Weatherby Vanguard in .458 win mag

G

g20gunny

New member
My question is hopefully a simple one, I have a spare long action vanguard receiver and a brother who dreams of a .458 win mag.
A .458 win mag is 62,000 psi while a 300 wby mag (available in vanguards) is 65,000 psi. With the same chamber wall thickness.
My question is; Is there anything I am missing? Is there some freak condition that I am missing about the bolt lugs that is going to result in a failure? I am just a little more paranoid since this is for someone else and I am responsible for research on the subject.
If this sounds legit to any smiths on here then my next quest will be to find a smith here in central Kansas who'd be interested in cutting some metric threads for me and I'll do the fitting and headspacing.
 
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He ever fired a .458? Guy came into the shop looking for a .458. Heading to Africa for a hunt. Bought a Win M70 African(bit under 10 pounds) and a box of ammo(about $50 at the time). Picked it up on Friday evening and was back Saturday afternoon with the rifle, 2 empties and 18 loaded rounds asking us to sell it. Felt recoil is astounding.
The Weatherby Mark V comes in .460 Weatherby. The biggest, meanest chambering for a Vanguard is .300 Weatherby at 7 pounds. A Howa M1500(exactly the same thing as a Vanguard. Vanguards are made by Howa.) can be had in .375 H&H. I doubt there'd be an issue with on in .458 Win though. Just be expensive and painful to shoot.
And the smithy just needs a metric lathe. Not likely common Stateside.
 
There is no doubt that the Howa action will hold the pressure of a .458 Win Mag; it is no different from any other, as you have observed.

My only question is whether it will feed the straight case reliably.
It might or might not, with or without gunsmithing.
I don't know, but you should find out.

Pac Nor will sell you a barrel with Howa threads.
http://pac-nor.com/prefit/
 
g20gunny,

Any machine shop should be able to thread the barrel for you. You have to spec it that they are to center the barrel shank off the bore, (even better to turn it between centers off the bore), not the barrels O.D., and give them the depth of thread, or the shank length, and the thread spec in metric. Then, you chamber and fit it from that. The main thing is using the bores center line, not the O.D..

You might want to look into recoil reduction for this too.
 
We're aware of the recoil, he is a recoil junkie and will probably load to 45-70 ballistics most of the time. I will turn it on center and contour it myself but don't have a metric lathe so that is where a gunsmith or machinist comes in.
 
Pressure should be no problem. Is the receiver you have made with a magnum bolt head and magnum feed rails?
 
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