The Mighty .600 Nitro Express

[eljefe]

I should have said USA, meant California.The Jeffery pedigree papers...

[penpusher]

Grumpy,

I want a rifle that will raise a cape buffalo off it's feet.What calibre and make do you suggest.Others are also free to make suggestions.

penpusher

[penpusher]

Personally, I prefer something like this http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/h ... _h_11.html

penpusher

[eljefe]

penpusher,
thats an awesome piece of engineering there...Do you know that the Krupp guns in the seige of Paris (1870, not 1914)were designed to have their barrels changed after every round, to ensure pinpoint accuracy! No typo-EVERY ROUND! The devil or God surely lies in the details!

[Grumpy]

Eh ? Got me even more confused now - what can `Cal` be a typo of ?
Just a thought - could it be `Paul` ?

[eljefe]

as in Roberts?

[Mack The Knife]

Eh ? Got me even more confused now - what can `Cal` be a typo of ?
Just a thought - could it be `Paul` ?

Now you are being thick and I shant elucidate.

[Grumpy]

Tsk. Forgive me for being so dim.
( )
What has California got to do with Jefferys records ? They`re in London with Paul Roberts.
Hi penpusher. Nice to talk to someone in plain English. I`ve no idea what the other two are jabbering on about........too much Scotch, too early I suspect.
Yeah, that piece would knock a Buffalo off its feet......and carry it thirty odd miles. A bit hard on the shoulder though.
Trust me, you don`t want to shoulder anything that would shoot a Buffalo off its feet.

[shahid]

Here we go Grumpy. More Trivia.

I had picked up a book called THE SHOOTING FIELD with HOLLAND & HOLLAND from their Bruton Street showroom. Author, Peter King, Quiller Press, Shewsbury, England.

Holland and Holland made their first .700 Nitro Express for William Feldstein in 1989. It was made with US and Australian collaborations.

While Derek Mangnall was Chairman, H & H purchased Westley Richards ( Agency ) Co. in 1960. The new company called Holland, Farlow and Lyell Ltd. was set up with 13 Bruton Street as business address. However in 1963 it went back to Holland & Holland.

W.J Jeffery Co.was purchased by Westley Richards ( Agency ) Co. in January 1957 for GBP 1,350. William Jeffery initially worked at Cogswell & Harrison.

Jeffery did make guns & rifles. They had a factory at No. 1 Rose & Crown yard, St. James Square.

Later H & H also purchased W & C Scott of Birmingham. Hollands Box lock guns and a lot of parts and guns for exports are made there.

H & H have always had sub contractors in the Midlands, inclusive of Birmingham. There is also another H & H factory at Tame Road, although promotional material and videos mostly show the Harrow Road one. I have toured all three, including the W & C Scott in Birmingham with James DOuglas who features on all those Wildfowler and Red Deer Stalking videos with Shooting Times & COuntry Magazine, in collaboration with Holland & Holland.

Yes of course this implies that Army & Navy and William Evans are purely Gun Dealers who got their products made in Birmingham or London depending on the grade.

Coming back to the .600 Nitro Express, H & H estimate that 3 of these were made by Westley Richards of Birmingham. 9 by Wilkies. However Wilkies made a dozen more for Army & Navy.

John Rigby made 6, James Purdey Made 6 and some single barrels were made by P Webley.

A total of 200,000 cartridges of .600 calibre were made by Kynoch from 1901 to 1956.

Kynoch has now of late reintroduced them of course. Earlier ones were with 120 grains of powder. Now custom loads of 110 or 120 grains is offered.

Kynoch were kind enough to provide me with 200 cartridges for .375 H & H Magnum double. However the process in tedious.

[shahid]

penpusher here are statistics with you. Petty we had no trivial disturbances like cameras or videos in Mozambique, but I do have some videos from South Africa where results with other calibres like .458 WInchester with only a 510 grain bullet are equally devastating. You got to be there and see it to believe it.

As for the Gibbs masterpiece .577 REWA big Bandooki which is in actual use here are the figures.

Bullet weight - 750 grains
Chamber pressure - 12 Tons
Muzzle Velocity - 1970 fps
Muzzle Energy - 7,600 ft lb.

Impressive figures. Now close your eyes and Imagine a force of 7,600 ft lb. It's like a railway engine hitting a wall at 120 kmph. Imagine what would happen.

Now tranlate this force to a low drag coefficient surface area of a bullet only half inch in diameter coming at the Buffalo at 1900 fps or 1200 Km / hr. The impact will be devastating on a Bull Elephant, forget a buffalo.

It s like hitting a Springbook with a .375 Magnum. The same thing happens. I have hit Springbook and Thompsons Gazzelle in Johannesburgh area with .375 while doing some trials with Winchester Silvertips for a Kudu and Nula hunt later that week. I know what I am saying

[Grumpy]

Sorry Shahid but you are wrong - W.J.Jeffery was not a gunmaker. It is believed that he probably worked for Cogswell & Harrison when he first went to London but if he did it was in their showrooms - not as a gunmaker.
In 1886 when he jointly applied for a patent with Edgar Harrison he described himself as a `Gun Salesman`.
W.J.Jeffery did not have a factory at Rose and Crown Square - they had a workshop - having a workshop does not mean that guns were being made - any gunshop needed a workshop to make stock alterations and so on. As it happens the workshop - which was opened about 1899 - was only in use for a few years as it was closed in about 1914.
H&H bought the W.C.Scott factory in Witton, Birmingham in 1985 and hardly anything was made there. They bought the premises to produce the Cavalier boxlock but only about 200 guns were made before the model was discontinued and the factory closed in 1991. In 1993 Webley & Scott Ltd were sold to Scalemead Ltd who produced air rifles under the Webley name before going into liquidation in 2006.
Again all this information - and a lot more - is available from the Internet Gun Clubs Historical Database.

[Grumpy]

"Bullet weight - 750 grains
Chamber pressure - 12 Tons
Muzzle Velocity - 1970 fps
Muzzle Energy - 7,600 ft lb."

Er, no. A 750 gr bullet with a MV of 1970 fps produces a Muzzle Energy of 6,465 ft lbs.

It is the .600 NE that achieves the usually quoted 7,600 ft lbs ME.

[penpusher]

Grumpy,

Any way to calculate the muzzle energy that would be required to lift a Cape Buffalo off its feet???

penpusher

[Grumpy]

Muchos x plenty........or thereabouts.

[penpusher]