Reloading for the 460 S&W

[meister mash]

Friends, I just bought myself a new S&W 460. I'm already conniving a way to reload for this. I don't have 460 dies yet. The die sets that I do have are the following, 45 acp and 4570. Can I partialy size the 460 cases with the 45 acp set and then use the seater out of my 4570 set to seat with?
Two: I have a box of 4570 300 grain jacketed hp bullets. Can I run those through my Lee 452 sizer and use them to load a preliminary batch of ammo?
Three: Can you all suggest a mould in say 300 grain weight. I like Keith style or semi wadcutter with a good size meplat. Maybe I'll go look for a Lee.
Four: What primers does every one use for this cartridge? Just large rifle or magnum?

[Bullshop Junior]

I wouldn't try sizing the 458 bullets to 452.

And doesn't the 460 take small primers like the 454 casull?

[stephenj]

I think you will be waiting for dies . You can make due just partialy sixing your cases
And seat them ... but you are forgeting one thing of importance
Crimp ... unless you plan on just loading single rounds to get the itch to shoot a new gun out of your system t

I also doubt you will have much luck sizing a jacketed bullet down that far

One way i found of getting cheaper bullets for tje .460 that have a tough enoughh jacket
To withstand the warp speeds you can get is to look for close outs on
Hornaday muzzle loader sabots .50 cal has a .451 dia bullet
Lots of times you can find these dirt cheap after deer seasons over

Most times i just shoot a 255 rnfn lee bullet in mine .

[Bullshop Junior]

The 300gn Hornady XTP was designed for the 454, and it has a pretty tough jacket. All the ones I have hot have withheld almost 100% weight.

[DrCaveman]

Friends, I just bought myself a new S&W 460. I'm already conniving a way to reload for this. I don't have 460 dies yet. The die sets that I do have are the following, 45 acp and 4570. Can I partialy size the 460 cases with the 45 acp set and then use the seater out of my 4570 set to seat with?
Two: I have a box of 4570 300 grain jacketed hp bullets. Can I run those through my Lee 452 sizer and use them to load a preliminary batch of ammo?
Three: Can you all suggest a mould in say 300 grain weight. I like Keith style or semi wadcutter with a good size meplat. Maybe I'll go look for a Lee.
Four: What primers does every one use for this cartridge? Just large rifle or magnum?

Howdy meister, welcome to the forum and to shooting 460 magnum! First question to you: what gun did you buy? Barrel length and gun manufacturer seem to affect quite a few things with this cartridge. I have a s&w 460V, 5" barrel with gain twist rifling

Id pretty much support all the responses so far. As for your first question, my answer would be to wait until you have the right dies. I monkeyed around a bit trying to make other dies work, and i never really got it right, and it was some work getting back all my old settings for loading the rounds intended for those dies. Mostly, i think your neck tension and crimp will be out of spec, and ive found those things to be VERY important when loading full-power loads. Others may have a workaround, but thats what ive found.

Second question: ive taken to sizing down my 45-70 slugs to .452" (my own cast, not jacketed) and have found some decent success. But i recently observed that the boolit noses have been too large, and that got me some pretty bad leading in the cylinders. So im back to the drawing board with that approach. Ive never tried squishing down jacketed bullets at all, but id think it would be hard on the sizer and maybe spring back up in size anyway. Not too sure here

Third question: i got the Lee 300 gr designed for 45 colt/454 casull. It has a mean meplat, and can take a gas check, so it should have some serious hunting potential. Like an eager beaver, i beagled the mold before i knew what i was doing (as if i even do now...) and it has caused problems with rounds chambering. All in all, i think it is $20 well spent as you learn what your gun likes. Ill be removing the aluminum tape this week, and starting over load development. Ive also got my eye on the Accurate Molds 45-360V. Probably going to be my next mold purchase

Fourth question: i mostly use winchester large rifle primers, and i mostly load with alliant 2400 powder. My lighter loads using sr-4756, unique, and trail boss also worked fine with same primers. For the (few) loads i ran using h110 and lil' gun, i used large rifle magnum. I heard that some of the first 460 mag rounds used small rifle, but i havent seen any. Ive been loading for this gun less than a year so there are still quite a few things to learn.

Have fun, wear hearing protection, if you have a dog with you while shooting full power, please make him/her run away from you! And if you havent done it, buy some factory Hornady 200 gr loads and shoot them. Then youll know what you DONT want to replicate with your handloads!

Search around the forum, several of us have posted various experimental loads that deviate a bit from what the loading manuals show. Mostly looking for mid-power loads. But be sure to do your homework and understand everything involved. I personally think i "ran" with this gun before i knew how to "jog", and it got me terrible leading and extraction issues. Thankfully nothing worse, but make no mistake: this cartridge is a handful

[meister mash]

Thanks for the good info. Same gun as yours it seems. 5" smith. I went and ordered dies last night after coming up with the hair brained ideas that I posted here. Sad to hear your results using the lee 300 grain bullet because I ordered that mould too. I have an 8lber of h110 to use and trail boss I was thinking for cast. I shot two different kinds of ammo yesterday, one using a jacketed 300 gr hp {extreme brand?} and another with a 260 grainer federal fushion. I didn't think it was all that bad other than the muzzle blast. My 44Anaconda raps my knuckles very hard and I thought It comparable other than of course the muzzle blast. The 300 grain jacketed bullets that I have are most likely Remingtons. I did switch the comp and shot 15rnds of 45colt through it too which seemed like 38 specials shooting them out of this gigantic revolver. I pop in here every once in a while because this is where the answers are. Did your revolver come with two rear sights? If so why?

[DrCaveman]

Meister

I do now see that you joined the forum several years ago
I really like the feel of the 5" smith. I think it balances pretty sweet and i dropped $100 or so on a Desantis black mamba holster. Very comfy

The lee 300 gr mold was dropping boolits a bit smaller than .452" so i beagled it. Now i just wanna see how they fit as poured, and i think i have improved at controlling boolit diameter through better pot temp and alloy control. I bet you will do great with that mold. The boolit really is a mean sucker

I agree about the muzzle blast being the worst part. Recoil is not too bad at all, nor have i found muzzle rise to be that severe. I only use the lead comp these days... That is, i WILL after i finally get all the lead out of it. Whoops

My gun did come with two rear sights, and i was just looking at them. One of them is less tall than the other, while the grooves both go down to about the same height above the frame. So the shorter one would presumably shoot lower than the other with the same load. I am still not experienced enough with revolvers to know which one i should be using, since i generally shoot heavy boolits relatively slow. Maybe someone can chime in.

[meister mash]

I've only shot the gun the one time. It's a real pizzer to shoot.
I was thinking the spare sight might be for reduced loads but I don't know.
I rang the steel targets that I suspend from an old cloths line T set into a metal base.
It smacked those suckers so hard that it turned my base or flipped my steel off the T.
By "beagle", do you mean lap the cavities out a bit? Because I ordered the 6 gang mould along with a 6 gang 140 gr swc that I intend to use for 9mm and 38 special.
It may be a pain to lap the cavities out on a 6 holer.

[Bullshop Junior]

Beagling is adding a strip of aluminum tape between the blocks.

I have the 2 cavity 300gn boolit from lee and it shoots great in my 454.

[DrCaveman]

Meister

Bullshop jr has it right, and ill add that beagling (usually) makes the boolits a little bit oval shaped. I have a few molds that seem to be the better from doing it, the lee 452-300 is not one of them.

If youre gonna try lapping them out, id experiment with a 2-cavity lee mold if you can. It probably isnt very tricky for someone experienced in metalwork & machining, but i managed to basically ruin a 6-cav lee mold due to working too fast and sloppy. Lesson learned, and now i try to limit my "lapping" to essentially just polishing (search "lee-menting). Even that is not as important as proper mold & alloy temp, in my experience. My molds never grew by more than maybe 0.0002" from my supposed "lapping". Others apparently do a lot better, but my bet is that they are better metalworkers to begin with.

[meister mash]

I read that Lee-menting post a few years back ago. It helped me through some issues that I was having. I get time and I'm going to read through it again. Sounds like with this 5" barrel, I can expect Casule velocities or less anyway as opposed to if I had a longer barreled Smith. I am not a real machinist, just some shlep with a grizzly 3 in 1 that can't do math for dyplexia.

[Whiterabbit]

the lee mold is a winner in the 460. shoots well with AA#9 in the S&W (8 inch barrel, anyways). 40 grains of powder, thereabouts. it'll be a handful, but not a max load.

I like Winchester LRM primers so I can buy one kind of primer and put them in everything I shoot. Only bummer is it's really hard on my 7x57 brass.

[meister mash]

Sounds great. My mold came and I cast about 200 of the Lee and about 300 of the 9mm bullets. But I forgot to look for 45 gas checks and couldn't find any snooping around the gun shops. So I have to aquire some of those. Dies came yesterday too. I'm good but for the gas checks.

[linecreek]

I to just found a used 460 and have the dies, brass and lee 300 gr mold on the way. If its anything like my 500 smith with the 440 gn ,ill love it.

[saleen322]

I have the 8 3/8" 460. it shoots everything pretty well but seems to excel (accuracy wise) with bullets in the 200 - 265 range. I too have the Lee 300 grain and it shoots pretty good but the NOE 265 FPGC is excellent. It will put 5 shots at or under 3" @ 100 yards. With heavy loads I use large rifle magnum primers with H110 for the best accuracy and velocity. Hope this helps and YMMV. The last pic is just for