Change my 458 Lott for a 460 Weatherby Magnum

oscar1975

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Hello, a friend is selling a 460 Weatherby Magnum, as you know I have a 458 Lott and I am tempted to sell my Ceska and buy the 460 Weatherby. And I wonder what is truly worth the change?. I have not yet released the 458 Lott because ammunition is very expensive.

Thanks

Oscar
 
Oscar, everyone has their own opinion when it comes to firearms but I would stay with the 458 Lott. The price of Weatherby ammo is even higher than for the Lott. Recoil from the Lott can be quite a handful and the Weatherby would be more punishing on the shoulder.
 
Oscar,

Go for it !!! it is a very versatile caliber , and perfect rifle for all African dangerous game . I have bought a 460 WM lately , yet to be field tested but the impact & accuracy results are astounding on the target shoots, though the shoulder takes quite a beating with the heavy recoil , but ought to get use to it . .458 Lott I have never used so cannot impart a opinion on it. I bet its a wise and the best option to go in for the THUNDER !!! the .460 Weatherby Magnum ..........

Monish
 
.460 Weatherby Magnum

Oscar

Little on the GOLIATH of a caliber .......

The .460 Weatherby Magnum is a rifle cartridge, developed by Roy Weatherby in 1958. It is simply the .378 Weatherby Magnum necked up to accept the 11.6 mm (.458 inch) bullet. This case is now mThe .460 is one of the world's most powerful hunting rifle cartridges, in terms of both velocity and bullet weight. The .460 will launch a 32 gram (500 grain) bullet at a chronographed 823 m/s (2700 ft/s) from a 66 cm (26 in) barrel; measuring 10980 J (8100 ft lbf) of muzzle energy.Recoil is a problem for many shooters when using a cartridge of this size. Even with a 5.4 kg (12 lb) rifle (scope, base, rings and cartridges included) the recoil against the shooter's shoulder is measured at 135 Joule (100 foot-pounds). Compare this to most rifles chambered in .30-06 Springfield which develop an average of 27 J (20 ft • lbf) of free recoil. For many years the Weatherby Mark V rifles chambered in 460 Weatherby Magnum were equipped with a Pendleton muzzle brake to help alleviate this effect. Recently Weatherby has offered some "toned-down" loadings of the .460, to the 10170 J (7,500 ft • lbf ) of muzzle energy range, in order to be slightly more forgiving to shooters. The recoil of the full-power loads is very punishing and if the gun has a scope, scope cuts on the forehead are common. For that reason, many gun owners reload their cartridges with a lighter-than-factory charge. A factory powder charge for this cartridge is about 7.45 g (115 gr).

The .460 is primarily an elephant gun and might also be equipped with only open sights. Open sights tend to sight in quicker than scoped rifles and for this reason open sighted rifles are preferred by hunters for back-up work when the hunter and/or guide must mount and discharge their firearm to ensure a charging game animal does not hurt a client or ensure a clean kill of a wounded game animal. It also prevents the hunter from getting his eyebrow cut by the scope, which is common with a firearm with as much recoil as this one.

This cartridge is very accurate despite its size. Typically a full metal jacketed or monolithic solid type bullet will penetrate more than 1 m (39 in) when impacting a dangerous game animal such as the Cape Buffalo or African Elephant. The .460 Weatherby Magnum has few peers for stopping dangerous African game. Many hunters and guides carry this firearm exclusively for back-up work.

Factory bought cartridges are relatively expensive costing between $4.00 and $5.50 per cartridge.

Parent case: .378 Weatherby Magnum
Case type: Belted, bottleneck.
Bullet diameter: .458 in (11.6 mm)
Neck diameter: .481 in (12.2 mm)
Shoulder diameter: .560 in (14.2 mm)
Base diameter: .582 in (14.8 mm)
Rim diameter: .603 in (15.3 mm)
Rim thickness: .059 in (1.5 mm)
Case length: 2.908 in (73.9 mm)
Overall length: 3.65 in (93 mm)
Rifling twist: 1 in 16"
Primer type: Large rifle magnum


Monish
 

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For Monish.

Monish, I see your passion for the 460 Weatherby Magnum caliber. I have a problem because even if I sell my Ceska I still lack enough money to get the price of the Weatherby, so I think I will continue my Lott and enjoy it for what I've read also hits hard hehe.

Oscar.
 
Oscar, everyone has their own opinion when it comes to firearms but I would stay with the 458 Lott. The price of Weatherby ammo is even higher than for the Lott. Recoil from the Lott can be quite a handful and the Weatherby would be more punishing on the shoulder.

I think it's going to be the most sensible thing I am sorry to have bothered. Many thanks.

Oscar.
 
Oscar,

Well stated ... its a individualistic perception. The . 460 without any doubt wallops hard , both ways , on to the ones shoulder & on to the quarry which is ruinous.

Happy Hunting with your 458 Lott....

Monish
 
Greetings Oscar. You could also try loading .458 lead 'plugs' in readily available and inexpensive .375 H&H brass and fireforming for your practice sessions.
 
Why?, you gain only recoil IMO..and probably give up control feed.
 
I'd sell the .458 Lott and just buy a .458 Win....but that's just me.

For the extra powder you burn and recoil you hardly get much more FPS/Ft Lbs.

To me I never understood the fascination of the .458 Lott....seems to be innefficent to me, burn a lot more powder to hardly gain in performance.

Besides, with the .458 Win, like the .375 H&H you can pretty much find ammo anywhere in Africa that sells ammo but you can't say the same thing for the .458 Lott, the .378 Weatherby or the .460 Weatherby. If your shooting the Lott or Weatherby's heaven help you if you get seperated from your ammo by the airlines or whatever.
 
I'd sell the .458 Lott and just buy a .458 Win....but that's just me.

For the extra powder you burn and recoil you hardly get much more FPS/Ft Lbs.

To me I never understood the fascination of the .458 Lott....seems to be innefficent to me, burn a lot more powder to hardly gain in performance.

Besides, with the .458 Win, like the .375 H&H you can pretty much find ammo anywhere in Africa that sells ammo but you can't say the same thing for the .458 Lott, the .378 Weatherby or the .460 Weatherby. If your shooting the Lott or Weatherby's heaven help you if you get seperated from your ammo by the airlines or whatever.

If you are shooting the Lott and get separated from your ammo, use 458 WinMag ammo.

The problem with the 458 that the Lott solved was that that with the powder available at the time, the 458 required compressed charges to achieve appropriate muzzle velocities. I suppose one way to interpret its purpose is to improve on the performance of the 458, and if that is the way one looks at it, I suppose it could seem inefficient. It is certainly used today at least by some to achieve higher muzzle velocity than the 458 WinMag. I think the actual purpose of the Lott was to RELIABLY achieve 458 WinMag performance with the powders available at the time. It wasn't supposed to be a hotrod, it was supposed to offer the little bit of extra case capacity needed to avoid the overly compressed charges that led to problems with the 458 back in the day.

Nowadays, with modern powders, that is less a consideration and some people use the capacity to get a little bit more velocity. To what end, I do not know, but then again, I am a believer that enough is enough and more isn't necessarily better. I have no idea what problem the Weatherby was intended to solve. Perhaps there was a concern in the 1950s that the Communists were going to provide body armor to buffalo in an attempt to humiliate the American Imperialists.
 
I have no idea what problem the Weatherby was intended to solve. Perhaps there was a concern in the 1950s that the Communists were going to provide body armor to buffalo in an attempt to humiliate the American Imperialists.

LOL.....I hear ya brother!

Yes, I did read that you can fire .458 Win ammo in the Lott so I guess that isn't as big of concern. In the end, I doubt any animal can tell the difference if he is hit by a .458 Win or Lott and it just seemed to me like a lot of to-do about nothing for a maybe 50 FPS of extra POP
 
LOL.....I hear ya brother!

Yes, I did read that you can fire .458 Win ammo in the Lott so I guess that isn't as big of concern. In the end, I doubt any animal can tell the difference if he is hit by a .458 Win or Lott and it just seemed to me like a lot of to-do about nothing for a maybe 50 FPS of extra POP

In regard to the 460 Wby Mag it was an answer to only one question, and that was what will the American public buy that is no improvement over what we already have? The only thing the 460 Wby Mag will give you is more noise, and unneeded recoil to accomplish the same thing better cartridges chambered in better rifles will already accomplish.

Now In regard to the 458 LOTT! What it did was what Winchester should have done in the first place! Use the full length 375 H&H brass and open it up to .458! Winchester made two mistakes with the 458 Win Mag, one was using a 500 gr bullet, and the other was shortening the case so that the powders of the day had to be compressed to the point where the powder became a solid cake after a few days in the high temperatures of the African hunting seasons. This caking of the ball powder caused hang fires, misfires, and slow fires that caused a lot of problems for guys hunting Buffalo and elephant with either not firing at all, or a failure to attain enough velocity to penetrate to the vitals of the buffalo from bad angles, or failure to reach the brain on a charging elephant. In the 1950s when the 458 Win mag was introduced it never was able to reach it's advertised velocity of 2100 fps from a 30 inch test barrel, even when not caked with the 500 gr bullets it was saddled with in the 22 inch barrels of the Mod 70 Win rifle.

The lott put out a little over 2300 fps with that same 500 gr bullet from a hunting barrel back in the 1950s while the 458 Win Mag was lucky to make over 1900 fps from a hunting rifle barrel.

Today we have powders that allow the 458 Win Mag to get to the proper velocities, and you can always tell that a poster is young when he claims the problems with the 458 Win Mag never existed, simply because he wasn’t even born when the 458 Win Mag was introduced in 1954!

I bought one of the first 458 Win Mag Mod 70s sold in El Paso, Texas back in late 1954, and it didn’t take long in our 105 F heat to find the problems with it. I played with it for a few months and finally had the barrel pulled, and a 375 H&H barrel installed, problem solved!

If Winchester had simply made the 458 Win Mag with the same case that LOTT used in the first place, the 458 Win Mag wouldn’t be saddled with the rep it carries today, even after powders have solved the problem. If you ammo for the Lott is lost, it is no problem, simply buy a box or two of 458 Win Mag and go on hunting!

As old Elmer was fond of saying,when ask about someting way back when, "Hell I was there! " and was the title of one of his books. :ranger:
 
I am glad somebody considers me a young pup! :)

Truth is I just never gave a rip about anything bigger than a .375 H&H until recently because I never hunted elephant or TRex nor had to back up a client shooting his first Cape Buffalo.

So when I looked in the CURRENT reloading manuals I didn't see a heck of a lot of difference between the .458 Win and the .458 Lott. What I see is you burn 8%-10% more powder to get 3%-4% more FPS

The .460 Weatherby is a world onto itself. The cavemen could have used it on charging TRex!
 
By all means sell one and get the other. The gun trade has to live somehow and every rifle sale and purchase is money in their pocket. Don't worry about the people who say either is enough to take out a bull elephant so what more do you need? Especially ignore those who say that what matters is where you place the bullet. As for those who say it is the man behind the rifle that matters- well such people should be ritually flogged.
 
By all means sell one and get the other. The gun trade has to live somehow and every rifle sale and purchase is money in their pocket. Don't worry about the people who say either is enough to take out a bull elephant so what more do you need? Especially ignore those who say that what matters is where you place the bullet. As for those who say it is the man behind the rifle that matters- well such people should be ritually flogged.

That made me litterly laugh out loud! :)
 
me too! presumably philip in china would expect his elephant to fall over dead on the spot if he shot it in the butt with a .460 !! and monish watch out it looks like he wants to indulge in some suspect passtimes with you !!
 
Hi Terminator,

Very rightly said the 460 is a world onto itself , agree with you 100 percent ...

Monish
 

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