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Although I hear many in South Africa have converted their 458 Lott to the 3" .458 Express Belted Magnum (Several name for this exist), there is little to nothing available in this here in the USA. It is considered a Wildcat here.
Except. It appears I have one somehow. It does not say so on the barrel, yet it gulps down a 3.9" round without a qualm. Remember the Lott MAX COAL is 3.6". The 458 Express MAX Coal is 3.8". So I wonder on the history of my CZ 550, since I obtained it second hand with a bedded Kevlar stock.
The gun responds to loads like a 458 Express, and not like a Lott. The 3" Express offers significantly more volume, so can put out the same ballistics as the Lott with about 15% less pressure. Some think this fact reduces recoil, however you cannot fool Newton's Law. For every action, an equal and opposite reaction that is.
Less pressure is a good thing certainly. No shell binding, splitting, etc. If you want more power, then you can have it - because the pressure max remains 62,000 psi.
Personally, the Lott is powerful enough, and I plan only to take advantage of the reduced pressure on my upcoming hunt in May.
Surely the idea by Badenhorst was not to have a .458 Lott on steroids - but simply to obtain 2,200 ft/sec at lower pressure due to the larger larger volume of gas available from the larger volume of propellant and a longer burn time.
"Some think this fact reduces recoil, however you cannot fool Newton's Law. For every action, an equal and opposite reaction that is".
Surely recoil is less on the .458 3" Express than in the Lott - and no law of Newton is fooled. Recoil is a force. Momentum is not a force, it is merely a vector value of mass x velocity.
Force equals mass x acceleration and not mass x velocity. It is the opposite reaction to the impulse that gives the recoil value and not the opposite reaction of momentum. Impulse is momentum applied over time. The longer acceleration time of the bullet due to slower and longer burn means a lower impulse force.
The .416 Rigby is a telling example of this. It shoots a 400 gr bullet at 2,400 ft/sec the same as a .416 Remington Magnum and a .416 Ruger. Due to its 47,000 psi as opposed to 65,000 psi the pressure curve is much lower and much wider (flatter). The recoil of the Rigby is markedly less than the Ruger and the Remington cases. I shot 10 rounds the .416 Rigby from a bench when I was sighting and practising with it in Mozambique, and shot it about 20 time afterwards in hunting. It is a mildcat. It was exactly this principle which inspired Badenhorst.