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

Sir Con,
Wonderful.
Helps with the timeline too. Early '80s.
Still could be Sir Phil Shoemaker's inspiration, or great minds think alike.
Like Sir Joe, I noticed the thumbcut like on a milsurp.
Not the first time someone has done that to a commercial M98, however. Sir Phil ?

So you got the version with deluxe camo paint job and you cleaned the buffalo dust from the stock recesses,
did you notice any Recknagel or milsurp Mauser bedding steel ?

Q: So who needs more power than a 20"-barreled .458 WinMag ?
A: Nobody except a stunt shooter (rhetorical answer).

I'm glad you asked Grand PooBah of the 458s.

A few more pictures.

Firstly, the rifle in it's working dress... this is its original scope.


Trigger is certainly a Timney...


I think I found some original bluing, underneath and hard up by the receiver.


Bedding as is ... no idea obviously if this is original or it was re-bedded. But its certainly held up. I had a Zastava placed in a Butler Creek, and the gunsmith that did the bedding was confident it would never split.


Weight in grams... not that funny ounce thing that makes kids smarter as they need to know fractions. This is personally where I think the all-rounder 458WinMag needs to weigh to enable it to comfortably use all loads.


Lastly, barrel length ... I'm calling it 21.25inches because there's something special about odd number length barrels.



Removing the scope mounts, no markings on the receiver or anywhere I can see to indicate its origins. One thing I love that I didnt photograph specifically but can be kind of seen in teh picture weighing the rifle, is the bolt handle bends nicely away from the stock, giving your hand ample room to avoid being struck under recoil, and awesome leverage to work the bolt in an authoritarian manner.

Sad that both Bob Penfold and Matt Graham have left us now...

Cheers...
Con

In case readers are wondering why there’s no open sights - that’s because removing the scope mount exposes two fixed studs in the base that would interefere with the use of open sights. The mounts are adjustable for windage. They are also likely the toughest mounts available at the time, especially in a bridge mount.

Damn, it's all right here, any plainer would be a cast iron skillet in the face, Con, JFE and Melvin are our Brothers in OZ, the states have plenty of 458 WM hands, buffalo in Africa and OZ, 458 WM only, what a pair of hunts that would be!

Sir Con,
Enaa baasee' for the extra details.

Even though I started grade school in Mississippi, I eventually learned to do the 3 R's.
Your weight of 3811 grams = 8 lbs 6.15 oz, scoped with Lynx bridge mounts and Leupold VX-III 1.5-5x20mm,
well under 9 pounds with 4 rounds of ammo on board.
Excellent.

Might be some all-thread steel hidden under and behind the action recoil lug, or maybe not.
Chet Brown stocks must not need it.
No secondary recoil lug on the barrel either, apparently.
The Mauser spacers on the action screws could be glued in as pillars, or left as the original compression preventers ?

Are you showing a barrel that is 54cm from muzzle crown to front of action receiver = 21.25" ?
If so I am guessing it would be closer to 56cm to breech face of barrel = 22.05".
Saint Sir McIntyre was mistaken, oh well, he was only human at the time.
Stick a rod down the barrel with action closed and cocked to get firing pin retracted.
Mark the rod at muzzle and see if it is closer to 56 cm, pretty please.

I now rephrase my rhetorical question:

Q: Who needs more power than a 22"-barreled .458 WinMag ?

Nice walkabout idea there Sir Jerry.

Sir Ron,

How far below the magazine box does the Alaska Arms extra round floor plate protrude? Sounds like it uses the original MK II follower and mag spring - is that correct?

Sir Khulu:



Some say to add about 0.025" to the calculated width or depth of box to allow a plus tolerance.
The Alaska Arms coffin plate does this and more.

This grainy old photo was an Easter egg found at the bottom of page nine of the book,
it being punctuation to end the prologue to the 2nd ed.:



Vic Pedersen, Northern Territory Conservation Commission Game Ranger in program to reduce buffalo numbers,
was also described as a shooter in the meat industry and gunsmith.
He worked with Dave Linder who started Ranger work in 1965.
Maybe Dave snapped the pic of Vic with his instamatic ?
Maybe Vic did some gunsmithing for Saint Sir Penfold ?

I am coming up with just shy of a 1:18" Twist, .458" groove and an inverted flat base extends from a 2.495" case about .395".




Looking like maybe a touch short

Sir MedRiver,
Good Work.
You have a ".458 Winchester Magnum Special."
You get higher velocity and pressure per grain of powder and accuracy does not suffer.
I have a Mauser 98 (Geri) that has about same throat as yours, just a little more, at 0.473" of slug jump.
It gives roughly 55 fps greater MV than a SAAMI-throated .458 of same length barrel.
I take pleasure in knowing it has more throat than a
.458 Lott.
About twice as much.
IIRC, JGS had a .458 WinMag reamer with about 0.400" length of parallel-sided freebore.
That is about 0.1" longer than a SAAMI .458 Lott throat which is also a parallel-sided "modern throat"
very different from the original wildcat .458 Lott like Jack built.

Tim Sundles has an 18"-barreled .458 WM custom rifle
that produces 4 fps greater MV than his 22" factory M70 rifle,
both with same Buffalo Bore 400-gr TSX load.
The custom has a Marquart barrel ...
and maybe a .458 WM Special reamer was used to cut the chamber ?
I doubt that a mere difference of internal barrel finish (as Tim guesses)
could make that much difference.
Any difference with 0.458" versus 0.459" groove diameter is minimal regarding pressure and velocity.
Twist rates of either 1:10" or 1:18" make no significant difference in velocity and pressure, compared to 1:14" standard.

Sir Ron,

Your note on magazine box geometry prompted me to measure the mag box Gene Simillion built and installed on my M-70 Classic when he built the 460 G&A. That cartridge is based on the 404 Jeffery case, the example you provided. The mag box is wider and completely enclosed on its sides, front and back; there are no windows.

Interestingly, though it fits flush with the belly of the M-70 factory wood stock, it fits 4 460 G&A cartridges. The stock recess for the box has been slightly enlarged laterally internally, though almost imperceptibly. As a test I also confirmed that the box accommodates 5 belted magnum cartridges. This magazine also uses a custom made follower which has a subtly formed shallow groove which causes the left sided cartridges to straighten into the middle of the feed ramp as they feed. Interesting idea which makes for extremely smooth and reliable feeding.

Seems there are several interesting ways to skin the increased mag capacity cat. I like the flush fit because it preserves the lines of the stock. However, that’s a purely aesthetic personal consideration.

For sure, the magazine box cat can be skinned more ways than I can shake a knife at that cat, to mix metaphors.
The Ruger Hawkeye box width at back is only 0.925" which is too narrow according to Mauser Cosine Rule.
Think of all the big bores done by various commercial makers.
None other than Heym makes a cartridge specific box, even up to .505 Gibbs size, from what has been reported.
One of the few perfect boxes I know of was the Pre'-64 M70 .300 H&H and .375 H&H.
They held 4 down in .375 H&H while the M70 Classic from Connecticut held only 3 cartridges down in the box.
There the Pre- had a wider box and same depth.
etc.

Mayfair Engineering in the UK makes different size Mauser actions for the trade. They claim to make the magazine assemblies to suit specific cartridges, including internally contouring the boxes to fit the cartridge shoulder, where required. They’re an expensive action but look to be very well thought out and built.

WC264 - thanks for mentioning your rifle build. Would it be possible see pics of your mag box and follower, along with the box dimensions? Thanks.

I’ll get some pics.

Meanwhile, in imitation of some Australian .458 WinMags, I am getting close to the proper weight:









2000 AD vintage Leupold has taken a licking and is still ticking.
Licked a cape buffalo in Botswana in 2001 on a Ruger M77 MKII RSM .416 Rigby,
and licked a bull bison in Nebraska circa 2003 on a Win M70 Classic Stainless 404 Jeffery.

I stumbled across some Federal Ammunition reloading data for the 458 Winchester and Federal's 500 grain Trophy Bonded Sledgehammer. I do mean stumbled, pretty easy to find up through.308 info, but finding the .416 & .458 load data was a challenge for me.

24" Test Barrel

Alliant Power Pro™ Varmint, OAL 3.275", Fed 215
Fed Brass

Starting Load

69.5 Grains
2028 Fps

Maximum Load

77.1 Grains - Compressed
2213 Fps

Sir Larry, from page 36 of this thread:

... we did a little bit on CFE 223 on this thread on 2/26/21 or then-abouts.





Same load and rifle specifics using Alliant Power Pro VARMINT:



Federal offers this SAAMI-compliant load data with VARMINT: Note the 500-gr TBSS at + 2200 fps and less than 3.340" and less than 60,000 PSI:



CFE 223 works great for cleaning your barrel.
It requires greater recoil with heavier charges than can be done with favorites like AA-2230 and AA-2460 for same velocity,
and may not get as high velocity as possible with those two AA powders.
Use some CFE 223 to clean your rifle of TSX fouling ?

Everything is relative and it depends.
Using 3.340" or lesser COL will allow you to get higher velocities with less powder.

Note the 90 grains of compressed ball powder with the .458 Lott at 3.580" COL to get over 2300 fps with the 500-gr TBSS.
The same load could be used in the .458 WM+ at 3.575" COL.
But those .458 Lott ballistics were beaten by Sir Jerry at 3.545" COL with only 83.0 grains of AA-2460 in his 24"-barreled .458 WM+.

QuickLOAD is very unreliable for the .458 WinMag. It makes no allowances for throat.

Best approximation with QuickLOAD for the .458 WIN is to pretend that the .458 WinMag has a case capacity of 108 grains of water instead of 95.
95 grains water is the default case capacity for the .458 WinMag in QuickLOAD.

Sir Bob,
All bets are off on your powder charge for the new version of the 400-gr TBBC.
Totally new bullet is hopefully closer to 400 grains than the old one that weighed 390.5 gr., specimen of one.
New bullet is grooved and nickel-plated.
New bet:
Federal is using Alliant Power Pro Varmint in the new load.
You need to pull one of the bullets and weigh the powder and bullet for us please.
Safest "weigh" to do that is to weigh the loaded cartridge and subtract bullet weight and weight of primed case
after the powder is dumped = weight of powder. Just in "case" any grains go astray in the pulling process.
Or just be very careful to not lose any powder and weigh the powder directly.
I am sure you will get good pics of the new bullet and the powder grains.
For the new bullet, length of bullet (BOL) and the loaded ammo COL would be nice for posterity.
And while you are at it, what brass length did they use at the factory, 2.490"?
Finally, a chronograph reading when the risen creeks have gone down ?

Federal is still claiming 2250 fps MV for their 400-gr TBBC factory load.
Component bullets of that species are not available in their 2024 ammo catalog that I found at SCI Nashville yesterday.