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

The proper method is to use SAAMI .458 Lott starting load data for your .458 WM+, and work UPWARD until you beat the .458 Lott load.
The 400-gr Woodleigh PPSN is a guide for future work with the 400-gr T6 bullet made by shortening of the 500-gr TSX.
Any bubba can do it.
The T6 has no impact velocity restrictions, just like the Woodleigh HYDRO bullets.

I want to try the 400 gr Woodleigh in my .460 Wby and .450 Howell.

400-ish-grain cast bullets at 1800 fps or 2200 fps as desired,
and T6 bullet at 2600 fps so as to be able to shoot inside of 50 yards without worrying about pancaking a Woodleigh PPSN.











Is not the HYDRO a brass cup point suitable for use as either soft or solid ?

On my dance card, waiting for the weather ...

450-gr TSX at ~3.595" COL with H4895 compressed
450-gr TSX at ~3.562"" COL with AA-2230 with a better crimp and not compressed.
Then the 400-gr T6 which may be seated to same COL and identical nose protrusion as the 450-gr TSX.

Bubba Bullet and Brass Metamorphosis Technologies (BB&BMT, Ltd.) releases proprietary techniques to the gun trade, AGAIN !
Bubba Bullet Metamorphosis (BBM, Ltd., Very Ltd.) is a subsidiary of BB&BMT, Ltd.

What is the 450 Howell ?

The .450 Howell is a .404 Jeffery shortened to 2.5" and then sized to .458". It was designed to duplicate the .458 Win but at lower pressures.

The rifle is a CZ .458 Win re-chambered to .450 Howell.


The .450 Howell on the left and the .460 Wby on the right.

Elkhunternm; Thank you ! My first year packin for Jim Harrower/Stoney River Lodge in GMU 19 + 17 B there was a client on a grizzly hunt that had a 411 Jenson iirc. It was a 404 case , shortened and necked to .411. He was shooting HT bullets in it. Anyway , I seem to remember Ross Seyfreid mentioning the 450 Howell in an article or 2.
I never had a 460. I jumped to the 500 A-Square from the 458 Win.
Would have liked to have one. But after a serious neck injury , shooting anything big wasn't possible for a several years . When I had The Spruce King built it solved my large bore needs . Kinda boring I know .

Sir Ron;

They would All be useful for hunting . It all depends on the need and what's available at the time.
Thru shear ignorance on my part. And a need to keep recoil down. I never shot the 500 gr X or TSX. Now that I understand about the throat of The Greatest I won't avoid them like I have in the past.
Thank you !

You're welcome CTF.

Is the .450 Howell pretty much the same as the .450 Guns & Ammo? I can't find the G&A round in my Cartridges of the World to compare. I did pick up an old tang safety Ruger M77 in .458 WM back in October to go with my No. 1 .458 WM. The loading in that M77 magazine has to be 3.340", no extra room.

I think so.

There is a 460 G&A which is a full length Improved 404 Jeffery necked up, so like the 458 RUM. There was also a short one and that would be like the 450 Howell.

Here are a few results with the 380 gr. Lehigh Defense flat nose bullet, using H-4895. I think the results are about as expected, based on what Ron posted earlier for 400 gr bullets.



Details:

• Rifle: Browning Safari 458 with 24” barrel
• Case: W-W
• Primer: CCI-250
• Filler: None
• COAL:3.26
• Measurements made with a LabRadar, clamped to a rail at the front of the shooting bench for the 70 grain and above shots; it was somewhat more precariously mounted on a tripod for the 65 grain shots.
  Temperature 60°F for the 65-grain shots; 44°F for the others.
• Accuracy: MOA for the 4 3-shot groups were 3.1, 1.9, 2.5, and 4.5 for the 65, 70, 72.5 , and 75 grain charges, respectively. I wouldn't put too much stock in these numbers; I need to move the scope back so that I can shoot this rifle more comfortably.

Other notes:

• These feed pretty well through my Browning Safari.
• These won't feed at all through a Ruger Model 77 (original with the tang safety).
• I bought these Lehigh Defense bullets a couple months ago when I was having a hard time finding any other bullets. I've since managed to obtain some Speer 400 gr and Remington 405 gr bullets, so I may go back to those.

Ker WHAP
THATS QUITE A BULLET !

Bullrt resembles the NF FPS and they too, are quite a bullet.

Hannay,

Good work. Least Squares Fit equation for the line and all !
What software do you use to make such beautiful graphs ?
Pencil and graph paper for me, but maybe this old dog could learn a new trick ?

The Good Dr. Ken Howell cartridges are good ones. His book "designing and forming CUSTOM CARTRIDGES for rifles and handguns" has been a companion of mine since shortly after it was published in 1995. He has been a great influence at this web site too, I see.
I have old Gun Digest and G&A articles that cover Ken Howell's Howell cartridges and Tom Siatos' G&A cartridges.
I will dig them up. The specs need specifying.

First, another testimony from my dark ages, from which nothing of value was gained over a properly set up .458 Winchester Magnum,
except the resolution of any uncertainty in my mind, the fun of having done it, and the necessary salvaging of at least one factory botch:





The upper cartridge above has been fire-formed, the one below it is simply a .416 Ruger necked up to .458 and ready to fire-form.
Shoulder is actually a wee bit better than a .400 Whelen.





The 26" 460 WBY barrel had a 6"-long cylindrical knoxform so cutting off 3" of that left plenty for a 23"-barreled .450 Thumper:







My dark ages period was long and dark. I used the .338 Lapua Magnum brass as a basis for 7 other calibers than the .338,
as well as 4 full-length .416 Rigby wildcats (.395, .423, .475, and .510) and 2 full-length Ruger cats (.264 and .458).
The .500-caliber and .510-caliber required blowing out the shoulder, all the others are "not improved."
The .510-caliber requires necking down .338 Lapua Magnum basic cylindrical brass.
The necks of .338 Lapua Magnum will split too often on .510-caliber when fire-forming, even with proper annealing.
Amazingly, rarely a problem with .500-caliber, but it would be best to do same for .500-caliber as for .510-caliber.
No problems at all with just necking up to .458-caliber in two steps, and fire-forming loads may be normal full-power loads.



The 450 Dakota was created a few years before the 450 Rigby. The 450 Dakota was surely based on the 460 WBY with the belt turned off.
It is supposed to do 2450 fps with 500-grainers. I like it with 500-grainers at 2300 fps and 450-grainers at 2450 fps,
from its 25" barrel and 9.5 pounds, 4 down in the box magazine.
A CZ 550 Magnum in .458 WinMag can easily do those ballistics plus hold 6 cartridges in the box magazine.
If your CZ 550 Magnum only holds 5, it is just a Wisner floorplate away from 6.





And dang it, the .450 Dakota kicks worse than the .458 WM+ for same ballistics in the same 9.5-pound rifle weight and same barrel length.

My .458 WinRuger standard-length Mauser could hold 3 down with just a 1/10th-inch drop in the floor plate,
or windowing of the current M98 box.
A Ruger MK II or Hawkeye M77 box is perfect for 3 down with the .458 WinRuger.

Those first 404 Jeffery standard M98 rifles (circa 1905) did it by completely cutting away the sides of the box magazine and the front !
The back of the magazine box was all that was left.
They had a steel plate secured to the front of the magazine well that lined up flush with the feed ramp.
The cartridges rode up the naked wooden sides of the magazine well in the stock.

Ron,
It's just Excel with the trendline feature used to generate the line and equation. I'm sure my Excel skills are vastly superior to my shooting skills, so if you need any advice or a sample file, let me know.
Jeff

Yes Sir, with 20 MOA's in the base, and iirc an available 100 with the Nightforce, I should be able to reach the 1125 yard steel, remain on the lookout for some AA-2230, another 50 fps certainly wont hurt anything.

Damn right you can hear it hit, the 300gr NAB leaves at 3000 fps, smacks the steel, then sound drifts back at 1160 fps? I think, so yes, several seconds before hearing the collision, LOL, haven't thought of a name yet, perhaps "Weak Sister" that should catch the naysayers napping ; ]

I'll try to help with naming the one that's in the oven.

LOL, will pick a day with no wind Big Buddy, just the thought of math-ing that is hurting my head! ; ]