rifle** · 08-03-2011, 07:33

Pre-Planning the Rifle's Fine Points

OK, I am planning on using a barrel band sling swivel, most likely the Talley (below - on list of items to be ordered, which is very short). That requires removing the front sight ramp. Does anyone know what type of solder is used to solder the CZ 550 front sight ramp? If it is silver soldered on, I will solder a split band onto the barrel versus a full band, and not remove the front sight ramp at all. The latter was the technique used by Rigby if I am not mistaken, but I intend to soft solder the band to the barrel.

I also plan to use one of the older Timney triggers designed for the M1917. I prefer these triggers over anything offered today. It has no safety, but that is OK because I will use the standard Mauser flip safety since I won't be mounting a scope. It is handy and quick and positive and time proven.

I plan to cut off the bolt handle, straighten it, and weld it back on upside down. I want it to be at the same angle and length as the Model 70 bolts, but have the larger knob of the Mauser military rifles.

I have been looking at the standard Mauser floor plate, and it appears I will move the rear wall back the thickness of the current wall, and the front wall I will cut off and stub on a new front wall with short side walls such that a 3.720" OAL round will fit with a minimum of 0.010" clearance. This will allow me to not alter the rear of the receiver magazine opening, and have all metal removal at the front, which will result in a rather short ramp. The ramp angle will be determined by how well the rounds feed, which means the magazine must be made first before the ramp is angled, although I can go ahead and remove the metal that must go to allow the round to exit the magazine box. Removing metal behind where the lower bolt lug locks up gives me pause, so I will ensure that not a sliver of metal will be removed other than that required to feed the round. I will have to make a new floorplate, which I will hinge with a positive lock. I will convert a standard Mauser floor plate I have in my parts box.

I have been giving the stock a lot of thought, and I am thinking of having maybe 1.5" drop at the front and 2.5" at the back. The grip circumference will be determined by the size of my hand, which will be around 4.5". I will alter the grip to place my trigger finger pad on the trigger with no muscle strain, and I prefer a more closed grip than usually seen on these rifles, with blued steel grip cap. The grip will be reinforced with a steel rod. LOP will be 12 1/4", which is my usual fit, but I will check before I cut. Stock balance will be in the middle of the receiver ring, or about 6" in front of the trigger. The forearm will be 8" long (from end of floorplate), round with melded rails and a horn round tip. It will be checkered in a classic style (I really suck at checkering). I plan on making a recoil compensator system consisting of a lead filled cylinder suspended between two valve springs in a hole drilled into the buttstock in front of a 1" compensator rubber pad (English style). A slight cheek pad in classic style will adorn the buttstock. Cant will fit my shoulder muscle hollow, and offset will be determined by my exact line of sight in an unstrained offhand position, and if done properly, offset can reduce felt recoil significantly. I will have at least 4" between the front edge of the upper comb and me right thumb when my finger is on the trigger to help prevent "thumb nose" from the heavy recoil. Total weight of rifle empty will be 10 lbs, and maybe 11 lbs.

Rigby made only a few 416 Rigbys on standard length Mausers, and I had never seen one until recently. I was surprised at how little had to be altered. Remember, the Rigby was designed to be a 43,000 psi round, although I will test to 55,000 psi based on my calculations. I do not anticipate encountering any strength issues whatsoever.

Right now I am stalled on opening up the bolt face because my 3-phase lathe that runs on 110 single phase is down due to a dead capacitor. I may resort to a nearby machine shop. I am eager to test fire it no later than next week. I will use the tried and true "tied to a tire and a long trigger string" method, and I intend to video tape the test. I am sure I will wince when I dump 90 grains of powder into each case. She will not be cheap to shoot, but it will be fun.

Comments welcomed, also any questions.

jt

Attached Files

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**da gimp** · 08-04-2011, 09:18

Have you considered a Mod 70 style safety? Double recoil lugged into the stock? My thought is to go with the spit forward sling ring, no chance that way of the front sight being canted, IF you like the current front sight. If not, a gold bead or ivory front sight are pretty & have an added benefit in low light on a dangerous game rifle.

**Marine A5 Sniper Rifle** · 08-04-2011, 09:47

I did consider the Model 70 type safety, and I like them a lot and have installed several of them on hunting rifles; but I wanted the same safety I think Harry Selby used. I have never seen a picture (close up) of his rifle, but I have seen another Rigby standard Mauser 416 rifle. It had the standard Mauser safety. Since the rifle Selby bought was an "off the shelf" rifle, I suspect it was the same as or similar to the one I have seen. It also had a beautiful nitre blued extractor that was purplish blue, which I will duplicate either by nitre bluing it or oil bluing it.

I do have double recoil lugs, as the barrel as an integral recoil lug built into it, and at this point, I agree with you that it will be best to leave the front sight as it is and cut the band at the top just wide enough to slide past the front ramp. I will taper it to the barrel, taper the outside of the band, and tin it before soldering it to the barrel. I have thought of using one of the bright green or red rod insert beads, but I think the recoil of the 416 will wreck it pretty quick.

I think I have figured out a way to open the bolt face without a lathe. If it works, I will post pics and gloat, and if it doesn't work, I will buy a new bolt.

Thanks for the comments, Gimp.

jt

**Marine A5 Sniper Rifle** · 08-05-2011, 06:44

The Bolt

Today I decided to see if I could open up the bolt face in my lathe under no power. I still haven't figured out which capacitor in my home made static phase convertor is bad, and all my electrical equipment is at the plant 72 miles away. Some time ago, I had to cut the face of a 91 Mauser bolt completely flat. I did it by rotating the chuck by hand. I decided I would open the 98 Mauser bolt the same way. Low and behold, my chuck was frozen up. It was almost 100 degrees here with high humidity, and my shop is not air conditioned. I am going to build a new shop (the old one has rotted away), and I can assure you it will be air conditioned. It took me several hours to free the chuck, and I did some lathe maintenance to boot (Clausen 1500). I will do the actual bolt work tomorrow.

The head of a 416 Rigby case is 0.590" in diameter My once fired Norma cases are 0.588", so I will open the bolt face to 0.592". A dangerous game rifle is not the place to have tight tolerances. The bolt won't have much face rim left, but more than I originally thought. I did some preliminary work with a Bubba Dremel tool (see picture below), so I have very little metal left to remove. Right now, even though the bolt face appears to be opened, the bolt won't close on a fired case. I need to remove a few thousandths of metal from the edge of the bolt face. I will have to cut the bolt handle off to chuck the bolt it into the lathe if the rollers on my steady rest do not completely straddle the extractor ring groove. That is not a problem, but I was going to order a cooler bolt handle from Brownells. I will just have to make my own.

I also made the initial grind on the extractor, but it is evident that it will require a bit of additional work to function flawlessly. As that claw gets shorter, it also gets stiffer - a lot stiffer. The extractor may turn out to be a bit of fun to make work properly.

For those not familiar with the 416 Rigby round, it came in 1911, and was (and is) quite the epitome of a modern round. It has very little body taper, a 45 degree shoulder, and a neck just long enough to hold the bullet in recoil. Weatherby's 460 Weatherby is a belted 416 Rigby case with about one degree less body taper and will hold around 7-8 grains more powder than the Rigby, and is loaded to (I think) 60 to 65, 000 psi versus the 43,000 psi of the Rigby. The Rigby, when handloaded, can approach the 460 in energy, but never exceed. The Rigby has been around over 100 years, and will drop any creature on earth in its tracks most rickity tick. The old steel cased Kynoch solids (the early ones) would penetrate a rhino or a Cape Buffalo from end to end. Most people do not find it pleasant to shoot, but Harry Selby wore out the barrel on his. It took many years and many thousands of rounds, but he did it. He was (is) of slight build, but he could obviously take some punishment. The recoil from a 416 Rigby will definitely get your attention, and this one will NOT have a ported barrel due to the excessive muzzle blast that results.

One of the pics shows the area (shaded) of the receiver ring that must be removed to allow an unfired round to be ejected. This is the "thin" part of the ring where the bolt lug travels before it goes into battery.

I own a small fortune of "pink" stock in a renewable energy company, and if they ever go public, I will sell and go to Africa to hunt Cape Buffalo with my 416 Rigby. That is #1 on my bucket list since I decided Selma Hayak wasn't realistically going to drop in for a fun afternoon. If I die broke, someone will get a fine dangerous game rifle capable of standing toe to toe with any man eating, bone crushing, man stomping creature on earth.

jt

Attached Files

**Marine A5 Sniper Rifle** · 08-06-2011, 06:38

I got a call this morning from my neighbor that he needed help disassembling his hay mower. I was setting up to open the bolt face, but in farm country, when a neighbor calls, you go. Finally got back to the bolt when it started raining. While opening the bolt face, I discovered the bolt face was not square with the bolt body. It's not off much, but enough that I will have to square it in the morning. That is a good thing, as the bolt won't close on a fired case (my dies haven't arrived yet). Squaring the bolt face may be just enough to take care of that little issue. The barrel face does hit the receiver face, or is so close a 0.001" wire won't go between them. I also had to cut off the bolt prematurely because I couldn't set up with the steady rest as the rollers were close enough to the extractor ring cut that I was going to round off the edges. Problems always surface in a project like this, so one must be flexible enough to solve the problems. I will make my own bolt, since I can't find my stash of bolt handles (figures).

I plan to make the stock from a very nicely figured blank of American Walnut from a tree stump cut some 15+ years ago. I decided to make a pattern stock first. A pattern stock is used in a duplicating machine to make the real stock. You can use Bondo, glued wood, or anything else to form a stock that meets all your requirements. I have two 90% Springfield stocks I bought super cheap (do we see a pattern here?), and I am going to use one of them to make the pattern stock. The Mauser floorplate (unaltered) dropped right in, but it has a 1/2" barrel channel which will have to be hogged out for the 416 barrel. The receiver mortise requires less work, but it isn't a gimme either. One of the two stocks has some darned nice figure in the buttstock, but some anal retentive goofus cut the grip too short when installing the grip cap (it cost $15 - figures). That, or he was making a rifle for someone with hands like a small child. As usual, the butt is way too long, so I will cut it to length, and use that piece to elongate the grip. After it is checkered, you will have difficulty seeing the glue line. The forearm is too long, and I will cut it to a little over 9" in front of the floorplate. I have some buffalo horn I will use for a forearm tip. I will glass in the receiver and the barrel lug with Devcon Titanium Putty. If you have never used it, it sets up with almost zero shrinkage.

Got my 416 350 grain bullets today. Made up a dummy cartridge. I can hardly wait until the dies get here. Hopefully I will be videoing a test shot next week. That should be a hoot.

I will post more pics tomorrow. I had to unload horse and pig feed in the rain, and I am wet to the bone and dead tired.

jt

**Marine A5 Sniper Rifle** · 08-07-2011, 07:06

I finished opening and truing the bolt face this morning. The bolt closes on the fired case now (thank goodness). As it turns out, I did not have to remove but a 0.001" from the bolt face, and it is square. I also welded on my homemade bolt handle (see pic), but I made it too long. My desire was to copy the Model 70 bolt, but I failed miserably, so I gave it a graceful curvature. It is about 1/2" too long. I will deal with it at a later date, and may replace the bolt entirely as I have a half dozen 98 bolts lying around. No clue why, since there are no matching receivers.

I cut off the excess forearm on the stock, and checked to see if my walnut plank (6' x 3' x 3") is still pristine, and it is. I have been wanting to cut a blank out of that board ever since I bought it. There are over a hundred left where I got this one. They are very heavy, and I can pick through them, but it is a laborious process.

As soon as the dies arrive, I will load some some rounds for test firing. One will be a max, or close to max, load. I had rather blow up an old tire rather than my arm.

I am limited by how many pictures I can upload - unfortunately.

jt

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**da gimp** · 08-11-2011, 07:38

lodge bro that has the place behind us talked it over with his lady, & he decided to start big game hunting in style, the kids can make their own money, Has taken a brown bear in Siberia, Cape Buffalo, huge black maned lion (in his tracks 1 shot), 2 elephants ( 1 shot apiece, brain shots), leopard (fell out of the tree dead) & I think a hippo. Ed has appeared on most of these hunts on Nosler's Magnum TV program. Daam he can shoot, either his double rifle or the bolt gun.

Ed said he could of bought a nice farm for what he'd spent, but I told him that he'd always have the memories.........which is better.

Hope you get a chance to use it too. Might try joining Nosler's hunting club, my understanding is that it is 1st rate, on professional hunters, & safaris.