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Tophet1 makes some good points;

"I like a longer tube to get the muzzle blast a bit furthur away. I don't like recoil and I see muzzle blast as adding to perceived recoil".

However, I guess the question; is a .458 Winchester with a 22" barrel a good idea, depends on the unspoken part of the question: for what purpose?

If you don't need every last foot-pound you might get from a 24" barrel to put down several of Africa's tougher big five, then it may not matter much beyond the recoil blast issue. A number of Australian hunters use .458 Winchesters for Sambar deer, (quite a large species), but use 350 grain bullets. The reason being to put these deer down on the spot so they can't run 100 yards and then be impossible to find or difficult to recover in thick bush. That Zastava would be fine in such a role in close country. But you won't pull off too many 300 yard open country shots with it because of the trajectory of the relatively slow/blunt bullets.

So would a 22" barrel .458W also make good sense for, say, Canadian black bear at closer ranges? Sure. The Winchester Model 70 in .458W was, as I recall, also a 22" barrel and this made it nicely balanced rifle that was also a handy gun in scrub. However, it lacked weight and this meant many people soon became recoil shy using it. You don't find many big bores with a worn out barrel. In contrast, the Sauer 90 in .458W, the one I handled at any rate, was several pounds heavier in part because the company used a special dense stock wood called bubinga. I bet their owners thanked Sauer every time the came back from the rifle range.

By choosing the right powders, you could probably find one that doesn't need to be too compressed but which delivers good velocity in the shorter 22" tube - or not. It'll depend on such things as free-bore and you'll need a chronograph to establish that yourself.

If it were me, I'd look for a rifle with those extra 2" to shoot full-powered 500 grain loads, (and a bit more weight), if I wanted to get full performance. But the choice would boil down to the "for what end use?" question. If I were Africa bound, I might be much more inclined to take a 10 pounds scoped .375H&H that can reach out much further in open country and/or a .416 Rigby that has case volume to spare and which would easily meet the foot/pound energy targets that the .458W aspires to.

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