Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only The great 458 Winchester. Everyone should own one at least once

The Good Dr. Ken Howell cartridges are good ones. His book "designing and forming CUSTOM CARTRIDGES for rifles and handguns" has been a companion of mine since shortly after it was published in 1995. He has been a great influence at this web site too, I see.
I have old Gun Digest and G&A articles that cover Ken Howell's Howell cartridges and Tom Siatos' G&A cartridges.
I will dig them up. The specs need specifying.

First, another testimony from my dark ages, from which nothing of value was gained over a properly set up .458 Winchester Magnum,
except the resolution of any uncertainty in my mind, the fun of having done it, and the necessary salvaging of at least one factory botch:





The upper cartridge above has been fire-formed, the one below it is simply a .416 Ruger necked up to .458 and ready to fire-form.
Shoulder is actually a wee bit better than a .400 Whelen.





The 26" 460 WBY barrel had a 6"-long cylindrical knoxform so cutting off 3" of that left plenty for a 23"-barreled .450 Thumper:







My dark ages period was long and dark. I used the .338 Lapua Magnum brass as a basis for 7 other calibers than the .338,
as well as 4 full-length .416 Rigby wildcats (.395, .423, .475, and .510) and 2 full-length Ruger cats (.264 and .458).
The .500-caliber and .510-caliber required blowing out the shoulder, all the others are "not improved."
The .510-caliber requires necking down .338 Lapua Magnum basic cylindrical brass.
The necks of .338 Lapua Magnum will split too often on .510-caliber when fire-forming, even with proper annealing.
Amazingly, rarely a problem with .500-caliber, but it would be best to do same for .500-caliber as for .510-caliber.
No problems at all with just necking up to .458-caliber in two steps, and fire-forming loads may be normal full-power loads.



The 450 Dakota was created a few years before the 450 Rigby. The 450 Dakota was surely based on the 460 WBY with the belt turned off.
It is supposed to do 2450 fps with 500-grainers. I like it with 500-grainers at 2300 fps and 450-grainers at 2450 fps,
from its 25" barrel and 9.5 pounds, 4 down in the box magazine.
A CZ 550 Magnum in .458 WinMag can easily do those ballistics plus hold 6 cartridges in the box magazine.
If your CZ 550 Magnum only holds 5, it is just a Wisner floorplate away from 6.





And dang it, the .450 Dakota kicks worse than the .458 WM+ for same ballistics in the same 9.5-pound rifle weight and same barrel length.

My .458 WinRuger standard-length Mauser could hold 3 down with just a 1/10th-inch drop in the floor plate,
or windowing of the current M98 box.
A Ruger MK II or Hawkeye M77 box is perfect for 3 down with the .458 WinRuger.

Those first 404 Jeffery standard M98 rifles (circa 1905) did it by completely cutting away the sides of the box magazine and the front !
The back of the magazine box was all that was left.
They had a steel plate secured to the front of the magazine well that lined up flush with the feed ramp.
The cartridges rode up the naked wooden sides of the magazine well in the stock.