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Shooting & Reloading - Mausers, Big Bores and others >> Big Bore Rifles
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Judson
.300 member


Reged: 21/09/05
Posts: 192
Loc: St. Albans Maine U.S.A.
.450 Winchester Short Magnum
      #96164 - 07/02/08 09:20 AM

Since the short mags came out I have been playing with necking them up or down. Necking the .325 WSM up to .458 has worked out very well. I have built three rifles chambered for this cartridge and with 20" of effective barrel length it equals the .458 Winchester mag ballistics. The 450 will easly push 300 grain Hornady H.P. at 2650 with 61 graing of IMR 4198 and the 350 grain round nose bullets at 2350 or more. Either of these loads could be hotter but looking at the velosity range these bullets were designed for I think I would be pushing bullet failure.
Come spring I am going to try the 480 and 500 grain bullets. One thing that works out great if this cartridge is chambered in a standard length action like a Mauser is that unlike the .458 Winchester you can still seat the bullets out far enough so as to not loose case capisity.
Another nice point is the loading dies. I made up a long expander to start the necking up process, this takes he brass to .450 diameter then using a long tappered expander gothe rest of the way. The seating die just had to be opened up a bit. With a bit of simple machine work that even a small shop like mine can do you elimate the need for custom dies.
Bye he way, as a friend/customer of ours found out this cartridge flattens both black bear and deer, sort of BANG FLOP!

Edited by Judson (07/02/08 09:21 AM)

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gwh
.333 member


Reged: 28/01/08
Posts: 277
Loc: Cairns Australia
Re: .450 Winchester Short Magnum [Re: Judson]
      #96254 - 08/02/08 08:09 AM

Sounds like an interesting project, I know another aussie who has necked up a 300WSM case to .458 and labelled it the 459 Alpine for use on Sambarv in our high country.

--------------------
Hunt hard, shoot straight

"I speak of Africa and golden joys; the joy of wandering through lonely lands; the joy of hunting the mighty and terrible lords of the wilderness, the cunning, the wary and the grim"

Theodore Roosevelt, Khartoum, 1910

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DarylS
.700 member


Reged: 10/08/05
Posts: 26499
Loc: Beautiful British Columbia, Ca...
Re: .450 Winchester Short Magnum [Re: gwh]
      #96267 - 08/02/08 10:10 AM

The .458 Alaskan is a 2.1"case, necked to .458. This was first done back in the 40's or 50's by Harold Johnson. The round was called the .450 Alaskan and used .348 Wichester brass which is almost identical to the WSM brass. Since the original .450 Alaskan required a rim to work in the M71 Winchester lever gun and I wanted to chamber it in a M70, I turned the rim off and curt a new extractor groove. This is a 15 second job on a small lathe. The result was what I called a .458 Alaskan. It has a couple gr. more capacity than a .458 WM, works through a normal action and therefore delivers 2,200fps with 500's if you so desire. My favourite loads for BC was a 350gr. X at 2,300fps. This was a light load.
; I assume this 'new' .458 Short magnum is 1/10" shorter than the .458 Alaskan & therefore, something new. Actually, there is rarely anything new - it's pretty much all been done before.
; Good round, though.

--------------------
Daryl


"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V

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