Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Can We All Stop Calling it the ".275 Rigby"?

Even Craig Boddington is calling the .275 the "".275 Rigby.""

And now the new Rigby company is (delightedly I am sure) actually marking rifles with .275 Rigby, and making headstamped ammo!



.275 Rigby is an imaginary cartridge name that seems to have come around since the internet, mostly by American writers, who I can only assume have confused the .275 Rigby- Mauser rifles sold by Rigby as the first bit of that name being the chambering and the second bit being the rifle. It's incorrect. It's the .275 - while the rifles J Rigby&Co sold were "Rigby-Mausers".

It was never called a .275 Rigby. In the old catalogues, it was just a .275 bore. That's just what they called the 7x57 in England and the colonies. Same as a .303 was a .303.


Their has never been an original Rigby rifle stamped "".275 Rigby"" or a rifle by any other makers like Westley Richards, Holland and Holland or anyone else stamped "".275 Rigby"" and their has never been any ammunition British or German called ".275 Rigby" or any cartridges ever headstamped "".275 Rigby.""

Rigby sold rifles chambered in .275 (and their own ammunition marked for the bore size.) The .275 ammo sold by Rigby was just their own brand of high velocity loading - they never called it by their own name, the ammo boxes were marked .275 bore, Rigby High Velocity cartridges.


I first noticed it sometime around twenty years ago. Somehow this has turned into some kind of internet truth that .275 Rigby is a cartridge name. People make custom 7x57's (or .275's) and have them stamped .275 Rigby. But it's nothing to do with Rigby.

The new Rigby company, is no doubt delighted that American gun writers have mistaken this cartridge for having something to do with them, haven't said a word, even though they have all the old ledgers which show the rifles all marked as ".275 or .275 HV"" (But from photos I've seen of the people at that company, the new Rigby company people they all seem to be hipsters under the age of thirty, so possibly they just don't know any better either.) And surely Craig Boddington doesn't do all his research on the internet.

Can we stop this now. It's just...annoying.

[img]https://i.ibb.co/VM9bLz4/275.webp[/img]

We Americans sure do a wonderful job of bodgering the English language. Hell, every language come to think of it.

What makes my eyeballs roll back into my head is "Remmy", Winny", "Bob", "Creed", etc. Are people's fingers broken, such that they can't type a couple extra letters? I say this in jest (sort of), and suppose that it's part of the natural progression into "text speak" that is taking over our vernacular. That or a need to sound witty/hip.

[quote=ingwe]I dunno..mine says .275 Rigby on it, and the brass is head stamped likewise.That said I think the OP is right, original designation was always simply ".275"

To sound cool we shooters in America do that kind of thing a lot.Witness the .45 Long Colt.....there is no such thing.

My .275 for effect...

Tom,

One of the things I did during this discussion was get out my reproduction copy of the 1924 Magazine Sporting Rifles catalog of John Rigby & Co. Inside the cover, they list the five rifles available:

.275 bore
.275 bore H.V. [high velocity]
.275 bore Light Model
.350 bore Magnum
.416 bore Big Game

The catalog does not call any of those cartridges Rigby, but JOHN RIGBY& CO. is the top line on the cover, and printed in the largest, boldest letters. This might suggest to some people that the listed cartridges are, uh, Rigby cartridges.

Teal,

The solution I eventually came up with, after getting a chance to shoot Harry Selby's famous .416 Rigby around 20 years ago in Arkansas (he sold it to a rice farmer there after retiring) was buying a used CZ 550 Magnum in .416 and modifying the "Bavarian" style stock to come closer to Rigby's contours.

While down there I also got to weigh the Selby .416, which went 9-1/4 pounds, and felt quite handy, so that's also the weight I tried for--and accomplished. It worked quite well, and Luke was pretty intrigued with too, since as noted he decided the .416 was the best all-around back-up rifle in his considerable collection (which included doubles), because it was powerful enough for stopping elephants but shot flat enough to killing wounded lions while running away at up to 200 yards. (I never did shoot an elephant or lion with my .416 a couple years ago, but did get three buffalo.)

Unfortunately, of course, CZ no longer makes any model of the 550, and prices have gone up. I got mine for $1000 around 2000, and did all the stock-work myself.

Might add that the words on top of the action are "Rigby's Special .416 Bore For Big Game." So perhaps we should call the cartridge "Rigby's .416" instead of ".416 Rigby."

[quote=ingwe]I dunno..mine says .275 Rigby on it, and the brass is head stamped likewise.That said I think the OP is right, original designation was always simply ".275"

To sound cool we shooters in America do that kind of thing a lot.Witness the .45 Long Colt.....there is no such thing.

My .275 for effect...

Tom,

One of the things I did during this discussion was get out my reproduction copy of the 1924 Magazine Sporting Rifles catalog of John Rigby & Co. Inside the cover, they list the five rifles available:

.275 bore
.275 bore H.V. [high velocity]
.275 bore Light Model
.350 bore Magnum
.416 bore Big Game

The catalog does not call any of those cartridges Rigby, but JOHN RIGBY& CO. is the top line on the cover, and printed in the largest, boldest letters. This might suggest to some people that the listed cartridges are, uh, Rigby cartridges.

I’m going to start referring to my 1903a3 as a “.30 Government-‘06”

I wonder if there is any 25/36 Marlin brass?