.400 Purdey

The .400 Purdey, also known as the .400 3-inch Straight and .400 Purdey Light Express 3-inch, is an obsolete rifle cartridge developed by James Purdey & Sons.

Design
The .400 Purdey is a rimmed straight walled centerfire rifle cartridge intended for use in single shot and double rifles. It fires a bullet of .405 in diameter weighing 230 gr, driven by 47 gr of cordite, at a listed speed of 2050 ft/s.

History
In Britain, from the inception of breech-loading rifles there were a large number of straight black powder .40 in paper and coiled brass cartridges developed of varying case lengths from 2 to 3$1/4$ inches. Around 1905, Purdey loaded the 3 inch brass cartridge with a light cordite load to create this cartridge. Unusually for a proprietary cartridge, the .400 Purdey was introduced as a "Nitro for Black" loading, typically a mild loading of smokeless powder for a Black Powder Express cartridge, carefully balanced through trial to replicate the ballistics of the black powder version.

In 1899 John Rigby & Company shortened the black powder predecessor of the .400 Purdey to 2.75 in and necked it down to .358 in to create the .400/350 Nitro Express which in turn later became the .350 Rigby No 2.

Use
The .400 Purdey was reasonably popular in India for deer, boar and even tiger, and was available in both double rifles and more reasonably priced Martini action sporting rifles. Whilst obsolete, cartridges can still be purchased today from manufacturers such as Kynoch.