The brand new .458 275grn Bullet is only .985" long. Sabotloader was explaining to me how some states don't allow a bullet to be 1" or longer. The lehigh .458 300grn is 1.1" inches long. So in some states that's to long. Dave at Lehigh corrected that problem real fast for the guy's looking for a Moose, Elk, Bear, and Mule Deer bullet. And the good news is it shoots extremely well in a variety of twist's and Muzzleloaders.

The first Muzzleloader up was my Stainless Steel and Black Knight Vision. Ever since changing the rings and bases to warne this gun seems to be very accurate and reliable with BH209 and the new breech plug. This gun was very clean and oiled pretty well so i snapped off three primers before loading and shooting.

Now i loaded the ML up with 120grns of BH209 by volume. I really wanted to put more in but i didn't. I figured i would use a factory reccomended load of BH209. I do know Knights manual suggests up to 150grns of loose 777 with a 275grn bullet. And most people know BH209 works with equal or less pressure then 777 with equal bullets and powder charge.

The first group here was a 5 shot group at 100yds. This group included the fouling shot which was a pretty oily barrel. The average MV with 120grns by volume with a Orange .458 MMP sabot was 1992fps. This was also with a Federal 209A primer.



Later on in the evening i decided to shoot this same load at 200yds. I can tell you i do not practice this at all. And to be honest i hardly ever shoot at 200yds. This is no means great but plenty good for me. I really believe someone else could cut this group in half. The first two shots are one hole. The third shot is the one to the right. I will say it was a little breezy when shooting these.

BTW- This is a $175.00 Muzzleloader in the Sportsman's guide.



As you can see i am extremely happy with this bullet and Muzzleloader.


I will say i spent alot of time at the range today and decided to shoot BH209 in my Savage. I did make a slight change with it. The Savage only has a 24" barrel so i decided to up the powder charge to 130grns of BH209 by volume. I used the same .458 275grn Lehigh bullet. I really didn't expect to see this that's for sure. And yes, i quit after three shots. I was going to shoot 5 shots but decided not to mess this one up.



After seeing 2 Rams and 5 Hogs shot with Lehigh bullets. It's very safe for me to say it's by far the best bullet i ever used. All other bullets really arent even close in performance on game. Some are more accurate and have better BC'S no doubt. But for harvesting animals, the Lehigh design is superior. And i know alot of people are going to see that this fall for themselves.

Well the accuracy sure seems to be there. Those kind of groups are hard to argue.

Getting back to the game stopping ability of the bullet. We saw from the pictures of the hog hunt your friends and you participated in earlier this spring that the Lehigh bullets do put a tuff animal on the ground. In your opinion, do you feel there was excessive damage to the body of the animal? I am of the opinion I'd rather loose a pound of meat and plant that animal where it stands, then save that pound of meat and have the animal run off.

That .458 diameter, I am guessing were shot from the MMP Orange .458 sabot? What would you think happen if these bullets were shot at a lower velocity? For instance, my Wolverine and my original Disc have a 22 & 24 inch barrel respectively. So ifa powder charge of say 110 grains of Triple Seven were used. Would that be enough to make the bullet behave? What if a person dropped that down to even 80 grains of powder?

As you can see, the bullet has my interest...

cayugad, The savage has a 24" barrel. That was one of the reasons why i used it. The other was because it has a 1/24 twist. The Knight Vision is 1/28 twist. I don't think anyone would have any issues at all with 110grns of 777 with any of the bullets.

80grns of 777 is like two pellets i believe. I really don't know the answer to that. I have no reason to believe there would be a problem at all.

As far as meat damage??? I would say a 3" to 4" circle is fair. Maybe a pound of meat would be a guess. Not much at all in my honest opinion. If you hit the animal right, that's all ground meat anyway. Very easy to cut that out either way. The petals that sheared stayed in the chest cavity and caused all the internal damage and a fast humane kill. Remember, i saw a Pig gut shot and it went 15 or 20yds and died instantly. No second and third shots needed and it died very fast.

The design of the bullet is superior. The people who use it will see it. The one's who don't wont. The Lehigh is not another Mushrooming bullet. The bullet is designed not to mushroom. It's new Technology to make it simple.

I can easily live with that kind of damage. I was thinking in terms of a whitetail. I've shot them with conicals and the damage has been terrible. I guess one reason I still use roundball. But this bullet is interesting. And where I am hunting now, planting them where you can is important. If they run into the "thick" (as we call it) they can be a real job to get them out.

That group with the Savage must have made you smile a lot. Also 200 yards is a long way out there. That would be some exceptional shooting for that distance.. Nice shooting there.

Cayugad, IMHO, what I see this bullet and all LH for that matter do is shed their HP peddles shortly after inpack, then they become a wide metplat bullet. they don't over expand from that point on they just penitrate. The wounding ability of a wide metplat is the direct results of tissue spray off the flat nose. 1500 fps is the ideal maximum for this, if the speed is higher there is a larger hole but slower killing effect due to the destroyed tissue cells automaticly clotting and slowing the blood flow. Now Grouses initial velocity is much higher than ideal, but it takes energy to blow the nose off these bullets, there is no free lunch, so the energy transfer slows them down.

The reason they are effective isn't because they are holow pointed, it is the become a wide metplat bullet!

I have also killed much game with a conicle and have thrown alot of meat out. it has been my findings that the soft conicle creats tolarge a metplat for its speed and this results in to much damage.

Get a copy of Veral Smiths book for his LBT Mold "Jacketed Performance from Cast Bullets"company and al of this will be explaned in laymans terms.

Some here have stated poor results from a hard cast bullet w/ a wide metplat, it is my opinion that they were driving them to fast and that is why they had poor results. I have had excelent results with Cast and a big metplat but I understand the relaition ship of metplat size and speed to acheive the proper "DV" (Displacment Velocity).

just my 2 cents and change!

I have not shot or bought and have no desire to shot any Lehigh bullets. I am very happy with my LBT LFN hard cast, that I cast myself. that doesn't mean I don't see that they are a good bullet. I new of Lehigh Dave when he first started tinkering with bullets. John Eggleston was one of the first to us a lehigh in 50BMg 1000 yard shooting, i beleive he placed very well with them and many competitive shooters today launch them.

As soon as a expanding bullet mushrooms it is simply a wide metplat bullet! the problem is controlling the metplat size. hence to much metplate for speed, now there is to much tissue damage!

Grouse45: That's some good shooting....thanks for yourreport!

Can you post a pic of this 275gr bullet ... and another pic of the bullet in the MMP sabot ?

I don't see this bulletlisted on their site yet.Is it available now ?

There will all ways be a difference in needs depending on the area and circumstances under which people find a place they can hunt. All bullets will take game under the right circumstances granting a good hit, Personally my preference is a double lung hit and a bullet that will stop a game animal in his tracks or close to it. Part of the reason for this is where I hunt the Little Red River is on the east edge of my property it has a very fast current and is deep any animal that gets into it is gone. Since I need to stop game very quick and prefer to shoot the lungs instead of the meat the more damage the better. Since I sometimes need to shoot 200 yards, I need enough velocity to make that practical.
The idea of of the hollow point breaking up and delivering a large amount of energy at a certain depth is new to a lot of us, but we all did know that a bullet with a large metplat that penetrates deeply will kill; I am very interested in the idea of combining the two.
As far as the meat loss is concerned there is not much meat on the ribs over the top of the heart [ about 2-3 inches above] where I aim any how.

+1. Where I hunt even a double lung hit that runs results in a 50yd death run at dusk may may lead to recovery problems. It's extemely thick pines and scrub oak. By the next A.M., there's a good chance the coyotes or racoons have been on it.

I can't blame the bullet I'm currently using... but if anotherbullet works for better for my circumstances...

rt_con

Tom must be out shooting...

He did send me a picture last night...



From this picture there are a couple of thing I would like to mention, and the pciture is not complete yet as there will probably be one more bullet to add to this collection, a .400/185 grain. But the other things that are notible, in the background you can see the red case with all those good looking blonde bullets neatly tucked in - that is the way they come to your door - packaging that protects...

Another thing, something that I personally like, look at the bullets themselves - they look like bullets - smooth lines and they have a great taper. For a lack of a better term, somebody that knows the term can correct me, but notice the barrel (body) of the bullet it offers a long surface area - that surface area pushed into a sabot then pushed down the bore will offer more surface for the bullet to catch the lands and grooves and get the best rotation possible out of the barrel.

This new 275 is a vision, if I can call it that. Here is one of my first pictures of Lehighs.



If you look at the bullet on the far right - it is a .458/300 grain Lehigh currently offered by Lehigh to 45-70 shooters and it has proven to be very successful for them. You can see i compared it to my current elk bullet a .458/300 gr. Nosler Partition PP - this bullet has been my bread and butter for elk. The Lehigh when I first looked at it - I did not like the the length nor did I like the deep grooves - the grooves prove to be very helpfull for 45-70 and the twist rates of the 45-70 can handle the length just fine - I was concerned about a 1/28 twist rate.

My question to Lehigh Dave and Tom was can you produce this bullet without the grooves and under 1 inch long. My thoughts... with out the deep grooves would not the bullet be more areodynamic and there are some states out west and maybe in the east that require the bullet to be no longer than 2x the bore. I also asked if the cannureling(sp) ring be put in the bullet to add grip to the sabot. My thoughts again in my mind - this just might make an excellent elk-moose-bear bullet - especially if the new theory of Lehigh actually worked.

From this discussion came the .458/275 (i think) but right now I do not care how it came about - Lehigh Dave built it - Tom proved that it will shoot - Lehigh Dave says the tip works - Tom and others showed that on the hog trip. I am really thinking this might be a great all-around bullet for big game in the west - probably way more than you need for whitetail - but if you are hunting elk and deer at the same time - got to be a consideration. Another thought some of you guys that shoot 45-70's would this bullet be of interest to that crowd?

So all I have got to say get them up on the web site so I can buy some.

Sorry about the length - but I am excited about this offering....