Quote:
Originally Posted by canoe on the yukon
This is gratifying.I thought I might be the only lunatic here.I'm a bit surprised at the response.It's greater than I expected.This is a reloading forum and as far as I know,there's no rule excluding heavy rifle load data.The most I've seen here is for light and medium rifles.
Just as a reminder,medium rifle loads (375 H&H included)don't qualify.Neither do reduced loads in any caliber.Minimum power is full throttle 458 Win Mag and 416 Rigby class of cartridges.These are not true heavies but they get near enough.The 404 Jeffery is a bit light but it's considered sort of a heavy medium.(which I suppose brings it close enough.)
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Canoe-
I know the original factory loads are fairly mild compared to a lot of other big bore cartridges, but the newer loads for the 404 are substantially more powerful. Lets notforget that it is the most popular elephant round in Africa either. It just hasn't got all the attention here like the .416 Rigby, mostly because of Robert Ruark's writings about Harry Selby and his .416 rigby.
If you handload for it as I do, you can easily surpass anything that can be done in the .416 Rem., in a modern made rifle. The .404 has (if I recall correctly from when I weighed their capcaities with water) about 8-10% greater case capacity then the .416, and works equally well with the exact same powders. RL-15 is the one to beat in both of these rounds for velocity, and accuracy. It's no trick to get
well over 2500 FPS from my Jeffery with 400 grain bullets. That's about 5700 ft.lbs.
I had mine built several years ago on a Winchester M-70 CRF action that started life as a .416 Remington. It is very accurate!
I had my .458 Lott built almost 0 years ago by the late Dick Nickels out in Washington state. Some may know who he is, some won't, but he was one of the top re-bore experts in the country back before he passed, and built a lot of rifles for some very well known people. I had it built on an old pusf feed M-70 that started life as a .375 H&H.
If anyone else here has had a .458 Lott built at Ridgetop Sporting Goods in Washington State, I would really like to here from you. Your rifle was reamed with the chamber reamer that I bought from Clymer manufacturing here in MI, back when Dave Manson was still there, and gave it to Dick for doing the work. He hadn't ever done the Lott and was very happy to do it, but needed the reamer, so I gave it to him.
