The rear sight features a fixed, wide English V with two U- notched folding leafs for 50 and 75 yards/meters, respectively. Compare a black powder express .500 with an 8-bore rifle. Single factory loaded . Carries limited ammunition. The .500 may surprise you in that it does not explode a deer. 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 .470 Nitro Express makes a perfect choice for the serious elephant hunter, yet will handle Cape buffalo and hippo with great results. The rifle handles like a shotgun, being instinctive to put to the shoulder and fire quickly. Today, expect to pay $400,000 and upwards for a basic .700 rifle, depending on order . John Dickson of Edinburgh was a pioneer of the express concept and achieved impressive results. Extractors only (no ejectors). The foresight is a blade with a flat face, showing as a bead when mounted. The .450 3-inch Nitro Express . We use techniques and processes that rival hand loads, with the ultimate goal of making . All the key wood to metal and metal-to metal junctures are tight and clean. For a .500 Nitro Express double rifle weighing 10.7lb and firing the Hornady factory ammo with a 570 grain bullet at 2,150fps the recoil is calculated at 67ft/lb. 47 African Sporting Gazette articles. plastic butt-plate, sling-eyes, the barrel, engraved Proved & Sighted for the Mark VII .303 High Velocity Cartridge , with 'Express' open-sights, sighted from 100 to 1000 yards, and block-mounted bead-foresight Weight 7lb. What resulted was a rush by British rifle and ammunition makers to develop a substitute, Holland & Holland created the .500/465 Nitro Express, Joseph Lang the .470 Nitro Express, an unidentified firm the .475 Nitro Express, Eley Brothers the .475 No 2 Nitro Express and Westley Richards the .476 Nitro Express,[2] with the .470 NE becoming the most popular. This tended to result in sporting shooters choosing to purchase a carry rifle in one of the .450-.470 nitro calibers, and an emergency stopping rifle, most commonly a .577 Nitro Express, few .600 Nitro Express rifles were made. The .577 however, is quite an uncommon calibre and there are, to my knowledge, only a handful of gunmakers remaining who undertake to make this and other similar 'large' bore double rifles. Ballistic performance is very similar to the .450 N.E but the bigger bullet offers a little more punch. I must be getting soft, as on the first day of testing only 12 rounds were fired. A .500 Nitro Express is a rifle you can comfortably carry all day on a hunt without needing it to be ported for you by a gun-bearer, and it has a flat enough trajectory curve to be used out to 200-250 yards on non-dangerous plains game in addition to being a reliable stopping rifle against dangerous game. Thus we can see that a double-rifle in .500 Nitro Express is not a lot heavier than a typical heavy sporting rifle: it is of a weight that most people can manage to carry and wield comfortably. All Rights Reserved. I tend to think that the fashion of having a carry rifle and an emergency stopping rifle was perhaps the result of some salesmanship on the part of gun-makers. Some more feeble attempts at humor! There is only one way to gain mastery of something and that is to practice doing it until that mastery is achieved. This week, we talk about one of my new favorite guns in Hunt: Showdown, the Nitro Express Rifle. The Nitro Express Rifle is one of the most powerful weapons in Hunt: Showdown. Today, if you order a new rifle from Westley Richards or Holland & Holland for the purpose of hunting elephant or buffalo, it will be a Nitro Express in .470, .500 or .577. Attempts to perfect the concept can be divided into three eras: The percussion era, when muzzle loading placed certain constraints on rifling and bullet size relative to the bore, as well as favouring or hindering certain types of rifling. Dicksons rifles were given two deep grooves, with a twist of one quarter in thirty inches. As an example the Holland & Holland double-rifle pictured above tips the scales at 10lb 13oz. Carries limited ammunition. I first encountered one of these in Tanzania in 2014. 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. The Nitro Express can rarely be found in the Bayou. While there were a number of excellent rifle cartridges developed during the black-powder era for single-shot and double rifles, the Nitro Express cartridges remain in high demand and are practical for todays hunters. The Full-Length Sizer Die brings the case to SAAMI minimum cartridge dimensions. For a slightly reduced load that produced noticeably less recoil, try 96.0 grains of RL-17 for just over 1,900 fps; 105.0 grains reached 2,113 fps and is a factory duplication load. The debate around the best calibre for Africa has raged since the nitro express rifles we recognise today first burst onto the scene, as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth. Naturally, fired cases were handloaded, which was difficult as Berdan 172 primers had to be unconventionally removed, bullets were hard to find, and determining a powder charge that would produce the correct pressures and velocities to correspond with factory-load ballistics and regulate correctly for a given rifle was challenging. No Comments on A superb Rigby in caliber .450 Nitro Express Farquharson rifle; After being worked by some real pros! Jon has done radio, television, magazine and newspaper interviews on various issues, and has traveled extensively, having lived in Britain, Australia, China and Hong Kong. Kynamco produce ready-loaded ammunition for it and re-loaders can buy .450 brass cases from Bertram Bullet Co.and neck them up to .475 easily enough. All the accessories come with the case. Ask questions too! Description: [Nitro.Vo] Strike Knuckle Guard & Advanced Grip for Kriss Vector Airsoft AEG SMG Rifle[BLK] The Nitro. 170 Vintage hunting books and articles This was to quickly prove itself on the game fields of Africa and Asia where its advantages over such behemoths as the 8 bore black powder elephant rifles became apparent. 450 Nitro Express 3 1/4" 480 gr DGS. Yeah, something like that. All these calibres are in production today and can be ordered from our foremost double rifle makers, like Holland & Holland, Rigby or Westley Richards. Would the .500 Nitro Express be a good choice? Note the test rifles firm wood-to-metal fit and rounded contact points, which help prevent stock splitting. With Alfred Nobels invention of smokeless propellants the British created their own version called Cordite in 1889, and it didnt take them long to create the next version of the .500, the .500 Nitro for Black Powder, in the 1890s. 9 solvent, No. Recoil of the .500 NE is not nearly as severe; however, it is certainly not for everyone. Here, we take a look at a rarely encountered dangerous game rifle. .450 Nitro Express .450 Rigby .450/400 Nitro Express .458 HAM'R .458 Lott .458 SOCOM .458 Winchester Magnum .460 Weatherby Magnum .470 Nitro Express .50 BMG .50 Beowulf .500 Auto Max .500 Nitro Express .500-416 Nitro Express .505 Gibbs .56-50 Spencer 4.6x30 H&K 5.45x39mm 5.6x52R 5.7x28mm 6mm PPC 6mm ARC 6mm Creedmoor 6mm Norma BR 6mm Remington .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. Also member's Please call us at (920) 897-3149 to discuss Ammunition had to be obtained from specialty dealers and was expensive. Renowned worldwide for their handling, accuracy and durability, each HEYM rifle represents over 150-years of experience combined with the best in modern materials, machining capabilities and craftsmanship. We ship ammunition to your door via UPS ground. A break-action, double-barreled rifle ideal for hunting large game, the Nitro Express was often used by British colonials on elephant hunting expeditions. Buy Hornady 8242 Dangerous Game 450-400 Nitro Express 400 GR 50 FPS Solid (Dgs): GunBroker is the largest seller of Rifle Ammunition Ammunition All: 968036005 . 9 lubricating oil, and an aluminum rod with a knob, slotted ends and brush to keep your gun clean and shooting properly.</p> Many double rifles today are regulated to sixty five yards or more. 44 Africa books His travels have taken him to Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan and a number of other countries. This paired with its limited ammo count suggest it should only be used against players or the bounties themselves. By comparison a typical heavy sporting rifle in one of the small bore magnums such as the popular 7mm Remington Magnum or .300 Winchester Magnum will commonly weigh 8.5lb before a rifle-scope is attached and up around 9.5lb-10lb with rifle-scope and mounts, depending on how big and heavy or small and light the rifle-scope is. A hunting friend just returned from Tanzania with some good stories of an exciting buffalo hunt. One notable example is the Merkel 140-2, with variations offered in .375 H&H Magnum, .416 Rigby, .450/400 Nitro Express (NE), .470 NE and .500 NE, which is the cartridge I selected. The rifle handles like a shotgun, being instinctive to put to the shoulder and fire quickly. The casehardened bolstered action is signed J.&L. The lands of the rifling grip the bullet and impart spin. 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. When modern nitro express cartridges replaced black powder rifles for dangerous game, gunmakers worked to develop the ideal double rifle: one that would handle like a shotgun, be fast and instinctive to use and with the strength to weight ratios necessary to fire powerful cartridges and heavy bullets. In other words, one load may cause bullets to cross then diverge while other loads may produce parallel groups or begin to diverge soon after leaving the muzzle. 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. 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. If you enjoy big game hunting around the world and safaris, enjoy the stories and photos and share your own. You should also feel free to hunt with your .500 Nitro Express. The notion of this kind of performance has long been with sportsmen and gunmakers. Using Special Ammo, resupplying it is more difficult and in incredibly small quantities. Now, that is not a calibre you see every day. Made in 1906 for the Honorable Captain Guy Wilson, serial number 17311 is a Class C double rifle wearing 28-inch barrels with a beaded blade front sight, . Why not use it for boar shooting or elk for example? 80 Africa articles 13 oz. When fired from each barrel, the load grouped well at 100 yards and was good enough to hunt any big game at that distance. Seen primarily in double rifles, it was adopted by most of the big British gunmakers of the day. The potential for the large and gently tapered case of the .500 as a pure-bred nitro cartridge for dangerous game was seized upon quickly in the 1890s and the new .500 Nitro Express made its debut running at nitro propellant pressures and driving a 570 grain jacketed bullet at 2,150fps producing 5,850 ft/lb energy. He said the rifle shoots to the same point of impact at 50 yards with both barrels and groups of just over two inches are possible at that range. Enjoy discussions and gunsmithing topics on building double rifles. 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. At 50 yards, barrel regulation was close with factory loads and handloads. Three powders were stand-out choices: Alliant Reloder 17, Hodgdon Hybrid 100V and IMR-4955. Purdey used a conical bullet with protruding wings, which fitted the two broad grooves which formed the rifling. 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. However, since foot-pounds is not a particularly good method of measuring the actual effectiveness of a big-bore cartridge, it is noteworthy that by using Taylors Knock-Out (TKO) formula, it earns an impressive 89.29. One of the things that sparked my interest was his choice of rifle. Australia is home to a healthy Asian Buffalo and Banteng population so hunting dangerous big game is accessible and affordable. Typ 56 SKS; SIG Assault Rifle 522 (KK) SIG Assault Rifle . It . They do not lose all of their penetration power, and do lose some muzzle velocity. Muzzle Loading Express RiflesPushing a lead ball or conical bullet down a rifled barrel provides greater stability (and therefore greater accuracy) than pushing one down a smooth bore. British makers listed were W.J. It was being used by professional hunter Danny McCallum, for whom it had done trusty service for decades. The fences are stippled in the manner of some pigeon gun ribs, a feature designed to omit the glare that you get from polished metal under direct sunlight. How different are they? If you are in the business of selling rifles then selling two is much better than selling just one. This . Provenance: The Malcolm King Collection. The Merkel features precision machining, automatic selective ejectors and a Greener cross bolt. Ballistics and Drop for the .470 Nitro Express. 700 Nitro Express $ 500.00 Add to cart SKU: N/A Category: Uncategorized Description Additional information Description **700 Nitro Brass is unavailable at this time. Development work on the .600 NE most probably took place in the late 1890's . A 500 grain load is also available, at a slightly slower 2,125 fps. However, the double eight weighed 13 1/2lbs, with the .500 weighing just 9lbs. Point of impact was different than the 570-grain jacketed bullets, but the rifle can be sighted-in at 100 yards by drifting the rear sight assembly slightly and using the 75-yard/meter rear sight leaf. 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. The 480 grain bullet with which the .475 was generally loaded, was pushed at 2,175 feet per second. Purdeys two-groove rifle had a twist rate of just one turn in six feet. 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. German-based Merkel has been building fine sporting guns since about 1898. The targets used are the standard 50m ISSF (i.e. 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. The barrels are hammer forged and feature a 1:15 rifling twist. that you must be at least 18 years old to purchase shotgun ammunition and 21 years or older to purchase handgun and rifle ammunition. This, however is not bolted in the manner of a Westley Richards or a Webley screw grip, it simply slots into place at an angle. While the golden era of the double rifle has passed, fine-crafted, vintage examples (typically produced from the 1890s until the beginning of World War II) remain in high demand and command premiums that often range from $25,000 to $200,000 or more, which puts them out of reach of the average hunter/shooter. 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