Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only 416 ruger powder and loads

Hi guys. Time to play around with the 416 ruger I've had here for a couple years. Other than a little factory ammo, I've not done much with this gun. Curious what seems ot be the best powder for 350-400 grain pills. Also will be using speer 350s and a few different 400s. Other than the hornady book, reloading info seems hard to come by still. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ryan

Most of my experience with 400 grain bullets. Hornady round nose for practice and Swift A-Frames for taking care of business. 6 shots = 2 zebra and 2 cape buffalo bulls and 2 cows. R-15 is good but MR-2000 higher velocity. Great fun shooting 350 grain gas checked lead bullets from Montana Bullet Works with case full of IMR 7383 surplus powder. Definitely get a taper crimp die from Lee. Get a NECG peep sight for Ruger bases for a scope back up and for using as a bear protection rifle in Alaska and Hudson Bay. Check Nosler on line loading data. Case capacity with 400 grain Partition seated is 80 grains of water for the 416 Remington and 76 grains of water for the Ruger.

The case capacity of the .416 Howell is nearly identical to that of the .416 Ruger: 77 gn with RWS cases and 75 gn with Dakota cases. My favorite powders are 8208XBR and IMR4166 but have had good results with TAC, Varget, Reloder 15 and Big Game. Been staying with powders that are relatively insensitive to temperature changes.

Nosler has .416 Ruger data for the 400 gn Partition.

If I was starting over I think I would go with Barnes 350 gn TTSX and 350 gn Banded Solids.

Thanks for the info guys. Anyone else have anything to add?

What kind of expected velocity out of a 20" barrel using 350s?

Applying The Rules (thanks JB) to Barnes' data for the .416 Remington and subtracting 25 fps per inch of barrel the estimate, using a 350 TSX and Varget, is 2500 fps. Obviously permissible velocities vary with different powders and bullets.

By the way, in my .416 Howell I found the 350 gn bullets to have a point of impact 4" to 5" higher than that of 400 gn bullets.

Cheers

I've been happy with 80gr of MR2000 behind a 400 gr Swift A-Frame. That's one grain over max in the Swift manual and max load behind a 400 gr partition in Noslers manual. This load was very accurate out of my rifle so I haven't tried too many loads for it.

MR2000 seems to be the top powder for the highest velocity I've read. I may give it a go then. See how accurate it is. I'm not after velocity as much as I'm after accuracy though

I've never chronographed my 416 loads but 80 gr of MR2000 gave me smaller than 1" groups with 5 shots. Better than the lighter loads and quite a bit better than my RL-15 loads.

I could only hope for that accuracy. Will be getting started soon so I'll keep you guys posted on the results

Thanks for the help

My 416 ruger load data. Use at own risk.
This is a culmination of the load data.
Varget and Re15 powders burned the cleanest, had the most stable velocities and were more accurate, so I stuck with those powders for the remainder of my testing.
I pushed the limits loading compressed loads with both of these powders and it was just a waste of powder and brass.
I didn't try solids, as I don't have any, don't plan to use them for what I'm going to hunt and I don't get bullets for free to test them.
This is data for a Left Hand rifle, which are far superior than Evil right hand rifles, so use caution when loading for Evil right hand rifles !

400 RN Horn Interlok;
Hornady Brass

68 grn -Varget / Fed 210 or 215/ 3.300 OAL

72 grn - Re15 / Fed 210 or 215 / 3.300 OAL - Very accurate load.

350 TTSX/ Mag Tip ;
Hornady brass

Mag Tip- 77 Varget / Fed 210 / 3.340 OAL

TTSX - 79.5 Re15 / Fed 210 / 3.415 OAL

I got a 585 HE rifle after the 416, so now the pipsqueak 416 is collecting dust.
My big bore addiction is getting worse.

Thanks for the data. Curious what velocity you were getting with the 350 mags?

I averaged 2,510 with the TTSX and 2,560 with the Mag Tip.
Both loads had low velocity spreads under 10 fps in 10 rounds fired and great accuracy.
I'll be using the mag tips on deer cull hunts this year.

Did you find that was about as fast as you could get the 350 mags to go safely?

You could always push them harder, that's up to you.
I push the limits with every type of testing I do, but when I'm going to use a rifle for hunting, I want my cartridges to be able to cycle flawlessly and be as accurate as possible.
The loads I posted do both and according to my charts, will be able to take down most things that walk this planet with extreme prejudice.