Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .416 Taylor Project

PA, nice shooter! Don't fret too much about the bore imperfections, the 41 cal aren't finicky. My 41 wildcat rebore had the usual imperfections just like yours, then shot 3/4 inch groups.

Half decade later, the barrel is broken in! What worked for me if you'd like to try: 50-80 passes of kg-2(super fine abrasive bore cleaner) on a 45 cal bore snake. Once copper was clear, 10 passes of 320 grit lapping compound on a 45 cal bore snake. Clean abrasive out of chamber, fire a bullet with abrasive still in bore.

Initially, 600 grit was too fine, and wasn't getting the tooling marks.

10 more passes with 600 grit, clean abrasive from chamber fire a bullet.

10 more passes with 600 grit. Fire a bullet and be done.

Clean with kg-2, look down bore. Tooling marks should be smoothed down. Repeat if you have to.

Regarding powders, my pressure trace proved AA 2230 gave the lowest chamber pressure for the highest velocity. I'm within 9 grains of case capacity of your 416. 2380 fps on a 350 grainer at about 49,000 psi from a 20 inch barrel. The worst was TAC high pressure, low velocity. I don't think it's a good short barreled powder.

From 9.3 mm 300 grain, to 41 cal 350 grain. You're bumping up 5 calibers and 50 grains of bullet weight. That's substantial in my opinion.

Good results Mainer! I tried to wear out my arms with JB after I first examined the bore. It was so rough it would tear hunks off patches. The JB smoothed it up considerably. At this point I'm half convinced if I were to remove all the copper it might not shoot as well as it does. JES has done four rifles for me, and none of them look like this inside.

PA,
I don't think that jb is a course enough grit to get tooling marks sufficiently. Be careful collecting copper. My pressure trace showed a jump in pressure on a copper fouled barrel and lower pressure on a clean one. I have a wheeler engineering lapping kit I no longer need if you want it.

I was kind of spun up about it before shooting it but at this point the tooling marks are less concerning. I think if I went chasing after those furrows it would be a smoothbore .458 by the time they were all gone. Thank much for the offer though.

The problem with barnes bullets are how long they are, to fit in a standard magazine box thety take up powder capacity. The load we settled on
400 gr woodleigh weldcore
70.5 gr Varget
CCI 250
3.372 OAL

This yielded 2333 fps with very little deviation, More than 4800 ft pounds of energy

Thanks for sharing, what a cool project.

I had looked seriously at a Taylor, but wanted a commercial round. After a couple of Rigby's, 404 jeffery's, I settled on a Remington.

Had the Taylor been commercialized, it would have saved me a bunch of time, but cost me in experience with plus 400's.

I've got the Barnes 400s loaded to a COL of 3.333 and use the CCI 250s as well. One help for me is that my powder charge being less leaves more room for that long slug. I don't know about the woodleigh, but the 400 gr A Frame and the 350 gr TSX are just about the same length, so if I were pursuing more velocity with 400s I'd likely choose the Swift since it allows more powder room and eliminates the possibility of the spring back issue I've experienced with some other compressed loads.

Have you considered seeing if your caliber is offered in Tubb's Final Finish bore polishing bullets? I have seen a a few people report good success at cleaning up some rough bores with this product. It might help clean up some of the tooling and chatter marks in your bore and keep you from tearing patches when cleaning any more.

Maybe that coupled with DBC will be all that is needed?

My wonderful 416 Taylor shot 400 grain Hornady softs with Re15 right over the front sight at one hundred yards. 350 gr Speers were one inch over the front sight. They ran 2550, the 400s were 2350. The Lee dies come with a tapered expander decapper so you can use 7 mag cases.

41 cal is darn lethal. The lady picked it up for busting brush after a cow caribou. Left her 23 inch barreled 9.3x62 oberndorf sporter with me. She sent a single 350 grain Swift through one front shoulder, heart, ribs (angling towards). Never knew a bullet built that stout, would open up so fast on a smaller animal. 2.5 inch diameter hole through the ribs. Not as clean to meat as the 300 grain swift 9.3.

PA, how is the 416 Taylor project? Are you now hunting with it?

No dangerous game rifle should ever say "Ruger Alaskan" on it. Secondly, no piece of brass, nor any bullet, should ever say Hornady on it. If it does, walk away. I learned my lesson.

Was reading back on the 416 Taylor. One blowhard on campfire claimed the 416 ruger would replace it, was "better". That never happened.

Long live the 416 Taylor! Pretty easy to do with fine Norma brass......

Time and time again:
300 wsm would replace the 300 win mag: that never happened.

458 lott would replace the 458 win mag: that never happened

375 ruger was better the the 375 h&h, that also never happened.

This is why I havent bought a gun mag in over 20 years, the trendy blowhards read this non sense from a magazine.....

Mainer, I can certainly see how you could go with that line of thinking. However, I'd say you're depriving yourself of some good info from the likes of Barsness, Brian Pearce, Phil Shoemaker. I know they've increased my knowledge.

I think for the small number of guys who handload and need a rifle that's .40+ caliber, the Taylor is a good choice. I mean, there must be at least 72 of us out there!

I've not yet killed anything with the Taylor, and likely won't until the end of the month when work settles down a bit. The only real hunt I've done so far was my 13 yr old killing his first mountain goat last month, and we both took the 9.3s for that business.

One interesting development since my last post is what's gone on with the open sights. When using the Talley peep one is constrained to windage adjustment only, there's no provision for elevation. In order to have a 50 yard zero I had to use the shortest bead insert that NECG offers, 4.5mm. It results in a sight picture that puts the bead perched right on top of the main part of sight. It works, but I've decided it bugs me to no end. Talley said they won't make an aperture slide bar of any different height, but they did put me in touch with a machinist they know who agreed to add some height for me. I will keep the members here informed on developments.

I've got a pair of minty LH M70s in .473 and .532. Nice wood, too. A 338-06 and 416 Taylor would be simple and effective I think.

You'd get no argument from me on that logic, though I'd do a 9.3 on the . 473

I have read Winchesters stainless factory barrels are hard to re bore and the metal some times shreds or tears during the process. Just what I read. I'm curious as to why Jess does not do a .416 bore.

I think in a penetration test any Barnes X 300 to 350 grain bullet would dig in as deep as a Woodleigh or Swift of heavier weight.

I can't remember his name but one respected and experienced deceased brown bear guide from the Lake Louise and Glennallen area did lots of testing with Barnes X bullets in .416 calibers and liked the 300 grain versions performance on brown bears. I think Phil Shoemaker knows his name.

All I know is that between my friends and I JES has rebored multiple stainless Winchester and Tikka barrels without any issues like this one has. Still, it's enough of a shooter to work. The 400s at 2150 have no problem raking bears, but the lighter bullets would likely penetrate sufficiently and you could flatten the trajectory some if it mattered. As it is with this rifle and 400s, I'm good to 200 which is plenty for where I'm using it.