A fun day with the .458WM

[Badboymelvin]

Also how long is your drop tube @Badboymelvin

Hey mate,

My drop tube is 20"

Cheers,

Russ

 

[crs]

Russ,
Drop tubes come in different lengths.

I bought mine from Buffalo Arms; it is brass, 24 inches long, and was designed for black powder.
https://www.buffaloarms.com/brass-oak-drop-tube-for-black-powder-cartridge-droptube2

My mentor taught me to :
-measure carefully and reject any load even 1/10 grain off.
-slowly count to 10 when pouring the measured charge into the tube. This is to compress the powder evenly through the load.
- he also instructed on which powders compress best told me which to avoid and why.

This may sound tedious, but care pays off when loading above factory pressures or for best accuracy.
Like you, my shot to shot velocity deviation was very good and the final .405 400 grain load average was zero! The greatest deviation was one (1) foot per second and some were zero! I have three witnesses!

 

[Badboymelvin]

WARNING! LONG POST!


Hey guys,

I thought I'd give you all a update on my load development.

I recently had someone from another forum contact me and ask if I was having stabilisation problems with the 550gn projectiles in my .458?
He went on to say he had a .458 Lott and unless he was pushing them hard over 2100fps they were key holing.

This got me thinking (and nervous!) as I had only fired a few over the chronograph to get some velocity readings... I didn't actually shoot any at a target to see if they grouped or were stabilised properly!

Now, I'm a standup guy who's honest. And as much as I love the .458 if I encounter problems or hiccups I'll report them to help others.

So today saw me out in my usual spot to shoot a couple of these reloads at a target to
a.) Make sure the holes in the target were round
b.) See if they grouped
c.) Find out what recoil was like off the bench

When I reached my spot the weather was absolutely atrocious. Black sky, very windy and just all-round miserable. It was about to pour down any minute.
I quickly set up my target at 50m and got my rest and gear ready. I reckon I only had a couple of shots before the heavens opened up and I'd have to leave.
I wasn't sighting it in - I just wanted to see if they grouped and stabilised. My first shot hit the target not too far from where I was aiming and then I had the anxious walk to see if the bullet hole was round or not!
To my delight the bullet hole was perfectly round. Win!
I then fired my second shot as it started to spit rain. The second shot was touching the first.
Double win!
It then started to rain putting an end to my what was going to be my 3 shot group. But even though I only fired 2 shots, it is really starting to show promise.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering about recoil, it was very heavy. In my 9lb rifle it calculates to a touch over 80ft/lbs - and while not too bad offhand, it is uncomfortable and unpleasant off the bench.

So there you go guys, this load is really starting to show promise. It's pushing just under 2100fps and hits with 5285ft/lbs of energy. It's easy to load and it's not showing any signs of excess pressure. The long bullet is stabilised in my rifle and accuracy is looking promising.
The only downside is recoil but theres no getting around that one!

I'm really, really happy with how this load is performing and I think I may have just found my new 'heavy' load in my .458!

Cheers,

Russ

 

[crs]

Forrest and BBM,
Yes, ball powder yields the best results from a drop tube. The small uniform shapes flow better and naturally pack better than other shapes.
When is this valuable?
One example is when loading long-for-weight bullets such as North Fork copper bullets in a rifle/cartridge with COL limitations imposed by the action and case capacity.
The drop tube allows for more powder without extra compression with cartridges such as the .405 Win, .458 Win Mag, .45-70, 45-90, etc when loading copper bullets like the NF.

In single shot and double rifle actions with more generous COL, the bullet can just be seated out further to allow for the desired powder charge. This option may not work with some other rifle actions such as a lever action.

I will check my loading records in my .405 WCF binder for the email that explains this and if successful, will share it with you.

 

[Forrest Halley]

Forrest and BBM,
Yes, ball powder yields the best results from a drop tube. The small uniform shapes flow better and naturally pack better than other shapes.
When is this valuable?
One example is when loading long-for-weight bullets such as North Fork copper bullets in a rifle/cartridge with COL limitations imposed by the action and case capacity.
The drop tube allows for more powder without extra compression with cartridges such as the .405 Win, .458 Win Mag, .45-70, 45-90, etc when loading copper bullets like the NF.

In single shot and double rifle actions with more generous COL, the bullet can just be seated out further to allow for the desired powder charge. This option may not work with some other rifle actions such as a lever action.

I will check my loading records in my .405 WCF binder for the email that explains this and if successful, will share it with you.

@crs I'll take your word for it. I got the answer I needed in the reduced SD and variation in velocity. The Lott with the 400 grainers will likely be the only place I'll ever have to worry about it unless I try pushing the .375 with a bunch of 4350.

 

[crs]

OK,
Record search aborted!

 

[Nhoro]

The 550 gr should be fairly stable most 500 gr copper or brass monos are as long or longer I just got back from the range with my win mag now bored to a lott I was shooting some win mag loads and a friend had his radar chronograph up. So we checked the 2 loads I have .450 gr peregrine was 2230 fps and the 480 gr pergrine was 2140 fps. Both at around 20 deg celsius (cold winters day in zim)So down in the zambezi valley I will probably see about 50 fps and more on top of that. Nothing wrong with the old wim mag !

 

[fourfive8]

Points... unless I missed something. Bench Mark 2 is an ADI powder also marketed by Hodgdon as Benchmark. It's one of the "Extreme" powders that is temperature insensitive. It is not a ball powder. It is a fairly small grained extruded powder. The reason for drop tubing is it MAY prevent crushing powder when seating bullets over a charge that has exceeded 100% capacity. Some BP cartridge shooters use the technique to increase charge and theoretically allow more consistent burn. Sometimes it works like that and sometimes not. Did you do a test to show any difference between volume of a certain charge that was drop tubed vs the same charge that wasn't drop tubed? If no difference, there would be no point in doing it. If there was a measurable difference then it would prevent crushing and/or variable compaction within the powder column and those would be positive outcomes. Yes, Benchmark (Hodgdon) is a powder that is most assuredly well suited for the 458 WM! Good job on the load and shooting! And yes, A full house, heavy bullet load in the 458 WM does recoil a bit As an aside, Benchmark also does well in a 450 Watts with 450 and 480 gr bullets- maybe not for max velocity, but the SDs are extremely low and accuracy is excellent.