458 Win Mag vs 458 Lott

[Frederik]

Still waiting for my license card for my Lott they are not printing cards during lockdown although my licnese was approved 19 Feb already

Anyway the reason why I went lott is to not struggle to get to 220ofps I dont need more and dont see the need for more for my own hunting. You can also load with slower burning powders due to the higher case volume which then also brings down the fierce recoil everyone complains about.

Also the great thing about the CZ 550 is that if I feel the need for more than the lott I can easily get it reamed to 450 Rigby and a bit of work on the feeding.

 

[WAB]

The reason for the back and forth is that many people on this forum are looking at figures on paper rather than carrying these rifles in the bush.
A consideration which is much more important than Velocity is how well the rifle handles and how ell you can shoot it under pressure. In this regard bear in mind that you may have only a second or two to get on target and fire a shot in a really tight situation. While the Lott is more versatile, it requires a full length magnum action, whereas the ,458WM fits into a standard 30-06 length action. Also, a lot of people hit their recoil limit with full power .458WM loads - and more bang counts for nothing if you cant hit the target reliably. You ideally want the rifle to point like a properly fitted shotgun.
So, for me it comes down to this: If you are comfortable with a long actioned rifle (like the CZ550) , then go for the Lott. If, on the other hand, you feel more comfortable with a more compact platform, then go for a .458 WM built on a standard length action. Either way, you want to keep the platform as handy as possible. For this reason many Lott users have their barrels trimmed to 22 or 23", thereby sacrificing maybe 100fps.
If you are using the rifle as a backup/guide gun then a 500grn bullet at 2150 is all you need, and you can get this out of a 24 or 25" barreled .458WM or out of a 22" barreled Lott. You will however get a lot of muzzle flash from such a short barreled Lott, and muzzle flip will generally be quite severe.
So, horses for courses. Best take a rifle to the range, fire 20 shots and see how it goes.

Short of a custom rig, who makes a .458 WM on a standard length action? The M70 is a magnum length action, making it an easy conversion to Lott.

 

[krish]

The cz in the bigining converted 458 wm to 458 lott. Those have the stamping of both. The newer ones say just 458lott or 458wm. I have both.

Maybe the one I have originally came from the factory already rechambered too, unless all the CZ Lotts are stamped this way?