Short Rifle barrels?

[guns-o-fun]

Pete,  I assume you are addressing the 458 Mag post.  I mentioned a belted magnum, the 350 rem mag, because it was developed specifically for short-barreled woods gun, most famously the Remington 600 series shorties.  Not all belted magnums are cannons or overpowered...anyway.  I did see that someone had a custom short-barreled encore in 375 H&H.  Looked awesome.  Part of the fun of these things is just shootin them - touching off that round and holding on for dear life!

[streak]

Petemi,
No "peeing match" intended"
I have quite an arsenal of firearms which include almost anything from .22LR to .458 Win Mag.
I purchased the .458 Win to take on safari in Africa which never materialized. After having bought the rifle I thought that I might be able to use it for brown bear hunting in Alaska as I get to go and hunt with my oldest son who lives there. Well I go to Alaska to hunt but so far only hunted caribou.
One day I was reading one of my magazines and a guy from Alabama had an article about "Going on Safari" in Alabama! Turns out he evidently had pulled the same trick as I did about purchasing a .458 Win for Africa and never got to go. So he started using his for whitetails with reduced cast loads and had fun doing it and wrote several more articles about his adventures using his .458 for hunting. I picked up on some of his loads
 and they are quite accurate and fairly mild to shoot.

So I hang on to my " Big bores" you never know when they might come in handy!!
 

[jason045]

I like my .500 shorty.  Alot.  16.5" barrel, 30.25" OAL, tips the scales at a touch under 6lbs.  Modified pallet wood stocks coated with brownells "spray grit" Shoots into one ragged hole @ 100yds.  Scout mount take away the possibility of the "weatherby eyebrow".  The bottom one is my 9 year old sons maxi.  Same barrel length and OAL but with the fluted barrel it weighs 4lbs 10oz.  It is an absolute pleasure to shoot with 158s loaded to about 1500 fps.

[guns-o-fun]

Awesome!  My 500 shorty wears synthetic stocks now - is a breeze to carry and is finally where I want it in terms of accuracy.  Love it.  I use those rubber ocular guards you can get from midway, just in case I forget myself and get a little too up close and personal with the scope.

[jason045]

I wanted to go with synthetic, but it woudnt allow me to reshape everything like i did with the pw stock.  I cut it to youth dimensions and trimmed the "fat" in the pistol grip area so the wood and metal blend togethermuch better than factory.  This made an amazing difference in the way the gun feels in hand.  Oh and the youth synthecics are WAY too thin in the butt area for a sub 6# .500.  If you dont mind me asking, what load does your shorty like the best?

[kaveman]

Jason045, those shorties look great, and by the way great job on pw stock on the 500, I have been working on a stock where I took the fat out of the pistol grip and it really changes how it handles, how does that brownells gripper compare to bedliner? Have u had a problem with it bonding to the wood stock? Thanks for the pics
                                                                          Kaveman

[jason045]

Thanks kaveman.  Since I was refinishing the metal anyway, I left the stock and receiver bolted together when I did the mods.  I used an 80 grit "tiger disk" on my 4" grinder and finished it up by hand with some 180.  By doing this I was able to give the receiver a "meltdown" treatment(rounding the angular edges) in the last 3/4" or so to the junction with the stock.  This, in turn, gave a very smooth, perfectly seamless transition.  As far as the spray grit, it has been extremely durable thus far.  No nicks or chips although I do have a few imperfections where I tried to handle it too quickly. .  It is an epoxy type paint that comes in gray, black, brown, and green I believe.  It has sandlike particles imbedded in it but is not "sharp" like sand.  In my opinion, it imparts the perfect amount of grip.  Not too grippy like a soft rubber would be and not too slick.  And for $11 bucks a can you cant beat it.[urlhttp://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=1140/Product/SPRAY_GRIT][/url]

[guns-o-fun]

Jason - mine likes Lil Gun behind the Hornady FTX.  Load is just on the warm side - certainly not a max, from the Hodgdon Data Center load sheet.  Shoots accurately and the recoil is only moderate.  Made my own OAL gauge from an unfired case by threading the primer hole and inserting some threaded stock.  I think getting the OAL right is really important for my particular gun.  Like to get it as close to the lands as I can with that particular bullet - probably still a good 0.020 or more off the lands.  You can only get it just so long with that stubby bullet, though.  At any rate - it works just fine.