Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only .460 Wby

I had heard those New Mexico rabbits were tough, but I always thought they meant chewy.

Its my understanding the 460 shooting factory ammo is cranking 93 foot pounds of recoil. 375 H&H is doing 37 foot pounds (my limit). I'm jealous of anyone who has the mental and physical fortiude to shoot at that level well.

If it wasn't such an expensive gun, this would fix the problem. Worked for me and it doesn't change the bolt knob profile from the side.

DF

Not many, short of gunner and Ken, have the cajones to shoot those big cannons on a regular basis.

Gunner has a .505 Gibbs he uses on rocks, 'dillers, wabbits and assorted varmints. That gun started out as a .416 Rigby. He shot it out, had it rebored to .505G. How many do you know who have actually shot out a big boomer like that...

Not many...

DF

You keep me spitting up my drink, Lee. The Guns of Navarone reference was perfect.

I don't shoot factory ammo. My handloads are far easier on the shoulder and finger.

New Mexico jackrabbits are hard to kill and they have been known to charge!

Yup,that would work.... maybe. It does not help that the bolt knob is checkered.

But,like you said,it is an expensive rifle.

Love those McWoody stocks .

Yeah, I like them, too.

Sorta off the reservation (OP posting), but here is an Edge McWoody/FN/Shilen Swede. McM no longer offers the Edge with marble finish that doesn't have a black background, because the black carbon shell sometimes showed thru the finish. So, my McWoody Edge is no longer available. Ironically, it's one of the nicest McWoody patterns I have out of three.

DF





Thumb smudge picked up by the camera. Not a defect.

The Pendleton Dekicker muzzle break that Ken has on his rifle was the original brake on the .460's and continued on the many Japanese Howa build rifles until they were made in the US whereby the integral brake was changed to a screw off KDF style brake.

I personally like the Pendleton as it is less noisy that the current brake and achieves its goal of reducing the muzzle rise during recoil. This makes the Monte Carlo Design behave more like a classic style stock but without the pile driver effect such as you find with a Ruger Number 1 in .458.

I would much prefer to sue a Mark V in .460 than any Ruger number One in the .458's.
John

That 400gn Speer will not hold up to velocities much over 2000 FPS as the jacket is paper thin and the bullets sometimes disappear in a blue mist before reaching the 100 yard targets. I tried it with the following:
400gn Speer FP
40gn Blue Dot 1720fps 2628FPE Fed 215 Primer
57gn 2400 2080fps 3844FPE Fed 215 Primer
58gn 2400 2120fps 3993FPE Fed 215 Primer
100gn IMR 4064 2500fps 5553FPE
110gn IMR 4064 2750fps 6719FPE

The 400gn Remington is a more stout bullet for lighter plinking and feral control in the .460.

John

John,I am using 101.0 grains of IMR 4064 and a CCI 250 Mag primer. In my .460 that load is averaging 2500 fps.

Here is what it does to a jackrabbit at around 70 yards.



In this picture,the rabbit was on the left side of the pic. The dark spot is where it was found.


John,do you think the Remington bullet is stout enough for deer or even elk?

LOL, by comparison my old 416 Rigby only had around 53 ft lbs free recoil, my 8 bore with a full load has around 200 ft lbs free recoil, that's an 800 gr round ball over 350 graing of FFg Black powder in a 10 lb rifle with a muzzle velocity of 1400 fps.

My 505 Gibbs and 577 Nitro run about 100 ft lbs each, with 600 gr Woodleighs at a sedate 2150 fps and 750 gr Barnes' at 2070 fps.

Elks 460 loaded full bore is no pussycat either, I used to have one and did take the 500 gr Hornadys all the way to 2800 fps, just to see if I could, brass only lasted a couple firings, did that with IMR-4350, iirc the charge was in the 128 gr neighborhood, loaded the rest to around 2550 after I got through playing.

Just ran Elks rifle with a top load, 500 gr bullets at 2700 fps with a 124 gr powder charge in an 11 pound rifle, free recoil is 98 ft lbs, quite the handful.

Maybe for the average guy...

DF

Beautiful rifle. I would load it like the Rigby with a low pressure combination. Some say it works even better at the moderate velocities in the range of the 458 Lott.

Shot a 458 a fair amount and it's mainstay/jack rabbit load was a 350 gr. cast bullet. Performance was good and it made it fun to shoot and on the cheap too. Full power not so much as it was over my threshold. Shot it once prone never again and a standing bench is the way to go. Even though the 460 turns me into a cream-puff I have seen a number of women some very petite shoot it well. My alibi is E = MC2 the smaller gals just roll with the punch us heeman take it on the chin.

I want to try this load on hogs.

Although it works well on rabbits.

6 or so years ago I was hunting bear on Kodiak. A guy shows up with a 460 Wby. He used up nearly a box of shells confirming zero v. flinches.

When I got back to camp I heard he shot several times and missed. He cut his hunt short and flew home.

I always wanted to own a real safari rifle so bought a CZ550 in 450 Rigby, which is almost identical to the 460 Weatherby. I wanted to see if I could develop an accurate load with acceptable recoil. I did a lot of testing with various bullet weights and powders and finally decided to have a load that looked serious so settled on Hornady 500gr DGS, everyone is impressed when they see my cartridges.

After some research and a lot of testing, my current load is 23gr of TiteGroup powder with Federal magnum primers. This is giving me 1.25" groups at 100yds. There have never been any signs of a pressure problem. The recoil while benchresting is acceptable and I am able to return home with my retinas and dental fillings still intact.

The really heavy thumpers I think I like reading about more than shooting them. I recall an etching of Sir Samuel Baker firing his two bore. He would have his gun bearer lean into him back to back before firing. This double could fire a one pound exploding round, almost a mortar round. Even Baker decided this was too much of a good thing and went back to his 8 bore and 577s. He was a large man and had no trouble carrying and swinging the eighteen pound doubles. At eighteen pounds and with the black powder loads these should have less recoil than the 460 at least the 577 not sure about the 8 bore.