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A Westley Richards magazine rifle will often have a quarter-rib and front-sight block arrangement for shooting without a 'scope fitted. Standing and leaf rear-sights are fitted to the quarter rib and the front blade or bead is fitted to the ramp. The quarter rib is machined, as is the front sight block.
At first glance, these parts appear to be no more than a length of machined steel forming the quarter-rib and a shorter block of steel forming a ramp for the front sight.
These are soldered onto the top of the barrel; a process which fixes them in place. On a mass-market quality rifle, these processes are all done by machine to programmed tolerances.
If the barrel profile is known exactly and the concave surface of the quarter-rib and the ramp are machined to exactly correspond with the barrel contour, then the fit will be acceptable and can be soldered and finished in under an hour.
However, to fit a quarter-rib and front sight by hand can take thirty hours. The reason for this is that to get every barrel profile perfect, it is hand struck, filed and polished. That means the mating surface of the other parts must be custom-fitted to the barrel using a smoke lamp.
Gunmakers describe the process as 'scraping'. The tool they use is often a crossing file cut-off half-way to create a kind of chisel. This hardened angle is used to scrape steel from the surface of the rib or block.
Smoke black is used to show high and low spots and the scraper used to remove the high spots.
The ideal is to have the two surfaces as close to a friction fit as possible. The solder used to hold them together acts like a glue and should be perfectly evenly distributed, so as to make ingress of contaminants impossible. Only this way can a truly dependable bond be achieved; one which will stand thousands of rounds of repeated firing of heavy loads for decades to come.
Anything other than a perfect fit will fail spectacularly, un-doing a lot of other work like sight fitting, regulating and blacking, which will then need to be repeated, adding significant costs in terms of both time and money.
So, as with most of what we do, even the apparently simple fitting of two component parts to the exterior of a magazine rifle requires precision, focus, attention to detail and a very skilled and experienced practitioner taking charge of the task.
In addition to getting the mating surfaces a perfect fit, care must be taken when polishing, or filing, the rib itself. Removing too much material in the wrong spot can alter tension within the steel and cause the rib to warp and lose its knife-edge lines. Any deviation or unevenness in the surface would be immediately apparent when the rifle is polished and blacked.
The Westley Richards quarter-rib is a very elegant and pleasing means of accommodating the rear sight block. However, a long section of rib like this is far more complex and time consuming to fit than a standard island sight block, which can be fitted in a third of the time.
There is no short cut to perfection.
Whether for the discerning collector or the avid sportsman, Westley Richards firearms represent the epitome of excellence in the world of bespoke gunmaking. Known for the droplock shotgun, over and under shotgun, double barrel rifle and bolt action rifle, the company has achieved an illustrious 200 year history of innovation, craftmanship and artistry. As part of our best gun build, clients can choose from three levels of gun engraving: the house scroll; signature game scenes; and exhibition grade masterpieces. All Westley Richards sporting arms are built at their factory in Birmingham, England. Discover more about the gunmaking journey at our custom rifles and bespoke guns pages.
