Anyone ever built a 416 Ruger to use the new VLD bullets available for the 416 Barrett?

I was wondering a couple of things:

1. Will the VLD 416 loaded rounds feed through an Accuracy International magazine system?

2. What length, weight and twist did you go with.

I was thinking about a 1 in 11 or 1 in 12 twist Krieger 30 inches long in an 9 or 10 contour.

You would be better served with the .416 Rigby case if you wanted to do something of this ilk. you have a slightly greater capacity. Or Better still the .408 cheytac case necked to .416.

Not really.

Do you shoot F-Class/Full Bore? In F-Open a lot of guys are shooting .308 Winchesters with 220-240 grain Sierras SMKs and Lapua Scenars. This is just a bigger version of that. Or a 6mm BR with a 107 grain bullet at 1000 yards. Bullet matters more than power.

The 408 Chey Tac and 338 Lapua based cases require a much bigger rifle to work properly. Building a 338 Lapua/416 Rigby on a Remington M700 can be done, but it's like putting a 5.7 Liter V8 in a Mazda Miata.

People get really hung up on power,

The hornady 450 match are real long. I have a 416-505 on a montana ph action. That fits well anything shorter than a rigby would be to short

Do you have a target velocity? What is your target bullet BC range? And are you leaning towards any one single bullet?

I'm also presuming that you're wanting to stay with the 3.6" magazine length? Though VLD bullets in the .416 Ruger would give better performance in a 338 Lapua length action.

No direct experience with this combo, but I understand your intent. Have you modeled this combo in quick load? What is your target velocity? Off the top of my head a 30 inch barrel seems too long. You will probably get a full burn inside of 28 inches with that case. What BC are you looking for?-Rob

Yes 3.6 Magazine length for a M700 or a long action Howa 1500.

The BC of the Hornady is .720. I think we can plan on a muzzle velocity of 2200-2500 feet per second.

I'll start with the barrel at 30, and see how it goes.

I am really hopeful they will feed out of a AICS magazine.

I also want work out a load with a solid copper vld from Barrett.

What do you think would be the correct twist, one in 12?

IIRC the .416 Barrett uses a 1:12" twist and gets a very long brass-monometal VLD 395-grainer/"400-grain" rebated boattail
up to 3250 fps in a 32" barrel.
Such barrel might last 2000 rounds burning all that powder.
Please correct if I am wrong off the top of my head.

Your velocity will be about 2/3 of that with a .416 Ruger, using a shorter barrel that will last forever by comparison.
You need to use a 1:8" twist at such low velocity to get similar RPS for similar accuracy with the same bullet.
I can personally vouch for .416 Barrett accuracy using their factory ammo in the Barrett M99.


IIRC, the .408 Chey-Tac uses a 1:13" twist with a 400-grain bullet at about 2900 fps, and that works OK.

You can get a BC of 1.050 with the 750-grain Hornady A-Max of .510 caliber.

How about a .510/.505 Gibbs with a 1:12" twist?
I am going to go lie down until that idea goes away from the top of my head.

I'd probably do a .375 Ruger instead and shoot the 350 SMK's. They have a higher BC than the 450gr Hornady and can be driven faster. There are quite a few other bullets available in .375 caliber with high BC's. Another case to consider (which is actually shorter than the Ruger) is the .338 Norma. It would require a bolt change in a Remington but it would still work.

@IdahoCTD, I already have a 375 Ruger heavy barreled varmint rifle. This is going to be it's big brother. Though quite a bit better designed, as this one only weighs 10 pounds.

@RIP, a 50 on the 408/505 case would be awesome, but would require a custom action, and a pain in the ass to do as a repeater. As a repeater 408 Chey-Tac action is a spendy bastard. That and weight would have to go up quite a bit.

A Swiss friend of mine has a magnum 10.3x416 Ruger barreled rifle he turns down copper VLDs for. His is a Ruger #1, which is pretty cool as he uses it for red deer and chamois in the alps. So weight is a huge commodity.

I want a light tactical/f-class hunter I can carry horseback or in a Eberlestock and use in the West, Namibia and Alaska.

quote:

Yes 3.6 Magazine length for a M700 or a long action Howa 1500.

The BC of the Hornady is .720. I think we can plan on a muzzle velocity of 2200-2500 feet per second.

I'll start with the barrel at 30, and see how it goes.

I am really hopeful they will feed out of a AICS magazine.

Ok this explains much.

I will cost you a bit more but I’d start with a M700 action (or similar aftermarket action) that was factory chambered in 270 Winchester to assure the rails are not opened two wide for the 3.6” COAL .416 Ruger to properly feed. Determine the 2-5 different bullets that you’ll be shooting so that your gunsmith can long throat the .416 Ruger chamber to chamber dummy rounds loaded with these bullets from the magazine. Also, you can use these same dummy rounds to measure the maximum ogive length of the dummy bullets to identify the freebore range required to chamber the cartridges while maximizing accuracy. And of course your gunsmith can use these same dummy rounds to work the rails to 100% feeding reliability from both sides of the magazine/rails.

Should work for you just fine.

My gunsmith is me.

I'll have to mess with the 300 Win AICS magazine and the 338 Lapua AICS magazine and see how they feed. Kind of figure out what I need for a seating depth based on that. If it won't run through a magazine it is pointless to deep throat it too far.

Action wouldn't matter either way as Howa and Remington both have custom bottom metal available for the Acuraccy International long magazines. Howa has more features built in.

Yes, kind of. I'll mess with a vernier, a 416 case, a couple different bullets and the 3.6 length to figure out how long I need the throat to be. Then order a custom reamer for it.

Ok it appears you're well ok your way. Feeding from the magazine is your limiting factor.

If you have a few of the bullets you can measure, from the bullet base where the caliber diameter of the bullets end, and then again measuring from the bullet base where the bore diameter of the bullet ends. Knowing the bullet lengths, the above two data points for each bullet, the exact average case trim length, and your exact max-COAL to feed from the magazine then you can fairly easily compute exactly how much freebore you need to for your 'target bullet jump' to engage the rifling.