At the time of its introduction in 1988, it was described as the most outstanding factory cartridge that had been introduced in decades. The 416 Remington Magnum was a factory cartridge that duplicated the performance of the tried and trusted 416 Rigby but chambered in standard production magnum actions such as cold be used for the 300 Holland and Holland, and 375 Holland and Holland Magnums. This meant that rifles could be created for this cartridge at a reasonable price.
The 416 Remington Magnum was originally designed as a replacement and a less costly alternative to the 416 Rigby cartridge. However, as time went by the 416 Remington Magnum did not completely replace the 416 Rigby, even though today the 416 Remington Magnum is considered in the field to be the most popular 416 cartridge. The popularity of the 416 Remington Magnum sparked renewed interest in the 416 caliber and even gave rise to the introduction of other 416 cartridges such as the 416 Weatherby Magnum. The purpose of the cartridge at the time of its launch was to be a dangerous game hunting cartridge, especially for African games.
The 416 Remington Magnum is a belted bottlenecked cartridge with a caliber of.416 (10.57 mm). As a parent cartridge, it uses the casing of the 8 mm Remington Magnum. In comparison to the.375 H&H Magnum, the 8 mm Remington Magnum had a far better and stronger casing, and it had more volume. Furthermore, the 8 mm Remington Magnum's casing had a SAAMI operating pressure of 65,000 psi (4,500 bar), which was greater than the.375 H&H Magnum. The casings of the 8 mm Remington Magnum and the.416 Remington Magnum are similar in size below the neck.
The .416 Ruger is a .41 caliber (10.6 x 65.5mm), rimless, bottlenecked cartridge designed as a joint venture by Hornady and Ruger in 2008. Designed to equal the 416 Rigby and 416 Remington magnum but in a standard length 30-06 length action. The standard length actions are less expensive to manufacture thus making a dangerous game caliber available to a greater amount of customers. Unfortunately gun manufacturers have not followed Ruger's lead. This also applies to the 375 Ruger. The 416 Ruger is suitable for the biggest land animals and dangerous game.
The cartridge is based on the .375 Ruger case which was necked up to accept a .416 in (10.6 mm) bullet. It was designed as a dangerous game cartridge particularly for use in Alaska and Africa. The .416 Ruger duplicates the performance of the .416 Rigby and the .416 Remington Magnum. All three cartridge fire a 400 gr (26 g) bullet at 2,400 ft/s (730 m/s) generating 5,115 ft⋅lbf (6,935 J) of energy. However, unlike the Remington or Rigby .416s, the Ruger .416 can be chambered in a standard length action, as the cartridge has a length of 3.34 inches. The cartridge has the same diameter of belted magnum cases but without the belt. This provides the cartridge a larger propellant capacity than a standard length magnum cartridge of the same length. The rimless design allows for smoother feeding and extraction of the cartridge.
The .416 Ruger is chambered in the bolt-action Ruger M77 Hawkeye "African" and "guide gun" rifles, and Krieghoff rifles. No other manufacturer currently chambers this cartridge. Ammunition is available from Hornady and Buffalo Bore.
