Penetration of the .458 on buff.
Just read an article in Rifle magazine by John Barsness about the .416 Rigby. On a buff he took in Zambia, I think it was, he shot it with a .375 H&H first and then the PH shot it twice with a .458 and Barsness ended it with a shot from his .416 Rigby. The .458 solids from the PH missed the hip he was aiming at and entered the rear of the paunch but did not reach the lungs and being of not much use. Do you suppose these two shots were only doing 1900 to 2000 fps at the muzzle as the .458 has been shown to do sometimes? He shortly afterwards made a water buff hunt in south Texas(yes DG hunting in Texas) and the water buff another hunter shot took slugs from first a 9.3-8mm Rem. mag or 9.3 Sisk as in Charlie the gunmaker Sisk, a couple of .458 Lotts and a .375 H&H slug. The 300 grain Swift A-frame at 2,650 fps from the "big-dang gun"(in the 9.3 Sisk owner's own words) hit right on the point of the shoulder but barely made it into the on-side lung. Hitting the point of the shoulder would be a tough test fot any bullet/caliber combo. Texas hunting regs outlaw the hunting of DG from Africa and India but these water buff are of the Philippine sub-species(tight curved horns) so maybe don't fit the legal description. Yee-Yaa!
26 August 2004, 17:50
WillNot to be a cynic(!) but all that sounds like hooey. A plain, old .375 with good bullets will kill any buff, if hit correctly, that ever walked.
26 August 2004, 18:46
AtkinsonSuch things could happen with any caliber or bullet I suspect, but I'm with Will on this one, bunch of ca-ca!!
For one thing it is illegal to own dangerous game on a game ranch in Texas, so he was breaking the law or shooting domestacated cattle....
When a 458 or 9.3 fails on a buffalo, then there is some underlying reason for that failure such as compaction, poor loading practices, inferior factory ammo or something and yes a 375 H&H will kill any buff on this earth with a properly placed shot, heck a 308 will probably do that. A properly placed shot is heap big medicine on dangerous game.
26 August 2004, 22:25
lawndartThat little Rodeo down in Texas sounds like a classic Philippines Goat F**k.
JCN
27 August 2004, 07:23
AtkinsonProperly loaded a 458 Win is an excellent cartridge..Only failures I know of are on elephants, not buffalo..and that was with inferior loadeddown factory ammo, and hot loaded rounds that created compaction......
It is short of powder capacity and poorly designed, thus the problem and for that reason, I personally don't use it, but again with a "proper load" it is an excellent round capable of killing anything on this planet...So will the 375 H&H and a host of other cartridges.
27 August 2004, 07:37
N'gagiI just returned a few days ago from Chewore, where I took a nice old buff with my .458
I got caught up in a bunch of things and didn't have time to work up any reloads, so I went with a box of factory Hornady solids and Federal softpoints. I shot my buff at 30 yards with a soft that exited the offside and dropped that thing like he was clubbed with an axe handle. While he was dead before he hit the ground, I put another solid in his chest between his legs.
we retrieved it from the spine and it was perfect other than rifling marks.
Every animal I shot dropped in it's tracks with a single shot.
With todays more efficient powders, better quality control and precision equipment, the problems people talk about with the .458 are old and no longer a concern.
My PH, Mike payne carries and old Rigby in .404, and he is having it rebarreled in .458, and the other PH in camp, Ian Gibson has carried his .458 for decades.