Model 111 458 win mag brush gun

Built this two yrs ago and got to use it this year for deer season. Wanted a big bore bolt gun for thicker brush areas where i hunt where shots are under 80 yardsfor the most part. With smaller trees/brush in the way of some of the main deer trails I generally prefer big n slow bullets approach. I used to hunt with my 870 slug gun and took a deer after the slug went thru a 1.5” sapling so i felt the theory works lol

I stumbled across a ER Shaw barrel special one december for a 24” 458 win mag small shank barrel. It was 140$ i think i figured i couldnt pass this up. I can probably load down the 458 to 45/70 levels and it should be perfect

found a donor 7mm rem mag action at local store. Chopped barrel down to 20” and recrowned. Boyds coyote praire hunter to top it off. Nikon bdc scope from a savage trophy hunter package. EGW rail. Works great.

minute of deer accuracy so far. Its good enough for my purpose so havent experimented much yet. Recoil is about as much as i want to have for this gun. Its not terrible by any means but its a good bit. My load is 300 gr hornady hp’s over 74 grains Benchmark. Advertised at 2355 fps but i bet its running nearer 2200 in this gun. Perfect deer load. H4198 also does ok.

First shot closer to center was first after adjusting scope alignment. Next 3 were the group lower left of center

I am thinking of doing the same with 45 raptor, as we are limited to straight wall cartridges here in IA. What did you use for the magazine?

Used the factory 7mm rem mag internal box but had to modify it so rounds would feed. Apparently 458 win mag boxes are tapered towards the front so i took a dremel to cut the front corner wall and trimmed a piece off then squeezed back together and welded it. Just a small amount of material, to create the taper. Then trimmed the follower to taper the front