475 No 2 Nitro Express and Westley Richards the. 470 Nitro Express, an unidentified firm the. What resulted was a rush by British rifle and ammunition makers to develop a substitute, Holland & Holland created the. 450 cartridges could not be loaded into a Martini–Henry rifle, it was feared the bullets could be pulled and used to reload expended.

577, two other military calibres) sporting rifles and ammunition from importation into India and East Africa, the two major destinations for. 577/450 Martini–Henry rifle was the most widely distributed firearm in the hands of the anti-British forces. In the late 1890s, the British Empire was facing a series of internal insurrections in India and the Sudan, and the. The term Nitro Express came to be applied to many of these rimless cartridges also. The introduction of this rifle in 1900 was the birth of the magnum length bolt action, paving the way for such cartridges as the. In 1899 Rigby approached the engineers at Mauser to make a special Gewehr 98 bolt action to handle their. 450s remained the most popular, but political events were to soon change this. 600 NE rifles were all too heavy for everyday use and remained specialist tools for the professional hunter, the. 600 Nitro Express, the most powerful sporting cartridge commercially available for over half a century. In 1903 Jeffery & Co decided to outdo them all, creating the. 450s at the expense of greater rifle weight and recoil. 577 Nitro Express, the latter two offering greater power than the. 577 Black Powder Express cartridges with cordite, creating the. 450 NE, various people (it is not clear who) decided to follow Rigby’s example and load the old. 450 NE which quickly became the standard big-game cartridge used throughout Britain’s African colonies and India. 450 No 2 Nitro Express both with very similar ballistics and performance to the original. 500/450 Nitro Express and Eley Brothers the. 450 NE was the catalyst for Holland & Holland to develop the. 450 NE was a fast and accurate cartridge capable of taking all African and Indian dangerous game.Įarly extraction problems with the. 450 Black Powder Express with cordite, the. Created from loading the already popular. 450 Nitro Express by John Rigby & Company in 1898 heralded the beginning of the modern big game cartridge.

The addition of the word 'Nitro' stemmed from the propellant used in these cartridges, cordite, which is composed of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine.Įvolution Early developments The term 'Express' was coined by James Purdey in 1856, derived from the express train, to publicise the bullet velocity of his double rifles and became common parlance for many rifle cartridges. 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.

Rigby .577 nitro express