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

Hey guys,

Had some fun (sarcasm alert!) with my .458 today.

I thought today would be a good day to sight in my reloads for my next Sambar hunt so I was off early to do the deed!

My reloads consist of:

Winchester case
73gns Benchmark 2 (Benchmark) powder
Woodleigh 550gn soft-point
CCI mag primer
Velocity = 2080fps
OAL = 3.340"

These reloads are loaded to suit the mag of my Zastava M70 and these were chronographed from my 24" barrel.

I calculated the recoil of these loads and in my 9lb rifle they worked out to be a touch over 80ft/lbs.
I can honestly say that shooting these off the bench was... invigorating!

Actually if I'm being truely honest these loads, shot through my rifle - off the bench, exceeded my recoil tolerance.
Luckily it only took 8 shots to sight in but after that I was done!
Shooting over the chronograph while standing wasn't too bad (still heavy though) but off the bench was tough work.

I reckon getting a fraction under 2100fps with a 550gn projectile in a .458 loaded to a length of 3.340" is good going and I doubt that a Lott would get much more.
In fact on another forum, I had someone who shoots a Lott question my load - as he was getting about the same velocity for his rifle.

I sight this load in so it's zero'd at 150m, so it looks like this,

50m - +2"
100 - +2.75"
150m - 0.0"
200m - -5.5"
250 - -15.5"

This is a pretty good trajectory out to 200m for such a heavy projectile and I cant wait to try it on game - especially a nice big Sambar!
But I would feel supreme confidence with this load against nearly any game species that could be hunted - and surely by swapping the soft-point for a solid, elephant could be humanly taken.

A load like this, properly sighted in just inspires confidence while hunting, so keep your eyes peeled for a hunting report soon!

Long live the .458!

Russ