In 1988 Remington finally decided to fill the gap between the .375 H&H and the .458 Win. Mag. The result was .416 Remington Magnum. During the previous 25 years a wide variety of wildcats with .416” bullets had emerged. One of the most popular was the .416 Hoffman, which is based upon a blown out full-length .375 H&H-case. Remington basically did the same thing by necking up the 8mm Rem. Mag. case to accept a .416” bullet. Hereby Remington managed to make a cartridge which duplicates the performance of the .416 Rigby with the original loads that made this cartridge famous. However, the .416 Rigby was made with a huge case in order to keep down the pressure from the fast burning Cordite-powder in tropical climates. This is the reason that the .416 Remington operates at a higher pressure - like most modern cartridges designed for modern rifles.
The .416-cartridges combines the trajectory of a .375 H&H and the muzzle energy of the .458 Win. Mag. and they hereby constitute very versatile cartridges. Actually they are close to the non-existing all round cartridge for hunting all over the world.
The “magnum”-designation is a marketing gimmick, as both Rigby’s and Weatherby’s versions have a much larger case capacity and can be loaded to higher muzzle velocities. Accordingly the .416 Remington is at its best with the same powder types as the .375 H&H.
For African big game the 400 grain bullets of a good construction is the classical choice, but for Brown bear in Alaska or driven moose in Europe many hunters prefer 300 or 350 grain bullets.
Norma Brass is the gold-standard of cartridge cases.