Gentlemen, I have a few questions to the forum.

First question:
What is the reason for the belt on the 375HH and other magnums?
Advantage? & Disadvantage?

Second question:
Is the 404 Jeff. in the same pressure category as the 416 Rigby?

//voyager

The belt was developed to provide a solid headspace point on cartridges with small heavily tapered shoulders. The belt isn`t neeeded on most of the cases that wear it but is a hold over from original design.
I can`t help with your second question, sorry.....

Re: pressure in .404 Jeffery vs .416 Rigby.

According to John taylor in his book "African Rifles and Cartridges", the .404 Jeffery is loaded to a pressure of 16 Tons and the .416 Rigby is loaded to 17 Tons. Whether that is standard or metric tons, I don't know, but suspect it is the latter.
Paul B.

The belt was introduced on H&H's 375 and 300 magnums as a method of headspacing that would allow a round to feed like a rimless case from the magazene, but not require the shoulder to headspace on. This allows a case to sized so that even with some debri on the case, it will easily feed and still headspace. As such it is a very thoughtful design feature, and works just as designed.

It is very expensive to tool up to produce totally new brass, so most "new" cartridges are developed by changing the dimensions of existing brass cases. Since the basic belted case provided a signifigant increase in powder capacity over the basic X57 -06 brass, and could be made to feed out of the same common bolt actions, it was the case of choice in the 50's and 60's to provide increased performance without dramatic tooling costs for another larger parent case.

It is popular to say belt is useless or a problem for the various short magnums, ie .264 win, 7mm rem mag, 300 win and 338 win. Most of complaints are related to rifle makers providing sloppy chambers, and reloaders carelessly setting their sizing dies. There is no problem with case failures or accuracy with properly sized chambers and brass. Any cartridge whether rimless, belted or rimmed will have problems with sloppy chambers and improperly sized brass.

I always was told that the belt was so the cartridge could be used in a double rifle, so as to allow extraction

Belted cartridges were designed for magazine rifles, not double rifles.

Double rifle cartridges are rimmed and opperate at mild pressures.

There are some abomination double rifles that have been chambered in high pressure belted cartridges, but we won't go there.

And of course for straight cased big bores
the belt really works great for headspacing.
Cases like 450 Marlin, 458Win, 458 Lott, 458HE, 470 Capstick(same as 475OKH),
495 A-SQ, 550 Mag, 550 Express, 600 OK,
700HE. From long to short straight cases,
the belted design does the job. Ed.

quote:

Originally posted by voyager:
...the belt on the 375HH and other magnums? Advantage? & Disadvantage?...

A huge advantage is if you happen to be a M70 fan, the cases are built stronger and thicker right at that portion of the Case. This helps eliminate the possibility of Case-head separations and the gas following the M70's poor gas-handling design straight into your eye. The new WSM and WSSM cases have been made stronger in this critical to a M70 area as well. Of course, a person can set the Full Length Sizer Die up incorrectly, and increase the potential for the Head Separation.

The only disadvantage I know is you might get "1 less" cartridge in the magazine if the case is Belted compared to non-belted. To some folks that is significant, but I've never seen it as a problem at all.

All the other problems attributed to the Belt can happen with any cartridge.

first there was the rim
this was also called the flange

and it was good in single shots and double rifles..

than comes the lever gun...
it could handle the rim or flange very well, and was a repeater,

and this was good

then comes the bolt gun

and the rim causes a nightmare for feeding....

so they took the rim away
this was very good, for it gave us the 8x57

then, when time was right, we need bigger smarter rounds...

rounds that would fit a bolt gun
rounds that could headspace on a bolt gun
rounds that didn't need a bolt 1.0" in diamter...
these rounds proudly used their shoulders to indicate were they should be counted

so, some wise ass jerked the rim up around the bottom of the waist of a round...

so, rather than standing on a flange
they stood wearing a belt

the flange is still there, just worn about the waist like a hula hoop!!!


Or, to answer your question, it's there for headspacing, just like the rim

jeffe

Paul H,
Good intelligent posting on the subject...

Belt bashing is the result of folks that read to much gunworld trash...