A philistine videogame salesman loyal reader recently inquired about my intense interest in the (hopefully) soon-to-be-released Ruger No. 1 rifle in 450/400 Nitro Express. I’ll try to explain.
Much of my boyhood was spent devouring the writings of Ross Seyfried, which left me permanently fascinated by British sporting rifles. When I had the chance to meet Ross a few years ago, he joked that he had “warped me for life,” and he was right. The work of the old British gunmakers just leaves me slack-jawed. They had an understanding of form, line, and proportion that almost doesn’t exist anymore. As far as I’m concerned, they reached perfection and built the most elegant and beautiful guns ever made.
Unfortunately, those superlatives translate into “cubic dollar” price tags. The low end of the market is in the “decent used car” range, while really spectacular pieces get into “nice house in a good neighborhood” territory. The base price of a new Holland & Holland Royal double rifle is a hair under $150,000 at current exchange rates. If you’re a little short on cash this month, you can pick up a basic bolt-action rifle from H&H for only $36,000. I’m not making this up; you can see for yourself right here.
So, as in most areas of life, an ordinary slob like me has to settle for what he can actually get. And the closest thing I can get is a Ruger No. 1, which pretty strongly resembles the kind of single shot rifles the Brits were building a hundred years ago. Compare a genuine Farquharson single (like this one made by Jeffery or this Mahillion) to the Ruger, and the resemblance is clear. Ruger also borrowed some styling cues from the Scottish gunmaker Alexander Henry; take a look at that forend.
But Ruger’s been making No. 1s for forty years now; what has me really excited is the chambering. For the first time in those forty years, the No. 1 is being offered in a “proper” British caliber. True, they’ve been available in .375 H&H and .416 Rigby for a long time, and those are both grand old English cartridges. But those rounds are belted and rimless, respectively, and original Brit singles were almost always chambered for rimmed calibers. With the 450/400, we’ll finally be able to get a reasonably authentic-looking single in an authentic caliber, with ammunition that’s mass-produced by a major American manufacturer to boot.
The 450/400 should also appeal to more shooters than something like the .470 Nitro Express, which kills at the muzzle and maims at the butt. By comparison, the 450/400 is the “light heavyweight” of the Nitro Express family; it has plenty of power but is a definite step below the bigger guns and should be significantly friendlier to the shooter. I estimate the recoil as 37 foot-pounds at 16.7 feet/second, which is pretty close to the .375 H&H. You wouldn’t want to shoot a hundred rounds from a benchrest, but it’s not likely to kick you out from under your earmuffs, either. It’s perfectly suited to elk or big bears, and I wouldn’t hesitate to go after whitetails with one. But then again, I’m warped for life.
You probably completely understand why I needed a .405 Winchester barrel for my Encore.
(You also made me miss my now-departed Ruger No.1 RSI in .243Win; a rifle I’d bought solely because it was, well… pretty.)
Yes it is a wait that was long in coming – in my youth I used a double in 500/465 Westley Richards which was an excellent stopper of just about anything lurking around the(Botswana) Bechuanalnd Border in the late 50′s. It is real treat to see the old calibres being rejuvenated!