Well, reading 31 pages of the 257 Weatherby thread was good fun, so I thought I might ask this question:
It's 1958. If you handload, there's not much out there except the Nosler Partition, the Western Tool and Copper Works, Barnes, and a few others I'm forgetting. Suffice it say, super bullets are limited in supply.
More than that, powders aren't what they are today in terms of temperature stability, burning rate and availability. Some of the classics exist, and more than enough to get the job done, but the Golden Age of powders lies in the future.
You want an all around rifle for hunting "the West," whatever that means What do you pick? If you were alive then, what did you pick?
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More than a few shot 7mm X 61mm Sharpe and Hart. So much so that it lead to the 7mm Remington Mag, My guess the 7mm Mashburn was around a bit too. But my guess, is that the .30-06 and the 270 ruled the roost. Pretty much like they do today.
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Good choices all, but why? Those choices today are often justified by the availability of super bullets, particularly the 270 Winchester. I chose the 338 mainly because in 1958 one could get both Partitions and the heavier WTC works and Speer bullets.
Given bullet technology in 1958, was the 270 a viable all around rifle? Even for the occasional grizzly inevitably encountered when Elk hunting
By 1958 Hornady, Sierra, and Speer were all in business. Winchester and Remington both sold component bullets although they were sometimes hard to find. IMR4320,4350,4064,H4895 and H4831 plus others covered most rifle powder needs and still do. M-70's, Rem721's, FN's, Husqvarnas, Sporterized military rifles in 30-06 or .270Win took care of any reasonable hunting need. Redfield, Weaver, Lyman and Leupold built good hunting scopes.I was only eleven years old in 1958 but I remember a distinct case of lust for a sporterized 1903 Springfield I saw in a Jack O'Connor article. I don't see that riflewise things have improved all that much.
Well this is easy the .300 Wby since it came out in 1945 it would have been around for 13 years, just go down to any sporting good store grab some 300 H&H go hunting and you have some fired formed brass.
Shrapnel: I appreciate your taste, but it is 1958! Fins are on cars! The atom has been split! Surely a more modern selection is in order; postwar production for the consumer market has resumed in force, and the dollar is king of the world. Think "Space Age"
The atom bomb may have been split,but the folks in the west that I live in, probably didn't care,I still get cowboys coming into the lumberyard here to buy corral fencing/lumber for a new bunkhouse on the ranch,and they're not toting some modern semi-auto pistol on their belts, its usually a single action,44mag or 45lc,I expect it's much the same with their choice in rifles,no I imagine if anyone had a weatherby magnum around here,it was probably some dude from back east brought it out for a once in a lifetime hunt,I'm sure some were given to the old timers/guides as tips as is sometimes common,but doubt too many were bought by the locals themselves.I know one old timer,who grew up poor,the whole family had to share their .32 win. special,and they depended on the deer meat to supplement what they couldn't or didn't grow,I'm sure his family was like most others of that time frame in this area. Hank
Roughly half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Winchester went to all the trouble of creating the "Westerner", lets give their effort the respect it deserves. Of course I refer to the great .264 Win Mag.
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In 1958, unless you went to a gun store for the "obscure calibers" you may have been out of luck, most places stocked the standards, 30-06 would have been one of them. Look even today, 30-06 ammo is unsold on the shelf, while all the more modern cartridges are long gone sold-out. Ammo availability was/is a major concern IF you don't hand load.