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

Saint Bagwell proved the 480-gr FN "Lyman PH" at 1300 fps will do all if one can shoot as well as he did with his Sharps 1874 .45-70 Govt.







So here is the .458 WinMag equivalent bullet for use at 1400 to 2000 fps.
Keeping it under 2000 fps will assure the alloy is not overstressed on impact,
and accuracy will not suffer:

1400 fps to 2000 fps makes the 525-grainer very friendly to shooter's shoulder.







5 other bullets were tested with same powder charge, shown below alongside the 525-gr FNGC, all with 23" McGowen barrel:





Looking back at the 500-ish-grain Government bullet, and making allowance for temperature differences,
shortening COL from 3.500" to 3.375" with same powder charge results in about 30 fps MV increase.
Similar effects should be considered with the other cast bullets.
Longer COL will require more powder to equal the shorter COL velocity.

Here are the other 5 bullets for group at 50 yards:











500-gr +/- 25-gr weights for cast bullets all work well when sized to 0.461"and velocities are 1400 fps to 2000 fps.

Of course it is possible to use heavier cast bullets at either slower or faster velocities than that.
A 400-ish grainer at 2100 to 2200 fps MV is an optimized load too, with PC-paint, gas check, hard alloy, and smokeless powder.

Cast bullet loads for the SAAMI .458 WinMag (unlike for the SAAMI .458 Lott)
could be discussed [I}ad infinitum[/I}.

Very nice shooting.
I will look and see if I can find my old target with three 45-70 rounds in the same hole - give you something to work toward.

One nice thing about big bores - more than one shot is rarely needed.-- on anything.
45-90 WCF with 350 NF SS loaded to somewhere between 2400 fps and ???? Chrony tests will tell.

Sir Charles,
Please do, and buy a donkey in advance if you do.
More on the "Smokeless PH":

Don't want to split the baby with a 500-ish-grain cast bullet at 1400 to 2000 fps ?
How about a 400-ish-grainer (497-gr) and a 600-ish-grainer (579-gr) that can both be used with the same sight setting ?

Both bullets come from ACCURATE MOLDS moulds.













The shooter takes credit for groups that have more than one hole.
It is interesting that the 579-grainer at 200 yards is almost as tightly grouped as it was at 100 yards.
Now I need to go shoot some 400-gr TSX bullets from Buffalo Bore,
in the same rifle that liked the Dynamic Duo of cast lead bullets.
I will hunt deer with cast bullets after I get rid of those.
I have several moulds from both AM and NOE that I have not tried yet.
Might be able to add a few posts to the thread with those.

Guys,

I have some very sad news...

The Woodleigh bullet factory in Australia just burnt down and rumours are that Geoff won't be rebuilding it...

It appears this is an end of an era...

Very, very sad...

Russ

U don't have to Credit me Sir Bob.
It's funny that people think of smaller carts as all around. But when the only rifle a guy has is the most important one. The one that has the best chance of keeping him from being turned into bear poop. That becomes an all arounder. And as The Spruce King weighs 8 lbs 9 oz with 4 rounds of 350 gr ammo and a 1" nylon strap sling . Express sights. It is easy to pack around.
With that same setup. One time I off hand , no sticks, dumped a good size for Sitka Blacktail on the beach by Ole Crik on the Chichagof side of Peril Strait in January. Last hunt before the end of the season that year.
178 full paces away. Pretty sure I was shooting the 350 gr Speer. But it might have been X bullets . MV was 2550 fps.
I know modern hunters like to shoot things WAY FAR AWAY . But practicality dictates that sometimes, you do your best with the shot that's offered.
Just practice, practice, practice.

That is Terrible news ,,!!

Sir John; That's good to know. There's a band of bison hanging around a couple miles from my house. ! Lots of bufflers in the Deltana area.
It would only be right to take one with a duplicate of an old buffalo bullet.

Sir Ron ;
Sad for the unlucky bullet buck. Glad he was found and dispatched. Good on you to assist with the search.


Very good shot with a flintlock at 50 yards. With a 41" barrel. WOW.!!! Two thumbs up !

I'm concentrating on my homestead currently . We had our first 40 below of the winter this morning. Currently around 25 underneath. It hasn't been above 0 for 3 weeks, maybe a month.
The house handled the cold okay for not being completed. I have several more days on the 8x10 Arctic Entry and it will be tight with walls partly insulated. ( Using Insulated Metal Panels for the wall sheathing/siding . Approx R 14 )
Need to go to the woods first and bring home a couple cord of beattle killed white spruce for firewood.

Then I can settle in and get to work on some of my other projects. Like getting Spruce King up and running . And order a mold .
Along with building double walls and sistering on 2x6s to the 2x8 rafters in the bedroom. And blowing lots of cellulose insulation. Sheetrocking , building a water system, wiring the house, Logging and milling the lumber for the garage build this summer.

I didn't think getting old would be this much work 🤨
But, Thank God I can do it. !!

I sure do enjoy this thread which is encylopediac in it's scope. But Much more informative and entertaining.

Sir Spruce,

You are living it while I can only watch it on TV on NatGeo's "Life Below Zero."
I envy you the life style.
I can only make do down south and dream of returning north.

I got skunked by the does.
Seems I only get them in range of my tripod when a buck chases them to me.
The father&son team have trained the does to stay on the south side of the farm while I am in the north.
I had a couple of small bucks, over the last two weekends, wander within 100 yards of my tripod.
One of them I followed with my 9X crosshairs from 579 yards out, soon seeing the spike antlers as he approached.
The other was a fork horn.
My buck tag has been filled for the year.

At midday on the one day when no one else was there, I walked over to the Square Woods and a half dozen does flashed their tails
going away from me into the woods. I hiked around the 20-acre patch of old timber, never-ever logged before, I'd guess.
I noted a deer feeder on one side of the woods, a permanent "hard" ground blind, and a ladder stand against a tree on other sides of the timber.
More whitetails flashing, going away from the other side of the Square Woods.
So I walked into the woods and crept around for a couple of hours, noting the profusion of deer bedding and deer crap.
I was about to exit, headed north to my tripod, just standing with my rifle slung, staring north, when my left peripheral vision detected motion.

I turned my head and there was a big doe picking her way silently toward me, 50 feet away, no more !!!
She must have seen my movement to shoulder the rifle and immediately leaped and turned 90 degrees and pronked away through the woods.
I was able to get my scope on her as she raced away so I will just count that as coup on a doe
instead of a bullet deflected by brush, or buried in a tree trunk.
My trophy to remind of that swinging of the MIGHTY .458 WINCHESTER MAGNUM DEER RIFLE
is a sapling killed by a buck rub, snapped off by hand not chopped or sawed,
from the woods where I counted coup on a doe, my coup stick.
Also a sturdy enough walking stick for packing in and packing out.

Late Muzzleloader season is coming and I have three doe tags.
The father&son do not do muzzleloaders.
I will have the run of the place.
The CVA Paramount .45-cal will be used, of course.
It has .450" bore and .462" groove, 1:22" twist.
Uses Blackhorn 209 and an F-215 primer.

It could re-create the old paper-patch-bullet loads of Whitworth, Metford, and Gibbs.
But I will have to stick with the Power Belt ELR version for now.
That is a .450"-diameter bullet of soft lead, copper plated and plastic skirted,
that obturates into .462" grooves !

A soft lead, 0.442"-diameter, slick bullet, paper-patched up to .450" bore (muzzle-loaded)
and weighing 500-ish grains might do well in the CVA Paramount,
like the old .45-bore ML loads targeted to 1000 yards,
ancestors to the MIGHTY .458 WINCHESTER MAGNUM.
Or the Lyman "Volunteer" .451"/450-gr might work as a grease-lubed muzzleloader bullet in the CVA Paramount.
See top of this page.

Vey, very sad ... Amen.
I have tried googling for a story on this and can't find anything.
I will surely miss them if they are gone.
Giving up on finding anymore of the HYDRO or PPSN Weldcore bullets ... for now.
Sure hope they make a comeback.

I’ll be using my Ultimate ML with 300 grain Parker Black Maxes and 120 grains of BH209 By weight. It’s like a single shot 375 kicking those big 300’s down range.

Sir Scotty,

Very interesting.
Is that a Remington 700 UML .50-cal sabot load or something custom, actually .375-cal ?
120-gr weight is about 180-gr volume of BH 209 which should do adequate motivating of a 300-grainer down range.

I am ignorant on the Parker Black Max 300-grainer but googled and found a .451-caliber 300-grainer,
and they make various bullets and weights and calibers for with and without sabot use.
The Parker web site said they make a bullet by special order to fit the CVA Paramount,
and somewhere along the way I saw that entailed bumping the bullet up to +.453" in the manufacturing for subsequent sizing to fit by user.
Oh well, when I run out of Power Belts I'll try Parker.

I am tending now to want to try a home-cast 530-grain slick of soft lead to patch from about .442" to about +.450",
propelled by about 44 grains by weight of BH209 to about 1300 to 1400 fps MV, which ought to be about 28,000 PSI.

In the MIGHTY .458 WINCHESTER MAGNUM BPCR,
or .45-70 Elko Magnum (aka .45-100-2.6" Winchester Throated):
I would start with a slick of about .450" diameter, made of 20:1 alloy,
and patch it up to groove diameter, use a wad or filler over same 44-gr by weight of BH209,
for about same pressure and velocity as in the muzzleloader.
That seems to be what works for paper-patched in the One with the Long Throat.

That is the Remington 700 UML RC. It is a beast of a rifle and accurate as heck.

I use the 300 grain Black Max's with the sabot in mine. I will say Parkers are one of the best for accuracy and absolutely a devil on game performance. Gunner will laugh as he continues pounding bucks with his 58 caliber roundballs, but I like the UML for what I am doing with it. I'll try to get a picture of it up for you to see. I plan on checking it out after work tonight to make sure it is all squared up and ready to hunt.



This is the rifle. It had a nice laminate on it but it felt more like a bench gun that a hunting rifle. Added the McMillan and it’s much more lively for me.

Here is the Parkers



Tonight I was kinda rushed since it gets so dark that I wanted to drop back a little from my 120 grain by Weight load to see if I could still get adequate accuracy from the rifle. I worked backwards shooting 120-110-100








After seeing 100 grains by weight shot pretty well, I made a dope change and strapped the Magnetospeed to it to make sure I didn’t turn it in to a complete wimp.



Registered 2178 FPS.

Then I loaded one more to check zero without the Magnetospeed on the gun. It was about as centered as I could make it. I packed it up, reprimed my brass. Filled up 5 tubes with powder and put it away.


I was wondering what my ballistics looked like downrange and ran the numbers of .377 and 2178FPS.



Pretty sure that’ll work for some squirrely white tails!

That sounds pretty cool with the 45-100 RC. I bet that’d shoot through a tree! One of those 530’s at 1300-1400 should leave a mark!

If I get a chance tomorrow I’ll like up some water jugs and see how they do. I haven’t used the 300 grain on a buck yet but the other Parkers were whitetail poison. Fast expansion but with enough mass to usually always exit.

RC,
Not familiar with your ML but I’ve been using my Savage 10ML for many years. Using Hornady .458” 300gr HPs or Barnes Original 300gr soft points. They’ll do quite a number on most game when pushed from 2200fps or above. Also use the Hornady .452” SST in 300grs which puts deer down really well.