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Bench Topicsby Mike Fairbanks

Barnes Bullets in the .458 Winchester Magnum

There are two schools of thought regarding the .458 Winchester Magnum. There

are those, like the late Finn Aagaard, who consider the .458 strictly as an African cartridge for dangerous game and are only interested in heavy bul-lets at full power for short-range use. In the other camp are those, like Ken Waters, who feel that with spe-cialized loads the .458 can be sen-sibly utilized by hunters of lighter dangerous game as well as nondan-gerous game. There’s no question that the .458 Winchester Magnum was developed with Finn’s Africa in mind; however, Ken Waters is abso-lutely correct in that many .458s will never see the Dark Continent. Why should their owners be limited to loads with stout bullets and heavy re-coil? In Waters’ Handloader No. 92 (July 1981) “Pet Loads” article, he specifically addresses the subject of “taming” the .458 Winchester Mag-num for American use and argues the continued success of the .45-70 as a case in point for the popularity of the idea.

Thirty years ago, the 300- to 400-grain conventional cup-and-core bullets constrained the upper veloc-ity threshold, but not so today, espe-cially with the monometal expanding .458-inch lightweights from Barnes. With this in mind, three styles of lighter X-Bullets were used to see if I could not only tame a bit of the .458’s recoil but also flatten trajecto-ries and improve its versatility.

At one point, Barnes offered a 400-grain X-Bullet but, contrary to what Aagaard reported in Hand-loader No.147, it did not sell as well as those at the other ends of the weight spectrum. According to Barnes, shooters either want a full-figured slug for the big stuff or prefer to step down to 350 grains or less. Therefore, the modern X-Bullet, the Triple-Shock X (TSX), comes in four flavors, a pair of heav-ies at 450 and 500 grains and the lightweights at 300 and 350 grains. Barnes also offers four other light-weight .458-inch monometal ex-panding bullets, two TSX FNs for leverguns and two 300-grain TSX BTs meant for semiautomatics, such as the .458 SOCOM. Of the three

slugs examined in my trials, two were meant for larger cases, the 300- and 350-grain TSX flatbased bullets. Also included was one designed for the .458 SOCOM, the 300-grain TTSX BT.

The 300- and 350-grain TSXes are built for high velocities from large capacity cases, and Barnes tests them in ballistic gelatin up to 2,300 fps impact velocity to ensure no petal loss at that speed. On the other hand, an impact velocity of 1,900 fps is used for TTSX SOCOM slugs. This is not to say that any of these bullets cannot take more speed but that they are confirmed for 100 percent integrity at these impact velocities. With reloading data for the TSXes in a .460 Weath-

Left to right, four Barnes bullets in .458 Winchester Magnum brass: 450-grain TSX, 350-grain TSX, 300-grain TTSX and 300-grain TSX.

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erby Magnum suggesting muzzle velocities in the 2,900 to 3,000 fps ballpark, Barnes gives these slugs a tremendous vote of confidence. In consideration of impact behav-ior at maximum speed, I measured the solid shank portion below the hollowpoint of each slug. With the 300 TSX, the shank measures ap-proximately 0.49 inch, compris-ing around 200 grains (67 percent), while the 350 TSX shank of 0.65 inch shows the same overall weight ratio with 235 grains of solid below the hollowpoint. The 300 TTSX shank also measures 0.65 inch long, but the cavity is much wider than the TSX and opens into six petals that are individually thinner than the TSX petals. With the boat-tail, the solid shank of the TTSX is not as heavy as the 350 TSX, weighing about 210 grains and has roughly the same weight ratio as the 300 TSX. While these figures do not imply stem-to-stern retained weights, expansion to the bottom of the hollowpoint and total petal loss would represent the worse possible case scenario.

Even so, such shortening should contribute greatly to wound trauma, terminal stability and straight-line penetration. And, even if you run the TSXes at absolutely top muzzle velocity in a .460 Weatherby, both slugs will be down to the 2,300 fps range before 200 yards any-way. From there on, they have been proven to 100 percent weight re-tention. Again, these are worse case numbers and in “lesser” cartridges, such as a Lott or Winchester Mag-num with initial velocities in the 2,500 to 2,700 ballpark, 2,300 fps will occur well before 100 yards.

Despite the relatively high muz-zle velocities, it is true these bul-lets shed velocity rather quickly. Those who have no interest in uti-lizing a .458 Winchester Magnum for much other than stopping large critters at close range would hardly consider this a shortcoming. How-ever, those of us who’d like to use

our .458s at longer ranges will have to face the fact that it just can’t be considered “flat shooting” beyond 250 to 300 yards, even with these lighter slugs. One look at the graph illustrates how drop becomes pro-nounced past 300 yards compared to a rather common 7mm magnum load. Not only that, figures for drift in a 10-mph crosswind are around 12 inches at 300 yards and double that amount at 400. If that wasn’t enough, velocity beyond 250 to 300 yards has dropped off to the point of delivering the performance of some of today’s larger revolver rounds. So much for all that thud and blunder hard off the muzzle of a .458!

The lighter slugs do deliver some

useful performance. The Barnes Re-loading Manual #3 indicates higher ballistic coefficients for the old-style 300- and 350-grain X-Bullets, but the upgrade to the TSX style in-cludes the move to a nose with a Secant ogive. This creates a very slight shoulder at the junction of the shank and nose radius, and while it robs a little bit of aerodynamic ef-ficiency, it was done in the interest of improving accuracy. If my rifle is any indication, that goal was cer-tainly met. All three types of test bullets grouped very well, especially the 350 TSX and 300 TTSX out to 400 yards from a 9-pound .458 Winchester Magnum (and the pro-digious .469-inch funnel-shaped throat) with a 2.5x scope. Barnes

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has done an excellent job of making an accurate bullet and perhaps the inherent accuracy is also present in the 300-grain flatbase, and it would function better in a shorter-throated chamber.

Confidence in a bullet that flies true goes a long way toward mak-ing hits at a distance but so does ease of shooting, and perhaps the biggest asset to the lighter slugs is reduced recoil. In an 11-pound rifle, a factory spec 500-grain load will produce approximately 55 foot-pounds (ft-lbs) of recoil energy while a 350-grain bullet at 2,575 fps produces 45 ft-lbs, and a 300-grain bullet at 2,700 fps produces less than 40 ft-lbs. The lighter bul-lets, not surprisingly considering how similar are the performance numbers, produce the same level of recoil as a .375 H&H. Obviously, the lighter bullets are much easier to shoot. In my mind, this alone is enough to justify their utility, and interestingly, with the 350-grain slug, downrange energy figures run neck and neck with conventional 500-grain loads.

In my rifle, peak velocities just over 2,700 fps with the 300 TSX were attained with AA-2230, closely followed by H-4198 and IMR-4198 just under 2,700 fps. H-322 also

shows promise, but the maximum recommended load of 82 grains produced 2,625 fps with mild case expansion. Reloder 7 also delivered the same velocity levels as the 4198s but did so with significant muzzle flash and blast and seemed a bit more erratic over the chronograph. Slower powders such as IMR-3031, IMR-4895, H-4895 and Varget all exceed case capacity before top speeds were achieved. H-335 was also tried but incredible muzzle flash and report, coupled with me-diocre velocities, removed it from further trials.

With the longer 300 TTSX, powder compression became an issue with heavier charges. No pow-der topped 2,700 fps, but the same three that delivered the goods with the flatbase proved best with the boat-tails. AA-2230 would be the first choice, closely followed by one of the 4198s. H-322 was not tested and Reloder 7 again was loud and flashy. Compression issues became more pronounced with the slower powders, such as the two 4895s and IMR-3031. Although this slug was included with the hopes that the plastic tip and boat-tail would produce a flatter trajectory, the dif-ference in the listed ballistic coef-ficients is a mere .002 inch in favor

of the boat-tail. Actual measure-ments of drop at 200, 300 and 400 yards did show a slight advantage for the TTSX but hardly enough to be considered more than negligible. The TTSX did tend to shoot tighter groups, nudging under the TSX by about one MOA at all ranges, and it is assumed to be the result of its lon-ger bearing surface.

The 350 TSX tended to the same powder preferences as the two lighter slugs, except that Relo-der 7 was well behaved under this heavier bullet, and the two 4198s seemed to produce more case ex-pansion a little quicker. One new contender with the 350s proved to be H-4895, just topping 2,500 fps with a case absolutely full of pow-der. Varget and IMR-3031 both proved to be too slow, running out of space before producing 2,400 fps, while IMR-4895 barely broke that barrier with a charge that would overflow the case without settling. AA-2230 again proved to be the top performer with even re-sults between the 4198s and Relo-der 7. A heavily compressed charge of 82 grains of H-4895 did very well in terms of accuracy and con-sistent velocities.

All test loads were assembled in Winchester brass with CCI 250

primers. A quick scaling of a few cases showed a noticeable difference of overall weight. On the two flat-based slugs, relief grooves are posi-tioned just right for utilization as a crimp groove for an overall length of 3.330 inches, ±0.01 inch, depending upon level of powder compression. Crimping was not done with the boat-tail and probably not needed with the other slugs, but a heavy roll crimp was applied to loads with the flatbased bullets, especially those with heavy powder compres-sion. There is no question that the .458 Winchester Magnum is short on powder capacity and powder compression is common. While some may argue that this is a short-coming, the limited capacity does promote consistent velocities and ef-ficient use of space.

Overall, the Barnes bullets serve a very useful purpose in a .458 Win-chester Magnum, especially where it is not needed for warding off the heavyweights for which it was origi-nally designed. While lighter slugs do not necessarily transform it into a cross-canyon rifle, the level of recoil reduction justifies their use. I would probably skip the two lighter bullets in favor of the 350 grain and settle on a heavily compressed load of H-4895 in moose and brown bear country.

Of the other two, the flatbased 300 grain, while rated for top speeds, was the least accurate, and although the boat-tail was right on target, it might be a little fragile for a Winchester Magnum. How-ever, I can’t think of a better setup for hogs in the brush or black bears over bait than the boat-tail loaded down to 2,200 fps or the flatbase at top speed. If a shot out at 250 yards did present itself, any one of these slugs would be a lot easier to lob into place than a tooth-rattling 500 grainer. Just keep in mind that drift and drop become rather pronounced, and velocity loss is considerable much beyond that distance.

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