.700 nitro express

deerstalker.308

Well-Known Member
Was in kynamco placing an order for some rounds, and had a bit of a chat with the guy who makes up the ammo.
Chopsing away about various rounds etc, he mentioned the price of .700 NE rounds........£97 a squirt! Outch that's going to hurt in more ways than one, no wonder it's not the most commercially available round on the market hey! You certainly wouldn't want to send too many of them down the range purely for zeroing or practice.
Makes my .375 ammo at about £2.50 a shot seem positively cheap!
 
Was in kynamco placing an order for some rounds, and had a bit of a chat with the guy who makes up the ammo.
Chopsing away about various rounds etc, he mentioned the price of .700 NE rounds........£97 a squirt! Outch that's going to hurt in more ways than one, no wonder it's not the most commercially available round on the market hey! You certainly wouldn't want to send too many of them down the range purely for zeroing or practice.
Makes my .375 ammo at about £2.50 a shot seem positively cheap!


Oooof! And I thought this was bad: P  ricey.jpg
 
That is why everbody uses bertrand brass. Made in good ole Victoria. Will cost about 10X less per shot.
 
I think the last box of 416 I bought was nearly £250.00. The guys in South Africa were horrified. All of the PH's I have met hand load everything. Eddie O'Reilly has a new Sabatti in 500 which he uses as his stopper of last resort and is working up loads for it. He says it hurt a bit at first!!!
 
I think the last box of 416 I bought was nearly £250.00. The guys in South Africa were horrified. All of the PH's I have met hand load everything. Eddie O'Reilly has a new Sabatti in 500 which he uses as his stopper of last resort and is working up loads for it. He says it hurt a bit at first!!!
I use a cast boolit from an RCBS mould in the 416 Rigby I use - at around 2000 to 2200fps they are not pip squeak loads. I wouldn't dream of using factory ammo.
I have just got some Barnes 416 solids on clearance to load as well.
 
That is why everbody uses bertrand brass. Made in good ole Victoria. Will cost about 10X less per shot.

I tried using Bertram brass in my 416 Rigby when it was the only make of case you could buy in that calibre. I had to open the bolt with a rubber-faced mallet, they'd stretched so much. This was with a well-below-maximum load of H4831SC. Some time later I was able to get some Norma cases and they worked fine, with that load and on up to maximum.
 
I tried using Bertram brass in my 416 Rigby when it was the only make of case you could buy in that calibre. I had to open the bolt with a rubber-faced mallet, they'd stretched so much. This was with a well-below-maximum load of H4831SC. Some time later I was able to get some Norma cases and they worked fine, with that load and on up to maximum.

Thats worrying, did you have the headspace checked?
 
At £97 per round I bet there is a healthy margin. Even if it's double the powder a 375 uses and the bullets are hand made or hand turned from solid there is still good margin there.
 
What would be the cost of a set of custom made reloading dies for .700NE be likely to set you back or would they cost similar to a set for .50BMG I wonder? Also would they fit in a RCBS rockchucker with the 7/8"x14 adapter removed?

I have to admit that I would love to reload .700NE, it would give me quite a buzz.
 
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Thats worrying, did you have the headspace checked?

No I didn't. It had been fine with various factory loads that I'd been able to buy cheap (-ish) in small quantities so I put it down to the cases, which did seem thinner and lighter than those of the factory cartridges. The Norma brass I bought later hasn't caused any problems at all. It was an as-new in-the-box Ruger Safari Magnum rather than a custom job, so headspace seemed unlikely. I still have it, so if you know someone with 416 Rigby Go/No-Go gauges in the South then I could get it checked.
 
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