Does anybody have a 460XVR?

[brauchma]

I want to shoot one of these bad. I am thinking about buying one. Anybody have one?

[ttousi]

Seismic Sam is the only one round these parts that comes to mind as a possibility.

[BRIT_in_the_weeds]

It's not big enough for Sam , it still has a 4 and a 5 at the beginning

[Seismic Sam]

Nope - the other people were indeed right, that I wouldn't own any stinking little 45 caliber poodle shooter handgun, even if it did weigh 5 lbs. The primary reason I wouldn't own one is that I don't hunt, and why kill paper with a 45 when you can do it with a 50?? IF I hunted, that would be a whole different story, and with a scope you could kill most anything with this gun out to 200 yards and hardly have to worry about bullet drop. (Yes, you'd have to THINK about it, but it wouldn't be a show stopper like trying the same trick with a DE50.)

The primary rap against this gun is the heat and pressure of the escaping gases between the cylinder and the forcing cone, and on the original guns the throats eroded VERY fast. They went to micropolishing the throats to try and deal with this, but if the erosion on my Smith 500 barrel is any indication, sooner or later the throat on a 460 WILL erode. Micropolishing essentially only delays the inevitable, and seeing as I like to shoot a lot and only kill paper, I have no reason to own a 460. If you wanted to hunt with it (deer, black bears, moose, elk, wild boars, etc.) and not do much else, I'm sure it would be a fine gun. If you were only going to hunt with it, you could afford a box of factory ammo or two to get the gun sighted in. If you shoot more than that, you would go broke UNLESS you handload. Smith 500 ammo is $2.25 PER ROUND , (and I think the 460 ammo is even MORE expensive...) but handloads with Ranier bullets only cost me about a quarter apiece. If you don't handload and shoot a 460 a lot, the ammo cost WILL eat you alive.

Ballistically, it's a lot flatter shooting gun than a 500, although with really hot Smith 500 loads the velocity gap is only 300 FPS, because you can get .500" 300 grain Gold Dots going 2,000 FPS with a Smith 500 if you want to. As far as terminal ballistics, nothing can challenge a .500" hollowpoint bullet. The other cool thing about the 460 is that Hornady went to the trouble of making a high ballistic coefficient bullet for the 460 round (it's a red ballistic tip), so that the retained energy at longer distances will be better.

[1911fan]

I wonder if the erosion problems would be so bad if you loaded that in a carbine, say a reinforced 92 action or a 1894 Marlin, I think either the 500 or the 460 would be a giggle in those platforms,

[ttousi]

Well even though Sam don't own one he is obviously a wealth of info. Thanks Sam

[Seismic Sam]

I wonder if the erosion problems would be so bad if you loaded that in a carbine, say a reinforced 92 action or a 1894 Marlin, I think either the 500 or the 460 would be a giggle in those platforms,

I would tend to think the erosion would NOT be as bad with traditional one piece chamber and barrel. From the erosion pattern on my Smith, it looks like non-laminar flow of the gases going down the barrel versus those escaping between the cylinder and forcing cone, which makes sense. If it WASN'T an artifact of a revolver setup, then every bigbore rifle ever made (45-70, 444 Marlin, 405 Winchester, all the big Sharps catridges, etc.) would have had this problem since the beginning of time, and I haven't heard of it. Part of this could also be that the 500 and 460 Smith have SAAMI pressures of 65,000 PSI, which is high as any caliber, and at those pressures steel does wear away. The Lazzeroni rifles are a prime example.

As far as getting this cartridge in a rifle platform, it's available TODAY, if you want to go with a semi-auto AR system. The original cartridge was the 458 SOCOM designed by Marty Ter Weeme, and the uppers were first made by Tony Rumore of Tromix. (Teppojutsu.com and tromix.com) In the last year or maybe 6 months, another caliber has come out of the weeds that is sort of a copy of this concept, and that's the 450 Bushmaster. I don't have the specs on the 450 Bushmaster case, but I suspect it would be pretty close to a rimless version of the 460 Smith cartridge.

[Ironbear]

I wonder if the erosion problems would be so bad if you loaded that in a carbine, say a reinforced 92 action or a 1894 Marlin, I think either the 500 or the 460 would be a giggle in those platforms,

It's not exactly a .460 or .500 S&W but.... are you thinking of something along this line?
http://www.wildwestguns.com/Bushwacker/bushwacker.html

(Available in .457 Magnum or .50 Alaskan)

[Magnum Wheel Man]

new guy here, but not new to the forums...

I looked at a 460 a few weeks ago...

... couldn't make myself drop the extra coin, & ended up with a Ruger Alaskan in 454 Casull instead...

I've got a Dan Wesson 357 Max ( the talk of errossion ), are the 460's similar ???

[DeanC]

One of my best friends has one. They are great, great fun to shoot. The 200 gr loads are (flame-throwing) pussycats. The 300 gr loads are harsh.

Bill's has it available to rent if you want to try it. One great feature is you can shoot 454 Casull and 45 Colt out of it also.