.404 Jeffery

The .404 Jeffery is a large caliber rebated rim magnum round designed for large dangerous game, such as is found in Africa. Other names for this cartridge include .404 Jeffery Rimless, .404 Rimless Nitro Express, and 10.75 x 73 mm. It was created by Jeffery of England based on their desire to duplicate performance of the .450/404 (3 1/4"). There are two basically similar sets of dimensions for this case, depending on the manufacturer.

History
Originally the .404 was very popular for hunters in Africa. Because of its size, it is very effective on large game, but it has less recoil than other common big-game cartridges such as the .416 Rigby. As the British Empire began to shrink, many of the popular British big-bore cartridges also dwindled in popularity, and the .404 Jeffery was one of them. By the 1960s it had all but disappeared from common firearm usage.

Commercial and wildcat children
In recent times, the .404 case has seen a resurgence in use by wildcatters. This case has no belt unlike many other magnum cartridges, which can be desirable for Handloading because of possible problems with case head separation with repeated use of belted-magnums. This case also has a rebated rim, meaning the rim diameter is less than the head or base diameter. This makes it easier to chamber the cartridge in more standard actions and bolt-faces, but is sometimes associated with extraction difficulty. In the case of the .404, the rebate is relatively small and typically not problematic.

Some common commercial children of the .404 Jeffery case are the Remington Ultra Magnum (RUM) cartridge family, as well as the Winchester Short Magnum (WSM) cartridge family, which in turned spawned the Remington Short Action Ultra Magnum (RSAUM) cartridges and the Winchester Super Short Magnum (WSSM) families. Both the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and Remington cartridges have also spawned many current wildcats.

The .375 Dakota cartridge by Dakota Arms is based on a .404 Jeffery case.

Categories
Cartridge:rifles