A member of our gun club showed up at the meeting last night with order conformation for his new big bore. A .450 Rigby in a double-barrel bolt action rifle from Fuchs in Austria. I know that I live way back in the boondocks and I work way to much BUT I never heard of such a thing until last night. Six shots, four in a box magazine??? Does this thing REALLY WORK? How long have they made this type of rifle? Lawdog

They run about $80,000.Some PH in Africa was given one to test,and it ended up blowing in half on him and costing him most of the fingers on one of his hands.Last I heard the lawsuit over his hand was still being fought in court.

Brian.

I handled one at the SCI convention they were introduced. It is a technical/machinist's tour de force but for hunting real animals more of a tour de farce! Too heavy, awkward to hold, over-blown decoration, funny-looking . . . am I letting everyone know how I really feel?

That reminds me of a cartoon, on cartoon channel, that had a pump action side by side shotgun.

It is less than useless, IMO, and was made for those who have more DOLLARS than SENSE!

where is bpbb?

HOLY $Hit....

That thing must load 2 when you work the bolt...
blamblam
(single shucK0
blamblam
(single shuck)
BLAMBLAM...

Damn, FINALLY something that has both enough firepower AND repeatability to actually make an impression on a troll's skull



Jeffe

I saw one at an Ohio Gun Collectors show earlier this month. It's pretty Fuching ugly.

Best,
Joe

AXEL SAYS HE LIKES THE FINE GERMAN ENGINEERING!!!. HE wants to weld two SMLE's togrther and build himself one in 405 Win!-Rob

Thats the first time I've seen a picture of a production one, looks like someone finally managed to out ugly the Wetherby Mk V

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder , but whatever is said about this "thing" above is true to a certain point!
Reminds me of some of the cars featured in various US Car mags with huge blowers and three stage nitrous oxide systems , 4 digit horsepower ratings .........and all this at an astounding 55 mph speed limit !
I`t`s a demo what can be done today , but if it is useful or not is on a different page !

O.K. YOU BIG GIRLLY MEN!! Let me see one of you fire all six 416 or 458's or 500 Jeffs in half a minute??? On target?? and still be standing!!!

How about a double falling block, sounds more useable, and stronger, if not traditional??

Lar45-That would be neat idea and give you the weight in the rifle for big kicking calibers.Ed.

Does it always cycle 2 rounds? That doesn't seem very handy if it does. The whole rifle doesn't seem very handy anyway, but dinging away live rounds just seems silly. Sean

Over engineering to the extreme, and ugly to boot.

In application it makes even less sense...who hunts critters that can eat you or weigh more than your land rover without a guide or pro with a back up rifle? If the beast is not anchored on 1 or 2 shots and still wants to get even, the second rifle is the one that sames your life...he's already on target when you fire the first shot.

I can't tell from the picture but it looks like it has rear locking lugs. If that's the case would it also have a two piece bolt? Just wonderin' if anyone else could make it out. I've thought about the falling block doulble rifle too.

You could always build a falling block with two levers, then if you shoot one shot you could reload only one bbl, if you shoot two shots then "crank" open both levers.

Or just buy a REAL double, and have a REAL dangerous game rifle.

Carr4570--Yes it has rear locking and very poor
gas venting on real big cartridges if a case fails.Ed.

Very long ago there was a discussion on the "falling block double rifle" here and I had posterd then that I had an old hand-written letter from Martin Hagn saying that he was planning on building one.

It would be nice if one of the Canadian mambers could check with Mr Hagn and let us know what had happened to his project - I could write to him but I have only a postal address and no fax or e-mail ID (I'm not sure he prefers using these.)

I also have extensive correspondence with Joseph Szecsei, inventor of the Szecsei Fuchs Double Bolt and while I am no expert, would be more than happy to give his address and contact details to anyone who was interested. He had designed a number of variations of his double bolt rifle with SxS and OU configurations with interrupted thread and solid locking lugs, and was also designing drillings and straight pull versions when I wrote to him last.

I have no idea of how reliable (or "un") the rifles were or of the obvious problems that the weight and length caused, but Mr Szecsei wrote to me that he was working on a Titanium actioned version to address the weight factor and that he had tried a Mauser 66 type of short action version but given it up because it was unreliable.

If I remember Gun Digest had written about these some years ago and I could find the article and send it to whoever is interested.

Don't flame me for posting what I have posted, guys, I am no expert and know less about guns than all of you here. It's just that I have learned a lot here and am trying to contribute a little information from my end!

Good shooting, everybody!

Mehul and Ed,
Thanks for the added insights. From the Fuchs site, linked above, it seems they offer the titanium one now. IIRC, the weight can be from 5.2 kg to 6.9 kg, depending on materials and configuration.

A rear locking twin pushfeed with poor gas handling, and ugly-bulky appearance and likely poor balance to boot? Think that two position side safety lever is big enough to find in the dark with a baseball glove on your trigger hand? I do.

A twin tubed Ruger No.1 mating would make a whole lot more sense. Call it the Ruger No.2 or Ruger No. 1+1?

A cheap version with two sets of sights, one for each barrel, would be a nice start.

It would never go off face and could be loaded to pressures that would destroy the pinky finger H&H doubles quickly.

It would shoot close enough for instinctive shooting at spitting distance, like a shotgun.

At long range it could be scoped on one barrel and iron sighted on the other, or a coarse bead and a fine bead, peep sight or open express in any combination.

Working out the trigger ergonomics, safety, and extraction/ejection would be interesting.

OK Ruger, get with it, a Ruger No. 1+1, but please keep it well under $100,000 so as to have a price advantage on the double barrel bolt action.

It is definately an interesting rifle, opinions of its beauty aside. The price for a magazine went beyond ridiculus upto the criminally expensive- $2500.00/mag. And I thought H&K magazines were overpriced.