|
The .416 Rigby or 10.6×74mm was designed in 1911 by John Rigby,〔Helsley, Steve. "Rigby Marks 275th Anniversary", in ''Safari: The Journal of Big Game Hunters'', Safari Club International, Nov-Dec 2009, p.27.〕 of John Rigby & Company, as a dangerous game cartridge. It is the first to use a bullet with a diameter of . The rifles, as built by John Rigby & Co., were initially made up on Mauser magnum-length actions, although in later years, some were made on standard length actions, a perfect example being the rifle used by legendary professional hunter Harry Selby.〔Coogan, Joe (October 2002). "The .416 Rigby:Just Enough", "American Rifleman", pg. 80〕 Other famous users of the cartridge were Commander David Enderby Blunt, John Taylor, and Jack O'Connor. ==Origin & History== Two major developments at the turn of the 20th Century set the course for the development of the .416 Rigby as a successful rifle cartridge. The first was the development of cordite in the United Kingdom in 1889 and the development in Germany of the Gewehr 98 magazine rifle. Prior to the invention of cordite, rifles used gunpowder (black powder) as a propellant. Due to the burn characteristics of black powder it did not produce high pressures and therefore did not produce high velocities. Big bore cartridges of the era were the 4 bore, 6 bore and 8 bore rifles cartridges. Sub Caliber were considered small bore cartridges. Although the 4 bore, 6 bore and 8 bore cartridges were considered appropriate for dangerous game during that era, these cartridges lacked the penetration required to take heavy thick skinned game such as elephant, buffalo or rhinoceros humanely. The development of smokeless powder revolutionized the rifle. One version of this smokeless powder developed in the U.K. was cordite which allowed higher pressures to be developed and thereby increasing the velocity of bullets. The invention of smokeless powder rendered the big bore rifles of the era obsolete. With the emergence of cordite as a propellant what was considered a big bore cartridge changed to any cartridge having a caliber of over . The switch during World War I to modern smokeless powders would cause what constituted a big bore to be further refined to mean any cartridge over . Next improvement was the development of the Gewehr 98 rifle by Paul Mauser. Paul Mauser did not invent the bolt-action rifle but rather he refined the design allowing controlled round feeding, magazine feeding using a stripper clip, and a strong action with the ability to withstand high pressures generated by the new smokeless powders. The rifle design would go on to become the most common and successful rifle design in the history of firearms. During World War II most Axis and Allied nations with the exception of the British (Lee–Enfield), and the Russians (Mosin–Nagant) used rifles based on the Mauser 98 action. Today this is still the most popular rifle design and is used to this day by Mauser, Dumoulin-Herstal, CZ, Holland & Holland, Kimber, Rigby, Ruger and Winchester among others. The Mauser 98 action provided the consumers and gun makers an inexpensive alternative to the double and single shot rifles which until that time predominated the dangerous game hunting scene. At the turn of the 20th Century, three major British rifle manufacturers, Jeffery, Westley-Richards and John Rigby & Co. designed cartridges which could operate in the Magnum Mauser action and could offer big bore nitro express ballistics and performance in a magazine rifle which was what the British called their bolt-action rifles. The result was the .404 Jeffery, .425 Westley-Richards and the .416 Rigby. While these cartridges were considered to be the new medium bore cartridges during their day, their performance on game matched the performance of the big bore Nitro Express cartridges. The performance of these cartridges was due to the sectional density (greater than ) and higher velocity (~). The first .416 Rigby rifles used the Magnum Mauser Square Bridge No. 5 action. The large bolt face and the length of the Magnum Mauser No. 5 action was easily adopted for use with the .416 Rigby cartridge. As the Magnum Mauser action became scarcer after World War II, .416 Rigby rifles were built on Enfield P-17 and the BRNO actions instead of the Magnum Mauser action. Both the BRNO and the Enfield P-17 actions are in turn based on the Mauser 98 rifle. After World War II with the dwindling of areas to hunt dangerous game, interest in the .416 Rigby cartridge and most big bore cartridges began to wane. By the 1970s with the demise of the British ammunition supplier Kynoch as an entity, the supply of .416 Rigby ammunition was dwindling, and many hunters including Selby set aside their .416 Rigby rifles taking up the more popular .458 Winchester Magnum or the .375 H&H Magnum. Between 1912 and the beginning of World War II John Rigby & Co. produced just 169 .416 Rigby rifles and 180 between 1939 and 1984. Between 1984 when Paul Roberts took the reins of John Rigby & Co. and 1997 when the company was purchase by Geoff Miller’s investment group 184 more rifles were produced. It was not until Bill Ruger of Sturm Ruger Co. began offering the Ruger Model 77 RSM Magnum Mk II in 1991 that the cartridge finally took off. Ruger produced approximately 1,000 rifles between 1991 and 2001, dramatically boosting the number of .416 Rigby rifles in circulation. With renewed interest in dangerous game hunting in Africa, and the renewed demand for .416 Rigby ammunition, ammunition manufacturers Federal, Hornady and Norma began producing ammunition to meet the new demand. The Kynoch brand name was licensed by Eley to Kynamco, a British ammunition manufacturer, based in Suffolk England, which continues to manufacture .416 Rigby ammunition under the Kynoch brand name. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「.416 Rigby」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|