I want a double rifle: part 1

Best start with the honest truth: I want a double rifle. 

In my mind, a double rifle is to be used for hunting of dangerous game; perhaps the largest game that roams the planet. There is the history and romance of the Great White Hunters that opened up Africa, and the mechanical reliability of carrying two independent single shot rifles.  A potential life saver, these rifles combined with the big bore cartridges they are chambered for are designed to be used when the target is likely to fight back.

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In 1884, Paul Vielle invented the first smokeless gunpowder suitable for rifles. Unlike blackpowder that it replaced, the resultant propellant known today as pyrocellulose, produced negligible smoke when fired and was three times more powerful than black powder, generating much higher muzzle velocity in the same sized case.

One of the first black powder hunting cartridges to be converted to smokeless powder was the .450/400 3¼” Magnum Express.  The original blackpowder loading was a 325 grain lead bullet at 1,900fps.  In its Nitro loading using the newly developed propellants, the same chambering launched a 400 grain jacketed bullet at 2,150fps – the 13% increase in velocity combined with the 23% increase in projectile weight produced 57% more muzzle energy, a tremendous leap in performance by any standard.

In 1896, British gun maker Jeffery introduced a new version with thicker case walls and a shorter neck to eliminate the tendency for the cartridge to stick in the chamber. The resultant cartridge was the .450/400 3” Nitro Express. It’s not quite that simple, the cases aren’t interchangeable as the new brass has a thicker rim and the shoulder is slightly farther forward than the original 3¼” case.

  

The original blackpowder .450/400 3¼” Magnum Express sits above the 3" version developed

by Jeffery for use with the newly developed and much more potent pyrocellulose propellant.

In the early 20^th century the double was starting to lose ground to the magazine-fed Mauser bolt action rifle and there was a need to develop suitable rimless cartridges for the new Mauser actions.  Again, in 1905, Jeffery modified the same case and created the ballistically identical .404 Jeffery; but that’s another story.

By the mid 20^th century, following the end of World War II, the cost of double rifles meant that they were no longer the first choice for hunters of Africa’s Big Game. Commercial production of the .450/400 3” Nitro Express ceased in the 1960’s and for all intents and purposes, the cartridge died.