Bawana-Be,

Trying to acheive 2150 with a 500 gr. at the lowest possible pressure. This has been the ultimate goal. Lower pressure, less chance for extraction failures. This apparently lessons problems in the field.

Have loaded some very heavy loads in various calibers, none of which stuck or caused jamming.
Had a few that required a heavy lift on the bolt, but none that stuck.

From reading articles from those that have been there, heat, with high pressure, can get you in trouble. Hope to avoid this.

Roger QSL

OK, hope I get the combinations right this time [ ] The magic number is 2150 fps so I am asking it to give loads that render that result

The 404 Wildcat, 2.5" long, 106.5 gr capacity (someone else gave that number so don't ask me ...) with a Swift 500 gr A Frame seated to 3.34"

22" barrel, H4350, 91.6 gr, 42K pressure, close to 100% fill ratio
24" barrel, H4350, 89.9 gr, 39.5K pressure

The Rigby wildcat, 2.1" long, 96.5 gr capacity, Swift A Frame 500 seated to 2.8"

22" barrel, Win748, 68.0 gr, 103% fill, 63.9K psi. All other loads are much higher pressure or fill ratios exceed 110%
24" barrel, Win748, 67.0 gr, 101.7%, 60.6K psi

Hope that gives an idea .... if I messed up some numbers somewhere, mea culpa

Marty,

Boy your sure shooting big holes in my plan.HI

60K pressure, not good.

Hope your QL program has faults, if not, scrap this plan.

Thanks,

Roger QSL

Roger, I know you're smart enough to put this in a Winchester anyway, so you can load it out to 3.1" and get a lot lower pressures.
Marty, would you be so kind?
You don't know how much fun I'd have (time I'd waste) if I had a bullet database for my ballistics program!

Also, Roger, look into that heat=pressure thing regarding newer powders.
The 416 Rem Mag, Taylor, 458 Lott, all loaded well into 60k psi, and a growing reputation for goodness.
As I understand, older powders were MUCH more temperature sensitive than these we have today.
I get the impression that with Africa, a couple of anecdotes quickly become "common knowledge."

Uno mas ...

The Rigby, 2.1" case, 96.5 capacity, Swift A Frame 500 seated to 3.1" this time

22" barrel, H414, 81.8 gr, 104%, 51.1K psi
24" barrel, H414, 80.5 gr, 102%, 48.3K psi

Amazing what a little extra COL will do ...

If the capacity were 100.0 gr, the 24" load can be brought to 46.5 K psi ..... at 3.1" COL.

OK!
Roger, call the gunsmith.
Lapua Mag case, cut to 2.3", 35 deg shoulder, .5730" wide at 1.8" from base, .44" neck, COL 3.1". This gives about 112.5 grains!
(Marty, I'd be interested to see the data, but it's obvious this would give 40k or less.

So! Winchester short action in whatever chamber ($500)
New barrel ($200)
Rechamber with custom reamer ($250)
Conversion smithin' -stock, rails, etc - ($200)
We'll say $1200 plus dies, shipping to and fro John Ricks' place.
You should be able to get two Rigby's down from the get-go, and if you pay for the bottom and box, you can have four. 2+1 should be plenty, though. Shoot two, save the other one for the next trip to the range!
And while you're stateside, don't be shy about upping the pressure, eh?

Well done, Marty.
Now the obvious next question is, at what point does it reach 2400 fps?


[BTW, I meant 40k CUP, which I bet it is.]
Can you tell me how long that bullet is?

[ 08-27-2003, 20:50: Message edited by: Bwana-be ]

Alright!
Now can we please leave this poor guy alone?!

Gents,

A little update.

Still moving on the short 458.

Received a 450-300WSM case from John Noveske.

He is a gunsmith in Grants Pass Oregon.

He is building a rifle for this wildcat.

Just for my own benefit, I loaded 70 grains of 3031 into his case, and it filled to just above the shoulder. With the 400 grain Speer, inserted to the first cannalure, visually a little compression of the powder would occur.

This load should give close to 2300 fps.

I base this on load data from P.O. Ackley's 450-348 Improved. 70 grains, 3031, for 2275fps.

I was getting 2156 average from a 450 AK, with no signs of pressure with 67 grs. of 3031 from a 71 Browning with a 20 inch barrel. This was the 450 AK and not the 450-348 AI.

The case John sent me was very close to the 450 AK. The Noveske case, the shoulder is set back a little futher and the overall case length a little less, but much the same case.

John is going to be loading and shooting his new round in the up-coming weeks. I am going to wait and see what his results are.

Hornady is making dies for him, and they will call the dies, The 450-300WSM Noveske.

If you want to read more about his load, see his posting at the Shortmags.org forum.

By the way, the overall length of the round, with a 400 grain Speer is 2.74 inches. This would work fine in a 2.80 length action. Loading of a longer 500 grain should not present a problem.

Roger QSL

Thanks Roger,
The Rifle is very near completion. I will be waiting a few weeks yet for the dies from Hornady before I can shoot it. The Hornady name is 458 Noveske. They were limited to 12 characters. The person to talk to there is Lonnie Hummel, if I remember his name correctly. I im using a Win M70 WSM action. I wish I would have gone with a REM 700 or even a M7. The M70 box is 3.08 which works, but I wanted to go as short a possible. The M7 is also lighter. I am sure I'll do another in the near future. My personal rifles rarely last a year before somebody buys them.

John....how is your rifle going to be throated? Will it allow you to seat bullets out far enough to take advantage of the extra magazine length of the Model 70? I'm thinking the Barnes Original 400gr bullet would work great for bigger, tougher game or even the 350gr or 400gr Barnes-X if you have enough room.

I would suspect that with a little thumper like this you would want to keep at least 0.45" of the bullet in the case for adequate neck tension.

Bill,

John's case has .380" of neck versus .325" of neck for the AK. Never experienced any problems holding slugs in straight or tight. Very good recoil, so should have seen something.

This extra neck length was a question I had for John. Seemed a little more powder could have been used if the shorter neck was utilized. John's design and I'm sure he has his reasons.

Don't think this case will achieve lower pressure as I was hoping. Just have to wait and see as John develops loads.

By the way, I saw an article on short magnums in one of the new shooters digest books. Can't remember the name, but it was the 2004 edition. The author was discussing the new short rounds and stated that Winchester was about to announce a couple of new short magnums built on the WSM case. The 458 was mentioned. Just something to mull over.

Roger QSL

I throated the Barrel to accept a 400 gr. Barnes Original Semi-Spitzer at 2.870" touching the lands. I will probably seat the bullet .030" shy, or so. I need to do some shooting before I know what works best. My barrel is a 18" twist. I wanted the max velocity I could get, and a tight twist only slows them down. Most Safari rifles have over stabalization to make the heavy bullet drill through the animal. I feel that the bullet hitting the beast is good enough. It won't work with a 500 gr, but the Win 70 wsm action would be ideal for it. I thought up this case with the 2.850" mag box in mind. The WIN 70 WSM action is longer than the REM 700 by .230". My objective was to make the lightest and shortest Thumper possible withen reason. The M70 works amd it has the classic look. I am thinking that you could probably do it on the WSSM action, but you would be limited to either light bullets (300) or seat them below the neck. The M7 is probably the best way to go for my original idea. The Browning would work also, but I never got too crazy about them. The neck length was a second thought. I thought I would have lost some neck length when I blew out the cases. The case length remained about the same. I expected it to be shorter originally. I don't want to sound too smart however, since I only went with the 300 WSM headspacing.

I spoke with a big name at Olin a month ago. I tried my best to get what I could out of him regarding the future factory chamberings. This was the guy who would know. He was tight lipped, but did manage to get him to say a couple things. I told him I would wait to build my rifle so that I could match the headspacing to my rifle in order to use factory ammo. He felt some compassion for me and told me that they were not going to do a 458 WSM at all. It was out of the question. He also said that they were going to have a press release this fall and announce some new things regarding the WSM. I assume new chamberings. I expect it to be the 338 and 375. I heard from a friend in the industry that they tried the 338, 375, 416, and 458 for testing. Though the 35 is a neat idea, I think they will do the 338 and 375. I doubt there is enough market niche for the 458 or 416 WSM, although we might like it. I could be all wrong, I hope so.

John,

From what your writing, your 458 Novesko may be the round were left with. Would be nice to have factory ammo to work from.

From what I've read, you are fire forming in a test barrel. Are you just loading up a 300 WSM with light loads and filler? This is a tedious method and I'm hoping this isn't what needs to be done for any extensive amount of loading.

Do the inside necks of the fire-formed cases need thinning?

Funny you mentioned the Browning for a platform.
After getting a 400 grain Speer inserted into the case you sent me, I tried working the round through a left-handed Browning Stainless A-bolt in 375HH. No problem. Of-course the round wouldn't completely chamber, but the magazine and bolt worked fine.

Tried the same thing with a left-handed Remington 700, chambered for 7mm mag. It would not enter the magzine well. The rails were too close together. The bolt would except the larger rim of the case however.

Could the Browning or Remington be done to your case? If the Browning could be used, could the exisiting barrel be re-bored to 458. Would want the Boss cut off and the barrel crowned. (Stainless)

Would rather the Remington be used as I very seldom use it anymore.

Looking forward to your further developments of your round.

Roger QSL

Roger,
The Browning works since the rails only stop the mag box, not the ammo. I like the ease of the browning. The Rem will need the rails opened. Also, The Rem Mag bolts don't fully seat the WSM case. The web hits the mag bolt extractor retainer lip before the case head touches the bolt face. I did a 721 with a Sako extractor on one and had to open the bushing more than a regular Mag. The forming of the brass is simple in my opinion. Go get an $80 Mauser. It is a new reloading tool. Have your Gunsmith, or I, make a barrel stub at the same time as you get the barrel fit to your rifle. Tell him to thread it long and to headspace it off the interior shoulder in the action. Some people use lock nuts, not me. The stub can be as short a 4", (Federal Law prohibits the installation of a barrel less than 16" on a receiver not manufactured as a pistol. Just take it off each time with the pair of channel locks you will keep sitting next to the cannon.) Depending on the case, you can use 8 to 18 gr of Bullseye ( WSM 10 gr.), a LR primer, fill the case with 10 minute Cream of Wheat, and a piece of cotton ball to the top. You will find that other hot breakfast cereal fillers are inferior to the 10 min stuff. Remove the bolt face rim from the bolt and make extractors for all the various case dias you form. Put them in the gun and form your case. I have fired up to 500 at a time, and my friend used to do it for part of his living at Buzztail Brass, now Greyback Wildcats I belive. It is a few extra steps, but it makes a much better case than ramming an expander ball into the case. If Olin comes out with WSM cases bigger thann 30 cal, It is likley that the headspacing will be different. You might want to wait and see. It woud be nice to form it from a bigger original dia. My failure rate is 5% to 10%. If the headspacing is different, The fireforming process will be different. The beauty of the way I'm doing it is that The factory 300 brass headspaces in the stub gun. That way I do not need a projectile to touch the lands to push the case into the bolt face. The cases do not need neck thinning in my opinion. A loaded round measures .480". Most 458 cal chambers have .486" or so necks. My neck reamer is .483". I am barley concerned about it since the big bore case will blow all the pressure out the bore and will not cause a problem. I still need to test it in real life to be sure.

John,

Thanks, it's nice to deal with those what know!

Roger QSL