Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only 458win mag

Phil, your post-impressionist, custom paint job, "tundra sundown" on the 'ol gal always catches my eye. Strange how a paint job on a 458 can be soothing.

I thought the 458 was rather rude in my Lott until I began shooting the longer cartridge regularly, but the gold medal went to a 3 1/2" 12 ga. single shot H&R at about 5 3/4 lbs. Wow!

I will second the magnums in the H&R topper. First time I touched one off I dropped the shotgun and clutched my shoulder. I turned 8 shades of blue! I had a sore cheek to boot.

George, Have you used the 350 gr. Hornady to any extent? Otherwise, how long does a bullet have to be to be too long for your twist? Since these are all round noses, weights should follow lengths pretty close.

Indy-

I take it you are referring to my mention of having a 458 Lott and running both the Win version and the Lott cartridges in that rifle. I did but had it only a short time and did not do any load development that amounted to anything with it.

George, thank you. I have a six die set which brings the 375 Ruger basic brass down to a 8mm mag wildcat. Stage 1 is for making a 450 Ruger. This uses minimum body taper, and a 26 deg. shoulder. I can ream out a short chambered 458 barrel blank, if I can get one with the right twist. A gentleman in Cody, Wyo. has made one with the Newton's 23 deg. shoulders, and has claimed to get 458 Lott velocities out of his standard length Mauser action.

I will keep mine about .025" shorter than the 458 win mag., to keep those Cohibas out. Short chambered barrels go out at minus fifty thousandths. The belt recess disappears with the larger diameter Ruger case heads. Tom in Cody made his at the 2.5 inch Newton's length, so there is a lingering danger there.

i hae a 3.5" H&R. When we go camping i wait til everyone gets a bit of bravado then i break it out with some turkey loads. It makes quite an impression. Just picked up a 10gauge for geese. It feels like a 20 gauge compared to that H&R

Two cow elk fore me this last year 510gr factory win at about 200yds open sights.

http://www.bigbores.ca/


Wow- this is an article for 458 win mag guys. Well
Done

Phil
What are you using for the extra grip on the stock? It appears you used some skate board grip tape

Wing Walk compound -- it is designed and sold for exactly what it sounds like - as a walkway on aircraft wings and it is super tough and long wearing. You can find it at aircraft supply shops in pints and is simply painted on. I even use it on knife handles and door steps that tend to get icy

I know exactly what your talking about. That's an awesome idea. I have a zastava m70 in 458 that will be here Wednesday. Your 458 has been a big inspiration

Although there is a lot of emphasis on the primary and original intention for the .458 to utilize 500gn bullets, There is far too little emphasis on the versatility of this cartridge when using the lighter weight bullets, particularly for use in the US.

With several companies offering lighter weight bullets in the 300 to 450 grain weight range. The 300gn Barnes X variations will yield velocities above 2600fps and some will break 2700fps in longer barrels and there is a great 400gn Woodleigh Spire Point that will do wonderfully well at 2450fps even from 22 inch barrels.

I have long enjoyed the 350gn TSX bullet and greatly miss the discontinued 400gn X bullet, though again, in the US, the 350 will dig deep and tear up a lot of flesh enroute to its resting place.

I've been playing around with my .458 the last few days, working on some new loads. Two bullets that fit into the slightly lighter category are the 420 CEB Safari Raptor at 2300 fps with 74 grains of H4895. Pricy little buggers and hard to get here, but they shot so well that load development was just a matter of finding maximum and firing a couple groups there and one grain down. Maximum in this instance was 75 grains, simply because that's all the powder I can get in the case. It shot noticeably better at 74 grains so I'm going with that. It shoots right around the inch mark and sighted in 2.5" high at 100 has a drop of 4" at 200.

The other light bullet I'm playing with is the 350 grain TSX. Initially the only data I could find the specifically listed this bullet had a max of 69 grains of H4198 for 2500 fps. That was almost exactly what I got for speed and a few 1 inch or less groups. Since there is data available for different 350 bullets that go up to 72 grains I tried that later. Groups opened up to 1 1/2" and speeds are 2700 fps. I could live with that, and can picture it making my little collection of .375s awfully nervous. I settled on 71 grains. I'm planning on popping a few buffalo with them too.

Winchester brass doesn't impress me too much in this caliber, and I've got a ton of Norma manufactured .300 Win. I've started blowing it straight with 8 grains of Unique and a case full of Cream of Wheat and plugged with soap. After trimming to length I'm left with hard, tough .458 cases that are as near as I can tell indestructible. The stuff even feels different, and crimps are rock solid. Its tempting to run a Lott reamer in just to get away from the trimming stage and gain a bit of case capacity at the same time. I've quit using the expanding die altogether as there is no need, and neck tension is reduced significantly when I use it. This becomes apparent on some of the heavily compressed loads I've put together.