Yeah, no one likes the finger lever, but there is a lot going on in it. It was the last large single shot design to come out of Britain. It was made in two sizes; a large one like this one available in all smokeless rimmed cartridges up through .600 Nitro and a smaller one with a cylindrical breech block that is most commonly seen in, of all things, .32-40. This one is in 450-400 3 1/4 inch Nitro Express (the .450 3 1/4 Nitro Express necked down to .400.) This was originally a black powder cartridge that made it into the smokeless era. The rifle is proofed for the standard load of a 400 grain jacketed (soft point or solid) bullet sitting on 60 grains of Cordite. I shoot it with a 400 grain thick copper jacket (.049) from Colorado Custom Bullets (think Barnes from back in the days when they made their jackets from copper tubing stretched to size by hooking one end to a jeep and driving off) sitting on 80 grains of IMR 4350. This yields about 2100 fps due to the short barrel (yes, it was not born this way). I also have some thin jacketed (.032) 400s and 300s. Meanwhile, back to the rifle. The barrel was probably around 26 inches originally but at some point was shortened to 20 inches. A friend of mine who is a professional hunter (PH) in Botswana remarked that it would be very handy in the bush. Even with the short barrel, the rifle weighs 10 pounds 5 ounces as the massive action is 1.725 inches across and the barrel where it meets the receiver is nearly 1.2 inches in diameter. Of course, that weight is appreciated when it is touched off. You can see that also in its history the sides of the receiver have been relieved of the modest fine scroll engraving and refaced and then covered with someone's coarser scroll and animal engravings (a Cape buffalo doing its "you looking at me?" stare on the left and an unhappy charging lion on the right. You can still see the original scroll on the lever and the top of the receiver and the top tang. These animals would have been appropriate as the 400 was classed as a large medium bore in Britspeak and was the standard all-round go to cartridge until the .375 H&H came along. Oddly for a dangerous game rifle, it has an automatic safety on the tang. It has a standing and 2 flip-up leaf sights on the barrel (100, 200, 300 respectively.) I added the steel Redfield bases and the Pentax "Lightseeker" 0-5x LER scope.

Well now that is just a pretty darn neat rifle!

I always liked the reply from a PH on why he carried a .600. "Because they don't make a .700".

Yes, Joe, the underlever is deeply slotted and contains the hammer, sear, main spring and sear spring. The firing pin is bushed and spring loaded and the hammer moves off the pin before the block moves. The block is at 2 degrees like the 1885 Win and moves away from the base of the cartridge as it starts to move. GT, it turns out that there is a large action and a larger action. This is a larger action and it is possible that the 400s would normally be on the large action (compared to the 450s, 470s, 500, 577s and 600s on the larger) but you could get whatever you wanted;-) The barrel shank is 1.125 and is 1 inch long with 14 TPI V threads. It was all made in Britain unlike the late Farquharsons that began life in Belgium before being shipped to Britain. If you wished for a casting, GT, it would probably be more useful to have it of the large action rather than the larger unless maybe you wanted to build a 50-140 or larger.

I often resort to .22 shorts when gallery shooting to get relief from LR recoil, so the big calibers are out for me. 

I always found that action with the big honkin lever fascinating from a mechanical standpoint.

I saw one of those at the H&H booth at a Safari International Show in Reno a few years back. I think the rifle was something like $65,000.

It’s the British single-shot rifles that got me interested in single shot rifles altogether. My second single-shot was a Farquharson and I didn’t realize how simple (mechanically) these rifles were. 

Your Wesley is a great example ... very nice overall.

That's a gorgeous Webley Chauncey! Thanks for sharing it!