.404 Jeffery vs .458 Winchester Comparison

[Shawn.54]

That is something to keep an eye on I have heard of older rifles with .418 now I see .422 and I know that the barrel I ordered for Pac-Nor says .423. If I we're getting a used rifle I would have to check it out .001 may not have a problem but .004-.005 could get ugly fast.
Shawn

 

[Gert Odendaal]

Shawn, I am lucky, Hansie Minnaar is able to draw bullets, Stewart Core bonded bullets in the .418 ' bore for my rifle since he already are making bullets for tree hunters who owns 404 Jeffery rifles that has a .418 " bore..I did send Walter company an email in this regards..they stated that the Walter company has never make 404 Jeffery barrels in the .418 " bore...I will slug the barrels again and send them a slug from the .418 ' 404 Jeffery barrels...

I need to point out: although my 404 Jeffery `s barrel slug .418 " I shoot the .423 " bullet and did not notice any pressure signs at all and the recoil is still moderate... Accuracy is excellent...

 

[Shawn.54]

I would be a little careful with Barns or even some of the harder brass solids CEB or GS Custom which have drive bands would probably be ok.
I'm waiting for my barrel to arrive I'm 6 weeks into a 8-10 week waiting period the more I read on 404 J the harder the waiting gets.
Shawn

 

[Gert Odendaal]

Shawn, I shot solid Impala bullets as well and no pressure signs ...yes, the waiting is difficult..but on the end you will have a great sought after caliber, even hunters owning a double rifle still wants to add the 404 Jeffery to their rifle collection..the 404 Jeffery is currently the fastest growing in demand rifle caliber ever...it is making a huge comeback since the bullets/brass/re-loading dies are available...it is the most versatile rifle to shoot , from a duiker to an elephant..and if you have a boat you can locate a whale and shoot it too..

 

[Neale]

Something interesting..here are two types of brass used in my 404 Jeffery, the one is a normal 404 Jeffery brass..the other one a .375 H&H Magnum brass fire formed to shoot in my 404 Jeffery...

Gert, be very careful with those fireformed 375 H&H cases as you will get case head seperation. Personally I would not use them at all.

 

[Gert Odendaal]

Neale, thank you..as pointed out I had to do it when I bought the 404 Jeffery since at that stage I was not able to source 404 brass. I currently am using new Hornady brass, these rounds was with my Hornady brass rounds and I thought it prudent to take a photo and show it as an interesting phenomenon. I did shoot these rounds extensively over the past four years with no head separation or cracked necks. I am currently using only my new Hornady brass . I will be purchasing another 50 x 404 Jeffery brass and that will last me at least another ten years....

 

[Neale]

Gert, You are certainly resourseful I do not think I would like to be shooting them but I suppose it was a matter of having little options. I remember a friend of mine that did cull deer hunting in NZ and he ran out of 30/06 rounds and continued the cull with 270 rounds. May not have been real effective.

 

[Gert Odendaal]

 

[Rule 303]

.416 (416 Rigby) 450 grain sectional density .371
.422 (404 Jeff) 450 grain sectional density .361
.458 (450 Rigby )550 grain sectional density .375
.505 (505 Gibbs) 600 grain sectional density .336
.510 (500 Jeff) 600 grain sectional density .330

As can be seen the .458 heavy for caliber bullets have the highest sectional density, however this is of no use in a 458 Win as one cannot use these bullets in it.

Anything over .300 sectional density is excellent for DG hunting.

With the jump up in frontal size and case capacity, which allows easy use of the heavy bullets at low chamber pressure, the two 500's are in a class of their own.

As mentioned before the only .458 I would personally use is a 450 Rigby, just a pity the 500 Jeff is so damn good I cannot justify it!

Thanks IvW.

 

[Rule 303]

10.75 x 73 = 404 Jeffery (.423)
10.75 x 68 = 10.75 x 68 ( .423)
Woodleigh needs to explain this to me..I really would like to know how they get the same bullet diameter different from each other????

.423in= 10.74420mm

Woodliegh reloading manual has this to say
"When, first designed, the barrel specifications called for a 0.410" bore with a 0.418" groove diameter firing a 0.422 bullet. The chamber throat was designed to size the bullet down as it entered the rifling." Apparently this design was soon changed in favour of the bullet matching groove size.

As a side note Woodleigh FMJ's have a fairly thick steel cup and are .0005 to .001" undersized.

 

[DWB]

I have shot and hunted with 450gr Claw (Similar in shape to Woodleigh) Bullets in the 404 Jeff. I used them at 223ofps. (Developed with Quickload)

I actually asked Claw to develop them for me and a few friends.

Was a privilege to take the first ever animal with them as well. (Nice warthog sow)

The only other animal I shot with them was a young Zebra Stallion. Shot entered in the front of the chest and exited between the hind legs by the genitals.

They hit like Thor's hammer at both ends.

Stopped using them after I saw a hairline crack in my stock behind the tang.

 

[Rule 303]

You might have just need to relieve a bit between the tang and the stock. Now that the crack is there just have it repaired, relieve behind the tang, bed and cross bolt should do the job. Rugers and CZ's are notorious for not relieving behind the tang and causing the stock to split on heavy recoiling rifles.

 

[DWB]

Have already done all of the above.

Just haven't started using them again because I have enough 400gr components.

I leave the odd 450grainer in the ammo box for those guys that says the 404 doesn't kick

 

[Rule 303]

Have already done all of the above.

Just haven't started using them again because I have enough 400gr components.

I leave the odd 450grainer in the ammo box for those guys that says the 404 doesn't kick

 

[John A Flaws]

One of the pigs that I shot about ten years ago with a 404 Jeffery loaded with a Woodleigh 400 gn soft had a devastating exit wound. I did not find any traces of jacket but the exit wound looked like the bullet exploded. I have used Woodleigh bullets in calibers from .318 to 500 on wild pigs and never seen it ever happen again.

 

[DWB]

Is it not because you hit a piece of spine that shattered out like that?

On a lighter note.... I guess the pig didnt go far

 

[Gert Odendaal]

John, You hit a piece of spine and it shattered the whole top piece , that is why you got that large wound....the bullet broke up in small pieces taking a lot of soft tissue upwards ...
Here is a great video where something similar happened to a buffalo...the bullet went through the right side of the lower face, graces the brain( very near the brain) that lay low in the back of the scull and through the spine in the back of the neck..
a dramatic shot ....

 

[IvW]

404 Jeff wins

 

[steve white]

I would be somewhat concerned with a bullet blowing up on merely a pig. Had a nephew shoot a deer with 375 H&H and just made a torn up 1.5 inch pass through. The deer ran about 40 yds. so I don't think the bullet met enough resistance to do all it could have done. That is why I am surprised to see such a wound on as light an animal as a pig. Would the spine offer more resistance than deer ribs?

 

[EfRed]

By the way, an aside...pushed from the same case, with the same powder charge, a larger diameter bullet of the same weight will always yield more velocity. It's a bigger piston, therefore more energy gets transferred to the projectile (not to mention that the twist rate is generally less, a not insignificant distinction as better than 25% of the energy released via combustion is consumed in bringing the bullet up to rotational speed...this is why ultra-velocity projects, wherein one is trying to attain the greatest projectile velocity possible, always involve non-rifled bores...some of these get surprisingly close to the gas velocity, which is on the order of 7,000 fps...which is why muzzle brakes can be so effective (F=ma -> consumed powder in the form of a gas escaping the muzzle at around 7,000 fps)).

I like your mention of bullet cross-sectional area as determiner of velocity. I think its not the powder charge that influences velocity so much as a hypothetical "average residence pressure, P*", acting on the bullet while its still in the barrel. Force = mass x acceleration and in this instance Force = pressure x cross-sectional area, and the acceleration can be expressed in terms of barrel length and muzzle velocity. Leaving out the effects of bullet interaction with barrel, p* x bullet cross-sectional area = a function of bullet mass, muzzle velocity, and barrel length. Peak chamber pressure is limited by rifle design. P* may be optimized through powder design to approach peak pressure; Speer has used a recently-developed Alliant powder to drive a 180gr 35 Whelen bullet to well above 3100 fps - far better than when using older powders, indicating a closer approach of P* to the rifle design pressure. The powder design optimization must consider case internal volume and shape, so differs from cartridge to cartridge. With perfect powder optimization, all the old talk about one cartridge's velocity being higher than another will be reduced to a discussion of bullet mass, bullet construction, bullet cross-sectional area, and the rifle's peak design pressure. Of course, twist matters too.