Dealing with a cavernous case like the Rigby allows plenty of "safety space". F'r instance, I started here by looking at loads for the .45-70....similar weight boolits in a MUCH smaller case.

Anyway, I made the decision to go with a VERY conservative 2400 load under that RCBS 365-grain .417" boolit.

18.0 2400 under dacrongave 1039 fps, es 53, Sd 22....and hangfires. Five rounds landed in 1.5" at 50 yards.

20.0 2400 w/dacron gave hangfires, 1056 fps, 79 es and 30 sd, grouping five in 0.8" at 50.

22.0 2400, dacron, ran 1155 fps, 45 es, 17 sd, "shorter" hangfires, and put five into 1.75" at 50.

24.0 2400 with dacron went 1212, es 50, sd 19, and ONE slight hangfire. Five rounds landed in one inch at 50.

26.0 2400, dacron, ran at 1344 fps, 37 es, 13 sd........and grouped FIVE ROUNDS IN 0.55" at fifty yards! No hangfires, either.

That was the end of today's 2400 series, and obviously I'm going to run it up a few more grains to see if the improvement continues. Pressures were still very low.

Now, all youse surplus-powder monkeys got me a good one today. I had two primed cases left over the other day, so thought i'd jes' try one of the things y'all have been talking about. Keeping in mind the strength of the#1 and rthe size of the case, I felt safe in douing the following, just like the surplus-burnin' boys do. I dropped 3.0 grains of 2400 in the bottom of each case, and filled it with 872 to the point where seating compression would hold the whole mess in place. Sounds familiar, right? Well, I scrooched down behinfd the rifle in Der Scvhuetzenwagen and touched one off......when the van and my senses stopped rocking, the chrono showed 2349 fps. By pure happenstance, I'd about duplicated the .416 Rigby factory load! Sure clears the sinuses off the benchrest, I assure you. An additional 1000 fps is quite a contrast from those other loads, too.

So...I'd call the reduced-power campaign to be showing real promise here. A Rigby loaded in this manner greatly resembles a .45-70, and that's pretty good company to hang around with. I see that the #1H Tropical is available in .405 Winchester, but have to ask, "Why?" The Tropical is a HEAVY rifle, and the .405 would seem to be a nicer outfit in the #1S like the .45-70.

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)

What kind of pressure did you get with the duplex charge? I have a M-77 .416 Rigby and want to try some cast boolits in it. Was thinking about 1800 - 2000fps. Maybe 3031?

Beau

Bruce, I'm glad to hear about your test. I found a load for 19 grs. Unique with 350 gr. lead bullet. I have loaded 5 rounds, but have not fired them. There was no listed velocity or pressure. Sounds safe enough. I will "stay tuned" for new information. I wish we lived closer. I have some interesting rifles that, I think, you would love to test. For instance, 416 on 45-70 case. Also, have .45 cal. muzzle loader that uses IMR 4198 in shortened .348 case. Let me know if you find out anything new. Thanks, Vince

Hi BruceB/Bren MKI. Cavernous case capacity, I guess! Your 2400 loads just reached what I used to consider maximum in a .45/70 before your powder started to burn completely. That Rigby case must be about two .45/70s worth of room. I see in this thread and the one about the 6.5 MS that you are using a lot of 2400. I use it for everything and even sprinkle it on my morning oatmeal. Regards, curmudgeon

This little powder monkey always sprinkles a moderate amount of IMR 7383 underneath a bulk loading of IMR 5010 and gets some relatively mild bump up effects in 8mm sized cases in doing so. The powder burn rates between the powders are not that drastically dissimilar after all.

However, please remember that a big enough mass of IMR 5010 in a large capacity bottle neck case tends to act like a big load of powder all by its lonesome - which is about what you got in your Rigby load.

Hi-Tech lists some factory stock speed range heavy bullet loads in 7mm Rem mag for some heavy "straight" IMR 5010 loads if you wanted a large capacity "yardstick cartridge" just to think about.

Since you been using one of Buckshot's favorite mil-surp powders H-872 as your bulk powder and are speeding it up with a PISTOL/SHOTGUN powder I'd have to think that maybe you are possibly monkeying around with some of Buckshot's mixed powder loads (although I don't remember him using a pistol powder to speed things up, but maybe he did and I just don't remember it).

I'd tend to use a moderate speed rifle powder as my "speed up" powder, that gives you a more gradual speed rise effect that would be easier to tune.

Oldfeller

[ 09-03-2003, 02:20: Message edited by: Oldfeller ]

Oldfeller is correct. Use a single base powder as a booster powder, because the immediate heat generated is considerably less. It is the heat that gets the big load of powder going, not the force of the "primer extending" powder blowing off steam. High forces too early in the game tend to destroy large stick, slower powder, single or double base, making the slower powder erratic in its burn from shot to shot. Using 4227 would be a better bet over 2400 as a primer extender. Preference, however, would be even slower still, like 4198 or 3031, or even 4895. ... felix

Thanks for the notes on kick-starting the slowburners, guys.

I really was just wondering if the WC782 load would run at a slow-enough velocity to make it useful for reduced-power fun loads. I have no intention of using it as a "regular thing", since IMR 4831 serves me so well for full-bull loads, cast OR jacketed. I have used 2400 in the past to accelerate ignition in other cases, and found it works rather well. Anyway, I won't be doing it again in this particular application. I take your point on using single-base accelerators, as well.

This morning I extended the 2400 series of loads in the .416 Rigby. Again, these used water-dropped RCBS 365-grain boolits, .417" with Javelina lube in all loads, and dacron fill in all loads, fired at fifty yards from a 24" barrel:

26.0 2400, (same as yesterday) gave slight hangfires and much wider ES than the last time. Bigger groups and ES may well be due to the hangfires. Velocity 1298, ES 175, SD 67. Five rounds landed in 1.5", 4 in 1.0".

28.0 2400 ran 1371, ES 86, SD 32, and put five in 0.9".

30.0 2400 gave me no chrono readings, and put five boolits in 1.5".

32.0 2400 left at 1543, ES 37, SD 14, and grouped five in a 1.5" horizontal hole.

34.0 2400 traveled 1602, ES 34, SD 12, and put five in 1.8", four in 1.1".

Pressures in all these loads are moderate.

22.0 UNIQUE, Vince, departed at 1353 with ES of just 15.8 and SD of 5.1.....this was a sample of seven rounds. Five of the seven grouped in a ragged hole at 0.9" and the other two were a tad high and spread it to 1.8" for all seven rounds. Pressures were moderate, and I plan to follow up on this. It may be that your thoughts about Unique at 1500 fps are quite practical. The ones you have already loaded are real creampuffs!

I'm using benchrest-style black-square-with-white-center targets for this work, and they are simply excellent with the scope I'm looking through. It's very easy to detect mis-alignments, and I'm confident in my shot calls..

Curmudgeon, how on earth did you come up with "giant stingray"??

I share your regard for 2400. Plans are in hand to try it out in some more calibers here at the "Ranch", notably the .338, .270, and .404. Haven't got as far as putting it on the Wheaties just yet. I'll keep you posted.....

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)

Bruce B., I didn't use any dacron in these rounds I loaded with the 19 grs. of Unique. Will this make a difference? This won't cause detonation, will it? I would like to keep this body for a little while longer. Thanks again for all your testing and information. Vince

Hey, Vince.....

No, I don't think you're in any danger.

In fact, I am right in the middle of loading up the next batch of Unique loads for the .416, and I was just considering loading a certain charge with AND without dacron, just to see how the consistency compares. Watch this space....

I just came in from my shed to "cook" some Lee 44-310s for the .404.... Mama's gone shopping so I'll sneakily use her oven while she's out. 'Bout an hour or so from now I'll have some HARD heat-treated .424s, ready for lube and gaschecks. They're already sized.

The .416 rifle is great fun to shoot at this reduced level. Still plenty of oomph, but it doesn't kick the blue bejabbers out of me, even on the benchrest. (I note that my last mention of that slow-burner 2300-plus load had the powder number wrong...it was supposed tp be WC872, not 782.)

If I don't get called-out, I'm gonna be firing some Unique loads tomorrow morning. BTW, you can get a fair idea of what loads will work in the Rigby by checking listings for the .378 Weatherby and .460 Weatherby. Same basic case, with a belt added. The current Lyman CB handbook ONLY mentions Unique for these two rounds. The handbook pre-dates the .416 Weatherby, which would be even closer. Interpolation is pretty easy in this case.

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)

BruceB, Once upon a time on the Shooters CB board I saw a post by duke in which he posted his real name, as in "ask the guy at the gun store if he remembers XXXX XXXXXX". Well, XXXX XXXXXX was the name of my long-lost junior high and high school classmate and fishing partner. I answered on that thread "duke, do you remember when we hauled the huge stingray off Berkeley pier on your Cushman? Here is my E-mail address." Of course, it was the real duke and we have picked up our friendship where it left off many years ago. Beginning with the Topaz shoot, through numerous adventures including last month's Montana trip and the desert camping and blasting trip scheduled for later this month, it's just like old times, but now we have two good 4WD pickups to replace duke's old scooter. The stingray was weighed in at 67 lbs. Though it was hooked on my rod, bringing it in was very much a group effort, requiring duke and a couple of bystanders to hook the beast with a rope gaff and pull it up some 10 or so feet. Some my ask what a stingray has to do with cast bullets. There is a direct connection in that thanks to the stingray I have more opportunity to shoot cast bullets. When Aimoo would not accept my curmudgeon handle, I used giant stingray as an alternative. Regards, curmudgeon

Bren Mk 1
Reloaders of the large Nitro Express double rifles face the same problems, ie very large cases. One technique for light loads is to use "Nitro for Black" loading techniques as outlioned in Graeme Wrights book "SHOOTING THE BRITISH DOUBLE RIFLE" second edition.
Basically you use IMR 4198 and a compressed Dacron wad. I also use a foam filler with excellent results. Start with 45grains of IMR 4198 with a compressed filler and your cast bullet. In my 450 No2 a 400gr cast bullet with 50gr of IMR 4198, 15gr. of dacron chrono'd 1822fps. with a 300grain jacketed bullet 52gr of IMR 4198, 15gr of dacron chrono'd 1878fps.
These type loads are designed so you can shoot smokeless powder in old Black Powder double rifles, thus they are low pressure loads.

...and here I sit at work, having indeed being called out. No range time today.

NE, that's interesting about the big double cartridges. In our case right now, I'm looking for a lighter load in the 1500 fps area due to a request from Vince in MO. I use both 4198 and dacron a lot, and find them to be valuable tools. I may well end up trying the 4198 later on,if the faster numbers don't work out.

I amy also go the opposite route and try 5010 or something like that. All options are open. It'll be a few days before I get a chance to test the latest loads.

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)

Hey, Vince;

Tomorrow I should be able to fire the next batch of Rigby test loads. I'm very curious to see how a pair of the Unique recipes compare with each other, since one has dacron fill and the other doesn't.

Time and weather permitting, I'll reload the next .416 series at the range, which will save a good bit of time....as long as I remember to TAKE everything I need with me! I have toget more .416 Rigby brass, but MAN, have you guys checked the price lately?

I'm running a semi-parallel work-up with the .404 and the Lee 315-grain .44 boolit (the weight in my alloy), these sized at .424". I've seen some promising signs with this combo and hope to isolate some good-shooting loads in the 1600-1800 fps area. I suspect a more-powerful scope than the current 2.5X may help with .404 groups. Maybe I'll scratch around and see what I have for sights which aren't bolted to a rifle just now. I KNOW I have an idle Tasco 36X target number, but that seems a bit of a mis-match with an elephant gun!

Should have something to report tomorrow evening.

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)

Curmudgeon, Tell me more about the desert campout coming up this month. Maybe Mrs ammohead and I could meet up with you and Duke for a couple of cold ones.

ammohead

Ammohead, Glad you showed up at last, I was afraid you had gone down with the ship at Shooters. Duke has alerted me for a weekend camping trip "later this month" and that is all the information I have. Typically, these trips involve lots of cast boolit shooting at distant rocks and targets of opportunity, good food (heavy on the meat, light on vegetables)cold ones, and invariably rain. I would be willing to bet that the venue will be Northern Washoe or Western Pershing County. Why don't you E-mail duke and see if you can set up a rendezvous? Made it to the range today with my latest CB shooter, a real bubbaized 1937 Czech Mauser. Rescue operations are well underway and results are promising with the 175 gr. Lee. The Buckshot 240 gr. boolit is proving to be a bit cantankerous. Should have it all sorted out in a few weeks and a full report will follow. Regards, curmudgeon

Finally made it to the range today.

I fired a series of Unique loads in the .416 Rigby #1 with the following results:

(All loads except ONE used dacron fill, all groups at 50 yards)

24.0 Unique ran 1308, extreme spread 28, standard deviation 11 fps. 5 rounds grouped into 1.0".

25.0 Unique went 1381, ES 138, SD 62. Group was 1.0" for five.

26.0 Unique WITH dacron gave 1355, ES 27, SD 11....LESS velocity than with 25.0 grains. Grouped five in 1.2", 4 in 0.75". No bad shots called.

26.0 Unique WITHOUT dacron increased the speed to 1443 average, ES sprawled to 131, Sd 53. 5 rounds snugged into 0.9". The speed increase was a surprise, but the ES increase was not unexpected.

27.0 Unique started out at 1498, ES 120, SD 58. This is about the speed Vince was hoping for. With all shots called good, the 5-round group extended to 1.5" in the vertical plane.

28.0 Unique runs 1530, ES 118, SD 45. 4 rounds landed in 0.60" and an uncalled flyer made the total group 1.4".

The extreme spreads are too wide for my taste, and it seems that occasional flyers appear at random. I am confident in my shot-calls. However, there are some signs of good accuracy here, and I may try some refinements with this powder.

Those four rounds at the 28.0 level, grouping in a horizontal ragged hole at 0.60", INCLUDED a shot I called slightly out to the right. It was, too....it just cut the right-hand edge of the existing ragged hole from three previous rounds!

Pressures in all loads were still moderate, even at 28.0 grains.

I think that a visit to the range with some 4198 loads may be educational.

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)

P.S. In the flaming boo-boo department, this morning I switched a Leupold variable from another rifle onto my .404 Mauser, thinking that some increased magnification (2x-7x, fine crosshair-and-dot instead of 2.5x-with-a-post-reticle) might help its grouping. Could be, but I couldn't prove it....when I went to load the .404, the bolt would not open because the bolt knob refused to pass the ocular bell on the scope! Did I feel dumb???? OOOOHhh yeah!

BB

On the same Monday that my Old Dear (6.5mm 1903 Mannlicher) gave such lousy performance, I was much gratified by how well the #1 in .416 was shooting.

This was the first "go" with IMR 4198 in this rifle, and it paid off big-time.

All loads used the water-dropped RCBS 365-grain boolit in straight WW, and dacron fill. The lube was Javelina and sizing was .417". The loads went from 40.0 grains IMR 4198 to 48.0 grains in two-grain steps(40,42,44 etc.)

Velocities started at 1580 and topped-out at over 1880 fps, with some single-digit readings for extreme spread and standard deviation. The remaining ES and SD figures were very low as well. Grouping was extremely good, being down into the minus-3/4" area for 5 rounds in some cases, and the final 9 rounds of the 48.0 load made a single hole of 0.80" at 50 yards! Subtract one bullet diameter, and this yields a group of about 0.40" for nine rounds, which is mighty good in my book. Pressures still seemed quite moderate with the 48.0 charge.

I'm going to re-run this series at one-grain increments to see if there's a real sweet spot somewhere in there. However, the whole bunch of these were pretty danged good.

I believe I'll try it with Federal 215s, too....I MAY have detected one ever-so-slight hangfire in the series, and maybe a hotter sparkplug will cure that. (Standard CCI 200s were used so far.)

This may just be zeroing-in on what might become my standard load for this great rifle. Oldfeller gave me the name for my Mannlicher.... any suggestions for naming this big singleshot?

Now for some 100-yard work to see what differences may show up....!

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)

Bruce B, I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the work you have done on this. I don't have the facilities, equipment, or know-how to do all these tests. I will try these loads in my rifle, soon, I hope. This is better than having a loading manual. My rifle has a 25+" barrel so my velocities may be a little different, but all I want is to be able to shoot without tearing up my shoulder. If you find out anything new, please post. I come here every night about this time to see what new loads you have tested and I want you to know that I (and probably many others!) "Thank You!" Vince

Vince, hang in there. There's more to come.

This whole .416 program is something that was going to happen whenever I got a round tuit, and I tripped over one of the elusive little gremlins when you posted the Unique question.

I'm really enjoying the process, doing something I should have done years ago. Having more than a very few rifles is a seriously mixed blessing in some ways. A wise caster on the Shooters' Board once said that a man could pretty well spend a lifetime of casting and loading for ONE rifle, and still not know everything about it. I think he was right.

Note that Duke (nevada duke on this Board) has largely abandoned all other handgun calibers in favor of his beloved .44s. Hmmm.....

Aaaaahhh....I'm far too fickle for that sort of dedication. I'm chomping the ol' bit here right now, waiting for the tooling and brass for the Ruger 77 in 7.62x39, which (I have no doubt) will engross me for some months to come. Just what I need, with rifles in many different calibers clamoring in the lock-up for fresh air and lead boolits.

Anyway, I have a ways to go with the .416, but these 4198 results are better than anything else to date in the sub-2000-fps velocity range. Give it a try, and I'd advise using Magnum primers from the get-go. I'm starting to believe that perhaps there's just too much volume in the case for standard primers, filler or no filler. That will be tested in the next outing, too.

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)