Hello,
I am new to this forum and to the .416 Rigby, but not to reloading. I want to inquire about others ideas on light loads for the .416 Rigby. I'm looking to load something on the order of a 300 grain bullet at roughly 1900fps. I have some RL 25 and RL 19 in my shop. Kind of a practice and/or deer round. Anyone willing to share thoughts and ideas...?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Gus

Hello Gustav,

a friend of mine has several old Mausers in .404 and .416. For our hunting conditions here with smallish roe deer and wild boar he has used powders in the burning rate range of Vihta N110 and SR4759 for his reduced loads and was quite happy with the results.

I do not know however the bullet weights he used but saw several roe deer he shot with his .416, quite impressive, dead on the spot, no meat wasted at all.

The heaviest clibers I "reduced" have been the .375 HH, 9.3x74 R and .338 WM so I still lack experience with the real big guns. I am still trying to convince a buddy to develop a "Euro driven hunt load" for his .470 NE.

If you want to go the "quick and easy way" look at the information Hodgdon has on their website on the "Trail Boss" powder. This seems to be basically foolproof if I may use that term at reloading.

You might want to get a copy of the Quick Load which helps a great deal to configure and chart out these unknown territories. Just don't use the slow powders you mention in your post, they might be dangerous.

Also Saúl Braceras has some information on this subject in his great book "The Express Rifle".