A Book On Rigby’s Rebirth

From our November/December 2025 Issue

John Rigby & Co. is having a moment. In just a few years Rigby has reestablished itself among the good and great of London gunmakers. Now comes the book Rigby Resurrection: The Definitive Account of a Gunmaking Legacy Reborn—an unfettered celebration of the company’s renewal. Or to quote Rigby Managing Director Marc Newton: “. . . it is not a history book; it is the story of how we brought Rigby back from the ashes.”

Rigby is Britain’s oldest gunmaker, with a startup date of 1775. The firm’s earliest establishment was in Dublin, but in 1865 it opened a London premises, where the company was highly regarded, especially for rifles. In 1998 the company was sold, and gunmaking moved to California. During Rigby’s US residency, the firm’s reputation took a hiding that revived only when production returned to the UK.

The new book, by Marc Newton and firearms expert Diggory Hadoke, tracks that revival. In 2013 the firm was acquired by German investors Michael Lüke and Thomas Ortmeier, who, according to the authors, “. . . founded one of the world’s great gunmaking powerhouses: the L&O Gruppe, which included Blaser, Mauser, SIG SAUER, and J.P. Sauer & Son.” Their purchase of Rigby corresponded with a renewed interest in traditional African safaris. The revived firm offered Mauser bolt-action rifles and reintroduced double rifles and smallbore shotguns with the proprietary Rigby & Bissel rising bite.

At 450 pages and weighing six pounds, this thick-as-a-brick tome features multiple photos by Simon K. Barr and Terry Allen and has 32 chapters. Some of the chapters, such as the one titled “Rigby Tweed,” may be of marginal interest, but others, like “The London Best,” “Exhibition Guns” and “The Rising Bite Shotgun” are must reads.

Rigby Resurrection is limited to 1,000 copies and is offered at £150 (about $200) plus postage. For more information, visit johnrigbyandco.com.