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From my point of view Holland and Holland never had a clue how to design a cartridge and this one follows that pattern.

The inadequate shoulder fails to provide adequate headspace control thus the cases stretch at their weakest point.

The belt does nothing to improve feeding.

And in general the products of H&H are a complete waste of money. If you have that kind of cash for a gun buy something thats designed right for 1/10 the amount and donate the rest of the money to the NRA.

If you're a Holland & Holland fan and prefer rifles of that make, then I could very easily see the attraction of this new .400 H&H cartridge. For a lot of guys, British rifles and the great Holland & Holland name in particular bespeak "Africa" better than anything else.

Personally, I'm firm in the conviction that first-class America custom gunmakers produce the very finest magazine rifles every created, and neither Holland & Holland nor any of the other great British can touch them from any standpoint of consideration, other than possibly some romantic angle. I also think that the .416 Remington is a more practical proposition than the .400 H&H will ever be.

Savage99, the incredible track record of the superb .375 H&H cartridge alone sort of blows your theory all to hell and gone.........

AD

Alf

You seem to always have the news about new guns and so on. How do you do that

Think some more. The .375 H&H is just the right bullet going at the right velocity for bullets available in the past.

If Holland and Holland had a clue about cartridge design they would have made a rimless cartridge that would headspace right and make it shorter also.

This is now the 21's Century and it's about time we passed by H&H excursion into No Clue Land.

As to the .375 H&H it's all moved in and everything. As Ray Atkinson said he hunts with like new brass so the inferior belted design will function like that. But lets not keep breeding these belts.

We already beat the crap out of the .400 H&H on the big bore forum.

My two comments are this -

1. H&H introduced their .375 in 1912. It only took them 91 years for someone at H&H to come up with the brilliant idea to neck it up to .411". I cannot wait to see what the next colossal step forward for H&H will bring. Maybe in another 50 years they will decide to get rid of the friggen belt.

2. This is worse that the short mags and ultra mags because H&H didn�t even bother to create a new case for it!!! From a wildcat perspective, the .400H&H is completely useless.

For a company as well founded as H&H, this effort hardly is worth mentioning. I hope this is not the best that H&H can produce...

Ah, the belt bashers are in force today!! Ho hum, we will completely do away with the belt, based on their expertise, then a century from now the same lot of gun nuts will rediscover the belt and it will be the rage of the new century, it will headspace on the belt so cases will easily slide into a DGR chamber and it can have enough taper to extract without leaving the other half of the partially seperated case in the chamber, viola! all prayers have been answered....No more the beltless case, the belt rules in the year of 2050....Gun nuts! but what would we do without them.

Oh well, poop happens...For my part I will continue to hunt dangerous game with or without a belted case, I use a 404 Jefferys and a 416 Rem, and both seem to work the same and strech the same, ( yes, the 404 has an eternal trimming problem ) Tapered cases go with trimming, fact of life, but they do extract when things go wrong.

I find that neither is a real problem and all this conversation on the belt is somewhat related to the Bison vs. Cape Buffalo thread in that it has no substance, nor pat answers, just opinnionated opinnions...is that one n or two? Well, I wouldn't know about the opinnionated type of individual, for I am pure as driven snow and open to all suggestions, but ya'll know that.

I also find knocking the 375 H&H, 400 H&H, 416 H&H, 416 Rigby, 404 Jefferys akin to 0-0=0.....

Have a good day

Alf,

The article's author was in error when he reported the cartridge as a .416", it is actually a .411". The factory ammunition from Wolfgang Romey will be loaded with the same Woodleigh 400 grain bullets that they load for the .450/.400.

The pictures in the article were nice though.

Holland's intention is to load to a lower pressure level than we see in the .416 Remington. African Hunter's editor Don Heath collects stories about pressure excursions of the .416 Remington in hot temperatures. He thinks the .400 H&H has the potential of displacing the .416 Rem in Africa, but he is definitely "wait and see".

jim dodd

For the record, I could give two flips about the belt.

The point is - H&H really did not exert a whole lot of expertise into engineering this cartridge. For a company which has truly been THE innovator in the industry for the past 168 years, and has continually produced some of the finest guns on the planet, I would have expected a whole lot more from them. Taking the 91 year old .375H&H design and simply necking it up and calling it �new� is ridiculous. They missed the �new� moniker about 90 years ago.

At least put a little effort into it. Design a new belted case if they are so sold on the belt. Just do anything other than recycle the same old worn-out design.

And the argument that the belt is necessary in a dangerous game caliber is simply laughable. Mr. Rigby proved that concept wrong too many years ago. The belt means nothing either way.

[ 01-21-2003, 23:16: Message edited by: Zero Drift ]

My, my! The .400 H&H is a powerful cartridge to engender this level of calumny.

I guess Winchester was wonderful in comparison to Holland with their "modern" .300 WSM. I would like to point out that Winchester got this cartridge by taking their rimmed .348 Winchester cartridge, and removing the rim. The "WSM" cartridges already existed as wildcats, which Winchester studiously refuses to acknowledge. And for cartridge historians the .348 Winchester was itself based on the .50-110 blackpowder cartridge of the 19th Century.

Holland bases their designs first on their house style, which here is belted cases for headspacing and gently sloping cartridges for feeding and extraction. Why all the anger over legitimnate engineering choices. As an engineer myslelf, I can understand what they are doing. I would like to see the engineering credentials on those damming their choices.

jim dodd

I'm definitely interested in H&H's "new" offerings. I've got to agree with Jim, not much new has been introduced in a long while. Not much that has been introduced has filled a niche that was void before the introduction. I mean shoot fire, the 7mm Rem Mag didn't do anything the old 275 H&H didn't, pretty much the same thing. I doubt very seriously that I would ever make it a priority to by a rifle costing as much as a mint H&H, but don't see why a rebarrel job would be so detested by the hunting community.

Speaking of being laughable, it is laughable that everyone, no matter which side of the fense they are on, so ardently deny the other sides value! I see nothing wrong with either school of thought, with the exception to the line ot thinking that denys the PROVEN fine record that the H&H case design has since 1912, because of some PC fad, when Both have been in the field takeing game for 90 plus years. The thought process seems to be, "If we deny it, then it will not exist"! Head in the sand, and all that!

There is nothing the slick side will do any better than the belted case. It is what happens when the bullet meets hide that counts! That's why they make Juicy Fruit, and double mint, everyone has a preference. If the Buffalo is on the ground, and the balistics were right, what difference does it make what the shape of the case is? The fact is, this cartridge is one that is easy to convert any 375 length action to, without undue magazine work. A very good example of this is, everyone's new fair haired baby, the 416 Rem Mag, built on the 375 H&H case. It generaly give one more round in a standard magzine than any of the Rigby dirivatives, yet does very good work for the job
a hand.

The fact remains, the cartridge IS new, and IS Holland & Holland, and will work quite well, whether any one likes it or not! Why all the anger, nobody is going to force anyone to buy, or shoot it! As Allen says no matter how loud one screems, he will not drown out the sound of success of the 375 H&H case design, or, in fact, the 375 H&H it's self. It simply is one of those cartridges that does everything it attempts well, and is as versatile as any cartridge ever developed. I couldn't care less if anyone likes the 400 H&H, I do, and I will convert one of my 375 H&H bolt rifles to this cartridge. As far as I know, that will not take one penney out of anyone elses pockets. So what's the fuss?

Mac,
Isn't that what I said, sorta???

I will say the 300 H&H is a better design than the 300 Win. with the 300 Win.'s short neck that takes up powder space by having to seat heavy bullets too deep, then there is the 458 another poor design that won't hold enough powder, and the WSM also requiring deep seating and removal of needed powder space...so lets not get on to H&H about design faults..Please call a spade a spade.

But the bottom line is, I have no problem with any of the calibers, I do know their short comings and their good points, but they all work "well enough" to satisfy me. I have used all of them but the new stuff that just came out and I doubt that I will ever use any of them as I'm satisfied with what we have...

I have no problem at all with what H&H is doing here, it's just a shame they didn't do it 15yrs ago! The bit about loading to lower pressure is suspect, IMO. The article clearly stated they "slightly" exceeded their intended MV when the first run of ammo hit 2500fps! Everyone blasts the 416Rem for operating at too high of pressure, and it's loaded to a factory spec of 2400fps. If H&H loads their 400 to this level, which is what I gather they intend to do, it will be no better, or worse, than the 416 Rem. What will truly make or break this new offering is if any of the big ammo companies start loading for it, IMO.

JohnS,

Russell Wilkin Holland's Technical Director told me that they were surprised at the velocity from their first batch of "factory ammunition" from WR. His intention was to test it with more than one chronograph, and to reduce the loading in the next lot.

jim dodd

Reduce it to what level? Unless they go all the way down to 2200fps they aren't going to be able to market it as a "low pressure" cartridge, and be truthful about it! The only true low pressure 40cal is the 416 RIGBY, especially if one looks at how current 404 and 416Rem ammo is loaded. I personally hope they load it to equal the Remington, that's an ideal velocity and it's been proven for about 90yrs now.

/

Some gun scribe said the 416 was operating at too high a pressure and was causing problems in Africa...

That is pure crapola, he was probably overloading it, or felt his 416 Rigby was being threatened....I have used the 416 Rem for a long time and I have never had a hint of pressure and I don't know anyone that has, none have that hunted with me and a heck of a lot of them used the 416 Rem for Buff....most in fact...I nor any of my PH's have witnessed such...

If, in fact, anyone has I would like for them to be more specific as to the causation...like what load, condition of the gun etc..temp....A lot of things can cause pressure jumps.

Ray,

I know you have read Don Heath's article in African Hunter v7#6 Lessons Learned --Rifle Lessons learned from the Zimbawe Professional Hunter Proficiency Exam.

Anyway once more into the breech,

"Another disquieting fact about the .416 Rem cartridge is beginning to show. Inexplicable pressure problems in the occasional factory round. As mentioned under the Remington rifles, the model 700's in .416 seem to break extractors with unreasonable regularity. Is this due to pressure problems with the cartridge as much as design failure of the rifle? I have seen stuck cases and had to beat the bolts open on other makes of rifle chambered for this round before this last exam. Nimrod cartridges also tell me that they have had great difficulty coming up with a good load for the .416 Rem due to the occasional pressure spike. PMP in South Africa reported likewise."

I ordered a .416 Rem from the Custom Shop as soon as the cartridge was announced. I fired this rifle with Remington factory ammunition, and the extractor failed on shot number three. I figured it was a component quality problem, but perhaps not.

jim dodd