Mauser 98 action provided the consumers and gun makers an inexpensive alternative to the double- and single-shot rifles which until that time predominated the dangerous-game hunting scene. At the turn of the 20th century, four major British rifle manufacturers, Holland & Holland, John Rigby & Co., W.J. Jeffery & Co, and Westley Richards designed cartridges which could operate in the Magnum Mauser 98 action and could offer big-bore nitro express ballistics and performance in a magazine rifle which was what the British called their bolt-action rifles. The result was the introduction of medium-bore big-game cartridges .375 H&H Magnum, .416 Rigby, .404 Jeffery, and .425 Westley Richards. The performance of these cartridges on game matched the performance of the big-bore Nitro Express cartridges. The performance of these cartridges was due to the sectional density (greater than ) and higher velocity (~). The first .416 Rigby rifles used the Magnum Mauser 98 Square Bridge No. 5 action. The large bolt face and the length of the Magnum Mauser 98 No. 5 action was easily adapted for use with the .416 Rigby cartridge. As the Magnum Mauser 98 action became scarcer after World War II, .416 Rigby rifles were built on Enfield P-17 and the BRNO actions. Both the Enfield P-17 and the BRNO actions are in turn based on the Magnum Mauser 98 rifle. After World War II, with the dwindling of areas to hunt dangerous game animals, interest in the .416 Rigby cartridge and most big-bore Nitro Express cartridges began to wane. By the 1970s, with the demise of the British ammunition supplier Kynoch as an entity, the supply of .416 Rigby ammunition was dwindling, and many hunters, including Selby, set aside their .416 Rigby rifles, taking up the more popular .375 H&H Magnum, .458 Winchester Magnum, and .458 Lott. Between 1912 and the beginning of World War II, John Rigby & Co. produced 169 .416 Rigby rifles and 180 between 1939 and 1984. Between 1984, when Paul Roberts took over the John Rigby & Co., and 1997, when the company was purchased by Geoff Miller's investment group, 184 more rifles were produced. It was not until Bill Ruger of Sturm, Ruger & Co. began offering the Ruger Model 77 RSM Magnum Mk II in 1991 that the cartridge finally took off. Ruger produced approximately 1,000 rifles between 1991 and 2001, dramatically boosting the number of .416 Rigby rifles in circulation.