Just picked up my first 458 in the win mag flavor. So far my retinas are still attached. Not much worse than my light 375 Ruger. It's a Remington 798 in a laminate stock with only a couple rounds through it. Fit and finish are pretty decent for the original price of the gun. Not the biggest fan of the stock but it's not as bad as I would have thought and it's functional with dual cross bolts. So far I've done a little bit of tweeting on it to improve feeding. It was pretty sticky when I first got it, but after dressing the back of the extractor with a light file(it was way too tight) and dressing the feed rails a bit it's feeding pretty good. I imagine after a final polishing with a dremel buffing wheel and some polishing compound it should be pretty slick. So far for future upgrades I'm thinking along the lines of a new rear sight, two position safety, and decent basic walnut stock.
Congrats on the caliber upgrade! For years,I've wanted to go up to a .458 Win. and then "punch it out" to a Lott. I just had to explain to my wife,"handguns don't count"! With no African trips on the horizon(haven't won a lottery yet),it's too hard to justify.But, the dream is still there,I'm glad that you acted on yours! memtb
You should not use a rifle that will kill an animal when everything goes right; you should use one that will do the job when everything goes wrong." -Bob Hagel
Posts: 245 | Location: Winchester,Wyoming USA | Registered: 11 January 2005
Very good! You are officially an addict. I have a 798, originally a 458, then rechamered to 458 AccRel. I polished bolt and contact areas with 400 grit paper and it helped. Make sure the bottom of the action is in full contact with action recess. Mine cracked the bedding behind the recoil lug even though it has a bedding block.
Posts: 428 | Location: Western Montana | Registered: 05 June 2008
Thanks for the kind words guys. It's definitely a itch I've been wanting to scratch for quite some time now. I'll have to check out the bedding and make sure it's making contact. Next step from here is getting some dies and bullets finding out what she likes. I had a few minutes today and got to shoot some winchester super x 510gr through it and the performance surprised me. They look like a relatively soft bullet but after shooting them into a bay tree stump and retrieving them I seen they had excellent weight retention and produced a nice mushroom.
Yeah its definitely a thumper up close. Im hoping to use it on a Florida black bear this year. Bear season has finally been re-opened down here for the first time many many years and there some good ones running around now. If I remember correctly there was a bear in the 700Lb range trapped and killed by officials last year just south of me.
