You’ll recall a recent blog where I waxed eloquent about Eleanor, my Ruger RSM .416 Rigby rifle. In that blog, I talked about reduced loads using 350-grain cast Montana bullets and 5744 and Trail Boss propellant. It was fun…the Trail Boss loads had milder recoil and “good enough” (but not stellar) accuracy. Take a look at these 50-yard targets:
The above target on the left was with 30.0 grains of Trail Boss; the one on the right was with 34.0 grains of Trail Boss. I could feel a tiny bit more recoil with the 34.0-grain load, but both were light loads with modest recoil. Weirdly, the point of impact shifted sharply to the right with the lighter load, but it moved back to the center with the 34.0-grain load (and it was slightly higher). The Trail Boss loads shot okay, but they weren’t running in the same league as the load I had shot the prior week with 5744 propellant and the same Montana Bullet Works 350-grain bullet, as you can see from the 50-yard targets below.
I could see what I was getting with the Trail Boss and I could see that it wasn’t grouping nearly as well as the 5744 loads at 50 yards, so that stopped my testing with Trail Boss (that, and the fact that I had used up all my Trail Boss cartridges).
I was curious: How would Eleanor do at 100 yards? I still had some of the 5744 loads left, so I posted a couple of 100-yard targets and let Eleanor have her way. I first fired a 3-shot group and after looking through my spotting scope, I was surprised to see how well they grouped.
I thought maybe that target was a random success, and I didn’t want to ruin it by throwing more shots at it. So I fired another 3-shot group at the second target, and then another three at that same target. That’s the one you see below.
Before all you keyboard commandos start telling me that these results are nothing special, allow me to point out that these are 100-yard groups using open sights on an elephant rifle. I’m calling it good to go. Like I said earlier, when the elephants become an invasive species here in So Cal, I’m ready. The load is 45.0 grains of 5744 (it’s the load the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook specified as the accuracy load, and they were right), the 350-grain Montana Bullet Works .416 bullet sized to .417 and crimped in the cannelure, Hornady brass, and a CCI-200 primer. I didn’t weigh each charge; I just adjusted my RCBS powder dispenser and cranked them out. If you were wondering, I use Lyman dies for this cartridge.
A bit more about Eleanor: The rifle is a Ruger 77 that the good folks from New Hampshire call an Express or RSM model (I think RSM stood for Ruger Safari Magnum). They made them in 375 H&H, 416 Rigby, and 458 Lott (kind of a magnum .458 Magnum). Ruger also made a similar one in a few of the standard calibers (7mm Mag, 30 06, and 300 Win Mag, and maybe one or two others). These rifles were a bit pricey when Ruger sold them in the late 1990s/early 2000s, but evidently not pricey enough. They were too expensive to manufacture, so Ruger stopped making them. When you see these rifles come up for sale today (which doesn’t happen very often), they command a premium. I wish I had bought one in 30 06 when they were first offered; to me, that would be the perfect rifle.
The rear sight on a Ruger RSM rifle is of the African “Express” style. The elevation adjustment consists of a fixed and two flip-up blades, and they all have a very shallow V. I guess the idea of that shallow V is that it lets you see more in case an elephant is charging. The sight has two flip up blades behind the fixed blade; as range increases, you flip up the second blade, and if it is an even longer shot, you go for the third blade. I got lucky, for me, the fixed rear sight blade is perfect with this load. I made a minor adjustment for windage, and the elevation is spot on with a 6:00 hold at both 50 yards and 100 yards.
Incidentally, that rib the rear sight sits on? It’s not a separate piece. It and the barrel were turned and milled from one solid piece of steel. It’s one of the reasons these rifles were too expensive to manufacture.
The front sight is the typical brass bead (you can sort of see it in the featured photo at the top of this blog), which I usually don’t like, but with these results I can’t complain. I’ve shot better groups with two or three other open sight rifles using jacketed bullets at 100 yards; this is the best any cast bullet has ever done for me.
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Want to see the first installment of the Eleanor story? It’s right here.
Tough to get to a gunstore to buy targets? Range fees for targets too high? Do what I do and order them online. They’re delivered right to your door and they’re less expensive, too.
Need a calipers for measuring your group size? This is a great place to find great calipers at a great price.
Want to check out Montana Bullets? Here’s a link to their website. Tell them Joe sent you. Trust me on this: These are best cast bullets I’ve ever used.
You’ll recall a recent blog where I waxed eloquent about Eleanor, my Ruger RSM .416 Rigby rifle. In that blog, I talked about reduced loads using 350-grain cast Montana bullets and 5744 and Trail Boss propellant. It was fun…the Trail Boss loads had milder recoil and “good enough” (but not stellar) accuracy. Take a look at these 50-yard targets:
The above target on the left was with 30.0 grains of Trail Boss; the one on the right was with 34.0 grains of Trail Boss. I could feel a tiny bit more recoil with the 34.0-grain load, but both were light loads with modest recoil. Weirdly, the point of impact shifted sharply to the right with the lighter load, but it moved back to the center with the 34.0-grain load (and it was slightly higher). The Trail Boss loads shot okay, but they weren’t running in the same league as the load I had shot the prior week with 5744 propellant and the same Montana Bullet Works 350-grain bullet, as you can see from the 50-yard targets below.
I could see what I was getting with the Trail Boss and I could see that it wasn’t grouping nearly as well as the 5744 loads at 50 yards, so that stopped my testing with Trail Boss (that, and the fact that I had used up all my Trail Boss cartridges).
I was curious: How would Eleanor do at 100 yards? I still had some of the 5744 loads left, so I posted a couple of 100-yard targets and let Eleanor have her way. I first fired a 3-shot group and after looking through my spotting scope, I was surprised to see how well they grouped.
I thought maybe that target was a random success, and I didn’t want to ruin it by throwing more shots at it. So I fired another 3-shot group at the second target, and then another three at that same target. That’s the one you see below.
Before all you keyboard commandos start telling me that these results are nothing special, allow me to point out that these are 100-yard groups using open sights on an elephant rifle. I’m calling it good to go. Like I said earlier, when the elephants become an invasive species here in So Cal, I’m ready. The load is 45.0 grains of 5744 (it’s the load the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook specified as the accuracy load, and they were right), the 350-grain Montana Bullet Works .416 bullet sized to .417 and crimped in the cannelure, Hornady brass, and a CCI-200 primer. I didn’t weigh each charge; I just adjusted my RCBS powder dispenser and cranked them out. If you were wondering, I use Lyman dies for this cartridge.
A bit more about Eleanor: The rifle is a Ruger 77 that the good folks from New Hampshire call an Express or RSM model (I think RSM stood for Ruger Safari Magnum). They made them in 375 H&H, 416 Rigby, and 458 Lott (kind of a magnum .458 Magnum). Ruger also made a similar one in a few of the standard calibers (7mm Mag, 30 06, and 300 Win Mag, and maybe one or two others). These rifles were a bit pricey when Ruger sold them in the late 1990s/early 2000s, but evidently not pricey enough. They were too expensive to manufacture, so Ruger stopped making them. When you see these rifles come up for sale today (which doesn’t happen very often), they command a premium. I wish I had bought one in 30 06 when they were first offered; to me, that would be the perfect rifle.
The rear sight on a Ruger RSM rifle is of the African “Express” style. The elevation adjustment consists of a fixed and two flip-up blades, and they all have a very shallow V. I guess the idea of that shallow V is that it lets you see more in case an elephant is charging. The sight has two flip up blades behind the fixed blade; as range increases, you flip up the second blade, and if it is an even longer shot, you go for the third blade. I got lucky, for me, the fixed rear sight blade is perfect with this load. I made a minor adjustment for windage, and the elevation is spot on with a 6:00 hold at both 50 yards and 100 yards.
Incidentally, that rib the rear sight sits on? It’s not a separate piece. It and the barrel were turned and milled from one solid piece of steel. It’s one of the reasons these rifles were too expensive to manufacture.
The front sight is the typical brass bead (you can sort of see it in the featured photo at the top of this blog), which I usually don’t like, but with these results I can’t complain. I’ve shot better groups with two or three other open sight rifles using jacketed bullets at 100 yards; this is the best any cast bullet has ever done for me.
Want to see the first installment of the Eleanor story? It’s right here.
Tough to get to a gunstore to buy targets? Range fees for targets too high? Do what I do and order them online. They’re delivered right to your door and they’re less expensive, too.
Need a calipers for measuring your group size? This is a great place to find great calipers at a great price.
Want to check out Montana Bullets? Here’s a link to their website. Tell them Joe sent you. Trust me on this: These are best cast bullets I’ve ever used.
I don’t name my guns. Except for one. That’s Eleanor in the photo above.
I have a thing for big bore rifles, and chambered for the mighty .416 Rigby, Eleanor certainly qualifies. We don’t have too many elephants, rhinos, or cape buffalo in southern California. But if any ever become an invasive species here in the Peoples Republik, I’m ready. I’ve read all the African hunting stories, living vicariously through the adventures of folks like Theodore Roosevelt, Peter Hathaway Capstick, and others. It’s what prompted my path toward rifles like Eleanor.
But I digress. Back to the topic du jour. Sometimes you just wake up and think to yourself: I have to to load me some .416 Rigby today.
That’s what happened to me recently. I won’t get to shoot Eleanor for a few more days, but I thought I would share a few photos of the sausage-packing process involved in prepping .416 Rigby ammo. The drill on that fine day was for a couple of reduced-velocity loads using cast bullets and Trail Boss propellant. It’s going to be a fun day at the range when I light the candle on these puppies.
Reloading is sort of like cooking. You start with a recipe and the right ingredients. In this case, that includes .416 Rigby brass (something you don’t find laying around at the range) and Trail Boss propellant (which, like most reloading components, is pure unobtanium these days).
I’m well stocked with unfired, virgin Hornady brass and I used Montana Bullet Works cast 350-grain gas check projectiles. Because I’m loading cast bullets, the first step involved flaring the case mouth. I use the Lee universal flaring tool for this. You can see its business end in the photo below.
Here’s the Lee’s flaring die and a flared case mouth.
This is what the cartridge case looks like after it has been flared. You can see the diameter opens up slightly at the case mouth. This prevents shaving lead off the bullet base as it is seated in the brass cartridge case.
The Montana Bullet Works bullets are impressive. Actually, they are beyond impressive. I think they are perfect. They look more like machined parts rather than cast parts. I loaded their 350-grain flatnose cast bullets (they are 22 Brinell hardness linotype bullets) with a gas check base (take a peek at the next photo). The blue stuff is lubricant.
I’ve fired the Montana bullets before with 5744 propellant in Eleanor and they work well, as you can see on the targets below (I order my targets from Amazon). Those were 3-shot groups at 50 yards using the same Montana 350-grain cast bullets and 45.0 grains of 5744 propellant. Eleanor is an elephant rifle with iron sights, and I’m getting groups that would work well with prairie dogs.
There’s no leading with the Montana bullets. The Lyman cast bullet reloading manual (which I believe to be the best) lists 5744 and the 350-grain cast bullet as the most accurate load in this chambering (I like the Lyman manuals better than any of the others).
The photo below shows a bullet just starting into the cartridge case. I had already seated CCI 200 primers into the cases.
Trail Boss is a reduced velocity propellant that is designed to occupy most or all of a cartridge case’s interior. It’s a light powder. The shape is unusual. The grains look like little washers.
Trail Boss is so big and fluffy my RCBS powder dispenser couldn’t throw a big enough charge with a single throw. I wanted to load these at 30 grains and 34 grains (suggested min and max with this propellant), so I set the powder dispenser to 15 grains (that’s what you see in the powder tray above) and threw two charges for each case, and then I did the same at 17 grains (again, throwing two charges for each case). According to the folks who make Trail Boss, the max load should not exceed the base of the bullet, and the minimum charge is 70% of the max charge. Here’s what a charged case with the max charge looks like.
I next seated the bullets. These cartridges are so long that you have to put the charged brass case into the shell holder, and then angle the bullet up into the die and set it back down on the case before you run the ram up. I do bullet seating and crimping in two operations. I’ll seat all the bullets to the required overall length without a crimp, and then I’ll adjust the die and run each round through again to get a good crimp. I use an old RCBS Rockchucker single-stage press I bought new in 1974. I’ve been using it ever since.
And here’s one last photo just to convey a sense of scale. From right to left, what you see below is a six-pack of .45 ACP cartridges in a moon clip ready for my 1917 revolver, a .45 70 round (I loaded some of those earlier today, too), and the .416 Rigby.
So how do these Rigby rounds shoot? I’m going to find out soon, folks, and I’ll let you know. Eleanor and I have a date at the West End Gun Club (don’t tell Sue). Stay tuned. It’s going to be fun.
It was a day on the range with three classic and regal rifles: A .22 Hornet Winchester Model 43, a Winchester Model 70 chambered in .300 Weatherby Magnum, and a .416 Rigby Ruger Model 77 RSM Express. These are rifles that can handle everything from rabbits to rhinos, although my only intent was to punch holes in paper, preferably with the holes as close to each other as possible. It’s always fun doing so, and it’s even more fun when the rifles have an elegance rooted in fine walnut, hand-cut checkering, and deeply polished blue steel. To me, these things are art. Art you can take to the range and enjoy. I’m going to tell you more about the load data for each of these rifles in subsequent blogs; today, it’s a bit of history about the guns and their cartridges, and how I came to own each of these fine rifles.
A study in extremes: From top to bottom, it’s the .416 Rigby, the .300 Weatherby Magnum, and the diminutive .22 Hornet. All three are reloaded cartridges.
The rifles? I’ve mentioned at least two of these in ExNotes blogs before, but for those of you who haven’t read those posts, let me bring you up to speed. The first is a Winchester Model 43 Deluxe manufactured in 1949.
The Winchester Model 43 Deluxe, a .22 Hornet rifle that looks like it shipped from the factory last week.
The next is an early 1980s Winchester Model 70 XTR. It’s one of a very small number of rifles Winchester chambered in .300 Weatherby that year.
Another magnificent Winchester, this time a Model 70 chambered in .300 Weatherby Magnum. Check out the walnut!
And the last is a Ruger Model 77 RSM Express. It’s a monstrous rifle, chambered for a cartridge designed to slay monsters. Rhinos, elephants, and more. It’s a beautiful firearm.
The .416 Rigby Ruger RSM Express, a rifle so costly to produce Ruger had to stop making it.
As I wrote this blog, I realized that I purchased all three rifles from the same store: Turner’s in West Covina, California. Turner’s is the major hunting and fishing sporting goods chain here in California. I’m usually not a fan of big chain stores, but I’ve found some good deals at Turner’s and I’ll give credit where credit is due: Turner’s did good by me. All three of these rifles were fantastic deals.
People ask how I find guns with great wood. Part of it is I’m picky and I’m patient. Another factor is that today’s firearms market is dominated by folks who want black plastic rifles and pistols. That’s the market Turner’s serves and that’s good for me, because when collectible firearms with blue steel and walnut come into Turner’s they tend to sit for awhile. Most guys who focus on ARs tend to ignore what, to me, is the good stuff.
The Winchester Model 43 was on the consignment rack at Turner’s several years ago. It was the first Model 43 I had ever seen and I liked the look and feel. I like the cartridge, too. Turner’s had the rifle priced at $1000 and after doing my research, I thought that was fair. But I’m not interested in a fair deal. I want an exceptional deal. I visited that store every week or so for a good month and a half, and that little Model 43 had not moved. You see, in that neighborhood, there isn’t much of a market for a collectible Winchester. Like I said above, it’s just not what sells around here.
Winchester only made the Model 43 from May 1948 through 1953, and as mentioned above, mine was manufactured in 1949. When I bring my Model 43 to the range, folks who know what they’re seeing are all “ooohs” and “ahhhs,” as the crowd I run with consists mostly of guys who started driving when Eisenhower was in the White House. These guys get it.
Name one modern rifle that includes a checkered steel butt plate. You can’t. They don’t exist. You have to turn back the clock 50 years or more to fnd this.Hand checkering, too! Not laser cut, not pressed in, not machine cut, and not a rubber insert…but real hand-cut checkering. Somebody at the Winchester factory probably took the better part of a day 70 years ago to do this, and it was all done with hand tools. Checkering is one of the things that makes this Model 43 a Deluxe model.Nobody has better rollmarks than Winchester, and these say it all: America, Model 43, Winchester, and .22 Hornet!I pointed this out in an earlier blog, but it’s so cool I’ll mention it again. That front sight is not a separate part grafted on to the Model 43’s barrel; it and the barrel are machined from one piece of steel. Think lots of machine time and big production expense. Check out the stippling on the sight ramp (it cuts the sun’s glare). That would have all been done by hand.
So, back to my pining over the Model 43. I stopped in at Turner’s for maybe the sixth time to look at the Hornet again. I mean, the thing was on my mind. I was thinking about it at night when I went to sleep, it kept me up, and then when I finally dozed off, I was still thinking about it the next morning. To be a complete human being, I realized, I needed that Model 43. I suspect that if you’re reading this blog, you understand.
If the Hornet was still on the rack at Turner’s, I reasoned, the guy who had it on consignment might be willing to negotiate. I was going to offer $950. The rifle was easily worth the $1000 they were asking for it; $950 would be a killer deal. So I stopped in on the way home one day and asked to look at the Hornet again. I sensed that the guy behind the counter (the Turner’s gun department manager) was a little hesitant to show it to me, but he handed it over after opening the bolt.
I looked at the attached tag. The price had been reduced to $850.
I’ll take it, I said. The gunstore guy sighed. He told me he had wanted to buy the rifle (he was an older guy, like me), but that wasn’t my problem. I filled out all the paperwork, and 10 days later, I took my 1949 Hornet home. I was a complete human being. I could sleep now. All was well with the world.
I have no idea why Winchester stopped making these rifles, but I suspect it was because they were expensive to manufacture and the Winchester Model 70 was selling better. Whatever. And the cartridge itself? The .22 Hornet was first fielded in the early 1930s and when it hit the market, it was a sensation. It was a wildcat cartridge designed at the Springfield Arsenal and its focus was high speed (in those days, the 2400 fps Hornet was fast). The Hornet’s low recoil, relatively flat (for the day) trajectory, and accuracy made it the hot ticket for sending critters to the Great Beyond. I’ve been with Hornet-armed guys chasing jackrabbits and coyotes in west Texas; there is no better cartridge for this kind of hunting in the desert surrounding El Paso. There are more powerful .22 centerfires available today, but the Hornet is the one that started it all. It’s one of the world’s all-time great designs.
Winchester offered the Model 43 in two flavors – the Standard and the Deluxe. My 1951 Stoeger catalog shows that a new Deluxe sold for $66.95 that year; the Standard was $12 less expensive. Mine is a Deluxe, with checkering and a deep blue highly polished finish. And wow, it does its job well. It has iron sights, and I shot some amazing groups with it at 50 yards. I’ll share the load data with you in a subsequent blog.
50 yards, the right load, open sights, and a well-mannered Model 43 all came together on this fine day. Any time I can get under an inch at 50 yards with open sights, I’m calling it a good day.But wait, there’s more! This old Model 43 gets the job done!
I bought the Model 70 .300 Weatherby rifle in the 1980s. I was an aerospace engineer working at Honeywell in Covina (we did naval gunfire control systems for one of the first cannon-launched laser-guided munitions), I met my wife Sue when I worked at Honewell, and I hung out with my good buddy Ralph. Ralph, as it turns out, had the same affliction as me: He was a gun nut. Ralph told me about Turner’s. I was new to California, and I had never heard of Turner’s.
You can guess where this story is going. I went to Turner’s on my lunch break and I saw the Model 70. I knew enough back then to know that a factory Model 70 chambered for a Weatherby round was an unusual rifle, and I also had a taste for fancy walnut (my Dad made custom gunstocks, so I guess the walnut thing is genetic). The rifle was marked for something like $429 or $439 if I recall correctly (I might be off a little, but it was somewhere in the just-north-of-$400 range). I knew that it was tough to lose money on a gun (not that I had any plans to sell it), but it was the wood on that Model 70 that cinched the deal for me. I paid what they were asking because I wasn’t much of a negotiator back then. Today, I know that gun shops always put the rifles with the most beautiful wood on display. By definition, that’s the one I want and I’ll work hard to get it. But now I always ask for a discount no matter how stunning the stock is, because, you know, it’s the display model. Don’t laugh. It almost always works.
Sweet. The Model 70 in .300 Weatherby Magnum. The time to buy a gun like this is when you see it. They don’t come along too often, and I’ve never seen another one like it.
Winchester introduced the Model 70 in 1936. They value engineered the Model 70 in 1964 (that’s a nice way of saying they cheapened its looks and feel), and the pre-64s used to be far more desirable. But that’s all changed. I’ve owned pre-64s and modern Model 70 Winchesters, and I can tell you from personal experience the current production Model 70s are better guns. You can argue the point, but like I’ve said, I’ve owned both, and you won’t convince me. I’ve got the targets to prove it.
The funny thing about this particular Model 70 is that after I bought it, I didn’t shoot it but once or twice over the next 35 years. I was happy just knowing I owned it, and truth be told, I was a little intimidated by the .300 Weatherby cartridge. Yeah, I know, real men don’t flinch, but let me tell you, those .300 Weatherby rifles kick. I started getting serious about mastering this cartridge recently, though, and that’s what led to my Three 300s blog a couple of weeks ago. I guess I’m getting used to the recoil (a .300 Weatherby will rattle your fillings), because on this most recent range visit, the Model 70 graced me with a couple of 100-yard groups I found astonishing. I can’t do this with a .300 Weatherby all the time, but when I do, I’ll brag a bit. And I did. And I’m bragging a bit.
100 yards, a Weaver T-10 scope, and flinch-free trigger time all came together for a half-minute-of-angle 100-yard group. I shoot 3-shot groups when developing a hunting load. I’ve never been a fan of 5-shot groups, as I’ve found it’s very hard to get an animal to stand still for five shots.Maybe that 0.519-inch group isn’t good enough? Hey, the very next one measured 0.371. This is from a .300 Weatherby, mind you, at 100 yards. I’m good to go!
The Model 70 Winchester has been called the Rifleman’s Rifle, and for good reason. Model 70s have the right look and they are just flat accurate. I guess you could go wrong with a Model 70, but I never have, and I’ve owned a few over the years. And the .300 Weatherby cartridge? There’s no question: It’s a bruiser. Developed by Roy Weatherby in 1944, it’s still one of the fastest 30-caliber rounds ever and as you can see above, it can be very accurate.
All right, on to the last one, and that’s the .416 Rigby. Wow, what a cartridge that monster is. It was the third rifle I brought to the range with me. I was about five bays away from the rangemaster when I fired the first round. He immediately came over to ask what I was shooting. I thought he was intrigued by the thump (something that might have registered on a Richter scale somewhere), and I guess in a way he was. I proudly answered that it was a .416 Rigby. Then he asked me to move further away from his observation post. The further the better, he said.
The rhino thumper. Big bullets, big bore, big rifle, big muzzle blast, and big recoil! One box of unprimed brass (that’s just 20 pieces) costs $43!It just looks cool, doesn’t it?
The .416 Rigby is a cartridge with an interesting pedigree. It was first developed in 1911 by John Rigby and Company, the folks in England who made safari rifles for folks who liked to throw money around. The cartridge was designed for dangerous game…big things that can bite you, stomp you, gore you, and maybe even eat you. Over the years, Rigby built approximately 500 rifles chambered for its mighty .416 cartridge, and then it fell out of favor after the .458 Winchester Magnum entered the market. The .416 Rigby probably would have died a graceful death had Ruger not stepped in with their .416 Rigby Model 77 RSM (the rifle you see here) nearly 30 years ago. All told, Ruger built about a thousand of these rifles from 1991 to 2001. Then, presumably because of the manufacturing expense and fewer guys going to Africa to chase the things that bite back, Ruger discontinued the rifle.
I bought the Ruger at Turner’s, and it was a repeat of the Hornet story. The Rigby was on consignment (at the very same Turner’s in West Covina), and it was marked $1400. That was not a bad price, and these Ruger Express Magnums are an investment (you see them now for numbers approaching $2000, sometimes even more). I keep telling my wife that (you know, the line about collectible guns being investments and all). She keeps asking me when I’m going to sell.
Like the Model 43, the barrel and sight are machined from one blank (it’s the rear sight on the Ruger rifle). That means Ruger had to hog the whole mess out of a single piece of steel. Think excessive machine time, and think high manufacturing cost.
The rear sight ramp is the same piece of steel as the barrel, similar to the approach Winchester used for the Model 43’s front sight ramp. The three leaves are for close, mid-range, and long-range game. This is an expensive way to go, but it makes for fast adjustments for someone pursuing dangerous game. It was a common approach on high-dollar safari rifles back in the day. It’s elegant.
This .416 Rigby Ruger had an exceptionally well-figured Circassian walnut stock. All of the Ruger RSM Express rifles had Circassian walnut, but I’ve only seen a few as fancy as this one, and when I saw this one, I knew I had to own it (it’s a disease, I know). And this is another rifle in as-new condition. I can guess what happened…somebody bought it dreaming of Africa, the trip never materialized, the prior owner found out what .416 Rigby ammo costs (north of $200 for 20 rounds of factory ammo), the guy fired one or two rounds and felt the wrath of Rigby recoil, and shortly thereafter the rifle found its way to the consignment rack. It happens more often than you might imagine.
Stunning Circassian Walnut. As supplied by Ruger, Circassian has an almost orange hue to it. This one is beautiful.
I offered the Turner’s dude $1200, and he said he couldn’t do that without talking to the person who had the rifle on consignment. I looked at him and he looked back at me for several seconds. I guess it was a standoff. Finally, I spoke: Give the guy a call, I said.
He did, and yep, 10 days later the big Ruger came home with me. It’s a monster. It weighs more than any rifle I own, and a big part of what drives the weight is that monstrous hogged out .416 barrel. But when you light one off, that weight is your friend. It soaks up the recoil, of which there is plenty.
The Ruger was not nearly as accurate as the other two rifles I had on the range that day, but it still wasn’t too bad. I was shooting at 50 yards initially, and this is the best group I could get…
.416-inch holes at 50 yards. This rifle will do better. I just didn’t have it in me that day.
After shooting five 3-shot groups at 50 yards, I had five rounds left in the box of 20. I wanted to see where the bullets would hit at 100 yards, and I used a pistol silhouette target to make that assessment.
Meh, I could do better. With other rifles, I have on occasion shot groups under an inch at 100 yards with open sights, but it wasn’t going to happen that day (for me or the .416 Rigby).
I held at 6:00 on the target’s orange center, and I used that larger target because I didn’t know where the rounds would land at that distance (I wanted lots of paper around the point of aim so I could see what was going on). I put all five shots on paper, but the group size was a disappointing 6.6 inches. Oddly enough, the rifle was printing very slightly to the left at 50 yards, but it clearly grouped to the right at 100 yards. I need to think about that a little bit. Maybe it was the way the sun was hitting the front sight (that can make a significant difference), as I shot the 100-yard group later in the day. I found the v-notch on the Rigby’s rear sight to be a bit difficult to use (I could not form a consistent sight picture). I guess it’s okay for a charging rhino, but it’s not conducive to the accuracy I sought. I’m not done with the Ruger Express rifle yet, and truth be told, I ‘m kind of glad the results weren’t stellar. Half the fun with these things is searching for the perfect load. Once you find it, for me at least, a lot of the excitement goes away. I figure there’s still plenty of excitement left in the Rigby.
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