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

gunner500 I am so happy for you to get it ,you will make Mr Bagwell proud

super cool nice write up!

Very interesting information. Thank you.

Any reason why any of the above tested cartridges would NOT kill a Cape Buff or Elephant with proper shot placement?

Please keep in mind that in our African bullet tests the 450 grain .458 North Fork (copper) and Punch (brass) bullets fired from Winchester 1886 .45-70 at around 2000 fps both shot through the ele head and into the body. The same combination shot through most Cape Buff and killed all.

To this reader, it seems that the old .458 Win Mag ammo was sufficient to kill the big and bad DG way back when --IF the hunter placed the bullet properly.

With modern ammo, it should perform even better.

mooshoo,

Buy a donkey for the flowers. Are you bucking for Knighthood ?

Sir Charles,
Ditto.
About a half dozen times I have tested the latest Hornady DGX and DGS 500-grainers in 23" to 25" barrels,
at various temperatures in various rifles,
results are consistently agreeable, about 2125 fps to 2150 fps.
They claim 2140 fps in their 24" barrel, and I claim they are spot on.

Here is the 400-gr/.458 FN solid bullet for the ages, my latest refinement to run by the Hammer Bullets Company,
call it a FLATHEAD HAMMER or a HAMMERHEAD, or whatever they like I hope:

At the B&M forum they are stuck on the brass CEB solid bullets with the weird band structures and bore-rifing noses
meant for short&tight-throated chambers and COL-challenged magazine rifles.


The Hammer PDR bands are a different approach. The more of them, the lower the pressure and fouling will be.
They are a sinusoidal sort of oscillation between groove diameter and just barely below bore diameter.
IIRC, the peak is 0.458" and the trough is 0.448" on that 404-g Shock Hammer.

The .458 WinMag throat is especially well suited to having the full bearing diameter well forward on the bullet.
No big need for bore-riding nose to fit in a short and tight throat.
No drive bands standing abruptly proud.
The low drag PDR bands will fit into the SAAMI .458 WinMag throat all the way to 0.6725" forward of case mouth.

As Archimedes said right after his eureka! moment:
“Give me a SAAMI-chambered .458 WinMag and I will beat a SAAMI-chambered .458 Lott,
when both are allowed same COL and same MAP.”

.458 Winchester Magnum
Magnanimous in Victory

Sir Ron,
Are the 380 grain Lehigh WFN flat point copper solids on your Iron Buffalo test agenda ?

Sir Larry,

Summer is coming and I will do them alongside the Hammer bullets.
Whatever medium I imitate MIB wetpack with will be calibrated by the MIB 404-g Shock Hammer result.

Gold Medal Philippic from Sir Bob's blog: https://bigborefan.wordpress.com/2022/03/12/three-rifles-for-all-hunting-my-thinking/

THREE RIFLES for All Hunting? My thinking…
(March 12, 2022)

And still… it’s unbelievable that there are a few who think themselves “experts”, and write “articles” in magazine “rags”, who are really quite ignorant of the facts going all the way back to 1956! Or they are very prejudiced in favoring the .458 Lott over the .458 Win.

I say it’s “unbelievable” that today such drivel could still be spouted by those who make their living as “professional writers”! They are either very lazy or idiots! Or both! They deserve a big fat “F” on their homework! They should have known – without excuses – that the earliest tests of both Winchester factory 500gr loads and independent handloads, done by an independent lab (White’s) as reported in a LYMAN Reloading Handbook (the 2nd one from Lyman that I owned), revealed that not only were the claimed ballistics (in a 24″ barrel”) by Winchester fully met, but were EXCEEDED at less than 60, 000 psi! (The Lott is granted 62,500 PSI by SAAMI !) Yet the Win Mag is it’s equal or even better depending on how each is loaded, barrel lengths and psi! (I’ve written ALL that in my .458 Winchester Magnum manual back in 2008!)

I KNEW, from my experiences in handloading two Rugers No.1 in .45-70, that since the first (unmodified in any way) with it 22″ barrel could make over 2000 fps from the 500gr Hornady RN, at a tested safe psi, then surely a .458 Win Mag with the same length barrel could make 2200 fps from the same bullet within safe psi! And when my 2nd Ruger #1 in .45-70 with an improved throat could make 2200 fps from safe handloads of that 500gr, then surely my CZ550 in .458 Win could do 2300 fps from its 25″ barrel without undue stress, using several appropriate propellants! And not only did it accomplish that, but so will the Ruger No.1H in .458 with a 24″ barrel do the same… and a bit more!

A .25-06 (or 7-08) can make about 2700 ft-lbs from the muzzle firing a 120gr at 3200 fps. A 9.3 x 62 can make 4300 ft-lbs from a 320gr at 2460 fps from my rifle. And the .458 Win can make 5900 ft-lbs from a 500gr at 2305 fps. Those are top loads from those rifles firing those weight bullets.

(insert standing ovation here)

I understand your dismay at the drivel that you reference. Could it be that those writers can write but cannot read? There are many such examples in life, but the ignorance shown by some people in the shooting field is hard to understand in an era where so many facts are available with just a bit of research on the Internet.

One of my favorite examples of this is the erroneous answers to the common firearms forum question about shooting 45-70 ammo in a rifle chambered for the 45-90 cartridge. The answer is YES, it is OK, and that was one reason that I bought my 1886 45-90 rather than and 1886 45-70. It seems to me that many lever gun "experts" skipped that part of their education and are just repeating what other uninformed "experts" have said.

A related attitude is that if you want more performance from your .458 rifle, buy a .458 Win Mag! Dummies, if I wanted a .458 Win Mag I would have bought one.
Also, just because so many folks/sissies never learned to properly shoot a curved metal butt plate and recommend I cut mine off and put on a shotgun pad, does not mean that I will ruin the lines of one of my rifles!

Vent over!

Sir Charles is hereby awarded title of "Court Jester" at the Square Table.

The obvious approach, for me, is to use the .458 WinMag throat and,
since I have long arms for my height and like it, a slip-on recoil pad over the steel crescent butt plate,
should I wish to pursue other than nostalgic endeavors with the rimmed cartridges in lever-action and single-shot rifles.
Re-throating is easy and slip-on LOP adjusters are reversible..

Still hashing out a 400-gr FN solid from Hammer.

The .458 WinMag throat is especially well suited to having the full bearing diameter well forward on the bullet.
No big need for bore-riding nose to fit in a short and tight throat.
No drive bands standing abruptly proud.
The low drag PDR bands will fit into the SAAMI .458 WinMag throat all the way to 0.6725″ forward of case mouth.

With objections over the dimple in the base of the bullet I said this:

The dimple on the base was only a fudge by me since I was allowing adjustment room for weight,
based on my calculations using the equivalent of an abacus and removing my shoes
so as to have 20 digits to add and subtract with.

By all means make it with a flat base, please !
I believe the Hammer Bullets design team has greater calculatory and prototyping abilities than I do.
Ha ha, yes, I am trying to be funny.

Seriously now, please start at the flat meplat of 0.300″ diameter and a 13-degree angle at each side of the radiused nose,
working toward base with the PDR bands at a wavelength of about 0.100″ like on the 404g Shock Hammer,
and stop when you come to a flat base with the bullet weighing 400-gr minimum to 405-gr maximum.
Radius flat base edge too for ease of seating.
The similar radius on the nose at meplat edge aids feeding and penetration.
That will be about as short a bullet as possible that will feed well and penetrate well for the 400-ish grain weight.

Must not the effects of the bands be considered in context?
As in Viking Law, everything is relative and there are no absolutes.

Are PDR bands of varying wavelength ?
I do not know.
Such specifics are above my pay grade, like a diameter spec of .0005″ above groove diameter on the PDR peaks,
which I was just made aware of again, having forgotten it if I read it previously.

If they are of constant 0.100″ from peak to peak or trough to trough,
and I want a flat base and a maximized run of full diameter,
i.e., no boat tail and no long ogive nor bore-riding noses.
it still seems to me that the more the merrier for PDR bands,
if they are of a fixed 0.100″ wavelength,
which makes for such wonderful crimping locations.

I want to be able to crimp in a trough at 0.500″ from meplat and at 0.840″ from meplat.
But troughs at 0.450″ and 0.850″ will be fine for making desired COLs (.45-70 and .458 WM).
+/- 0.010″ is easily absorbed in brass trimming or sliding the crimp location,
and I really like those PDR at 0.100″ apart, and crimping in the troughs.

I certainly see where fewer bands works to reduce start pressure and fouling when you have a lot of the bullet
below full diameter as with bore-riding nose or a lot of sub-caliber ogive length and boat tail base.
That is not desirable for as short and heavy as possible in an FN solid.
This is not a sub bore bullet riding in the bands.
Certainly in that case more bands increases the undesirables.

Hammer Bullets has a bullet with a mildly dished-out meplat that they call the "Claw Hammer."
Sort of like the North Fork Cup Point, but less pronounced concavity of the wide meplat.
They also have one with a cup in the nose a little deeper than the NF Cup Point
that they call the "Jack Hammer."

Flathead Claw Hammer = Ripping Hammer = Framing Hammer = Carpentry Hammer ...
So many possibilities.

Thanks to Steve and Brian at Hammer Bullets.

Fingers crossed on the "Parabolic Drag Reduction" bands not being an impediment to penetration
on an FN solid.

LOL Sir Ron, i use a slip on leather cover with an old ruger half inch pad inside with 20 cuts to make it fit the contour of the crescent on my 50-110 WCF, not for recoil as i currently shoot a 530gr bullet to 1360 fps over black powder, but to get the rifle out in front and down on the buttstock so i can get behind the sights, i done the same thing on Saint Bagwell's rifle as he ordered his Sharps rifles with 13.5 LOP, 1800's men most likely weighed 140lbs soaking wet and were bony as a rail, 52 inch coat and 250lbs is all kinda different trying to make a rifle fit ; ]

FWIW i dont think the PDF bands will hinder penetration at all, that flat nose will blast matter 360 degrees away from the bullet body, small cases in point, open hand slap water next time you're standing in a pool or creek, i put finishers in two deer with my Colt SAA 45, those hard cast flat nosed bullets did not expand, but, i could fit a thumb in both sides of the ribcage on both critters, my thumbs are a hell of a lot larger than a half inch, leading back to something Saint Bagwell used to speak about a flat nosed bullet compressing a solid wall of material as it blasts it's way through an animal.

FWIW i dont think the PDF bands will hinder penetration at all, that flat nose will blast matter 360 degrees away from the bullet body, small cases in point, open hand slap water next time you're standing in a pool or creek, i put finishers in two deer with my Colt SAA 45, those hard cast flat nosed bullets did not expand, but, i could fit a thumb in both sides of the ribcage on both critters, my thumbs are a hell of a lot larger than a half inch, leading back to something Saint Bagwell used to speak about a flat nosed bullet compressing a solid wall of material as it blasts it's way through an animal.

Agreed. The FN will take care of any drag issues on the PDR bands in all ways except the absolute fact that drag does and will exist. I just don't think it will make a difference.
We have been shooting the old Keith SW FN with sharp shoulder and multiple square grease grooves through things for many years. I read a study somewhere recently that concluded the Sharp shoulder doesn't even make contact in Game. Cuts paper but not meat. If correct, that means the FN is moving material out of the way.

Just acquired a MarkX in 458 Win.

Congrats on the MarkX. Pix please.

Hammer Bullets magnanimously sent a hundred bullets to replace the 67 that were 3 grains light.
What a deal !
And the "outlier" issue on the copper rod stock has been addressed.
Noogies to the supplier.

I opened and weighed one box of 25.
No oil noted on these, and I like that too.



No need to weigh anymore of these.
What fun !

Here is my solid bullet, if they will cut it off flat at the base and shorten and solidify the nose
into the FN shape shown last above,
to a length around 1.2", whatever makes it weigh from 400 to 405 grains.



I have a fetish for 400-grain .458 bullets, all types, same as some have for Pre-’80 Colt 1911s.
I am going to pile my 400-grainers on the floor and roll on them like a dog on a dead bird.

Excellent. Thank you Sir Ron.
I think between the 380 grain WFN copper solid, the CEB 325 grain brass solid Lever & Bolt Gun versions, and the North Fork 350 grain Expanding CPS; I am covered for any North American four-legged beast at closer ranges in 45-70 & 458’s. Add the sleek Hammer 404 grain to extend my distance to a bit over 200 yards with happiness of trajectory and impact velocity with the 458’s.
I do have some mild curiosity about the Hammer 402 with the advertised 90% weight retention.