.416 Barrett

The .416 Barrett centerfire rifle cartridge is a proprietary bottlenecked centrefire rifle cartridge designed by Ronnie Barrett in 2005. It is an alternative to the .50 BMG in long-range high-caliber rifles. It was designed in response to a request for a medium/heavy rifle/cartridge combination that was issued from Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center in late 2004.

Design
The cartridge was designed as an improvement to the .50 BMG cartridge, a common machine-gun and rifle cartridge. It is essentially a wildcatted .50 BMG case, shortened to 3.27 inches (83.06 mm) and necked down to accept a .416 caliber, 400 grain projectile. Due to the fact that the two cartridges, the .50 BMG and .416 Barrett, have identical base dimensions, all that is needed to rechamber a rifle between either cartridge is a relatively quick barrel swap. Currently, the only commercially-available rifle in this chambering is the single-shot Barrett Model 99.

Performance
The use of a lighter, narrower bullet results in a significantly higher muzzle velocity and superior ballistic performance to the .50 BMG, and is claimed to be even more powerful than the .50 BMG at 1,000 yards (though its power deteriorates below the BMG's after that). Barrett claims that this cartridge is capable of propelling a 400gr solid brass boattail spitzer bullet out of the 32 inch barrel of a Model 99 single-shot rifle at 990 m/s (3250 ft/s), giving it a ballistic coefficient between .943-.989 and keeping the projectile supersonic out to 2286 metres (2500 yards).

In a second season episode of Future Weapons the host (Richard Machowicz, a former Navy SEAL) engages in a shooting competition with another sniper. "Mac" achieves a cold-bore first-shot "kill" at 2500 yd using a .416 Barrett Model 99 rifle while his competition, using a .50 BMG, required 3 shots to achieve a "kill". The .416 Barrett Model 99 rifle Mr. Machowicz used during this competition was equipped with a Barrett Optical Ranging System (BORS) module attached to the telescopic sight.

VideoLink: http://www.guba.com/watch/2001011740 (11mins22sec into episode)

Muzzle velocity

 * 25.9 g (400 gr) solid brass projectile: 990 m/s (3250 ft/s); 9380 ft·lbf (~12717 J).

Legality
Many jurisdictions in the United States and around the world, such as California, Australia, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands restrict or prohibit ownership of rifles chambered to use the .50 BMG cartridge. However, due to the drastic differences between the dimensions of the .50 BMG and .416 Barrett, rifles chambered in the latter cannot utilise the former (and vice-versa), meaning that rifles chambered in .416 Barrett are legal in most jurisdictions where firearms are generally legal. A notable exception to this, though, is in Mexico, where rifles are required to have bore diameters of .30 caliber or less; the .416 caliber of the Barrett cartridge exceeds this, and is therefore outlawed in that jurisdiction.

Synonyms

 * 10.5 x 83 mm

Categories
Cartridge:rifles