http://cartridgecollector.net/400-griffin-howe
Does anyone have any info on this?
By the looks of this dummy round, it appears to be the 300hh necked up to .410" giving a longer neck tension area similar to the 400 HH but without "Improving". I had this idea a while back and it is similar to the 400 Karamojo idea that is a 375 HH simple neck up but a shorter neck tension area.

Sorta reminds me of the .40 BSA http://www.municion.org/40/40BsaBelted.htm

Yes, but the BSA was shorter.

Here is one I missed until lately looking up OKH cartridges:



Designed by the famous O’Neil-Keith-Hopkins team, the .400 OKH (left) preceded the rebirth of the .416s. From left: .400 OKH, .416 Rem. Mag., .416 Ruger, .416 Rigby and .404 Jeffery.

Read more: http://www.gunsandammo.com/gun...keith/#ixzz5IdAS0dDr

Well, I reached out to G&H to get info. Let's see what we get. It does exist!

The 400 OKH, pictured looks very much like the 424 OKH I had Charley O'Neil build for me in the early 1950s.

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
Here is one I missed until lately looking up OKH cartridges:



Designed by the famous O’Neil-Keith-Hopkins team, the .400 OKH (left) preceded the rebirth of the .416s. From left: .400 OKH, .416 Rem. Mag., .416 Ruger, .416 Rigby and .404 Jeffery.

Read more: http://www.gunsandammo.com/gun...keith/#ixzz5IdAS0dDr

Having owned all the pictured rounds
My favorite remains the 404

Still tracking down this mysterious "Big Foot" of a cartridge. The historian for G&H could not find any references yet. Maybe a one off custom? They looked for reamers and talked to one of the old gunsmiths but came up goose egg on this wild goose chase thus far. He was going to check the Abercrombie and Fitch marerials to see if there was anything there for when they owned G&H.

More intrigue...

http://www.municion.org/400/400GriffinHowe.htm

Seems it was recently added to Municion.org
Says it was made in the New York location of Griffin and Howe in the 30's. It says that this is a reproduction of the marking (Head stamp) so someone went through the trouble in South Africa to re-create proper head stamp brass! He must have a working rifle and maybe some more details on this Lazarus cart. I wonder if he had any source documentation or just kinda winged it.
It gives some dimensions, but I'm not certain the neck/shoulder dimensions are right. It looks like a simple neck up of a 300HH. The 350 G&H was an unimaginative neck down of the 375HH, so I don't see G&H getting fancy and changing dimensions of something so similar to the 300HH. I was thinking of making what I called the 400 Karamojo that is a simple neck up of the 375HH to .410" but I do have a penchant for nostalgia and the obscure.

Talking with G&H I learned that they lost the early records of their guns from the 30's on back. This makes the mystery almost impossible to solve as far as numbers produced and dimensions. I need to find one of these mythical big bore unicorn rifles and convince them to get a chamber cast and any other pertinent particulars. If anyone knows how to get info on these rifles and cart please chime in. Where is Sherlock Holmes when we need him to sleuth this out? I guess I need to get ahold of the collector website owner and have him reach out to the person who posted images of the cart.

G&H was reaching to compete against the 416 REm like a few others, and it failed, as did the others....Its pretty hard to improve on the 416 Remington and the 416 Rugerm and I suppose one could toss in the 404 Jefferys in 40 caliber..I did..Ive used the 458 Win., the 470 a few times but always went back to the 416 REm and 404.

I stand corrected, Im thinking of the later gun that came out by one of the big names and it never sold..I suspect this gun came out about the same time as my 35/375 H&H, AKA as the 350 G&H, all of which were the std. H&H case neck sized up and down and so stamped on the barrels, but not all my G&H..however they started the trend, Mine was a pre war mod 70 std wt. with a Tilden?? safety..A neat gun but I never hunted much with it other than a Mule deer as I recall...

The 400 G&H would have been from the 1930's and predate the factory 416 Rem by 50 years give or take. My biggest praise for such a cart as this elusive 400 is the feeding and extraction qualities of the 300/375 HH and ease and cost efficient conversion from a 375hh donor guns. There are other differences that could be had, such as an extra round or cheap components etcetera. It is just about what motors your boat.

Hypothetical...
Would you want a factory 400 G&H if G&H produced a rifle chambered in this? Possible 400 grain bullets @ 2,300 fps? As slick feeding as the 300 and 375 HH. What if it was SAAMI?

Isn't the 400 h&h already sammi 400 h&h

Yes, but with an "improved" case

Thanks for the info ALF. Do you know how we can get specs on the case design?

I still have 7-8 rounds of loaded 350 G&H Magnum in my ammo vault.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
The more common 35 G&H case specs are available, the 400 I have not actually seen and based on the rifles serial numbers out there and there are various collectors who have put together lists of the G&H SN's and their calibers the 400 is a rare animal indeed !

The late Michael Petrov had a list of some 800 plus G&H rifles and their SN' and calibers. I dont know what has become of that list because it should be most helpful to collectors

Reminded of a joke
Chuck Norris likes his meat so rare, he only eats unicorns

Well, that is some good info. I can talk to the historian and see if he had the list. We might be able to contact someone who has one of these mythical beasts. The cart shown looks to be a necked up 300HH because of the long neck tension area. The posted 350 G&H does not match those dimensions. We need someone to do a seance to get in touch with Griffin and Howe. Anyone know a good medium?

quote:

Originally posted by Biebs:
I still have 7-8 rounds of loaded 350 G&H Magnum in my ammo vault.

The only better 35 is the 350 Rigby

Can anyone find out more information on the 400 G&H? It would be great to get an original chamber casting but I don’t know how many guns actually exist or who has them. From looking at the schematic on munition.org it looks quite similar to a 300 HH necked up to .411 and that would make sense since the 400 G&H was designed about the same time as the release of the 300HH. I don’t know how that case was formed or how those dimensions were derived from. You could run a 300 HH reamer in a 405 Win Ruger #1 and use a 400 neck/throater pilot in to 2.8” to get a cheap one made but it screams to be put in a bolt action. Maybe I just need to call it the 400-300HH for purity, but that is pretty much what I am looking for with a no shoulder 400 on the HH case.
http://www.municion.org/400/400GriffinHowe.htm

A theory:

Could it be that the mythical ".400 G&H" is really a .400 Whelen made by Griffin & Howe ?
Maybe some later wildcatter dreamed up an H&H-belted version to pair with the .350 G&H ?
A history of G&H here:

https://huntforever.org/2015/08/07/griffin-howe/

According to that, G&H opened shop in 1923 under the tutelage of Townsend Whelen.
Mr. Howe (the metalsmith) stayed just long enough to get his name on the door, then moved on to Hoffman Arms.
Mr. Griffin, the stock maker, stayed on and continued to use the Griffin & Howe business name.
By 1930 G&H was absorbed by Abercrombie & Fitch.

G&H rifle serial number 201 is believed to be the first .400 Whelen made by G&H in 1923.
It appears others were made tool-room-style by Whelen & Howe before G&H existed.
Mr. Howe was Townie's wildcatting enabler.

Whelen started out with the .38 Whelen about 1919.
The so-called ".375 Whelen" was a 1950s' resurrection of that cartridge to some wildcatter's specs.

http://griffinhowe.com/history/

There, it is claimed the ".35 G&H" came along in 1925, after they started making the .35 Whelen at G&H.
It would seem logical for G&H to also have similarly done a ".400 G&H" after having done the .400 Whelen.
And it is true that the order of the Whelen cartridges was .38, .400, and finally .35 Whelen.

Maybe the .400 G&H came before the .35 G&H and got overshadowed by the .35 G&H
just like the forerunner .400 Whelen was obscured by the subsequent .35 Whelen ?

A 1925 G&H catalog:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Griff...atalog-/290893130034

Partial listing of contents from that catalog:

"Our Rifles
.250/3000 caliber Short Mauser Action
.35 Whelen Caliber on a Springfield
.30/06 Springfield on Mauser Action
Sights Winchester, Fecker or Lyman
.400 Whelen on a long Mauser
30/06 Springfield Sporting deluxe and regular
.350 Magnum Rifles
.300 Magnum Rifles
.375 Magnum Rifles
.35 Whelen Rifles
30/60 Rifles Model 1906 Cartridge
7mm Rifles
250/3000 Rifles"

Nary a .400 G&H mentioned in the 1925 contents.

I talked to a VP at G&H and he referred me to the municion.org website and did not seem to know much about it but said that he gets lots of inquiries about it. The G&H historian does not know about the dimensions either due to the loss of records. It seems the only way to figure it out is to actually find one of these unicorns if one exists.

Speaking of unicorns, here's another one, looked up in Ken Howell's ... CUSTOM CARTRIDGES ... book, page 243:



Also found in this book:



Pages 74-75:






The comments of the author(s) do not jive with the dimensions on the drawings.
Their puzzlement over the caliber designation also is odd.
Seems obvious to me that .322" is the bore diameter and .330" is the groove diameter for a rifle shooting .330-caliber bullets.
John Rigby was heavily involved with development of the .303 British, from BP to Cordite.
It too is named for bore diameter, eh ?

The "Rigby .322 Nitro" is not a .330/.416 Rigby in head size, though in length of case and COL it is meant for the same action length.
The .338 Lapua is a shorter, necked-down .416 Rigby.
It is more like a .340 Weatherby in case capacity, or a stretched out Newton or Ruger case of the next century.
Did it inspire Newton to create his new case designs in shorter format over a century ago ?

Seems the brass and rifles were never made.
That is some unicorn meat served very rare.
Perfect for Chuck Norris.

Rip ...

Wow! A 318 on a longer Ruger case... What a unicorn!

Couldn't find the .400 Griffin & Howe in Ken Howell's book.
Good luck re-creating the .322 Rigby Nitro to anybody who cares !
A .400 G&H will be much easier to do when it comes to brass and bullets,
boom stick may someday be the only man alive who has one,
after the wildcatter in South Africa has kicked the bucket.

Rip ...

Gotta watch out for those buckets. We should outlaw buckets. I should convince G&H to certify dimensions on the 400 HH so there will be no confusion on the future.