Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only 458 Lott feeding

I wonder what the negatives would be of slightly radiusing the chamber mouth, making sure the radiusing stopped well short of the area of the cartridge where the case web narrows down and becomes the much thinner cartridge case body. Seems to me like that would help some. Especilly with a relatively low pressure round like the 416 Rigby which does not put much pressure on the case anyway.

I talked to the guy about that very idea.. It's 'possible' that it would work ok, but we didn't have enough time to even attempt the process.. I was swamped at the time and he had too many things to do to get ready.. And if it didn't work, we'd be right back at square one..

My hesitation on the outcome was based on the pure size of the 'flat' before the chamber.. If the rearward section was relieved it might have actually made it even more prone to failure.. The only surface I would have tried was the actual chamber opening itself - which could easily support a slight bevel - then highly polish the cuts to ensure no case damage or hangups.. But that still does not address the flat that is responsible for the bullet tip jamming there..

I just don't know why CZ wouldn't have gone with a coned breech to assure positive chambering..

Agreed, and a more robust saftey and trigger mechanism so that we didn't have to change then out when we got them into our hands. And maybe some crossbolts in the stock.

I have seen and shot the new Winchester Safari in .375. It fed everything I put through it (including Barnes flat nose monolithic solids) without a hitch and shot 1" to 1.5" groups at a hundred yards (depending on the load) consistently.

The trigger was crisp and the stock had crossbolts. The one I shot, which belonged to a friend, had a Leupold 1.1-5x24 30mm illuminated scope mounted in Warne QD rings. It was a solid combination. With the scope, my friend said he had about $2K in it.

The basic rifle costs about $1,250. It apparently is now also chambered for the .416 Remington and .458 Winchester.

For someone who wants a reliable heavy rifle and doesn't want to spend a small fortune, the Winchester is a very good choice.

Agreed, for sure.

When I bought and started modifying my CZ 416 Rigby, the 416 Remington round had not yet been thought of and Winchester was not making good DGR's yet.

Take another look. Those aren't round nose bullets...all 5 of them.

I just looked and yes they are. They are a round nosed flat points, similar looking to (and very well may be) my favorite Barnes Round nosed flat point solids.

The problem with many of the big bores is with spitzer point bullets, but the Round nosed flat point jobs can give some guns trouble as well.

There is a difference between the two, round nose and round nose with flat point.

And the Echols' rifles feed the spitzers too. At least they did when I was testing them.

But, they are both called round nose. You are correct that they are different. I would have bet folding money that an Echols rifle would have fed the spitzers or even empty cases. My old Model 71 lever action in 348AI would feed a tube full of empty cases. Pretty impressive old gun, that one.

I remember that rifle, and dang near sent a pile of greenery to WWW

Gunner

I sure wished I could have afforded to keep that one. One that I miss a lot, but such is life.