Jon Branch is the founder and senior editor of Revivaler and has written a significant number of articles for various publications including official Buying Guides for eBay, classic car articles for Hagerty, magazine articles for both the Australian Shooters Journal and the Australian Shooter, and he's a long time contributor to Silodrome. Full length English style Rigby leather covered rifle case used to hold a Grant .500 express rifle. Using the Federal factory ammo driving the Barnes Triple Shock X bullet at 2,100fps and a 200 yard zero the drop at 225 yards is 2.81, and at 250 yards it is 6.42. All these calibres are in production today and can be ordered from our foremost double rifle makers, like Holland & Holland, Rigby or Westley Richards. The front sight features a traditional gold bead. Nitro propellants gave rise to a number of dangerous game cartridges in the years around the turn of the century prior to the First World War which created significant competition for the .500 Nitro Express. The first double rifle forum on the net. Though the Nitro Express has a short range, its shot is incredibly powerful, with an . However, the double eight weighed 13 1/2lbs, with the .500 weighing just 9lbs. .500 Nitro Express ammo is a commonly available item and there is a good selection on Midway USA with prices around USD$132-$225 per box of 20. by comparison .458 Winchester Magnum ammo on Midway USA is listed around USD$100-$180 per box of 20, and .375 Holland & Holland Magnum ammo sells for USD$60-$96 per box of 20. Brass, Bullets and reloading dies the 470 Nithro Express. Black Powder Express RiflesLeap forward in time and percussion gives way to breech-loading. 15 inch length of pull. The latter threw an 875 grain ball at around 1,400 fps and penetrated the same number of boards. If you are in the business of selling rifles then selling two is much better than selling just one. There is only one way to gain mastery of something and that is to practice doing it until that mastery is achieved. It is worthy of note that the .500 Nitro Express is the favorite big game rifle of Geoff McDonald, the founder of Woodleigh Bullets, his having taken many buffalo, elephant and other game over a 30 year period with it. 170 Vintage hunting books and articles 458 Winchester. Moderator: CptCurl : 3510 . So, if you can manage a .458 Winchester Magnum comfortably then you can handle a .500 Nitro Express equally comfortably. . However, to the Edwardians, a much wider variety of calibre options existed and, because many of the rifles our gunmakers produced a century ago are still available, in functional condition, on the used market, we occasionally find ourselves looking at a nicely made, high quality non-standard rifle and have to ask ourselves, Will it do the job?. The steel barrels are twenty-four inches long and the proof stamps indicate a maximum cordite charge of 85 grains and a bullet weight of 480. It should be noted however that at greater ranges the rifle has a chance to require additional follow up to guarantee a kill. I have also seen neck injuries. 9 hours ago.more Mike Harrell -----John aka NitroX . All are for a .500 caliber rifle. Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/homereel Join my Discord: https://discord.gg/5uTj5ez8qhConnect with Me! Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/HomeReel Twitter: https://twitter.com/HomeReelYT#HuntShowdown They were loaded to higher pressures and not intended to be fired in rifles designed for black powder, which by comparison were not as strong. Might one not be better off with one of the bigger caliber rifles? The 450/400 Nitro Express is based on a straight sided 450 caliber parent cartridge necked down to take a smaller diameter projectile in a bottle-necked case. The stippled effect continues onto the quarter rib, onto which one ramp and two folding leaf-sights are mounted. They specialized in rifle . When fired from each barrel, the load grouped well at 100 yards and was good enough to hunt any big game at that distance. 80 Africa articles Although still a challenge, more hunters can master the recoil of the .500 NE than the heavy stopping cartridges such as the .577 and .600 NE, making it a practical choice. Purdey likened it to an express train because it went straight and fast to its destination. David Baker thinks you only really know a gun when you have shot with it, taken it to pieces and researched its story. So the .500 Nitro Express could be used on non-dangerous plains game out to about 250 yards, especially if fitted with a telescopic sight in quick detachable mounts. Both these cartridges were good for boar, deer and antelope species but were not intended for dangerous game. A Federal 215 Large Rifle Magnum primer is highly recommended. If you are one of those blessed souls who is in the market for a stopping double-rifle then you are no doubt thinking about what caliber to have it built in. A good indication of the improvement in performance that cordite offered is the .577 Magnum Express black-powder rifle, one of the most powerful BPE cartridges ever devised. Designed by Jeffery in 1903, the .600 Nitro Express was the largest and most powerful commercial hunting calibre in the world until 1988, when it was surpassed by the staggeringly powerful .700 NE. The Nitro Express Rifle is actually named for its cartridge, called as such because of the bullet velocity, which is fast as an express train, according to James Purdey, who coined the term, and because the propellant used is cordite, which is made of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. Which of the two classic London sidelocks gets your vote? That hunt involved tracking the buffalo for nine hours under the Tanzanian sun and Peter commented on how comfortable the rifle was to carry, even after that amount of time. BUILT BY JOSEF JUST OF FERLACH, AUSTRIA, COMPLETED IN 2000, THIS IS A ONE OF A KIND DRILLINIG WITH TWO SETS OF BARRELS.FIRST SET IS .600NE X2 WITH A .500/416 ON TOP, SECOND SET IS .470NE X2 AND . From left to right: 1.17 HM2,2.17 HMR, . Chin. The .500 Black Powder Express fired a 440 grain bullet at a respectable 1500fps producing 2198 ft/lb energy. The next version is the .500 Nitro for Black Powder that was loaded with cordite and first appeared in the 1890s. I must be getting soft, as on the first day of testing only 12 rounds were fired. When used with open sights the zero should be 100 yards (or meters) and thus set the maximum trajectory height is less than half an inch with the standard 570 grain bullet at the standard velocities of 2,100-2,150fps. Rigby .450 Nito Express double rifle, 1906, Class C, engraved, ejectors, express, superb accuracy, l. Rigby .450 Nitro Express. During that hiatus manufacture of both .500 Nitro Express rifles and ammunition was ceased and both professional hunters and sportsmen alike had few choices other than the .458 Winchester Magnum and the .460 Weatherby Magnum. Atkin sidelocks are a variation of the Beesley/Purdey. Jeffrey, a man who would go on to design some of the best cartridges and the rifles to fire them in, such as the .404 Jeffrey and the .500 Jeffrey, both of which are back in production. The .500 Nitro Express has been enjoying something of a resurgence in popularity and with good reason: people are beginning to discover what a superb cartridge it is. It is similarly effective in bringing down buffalo, bear, and other large game found in the Americas. Because when push comes to shove, real-world knock down power comes from precise shot placement with a bullet that reliably penetrates as it delivers its dose of hydrostatic shock. Many double rifles today are regulated to sixty five yards or more. it was not until the 1850s that the term express was used to describe a rifle. The Nitro uses Special Nitro ammo with unique damage ratios: Nonetheless, there are newly manufactured rifles with properly regulated barrels that can be purchased for a fraction of the costs listed above. The concept of an Express Rifle can best be described as the quest for a rifle delivering a medium-to-heavy bullet as directly to its target as possible, delivering devastating energy upon impact and getting from point A to point B as straight and as flat as possible. The cartridge was released to the commercial market in 1907 for large and dangerous game hunting in warm climates. All the British dangerous game cartridges, and the rifles chambered for them, suffered a hiatus beginning in the late 1960s, when hunting dangerous game in Africa became less and less accessible, up until it began to be re-discovered by the 1990s. Check it out and enjoy untold thousands of pages of reading. There was also interest in Europe and Norma of Sweden brought back some of these classic cartridges. If there was a notable accuracy advantage with any of the three powders, it was not detectable. When purchased, the serial number was stamped into the stock, an indication that it may have been in a game department armoury in Africa in the past. The .700 Nitro Express (17.889mmR) is a big game rifle cartridge.The cartridge is typically charged with around 250 grains of powder, in addition to a two-grain igniter charge (to reduce the tendency of the cartridge to hang fire from such large powder charges). The steel barrels are twenty-four inches long and the proof stamps indicate a maximum cordite charge of 85 grains and a bullet weight of 480. The Holland & Holland Nitro Express .600 is a collector's bullet because the London, England-based firm stopped making the cartridge in 1975. At the end of testing, the rifle was beginning to wear in; however, it was still tight enough that the top lever had to be bumped slightly to completely close and lock the action and allow the rifle to be fired. Sort By: 1 Item(s) Show. 46" overall outside length will take an unscoped rifle 44.5" long. The real game changer was Cordite, which arrived in the late 1880s and revolutionised the nature of sporting rifles; express rifles included. German-based Merkel has been building fine sporting guns since about 1898. The casehardened back action sidelocks have gold lined cocking indicators, gold inlaid border lines, and are respectively finely inlaid and low relief engraved with a cape buffalo and a rhinoceros in gold. (You will find the sale page for the double-rifle pictured above if you click here). Enjoy extensive archives of Double Rifle pictures, Mausers, Mannlichers, Lee Speeds, Combination guns, single shots, fine shotguns and other vintage firearms as well as modern ones.. [1], With the success of the .450 NE, various people (it is not clear who) decided to follow Rigbys example and load the old .450/400 Black Powder Express, .500 Black Powder Express and .577 Black Powder Express cartridges with cordite, creating the .450/400 Nitro Express, .500 Nitro Express and .577 Nitro Express, the latter two offering greater power than the .450s at the expense of greater rifle weight and recoil. Ask questions too! Our classic bullet designs are tailored to meet the needs of the serious safari hunter. . Plus members articles inaddition to numerous articles in other parts of the forums. The Watson Bros rifle under discussion is a quality piece. In 1907 the British Army banned all .450 calibre (as well as .303 and .577, two other military calibres) sporting rifles and ammunition from importation into India and East Africa, the two major destinations for .450 NE rifles and ammunition. 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