The .416 Ruger is .41 caliber (10.4mm), a beltless, rimless, bottlenecked cartridge designed as a joint venture

Joint venture

A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...

 by Hornady

Hornady

Hornady Manufacturing Company is an American manufacturer of ammunition and handloading components, based in Grand Island, Nebraska.The company was founded by Joyce Hornady in 1949 and is currently run by his son Steve Hornady who took over after his father's death in a plane crash in 1981.Hornady...

 and Ruger in 2008. The cartridge is based on the .375 Ruger

.375 Ruger

The .375 Ruger is a rimless, standard-length rifle cartridge designed for the hunting of large dangerous game. It is designed to provide an increase in performance over the .375 H&H cartridge, yet to be chambered in a standard length action rifle...

 case which was necked up to accept a 0.416 in (10.6 mm) bullet. It was designed as a dangerous game cartridge particularly for use in Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

 and Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

.

The .416 Ruger duplicates the performance of the .416 Rigby

.416 Rigby

The .416 Rigby or 10.6x74mm was designed in 1911 by John Rigby & Company of London, England as a dangerous game cartridge and is the first one to use a bullet with a diameter of .416"...

 and the .416 Remington Magnum

.416 Remington Magnum

The .416 Remington Magnum is a .416 caliber of a belted bottle-necked design. The cartridge was intended as a dangerous game hunting cartridge and released to the public in 1989. The cartridge uses the case of the 8 mm Remington Magnum as a parent cartridge. When the cartridge was released in...

. All three cartridge fire a 400 gr bullet at 2400 ft/s (731.5 m/s) generating 5115 ft·lbf (6,935 J) of energy. However, unlike the Remington or Rigby .416s, the Ruger .416 can be chambered in a standard length action as the cartridge has a length of 2.58 in (65.5 mm). The cartridge has the same diameter of belted magnum

Belted magnum

The term belted magnum refers to any caliber cartridge, generally rifles, using a shell casing with a pronounced "belt" around its base that continues 2-4mm past the extractor groove. This design originated with the British gunmaker Holland & Holland for the purpose of headspacing certain of...

 cases but without the belt. This provides the cartridge a larger propellant capacity than a standard length magnum cartridge of the same length. The rimless design allows for the smother feeding and extraction of the cartridge.

The .416 Ruger is chambered in the bolt-action Ruger M77 Alaskan and the single-shot No. 1 Tropical rifles. No other manufacturer currently chambers this cartridge. Ammunition

Ammunition

Ammunition is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...

is available from Hornady, who is the sole supplier of ammunition for the cartridge.