The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Badger, have a think about the .458X2" Barnes, AKA .458 American. It was a standard magnum belted case shortened to 2-inches for use as a medium power large bore woods cartridge. Any bolt-action belted magnum rifle is a straight rebarrelling job, although it's reported that many American gunsmiths used the Mauser 98 action as their starting point.

There's a lot of information on the old Internet including a lot of loads data, and one imagines it'd be a fun short-range number with cast lead bullets. Performance is very close to the .450 Marlin, but it should be better suited to bolt actions.

The only (!!) problems would be finding a gunsmith who'd get the chamber reamer for you and it'd be a limited stock special order die situation liklely from RCBS or D4D, not too good news at the moment given most US companies refusing all such orders. (Wonder if a post on some of the US forums would dig out an old secondhand die set sitting on a shelf in somebody's house?)

safetyfirst wrote:I have one of Paul's TCR rifles in .233 and even though the barrel is one of the more budget options (German 16" govt profile) I found it reliably delivers .5moa with Sierra 69gn matchking with a 10 shot group at .3 moa being its best effort (it's got a hiperfire 24c trigger) so in terms of accuracy I can't see many bolt guns improving significantly on that! A straight pull IS a bolt gun in many ways, though an AR15 or any unmodified straight pull has nowhere near the same levels of precision in terms of blueprinting, head spacing etc as a hand made F class nail driver.

And the other 50% (or more) of shot placement is down to the individual behind the gun which often is the weakest link in the chain. Most guns will sure out shoot the man, unless your one of those superbly talented types-which I'm not!

Well quite. Those .3" groups were off front and rear bags sat at a shooting bench in a 100yd wind free tunnel! The rifles a much better shat than I am