It was designed in response to a request for a medium/heavy rifle cartridge combination that was issued from Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division in late 2004.

[9] Today, many competition-driven shooters build custom 416 Barrett rifles with longer barrels ranging from 35-40" to make the most of the 180 grain+ of powder loaded in this cartridge pushing 550 grain solid bullets past 2900 ft/s, significantly higher than the original loading.

[12] Barrett claims that this cartridge is capable of propelling a 398 gr solid brass boattail spitzer bullet out of the 32-inch (810 mm) barrel of a Model 99 single-shot rifle at 960 m/s (3,150 ft/s), giving it a ballistic coefficient of .720, and keeping the projectile supersonic out to 1,737 meters (1,900 yards, ~1.2 miles).

An example of such a special .416 Barrett very low drag extreme range bullet is the German CNC manufactured mono-metal 27.5 gram (424 gr) .416 Barrett MSG (G1 BC ≈ 1.103 – this ballistic coefficient (BC) is calculated by its designer, Mr. Lutz Möller, and not proven by Doppler radar measurements).

[13] A few jurisdictions in the United States, most notably California, New Jersey, as well as a few nations such as Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, and Denmark, as well as the Australian state of Western Australia,[17] restrict or prohibit civilian ownership of rifles chambered to use the .50 BMG cartridge, but not other calibers (e.g., .416 Barrett).