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I have a double rifle in 458wm.

Before going into performance, I should say that you should consider rechambering your rifle to 450NE 3 1/4". This will render moot any ejection or extraction issues you may have using a belted rimless case in a DR and also any pressure concerns too.

The guy for talking to about this is JJ Peredueax at Champlin Arms in Enid Oklahoma. He is widely regarded as one of the best double rifle guys in the US. When I talked too JJ this spring about that for my rifle JJ gave a cost range from about $700 to about $1800 (IIRC) for the rechamber all the way to reregulating and reblueing if required. JJ told me about half of rechamber jobs require reregulating and only a fraction of reregulating jobs require reblueing. I bought my rifle with the expectation that it would be rechambered and it yet may be.

I sent the rifle to JJ for a check before finalizing the purchase. JJ sugested that my particular rifle didn't need rechambering since it has the best of the methods of extracting and ejecting belted rimless rounds, in his experience, a very reliable system and since my rifle shot unusually well. You will hear from many on this forum, some with tons of experience, that no system is reliable enough and only rimmed or flanged rounds are suitable in a DR intended for use against dangerous game. On the other hand I've fired about 180 rounds through my rifle in the five months I've owned it and JJ has fired a bunch too and neither of us can make it fail.

I'd have JJ check the rifle over before finalizing a purchase for these reasons. In fact I would have JJ check over any DR I was going to buy since I'm no expert on DRs.

Unless you reregulate your rifle you are pretty stuck shooting a load that matches the load your rifle was regulated with. If you need info on regulation do a search here on this forum, look at Champlins web site and also at Hollowell's web site; I believe those web sites have good descritions of what regulation is and what it entails.

Some her also voice concerns about pressure in a double rifle but lots of rifles, from the full range of DR makers - best quality on down, have been built to shoot high pressure rounds. Some here claim high pressure rounds will take a rifle off face after a few hundred rounds. My experience, so far, is contrary to this claim but my rifle is a mid 1980's (modern steel) rifle of particularly high quality.

After all that wind...Performance:

My rifle shoots very well with 500gr Woodleigh softs and solids using 68grs of IMR 3031 for the softs and 67grs for the solids. Norma brass and Fed 215 primers.

Looking at the Hornaday manual and assuming that Woodleighs can be substituted for the Hornadays these loads should produce about 2050fps from 24" barrels. I'm not too sure about the assumptions and have not chrono'd these loads in my rifle - which has 26" barrels - but I'm hoping to do so soon and I'm hoping for 2090fps with the longer barrels.

My rifle also shoots well with 350gr Woodleigh softs over 68grs of 3031. Again using the Hornaday manual and the same assumption this should produce about 2250 from 24" barrels and I'm estimating 2290 from my rifle.

I don't handload and JJ developed these loads for my rifle.

If you search here you should find some posts by Ray Atkinson, a very experienced hunter, who has shot many buffalo and some elephant with his 470NE loaded with 500gr bullets at 2050fps. He reports very good results. I can't imagine a detectable, let alone significant, difference in performance between a 500gr bullet out of a 470NE at 2050fps and the same 500gr bullet out of a 458wm at 2050. I have no personal experience - yet, but I'm hoping to shoot two buffalo in Zimbabwe with my DR next month with the 500gr loads given above.

I also beleive that the often quoted velocities of the varios NE rounds are generally very optimistic. Just a look at the Kynamco web site seems to confirm this. For just one example they note the often repeated velocity standard of the 470NE but they used 31" barrels to get it.

Hope this long post helps.

JPK

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