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

Shooting dirty ! I like that ! Thanks again for the donated bullets.
The Greasers are not too long, just need to be indexed, right ?
After I do the full-bore paper-patched in Goldie Pedersoli-Ruger with BP again,
I have a desire to do a smokeless load for 250-gr Monoflex from Hornady ...

Riflecrank,

Thank You sir! I sure came to the right place for 458WM info.

Plans to shoot yesterday did not work out. Forgot, I had a dentist appt. Honey do list today. Rain tomorrow. Soon, I hope.

Fourbore,

Welcome, and buy a donkey for casting flowers upon the CRUSADE.
I know what you mean about chores, too many old ladies need attention here too,
and it snowed an inch last night in Kentucky between 10 PM and midnight, vanished soon as the sun rose.
I have a plan for some more 300-grain bullet review, before moving on to the 250-grainers for some more experiments ...

A bit outside the current topic in the thread, but has anyone sectioned any .458 Win Mag brass? I'm interested in how cylindrical the I.D. is (and how far down) compared to the outer taper before or after full length sizing.

That'll work Sir Ron, i fell off the wagon a bit today, another experiment touched on, the puny 50 1-3/4" Sharps was able to record 1242 fps over the chrono with a 530gr grease groove bullet, that's some serious horsepower from the stubby early one, 15 feet away may correct to a dead on 1250 fps, i'll take that all day any day, if i can keep 5 inch groups at 200 yards with the barrel sights, it'll be ready and waiting on November.

Never off topic if it can be related to the .458 WM in any way.
I cannot get anymore technical than to say that of the 5 types of brass I load with .458 WM and .458 WM+ equivalent loads, all look good.
Hornady LOOKS the strongest to eyeball with no concerns about metallurgy for any of them that I can speculate about.
Repetitious below, with some slightly different angles and lighting:



















In my lots of brass, the Hornady(H), Remington(R-P), and Winchester (W-W Super) .458 WM brass (at 2.500" length)
are all about 94.5 grains gross water capacity, once-fired, not re-sized.
The Starline .45-2.6" brass (at 2.600" length) is about 2 grains bigger in H2O than the H, R-P, and W-W.
The Norma .458 WM is about 5 grains bigger in H2O than the H, R-P, and W-W.
I can only speculate about why that is so.
Your brass lots may differ.

Sir Jerry,

Hoorah ! The .50-70 Govt. is also one of my favorites,
the first centerfire military rifle cartridge of the USA in 1866,
maybe the first in the world ?
Buffalo Bill killed plenty of bizon with his Lucretia Borgia so chambered.

I have a McNelly Sharps carbine replica .50-70 like Glenn Campbell used as a Texas Ranger in True Grit.
It has a 1:18" twist by gosh, 0.512" groove.
I could make use of your load in that if I ever need to punish myself.

My Custer Replica Rolling Block in .50-70 has a 24" twist and .510 groove.
IIRC you are shooting a 1:22" twist.
What BP charge are you using with that 530-grainer in the .50-70 Govt. ?

I will not be trying that in my 1867 vintage Trapdoor with 1:42" twist and .515"-ish groove diameter.

Well hell of a deal Sir Ron, didn't know you were a 50 1-3/4" fan, i'm fast becoming one too, what a fun little round slap full of history.

My rifle is a 30 twist, 30 inch standard weight barrel.
Bullet is .512" and 1.130" long, weighs 530 grains, is a round nose flat point with about a 180 thou meplat, 30 twist will easily stabilize that.

I knew i'd be compressing powder .650 thou with a 10 thou playing card wad on top in the stubby little case to cover half the front driving band at the case mouth, so went straight to the power powder, Old Eynsford 3F, 70 grains of that gives 1250 fps, that's a pretty damn sold punch from the old round, i'll shoot it for groups tomorrow if i can get caught up a bit, i loaded near 100 rounds of that today, it was a blast.

sent ya a couple pics.

Ron,

Thanks for the case section photos--they are great!

bcelliott,
Welcome, it is my pleasure and duty in the CRUSADE for truth.
And I started a BPCR thread for that amazing .50-70 Govt. BPCR load by Sir Jerry.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Thanks Sir Ron.

The sensible Hornady data:



The showmanship of Sierra with a softie soft point:



A tougher bullet compared to the Sierra Pro-Hunter softie:



But first, I tried H4198, before foolishly moving on to AA-1680 with the Sierra Pro-Hunter.

Rifles used:

25" Shilen barrel with muzzle brake on a CZ 550 Magnum action:



24-7/8" CZ barrel on a Pre-'64Winchester M70 .30-06 action:

Wait , what ? It SNOWED AN INCH. In Kentucky, In April !
What ?

Sir Spruce,

Yep, latest ever snow with accumulation in KY last week, 4-20-2021.
I can remember once a few flakes about Easter, earlier April, when I was in highschrool.
Global warming might be letting up. Depends on what the sun does, I reckon, not us fleas on this dog.

Continuing with the 300-gr bullet in the .458 Winchester Magnum,
a bit on barrel length with H4198 and 300-grainers tough enough to handle 2800 fps MV:



Diminishing returns noted after 78.0 grains of H4198 in my rifle, with 300-gr TSX-FB and 3.330" COL.
Your mileage may vary.

This is what I’ve gotten so far monkeying around with the 250 GMX’s








And some 350 Hornady FN





Still trying to get some time but so far it’s been a blast!

beretzs,

Buy a donkey for the excellent work with the 250-gr Hornady.
What was your barrel length and COL ?

Is not the .458-250-grainer called a Monoflex, like a GMX except with a softer tip so it can be used in lever actions too ?

Your data agrees well with Michael McCourry's CEB 250-grainer.
In a 24" .458 WinMag he used 78.0 grains H4198 and got 2929 fps, no COL specified,
but with his strain gauge he got a 52,500 PSI reading.long.

Very encouraging.

I have one box of the Hornady Monoflex 250-grainer.
It has two cannelures and is 1.090" long.
I would put another cannelure on it and load it with a 0.25" seating depth.
That would give a COL of 3.340" not coincidentally.
H4198 might be tops with that, but
QuickLOAD says that H335 at 105% Load Ratio (compressed) -- 97.9% burn,
and AA-5744 at about 93% LR (not compressed) -- 100% burn,
can both beat H4198 at about 104% LR (compressed) -- 98.6% burn
I want to try H4198 versus AA-5744.
A usual powder for reduced loads might be a great powder for this maximum load.

QuickLOAD is notoriously inaccurate with the .458 Winchester Magnum predictions since it makes no allowance for throat effects.
So I always take QuickLOAD with a truckLOAD of salt for the .458 WM,
use it for relative comparisons, not specifics.

AA-1680 has proven a bit erratic for me in rifle loads, so I won't be doing that again.

[quote=Riflecrank

AA-1680 has proven a bit erratic for me in rifle loads, so I won't be doing that again.[/quote]

Yep, same here. I hit 3000 fps from the 300 TSX but it was very erratic. I switched back to 82 grains of H4198 for 2927, 2920 and 2921 fps at 15' from Chrony. On Aug. 6/19 they shot into .788" @ 100 yards. No signs of excess pressure. Brass was Remington, WLRM primers and COL = 3.32" . Temp @ 59*F.

But I reduced that load again to 75 grains H4198 for 2751, 2766 and 2759 at 15' from Chrony; Oct 24/19. Brass was new Hornady, WLRM primers, 3.32" COL. Temp +3*C . That became my hunting load and shot v. well.

These were from my 24" Ruger No.1.

I like the 300 TSX but will try to find some 300 TTSX's as they should expand better at lower velocity.

Many thanks to Sir Ron for his continued and excellent work, as well to all who contribute.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

Sir Bob,

I switched to the 300-gr TSX-FB because of your exploits with it,
and now you are switching to the 300-gr TTSX ?
OK. Let us both use either or both of them, what ever can be found in these pandemic times !









Load a little long at 3.390" COL: still fits and works through the magazine box of all my standard .458 WM bolt actions.
First shots at 50 yards,
and starting load was best load:



Center target in composite above, 50 yards :



Went home and loaded some more and came back to chronograph again and target at 100 yards and 300 yards:

5 shots at 300 yards landed on the bottom target of the stack, using center of scope reticle hold,
then The Nikon SlugHunter BDC reticle was used for the sixth shot landing on the upper target of the stack:



Aimed at top target and hit bottom target:



Aimed at top target and hit top target:



300-yard gong:





Anyone desiring explosive expansion with a 300-gr bullet to rival the Sierra Pro-Hunter: