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

Lo and behold ! The first .458 Lott might have been a .450 Watts Magnum:



As many times as I have looked at that drawing, I just now added 2 + 2 and got 4 !

Compare Jack's hand-reamed chamber to these SAAMI chambers:

Here is rough visual comparison at a glance for those who like pictures, like I do:



In quickLOAD the default case capacities of the .458 WM-2.5" and .458 Lott-2.8"
are 95 grains and 110 grains of water respectively.
No allowance for throat.
Here is the allowance for throat:
The SAAMI .458 WinMag has 0.1582" greater length than the SAAMI .458 Lott
from breech/bolt face to first contact of a .458-caliber bullet with rifling of .458"-groove diameter.
A right-cylindrical bullet of .458-caliber displaces 41.66 grains of water for each inch of its length.
Thus the SAAMI .458 WM has a "throat-actualized" effective capacity of 6.59 grains of water greater than the SAAMI .458 Lott.
So consider the SAAMI .458 WM to have 116.59 grains H20 gross and 2.5" brass length
when calculating pressures and velocities with quickLOAD, for comparison to the same calculations for the SAAMI .458 Lott.

So easy a caveman could do it, if a caveman would.

Got rained out of muzzleloader doe hunting today.
Looks like sunny and cool tomorrow. One more try on higher ground away from the soggy bottoms.

But if Mr Caveman has an IQ of less than 130 he might miss the brilliance of all this!

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

The .458 caliber world is a dedication and being that, it tends to keep writers away from it so this thread is not only important, it is more informative than a guest user or reviewer could ever provide and in detail never offered from any source.
Thanks for the dedication Ron and Mike McGuire for starting this.
John

PS: I don't see a fat lady anywhere at this point............

I agree whole Heartedly!

Writers also have dedications !

I seem to spend a good part of my time in writing, and thinking about what I'll write in blogs and with correspondents, as well as here - so I suppose I qualify - in an obtuse sense!

Certainly I've had my dedications in writing a few manuals, especially on .45-70s and the "great" .458 Win.

But there have been others in .338-cal, .35-cal, and now in 9.3 x 62.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

This might be a slight digression, but I think it's time for a dedicated book or two - on the "great" .458 Winchester Magnum.

Surely, there is both enough talent and experience present here in the persons of Ron and Phil to produce at least one magnificent book dedicated to the .458 Win - each from their own experiences and perspectives: One more technical and the other more experience oriented. Not intended to suggest any lack of experience and knowledge on the part of either of these gentlemen.

Lacking a single collaborative book, two might be better still!

And this is NOT intended to ignore the excellent contributions by others to this thread who show both knowledge and experience in regard to the .458 Win.

What think ye all?

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

Absolutely!

I have to report the score for late muzzleloader season: Does three, Ron zero.
My tripod stand had a moat around it yesterday, since it has been raining about half the time since the "Quad State Tornado of 2021."



As I was walking away from that, some geese came in from the north, flew over the soggy field



and came back from the south for a second look



and settled down behind the hedgerow:



I walked the other end of the farm along a boundary line of trees.
What do I spy but a "Comfort Saddle" pool float made of foam rubber that has twigs piercing it like a pin cushion.
It was blown there by the tornado last week, out of somebody's swimming pool gear to the southwest.
As I stooped to pick it up, four fat and sassy does hightailed it from the border I was walking along, cutting across the field.
They were about 200 yards away when my cross hairs jerked onto the biggest and highest hump in the bunch.
That one must have been at apogee and was on the way back down as I fired. Clean miss.
Looks like the only way I might get a doe this year is with a crossbow.
For luck:



Finally got down into the 20s degrees F last night, a good frost.

Sir Bob,
Donkey for the flowers.
Ditto the Lottites who are said to have a high percentage of Neanderthal DNA.

LMAO !!
No land for the timid.

Sir Woods,
You are too kind. Buy a buy a donkey for the flowers.
Fear not, the Fat Lady sings not for the .458 Winchester Magnum ...

Elmer Keith, His Life Story: "HELL, I WAS THERE!" Adventures of a Montana cowboy who gained world fame as a big game hunter.
By Elmer Keith, who pronounced the .458 Winchester Magnum as superbly accurate and powerful enough for even Elmer, in his size 2 cowboy boots.

UNREPENTANT SINNER, The Autobiography of Colonel Charles Askins.
By Col. Charles Askins, recollecting probably the earliest use in the field of the .458 WinMag in 1956, in Southeast Asia.
The .458 WinMag went to Vietnam in early 1956.
Being a gunwriter with a close family friend high up at Olin has advantages.

JAMES ".450" WATTS: RECOLLECTIONS OF MY LIFE as told to Cal Pappas.

I volunteer to interview Sir Phil for posterity.
PHIL "458WIN" SHOEMAKER: RECOLLECTIONS OF MY LIFE as told to Ron Berry.
Somebody needs to do it.
Just not the caveman/Lottite please.

Meanwhile, research continues:



Target bullet above, pest bullet below:

My vote is that the book must be done while it can be done. Phil’s life surely must be chronicled. I can think of nobody better to do it than Ron.
“When Life gets Ugly”. The life, times and tools of Phil Shoemaker
By Ron Berry.

And of course we know what the cover will look like. One Phil, one massive bear and one magnificent 458WM, beautiful to only its holder.

I’ve got Elmer’s and Charlie’s books, both signed by the author. I’d really like that Cal Pappas book. Maybe someone will reprint it some day.