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

Sir Bob,
You now have more of those precious 600-gr B.O. bullets than I do.
Save me some bullets by telling us what you get with the AA-5744.
I have a pretty good idea how the H4895 is going to do.
Mine were a perfect fit in the grooves of the Ruger No. 1 .458 WinMag.

Sir Jerry did not want to get his beauteous .458 WM+ rained on so he took this after the whitetails yesterday:





That is a Pre-'64 M70 that was rebored from .270 WCF to .338-06 by JES.
Another good recommendation for JES, it does 2800 fps with 210-gr Nosler Partitions and H380.
Freshened up that barrel nicely !

I have a .338-06 Argentine M-98 in synthetic stock. I would load it to imitate the trajectory of whatever .458 WM load.
Having a .458 WM is like having attention deficit disorder.
There are so many good powders and bullets for it, always a new trick.

Speaking of new tricks, wear a neck gaiter if you have a white beard,
so your face does not look like a deer's behind flashing a danger signal:

On the "Winchester M70 458 build" thread, Sir Larry came up with a term to describe
a rifle with a Classic or FN M70 action for 7mm RM, .300 WinMag, or .338 WinMag that has been
rebarreled to .375 H&H length cartridge, by merely unblocking back of box and shortening the ejector blade.
A "Frankenstein."

He has observed that it ejects unfired, 3.600" COL cartridges run through the magazine, no problemo.
Also loading through the unlengthened port is no problemo,
just shove the rear ends of the cartridges into the rear end of the box and press them down.
I like it, and that is how I would build a .458 WM+ with which to
"open a can of whoop ass on a SAAMI .458 Lott" was/is my response.

This sort of lingo may be extended to a "Bride of Frankenstein" SAAMI .458 Winchester Magnum.
Use the highly desirable Pre-'64 M70 .30-06 action with bolt face opened up for the H&H case head,
but leave magazine and ejector alone.
If a virgin .458 barrel is used, the bride is honestly entitled to wear white.
If a take-off CZ .458 WM barrel is used, the bride may wear whatever color she chooses.

We used to unblock the mag boxes and use the shorter ejector to make Make Mashburns and 3.6” 300 Wins. It’s so easy a Marine can do it without too much trouble or breaking much.

You bet Sir Ron, about an hour before dark it did indeed begin to rain more, if my 458 WM+ were to get a little wet in Africa tracking buffalo that'd be fine, but not on a little cow farm in Oklahoma hunting deer, that JES 338-06 rebore is one of my favorites for bad weather hunting, it's light as a feather and way more accurate than it needs to be, my 'Smith likes it too, while cerakoting all the metal, he threw in a stainless trigger adjusted to a clean 2lbs, LOL on the neck gaiter, great idea straight from the self preservation dept ; ]

I done that right off the bat on my classic super grade 300 Win Mag, yes, very easy, 200gr partitions at 3.585" are perfect and shoot lights out.

It turns those silly 3.4 magazine'd 300 Win's and 7 Rem's into much more useful rifles that seem to be much easier to work with in my book.

Holy smokes, now that's a cool picture! Stole that one!

How much more performance can one get in a 3.6" vs a 3.3" 300 Win? I have a push feed Model 70 (last year before the CRF), and from the looks of it, the magazine could be unblocked the same way the CRFs can be.

Well, I don't know about total FPS, but it allows the bullets to be started out near the lands. Most of the 300 Win chambers I have been around are quite long and seating to 3.4" really gives them a long way to jump which doesn't always hurt accuracy, but it does make it tougher to find accuracy sometimes with the 200+ grain bullets. Also, with a 3.6" mag box, I haven't really had much trouble getting 3100 from 180's and 3000 from 200's. I could do the same with the 3.4 box, but getting the seating node was a little tougher for me.

But yes, the PF can be converted the same way.

Sir Scotty,
Buy a donkey for further validation of the Frankenstein .458 WM+ concept.
Even a Vietnam era Westpoint dropout USAF Flyboy can do it. Even a caveman can do it.



Glad you like the McNaughton.
I too think it is the coolest thing he has done.

Sir Bevan,
Ditto Sir Scotty on the .300 WinMag and PF conversion.
I have not done one of those boltstops paired with plunger ejectors but it might even be simpler.
All the rest is the same. The .300 WinMag has a leade-only throat, as do the .338 WinMag and .264 WinMag and .458 WinMag. Family trait.
That said, I have a Ruger M77 Mk II .300 WinMag that is spooky accurate, no problems with that throat.

Sir Jerry has reported on some deer hunting Tuesday with his .458 WM+.
The man has class.



"Trail through girls bedroom on the way to clearcut where I caught them shopping.
Even the buzzards know a man carrying a .458 WM+ will have gut piles soon to follow.
These birds were rewarded with three such piles today."

Three 450-gr TSX bullets at +2400 fps MV, three dead deer, three exit wounds:

First deer seems to have been hit at left forward ribcage and bullet made exit on right flank rearward:



Exit wound zoomed in, actually looks to be shaped like the frontal view of four-petal TSX expansion star:



Sir Jerry will have to correct any misinterpretations by me, supply the range-of-impact, and add any other pertinent points.

The second deer has a bigger exit wound, on shoulder I presume,
and that might be some shoulder bone exit effects too:



The third deer moved as the trigger broke and looks like it nearly got cut in half,
maybe the bullet motivated a big chunk of spine toward exit:



Entry points and range of impact would be interesting to know.
I guess all the entry wounds look the same, about caliber size, tidy holes in hide,
like the one on the deer I clobbered with a Buffalo Bore 400-gr TSX at about 2350 fps MV.

The 450-gr TSX at +2400 fps of Sir Jerry's handload will expand better than a lesser sectional density bullet of same velocity.
Even mo'better if both heavier for caliber AND faster at impact and same TSX-type HP.

Logistics for the well-heeled deer harvester/grocery shopper:





Redtailed truck after whitetail transport:



Modern-style buffalo sticks had to be moved to make room for the meat:

I agree on the exit wound appearance.Certainly has the shape of a well expanded bullet with petal intact.

One has to appreciate a man that practices the principles of use enough gun and bullet. That is a thumper of a combination there.

Now for the prettiest parts: Bagwell Damascus skinner, Freedom Arms .454 Casull revolver, and custom Winchester M70 .458 WM+:









Sir Jerry's buddy has been warned that he should not expect to safely duplicate the .458 WM+ loads in his SAAMI .458 Lott.

AMEN Sir Larry:



The .458 WinMag does all very well indeed. The .458 WM+ does more.
I just thought of using .458 Lott brass as the primer carrier for a muzzleloader, gemmerized .458 WM.
Neck down the Lott brass to fit inside the .458 WM throat.
What other good use is there for .458 Lott brass, besides cutting it off to 2.5" Length ?
Old wishlist item is a fast-twist .458 WM with suppressor for subsonic and supersonic plinking with VLD bullets.

This thread does keep the 458 Winchester flame fed.
I reminded me to check a new to me, near new New Haven, CRF M70 Super Express for feeding 500 grain Hornady factory loads.
Feeds damn slick, as most M70’s that I have had association with. I certainly like the looks of this rifle.

The number of Lotts and Winchesters are now even in the safes.
It is difficult not to like the 458 Winchester. Even though paper and rocks are all that I have shot with either the Winchester or Lott.
There has only been a short break in not having a 458 Winchester for the past 20-25 years. That void was correct within a few months of absence.

I think those 350 grain North Fork Cup Point expanding solids are going to be my bullet of choice. I was unable to purchase the 400 grain. But, I don’t think these 350’s will lack in performance for North America.
Those 402 grain Hammer bullets look very interesting also.