On the afternoon of April 11, 1930, the celebrated British big-game hunter Jim Corbett nearly met his maker.

He was painstakingly following a trail through the Agar forest in northern India in pursuit of a tigress which had already consumed 64 people. The terrified locals were pinning their hopes on Corbett.

At that very moment, he should have become Number 65. That he did not is down to a great British institution which has been celebrating a big anniversary this month. For Britain’s oldest gunmaker, John Rigby & Company, is turning 250.

Ask anyone in the world of shooting whom they would most want alongside them in a scrap with a big beast and one name keeps coming up: Rigby.

It’s why an assortment of shooting enthusiasts, including Donald Trump Junior and Nigel Farage, came together last Friday to help blow out the candles.

Jim Corbett would certainly have shared the sentiment after the events of that afternoon in 1930. A lifelong birdwatcher, he was briefly distracted by two rare eggs on the ground, and bent down to pick them up with one hand.

Then, turning round, his rifle in his right hand, he found himself staring straight into the eyes of his quarry – the tigress known as the ‘Maneater of Chowgarh’.

There was not even time to drop the eggs and clasp the barrel of his gun with his left hand. Stretching his arm forward, while bearing the weight of the rifle in one hand, he fired. One bullet, one chance. The tiniest deviation would either miss or wound the tigress, with fatal consequences – even for the great Jim Corbett.

Game hunter Jim Corbett with the tigress known as the ‘Maneater of Chowgarh’

Posing with Jim Corbett's 1904 275 Toby bolt action rifle worth an estimated £500,000

That single shot went straight through the animal’s heart. To this day, it remains a feat of marksmanship which astonishes the shooting world for two reasons.

First, Corbett was using a .275-calibre rifle – a narrow bore which, today, would be deemed too underpowered for hunting anything dangerous. Second, he was holding the gun in one hand.

However, this was no ordinary rifle. It was a Rigby. It had been given to Corbett 20 years earlier by a grateful colonial government as a thank-you gift for killing the deadliest big cat in Indian history: the ‘Maneater of Champawat’, another elderly tigress, which had consumed 436 poor souls.

Ever since then, Corbett went everywhere with his trusty Rigby. When he shot the man-eating ‘Leopard of Panar’ (400 dead), and a long list of other man-eaters, it was with his Rigby.

It was the same weapon which also protected Elizabeth II on the night she became Queen. She was on safari in Kenya with Prince Philip, watching game from a treehouse-style hotel called Treetops. The local governor had asked Corbett to look after them.

The history books state that on February 5, 1952, Elizabeth went up a tree as a Princess and came down the next morning as a Queen. What the books don’t tell you is that sitting by the ladder all night was a gimlet-eyed Corbett. Cradled in his arms was his Rigby.

What Smith & Wesson is to revolvers, what Purdey or Holland & Holland are to shotguns, so Rigby is to rifles. Which is why last week was something of a milestone in the world of firearms. 

It was in 1775 that Dublin-born John Rigby started producing duelling pistols for argumentative Georgians. As the business was passed down the family line and moved to London, these weapons became so advanced that they were displayed at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Nigel Farage alongside Donald Trump Jr and his girlfriend Bettina Anderson during Rigby's 250th anniversary celebrations

They were the default choice for a young Winston Churchill, every imperial adventurer – and royalty, too. The company would enjoy royal warrants from five Kings, plus Elizabeth II.

To mark Rigby’s anniversary on Friday there were fireworks and a Spitfire display over Portsmouth, where the celebrations included a parade next to HMS Victory and a banquet in HMS Warrior.

The Government has yet to join the celebrations. Given Labour’s pledge to ban the import of hunting trophies and its imposition of increased costs on the ownership of sporting guns, it’s not surprising.

Yet there seems to be plenty to celebrate. For here is a firm which has survived many reversals, including a falling-out with its German partner, Mauser, thanks to the First World War.

Latterly, an American takeover was followed by a disastrous attempt to relocate this emphatically British brand to California. In 2013, a new consortium brought it back to London, where its craftsmanship has led to a renaissance. The surprisingly young workforce has opened an academy for gunsmiths, while gun collectors around the world form an orderly queue.

I have talked to some of them during these festivities, including one businessman from Florida who is such an admirer that he has named his young son ‘Rigby’.

The eldest son of the US President is another fan. ‘I love the tradition and the elegance,’ Donald Trump Jr told me before last week’s event on HMS Warrior.

He said that he had come to Rigby’s London factory last year to watch the team making his latest .416 rifle prior to hunting an African buffalo.

Standing alongside Mr Trump was family friend Nigel Farage, who is a keen supporter of country sports. ‘Rigby is an outstanding example of British high-quality manufacturing,’ he explained. ‘We need to champion companies like this. Given our exploding deer population, its rifles perform a vital conservation role.’

Conservation has been a recurring theme of the anniversary celebrations, since deer stalking and big-game hunting would not exist without it. Jim Corbett was so devoted to conservation that an Indian national park is named after him. 

Many Highland livelihoods, for example, are dependent on deer stalking. In parts of Africa, it is the sale of expensive licences to shoot restricted numbers of particular species which keep communities employed and, thus, poachers at bay. A hunter might pay up to £10,000 to shoot an African buffalo.

Of course, many (if not most) people will find the thought of a rich middle-aged man posing proudly next to the corpse of some majestic beast repugnant, which is why MPs on both sides of Parliament have been pushing for a ban on the import of hunting trophies. Yet the latest report from Oxford University on likely impacts suggests that a ban ‘may cause more harm than good’.

Rigby runs a project called the Dagga Boy Award. ‘Dagga boy’ is the local term for a lone African buffalo bull which is past breeding age and ejected from the herd. Each year, the hunter who shoots the best specimen wins a .416 rifle. 

They are not cheap. Last week, the company unveiled a new ‘Victory’ edition including a small piece of oak from HMS Victory in the stock. Each one costs £57,000 (including a donation to HMS Victory). Some collectors will never fire them. Yet Rigby has already taken orders for more than 50.

I seek out Rigby’s headquarters, which turns out to be an industrial unit in a south-west London cul-de-sac. ‘People are interested in our guns, not a posh showroom,’ explains managing director Marc Newton. They want to see one gun in particular: Jim Corbett’s famous .275. With no children, he left it to his publisher, who later sold it back to Rigby.

During my visit, I meet John Sharp, a famous South Africa-born ‘PH’, or professional hunter. He has been charged by pretty much everything over the years but, at 73, he still only takes one gun into the most dangerous situations. It’s a Rigby ‘double’ (twin-barrelled) rifle. ‘It’s all I need, really,’ he says. ‘It was made in 1927.’