Let's Talk Big Bores

My definition of big bore sort of revolves around that basic, arrived at by experience idea of a stopping rifle for elephant. They learned a few things the hard way and some the easy way. About 2 days after smokeless powder was invented they also discovered that bullets that went much over 2100 did things they had never seen before. There was a French name for it but I forget; in my defense I don't speak French. Experience showed the ele shooters that FMJs with a steel (actually soft iron) with sectional densities of .300 or more at the magic velocity had plenty of penetration but not much of anything for actually impressing an incoming elephant on a frontal brain shot that didn't work out. Bear in mind that black powder 8 bore rifles weren't considered reliable frontal brain shot material either. It all sort of came together with the .450 x 3 1/4". Finally the guys that were trying to get rich in a business that rivalled piracy in risk versus reward had it all together, enough velocity for the relatively novel velocity effect, enough sectional density for reliable penetration, enough frontal area to smack a pissed off elephant so friggin hard that he might just change his mind about killing you long enough for you to give him the second barrel, and bullet construction that would support that. It also by default produced right around 5000 foot pounds of muzzle energy.

I'm flexible, so if a cartridge did everything, sectional density, threshold velocity, bullet construction, enough weight of the right construction bullet, enough frontal area with a solid, and cranked out 5000 fps of stop what you're doing 'cause I don't want to die, but came up a bit short of 45 cal I'd probably let it in as a big bore. Come up short on any of the others and you're out. The .458 Win spent decades coming up short on the velocity and has been viewed with suspition ever since. To me that makes the four five eight marginal as a big bore, but the .416 Rigby is right in there.
 
Dogleg said:
My definition of big bore sort of revolves around that basic, arrived at by experience idea of a stopping rifle for elephant. They learned a few things the hard way and some the easy way. About 2 days after smokeless powder was invented they also discovered that bullets that went much over 2100 did things they had never seen before. There was a French name for it but I forget; in my defense I don't speak French. Experience showed the ele shooters that FMJs with a steel (actually soft iron) with sectional densities of .300 or more at the magic velocity had plenty of penetration but not much of anything for actually impressing an incoming elephant on a frontal brain shot that didn't work out. Bear in mind that black powder 8 bore rifles weren't considered reliable frontal brain shot material either. It all sort of came together with the .450 x 3 1/4". Finally the guys that were trying to get rich in a business that rivalled piracy in risk versus reward had it all together, enough velocity for the relatively novel velocity effect, enough sectional density for reliable penetration, enough frontal area to smack a pissed off elephant so friggin hard that he might just change his mind about killing you long enough for you to give him the second barrel, and bullet construction that would support that. It also by default produced right around 5000 foot pounds of muzzle energy.

I'm flexible, so if a cartridge did everything, sectional density, threshold velocity, bullet construction, enough weight of the right construction bullet, enough frontal area with a solid, and cranked out 5000 fps of stop what you're doing 'cause I don't want to die, but came up a bit short of 45 cal I'd probably let it in as a big bore. Come up short on any of the others and you're out. The .458 Win spent decades coming up short on the velocity and has been viewed with suspition ever since. To me that makes the four five eight marginal as a big bore, but the .416 Rigby is right in there.
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That up there makes lot of sense to me!
 
Dogleg said:
My definition of big bore sort of revolves around that basic, arrived at by experience idea of a stopping rifle for elephant. They learned a few things the hard way and some the easy way. About 2 days after smokeless powder was invented they also discovered that bullets that went much over 2100 did things they had never seen before. There was a French name for it but I forget; in my defense I don't speak French. Experience showed the ele shooters that FMJs with a steel (actually soft iron) with sectional densities of .300 or more at the magic velocity had plenty of penetration but not much of anything for actually impressing an incoming elephant on a frontal brain shot that didn't work out. Bear in mind that black powder 8 bore rifles weren't considered reliable frontal brain shot material either. It all sort of came together with the .450 x 3 1/4". Finally the guys that were trying to get rich in a business that rivalled piracy in risk versus reward had it all together, enough velocity for the relatively novel velocity effect, enough sectional density for reliable penetration, enough frontal area to smack a pissed off elephant so friggin hard that he might just change his mind about killing you long enough for you to give him the second barrel, and bullet construction that would support that. It also by default produced right around 5000 foot pounds of muzzle energy.

I'm flexible, so if a cartridge did everything, sectional density, threshold velocity, bullet construction, enough weight of the right construction bullet, enough frontal area with a solid, and cranked out 5000 fps of stop what you're doing 'cause I don't want to die, but came up a bit short of 45 cal I'd probably let it in as a big bore. Come up short on any of the others and you're out. The .458 Win spent decades coming up short on the velocity and has been viewed with suspition ever since. To me that makes the four five eight marginal as a big bore, but the .416 Rigby is right in there.
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Wonder were my 375 rum fits then. Have to look up energy.....

Factory loadings are less powerful than handloads for the cartridge. Remington factory loads push a 300 grain (19 g) bullet at 2760 ft/s (840 m/s),[3] producing 5070 ft·lbf (6.88 kJ) of energy. A handloader can increase the muzzle velocity of a 300gr bullet to 3321 ft/s (900 m/s),[4] and develop 5800 ft·lbf (7.9 kJ).[5]

So that's from Wikipedia.....my personal load is a 260 nosler partition at 3050 ft/sec. Painful before muzzle brake, and still gets your attention plus LOAD since. May be considered light at 260gr, but nothing is getting up from one good hit....in Kanada anyways.
 
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nowarningshot said:
Wonder were my 375 rum fits then. Have to look up energy.....
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It's in the club of "Mental Mediums"...so much medium that they're a little mental but also highly effective. What I'd be curious to see if how bullets hold up to that kind of speed. My hunch is that everything in the 375 bore was dreamed up with the H&H and maybe the Weatherby in mind. When you start adding hundreds more FPS I'd be leery of anything that wasn't seriously tough.
 
nowarningshot said:
Wonder were my 375 rum fits then. Have to look up energy.....

Factory loadings are less powerful than handloads for the cartridge. Remington factory loads push a 300 grain (19 g) bullet at 2760 ft/s (840 m/s),[3] producing 5070 ft·lbf (6.88 kJ) of energy. A handloader can increase the muzzle velocity of a 300gr bullet to 3321 ft/s (900 m/s),[4] and develop 5800 ft·lbf (7.9 kJ).[5]

So that's from Wikipedia.....my personal load is a 260 nosler partition at 3050 ft/sec. Painful before muzzle brake, and still gets your attention plus LOAD since. May be considered light at 260gr, but nothing is getting up from one good hit....in Kanada anyways.
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Interesting question. I've always considered my 375 H&Hs as mediums, but have had campfire discussions about where something stops being the biggest of the small guns and starts being the smallest of the big guns. My 375 Weatherby with the long 3/4" free bore will produce more than 5000 fpe of energy but I consider that a medium as well. A 378 Weatherby will put out 6000 fpe and is widely considered one nasty medium with a recoil impulse and recoil velocity that most find obnoxious. Never had a 375 RUM; but did have a 375 Cheytac for a bit. That was sort of event when it went off, since the starting loads were 130 grains of Retumbo. ;) Energys north of 7300 at the muzzle were well within reach, as were 1000 yard energys of over 3300 fpe with the rather ho-hum 350 gr SMKs I used. Is that one a big-bore? My knee jerk reaction is it probably is, but I don't have any on game shots fired in anger data to support that. I built mine for depopulation water buffalo shooting on flood plains where shooters couldn't get anywhere near them, but that opportunity evaporated before I got to put it to use. :(
 
BigUglyMan said:
It's in the club of "Mental Mediums"...so much medium that they're a little mental but also highly effective. What I'd be curious to see if how bullets hold up to that kind of speed. My hunch is that everything in the 375 bore was dreamed up with the H&H and maybe the Weatherby in mind. When you start adding hundreds more FPS I'd be leery of anything that wasn't seriously tough.
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Yes, especially when the 260 Partition is really not that impressive on moose and caribou.

They die, for sure, but saw that bullet fail to completely penetrate on a really big chest-hit mountain caribou bull. Fellow I was guiding was pleased he had a B&C bull very high in the book, rightly so, but I was shocked to see that.

Ted
 
Dogleg said:
My definition of big bore sort of revolves around that basic, arrived at by experience idea of a stopping rifle for elephant. They learned a few things the hard way and some the easy way. About 2 days after smokeless powder was invented they also discovered that bullets that went much over 2100 did things they had never seen before. There was a French name for it but I forget; in my defense I don't speak French. Experience showed the ele shooters that FMJs with a steel (actually soft iron) with sectional densities of .300 or more at the magic velocity had plenty of penetration but not much of anything for actually impressing an incoming elephant on a frontal brain shot that didn't work out. Bear in mind that black powder 8 bore rifles weren't considered reliable frontal brain shot material either. It all sort of came together with the .450 x 3 1/4". Finally the guys that were trying to get rich in a business that rivalled piracy in risk versus reward had it all together, enough velocity for the relatively novel velocity effect, enough sectional density for reliable penetration, enough frontal area to smack a pissed off elephant so friggin hard that he might just change his mind about killing you long enough for you to give him the second barrel, and bullet construction that would support that. It also by default produced right around 5000 foot pounds of muzzle energy.

I'm flexible, so if a cartridge did everything, sectional density, threshold velocity, bullet construction, enough weight of the right construction bullet, enough frontal area with a solid, and cranked out 5000 fps of stop what you're doing 'cause I don't want to die, but came up a bit short of 45 cal I'd probably let it in as a big bore. Come up short on any of the others and you're out. The .458 Win spent decades coming up short on the velocity and has been viewed with suspition ever since. To me that makes the four five eight marginal as a big bore, but the .416 Rigby is right in there.
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Very but very interesting.
 
Northern Shooter said:
Man those Ruger RSM's looked like some real sweet rifles but were before my time. Why doesn't ruger produce anything like this today in their M77 line?
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The answer to that....belt....dancing bananas.....arguments and trolling aside. For every rifle greater than or equal to .375, there are 100 .308 and smaller sold.

Economy of scale, marketing, and corporate profit. Why switch over a line producing 6.5 manbun selling like hotcakes, to produce 458 whizzbang mag that sits for two years unsold.
 
nowarningshot said:
The answer to that....belt....dancing bananas.....arguments and trolling aside. For every rifle greater than or equal to .375, there are 100 .308 and smaller sold.

Economy of scale, marketing, and corporate profit. Why switch over a line producing 6.5 manbun selling like hotcakes, to produce 458 whizzbang mag that sits for two years unsold.
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Looks like the only calibers they're chambering greater than 338wm are the 375 and 416 ruger.
 
nowarningshot said:
The answer to that....belt....dancing bananas.....arguments and trolling aside. For every rifle greater than or equal to .375, there are 100 .308 and smaller sold.

Economy of scale, marketing, and corporate profit. Why switch over a line producing 6.5 manbun selling like hotcakes, to produce 458 whizzbang mag that sits for two years unsold.
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well a shame the rsm never came in left hand.
 
Ardent said:
No shortage of RSMs around used they’re not rare, I used the crap out of mine and enjoyed stickhunter’s custom .505. For the money, one of the best guns I’ve ever owned.
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Lots around, but I think most guys that have one want to hold onto it. They don't make 'em like that anymore!
 
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