The elephant from Pensbury Place

The cartridge alone is a sight to behold: A 7.62 centimetre long case that was originally filled with a hundred cordite grains and com- pleted with a 900-gram projectile. The muzzle velocity is 625 metres per second, releasing a tremendous 10,304 joules of energy – truly elephant-level proportions and properties! No surprise then that the intended prey for a .600 Nitro Express calibre shotgun are indeed elephants. First produced by Jeffery around the time of World War I, the .600 is a tool for spe- cialists and only a handful have ever been manufactured.

Elephant hunting enthusiasts and collec- tors have always had a great passion for shotguns of this calibre, which until re- cently was the world’s largest commer- cially manufactured hunting cartridge. Older models regularly fetch high prices. And now there is finally a new shotgun again: the Rising Bite Elephant.

This hunting weapon is a spectacular ex – ample of the interesting projects that John Rigby & Co. implement on a regular basis. After six years of production time, the double rifle is now finished and can inspire Rigby collectors and hunting fire-arm lovers all over the world. This is not the first shotgun for which Rigby chose elephant skin as the theme for the en- graving. A customer had already ordered one of these with a .450 calibre. His con- dition: It had to be the only hunting weap- on of its kind to be manufactured at the workshop in Pensbury Place. When an- other good Rigby customer showed in- terest in the shotgun, Rigby Managing Director Marc Newton initially declined politely. But in the end he came up with a solution to make both customers hap- py. Basically, he told the customer: “You would have to be crazy to do that, but if someone ordered a double shotgun with Rising Bite and elephant skin engraving, then we could make that happen.” The customer replied in a heartbeat: “I am that crazy person.” That was back in 2016.

The .600 is built on the larg- est frame that Rigby use for the newly revised Nitro ver- sion of the patented Rigby & Bissel system from 1878, which is iconic for lov- ers of the double shotgun. While the gun- smiths started their work, the engravers were working on a particularly complex method. Instead of taking an impression of elephant skin, Marc provided a few samples of the real material. The three engravers, who all come from the same family, actually worked on the steel based on the samples from the actual animal; no surface was imitated twice. As on the real thing, every square centimetre of the surface is a one-off instead of a repeating pattern from a template.

With this shotgun, Rigby have once again shown the world that London’s best gun- maker today can make the impossible possible. By the way: The .600 Nitro Ex-
press will soon actually travel to Africa, probably accompanied by the original .450 elephant-design shotgun, as the two customers are planning a joint safari.