Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only 458 Win.Moderate Loads

I inherited a custom rifle chambered in .458 Win.Mag from a very special person to me. I do not know if I'll ever make a hunt requiring full power loads. In the meantime I'd really like to shoot it occasionally and possibly use it on the local Black Bears. Does anyone have a nice moderate load worked up that they favor. Something around 45-70 performance. Thank you fellas in advance.

I've used cast 500gn loads on pigs that worked well. I think they were doing about 1600fps - I'll have to dig up what the load was. It uses a filler.

400gn cast and 20gn Trailboss gets 1000fps but only tried it on rabbits. Penetration was a bit excessive.

I bought a Winchester Super Grade from a pawn shop in W Tenn in the 90's just because. It came with 1 1/2 boxes of factory 510gr loads - I still have one box ! I have fired many loads with 350 - 600 gr cast bullets and 300 - 400 gr jacketed. The rife is accurate!! The old 400 gr Barnes spitzer is a favorite. Fast burning powders like AA2230 / 4198 will be your friend for "medium to heavy loads" both jacketed and cast. You can easily load cast from 1000fps on up ( 2400 and AA 1680 works great for "low " velocity cast). Lyman cast bullet book has several loads. The lighter jacketed bullets at around 2000fps are powerful but not abusive to fire. I have taken deer and hogs with mine along with many paper plates (targets). My 120 lb wife loves the "whammy" the 500gr cast @ 1200 puts on steel targets. Have really had some fun loading 2 up - letting the wife shoot a mild cast load and then handing a he man friend the gun with a full house one!!!

I used the cast bullet data from the Lyman manual. I would cross reference loads with the same powder used for both cast and jacketed and split the difference for reduced loads, sorry I don't have the load information anymore. But it was with some 350 grain half jacketed bullets and I believe 4064 a few grains below the starting load for jacketed bullets. 4895 is good too.

I would recommend loading the Barnes 300gn TSX bullets which will cut the recoil and still provide a top performing hammer on medium game.
Try both the Spire Pointed 300gn TSX made for the .458 Magnum and also the 300gn TSX cave points made for the .45/70. They load easy, feed well and will take most anything your check book can handle. Both bullets can be loaded anywhere up to around 2600+fps and the spire will have a point blank of around 250 yards so is quite practical for a lot of hunting.

458 Win Mag.
It’s good to hear about others that enjoy a good 458 rifle with handloads. I decided many years ago that just reading about 458’s being used for African big game was not enough, and that I wanted to experience for myself just what a 458 was all about.
I deer hunt in Georgia. I liked the idea of loading 300 grain JHPs and took a couple of small deer first time in the woods with a 458, a Ruger 77RS.
Learned a few things first walk through the woods:
A 10+ pound rifle is heavy. You’ll want that weight for absorbing recoil if shooting factory ammo. You might quickly decide a comfortable carry sling is a necessity!
And, I’d recommend skipping over the lightweight 300JHPs - they are just too frangible unless you’re using one of the non lead mono bullets that hold together better. Probably a more affordable bullet and strong enough for deer is the Hornady 350RN bullet. Then going heavier any bullet cast or jacketed in the 400 grain range should work fine as well.
Just a few thoughts on enjoying owning a 458.

Once I discovered the .458 caliber for myself, I ever went back to a .375 even though I have a spare barrel, bullets and dies on the shelf.