I was putting together a pre-64 I was restoring for a guy and I noticed the ".458" stamped on the bottom of the recoil lug. I had seen it there and never paid any attention to it, thinking it was part of the serial number. But when I noticed the "." in front of "458" it made me look at the serial number. "458" is no where in the serial number on this rifle. It is a .264 Westerner and is owned by the grandson of the original owner. It has never been rebarreled, but it sure looks like ".458" is the caliber stamped on the bottom of the lug.

So, did Winchester stamp the caliber on the bottom of the lugs of rifles? If so, I wonder why this one looks like it started out as a .458 but wound up a .264. Smae parent case, so should not be a problem. Were all magnums stamed with ".458" and standard actions stamped ".270" or something?

Just curious

I understand that all of the "short mags" (264, 300, 338 & 458) were stamped that way.

My 1960 264 (now a 30-338) has the 458 stamp on it.

DougH9 is correct. The short magnum receivers were all stamped with the 458.