michael458 thanks for your post. I thought your design had more powder capacity than the WSM. I have a 35Samba (358WSM) and it is near the 358 Norma mag with light projectiles than with heavier ones as they seat to below the neck and in the powder space. The B&M 358 case would, I think match the 358Norma mag. Great looking rifles there.
@Rule 303 ........... I too am partial to .358 caliber as a medium, and have used a Winchester M70 358 STA from the Custom Shop extensively in years gone by............ I looked hard at the 358 B&M ..... my cartridges being based on the WSM actions just were not long enough to work with many of the conventional .358 caliber bullets, with them being a tad on the longer side.......... I would have been limited to mostly custom bullets, which in the end is not really a disadvantage, no doubt I could have designed a superior bullet for the mission......... instead I stepped up the caliber to .366 and went with it as the B&M medium......... While the 9.3 B&M does great with 250 gr bullets such as the North Fork and Barnes running at 2700 fps....... it really shines with the 200 gr CEB Raptors........ Many not familiar with Bullet Tech here, the 200 Raptor out performs any of the various conventional bullets available in both trauma inflicted and penetration....... So really I ended up using almost exclusively the 200 Raptors for nearly everything I did with the 9.3 B&M.... especially plains game up to zebra.... which all shots exited zebra/wildebeest size animals............. In 2012 after a very successful plains game shoot in Africa, I took the 9.3 to Australia just to see how it performed on buffalo....... well, I already knew this, but hoping results would be better with superior bullet tech, but buffalo don't pay much attention to lesser calibers regardless of bullet tech, buffalo pay attention to caliber and superior bullet tech......... Dan at CEB developed some incredible .358 caliber flat base raptors, a 160 copper and 150 Brass, those would have been great for a 358 B&M, and would work incredible in a WSM size cartridge as well, what you have to take into consideration is these are not conventionals, they do not work like conventionals, and they hit way way above their weight class........... I am shooting them in a big rifle, too big in fact, 24 inch M70 RUM action, 358 RUM...... at 3700 fps....... hammers.......
The chap that started this thread asked about action and cartridge, leaning to WSM length action and WSM cartridge. Wanting a short compact rifle with no more than 21 inch barrel....... many of the other thoughts on this I would not consider, such as a drop box magazine, or Sako action, neither would be desirable to me. Making it heavier with a bull barrel would not be conducive to a practical DG rifle either, one does expect to carry a lot, shoot a little............ so weight is a factor, and the less weight to a point is more desirable for me. That overall weight at 7.5 to 8.25 lbs is optimum. 18 to max of 20 inch barrel is optimum.
As always those that are stuck in a box of conventional wisdom always go to larger, longer, bigger cartridges that are more traditional for African use, this also leads to larger, longer, heavier and bigger overall rifles, defeating the purpose of shorter, handier, easier to carry all day, and faster handling rifles in really close range scenarios.......... In Tanzania 2005 I had a close range altercation with a hippo. I was carrying a Winchester M70 24 inch 458 Lott......... Time slows down, my thought process at the moment was "There has to be something better than this!"..... This rifle is extremely long, its cumbersome, its getting heavy, it does not handle as fast and quick as I would prefer, it is just all wrong for short range, close encounters. While the altercation ended in my favor at 6 steps, my rifle was just all wrong for this type of scenario. I looked for better options..........
I had a 338 WSM at the time........of course Win M70 Control Feed, looking at the action, magazine box, and the cartridge I first thought of just taking the WSM up in caliber. But it seemed I still had too much room in the magazine, length wise so what could be compatable with the action, yet give a bit more capacity than a WSM case......... I slept on it that night, next day I started cutting down RUM cases to get what I wanted.......... The first cartridge was true .500 caliber, 50 B&M........ 18 inch barrel and same case capacity as 458 Winchester, just shorter. There were no real bullets available in .500 caliber at the time, all were designed for the S&W 500. Starting in 2006 I went to work for proper bullets that would work for elephant and buffalo, hippo as well........... Starting with Lehigh we made great strides in that goal. 2006 I took the gun with various Lehigh solids and hollowpoints and was very successful with both buffalo and elephant, although I only had 5 buffalo on quota and two elephants, it was a great success. I was able to run 510 gr .500 caliber solids at 2125 fps in the little gun, proving to be hammers on elephant and buffalo as well.............. Later connecting with Dan at Cutting Edge Bullets we designed the current Safari Solids we use and the Safari Raptors here, now these are what we have used since.
THe shorter B&M rifles proved themselves beyond what was expected of them, and now using proper bullet tech they are just a pleasure to work with.
I think perhaps my favorite .500 is the 500 B&M, which is a 2.5 inch RUM case and using Winchesters RUM action. With 18 inch barrel it is very capable, and very handy........... Little heavy at 8 lbs depending on the stock....... The larger 2.8 inch case is the 500 MDM.
Some just cannot get outside the box of conventional wisdom................. I personally like smaller platforms, and I won' t make sacrifices in performance, but will use bullet tech to my advantage to enhance performance. Rest of you can do as you please....... by all means continue to tote around that 11-12 lb 45 inch overall monster and have fun............
