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

Sir Dennis,

Yes, stretching, and trimming, repeatedly until a separation occurs is the usual mechanism,
suggesting maybe a little slop in the excess-headspace department bringing it on more quickly ...

Here is the factory "Precision Rifle" by Savage that suffered the insult:





Something like that format would make a good "shot mule" for testing .458 WinMag accuracy loads, heh-heh-heh.

I once had a case head/body separation on the first shot when fire-forming .410/404 Jeffery.
Sizing down a 404 Jeffery case in a 450/400 NE 3" FL die.
That produced a very weak shoulder, since the 450/400 NE 3" shoulder is even less abrupt than the 404 Jeffery.
Using the .410-caliber pistol bullet in usual direction allowed the loaded cartridge to be driven deeper into the chamber.
The primer lit and powder burned, pressure was achieved.
Forward part of case stayed in chamber after bolt was opened to eject.
Rear part of case fell out of the CZ 550 Magnum that had a .410-caliber Douglas barrel
chambered with a Manson .410/404 Jeffery Rimless Nitro Express wildcat reamer.
I never did that again.
Reversed the Hornady pistol bullet and head-spaced on base of bullet jammed into the rifling.
Flawless fire forming thereafter.

Makes one wonder about the precision of our head-spacing on the belt of the .458 WinMag,
and the gimmick die to handle the belt more precisely.
I have about a thousand cases fired three times.
Segregating cases and keeping track.
Have some new cases saved for once-firing before safari.
Have some .458 Lott brass needing cutting down to 2.5" also, heh-heh-heh.

Wow. 300 pages almost in the 458wm! One of my favorite calibers. Well I guess I better start reading this long thread

Sir Ron,
Every chamber an individual indeed. I find my 458WM chamber to accept 2.515 brass just fine. So I have not trimmed in a while, as in did it once and quit... I also try pretty hard to not size any further down than it takes to hold a bullet, again trying not to move brass around too much. Sure wish Lee would make a collet "neck" size die for it. I guess they don't think enough of those would sell.
I was thinking just yesterday about that belt to bolt face measurement dilemma in our 458's and stretching. I have never lost a case but probably have only 4 maybe five reloads on the older ones. Let's hope this is a problem of the "maybe" only and the magnificent 458WM is just as terrific to the brass as it is to the launched bullets yes?
Best regards,
F01

Sir Dennis,
Good advice there for long brass life, minimal working of the brass.

Your rifle must be in SAAMI spec, eh ?
That allows for chamber length of 2.520", 20-thou longer than SAAMI max brass.
I still like to allow at least 10-thou for brass stretching on moderate loads.
I never trim shorter than 2.500" brass max if I can "heppit,"
and will let my brass grow to 2.505" before trimming back down to 2.500".
For low pressure loads I would be happy to let it go to 2.510" before trimming.

How I got a case head separation on initial fire-forming of Norma 404 Jeffery JRNE brass to 410/404 JRNE:

Note the Wisner floor plate above is required to get that sixth Jeffery-based cartridge into the mag box, yet still too tight.
Not so if the rifle was a .458 WM+.
It would easily become a 6+1 Slick-Seven-Shooter.





Lessons learned, nostalgia is so much better the second time around, settling on the .458 Winchester Magnum
instead of diddling with anything else like this:



All of that trouble for .410/400-grainers at 2150 to 2400 fps seems silly, mea culpa,
when the .458 WinMag in a factory rifle easily does +2500 fps with .458/404-grain Shock Hammers.

That way lies madness.
The .458 Winchester Magnum is a much better choice.
I am going to go see if the .458 WM rim comes anywhere near to working on that 404 Jeffery bolt face ...

From Swamplord:


He has an unfoundedly poor opinion of Hornady .458 WM brass IMHO.
I hope he knows more about Peterson brass than he knows about Hornady brass, to wit: I am ordering some Peterson basic cylindrical.
I also responded to the Hornady insult with this:

Hornady factory "Heavy Magnum" loads were loaded to SAAMI standards with their 500-grainers at 2260 fps (24" barrel) way back in 2006.
They may have been using W-W brass when they first started loading the .458 WM,
but they have had plenty of time to perfect their .458 WM brass.
Current factory loads by Hornady are an honest 2140 fps with 500-grainers from a 24" barrel, with flawless Hornady brass performance.
Unfortunately the bullets used for those old "Heavy Magnum" loads were "crap."
Bless their hearts, Hornady finally learned to make decent bullets with their DGX-Bonded and DGS.
Their older SN bullets came apart badly at high velocity, and any RN FMJ is not optimal.
I think the Lottite movement just could not tolerate top .458 WinMag performance.
Lottites are known for sensitive egos and shoulders.
(Hornady .458 WM loads doing only 40 fps less than the exalted .458 Lott
and doing it at shorter COL and 2,500 psi less pressure was more than the Lottites could tolerate, especially Ross Seyfried,
bless his heart too.)

Cutting the Peterson down to 2.5" will be interesting to compare to the Hornady, Winchester, Remington, and Norma.
Oh, yeah, I never did check the Federal case capacity, but have a small bit of that from Federal factory loads, plain and nickel-plated.
Never did find any Federal .458 WM component brass for sale.
Then I have some old Norma and Hornady basic cylindrical, Hornady .458 Lott, Remington .416 RM, etc.
The possibilities are more than I can shake a stick at.
Case capacity comparisons to come.
I'll surely be quick to buy more Hornady .458 WM brass whenever they do another run.

The case capacity results will be informative.
Most of my 458 Winchester brass are WW. I bought in bulk many years ago, following a dry spell of seasonal production runs.

I stated using Hornady brass out of necessity for the 375 & 416 Ruger cartridges. All I can say is, I have not shat-canned the cartridges because of terrible brass. No it is not Laupa, but seems workable.

The Hornady brass is all I have for the 458 Lott. It is not a pretty or perfect as a couple of other brands, but plenty useable for me.
Until Michael458 helped me out, I definitely ran some higher pressures than intended or spec'd for the 458 Lott.

The bonded .458 DGX seems to be a very usable bullet. Yep, bless their hearts, Finally!!

Thanks for the interest, Sir Larry.
Peterson brass is on the way.
I dug out some other brass and was getting ready to weigh some water when a storm knocked out power here.
20,000 customers in my grid area lost power.
I'll get to it when they get the downed trees off the power lines.
Sheesh!
Typing on cellphone in the dark.

Storm knocked out power to over 400,000 in KY, some still don't have electricity.
I only went about 17 hours without it.
Winds were up to 80 mph gusts, Alaskan style usual breeze.
Blew some shingles off a relative's house, need to help her with that.
Lot's of folks repairing their knocked down fences, etc.
Next day was calm and sunny and same today.
I fired 10 rounds of Federal ammo today to get some cases to water-weigh.
Peterson stuff will be here in a day or two maybe.
Here is how I am going to cut it off to 2.5", multiple methods, with electricity:

Glad that wind was not long lasting!
Cool little saw.

Not specifically .458.
But, I recently received some .416, 325 grain CEB Maximus. I think this bullet form would make a fine ~400 grain .458.

Sir Larry,
I think we have that base covered with the 404-gr/.458 Shock Hammer, a groovier bullet, no ?

Here are some updated .458 WinMag case capacities,
stay tuned for the Peterson after it is chopped and fired:

The Peterson brass is the most uniform brass I ever measured for length and weight.











Prettiest too, arriving in 50-count boxes.
Cutting off .458 Lott cases will take a back seat to this.

Good to hear regarding the Peterson brass. Always good to have another option.
Not much differences in the brass capacities until the Norma. Hopefully, Norma will have a bit more presence in the USA once their headquarters relocation is completed.

The .416 325 grain Maximus is still awaiting bc testing results. Though, CEB estimated/guesstimated "around .450". To be determined.
No doubt the .416 325 grain Shock Hammer fills the slot. But, still nice to have another option. I don't think there will be much meaningful differences in terminal performance.

Anyone else loading the 404 grain Shock Hammer?

I have been and next month will be going to So Africa for Cow Buff. 404 Shock Hammer 80 gr AA2230 Fed215 primer loaded to 3.680 coal for 2460 fps out of a stock CZ550 at 15 feet. sighted in a 1 1/2 high at 50 yards it is right on at 200 and broke my 5/8 AR 500 plate so this should be fine to go. Would like to get a few more down range for grins but the snow is to deep to get out to the targets now

Sir James,

Good to hear that. May the red gods smile upon your safari. Break a leg and bon voyage, etc.
For any reports on dead buffalo, asante-sana-sana in advance.

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