I need to know if a 411 bore rifle can be recut to a 416 with new rifling.
Thanks in advance

not likely .. rifling is about .005 deep, per side .. so a 416 would have a .406 bore .. meaning you would have .0025 shadow rifling left..

could it be done? MAYBE, but not likely, as the recut would have to follow...

now, if you went to .423.. that's a horse of another color

Simply not enough metal. What are you going from and what are you hoping to acomplish?

You might be surprised to find that doing anything with the barrel is unnecessary to successfully use .416 diameter bullets. Simply load some with slightly reduced loads and see how they perform. Just watch the neck diameter of the loaded shells to make sure that it is not oversized for your chamber. If it is, you can cure this by thinning the neck walls very slightly.

Using .323" bullets in "J" bore 8x57s with their .318 groove diameter is a common practice and typically does not result in significant increases in pressure. Stepping up .005" in a .40 caliber should be even less of a problem.

Besides, leaving your barrel at .411" allows you to use pistol bullets for the .41 Magnum for practice loads.

Another alternative is to swage .416 bullets down to .411", but, provided accuracy is not negatively affected, why not just let the rifle's barrel do it for you?

I'm thinking of going from a 411KDF to 416 Taylor

quote:

Originally posted by eyeman:
I'm thinking of going from a 411KDF to 416 Taylor

In that case, since the .416 Taylor is a handloading-only proposition, why not have your gunsmith simply make the neck portion of the chamber appropriate for .411" bullets and load .411" bullets?

I used to turn down .510" bullets to shoot in my .505, until I realized that with enough neck clearance I could simply shoot the unaltered .510" bullets.

If you chamber a .411" barrel to .416 Taylor you will almost certainly have neck clearance. I make sure, load a .4ll" bullet in the .416 Taylor round and fire away. Then check to make sure that a .416" bullet passes freely into the neck of the fired case.

Your smith will of course have to use a smaller pilot on the .416 Taylor reamer in order to chamber the barrel.