The .476 Nitro Express is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

  rifle

Rifle

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

 cartridge

Cartridge (firearms)

A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim . Electrically...

.

Introduced by Westley Richards

Westley Richards

Westley Richards is one of the oldest surviving traditional English gunmakers. It was founded in 1812 by William Westley Richards. Their inventions included the Anson & Deeley boxlock action and the Droplock, which equals in status James Purdey's self opening and Holland & Holland's removable...

 around 1907, it follows on the heels of the .470

.470 Nitro Express

The .470 Nitro Express is a cartridge developed in England for very large or dangerous game hunting. This cartridge is used almost exclusively in single shot and double express rifles for hunting in the tropics or hot climate...

, .475

.475 Nitro Express

The .475 Nitro Express is a British rifle cartridge.One of several rounds designed and introduced between 1905 and 1910, after the British Army banned the .450, all with comparable performance, the .475 was intended for both single and double rifles.A good general purpose round, it is suitable...

, and .475 No. 2 Nitro Express

.475 No. 2 Nitro Express

The .475 No. 2 Nitro Express is a British rifle cartridge.One of several rounds designed and introduced between 1905 and 1910, after the British Army banned the .450, in India and the Sudan, all with comparable performance, the .475 No. 2 was used in a number of double rifles...

 rounds. While it was available in single and double rifles, it was less popular than other comparable rounds. It is nearly identical in performance to a number of others in the same class.

The .476 is considered adequate for all African and Indian big game, including elephant

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

 and rhinoceros

Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....

. Its ballistics resemble the .458 Winchester Magnum

.458 Winchester Magnum

The .458 Winchester Magnum is a belted, straight-taper cased, dangerous game rifle cartridge. It was introduced commercially in 1956 by Winchester and first chambered in the Winchester Model 70 African rifle. It was designed to compete against the .450 Nitro Express and the .470 Nitro Express...

, with a larger diameter bullet; whether this is an advantage remains in dispute.

Commercial rifles are no longer available in .476 Nitro Express except by special order, ammunition is no longer commercially available, and handloading data are scant. The factory load used 75 gr (4.86 g) of cordite

Cordite

Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom from 1889 to replace gunpowder as a military propellant. Like gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burning rates and consequently low brisance...

over a 520 gr (33.7 g) slug.

Sources

• Barnes, Frank C., ed. by John T. Amber. ".476 Nitro Express", in Cartridges of the World, pp. 228–9 & 236. Northfield, IL: DBI Books, 1972. ISBN 0-695-80326-3.