Mule Deer,
I understand that it can be done and a good friend and PH Paul Zorne has one of those nice 416 Rigbys on a std. Milsurp Mauser action, they made a few but not a lot of them....A Kenyan PH who was a friend of Finn Aagards also had one, and I believe that was also one of Harry Selbys rifles, or maybe Harry Manners, not sure.
However I am of the opinnion that that big cartridge like the 416 Wby which is basically the same case performs better in a Mauser M-20 action or a like action with more size and one that will hold more rounds in the magazine and does not need to have so much metal removed from the front of the action behind the recoil lugs, even after removing as much as possibe from the rear of the action.....that is also why my 404 Jefferys is on a big Mauser (Vector/Searcy) action..although I have built more than a few 404 on std. actions, I never was quite satisfied with them.
Most if not all of the old English and German 416 Rigbys and 404 Jefferys's started off at about a chronographed 2000 FPS in the beginning, and were advertised at about 2125 FPS as best I recall. Later in their illustrious careers and after some complaints by the African boys who made a living shooting for Ivory, and later culled in Fly control with those wonderful FNs in 404, they upped the velocity of them both in to a reasonable abiet advertised 2300 FPS although I never had an opertunity to chronograph those loads, or at least I never got around to it..Apparantly the boys shooting elephants were more than satisfied, and two great rounds became the darlings of the Nostalgic, self included and guilty.
