Over the years I’ve handled more doubles in one capacity or another than I can count. The current gun du jour is Heym, a few years ago it was Krieghoff. What’s fascinating it’s taken a true American to resurrect one of the greatest double rifles ever made. A firearm with the Bissell/Rigby rising bite. Considered absolutely the strongest firearm ever made, virtually impossible to blow open.
Butch Searcy, longtime fine gun maker resurrected/reinvented the holy grail of doubles. A rising bite was first patented in 1879 by Thomas Bissell who joined with the John Rigby Company to produce this magnificent masterpiece of engineering. The rising bite is typified by what I call a “dolls head” (somewhat like our own US famed Parker shotgun) that’s instead hollowed – a “ U “ shape, so to speak, at the end of the rib. The “ U “ lowers onto a fixed post when the gun locks up. The lug engages into the nose of the “ U “ when the gun closes. Thus, the rifle now has typically three locks, two on the underside, and the topside “bite” (lock) sealing shut like a Fort Knox vault.
As I was standing with Butch admiring this outstanding example of American technical art, a bystander asked if a double rifle “needed to be stronger”, Butch answered “mine certainly don’t” , then came the inevitable query: “then why did you build it”? Butch looked at him perplexed, answering “ I wanted to see if it could be done”. That struck me as to what makes Americans so different from everyone else in the world. When most firearm manufacturers are trying to figure out how to cut an extra screw out here, a tenth of an ounce out there, Butch reverse engineered the most difficult rifle ever created – merely to test his American engineering skills.
John Rigby & Co. only made at the most 500 rising bite rifles, quite possibly as few as 200, they are one of the most collectible rifles in the world. Terry Wieland February 2010 wrote regarding the resurrected rising bite in London; yet, not terribly surprising it already was re-created in the US. The Rigby rising bite ceased being constructed sometime around 1935, the cost of the extensive exceptionally skilled hand work necessary for the action simply was no longer feasible.
Butch Searcy made it happen again: American ingenuity crafted with American pride. The outstanding level of technical expertise as well as craftsmanship is our heritage and is manifested in B. Searcy Co. firearms. Maybe you haven’t heard of Searcy, our own “American” double rifle company. He doesn’t give his guns away to gun writers, nor does he give commissions – guess what, his doubles aren’t pushed or recognized as they should be. He selects every piece of wood and personally supervises each gun crafted. Yet he’s treated as the red headed step child among firearm salesmen – of course, so was John Browning at first.
Butch will craft each gun custom to you if you take the time to visit his factory; as well as providing a lifetime warranty on his firearms. Next time someone wants to sell you a German gun, ask to see “their” rising bite rifle. Don’t let anyone trash talk American firearm manufacturers. I’m thinking “if you can’t make a rising bite, then don’t make me a double at all”. B. Searcy Co. Ph. 760-762-6131
Butch and I at the SCI Convention in Reno