There's a couple of small errors here that need correcting,
first, its the .460 Weatherby Magnum, not the.450.
second its not 2600 ft/lbs, its 2600 FPS (Feet per second) VELOCITY with a 500gr bullet. that works out to over 7,000 ft/lbs of energy. Seven THOUSAND foot/pounds...plus...
For comparison, standard hunting loads in the.30-06 run 28-2900 ft/lbs of energy and the heaviest 220gr loads hit 3000 ft/lbs.
Depending on the loads chosen the .460Weatherby develops between 2.3 and 2.5 times the energy of the .30-06.
due to Newtonian physics, recoil will be similarly multiplied. Think about that. Its NOT a 3" 12ga. Not even close.
I don't know how much a muzzle brake will tame that, but I'm sure it will help. Brake technology has come a long way since the late 50s when the .460 was introduced.
I got to handle (but not fire) one in 77. Beautiful rifle, full on Weatherby Mk V.
According to things I've read, the .460Weatherby Magnum was not well liked by African PH's. Cost and availability worked against it, as did the Mk V rifle (without a brake the Mk V stock is not the best design for heavy recoil) but what the disliked most, was actually its performance. For their tastes, it was, simply, too FAST.
there is a "sweet spot" in velocity (
roughly 19-2300fps) where all the classic African "express" rifles operate. In that range, properly made bullets tend to punch through heavy bone, like elephant skulls, below that range sufficient penetration gets "iffy" and above that range bullets tend to "glance off" and not penetrate as often. Energy was more than sufficient, but the comparatively high speed of the .460 Weatherby actually reduced its dependability as an elephant stopper. Or so the people who were there in those days and tried it, said. Not that it didn't work at all, but that it wasn't something to be counted on.
When your job is to stop angry elephant or cape buffalo who are mere yards away, even ocassional failures are not only unacceptable, they can be fatal for the PH, or worse, his client.
Capstick related a personal experience with this though not with the .460Wby but with the .458 Win in one of his books. (I think its Death in the Long Grass, but am not sure)
He was working as a cropping officer, thinning elephant herds. He used a Win M70 .458 and (factory) ammo supplied by the game dept he worked for. He tells how he developed the habit of always leaving the last round in the magazine, in order to have a shot if he got charged during reloading.
Seemed smart to me.
Work for him, reloading over the last round in the mag, until the one day he actually had to use it. He fired several shots (10? perhaps) always reloading over the same round in the mag. The he got charged and had to use that last round. His shot was right, but the results weren't. His life was saved by his tracker distracting the elephant by throwing their water bag at its feet, which gave Capstick enough time to roll to the side and put another round into the rifle, and that one did drop the elephant.
Checking the beast showed that his "defective" round had hit in the right spot, but instead of penetrating, glanced off and skidded along the skull coming to rest under the skin at the back of its head.
Perplexed as to why this happened when all the other rounds performed as expected, he repeated the shots, shooting a termite mound, always reloading over the same round in the bottom of the magaine. after firing 10 shots (or what ever is was, I don't remember clearly), he looked at the last round in the mag and saw that the bullet had moved BACK INTO THE CASE by a significant amount.
we all know what that means, compressed powder space, increased pressure, which means higer velocity. Apparently enough to move the .458 slug out of the "sweet range" of velocity so instead to punching through it literally bounced off.
Capstick's books are great reads, looking at the life of a PH and cropping officer from a personal point of view.