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

Final report and photographs are pending from South Carolina,
but for now, I have said this about preliminary report over at the B&M Forum:

Hip hip hooray! McCourry Institute of Ballistics comes through again.
That is great news, if the shank is ending up beyond 20″ of the tough MIB test medium,
with some massive trauma starting a few inches after impact.
That is what I was hoping for, Doc M’s pronouncement of “buffalo capable.”
A soft that is tough enough.
The pictures of bullet shank and nose fragments should be very interesting,
as well as the retained weight of the shank.

And no mention of veering so I assume the shanks stayed on a straight course?

High BC
accurate
low fouling
and buffalo tough.
What more could be asked of a 404-gr/.458 soft?
If you need more penetration, back it up with an FN solid.

That was in response to this from Michael McCourry:

"It is going to be MONDAY at best before I can properly compile, photo, record data the way it should be done.

But I won’t keep you hanging that long without some clues…. now, I am going from memory and not referring to my notes……as they are tucked away with all the other gear right now.

OK, first 458 B&M ran the 400 Hammers at 2440 fps Or so, impact at 25 yards was 2350 or so…. Trauma began at around 3 inches, massive at 5-7 inches, and they started to slow up at that point. The “Petals”, they are not blades and do not radiate from center, they peel, break, and stay in the wound channel, being found anything from 7-8 up to 15+ inches inside the wound channel traveling with the remaining bullet. These were found at 22-23 inches. They lost some stability because instead of being flat across, they are somewhat rounded off on the edges…..All and all, they did very well, and are buffalo capable.

The 458 B&M EX is More of the Same. It seems we had shear at 2-3 inches, massive trauma from that point to around 7-8 inches, petals peeled, and on these two they peeled like two to three petals together. Petals were also found inside the wound channel from 8-17 inches. Trauma slows down at 8 inches or so, becoming a rounded off solid, found at 21-22 inches, as I recall. The velocity with the EX was 2608 fps and at 25 yard impact 2550 or so….

Photos, actual data, labels and what have you will have to wait until Monday……."

My further interpretation of the preliminary report above:
The 2440 fps MV load penetrated about the same or an inch deeper than the 2608 fps MV load.
25-yard impact range for both, and impact velocity is not yet accurately defined above, should be about 50 fps less than MV for both.
But the higher speed impact might have produced more massive wounding.
The MIB test medium is wet pack of higher than first order resistance.