Back in September I wrote about shooting my .458 Win Mag for the first time here.

Many of you responded with very helpful and encouraging comments. Among them was to insure that the length of pull on the gun was long enough for me. I thought the gun fit me pretty well, but I added 3/4” with a Pachmayr Recoil Pad Slip-On Rubber, and it was night and day different.

First, I tried the 405s over SR4759. They were like a .223.

Then, I tried some 500s over SR4759. They were like a .243. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit—but not too much.

Next, I tried the light 350 grain loads. These had some thump to them. And a lot more noise. But still nothing to really get my attention.

After this, I tried the full house 350 grain loads. I was using Hornady roundnose bullets. The light loads were on a minimum charge of IMR 3031. These were on a maximum charge of IMR3031 for 2400 fps. (Hornady lists some loads that will get 2500 fps, but I didn’t have any of those powders.) All I can say about these loads is get you some of that! I tried another, and it was just as nice. These were the perfect combination of thump and boom. I’d have shot a bunch more, but I only had the two; a friend and I had shot up all the rest last time.

Last, I tried a couple of loads with 405s at 2100 fps. These were beyond the 350s. They didn’t have that combination of thump and boom that gave you a [CENSORED] . But they also weren’t nearly as bad as the 350s before I put the slip on recoil pad on. With some practice, they’d be shootable, but since they are the Remington 405s, that’s probably too fast for their reliable use on game.

I’ve still not tried the full house 500s. And I may or may not in the immediate future. I’ve no need for them, and the 350s feel so nice and ought to smack anything I’ll be shooting with them.

So I think I need to do some more loading now.

LWD

No sense punishing yourself without a need to. A good 350gr bullet at 2400fps is plenty for any game in north america and most game anywhere else.

I think recoil is a acquired taste, so to speak. The more shooting you do, being careful not to over do it, the less sensitive you will be to recoil in the long run. I think starting with 350 grain loads and working up makes sense. As you become comfortable with the 350's, move up a bit. Good luck.

I agree with MJines. Recoil is not something you wake up looking forward to from the beginning. I worked up from .375 to .458 Lott over a period of 4 years, with the .416 and the .470NE thrown if for good measure. Personally, I think the .458 Lott is about the max recoil that I can stand off the bench. It makes the 470 downright pleasant.

Great! I found that the 405's @ 2200 were quite shootable off of the bench (only option at the range we used) with the original rock hard pad on my rifle. Looking forward to trying out the new Decelerator I had installed. Gotta sight in the new scope next.

350's @ 2400 = 4477 ft/lbs. That is a good bit o thump.

Lwd .... I've tried to finish my big bore shooting with a couple of dozen rounds through my .22 or other small bore rifles, it re-establishes good technique and brings forward to my next shooting session proper muscle memory.
All the best in the New Year

Same here on the recoil. Shooting my Guide Gun with stout 45-70 loads for the past few years made my 300win mag very tolerable and easy to shoot. Shooting my #1 458 Lott made my Guide Gun even more enjoyable to shoot.

...and my 30-06? Pfffft, it's just a peewee popper!

LWD,

Try some H4895 with those 405s. I'm up over 2,300 on my chrono - Still 2 grains below listed max charge and no signs of HP!

Looks like H4895 is going to be a good powder choice for the 458 Winny using bullets from 400 to 450 grains.

LWD, I have had two 458's, a Ruger Model 77 and a CZ550 and I used the 350 grain Hornady's out of both with good results.

I never liked the Ruger as much as I did the CZ. The Ruger was heavier but had more felt recoil with the same load.

The CZ was one with the Luxe style stock and the recoil seemed to move the gun somewhat to the side and not straight back, which made it much more pleasureable to shoot.

I killed a couple of deer with each rifle and a javelina with the CZ. The strange thing was that with all the deer, the amount of tisssue damage was minimal, with the javelina it was a lot more than I expected.

It seems to me that the 350gr Speer and the 350gr Hornadys are a lot harder bullet compared to the Rem 405gr and the 400gr Speer. It's my opinion that running the 400 Speer or 405 Rem over 1800 fps will result in a lot of meat damage on deer size critters. The bullet will basically splat. I shot one deer with the 405 Rem bullet, and estimate the vel at the hit to be about 1500 fps. Through the ribs, broadside, bang flop, little meat damage, small exit hole. One of my favorite loads is with the 405gr Rem bullet, H4895 at about 1800fps MV.

The 350gr will not expand so rapidly, but still do a lot of damage at vel over 2000-2100 fps.

I have used H4895 satisfactorily at less than full charges. I use it to run the 300gr Barnes SOCOM bullet at about 2000 - 2200 fps, which is way less than full blast. This powder has a lot of flexability. According to Hodgdon it can be recuced down to about 60% of max. For my heavy load, I also use it with 400gr Swifts, with some compression, which helps prevent the bullet in the cartridges in the magazine from seating back in the case from recoil. For really reduced loads, (1500fps or less) I've used SR 4759, and Trail Boss for subsonic.

KB

After testing loads in my 458 Lott on the bench, my 416's were a piece of cake to shoot.

quote:

Originally posted by Kabluewy:
It's my opinion that running the 400 Speer or 405 Rem over 1800 fps will result in a lot of meat damage on deer size critters. The bullet will basically splat. I shot one deer with the 405 Rem bullet, and estimate the vel at the hit to be about 1500 fps. Through the ribs, broadside, bang flop, little meat damage, small exit hole. One of my favorite loads is with the 405gr Rem bullet, H4895 at about 1800fps MV.
.....

KB

THX FTIF KB,

As I have not shot any game yet with that 405 Rem.

On a little different tangent, when working up loads for my Ruger 458, I started out with the 350 grain Hornady's, but saw the 400 grain Speer semi-spitzer and thought that might be a better alternative. I can not remember the exact loading of 3031, but it was the same charge for both bullets.

Loaded up 20 or 30 rounds of each and went to the range. I had already sighted the rifle in with the 350 grain bullets and I wanted to see what the difference would be between the shapes and grain weights.

Surprisingly to me, the Speer bullets, while shooting an almost identical sized group as the lighter Hornadys, consistently printed 3 to 3 and 1/2 inches lower and to the right of the Hornadys.

To confirm what was going on, a friend helped with the project and we began staggering the magazine, one Hornady, one Speer, and the result were the same, the Hornadys would print exactly where the gun had been sighted in for and the Speers would print low and to the right.

My friend operated a machine shop and he took a couple of eash bullet to his shop and checked the measurements, and even though the Speers were 50 grains heavier, they had less bearing surface on the rifling. that is why I stuck with the Hornadys. Never tried the 405 grain rem Core-locts as they were designed for the 45-70 and was unsure how they would perform at velocities over 2100 fps.

Glad the slip on recoil pad worked for you. I have one on my 500 Jeffery due to my ape-like long arms and it made a world of difference for me as well.