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

I strayed from the .458 WinMag over the two decades from 1984 to 2004.
As late as 2003 I bought a .450 Dakota.
I even thought it was cool to turn a Whitworth Mk X .458 WinMag into a .458 Lott,
ditto what I did to a CZ 550 Magnum .458 WinMag in my prodigal days.

A factory .460 Wby Mk V lasted from 1984 to 1996,
sold after a .460 Wby was built on a BBK-02 action in 1993, by Kelly Olson of Eagle River, AK.
Kelly was an excellent gunsmith, of proud Norwegian heritage from Minnesota.
I lost interest in the .460 Wby after getting a couple of .500 A-Square copycats done in 1999-2000
by Kevin Jenkins of Murfreesboro, TN, excellent young smith then, since turned into an MD pathologist, bless his heart.

That BBK-02 .460 Wby got re-barreled into a .470 Mbogo in 2003 when I met Master Gunsmith Rusty McGee.
The 26" take-off barrel got set back a full 3" and installed on a CZ 550 Magnum.
Rusty did that in 2004, cutting, re-threading, wildcat chambering, and stock work.
Previous metalwork by Kelly Olson included barrel hardware and muzzle machining that was unmolested.
Kelly Olson's stamp was unfortunately lost, but not forgotten, in the breech bobbing:

















That was the last .458-cal stray cat I brought home until I discovered some chamber rings in a Whitworth Mk X .458 WinMag
and was driven mad enough to re-chamber it to .458/.416 Ruger.
The "45/.338 Lapua" is named "Thumper" in honor of Ted Williams.
It is a shooter.