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

Sir Bob was correct about the gold/brownish tint on the H4198 and H322.
I am all out of RL-7, RL-10-X was as close as I could get on hand:







IIRC, the RL-7 is "blacker" than the H4198.

Shockey and Federal Ammo 2024 catalog were great finds in Nashville.
Jim is not the endorsing celebrity for Federal,
but I am available. Ho ho ho.

Opps, I did not recall the prior work. Yep, the same Federal load sheet.

You and Jim were not .375 bashing in the happy photo, were you ??

Sir Larry,
With the line for autographs being never-ending,
did not have time to get around to bashing, not even bashing of the .458 Lott.
Jim did hunt Russian bears with a .458 Winchester Magnum.

Federal ammo, old versus new packaging,
more than the boxes have changed:







BTW, the FN Barnes solids are back in some form as components or loaded ammo of some kind,
according to the run-by of the Barnes Bullets exhibit at SCI 2024.
The RN solids still linger,
for whatever reasons.

That yellow hue was common to several Aussie powders when I lived there.

Thete are many good bullets for the 458 Win mag, but the 404 grain Shock Hammer is the best of the best in my opinion.

Sir Ron (and others),

Here's the data on that 400gr TBBC in .458 Win Mag:
Bullet weight = 400.5 gr

Bullet length = 1.281"

Powder weight = 73.3 grs (ball powder flattened) Looks like 100% fill. Black.

COL = 3.315" (same as the one you broke down)

Case + primer = 245 gr

Length of case = 2.415"

I'll reassemble it and shoot it. Interesting that the bullet weight is so close to 400 gr.

Your take on the powder? I haven't analyzed it yet.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

Enaa baasee' Sir Bob,



A loaded Federal factory 400-gr TBBC cartridge sitting on manual of the AA-2230 powder company:



If they are truly keeping velocity down to 2250 fps from a 24" barrel, Varmint 73.3 grains sounds about right.
If it were the 1200-R of same appearance (flattened grains of ball powder), I SWAG it would be going much faster.









The partial range of powders eminently useful in the .458 WinMag:





Federal had to trim the brass short by a lot to make the COL same as with old TBBC: 3.315"
2.415" new BrassOL, 2.490" old.
That suggests the ogive of the new bullet is longer.

Old nose projection = 3.315" - 2.490" = 0.825"
Old seating depth = 1.266" - 0.825" = 0.441"

New nose projection = 3.315" - 2.415" = 0.900"
New seating depth = 1.281" - 0.900 = 0.381"

If they load that bullet into a .458 Lott they will have to trim the brass to no more than 2.700" to make 3.600" COL.

Federal is still listing the BC of the new TBBC 400-grainer as same as the old "390-gr" TBBC: 0.353
New form factor + heavier weight + drag from grooves = Same BC ?
Quite the coincidence.

I have decided to embrace the suck of my one and only .458 Lott.
Ol'Fugly is changing her name back to
Miss Piggy Warthog.
She is the MKX Mauser .458 WinMag
that was opened up in length and re-chambered to .458 Lott Like Jack Built.
I blame my youthful ignorance for that.

Any SAAMI .458 Lott owners can cure their affliction
by throating to match the original .458 Lott wildcat.

Load like a .458 WM+ and just trim the .458 Lott brass to fit the mag box length if ogive
length requires it.

Sir Ron,

I've sent two more pics: 1) Of plastic package containing 19 cartridges of the 400gr TBBC (the 1 missing was dissected).

2) Of the reassembled 400gr TBBC cartridge.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

LOL, funny stuff Sir Ron, you know, one of my PH's in Africa had a factory FN Browning Safari 458 WM chambered for 450 lott, action opened up too, the whole nine yards, saving grace is it already had the 458 WM throat of course, i left him a dozen rounds of my 458 WM+ loads with 404 Hammer at 2518 fps at 3.575 COL, he used one of those on that 3300 lb bull Giraffe in the video he sent, good stuff Sir.

Enaa baasee' to Sir Bob.

Enaa baasee' to Sir Jerry too, for that reminder.
Hero Sir Jerry is now joined by Hero Sir Jim.
Jim Shockey may not be as expert a shot as Sir Jerry, but he does pretty good.
And he has bagged 376 of the +400 huntable species according to SCI "dead reckoning."
That is IIRC. I was not taking notes at the seminar.
According to Jim Shockey no other hunter in the world has a higher species total than his.

That is some serious conservation efforts, extending to Somaliland,
to establish North American game conservation methods and their first-ever National Park,
with the help of anonymous wealthy donors, etc., etc. ...

Since Jim Shockey, like Sir Jerry, has sallied forth with the .458 Winchester Magnum on his globe-trotting
hunting trips, he is officially getting a seat at the Square Table as "Sir Jim."

Original grey parkerized metal finish from 1993 has been touched up with Krylon spray paint.
Brown Precision bare fiberglass was covered with epoxy and roughed up in grip panels more so than everywhere else,
then spray-painted, more than once !
She was rechambered to .458 Lott in 1993, the year of Jack Lott's death by suicide.
Hopefully he did not do it due to hearing about Ms. Piggy.
Ms. Piggy waited until 2005 to have action/magazine lengthened and a secondary recoil lug added to barrel.
Recknagel safety and Shoemaker torch rail were last "improvements."
The barreled action came from Boondock Sporting Goods in Eagle River, AK,
where Kelly Olson was the first smith.
Rusty McGee started in on her in 2005, at Falls of Rough, KY.
He has always been good at humoring my folly.
My best facilitator for over 20 years now.

Regarding the Lott:
I skimmed through an article titled .458 Lott in Rifle, May-June 1991 by G. Sitton. Per the article, with collaboration of David Miller & Curt Crum. Sitton used a a Ruger #1 458 Winchester that David Miller re-chambered to 458 Lott. Of the powders of the time, that they used, Sitton stated that IMR 4320 was the only powder that gave him a comfortable 2,300 fps with a 500 grain bullet. He states that Jack Lott and David Miller, both arrived at 84 grains of IMR 4320 being the answer for 500 grains at 2300 fps. He also states, that David Miller "had to give some of his rifles as much as .600 inch of freebore to cross the line without pressure frights."

I don't have the free bore / throat dimensions of the 458 Winchester re-chambered to 458 Lott committed to memory. I would have guessed of the top of my head, there would have been more the .600" from end of case to rifling on a re-chamber. ??

Sir Larry,
Enaa baasee' for that reference. I will look for it.

About the throat lengthening:
Were they using the "modern" throat of parallel-sided free-bore of 0.001" greater diameter than bullet diameter, like what is used on the SAAMI .458 Lott ?

Since the SAAMI .458 WinMag has a leade-only throat of wide base and shallow angle and zero parallel-sided free-bore,
one must specify throat length by either length from maximum brass length to first bullet contact in lands or when fully engraved at bore diameter.
That would be the free travel of a "right cylinder slug" (of .4580" diameter) from a distance of 2.5000" from breech face to
a) first contact with lands at .4580" diameter or
b) to where the lands have tapered down to 0.4500" bore diameter.

Slug travel to start of engraving (a) = 0.6725" (SAAMI minimum)
Slug travel to full engraving (b) = 1.1500" (SAAMI minimum)

If brass grows to 2.800" long in the same .458 Winchester Magnum with same throat as on the 2.500" chamber,
just subtract 0.3000" from (a) and (b) above:

(a*) = 0.3725"

(b*) = 0.8500"

So it is apples to oranges in free-bore comparisons of parallel-sided versus leade-only throats.
But 0.6000" length of parallel-sided freebore of 0.4590" diameter ought to set a SAAMI .458 Lott free, good to know.
That would be an additional 0.4000" of parallel-sided throat added to the 0.2000" length on the SAAMI .458 Lott.

Thank you Sir Ron. Technical aspects of the re-chamber dimensions are lacking in the article. There are some loads listed and a bit of the typical chatter on Lott recoil.

I have previously thought that a total of .458 to .460" of the existing parallel sided .4590" diameter free bore would put the Lott in a good spot. Thought .458" length was a cool number. But, then thought the .460" to ensure the proposed .458" length.

Sir Larry,
A parallel-sided throat of about caliber length
and only 0.0006" to one thou bigger in diameter than bullet caliber
would be about like the .375 Wby Magnum and 6.5 Creedmoor.
No flies on that !
That is way more generous throat than you find on a SAAMI .458 Lott.

Back to the Gary Sitton article, found it in my three-ring binder of .458 articles.
In 1990 to 1991 when the article was written (published for the May-June 1991 issue, RIFLE 135)
the .458 Lott was a wildcat still, with Art Alphin lobbying SAAMI to homologate it.

Sitton developed his own load data in a Ruger No. 1, factory .458 Winchester Magnum, re-chambered
by David Miller who "simply pulled the barrel, ran the Lott reamers into the .458 Winchester chamber, replaced the barrel, and I went shooting."

Note that he said "reamers" plural.
A rougher and a finisher ?
A case body reamer and a separate throating reamer, or what ?
A non-belt-cutting, throat-merging, single reamer is what Jack Lott used to do the same conversion.
Very imprecise of Gary to not define his rifle's throating more specifically,
or maybe even realize that he might have a residual .458 WinMag throat in his rifle,
like the original Jack Lott wildcat ?
Lott of kissing up to good buddy Jack Lott was done nevertheless.

Note also that Sitton said his chamber allowed brass to stretch to 2.820",
not like the SAAMI .458 Lott chamber that has 2.810" respective measure.
More like the SAAMI .458 WinMag that allows 2.520" stretch-to of the 2.500" brass.

Looking at the original drawing Jack did for his wildcat reamer,
it allowed 2.650" ahead of the non-cutting belt stop.
Add 0.220" for the height/length from breech face to top of belt
and total chamber length would be 2.650" + 0.220" = 2.870"
HOLY COW !
That is what the .450 Watts Magnum requires, if allowing 2.850" max brass to stretch to 2.870".
So Jack used a .450 Watts chamber and changed brass length to 2.800" maximum,
because that was easiest for fire-forming .375 H&H brass which shortened on fire-forming.
Trimmed up nicely to 2.790" trim-to and 2.800" maximum being a nice round number for squaring up the case mouths.

At the time the article was written, IMR-4320 had already been discontinued,
the only powder Sitton could find to get his 500-grainer over 2300 fps.

Now we have so many better options and no need to re-chamber to .458 Lott.
The .458 WM+ loads in a factory Ruger No.1 SAAMI .458 WinMag will beat a SAAMI .458 Lott
like a kid with a wooden spoon and pots and pans on New Year's Eve.