Now, on the Bell-Ruark-Selby .275, I am also one of those curious about "the slot."

Referring to the October 2010 "American Rifleman" article about this rifle, H Selby himself says that the slot was there when Ruark first showed him the little Rigby, bought at Westley Richards' London agency. Malcom Lyell of WR said that it was a fitting for the butt end of a spear, supposedly for ease of gunbearer carry.

There are several problems with this explanation(other than the possibility of damaging the stock.) First, there is no wear around the slot so if that was the purpose it was never used as intended. Secondly, I don't think this particular Rigby ever saw Africa until Ruark imported it to give to his godson, young Mark Selby;, i.e. it's not one he used to kill all those elephants!

It's well known that WMD Bell owned multiple Rigby 275's and I believe that this one was a later one, presumeably used for deerstalking, ect., at his Scottish estate.

Since this rifle has no other provisions for attaching a carry strap, I speculate that the slot and a steel button threaded into the right receiver rail might have been for a sling.
This would have been set up with a knot or loop at the butt end and a slot to slip over the button. Notice that the buttstock slot is chamfered to the left, or muzzle side to prevent the sling (leather?) from wearing the wood. Maybe this would allow the arm to be carried muzzle down, not a bad idea in rainy Scottish weather.

If anyone hasn't seen that particular AR, it's worth getting a copy for the two two Harry Selby related articles contained within.

I love the peep sight idea. Im also not opposed to the 98 Mauser idea, but what, other than aesthetics, is the advantage? My goal was to have a reliable, and affordable 318WR. I felt the difference in safety, trigger etc. might be a hindrance. I totally get the traditionalist mentality, and would buy up the first vintage WR I found, but I also see the affordability and workability of the Model 70, regardless of caliber. I do think a peep will be on board, regardless...

Not to high jack the thread but since I have always lusted for a .318 and have a Steyr Model M-III Professional in .270 on the way, would it be possible to rechamber and rebore it to the .318 Wr Accelerated Express?

I finally figured out what Alf is not saying..

It must be that the 318 can be duplicated with a 220 gr. 30-06, but hey so can about anyhthing else!

That slot in those guns was supposedly for a tracker or gun bearer to stick a spear through and the hunter walked behind it and could grab the rifle according to an article in one of the rags about Bells 7x57...I have no clue who at one to the London gun stores came up with that horse hockey..

The truth is it was used to run a piece of cotton rope, braded grass, barb wire, sinue, or wet skin or whaterver through to use as a hasty sling while dragging out game to the backie!...BTW Spears and barbwire leave elongated cuts in wood.

Straight grips have been around for decades and they handle quite nice..Cowboys like them for saddle carry, shotgun men love the straight grip, and its a viable option on calibers that don't recoil too bad, say up to a perhaps a 9.3x62 otherwise they "ouchy" your middle finger and that smarts big time.

For A specific recommendation on a gunsmith give Roy Bedeaux in Albuquerque a call. He is at 505-344-6277.

I believe he is currently working on a 318 WR and can do nearly anything in the custom rifle line.

Thanks, Kifaru!

Here is some additional information in case yo have not seen this.

Frank

From African Perspectives by Charles Haley

II
The .318 Westley Richards is a
real old African classic. Largely
forgotten today, it was one of the
most important of the pre-war
sporting calibres. Never, of
course, so widely used as the
cheap and ubiquitous .303, it was
nonetheless one of the most
popular of what was termed the
'medium' bore sporting
cartridges in the Africa of years
ago. It was and still remains a
fine choice for the Africa of
today.
The .318 was introduced in 1910,
and was intended for Westley
Richards sporting rifles with the
comparatively new Model '98
Mauser action. This action and
rifle was taking the world by
storm, and it seemed that anyone
who desired to advance himself
in the eyes of his peers had to
have one of these rifles; even the
British army was in the process
of trying to dump its Lee-Enfield
.303 and adopt a Mauser
derivative, along with most of the rest of
the world. That they didn't actually
manage to loose the Lee-Enfield for
another 40 odd years is another story
entirely. Suffice to say that a Mauser '98
sporter was the absolute sine qua non of
the up-to-the-minute sporting gent, and
here it was in a calibre bigger, better and
more powerful than the .303. This was
the objective all along, of course the
.303 with its jacketed bullets and
smokeless powder was an absolute
revelation compared to black powder
and lead bullets, but it quickly became
evident that the old .303 was somewhat
lacking in some respects, particularly
against the heavier soft-skinned
species. Furthermore, its rimmed case
was an absolute pain in the nether
regions when it came to reliable feeding
in the later Mauser actions. Well, here
was the answer, and the sportsmen of
the day adopted it en masse.
The .318 uses a cartridge very similar
(in fact, almost identical to) the
American .30-06, and in fact it is quite
feasible to make .318 cases from .30-06
brass. The bullet is of considerably
greater frontal area, however, and of a
very useful greater weight. Actual
bullet diameter is a somewhat
confusing .330”, rather than .318 as the
title suggests. This comes of the old
British habit of commonly (but by no
means universally) naming the
cartridge by bore rather than groove
diameter. The most common bullet
weight was 250 grains at a listed speed
of 2400 fps, which was by far the most
effective and useful combination. A
lightweight 180 grainer was offered at
an alleged 2700 fps, but proved almost
invariably to be a disappointment
against all but the lighter species of
game. Most of the British gunmakers of
that era brought out lightweight bullets
at high speed for their bolt-action rifles,
so do not think that the Americans alone
are guilty of a desire for velocity at all
costs! My advice is to stick to the
heavier bullet weight; it is more
generally useful in Africa, has greater
sectional density and most rifles will be
sighted for it anyhow.
As stated, the .318 quickly became
The .318 Westley Richards
By Charlie Haley
immensely popular in Africa.
The 250 grain soft nosed bullets
proved extremely effective and
penetrative on game, while the
solids if properly placed could
down an elephant with a brain
shot. W. D. M. ('Karamojo') Bell,
one of the greatest of the old
ivory hunters, used the .318
extensively. Indeed, from my
readings, it seems as though he
used the .318 at least as much (if
not more) than the Rigby
7mm/.275 that he is most famed
for using. HOWEVER just
because Bell shot thousands of
elephant with the .318 (and
calibres like it), and lived to die
of old age, does NOT make the
.318 an elephant gun! This was a
partial explanation for the
eventual downfall of the .318. It
became very popular extremely
quickly, and is certainly one of
those well balanced cartridges
that performs out of all
proportion to its size and paper
ballistics. It was so effective that
hunters started to use it against large,
thick-skinned, dangerous game animals
for which it was never intended. Well
placed it would do the trick, but it was
found wanting when things went wrong
and a charge had to be stopped. Westley
Richards themselves would tell you that
the .318 was not designed for such
stunts; that is what they designed their
.425 for, and they would happily sell
you one for hunting the big stuff that bit
back. Hunters still used their .318's for
dangerous game, though, and continued
to be knocked about accordingly at
times. A certain backlash was
inevitable, but the .318 was still so
splendidly effective against softskinned
game that the process was more
of a placing of things into perspective.
Good as the .318 was, it became
recognised that it did in fact have
limitations after all, and that one would
be well advised to take at least a .375
against the more malevolent species.
Part of the reputation for effectiveness
of the .318 was unquestionably due to
its being available with some of the best
L-R: .318 W-R, .333 Jeffery, .30-06
IVII
bullets of the era. Being a Westley
Richards calibre, the .318 could be had
with soft capped bullets for expansion
combined with deep penetration or the
LT capped for maximum violent
expansion with more limited
penetration. Both bullet styles were
exclusive to Westley Richards, and
were certainly the premium soft noses
of their day. I have only heard of one
complaint regarding the .318 soft nosed
bullets, and that was by a hunter who
turned out to be using the light, speedy
180 grainers. He had heard so much
about the awesome penetration of the
.318, and couldn't understand why he
wasn't achieving the same! One other
potential problem; both the Westley
Richards capped soft point designs
superficially resembled solids, and if a
shooter who wasn't in the know used a
capped soft thinking it was a solid, then
disappointment was sure to result.
Rifles chambered for the .318 were, of
course, mainly made by Westley
Richards on the Mauser action, but this
was by no means universal. I have seen
a few built upon modified Enfield P-14
actions, or more likely the outwardly
identical American P-17. It would be a
great deal easier to achieve satisfactory
fit and feed for the .318 in an American
.30-06 action than the British .303!
Although the .318 is normally regarded
as a proprietary cartridge (that is,
normally only offered by the firm that
introduced it), the .318 achieved such
popularity that I would regard it as
semi-proprietary at best. Mauser
offered their 'A' grade rifle in .318
calibre, I once owned a Mauser actioned
.318 sporter built by Greener, and
recently examined a delightful little
take-down .318 rifle by Thomas Bland
(called 'The Compactum')! I have
heard of a double rifle in .318 calibre
(by Holland & Holland, no less) and
while I have never seen one, I am
certain that there must have been single
shot rifles chambered for the .318
(rimless cartridge notwithstanding).
There is no doubt that in the sporting
fields of Africa during the 1920's and
1930's, a .318 was de rigueur for the
knowledgeable hunter. It could be had
in standard or take-down configuration
from Westley Richards, with standard
barrel lengths tending to be on the long
side. Most oddly, a lot of .318's from
Westley Richards had Metford style
rifling. This of course led to worn and
eroded bores after a lot of firing with
Cordite ammunition. However, when
peering down the bore of a .318, don't
immediately write it off as irretrievably
worn Metford rifling appears shallow
and washed out in comparison to
conventional lands and grooves, and it
may shoot just fine. The .318's main
competitor was the .333 Jeffries, also
built on the Mauser action and firing a
phenomenally long 300 grain bullet at a
velocity of 2200 fps. This bullet gained
an excellent reputation, and I have
heard and read much concerning the
popularity of this calibre in Africa.
However, while I have examined a great
many old .318 rifles, I have yet to even
see a .333! It is my considered opinion
that .318 rifles outnumbered .333's by a
considerable margin in southern Africa.
With all the plaudits and popularity, it
seemed that the .318's star would never
set. However, World War Two
intervened. Afterwards, it would take
some years for the British gunmakers to
resume sporting rifle manufacture.
When they did, it was to find that the
hunting fields of the world were now
mainly the preserve of the American
sportsman. These new nimrods, not
unnaturally, wanted American rifles
and calibres, and few of them had even
heard of the .318. Winchester countered
with their excellent .338 Magnum,
which is somewhat more powerful than
the .318 (which was all to the good as far
as the American market went), and all
this served to drive the .318 into rapid
obscurity. A further clue as to the .318's
demise can be gathered by a quick
perusal of a 1954 Gun Digest. Westley
Richards rifles are catalogued therein,
available in various British calibres
(including the .318) at a listed price of
$400. No doubt it would have to be
specially ordered, with the requisite
waiting period to consider. In the same
publication, however, is the adored
Winchester Model 70 in a variety of
American calibres, for a mere $120!
Even a Super Grade Model '70 with
selected walnut stock was only
$195.45. Furthermore, .30-06
ammunition was half the price of .318,
and a lot more available too. The old
British gunmakers, without mass
production and with a minimal
domestic market, couldn't compete with
the American makers as far as cost
went. Furthermore, the British rifles
were not what the American sportsman
wanted at the time. The Brit rifles were
hard to 'scope, and telescopic sights
were in. Lightweight spitzer bullets at
sizzling velocities were gaining
popularity, and the English offerings
with heavy, round-nosed bullets at
moderate speed were out. Eventually
Kynoch stopped production of virtually
all the old British sporting rifle rounds,
and that appeared to be the end of the
.318.
Not quite, though. Ironically enough, it
was the rifle-conscious Americans who
led the revival, and more power to them.
Tiring of the magnum craze and the
glitzy rifles that went with it, the
American sportsman became
enamoured of classic cartridges and
rifles. The effectiveness of heavy
bullets at moderate speed was also rediscovered,
and this all coincided with
an old-time African hunting revival.
Pre-war British rifles found themselves
back in style again. A .318 became very
much the thing to have, and a fair
number of them had ended up in
America over the years. Those which
had escaped re-barreling were eagerly
snapped up, and the Americans, being
innovative as well as inveterate
reloaders, did not long want for
ammunition. Cases could be formed
from readily available .30-06 brass, and
makers of reloading dies would make
whatever one wanted, but bullets
continued to be a vexation. The smaller
makers of custom bullets would oblige,
of course, and .338 bullets could be
swaged or ground to size, but the
manufacturer who saved the day was
Woodleigh of Australia. With
impeccable timing, Woodleigh offered
a whole range of bullets for a great
many of the older British sporting rifles,
including the .318. Furthermore, these
bullets were of premium quality, taking
advantage of all the benefits of modern
technology. Bertrams, also of Australia,
produce a similar line of high quality,
properly headstamped brass cases for
obsolete firearms again, included in the
line up is the .318. The recently
resuscitated line of Kynoch
ammunition includes the .318 as well as
most of the other old British sporting
calibres, and, best of all, perusal of a
recent catalogue showed that .318 rifles
are once more available from Westley
Richards! This splendid old calibre
appears to be going from strength to
strength, which just goes to prove that
while shooting attitudes and fashions
change, calibres remain as effective as
they always were.

Thanks for posting that Frank.