I’ll say right up front that I have no experience reloading and I don’t yet own a rifle chambered in .416 Rigby. This is just a potential idea for the future.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the .416 Rigby, with handloads, could be a very versatile cartridge. With a 300 grain bullet, you could download it to .44 Magnum levels, or even between .44 Special and .44 Magnum (say, 300 grains going 1,000 fps = 666 ft-lbs of muzzle energy). With a 400 grain bullet going 2,400 fps, you could get the full 5,115 ft-lbs of muzzle energy that this caliber offers (Wikipedia claims up to 5,600 ft-lbs but I don’t think those are offered anymore; but, maybe you could still load it up that high yourself - 400 grains going 2,515 fps = 5,617 ft-lbs). And, you could get anything in between, thus covering a broad range of potential targets, anything from soda cans to elephants.
It seems to me that the light loads wouldn’t wear and tear the brass very much, so you could reload the cases many times, mitigating the generally high cost of this cartridge.
Am I missing some huge disadvantage to downloading a big cartridge (the advantage being the potential to fully load it up later)? Would there be any disadvantage to downloading it that significantly?
Thanks.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the .416 Rigby, with handloads, could be a very versatile cartridge. With a 300 grain bullet, you could download it to .44 Magnum levels, or even between .44 Special and .44 Magnum (say, 300 grains going 1,000 fps = 666 ft-lbs of muzzle energy). With a 400 grain bullet going 2,400 fps, you could get the full 5,115 ft-lbs of muzzle energy that this caliber offers (Wikipedia claims up to 5,600 ft-lbs but I don’t think those are offered anymore; but, maybe you could still load it up that high yourself - 400 grains going 2,515 fps = 5,617 ft-lbs). And, you could get anything in between, thus covering a broad range of potential targets, anything from soda cans to elephants.
It seems to me that the light loads wouldn’t wear and tear the brass very much, so you could reload the cases many times, mitigating the generally high cost of this cartridge.
Am I missing some huge disadvantage to downloading a big cartridge (the advantage being the potential to fully load it up later)? Would there be any disadvantage to downloading it that significantly?
Thanks.