416 help

[Ryanelson]

Glad you’re looking at 375HH - it is a great choice. Find a nice win 70 and throw some good glass on it and you are all set.
I shot my first buff with a 404 Jeffery and a 400 grain aframe. Shot my second buff with a 375HH and a 300 grain aframe - same result. Plus I used the 375 for about everything else last trip - kudu, eland, sable, wildebeest, baboons, impala…. It’s a great one gun choice.

All has already been said, Ryanelson, so let us summarize

Muzzle brake. No. Period. Just a few shots without hearing protection, as will inevitably happen sooner or later on the hunt, from a braked .416 Wby will damage - as in destroy - your hearing (and your PH's and tracker's) for life. That is a fact.

.416 Wby
Do you intend to shoot DG at 200 yards? Your PH will not let you.

Do you intend to hunt PG with the .416 Wby. You will not do it for long.

Does energy kill? Well, you can make a point that at the precise systolic point the heart valves are open, the shockwave can travel to the brain, but you can hardly control the cardiac rhythm of your Buffalo. So forget about the shock effect. You may get it at random from the slowest .416 out there and you may not get it from the Wby. Or vice versa.

As long as Weatherby exists, they will offer .416 Wby ammo.

.416 Rem
Great cartridge. Beware the high pressure though. Many a story about .416 Rem Win 70 or Rem 700 with a stuck action in Africa in the early days. I understand that commercial ammo has been discreetly downloaded just a bit to avoid that.

This has become the #2 standard .416 in Africa after the Rigby. Ammo is here to stay.

.416 Rigby
Are you a millionaire? Go with a modern Mauser or Rigby. Best rifle. Best cartridge. Low pressure, and you can load it up to Wby level if you so whish (heck! it is the very case that Roy added a belt to).

Are you of modest means? Find yourself a used CZ550 in .416 Rigby. With just a bit of TLC you can get yourself in a couple hours, or in the hand of a competent smith, the functional equivalent of a genuine Rigby. Remember, Rigby used to build their own rifles on the CZ550 action when the big Mauser magnum was out of production.

The ammo almost disappeared, but luckily Ruger and Hornady together resurrected the caliber. Ammo will be available for the foreseeable future.

.416 Ruger
Same pressure issue as the .416 Rem. Available in a lot less rifles. Ammo availability questionable after the current fashion of "short" calibers.

Unless you are a Ruger-only type of guy, I fail to see the attraction. I personally was turned off by Ruger faking a CRF bolt on their rifles (corrected since), and continuing to fake a bolt-mounted 3 position safety (still the case), but I begrudgingly agree that Ruger are generally solid rifles.

.416 Taylor (necked down .458 Win)
Not a bad idea. But purely a custom rifle and reloader proposition. I would not shy away from a good used Taylor, built by a reliable smith with a decent name, and sold for half or a quarter of its original price.


If I were you, Ryanelson, i would look for:

1) Used Mark V in .416 Wby because this is what you want (they pop up from time to time on Gun Broker and Guns International, and there is not a big market for them so they are generally not very expensive),. Unscrew and throw away the brake.

2) Used CZ550 .416 Rigby.

3) Win 70 .416 Rem.

Example:

View attachment 629573


PS: all of this being said, .416 hits noticeably harder than .375, but it is no stopping caliber. So the real logical progression to a stopper is not so much .375 to .416, but .375 to .458 Lott. Just food for thought...

Yeah I’ve been watching that gun. To many options. So good points made to just find a 375. I have a custom 45-70 with suppressor I would like to take for my other animals. For no other reason than I love the gun!

 

[375Fox]

I’m actually looking at 375’s. Big bore in general are a tough find. I am going to bare foot safaris. I don’t go till June of 26. I just want to get it so I can be very comfortable with whatever gone I take.

Take a look at this article. It has some good information on 375 results.

Thread 'Is Bigger Always Better?'

Dec 7, 2020

I thought this group may enjoy this article I wrote in the latest African Gazette.
A link to that particular issue (of which Divan Labuschagne, one of our great PHs, also took the cover picture):

Let me know your thoughts....

• ndumo HUNTING SAFARIS
• Replies: 36
• Forum: Articles

• 

Here are two really good podcasts as well. They are on apple and Spotify too.

 

[C.W. Richter]

When I posted my son's article from ahg it was removed promptly as if it was some sort of competition with this website

 

[BryceM]

For me the right answer was a .416 Rigby in CZ 550, 1.5x5 scope, quick-detach mounts, and 400gr Barnes TSX handloads at 2400 fps. Low pressure, easy feeding & extraction, tolerable recoil, and big enough for ele, should the occasion arise. I love the nostalgia of the .416 Rigby, and I took the time to learn to shoot it well. It is a different beast that can hurt you if you don’t use good technique, but it isn’t all that bad once you figure it out.

Maybe it isn’t a “stopper” but that’s what the PH is there for. Besides, some might argue it penetrates better than a .450 or .470 NE on eles with good solids anyhow. Academic……. Mostly. Nothing wrong with a .375 either.

Don’t use a brake. They suck for everyone and everything except the trigger guy.

I grew up on Weatherbys. I used to love Weatherbys. I can see zero, and I mean ZERO reason to own a .416 Weatherby. They change a big nasty shove into a big, sharp, violent slap. I’d rather shoot the .416 Rigby than a .340 Weatherby every single day of the week. Forget the .378 and the .416, and for sure the .460.

Shot placement is 90% of the equation. All else being equal, go with that, whatever that means to you. Buffalo seem to get either one bullet or six.

I have done one DG hunt. Two critters. One buff and one ele. Other than at the range, I fired my rifle 2 times on that hunt. There was no guarantee that was how it was going to go, but it was pretty gratifying when it worked out that way.

I have some stupid nostalgic desire to hunt a buff or ele (or both) with a proper double, but that’s an itch for some future time.

 

[BRICKBURN]

When I posted my son's article from ahg it was removed promptly as if it was some sort of competition with this website

PM sent.