Anyone have experience with Empire rifles, built in USA from about 2004 to 2011? This one is in .450 Rigby caliber.
Jim

Yes. I went to their "plant" in 2006 and me the principle owner. In summary, he was a young investor/hunter that loved nice guns. He was having some machinists build the actions, bought barrels off the open market, sent these to a gunsmith to mate up, then had connections/contracts to get nice stocks made ,then sent o a gunsmith to fit everything. He would then test fire and sell them. He lived in the area of Connecticut that had a lot of skilled gunmakers. He turned out nice guns for awhile but I doubt he made much money at it so he shut down.

Kilimanjaro Rifles is run on a similar model I believe, but I am not 100% certain.

For awhile, when the economy was good, George did very well and made some darn good rifles - 2009=2010 wiped teh company out ...

If by "have some machinists make the action" you mean "contracted with a top grade action maker and then developed a top shelf CNC made, contracted for aerospace quality company " then sure...

If by "barrels off the open market" you mean "contracted for top quality barrel makers and top barrels, but allowed the customer to make a selection" you'd be right

and if by "connections/contacts make nice stocks" you meant paid for and developed his own plug for custom stocks, but offered the owners a choice from mcmillian to highend custom stock" you'd be right

was he a cottage industry? a bit more than that, but that's how british guns were made, as well ..

I owned an Empire .300 RUM for awhile. It shot very well, fit and finish were excellent. I would probably still own the rifle but I hated the caliber. I thought about rebarrelling that rifle to a .404 Jeffery and keeping it but someone wanted it "as is" and I traded it away. I would not hesitate to own another.

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
For awhile, when the economy was good, George did very well and made some darn good rifles - 2009=2010 wiped teh company out ...

If by "have some machinists make the action" you mean "contracted with a top grade action maker and then developed a top shelf CNC made, contracted for aerospace quality company " then sure...

If by "barrels off the open market" you mean "contracted for top quality barrel makers and top barrels, but allowed the customer to make a selection" you'd be right

and if by "connections/contacts make nice stocks" you meant paid for and developed his own plug for custom stocks, but offered the owners a choice from mcmillian to highend custom stock" you'd be right

was he a cottage industry? a bit more than that, but that's how british guns were made, as well ..

Jeff said all of that better than I did. I did not mean to disparage what George was doing or making. It was a fine gun and well made. Being a non-gunsmith, the words escaped me.

I had a few of them. They required some work to get the feed/ejection down right, but were a step above Dakotas, IMHO.

Thanks for the information.

Jim

I killed impala and warthog with a lefty Empire 375. Was a buddy's rifle. Worked great. Think he was able to later determine it was a Wiseman action and build. Nice rifle.

Biebs, if by better than a Dakota you mean a Dakota manufactured after Don Allen died, you are correct. But, I would rate the earlier, Allen-era Dakota's as at least the equal of if not superior to anything that George Sandman created at Empire. You did have to watch for egregiously uprated wood, though.

Jhaney, I see you are in the Yukon. I am in Nova Scotia.

Did you happen to buy that Empire .450 Rigby from a guy named Angus in British Columbia? If so it is the rifle I used to own, nice quality walnut and a 21.5 inch barrel with ghost ring peep sights.

I loved that rifle, and the cartridge, I only sold it to help treat my wife and myself to a truly luxury honeymoon. The trade-off was worth it, besides I don't do any hunting currently that my .375 H&H won't handle.

It is built on a very nice proprietary square bridge magnum action. The actions were machined by a shop in Michigan that did/does lots of precision work for the defense industry if memory serves me right. If I recall correctly that rifle comes in at around 9.5 lbs fully loaded, with iron sights. I found recoil to be quite manageable with 500 grain solids loaded by Superior ammunition, although I never got around to chronographing that load. I think some 550 grain Woodleighs would be perfect in that rifle.

As a side note in case you don't know, scope rings for the rifle are available from Sunny Hill Enterprises, they will ship directly to Canada.

Hi Canadaboy,
You are right, the same rifle. I would love to hear more of the history of the rifle. I sent a PM
Jim