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

BENCHMARK might be a good one for 400 to 500-grainers.
It has about best ThermoBallisticIndependence from overall take on published trials.
It would be good to make up a load that gave about
2150 fps with 500-grainer
2250 fps with 450-grainer
2400 fps with 400-grainer
from a "standard .458 WinMag rifle."
Benchmark Loads, pun intended.
Used as standard measuring sticks for comparing MV of different rifles of whatever barrel length/twist/groove/etc. at whatever temperature.

Sir Ron I'm loading 77 grains of AA2230 behind the 450 TSX at 3.380 COAL

And getting right near 2300 fps MV, great load, Sir John.
Works in any standard aught-six-length mag box I know of.
Loading longer COL you have to add more powder and pay the price.

2300 fps MV with a 450-grain CEB brass FN zips through elephant or 10 feet of bison,
when shot inside of 50 yards.
(I am guesstimating 5 feet of MIB test medium equals 10 feet of bison,
from tail to throat.)

A 450-gr TSX at 2300 fps Mv would be a longer range option,
almost as good as a 404-gr Shock Hammer at 2500 fps MV,
maybe 2600 fps MV to push the envelope.

You are spot on!

I'm shooting the 404 grain Shock Hammer @ 3.383" COAL in Norma brass Federal 215 primer ahead of 85 grains of AA2230 new manufactured powder for 2523 FPS. This load may be a bit over SAAMI MAP, but has worked fine in my rifle with repeated loads in the same brass

Sir John,
Good load that one, since you are using the Norma brass that has gross water about 4 to 5 grains greater
than most .458 WM brass.
I SWAG your pressure is less than the SAAMI MAP of the .458 Lott, bless its heart.

I succumbed to the charms of a Ruger-Marlin 45-70 Govt yesterday.

I need another 45-70 like I need a hole in my head.

Still prepping .458 WinMag brass here ...

Going back over some notes from 2019, I find these results from H335 in my Ruger No.1 in .458:

450gr "X", 83 grs H335 = 2385 fps at MV

450gr TSX, 83 grs H335 = 2327 fps at MV

450gr Swift AF, 84 grs H335 = 2414 fps at MV

Going back before I had my CZ550 in .458: 75 grs H335 in my Ruger No.1 .45-70 LT under the 500gr Hornady = 2210 fps cprrected to MV; and 2317 fps for 76 grs H335 for the 450gr Swift AF corrected to MV. It had a 22" barrel. All signs indicated LESS psi than a load tested by Accurate for my previous No.1 (unmodified) in .45-70 firing the 500gr Hor at 2015 fps from the 22". Bill Falen Jr. pronounced that load safe that tested 2096 fps in their 24". The powder was AA2015.

I started using H335 in the No.1 with the long throat because I could use more of it than H4895 that was too bulky.

Some nostalgia, but was the basis for my use of H335 in the CZ 550 in .458 and later in the Ruger No.1 in .458. I learned a lot from that trail of experiences. One thing I learned was that safe pressure can be estimated from a number of sources - not from books when there is NO data (and there was none for my Ruger No.1 in .45-70 (modified). The second is that some others will follow pioneer work and build from it. It wasn't long thereafter that several sources began publishing results for H335 in .458s that far surpassed old data - Hornady the first who declared it best in the .458 Win and Lott. And that was well after 2230 had appeared on the scene. Now both are made in the same plant in St Marks, Flordia.

The point: Let's not forget that H335 is STILL one of the best in the great .458 WM using 450s and 500s.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

The temptation of the lever guns is Strong.

Marlin JM - my "cowboy" rifle. 430g LGC @ +/-1860 FPS pretty snappy in a light rifle - could not make it through 10-rounds and just shot mild 405g loads thereafter.

I haven't pushed mine that hard with 450gn TSX's but achieved:
72gn H322 for 2381fps
76gn AA2230 for 2264fps
68gn H 4198 for 2359fps.

Barnes Vortex Factory Ammo provided, chronographed at 2133fps by comparison.

All in 22" Model 70 over the Oehler 35P. 3 shot groups just under the inch at 100 yards.

Sir Ron,

BENCHMARK is also great for the 550's too!
Using 73gn behind the 550gn Woodleigh l'm getting just under 2100fps (2080fps to be exact)
This is from a 24" barrel out of my 'standard' Zastava and loaded to an OAL of 3.340"

Russ

Asante sana for the load data good Sirs.
I have about 150 pieces of once-fired brass prepped.
CFE 223 with 450 TSX
Benchmark with 404 Hammer and 400 CEB
StaBALL Match with 528 Lehigh
are on deck.

Sir Ron, I been concerned about your absence

Sir John,
I am doing great, just too many caretaking duties
getting in the way of hobbies.
Girlfriend of over 50 years (same one who has been wife of 48 years)
and my other Old Lady (88 y.o. Mama), have honey-doos scheduled.
Best buddy just lost a leg, and he is slowed up a bit on his enabling of my hobbies.
A big tree fell over in backyard and another one is leaning ...
about $30,000 of fence and sheds underway soon as trees disposed of ...
and Wife and I are meeting a high school
team mate and his wife tomorrow at Longhorn for steak and taters.

Lately, a 76 y.o. good buddy has decided he needed to take up elk hunting and got a .300 WinMag that I am coaching him on.
He thought a .30-06 was a kicker.
Monday we went to the range and I
chronographed some +20 y.o. handloads of
mine for the .300 WinMag,
and got his new rifle zeroed.
That was a good illustration of what might have started some bad poop on the .458 WinMag factory loads of yore,
you know, from when the Democrats were running the ammo factory.
Details to follow.

Meanwhile all Knights of the Square Table
are encouraged to grab a horn of meade and share anything that comes to mind about how wonderful the .458 WinMag is,
especially any chronographed load data
and terminal results on game.
Any jokes about the SAAMI .458 Lott are also greatly appreciated.

Great post as always.

Sir Ron,

I've got some great news for ya - life doesn't get simpler and easier as ya get older! My Doc says "Bob, you need to take ALL ya meds - your sugars are too elevated!" "But Doc", says I, "that makes me spend too much time in the bathroom! There's other matters I need to get done, like shootin', handloading 'n huntin'!"

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

Jack flggerd out how bad the 458 lott was and had to pop a cap on the dude that invented it

Good one from Sir Allen !

Sir Bob, I hear ya. You are the Iron Man of the North.

Dang if I don't have to walk 8.1 miles behind my self-propelled mower today to cut a tortuously sloped and obstacled yard.

And dang if there ain't an air show this weekend with the USAF Thunderbirds instead of the USN Blue Angels.
I can't miss that.
Darn more time away from the rifle range !

On 10-26-2000:

I tested my 140-gr XBT handload for the .300 WinMag, gloriously SAAMI throated with a leade-only throat.
It is a scaled-down and more abrupt version of the SAAMI .458 WinMag throat.
The rifle was a Ruger M77 Mk II stainless "All-Weather" with sights on barrel and in a Zytel canoe paddle stock, Ruger rings.
24"-long factory barrel of 1:10" twist.
SAAMI .300 WinMag Throat:
0.3150" diameter at start of leade,
1*26'37" leade angle (hemi-angle of the cone)

That ammo put 5 shots into 0.375" (center-to-center) at 115 yards.
It was a new range and as previously told the bulldozer driver was either drunk or confusing his yards and meters, or both,
when he pushed up the berms, later corrected.
Those 5 shots chronographed for mean velocity of 3301.8 fps at 5 yards.
St. dev. = 4.0 fps
Extreme Spread of 9 fps.
MV corrected for G1 BC of 0.398 = 3315 fps MV

COL was 3.400" easily working through the Ruger .300 WinMag box length.
Powder charge was 74.0 grains IMR-4350, 1.5 grains below Barnes #2 manual maximum.
W-W Super brass, F-215 primer.
I was not sophisticated enough to record temperature on that October day nearly 23 years ago.
Probably about 70*F here in Kentucky.
I did use the ammo to kill two whitetails, one with a precise heart shot from 200 yards:
Heart exploded into a 3-leaf shamrock shape and bullet kept going.
The other deer kill was a messy running butt shot at 160 yards.
It quickly bled to death from femoral artery bleeds, both femoral arteries IIRC.
Wasted a lot of meat on that one.

Forward to 09-11-2023, a somber 22nd anniversary salute:

33 rounds of the above handload sat unused in a plastic case in a footlocker in my garage,
not climate controlled for almost 23 years.
Temperatures varying from scorching to freezing for over two decades. Humidity ?

5-shots chronographed in same good rifle I'd never part with or change:
mean = 3222.6 fps at 5 yards, MV = 3237 fps
ES = 134 fps !!!
Temp = 81*F, RH = 58%, 30.08 in Hg
Probably hotter than October was almost 23 years earlier.
But mean velocity decreased and Extreme Spread greatly increased, on the aged handloads.
Would H4350 have done any better than IMR-4350 in the aging process ?

So, 23 years and velocity mean decreased from 3315 fps to 3237 fps: Lost 78 fps.
Accuracy went to hell too.

This suggests that aging in poor storage of what may have been Democrat-loaded factory ammo for the .458 WinMag
contributed to anecdotes of .458-caliber bullets bouncing off the dirt on the way to a second bounce off of the elephant.
Especially when the Democrat-loaded ammo came from machinery that spilled powder out of the case instead of into it,
and the loosely seated bullets were sometimes glued into place at the factory,
and sometimes a defective powder lot was congealed into a compressed and solid mass inside the case.
Then there is the factor of riding on the dash board of the bakkie for years before a slovenly PH tries the ammo for backup.

Probably best to shoot up your handloaded ammo in a year or two and keep it in proper HVAC storage for comfort.
Same conditions for the ammo as the hunter likes to sleep in,
and all will sleep better.

That 64 years and 4 months old ammo that Sir Tony donated to the Square Table
must have been stored well.
500-gr FMJ Winchester factory load gave 2066 fps at 5 yards for 5-shot mean.
That was at 49*F on 03-29-2022.
Correcting to MV for G1 BC = 0.295: 2080 fps MV from a 25" Shilen barrel.

Advertised velocity from the 25" Winchester M70 African barrel back in 1957: 2125 fps, assumed 70*F

Those Republicans loaded good factory ammo before the Democrats started messing things up.

They don't make the 140-gr Barnes XBT anymore.
But there are from Hammer Bullets a .308 Cal. 154-gr Hammer HHT, 160-gr Hammer Hunter, 165-gr Power Hammer
and CEB Maximus 165-grainers,
and a Barnes TTSX 168-grainer,
to name but a few.

As with the .300 WinMag handload re-tested this week,
I will clean my barrel and fire 2 fouling shots before shooting for record on .458 WinMag handloads coming up.

I though you mite crack a grin with that RC ,best I could come up with on short notice sir

Sir Ron,
That 64 and 4 month old ammo was stored well and the practices of doing such were passed down by a well healed military man and all around good Father in Law. Pretty amazing results from that batch. Amazed at the .458 WM results but not surprised. Keep up the good work Knights.

HS 58

"Sir Bob, I hear ya. You are the Iron Man of the North"

No... more like "the Rusty Tin Man of the North"!

Anyway, Sir Ron keep up the good work of defending and promoting "the Great .458 Winchester Magnum" - and I'm serious about that. I've enjoyed your recent work with "new" powders. Looking forward to your latest yet to come.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca