Wildcatting - Slow and Heavy

Having re-aligned my jaw, teeth and brain stem after testing a full throttle 458 Lott rifle last year, I settled on calmer loads for a spot of reduced velocity ballistics with the behemoth. This not only has two reasons, one I like those old subs, but reduced loads are still very handy for practice until you need those top loads for dangerous game.

The Lott is quite an efficient case, despite its large size and with the use of fast burning bulky powders you can avoid the Secondary Explosive Effect caused by too slow a powder at reduced powder charge in a big case. It also is great fun and instructive, as they make you really think about trajectory compensation due to the loopy bullet drop and wind drift. It’s also just fun clanging steel silhouettes down range, even at 500 yards, where the flight time is 1.6 seconds!!

Rifle spec

This rifle started life as a 300 Weatherby Magnum that I sourced from Norman Clark gunsmiths. Norman fitted a 20”, Krieger cut rifled barrel with 1 in 14 twist rate, I was going 1 in 10 as I knew I would want to try some subsonic loads. But having faster twist rate despite a slower velocity might cause more barrel fouling and so I played it safe with the slower 1 in 14” twist rate. I wanted a heavy profile but without too much weight to it, especially if you were going to carry it all day after Cape Buffalo with full power loads.

So, Norman sorted a Rem Varmint profile Krieger tube and it was made from chrome moly not stainless steel, as I wanted a traditional blued steel finish and with lead bullets I find it does not foul or gall as bad as stainless does. Now the threaded muzzle would come into play for a sound moderator, defiantly not on full power loads but with subs, just the ticket!

Steel appeal!

I used the super strong and effective MAE stainless steel muzzle can custom made for the job, as the barrel was short, its overall length would offer good handling, as well as good noise reduction. Norman threaded it 18x1mm with an invisible protector, so it looks unthreaded when the mod is off, nice! 20” is perfect for the small amounts of powder that will be burnt in it with sub-sonic loads and adds great handling, although most of the subs will be shot off a bipod.

Stock-wise, I know it’s boring, but I used the good old McMillan Lazzeroni thumbhole design in green, black, beige marble finish. Norman pillar bedded the action with aluminium pillars and bedding compound to stop it torqueing under recoil. He also did a lot of work in making the long Lott round feed correctly through the magazine and had to extend the bolt travel to accommodate proper ejection and feeding. It’s not just a case of screwing on a barrel; custom work takes skill and time to be completed successfully. Although I would be feeding the Lott singingly for the sub loads, that extra care with fed ramps and magazine lips allowed me to use shorter 458 Win Mag brass too.

Load up

This is the fun part, sourcing all the kit needed to work up some loads, but with the Lott the bullets can become a bit pricey if you use jacketed, which is why leads for subs are preferred. I used some older Winchester 458 Win Mag brass for subs in that calibre and a Ruger No. 1 rifle and for the 458 Lott size with the newer Hornady range of cases. They have really gone to town in offering excellent cases for older, large or difficult to find classic African calibres and the price is good too. I have also experimented with shortening the Lott cases to 2.5”, which are safe but need a specific load.

Being a straight walled design, it’s always a good idea to uniform the necks, as they are long and thinner at this point and often get distorted. It’s a good procedure to do for all cases, as it ensures a smooth loading without galling and helps centralise the bullet correctly.

B-series

Reloading dies were easy to find, I had a set of Redding Series B for the 458 Win Mags and Hornady Custom Grade for the 458 Lott. Both are 3-die sets with full-length sizer, neck expander and bullet seater/crimp. Full-length sizing is sensible for reliable feed and chambering, the seater can handle lead or jacketed bullets and the expander die flares the neck just enough to ease a soft lead bullet in.

You don’t need a big press and I used the Redding Boss, as it allowed enough space above and around the case to fit those big old bullets. Powder measuring is interesting, as I was using large fluffy powder that is also quite light, so can hang up in traditional powder measures. I used a combination of beam and scales for individual loads and then a pistol size Harrel Culver type measure that handles the powder well, but care is still needed to deliver a correct load. As with all cases of this size, I use a magnum primer to ignite the powder charge, important on a full-blown load but also important to ignite all the smaller and lighter subsonic charges.

Bullets and powder

I like to use the ‘Cowboy Action’ type powders for reduced larger capacity rounds, but some of these like many others are becoming harder to find and are being discontinued. First up is the older IMR SR 4759, that was the first of the big bulky faster burning types that shows large flakes. But Trail Boss is twice as bulky, so even better at filling the case!

It is handy, as it takes up more space, or volume, in the case, so reduces air space and avoids that dangerous state where a slower power at reduced loads can detonate instead of burn. The newer powders are Vit Tin Star and Hodgdon Trail Boss. Both have similar burns rates like the fast pistol powders but they both have larger lighter flakes and so take up more space.

Bullet-wise, I had a selection left over from the 458 Lott full blown loads. These were lead bullets of 405 and 420-grains and copper jacketed from 350 to 420-grains, but I did not use the solids as slow sub-sonic bullets that do not flex can cause blockages! Quick Load and Quick Target Ballistics programs are a good place to start your reloads, to stop component wastage when working up.

In the field

OK, so this is really a bit of fun and practice loads, but setting up wild boar or metal silhouette targets at silly ranges makes for an interesting and ballistically testing shooting session. First up, recoil is lovely and low with that characteristic slow, low shove, rather than a thump. That MAE sound moderator too was very quiet with subsonic loads that when tested hovered at about 1090-1010 fps due to the temperature and pressure.

Accuracy was good to be honest with all the loads, well it is a Norman Clark custom and that Krieger barrel is ultra-precise and well-honed, so minimal edges to gather fouling. All bullets stabilised well, and accuracy ranged from 1.5” with the lighter 350-grainers down to all touching. Best sub-sonic load for accuracy showed 0.75” at 100 yards, with the ACE Lead cast bullets with 17-grains of Tin Star generating 1067 fps/1024 ft/lbs.

Zeroed at 100 yards, it dropped -32.3 inches at 200, -103” low at 300 and a whopping -372.8” at 500, but what fun! Wind drift was only 4.9” at 200 and 28.1” at 500 yds with a 10 mph, 3 O’clock blow. Also, out to 200, you only lose 114 fps/200 ft/lbs energy. Not for everyone, agreed, but when you shoot off a bipod and that 500-yard steel rings out after a 1.6 second flight time it’s a good feeling.

Conclusions

Again, just an interesting course in reloading that has a good degree of practical uses, honest. For flinch-free learning your rifle’s characteristics, reduced or sub-sonic loads are a good way to gain confidence in the rifles use before full power loads. For me, it’s all about sending big lumpy objects down range slowly, silently with a challenging ballistic edge to it - therapy starts Monday!