Terry Wieland On Ammo - Hornady’s 450/400 – New Life for (Another) Old Cartridge

Hornady's 450/400 ammunition comes loaded with either softs or solids, both 400 grains. It delivers the velocity it promises (2050fps) and is very accurate. Hornady's new DGS bullets are excellent for big, tough animals.

It took a while – almost 18 months, to be exact – but Hornady is finally delivering its long-awaited 450/400 3” Nitro Express (Jeffery) ammunition.

To be fair, the delay is not entirely Hornady’s fault. There is hardly any type or calibre of ammunition and brass that is not hard to get these days. For whatever the reason, demand is sky-high – possibly because of the expectation of high prices down the road – and Hornady has been going flat out producing all kinds of ammunition and components.

The 450/400 was announced in August, 2006. A few small lots were produced by diverting brass intended for other cartridges, and then used on promotional safaris, but for the mass of people hoping to get their hands on some, it was a long wait until the first production run in late 2007.

Mass of people? The 450/400? It seems odd there would be that much interest in a moribund British nitro-express cartridge that is more than a century old, and chambered by almost no one, but one should never underestimate the eclectic tastes of the eccentric American Anglophile rifleman. Both Hornady and Ruger, which is making its No. 1 single-shot in 450/400, report unexpectedly heavy demand.

Although under-sung, the 450/400 really is one of the greats in the nitro-express lineup. Until the .375 H&H came along in 1912, the 450/400 was considered the all-around cartridge, especially in double rifles and, I suppose, single-shots. It was an adaptation of an adaptation from blackpowder. The original 450/400 blackpowder cartridge was adapted to smokeless in the form of the 450/400 3¼”, but its long neck caused extraction problems. W.J. Jeffery modified it, shortening the case and the neck and giving it a more pronounced shoulder. Extraction problems disappeared.

Later, Jeffery introduced its .404 specifically to duplicate 450/400 ballistic performance in a magazine-rifle cartridge.

The 450/400 had more admirers in India than Africa, where it was highly regarded as a tiger cartridge. For Cape buffalo, elephant and rhino, it is just a little bit light, with its 400-grain bullet at 2150 feet per second (fps). Since a double has traditionally been the stopping rifle, and this is a mainly a double-rifle cartridge, there was a disconnect between the rifle’s intended purpose and the cartridge’s last-ditch capabilities. Most professional hunters do not consider these to be stopping-rifle ballistics. Like most Hornady ammunition, the new 450/400 delivers what it promises. Available in both soft and solid 400-grain bullets, the ammunition chronographs at just about exactly the promised velocity from the Ruger No. 1: 2060 fps on average.

With the No. 1’s iron sights, shooting at 50 yards, the average five-shot group was 2½ inches. This is hardly a definitive test, however, and assessing ammunition quality on a test from one out-of-the-box factory rifle is unfair in the extreme.

More to the point, I tried some snap-shooting with the Ruger, firing, loading, firing again, as quickly as I could, at a variety of practical targets (plastic jugs, clay targets) at a variety of ranges. Not only did the rifle work very well, I was able to recover, reload, and shoot again with remarkable ease for such a heavy cartridge in such a (relatively) light rifle. The 450/400 has long been recommended as a double-rifle cartridge for people who do not have the physical strength to handle the really big boys, and this supports that idea.

Both brass and loaded ammunition now appear to be readily available from Hornady (along with the 9.3x74R announced at the same time). It will be interesting to see where it goes from here. Double-rifle manufacturers have not announced a sudden surge in interest, but then the flavour du jour in double rifles this year appears to be the .577 Nitro Express.

Geoff Miller at John Rigby & Co. tells me he has more .577s under construction right now than he has made, in total, in the 10 years he’s owned the company. Pushing a dozen rifles, at last count. Since Geoff is the man who test-fires the rifles from Rigby, he would be more than happy if this year’s .577 madness turns to the 450/400 next year. His shoulder would certainly welcome it.