.450 Nitro Express also known as the .450 Nitro Express 3-inch is a rifle cartridge designed for hunting dangerous game such as elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, lion, and leopard. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in
double rifle
The double rifle, also known as a double-barreled rifle, is a rifle with two barrels mounted parallel to each other. Synonymous with big game hunting found primarily in Africa and India, the double rifle is a purely sporting weapon with no milita ...
s for hunting in the Tropics or hot climates in general and is associated with the Golden Age of African
safari
A safari (; ) is an overland journey to observe wild animals, especially in eastern or southern Africa. The so-called "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and Cape buffalo – particularly form an ...
s and Indian
shikars.
Development
The .450 Nitro Express was the first
Nitro Express The Nitro Express (NE) series of cartridges are used in large-bore hunting rifles, also known as elephant guns or express rifles, but later came to include smaller bore high velocity (for the time) British cartridges.
Name
The term "Express" was ...
cartridge, developed around 1898 by
John Rigby. This cartridge was based on the then popular
.450 Black Powder Express case with of
Cordite
Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom since 1889 to replace black powder as a military propellant. Like modern gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burn ...
and a jacketed bullet.
Muzzle velocity is listed at 2,150 feet per second (655 m/s) with of muzzle energy. This straight case has a length of with a rim.
[
Early cartridges used the black powder case that was designed for around 22,000 ]psi
Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to:
Alphabetic letters
* Psi (Greek) (Ψ, ψ), the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet
* Psi (Cyrillic) (Ѱ, ѱ), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek
Arts and entertainment
* "Psi" as an abbreviati ...
and not the 34,000 psi that the Cordite load generated. Case extraction was difficult, especially in warmer climates such as Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and India where the cartridge was primarily used. To remedy this problem, a reinforced case was produced and Kynoch
Kynoch was a manufacturer of ammunition, later incorporated into ICI but remaining as a brand name for sporting cartridges.
History
The firm of Pursall and Phillips operated a 'percussion cap manufactory' at Whittall Street, in Birmingham, in ...
made a reduced load to lower the case pressure. Another problem lay in the sensitivity of Cordite, loads developed in the cool British climate performed differently in the tropical heat of Africa and India, resulting in excessive pressures. The manufacturers responded by developing "tropical loads" with reduced propellant.[
These initial problems led to Holland & Holland developing the .500/450 Nitro Express and ]Eley Brothers
Eley Limited is a British manufacturer of firearms cartridges. Historically the company has produced a broad variety of ammunition, but today specialises in .22 Long Rifle cartridges for competitive target shooting. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, s ...
developing the .450 No 2 Nitro Express, both of which offered very similar performance to the original .450 Nitro Express. By the time these two cartridges appeared, the early issues with the .450 Nitro Express had been resolved, and it quickly became the most popular and widely used dangerous game hunting round.[
Following the British Army 1907 ban of .450 caliber ammunition into India and the ]Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
, instead of developing their own replacement Rigby adopted Joseph Lang's .470 Nitro Express as their standard double rifle cartridge.[ By the time the ban was lifted the .470 NE had largely supplanted the .450 NE as the industry's most popular elephant cartridge, and Mauser's ]Gewehr 98
The Gewehr 98 (abbreviated G98, Gew 98, or M98) is a German bolt-action rifle made by Mauser, firing cartridges from a five-round internal clip-loaded magazine. It was the German service rifle from 1898 to 1935, when it was replaced by the Ka ...
bolt action
Bolt-action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by ''directly'' manipulating the bolt via a bolt handle, which is most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the weapon (as most users are right-handed).
Most bolt-actio ...
ed rifles offered cheaper alternatives to the expensive double rifles required by the Nitro Express cartridges.
WWI service
In 1914 and early 1915, German snipers
A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision r ...
were engaging British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkhas ...
positions with impunity from behind steel plates that were impervious to .303 British ball ammunition. In an attempt to counter this threat, the British War Office purchased 62 large bore sporting rifles from British rifle makers, including 47 of .450 caliber rifles, which were issued to Regiments, some British officers also supplied their own.[
On one notable occasion, Richard "Dickie" Cooper brought down three Albatros D.III fighters from ]Ernst Udet
Ernst Udet (26 April 1896 – 17 November 1941) was a German pilot during World War I and a ''Luftwaffe'' Colonel-General (''Generaloberst'') during World War II.
Udet joined the Imperial German Air Service at the age of 19, and eventuall ...
's squadron, Jagdstaffel 15, with his Holland & Holland .450 Nitro Express big-game double rifle. Cooper is recorded as saying: "I aimed well ahead of the leader. He came down like a pheasant
Pheasants ( ) are birds of several genera within the family Phasianidae in the order Galliformes. Although they can be found all over the world in introduced (and captive) populations, the pheasant genera native range is restricted to Eurasia ...
, as did the one that followed, and I had time to reload and fire again at the third before he passed over - he also crashed."[
]
Users
Prominent users of the .450 Nitro Express include Agnes Herbert, Arthur H. Neumann, Major Chauncey H. Stigand and Denys Finch Hatton, the latter had a gunsmith rebarrel his .475 No 2 Nitro Express Lancaster double rifle into .450 Nitro Express as it was easier to find ammunition.[
]
See also
* List of rifle cartridges
List of rifle cartridges, by primer type, calibre and name.
File:Cartridge Sample 2.jpg, 350px, From left to right: 1 .17 HM2,2 .17 HMR, 2.5 .17 wsm, 3 .22LR, 4 .22 WMR, 5 .17/23 SMc, 6 5mm/35 SMc, 7 .22 Hornet, 8 .223 Remington, 9 .223 ...
* 11 mm caliber
This is a list of firearm cartridges which have bullets in the to caliber
In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – ...
other cartridges of similar caliber size.
* Nitro Express The Nitro Express (NE) series of cartridges are used in large-bore hunting rifles, also known as elephant guns or express rifles, but later came to include smaller bore high velocity (for the time) British cartridges.
Name
The term "Express" was ...
* Table of handgun and rifle cartridges
References
External links
Ammo-One, ".450 Nitro Express", ''ammo-one.com''
retrieved 11 August 2017.
Cartridgecollector, ".450 3 " Nitro Express", ''cartridgecollector.net''
retrieved 11 August 2017.
John Rigby & Co, "Our history: More than 240 years of experience", ''johnrigbyandco.com''
retrieved 11 August 2017.
, 1 January 2015.
{{DEFAULTSORT:450
Pistol and rifle cartridges
British firearm cartridges
John Rigby & Co cartridges
Military cartridges