John Rigby & Co.

At one point in Trail of the Jaguar, Clayton Porter . . . shall we say, liberates? . . . a very nice .570 double rifle made by John Rigby & Co., adorned with engraved depictions of a jaguar.

The firm of John Rigby was founded in Ireland in 1775, and quickly became known for the high quality and superb accuracy of their rifles. The firm relocated to London in 1865, just in time to become the premier supplier of firearms to the explorers, pioneers, and hunters who were penetrating the farthest reaches of Africa. Rigby’s dangerous-game rifles set standards of life-saving reliability unmatched by any other premier maker, and its groundbreaking .450 Express cartridge, using the newly developed smokeless powder, proved capable of stopping any animal on the continent, and fired from a double-barreled rifle much lighter and handier than the eight- and four-bore black-powder behemoths that had been standard equipment until then.

In 1897 Rigby began collaborating with the German arms maker Mauser, buying the latter’s superb bolt action receivers and building rifles from them to Rigby standards. Those magazine rifles, mostly unadorned and built strictly for hard use, were used by hunters such as W.D.M. Bell, Jim Corbett, and many, many others. I am the lucky guardian of one of these rifles, in 7mm Mauser (or Rigby’s proprietary designation of .275 Rigby)—an extraordinarily generous gift from a gun writer friend.

After an extremely unfortunate period in the late 20th century during which the Rigby name was owned by a California firm that made firearms in no way comparable to the originals, Rigby again became an English company, headquartered in London, and again turns out world-class rifles and shotguns—including, if one so chose to order it, a .570 double rifle adorned with scroll engraving and engraved depictions of a jaguar. Rigby is here.