With all the threads on the 404 Jeffrey, maybe a little comparison would help.

To what may the 404 be compared?
The 404 Jeffrey compares to the 416Rigby something like the

303 compares to the 30-06.

The 303 has a slightly larger diameter with a smaller capacity than 30-06.
The 404 has a slightly larger diameter with a smaller capacity than the 416 Rigby.

Tarzan, I think it's more the allure of tradition with the 404 than pure ballistics. It speaks Africa.

There are rules to be applied when starting this type of discussion, which we should all follow, as presented in the link below:

https://datadeb.files.wordpres...pples-to-oranges.pdf

Besides, anyone who hunts in Africa may want a 404 Jeffery, but none of them are looking for a .303 British. Comparing a cartridge than no one wants to the most used cartridge in history and then contrasting with two cartridges of appeal to a minority of Africa hunters, one of which requires an action of unusual size, loses all pertinence when simplified to diameters and powder capacity.

I just commissioned a 404 Jeffery. I finally had enough money to pay for the work. It helped that I have been collecting: an action,a stock, and now a barrel. I also have two 416 Rigby rifles, both CZs. One is done up nicely, the other has been my go to work truck gun for fifteen years. I don't find too many differences between the two calibers. There is a difference, however in the two types of guns. My 416 Rigbys are built on stout actions. They are full sized rifles writ large.

The 404 on the other hand is being built on a Winchester action attached to a lighter stock, and a slightly more svelte barrel. The Rigby hands like a goose gun: get it swinging, and you can track an animal nicely. I suppose the 404 will be more like a nicely balanced quail and grouse gun. The 416 has solid and slightly stodgy folding leaves on its rear sight base. I plan to put a lighter, skeleton rear sight with a vertical fiberoptic post paired with the front sights fiber optic bead.

I run the Rigby (and my 416 Remington Magnum) at 2,350 fps. the 404 Jeffery will run at 2,250. The guns will all put down animals quickly. They always have, and always will. The 404 was always more practical, and hence, more popular in its heyday than the Rigby was in those same years. I will never get to hunt Africa. I pray that my rifles will make the trip for me. Just working on them has been a real treat. So which one do I truly love? That's easy, my soon to be christened 9.3x70mm Expert Magnum (DWM 569).

What a great well thought out topic by all four posters.

Tanz, I thought the comaparison was really good; larger diameter, smaller case capacity. And as a cartridge comparison, it was valid and a neat idea I thought, and that is all that I read into his post; diameter and case capacity.

However, both Wink and Lawndart brought up other valid points I think, if the comparison was to be carried to other aspects, like performance on big game and handiness of the rifles so chambered. I think both were spot on with performance. I see little difference in a 400 gr. bullet at 2250 vs. 2350 fps. Both the 404 and 416 can be loaded faster than their traditional velocities, but for me at least, it's a non-issue, as I do not want to hunt with a 400 gr. bullet at 2,700 fps. Others do, and they can then load hotter or use a 416 Weatherby. I run my 404 at 2300fps.

As to handiness, I love my 404 Jeffery. It's a Dakota Safari that weighs 8.5 lbs. I own a Dakota 416 Rigby African, and (3) Ruger 416 Rigbys, all which weigh in the 9.5-10.5 lb. range. I don't mind the recoil of any of them, as they are gentler than my 458 Lott, 470 Capstick and 505 Gibbs. But the carry weight of that 404 is a dream to me; perfect balance of carry weight and recoil management.

I suppose it's also how one thinks of a 40 caliber hunting round. For some, it's an all rounder, like a 375. With a scope, a 40 can pull short range DG as well as longer distance PG hunting. But for me, a 40 cal. and higher is just a DG round. That's probably because I do not scope my rifles above 375. But for a small bore rifle, like the aforementioned 303 and 30-06, I also want long range if I need it, so I choose the 30-06. Here is where some would differ with the comparison the OP made, if you go beyond just diameter and case capacity. However, he did not.

Great ideas from all of you! And Biebs, I agree, just on a purely personal preference: I love the history of the 404 as well. It speaks to me, but those are just my ears...

quote:

but none of them are looking for a .303 British.

Wink, I've seen a lot of 303's in Africa. (peut-etre il s'agit de l'anglophonie.) I've even heard it said that the 303 has probably taken more buffalo and wounded more buffalo than any other calibre. Can't testify to the truth of that statement since it represents generations before me. As for the 404, I've been around them but never hunted with one myself. I would not consider myself undergunned, but I do have a preference for the Rigby. As for the 30-06, it, too, has had a lot of experience in Africa, some good, some not so--when pushed to DG, but Hemingway seemed to like it.

Finally, I just like the way certain cartridges feel in the hand and certain classic shapes.

Ive used the 404 and 416 for many years, the only difference is nostalgia, they perform equally in every respect..I lean towards the nostalgia, those without nostalgia are missing so much of the lure of Africa or have I exposed my feminine side!

I've always considered the 416Rigby to be nostalgic on its own basis.

The 416 Rigby IS Africa, and the 404 Jeffrey equally so.

+

For some nostalgia, here is an excerpt from American Rifleman Sep 16,2010
"Harry Selby's Rifles: Selby, a keen enthusiast of rifles and ballistics, formed opinions based on his experiences"
...
We start with Harry’s early hunting rifles from his boyhood during the 1930s on the family farm astride the equator near Nanyuki, just west of Mount Kenya. “My first rifle of all was a little Browning .22 rimfire made in Belgium by Fabrique Nationale. It’s amazing the number of animals I killed with that little rifle, the largest being a waterbuck.” A waterbuck, by the way, is roughly the size of an elk. Harry also recalled using his .22 on deer-size game, including impala, Thompson’s and Grant’s gazelle, and predators like jackal, serval cat, and wildcat.

“My next real rifle was a .303, a British Army rifle, but not the normal .303 Lee-Enfield. It was what they called a Pattern 14, which was the made in America in .303 during the First World War. They were very accurate rifles. Parker Hale put a special peep sight on this one, and that was really the rifle I used most of my youth.” Sporting ammunition was impossible to buy during the years just before and during World War II, so they made due with full-metal-jacketed military ammunition. “Whatever we could get, even tracer bullets,” said Harry.

...
Jack Block, the managing director, said, ‘Look, a friend of mine has a super-grade Rigby double .470 and he doesn’t use it. Shall I buy it for you?’ I said, ‘Well, it depends on what he wants for it.’ He bought that thing for me for 100 East African pounds!” At the time, this was the equivalent of approximately $300. Today, that rifle, used, would sell for upward of $40,000.
...
"I was cruising up the Grumetti River one evening and we saw a buffalo way out in the open grassland. We left the car and stalked over across a bit of swamp where we caught up to the buffalo. He was quite good, so we decided to take him. After we shot him, the driver had to go way back to bring the car around. Meanwhile, we rolled the buffalo over and started to take the cape off. There were no trees at all, so we just put our rifles down in the grass.
“I heard a car in the distance and thought it was our car. What happened is that Donald was coming up the other side and saw the vultures overhead and came over to see what was going on. He drove right over the barrels of my .470, bending them beyond any possible repair. Fortunately, the safari was just about over, so when it arrived in Nairobi he set about trying to find another double, preferably another .470 if possible, but all he could find was a .416 Rigby.”
...
At this point alert Ruark readers are thinking, “Aha! The famous .416,” and you’re exactly right. This is the rifle Ruark made famous in “Horn of the Hunter” and Harry used for more than five decades.

“I knew the cartridge by reputation, but nothing really prepared me for the impression that I got from using that rifle—the immense knockdown, the ease of handling, the flat trajectory. In a very short time I didn’t want another double. I thought that .416 was a perfect professional hunter’s rifle. It’s been with me the rest of my hunting career. I did eventually wind up with a double .450 No. 2 just as a backup, in case something went wrong, but I hardly ever used it.”

Harry’s .416 was somewhat unusual in that Rigby built it on a standard Mauser action instead of a magnum action. Fitting the standard action to a cartridge the size of the .416 Rigby required removing metal at both ends of the action, a point that worried Harry at first. “But then again,” he noted, “I had no option so I took it, and that standard action worked perfectly for all the 50 years I used it.”

Harry’s .416 was also unusual in one other respect: It was right-handed and Harry is left-handed. “I can’t shoot a left-handed rifle,” he said. “If someone gave me a left-handed rifle I would fumble, I wouldn’t know what to do.”

As with most heavy rifles carried by professional hunters, Harry’s Rigby had fixed open sights: a wide “V” rear sight and a fine bead front sight. Harry mentioned, however, that he also liked Lyman peep sights and used them on several of his other rifles. “I’m a great proponent of the aperture sight,” he said. “Until the scope came along, it was the most accurate sight you could use because you had the longest sighting plane. I found them very fast in the thick bush.”

Harry never used a scope on his .416, but did use them on his light rifles in his later years, and he strongly recommended them for clients. “If you’re going to try and kill an animal, try and kill it cleanly. There’s no doubt about it, you are more accurate with a scope.”

I asked him whether, as he looks back over 50 years of adventures with his .416, any one shot stands out as particularly memorable. “Well, I remember on one occasion a lady hit a leopard and it took off toward a gully. A lot of professional hunters carried a shotgun in a leopard blind but I didn’t because you never knew, sometimes a lion, rhino or elephant would come wandering past. So on this occasion I had my .416 and when the leopard took off it went into this little patch of bush in the gully. As we came walking up, the leopard did a remarkable thing. Instead of holding, it broke from the gully and ran up a steep rocky incline at about 100 yards, going like a streak. I let fly with the .416 and rolled him just like that. A very lucky shot. My trackers eventually, I think, had more faith in that .416 than they did in me. ‘Skitini’ they called it—they couldn’t pronounce ‘416.’ I just had to point it, they thought, and Skitini would do the rest.”

...

I was curious about Harry’s recommendations to clients. “A lot would depend on what they’re after,” he says. “If they wanted everything from impala to elephant, I’d say start off with something like a .270 Win. or 7 mm Rem. Mag., then a .338 Win. Mag. or a .375 H&H Mag., and then if you were a magazine man I’d say a .416, and if you were a double man the .450s and .470s are all so similar, really, there’s not much difference between them. For a one-rifle safari, the .375 H&H Mag. is the only choice. No finer cartridge has ever been developed.”

Ray, I think you and I would agree with Selby on the practicality of the 338, too.

I would never disagree with Harry Selby on that particular subject..BTW he also doted on the .375 H&H as do most of the greats of the day. Who used such and such caliber is certainly a large part of the nostalgia story. To hunt where they walked, to camp where they camped, the guns they used, its all part of a great era..those that don't feel that in the dark continent are losing a great deal of the experience..

The 416 Rigby is a standard barer of the nostalgia group, even though few were actually used back then and Rourke made it famous..The .404 was more of the working mans rifle and issued to game depts. mostly by FN. An affordable rifle that farmers could purchase., much the same can be said about the .375.

The .425 WR with its fine feeding clips and extended magazine always amazed me and it fed like poop through a goose in every one Ive played with...Love that one, but alas its history has never been validated to any great degree..