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

Bill Bagwell has a youtube excerpt of his zebra kill with .45-bore BPCR out on the internet.
It is taken from his "Smoke Over Africa" video done when he was the GOEX sponsored pro-shooter.
I will look for it.
10 more images follow the 15 previous:

Here is that 51-second video excerpt of Bill Bagwell:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...24BD3B47D5&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

He sure bagged that zebra well.

Bill Bagwell he Da'man

Moral of the story is that if a person tells you a .458 Winchester Magnum bullet will bounce off an elephant or buffalo,
then that person probably voted for Joe Biden.

Yup.
Thanks for posting those Sir Ron ! Extremely good shooting !

That Zebra sure went down fast.

Those groups at long range, the vast majority of 270s, 7mm, 300s out there would not equal them and the average bloke with a 270 etc. out of the box and with factory ammo will not even come close.

The video shows how hard a "big bore" smacks

I was looking around for molds and components today. Not a lot immediately available.
I've been so focused on building materials and tools the past couple years . I lost track of the stuff I need for shootin.
Looks like Ill either be necking up 338 Win brass or trimming and necking up 375 h+h brass. And my favorite bullets . 300 gr TSX must be made from unobtainium.
I Need to come up with a good mold for the 458 also. Thinking I should start with a 500 grain. But there are almost too many options in the custom mold arena.
Thinking Ill get a flatnose 3 cavity mold from Accurate Molds.

CTF - I feel your pain; I didn't get my 458 WM until well into the current panic, and a lot of things are unobtainium! After watching the classifieds here and AR, and the auctions on GunBroker, I managed to find enough brass and bullets to get me going. I'm also thinking of trying to cast some bullets - I've had some of the equipment for a long-time, including a mould:



A lot to learn though....

That article was published in the Australian Sporting Shooter Magazine so the publisher, Yaffa may have back copies?
John

Ken,
110gn of VARGET will get you 2737fps with the 400gn Woodleigh and you can load up to 116gn for around 2900fps.
IMR 4064 is extremely close to Varget (AR2208) as in you can duplicate loads in the 460 case and not see any difference.

The velocities Woodleigh quotes are pretty spot on as recommended maximums as I used the 400gn in the .460 and the 340gn on the .416 Weatherby loaded to that 2900fps area for each and they blew feral goats in half and sprayed the surrounding trees and bushes with carrion. Made for some impressive instant kills.
John

I wish this site had a LIKE tab.
I have a boat load to learn also.
What weight boolit will your mold drop ?
I don't have any 458 molds yet
Not sure how much of a flat nose to go with. Or wether to go with a more pointed design and cast a 50 to 100 gr nose then a harder base section on top/base pour.

It is good to be able to make your own bullets, what with the hoo-hah of the DALD Party in the USA fermenting right now.
Good to have an all-purpose bug-out rifle too: .458 Winchester Magnum.
Capable of .410 shotgun to better than a SAAMI .458 Lott for the big stuff.
I am getting quite a mould collection, and collection of recipes for accurate cast bullet loads in the .458 WM.
I have not used the NOE 600-grainer/hollow-pointer yet, need to do it.
Ordering from either Accurate Molds or NOE via their web sites is a pleasure, and speedy delivery usually.

Hannay's mould appears to be the Lyman #457406 that throws a 482-grainer in Lyman #2 Alloy, a gas-checked bullet.
Old Lyman cast bullet manual shows .458 WM loads for that at 3.090" COL, in a 24"-barreled Ruger No. 1, W-W brass and WLR primer:

Unique:
17.0 gr >>> 1175 fps
21.0 gr >>> 1320 fps

IMR-3031:
57.0 gr >>> 1850 fps
66.0 gr (compressed) >>> 2120 fps

You can get Trapdoor to Nitro Express level ballistics with that bullet with very short COL.

IMHO, about any cast bullet is good in the .458 WM sized as small as .459" if you keep the velocity down to 1400 fps or less.
If you want velocities around 2200 fps with 400-ish to 540-ish grainers in the .458 WM,
better cast them hard, powder-coat paint them, and apply the gas check as you size them to .461" diameter for the common .459"-grooved .458 WM.
That worked fine in a .458"-grooved .458 WM too, and the standard 1:14" twist.
The 1:18" and 1:20" twists are nice if you want to obsess over it, but 1:14" is best for the all-purpose bug-out rifle.

We would do well to imitate the loads of Sir Bill Bagwell and Sir Jerry,
with our scoped and smokeless rifles.
Advanced loading of the .458 WM (aka .45-98 2.5" Sharps Belted) will include black powder and paper patch mastery, and use of beeswax and olive oil lube on the greaser bullets.
Heck we might have to learn to make our own BP and primers when the apocalypse arrives.
Keep a flintlock handy too.

I forgot about Bill Bagwell's other movie when he was the GOEX Pro.
Something like "African Safari" and "Smoke over Africa" are the two.
Bill says I can use anything from those for show and tell.
So I better go watch them again and see what I can configure ...

Thanks John!

If you're looking for moulds with a crimp groove in the correct place for a 3.340" COL and a large full diameter nose to fill the .458 WM throat from Accurate, take a look at numbers 46-394N, 46-485N, and 46-500L. A Lee Factory Crimp Die makes it easy to use virtually any .45 cal mould without a crimp groove.

Yes Sir he can, I've been in the spotter and witnessed him shooting two different 1.5 inch 3 shot groups and 400 and 500 yards at his home range, it's a hell of a thing to get too see, besides the challenge of using naked eye and barrel sights, the real [discipline] challenge shooting these rifles with forearm laid in hang over a 4x4" wood block or rolled up shell belt holding the rifle to shoulder with 'no' rear bag, much like one would in a hunting situation, you must gather your shlt and break more than clean triggers or all is lost.

Twisting turrets on a 22 power scope with two bags for support shooting a mile is not much of a challenge, if we understand the time a 500gr bullets leaves the muzzle at 12-1300 fps and smacks a 500 yard gong, said bullet would have been near 25 feet in the air on it's path, you will become your own mini meteorologist shooting these rifles, it is great fun, you will never learn it all, and will certainly NEVER become bored, the possibilities and combinations are endless.

Sir Ron, Wheew, got caught up in the crush yesterday doing my neighborly-s moving hay and firewood for old folk ahead of the bad weather on the way, many Thanks for posting the pics, this sport remains my sincere pleasure, the bullet used in the old '86 45-70 is a flat nosed greaser that weighs 496 grains at 16 to 1 alloy, the rifle is an 1892 year model with 20 twist half round barrel with black powder chamber, iirc the bullet leaves at 1264 fps over 70gr OE FFG.

I need to re-visit that 461 Gibbs/Selous/Seyfried experiment, cant remember what that bullet weighed after I had machine shop buddy turn the button off the stem as well as take 40 thou off the stem height, got the longest heaviest bullet I could get from that KAL mould, it's a dandy, also have a Paul Jones built 348 dia. 570gr AA Smerker mould, big creedmoor nosed greaser, that bullet is stupid accurate in my little 18 twist 45-70 Shiloh

Dang Elk old buddy, 400gr Woodie at 2900 is gonna have chunks of bugs bunny hanging from every bush in a 20 yard circle, you'll have to bring a nice folding chair to sit your rifle on at the spot the bunny "WAS"

Sir Jerry,
Thanks for straightening out the bullet details on the
barrel buster load, very like the load that flattened
the zebra in "Smoke Over Africa."
You made your M1886 into same medicine.
I discovered my 'puter can do snapshots of the Bill Bagwell videos.
Look out !
Ditto the flying varmint chunks too with a 400-gr Woodie PPSN at 2900 fps in a 460 WBY.
I consider the .458 WM+ doing 2600 fps with that bullet to be
adequate for jackrabbit.

Sir Ron, You're most welcome Friend, NICE on the up coming video pics, was able to field three calls from Bill yesterday, he's feeling better and ready to get the hell out of there.