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I don't believe there's anything wrong with the .460 Weatherby cartridge itself, and this WR rifle is a work of stunning beauty. I do not personally agree with mating the two together. Whatever floats your boat is cool but I would not buy this rifle unless at a giveaway sell point.

Here is my reasoning why:

I think the .460 Bee is a spectacular cartridge..... But only in a bolt gun with greater magazine capacity than the measly two that the Weatherby rifles offer.

I have had a couple of small caliber doubles in .30-06, one of which I played with extensively with different loads and pressures. As pressures reached near max, the rifles become difficult to break open. I have also experienced this with a 9.3x74R double when first working up loads. Even my final regulating load feels a bit "sticky" on attempting to open the rifle on a hot day to eject the spent cartridges.

The pawls sit on tiny springs of Herculean strength and are beautifully made precision parts. The pawls Never failed on any of my small doubles so equipped but range conditions at the indoor range border on operating room sterile. By contrast, in Namibia where I hunted, EVERYTHING quickly gets covered in fine white dust very quickly. It doesn't take much of an imagination to understand how that fine powder dust could get into tiny precision parts and mess them up no matter how wonderfully they are made.

About the fine dust? Yes, as an allergy sufferer, when I was picked up at Windehoek airport to be shuttled to my hotel before my next flight out to Katima, the very first thing I noticed was that white dust was covering everything on and in the vehicle. It was an SUV of very recent manufacture. After a regional turbo prop fight and a two hour trip the next day from Katima airport to the bush camp near the Kwondo river saw my rifle case and duffle totally covered in fine white powder that to this day discolours both the case and the duffle. The stuff permeates EVERYTHING and oiled fine machinery would surely NOT be immune.

If you are backing up your own shots, would you trust your life to two shots only? Maybe the PH can bail you out, but maybe his angle is bad. Maybe your first two shots were spectacular and you broke down the animal, but maybe like my first shot you blasted an impossible hole from stern to stem, diagonally no less, and miraculously hit nothing vital. Maybe, like me you got lucky and the trackers were able to follow the spoor for more than 3 full days and over 20km as the crow flies. Maybe, when you catch up face on at 30 yards, the buff decides he's going to address his tormentor in a very final way, unlike in my case where he stood fast and let me pump 6 more 570 grain solids into him. ......... But maybe you shoot your two shots, deflect off a twig, or pull the shot, the buff decides to sort you while you fumble around trying to crack open a stuck action or attempt to finger pluck cartridges from the chamber, over the rims of which the ejectors have skipped.

Just sayin'

Edited by Postman (23/08/16 09:17 PM)