shooting 458 win mag in 458 Lott
- Thread starter Buster95
- Start date
I would use reduced loads in a Lott case if that's what your going after. It will do in a pinch (lost ammo in Africa, only Win Mag for sale), but you could see reduced accuracy and prolonged use could lead to gas cutting which would make extraction of full sized Lott cases difficult.see
Perfectly safe - you'll have quite a jump to the rifling though. If you handload and use the heavier (longer) bullets, you can seat the bullets out to the rifling in the 458 Win mag case, and still have quite a bit gripped by the "neck" (if you can call it that). Any bullet heavier than 400 grs will be longer than 1", and will work well.
.458 Lott wasn't really designed to be "hotter" than .458 per se, but rather to fix a couple problems with the .458:
1. Factory ammunition that fell considerably short of the advertised velocity to the point of degraded performance on animals.
2. High pressure required due to limited case capacity. A "heavy" rifle can be expected to be used in hot weather, which also means increased peak pressure.
.22 Long has the same case as .22LR. .22 Short in a LR chamber or .38 Special in .357 Magnum would be better analogies.
B95..........I doubt it would be possible to fire enough 458 WM in a Lott to cause any forward throat wear at all. The expansion ratio of the 458 is such that there is virtually no gas or powder wear ahead of the case at all and the exiting powder velocity is so slow as to be virtually non abrasive. Straight walled cases are not prone to throat wear like sharp over bore bottleneck cases. The only thing you MAY experience is some powder fouling depending on what powders are used in the 458 WM.
Good post
saskgunowner101
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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What's this if you don't mind me asking.
.300 Win blown out straight. Its .120" longer than the Win Mag case which is handy when you're struggling for powder room, and fits mid-way between the .458 Win and the Lott. More to the point I've got tons of .300 brass and .458 is hard to find. I used to blow it out with Unique and COW then trim to length to fit in the .458 but now I don't have to with the Lott chamber.
As for recoil .......I don't know as I've never shot a .458 but found a .416 Rigby /400gr SP 's like a 3" 12ga for recoil ..more like a firm shove as opposed to my .338 Win mag which was noticeably sharper.The .375 H+H with 300gr bullets was firm and smooth as well.........Harold
Don't let caliber be the only decider as to whether a gun can be harsh on the shoulder. I can hand You some sub 30 cal stuff that will make You beg for my lott with a full house load. Take a look at Thompson encores. Even the little 06 in one of those is brutal. That being said if their both in the same configuration the straight wall vs necked difference You describe would still be there
saskgunowner101
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- near Prince Albert
Was thinking maybe it was something shorter than the 458 Win mag, apparently not.
The .458 is plenty short enough as it is. With the right powders you can get some decent speeds out of it but compressions can be so high that the bullets try to push back out of the cases. I can approach Lott speeds with A2230, but in the end decided that its easier to not fight the cramped case.
