My Ruger .405 weighs right at 8.25 pounds, and with Hornady factory loads (300 grains at about 2200), recoil at 30 foot pounds or so is quite tolerable even off the bench, with the factory irons and eaiser offhand or off the sticks. With a scope and Limbsaver, it should be a pussycat, and still comfortable with 400-grain Woodleighs loaded to 2100 or so, assuming I can get there safely in the Ruger. For those interested, I slugged my bore this morning and got .412 in the grooves and .406 on the lands, so a cast mold should go .413-.414, sizing to .413.

How in the hell Ruger came up with 412 and .413 bores on the .405 is a cluster something or other...they should be .407 to .408 so good bullet would be available...at .412 you should be able to get by well enough with .411 bullets and they are available, but some guns won't get it done...Judge Gs is .413 unfortunatly..

Old Guy

Seems like everybody is making 405 barrels w/.413 groove diameters. Looks like the barrels are coming from the same source.

Historically, 405s were always sloppy, with groove diameters running from .409 to .414". They never were .408s in the past but I know of a manufacturer that is doing them in .408 now. Sure wouldn't want to put a mono 411 or larger down that thing. I've had reports of earlier Rugers as small as .4105 but I didn't do the measuring so can't confirm that. I don't care what the diameter is if everyone would just get on the same damn page. Sloppy 100yrs ago is one thing but there is no reason now.

Mike

Well, considering that Woodleigh lists its 300-grain .412 softpoint specifically for the .405 Winchester, at least one bullet maker has this bore size dialed in. And from what I hear, their .411 400-grain solids shoot just fine in this diameter tube. Cartridges of the World also lists .412 as the standard groove diameter for the .405, so what is all the hand-wringing about?

I'd be interested to know how those 400 gr solids worked on buff. I have a 405 tropical as well and my son and I killed a buff a piece with it in Zim last year. We used Mt. Baldy 300 gr hard cast bullets at around 2250 according to the manual and they worked pretty well but the noses would break up pretty badly. Mt. Baldy was developing a monometal solid for the 405 but I haven't heard anything on it lately.

Degoins, what kind of penetration did you get with the Mt. Baldy 300-grain slugs? What shots did you take, and how many to put your buffs down?

Sometimes, the old calibers didn't have sloppy barrels, that's just what they were. The problem comes in when they don't match our accepted modern "standard" sizes. The same thing can happen even with modern ammo. When non-military 7.62x39's became popular, we went through the same thing because some manufacturers (and buyers) wanted to use .308 barrels and bullets. Unfortunately not everyone did and the dies didn't always work etc. Generally, this works itself out over time through market pressure. Either the standard changes or enough are sold to support a separate line of bullets, dies etc. I'm not sure the demand for 405 will ever be enough to make this happen.

Bill/Oregon,
the shoulder shots, I hit mine in both and my son hit his in 1, broke the shoulders and penetrated to the lungs but the slugs would be reduced to about half thier weight. My son hit his twice and it started a charge so the ph's finished it off with 2 shots each from thier .458s. I hit mine in both shoulders and both times he stumbled and we thought he was going down, but he took off and i got him with one in the hip and another in the spine which put him down but not out. I put another one in his spine and a finisher in his heart when we got up on him......6 shots total from the 405. the only bullet that went all the way through was the one in the heart. The ones that hit the hip and spine pretty much shattered.

Degoins: Glad you were able to break down your buff. No criticism intended, but I wonder if heavier slugs of a more pliable alloy would have done a better job for you. Bren down on the cast bullet forum here at AR has worked out a system for casting a soft nose and hard base in one, seamless monometal bullet for his Rigby.

Bill/Oregon,
I would have liked to have tried heavier slugs and even found some load data for some 350 grainers, but at the time couldnt find any heavier slugs to use. I also think if I'd backed off on the velocity some it might have helped. Oh, I also shot an impala ram that was standing with his rump towards me at about 75 yards in fairly heavy brush. the ph and i both thought he was facing us. anyway i shot at what I thought was it's right shoulder and he ran a little ways and dropped. upon inspection I'd hit him in the left ham and the bullet was barely poking out of the skin of his right shoulder.The ph actually picked it out with his fingernails. That bullet was also badly damaged at the nose, but it penetrated the full length of the ram.

Barnes has a 350gr .411 XFB available in their discontinued bullets for $28 a box..

http://www.storesonline.com/site/448423/product/X-41185

wrongtarget,
thanks for the info.

You betcha!! I'm loading them for my converted H&R Target 405 Winchester....haven't shot them yet though, so I don't know for sure how well they'll work. The smith that did the conversion thinks they will work fine....I will see next week when I get to the range. I emailed Barnes for load data, got 300gr X-bullet and 400gr Woodleigh data to go by, hoping the 400gr Woodleigh data will give me a starting place using H4895 in the 28" barrel.

wrongtarget,
cant wait to hear of your results. That 400 gr load intrigues me as well.

quote:

Originally posted by wrongtarget:
You betcha!! I'm loading them for my converted H&R Target 405 Winchester....haven't shot them yet though, so I don't know for sure how well they'll work. The smith that did the conversion thinks they will work fine....I will see next week when I get to the range. I emailed Barnes for load data, got 300gr X-bullet and 400gr Woodleigh data to go by, hoping the 400gr Woodleigh data will give me a starting place using H4895 in the 28" barrel.

Dumb question, how light is that thing? It looks like it'll definitely kick like hell. As much as I love the biggies, I can't stand light rifles. My brains are scrambled enough as it it.

Near as I can tell about 10½lbs give or take a bit. I shot 2 boxes of factory ammo thru it from the bench with just a t-shirt and the limbsaver pad tween me and it, was tolerable, no bruises. Velocity was down about 100fps from factory specs due to the longish throat for the 350gr XFB.

quote:

Originally posted by degoins:
wrongtarget,
cant wait to hear of your results. That 400 gr load intrigues me as well.

I'm just using the 400gr data for loading the 350gr XFB, Ty Herring at Barnes recommended that since there's no data for that bullet in the 405. My smith cut the throat specifically for the 350gr bullet.

10.5#, that shouldn't be too bad. It's probably way better than a Marlin GG w/full loads.

I shoot 2400fps+ 300gr Nosler PT loads in my 45-70 Handi, it has considerable more recoil than the 405 even when it has 2lbs of lead in the stock when I shoot it from the bench. Just a different critter. You'd think that both of em with similar laminated stocks, both shooting a 300gr bullet at 2100-2400fps would be close to the same recoil, but nope! That 300fps makes a big difference....