Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only mystique of the 460wby

does it still have any? In the 80's and even 90's before the internet connected everyone with custom gunsmiths, you wanted the most power in a hunting gun , a factory 460wby was usually where it was at. Whether it was necessary, pracitical etc and unless the fella you were talking to was the one in a million with a 577 nitro, then saying you had a 460wby made an impact. I assume in the 70's which was before my time as an adult, it would have been even more so the case.

So these days, does ''most powerful factory round'' still hold any macho factor, or is it ''just another fast 458'' looking small alongside the real big bores.

I haven't seen many Weatherbys at all over the years. I knew one guy that used to hunt with a 257Wby and another that shot BGR with the 460Wby. I don't think we went along with the hype. I personally haven't been interested enough to go looking for them, and thought the rifles looked overdone. I like timber and blued steel but the Wearherbys looked gaudy to me.

I'll admit that I've never been enamored with neither Weatherby cartridges nor rifles.

Don't know anyone who was either.

460wby just not on the radar in any fashion.

I've owned a 7mm, .300 and a .340. All went hunting. The 7 took a black bear and the .340 a moose. And I almost had my .458 Win Mag in a CZ550 reamed to a .460 Wby. I very much liked the three that I'd owned and used - all with handloads.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

Another unnecessary big bore. A 458 Winchester will completely penetrate a Rhinoceros, all a 460 will do is hit the ground harder on the other side.

HitnRun is right on right on right on.
The old factory ammo had 500-gr softs that exploded on impact.
I shot a water buffalo in the chest, broadside, with one of those once upon a time.
At 50 yards, it just stood there bleeding from nose until I shot it in the neck with a .375 H&H and 300-gr Swift A-Frame.



I used to get that rifle out and shoot it on my birthday each year. I do not know why I did that.
Best target load was 115 grains of whatever 4350 with whatever 500-grainer, for about 2500 fps MV.
1/2 MOA for three shots at 100 yards, routinely.

So not much love for the 460 these days. My question probably related to an earlier era of guns, whereby if you wanted the biggest and fastest weatherby was the main choice. It had a run of about 35 years before the mbogos and nyatis and A-squares etc showed up. Nice gun there Ron. I got my first 460 when I had just turned 19, a lazermark, and was also my first bolt action rifle. Sold it 26 shots later after it had shaken a scope to pieces and my wallet in that order

I have to say I always found it interesting the US with its taste in muscle cars, trucks 2x as large as the rest of us use, Ar-15's etc, has british taste in big game rifles.

I think the 460 WBY is still an impressive cartridge I have never fired one, actually do not have a burning desire to.
I personally know only one person that owns a 460 WBY. I think he bought it because he is a Weatherby fan, and felt he needed one in the safe. I believe he only fires it on special occasions.
The 460 WBY has never really had an allure to me. Now the 416 version does.

Those three are my favorites of the Weatherby cartridge. I have a 300 WBY in a stainless M70. I bought it used, have never gotten around to firing it.
The 340, I have often thought of having one put together on a stainless M70. A buddy had one in a Mark V. I shot it a few times. It definitely grouped 225 Barnes X bullets very well.
The 7mm WBY is interesting, because I am a 7mm fan.

Could be my guess is that there are just not enough men left who enjoy getting the sh*t kicked out of them or ear fugged by a Pendleton brake to enjoy a 460. My 270 wthby mag in a mark V sporter is a performance favorite of mine....mb

ah yes the old pendleton dekicker. I think its recoil reduction was more pyschological than actual.

As a young dumb kid slap full of piss and vinegar, single, traveling about for work and living in Houston TX the 460 held much mystique to me, i couldnt get the 8092 ft lbs muzzle energy out of my head after reading it in countless gun magazines, one fine day in the spring of '87 i was in Carter Country Sports to pick up my first at what i thought was a big bore rifle, a 378 WBY Mag and a couple boxes of ammo, got a 2-7 gloss leupold in dual dovetail rings/bases mounted up and had those shot up in no time.

Long story short, i was back after more ammo and noticed the 460 ammo, bought a box along with a couple more boxes of 378, kept the 460 ammo for a year or so, when i settled back in Arkansas i bought a reloader set up and began the search for a 460, didnt take long to find one, was also with a bud whos dad was friends with an old winding stair/three sticks mountain semi truck/auto wrecker service, that old man had 10 boxes each of 500gr Hornady softs and solids sitting in a window sill out in his load shop, the weight of the bullets was about to mash themselves out of the sun bleached red and white paper boxes, i asked the old man about the bullets, he said im too damn old to shoot them, gimme 50 bucks, i grinned and took em all.

By then i had my 460 mounted in dual dovetail bases and rings, they held a gloss 1.5-5 leupold, factory loads ran 2600+ though that POS! red chrono i had at the time, guess everyone's had one at some point, all the stars and light had to align perfectly for the POS to work, anyway, i was after the 2700 fps the 460 was quoted to run, i got that with IMR-4350, not satisfied, was in the old mans shop that taught me to re load one day with a drop tube getting more 4350 in the 460 case, i wanted to try 500 grains at 2800 fps, the old man shook his head and said "son, you aint right" LOL

I learned three things with that experiment, i do know what 500grs at 2800 fps feels like, it's horrendous, brass lasts for two firings before the pockets loosen, and 6-48 scope base screws will shear at that level, took rifle to 'Smith for some 8-40's, loaded the remainder of the Hornadys at 2650 fps the time i had the rifle, it was a beautiful blonde stocked beast just like Sir Ron's above, we all know now those Hornadys would have never survived a collision with heavy game at those speeds, but by god i was going to smash those paper targets with 8092 FT-LBS!

Back in the early '90s at the first gun shop I worked at we got in a Lazermark .460 on consignment. Think it was something like $800 at the time. My best friend was a power lifter and loved "big guns" so he bought it, mostly as a "looky here what I got" gun. I shot it several times while he had it and it was indeed an experience. He eventually traded it to the guy that owned the gym he worked out at, another fan of big guns. Eventually he traded it off as well to a local well known restaurateur named John Paul who was very wealthy, a world wide hunter and quite a character. One day John Paul came into the shop, plopped a gun case on the counter and in his raspy, whiskey voice said "Come on the range with me and let's get my new toy on paper." I unzipped the case and there was that damned .460. I chuckled and said, "So you're the latest victim huh? I know this gun very well." As we walked back to the indoor range, I grabbed the strap on recoil shield off the peg. He looked at me and said "We don't need that pussy pad, we're men!" Now, he owned lots of other big guns, a .378, .416s, a .450 Ackley, etc and I had shot most of them. None of them kicked like this un-braked .460 and I told him so. He was defiant so into the range we went. John was about 140 pounds soaking wet and only had one eye. He wore a trademark black eye patch that made him look like a pirate. I volunteered to shoot it first and got as comfortable on the bench as I could. As expected, it rocked me pretty good. As we traded places he snuggled into it and I said "You sure you don't want that wimp pad?" "Hell no" he replied. When he touched it off, I swear I saw daylight between his scrawny ass and the stool and he nearly fell off of it. He slowly turned around, with his patch hanging off one ear and sheepishly said "Go get that f*cking wimp pad!" I can never think of a .460 Weatherby without thinking of John Paul.

Here's an old picture of him from that time period.

LMAO on gunner500’s & SCGunNut’s posts !!
I will admire the 460 Wby through others’ experiences.

Thats how it was for me too gunner500. I grew up on 303's, skk's and high capacity s/a shotguns. A 12ga slug was an elephant round as far as I was concerned. Then I read an article on the 470 capstick. The Foster 1 oz rifled slug had lost top spot! I got another magazine with figures on big game rifles , went right to the end of the list- 460wby, 500grain at 2700 and started calling gunstores the same minute. Early 90's, got one for $2300 which was a reasonable price in Australia at the time.

Scgunnut One thing about the lazermark is while its not considered good taste in todays big bore scene, it was quite visually striking to everyone else. Id pull it out of the case and people would ooohh and ahh.

Unlike the teenage whippersnappers, I was forced to delay .460 WBY gratification until age 29 y.o.
Then I was suddenly a Captain in the USAF making $40,000 per year including the flight surgeon bonus pay.
Having been previously pupated with .30-30 lever, .30-06 bolt, and 12 Ga pump,
I broke from my coccoon with a .458 WinMag Ruger No. 1 and a .460 WBY Mark V
that cost no more than $400 and $900 respectively, NIB in 1984 rural Missouri where elephant did not roam.
I only traded off that Mark V after having a BBK-02 built up to what I thought was a better .460 WBY.
Then the .500 A-Square and .470 Mbogo took the glow off the .460 WBY.
I finally met more than my match in the 12 Gauge from Hell 3.85" throwing 1400-grain slugs at 1800 fps with low-end loads.
Now, due to a willing spirit and older flesh and the wisdom of over a half century of shooting and handloading,
they all pale beside the .458 WinMag for any and all purposes.

AussieGunWriter has tales of 400-grainers at 2900 fps from his .460 WBY.
Makes a good deer rifle at +300 yards.
Inside of that range it is a bit destructive of venison.

I have no use for it, but I do admire it. I like the Mark V rifle and have several and have owned several others. I admire the rifle the same way one might admire a classic car. I currently owned a left custom shop Lazermark in 460 with a Accubrake that I lucked into at Cabelas. It was part of a collection that someone had sold, and it was priced about $1000 less than it should have been. I shoot it occasionally and for fun, but I have not use for anything bigger than a 375.

Amazing the prices quoted. In Australia by the end of the 90's the Mk v in big calibres was already over $2500( about 1600 in USD) . I havent even seen an advert for one for years but id bet they are pushing 4-5k now.

You bet ldmay and 158XTP, were i to use the 460 today, i would have long ago got a lifetime supply of Northfork 500 grain cup nose solid bullets and used them for everything, have read on other websites they're used successfully on everything from the tiny antelope to Elephant and Buffalo, a great bullet design that i may one day [depending on Woodleigh re-tool] wind up using in my 505 Gibbs, that 600 grain cup nose solid is a world beater.

Good stuff Ron, you've been there and done that, and then some.

I could never see the point of shooting a .460 Wby. If I thought I needed more power than the.458 Winchester, I would go the other way--.505 Gibbs or .500 Jeffrey.