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

Sir Allen it is.
That is my middle name also, two "L's" and an "E" close enough to ALL IN.

The MISSION that became a CRUSADE has been well and truly won.

The Knighthood will now be known as the "Brotherhood of the Forty-Five Bore."
The Brotherhood is ALL IN for the .458 Winchester Magnum.
We get together here to share experiences with any useful .45-bore rifle and demonstrate how the .458 Winchester Magnum
can be loaded down and loaded up for spectacular performance on either side of SAAMI .458 WM ballistics,
often with advantages such as increased magazine capacity (compared to the .460 Wby),
perfect throat for cast bullets including paper patched, etc.
.450 Nitro Express ballistics is just the middle ground for the mighty .458 Winchester Magnum.

We also like to make fun of the SAAMI .458 Lott, a most ridiculous abortion of a cartridge.
Always good for a laugh.

If you want to eat the deer, I recommend a 400 to 510 gr bullet @ modest velocity. I have killed several Sitka Blacktails with the 400 gr8 X bullet @ 2400 +2380 fps mv @ various ranges . they work great and don't bloodshock the meat . As long as you don't hit a major bone.
The 300 gr TSX and TTSX @ 2700 +fps mv are too much of a good thing . head, high neck or center of the ribs broadside are the only shots that won't waste I bunch of meat. I've killed 28 deer @ last count with the 458 Winchester . It works GREAT ! My favorite load for deer is the factory Winchester 510 gr soft nose . With the big bluish lead nose.

I thought I'd post a pic of the small Fallow deer I harvested with my .458
I was using a reload consisting of a Winchester case, 74gns of AR2206H, 480gn Woodleigh SP and CCI 250 Mag primer.
I admit, I was expecting caliber sized entry and caliber sized exit.

Well, anyway here's the deer I harvested...



And here's the exit...




Russ

That's a helluva hole!

For sure. That's great stuff. I like the looks of those Hammers..

Sir Russ,

That was just a couple of grains of powder above max for the Woodleigh Bullets Loading Manual.
That 480-gr Woodleigh probably expanded promptly, eh ?



Of course, in Australia there may be no bag limits and game meat is not hoarded like we do it on this side of the pond.
See Sir Spruce's recommendations on .458 WinMag deer bullets if meat preservation is a concern:

There are plenty of choices, even down to .45-cal 300-grainer at as slow as 1600 fps MV impacting at 50 yards for a total bang flop on deer.
I have done that with a .454 Casull revolver on a nice fallow buck.
This is an example of comparative ballistics.
Even the Sierra ProHunter .458/300-grainer would be a dandy deer bullet in the .458 WinMag if you keep it below 2000 fps.
Sir Russ was a little over 2100 fps with his 480-grain Woodleigh soft I reckon.

LOL Sir Ron, that whole deal came to surface a couple days ago, was at Mom's and someone had a drivers license question, i pulled mine out, had my plandemic kung fu flu haircut in the photo i gave myself out on the shop with horse shears, Mom saw the pic and cried, she said you look just like you did in kindergarten, where did the time go?

Do remember several times over the years of her saying i had been shooting with Dad, Gramps and Uncs by then, also remember her saying i didn't like the photographer, looking at that pic you posted all blown up, i was probably wondering if i could whoop his ass ; ]

To "The Crusade Of Truth" 458 WM+ full speed ahead and no prisoners will be taken!

Sir Russ, good shooting Sir, bet that thing was delicious.

Sir Ron,

That load measured spot on 2150fps 3m from my chronograph. I thought it might have touched 2200fps but I was very happy with 2150fps.
It sure as heck must've opened up and I tell you, we lost some good meat which kinda sucked... but boy o boy, it sure dropped the deer!

Russ

Sir Jerry good memories

Sir Ron thos loads are top notch. Jeff Cooper's 460 G&A fired the 500 grain at 2400 FPS claimed effectiveness was spectacular.
At 2350 has to been a duplication of performance

Sir Scotty,

Me too. Hammer Bullets are as precisely manufactured as you will find.
I will start corresponding with them about making a 400-grainer of higher BC than the current .458-402g Shock Hammer.
2500 fps in the .458 WM Sub-3.4"
2600 fps in the .458 WM+ "Crusader" Sub-3.6"

Note that in the SAAMI .458 WM throat, at 3.450" COL
the "Mammoth Cave Hollow Point" .458-402g Shock Hammer is jammed into the rifling at end of throat.
Seat it one band deeper and it will be good in any SAAMI .458 WM and still too long of COL to fit in the .458 Lott throat unless you trim the Lott brass shorter !

A pointier 400-gr Shock Hammer with a smaller diameter hollow point and slightly greater Bullet Overall Length is to be proposed.
Something similar to the 400-gr GSC HV but with the patented PDR drive bands of Hammer Bullets,
famously tolerant of any COL you like, even jammed into the rifling.

The GSC HV pattern:









2725 fps with 65.0 grains of AA-5744 is a most accurate and meat friendly limit with 250-gr Hornady Monoflex
for short-range deer hunting with the .458 WM at 3.340" COL.
69.0 grains gives just over 3000 fps but makes too much burger mixed with bone meal, and doubles the group size.

Back to the earlier work with the GSC HV:









GSC HV 400-grainer started at 2500 fps has impact velocity near 2200 fps at 150 yards.
That will work with a Woodleigh .458-400g PPSN also, similar BC.
Expansion of the 400-grainer will not be as "explosive" as that of the 480-grain Woodleigh at same impact velocity.
"SD drives expansion."

Sir Jerry,
I had the same towhead hairstyle early on as you.
It grew out a little for my first-grade portrait in Columbus Mississippi:



I was homeschooled for kindergarten and went straight into first grade a few months before I turned 6.
My Irish Twin older brother started school at same time, both of us having been born in same year.
Mom needed the rest so was happy to send us both off to first grade together.
Older brother was a sissy and cried when Mom let go of his hand getting on the school bus,
and I laughed at him.
Baby sister cried everyday she got on the bus until after Christmas break of her first grade !
It is better to laugh than to cry.

Pop used to line up his 3 boys and run the clippers over our heads monthly.
By the time I was in third grade he learned to do a flat top on me.
The other two got a bowl-on-the-head style with bangs hanging over their foreheads.
Being the middle son, I felt special, 'cause Pop had a flat top too.
I think my hair stood up better than on the other two brothers,
and I have better hair to this day than either of them, even if it is white now.

Sir Russ,
Apologies for a mistake I made in looking at the Woodleigh manual, mixing up the 480-gr FMJ load for your 480-gr RNSN load.
Your charge of 74.0 grains of AR2206H (aka H4895 Extreme) is one grain below the 75.0 grains shown as a maximum for the RNS 480-grainer.
Their velocity maximum was 2190 fps MV for assumed 24"-barreled .458 WM.
How careless of me. I'll try not to let it happen again.

Latest RIFLE magazine, September 2021, Brian Pearce has an article entitled "The Reinvented .45-70 Government." Pages 8-12.
His Marlin 1895 of 1972 vintage famously did a lot of work for him in Zimbabwe.
400-405 grainers were loaded at 1800 to 2000 fps.
"On a large Cape buffalo, 400-grain solids easily penetrated both shoulders and were very effective."

Hey ! The .458 Winchester Magnum can do that too !

Awesome info buddy. I need to break out the 250 Monoflexes again. I’ve got a pile of them devils.

I’ve never had any extra meat damage shooting my flat nose cast bullets at 1700ish in deer including both shoulder pass through. I did shoot a small doe bursting out of a thicket right in the front at close range and the exit in the rear flank had a good portion of her stomach out the hole. Strangely enough no mess inside behind the diaphragm at all. It appeared that the bullet sucked the insides out as it exited.
The Great and Mighty 458 Wm is a terrific deer rifle even here in the Home on the Range state.

LOL, funny stuff Sir Ron, middle boy, uh-huh, then you were [may still be] the peace maker, i was first outta the chute, protector ; ] think i may have got my head stuck in the fence, have about a thousand cowlicks, Mom may have got tired of fooling with it and did the peel.

Thanks Sir John, yes, wonderful memories, lying prone in wet leaves firing your first scoped rifle [heavy Rem 700 in 6mm or 243, circa 1968] at paper pennzoil cans from a green duffel used as a rest never leave you either, i remember looking up and around at Dad, Uncs and even Gramps stiff arm leaning against a big oak tree in the yard smoking his pipe watching too, near 55 years, POOF! gone, damn.

Sir Ron: if I may - why does "buy a donkey = thank you" in your jargon? If I missed an earlier post on the subject I apologize...I'm a bit late to the party, but do have 5 .458WMs!

desertoakie,

"Baie dankie" is Afrikaans language for "thank you very much."
The Afrikaans pronunciation sounds just like "buy a donkey" in English.

If you have 5 rifles chambered for .458 Winchester Magnum you are almost as crazy as me,
and certainly deserve to be called
"Sir Ken" if you want it.

Crazy is good. Makes the world go round.
Some person considered this old bullet to be a good deer bullet at 2900 fps from a .460 Wby:



Ignore the CH4D Canntool cannelure above.
The original bullet was slick-sided, with no cannelures.
This does suggest how simple a good .458-400-gr bullet can be, and still get the job done,
even at velocities of less than 2900 fps MV.