{"id":34766,"date":"2026-10-14T00:01:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T07:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=34766"},"modified":"2026-10-08T07:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T14:52:15","slug":"a-tale-of-two-thumpers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/10\/14\/a-tale-of-two-thumpers\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Thumpers"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

You have to be quick on the trigger, and Kevin was when he grabbed that shot above capturing the muzzle flash from my .416 Rigby.\u00a0 It’s a good shot by a good shot. Me?\u00a0 I’m just the male model in the photo above.<\/p>\n

We’ve done blogs on ExNotes before about big bore rifles (.45 70, .458 Win Mag, .416 Rigby, .375 Ruger, and .375 H&H, to name but a few).\u00a0 These are all what I would consider big. But they’re pipsqueaks to a toy good buddy Kevin has been playing with lately:\u00a0 A custom .50-90 1896 Winchester High Wall.\u00a0 By any measure, that rifle and its cartridge is a monster.\u00a0 Originally designed as a buffalo gun, it is a real thumper.\u00a0 The .50-90 almost needs to be a crew-served weapon.<\/p>\n

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Kevin and his Monster Rifle. Elephants? Piece of cake. Cape buffalo? You bet. T-Rex’s? No problem. Godzilla? Kevin’s got ya covered.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kevin and I play around shooting for group size when we both bring guns of the same type to the West End Gun Club.\u00a0 We’ve done it with handguns, small bore rifles, and more…sort of the thing I wrote about a few days ago in the Tale of Two Mini 14s.\u00a0 \u00a0This time, though, the bore diameters would be doubled.\u00a0 Big stuff.\u00a0 Guns designed to eradicate buffalo herds in America and dangerous game in Africa.\u00a0 Or maybe prehistoric beasts in Jurassic Park.\u00a0 The stuff of dreams, these guns are.<\/p>\n

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The .50-90 Winchester. It’s a custom rifle and it is beautiful.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Note the exquisite color case hardening on the receiver and the tang aperture sight. Wow, this is a gorgeous rifle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A .50-90 view from the right side.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The .50-90’s muzzle on the rifle’s custom Green Mountain barrel. That’s a big hole!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kevin and I thought it might be interesting to do the same (you know, an informal shootoff) with two of the grownup rifles:\u00a0 My .416 Rigby (affectionately named Eleanor) and Kevin’s .50-90.\u00a0 Ordinarily, in these informal matches, we’d shoot 20 rounds and look at group size.\u00a0 I made a comment about 20 rounds from my .416 Rigby being a lot.\u00a0 Kevin told me he didn’t know if he’d survive 20 rounds from the .50-90, and suggested 10 rounds instead.\u00a0 When we got to the range early that morning (before sunup, actually), after further thought we both settled on a more sensible (and shoulder friendly) 5 rounds.<\/p>\n

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My Ruger RSM Model 77 Express rifle in .416 Rigby. Ruger quit making these some time ago. It cost too much to manufacture the rifle. Check out the stunning Circassian walnut on this rifle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A visual comparison. From left to right: The .50-90’s 750-grain cast bullet, the .50-90 cartridge, the .416’s 350-grain cast bullet, the .416 Rigby cartridge, a 5.56 NATO cartridge with a 55-grain bullet, and a .22 Long Rifle cartridge with a 36-grain bullet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While we were shooting (and during the videoing of our shooting session), my Garmin chronograph was doing its thing.\u00a0 Here’s how the velocities of the two cartridges shook out:<\/p>\n

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We also calculated the energy for each rifle based on the average velocity listed above for each cartridge.\u00a0 \u00a0The formula is:<\/p>\n

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Using the above formula, my .416 Rigby load had 2852.8 ft lbs of energy; Kevin’s .50-90 load had 2679.6 ft lbs of energy.\u00a0 (I think the Garmin will calculate energy automatically, but being engineers, Kevin and I had to use the formula and calculate it ourselves).\u00a0 It’s interesting.\u00a0 My bullet weight in the .416 Rigby was just under half of Kevin’s in his .50-90 Winchester, but the .416 had higher energy than the .50-90.\u00a0 Because energy increases as the square of velocity, the .416’s weight deficit (if the phrase “weight deficit” can even be used when referring to a 350-grain bullet) is overcome by its velocity.<\/p>\n

The .416 Rigby had more muzzle energy than Kevin’s .50-90 Winchester, but the .50-90 Winchester’s recoil is absolutely horrendous compared to the Rigby.\u00a0 You’ll see that in the video below.<\/p>\n