Hope you folks can help me out. I am loading for my Winchester Model 70 which is chambered in .458 Win Mag and I have a few questions.

1. What bullets do you prefer for softs and solids?

2. Any favorite loads....I'm not afraid of recoil either....

Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by sierrabravo45:
Hope you folks can help me out. I am loading for my Winchester Model 70 which is chambered in .458 Win Mag and I have a few questions.

1. What bullets do you prefer for softs and solids?

2. Any favorite loads....I'm not afraid of recoil either....

Thanks

What are you wanting to do with these loads? Pigs, plinking, buffalo, elephant......?????

Hog Killer

Just to let you know, I have no personal experience with solid bullet performance on game as. However, I can tell you that I have heard nothing but good things about Bridger Bullets. They can be found at http://www.custombrassandbullets.com/BridgerBullets.html Also, some of the monometal solids like the Barnes bullet in the heavier weight may take up too much of the 458 win mag's powder supply. Because of this, you may wish to take a look at Speer's African Grand Slam Solid, which was designed with the limited powder supply in mind. While these bullets are pricey, you can jump on the sale Midwayusa is having and buy them for $57 a box. However, I do not have personal experience with this bullet do not know how it actually performs. Hope this helped.

to get started on 458 loads, I like reloader 7 and remington 405 bullets, as a warm up. all the reloading books have this one in it, or a 400 grain. if you use the remington 405's, make sure you crimp on the BACK cannalure

jeffe

Hornady on their website gives loads for the 458. Speer AGS's will do 2150 fps and they work on big game.

I suspect that the throat is plenty long on your rifle that it will not matter if the bullet is a couple cm too long to crimp on the cannalure of most any bullet. There is so much powder in the case the bullet isn't going anywhere.

Will,
I agree with you completely. I use a long magnum action and seat my bullets to the top of the powder I am using and slightly compress it. I them us a Lee factory crimp die. My 458 has a 22"barrel and I get 2150 f/s out of it with 500gr. bullets. The OAL is close to 3.5" and feeds very well.

Try A2230 with Hornady 500 grain solids and Interbond softs. You should easily be able to work up to 2,150fps. The Hornady solids are not much longer than the Speer AGS solids so you can fit almost the same amount of powder. Also the Horndays are quite a bit less expensive.

Tim

Use "KISS principle" and try Vollmantelspitz, if available.

For a plinking load 67.0gr of IMR4064/CCI200 and the Rem 405gr JFP is accurate and pleasant to shoot. Gives me about 1900fps in my 24" Ruger .458's.

For a full-power load the 500gr Hornady RN and 66.0gr of RL7 and a CCI250 gives me 2125 fps over my chrono in my 24" M77. It's not compressed and you can still hear the powder shaking in the case. No signs of pressure in my guns.

Here is the only load I tried so far but it is pretty good
Winchester cases, Fed 215 primers
73 grains of H-4895
It give the Hornady 500 grain Soft point the following velocities:
2110, 2101, 2093, 2084, 2093, 2025, 2119, 2093.
It gave the 500 Grain Hornady Solid:
2157, 2146, 2137, 2146, 2119, 2110, 2157, 2110. I have not computed the average yet. Or SD.
Doug

quote:

Originally posted by jeffeosso:
if you use the remington 405's, make sure you crimp on the BACK cannalure

jeffe

May I ask why? I was given some 405rem handloads with my rifle, seated to the front Cannelure, which seemed to go OK.

I have tried both positions, but have had very indifferent accuracy with these bullets, some seemly random good groups and some real shockers.

My full loads with Hornady 500gr.softs have been real good, so it doesn't sound like me or the rifle.
John L.

Thanks for your help guys...I am going to load up some solids and softs mostly for plinking right now (everyone besides the people on this board think plinking with a .458 is crazy.) I am going to take it to Zim in '08 if everything goes according to plan for buff and maybe some plains game. (Hopefully by then I will also have a Searcy in .470 as a back up rifle)

I've gotten good accuracy from the 450 Gr Swift A-Frames with 70.0 of IMR 4350.

The Sierra 405 grain flat nose SP actually shot pretty well for me, but is REALLY soft - almost a varmint bullet if loaded hot. It's a good practice bullet since it's cheap. I hate plinking and paper punching with slugs that run over $1.00 each.

For basic paper punching and plinking, I like to load cast 405 grainers over 13 grains of Red Dot. IIRC these were doing about 1100 FPS or so and accuracy isn't bad -- about 2 MOA. No blast, recoil, or leading... and they are cheap.