Roy Weatherby designed the 460 Weatherby Magnum, a belted, bottlenecked rifle cartridge, in 1958. It's based on a.378 Weatherby Magnum that's been necked up to take a.458-inch (11.6 mm) bullet. The.460 Weatherby Magnum was developed as an African hazardous game rifle cartridge for hunting large, thick-skinned dangerous species in Africa. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute (SAAMI) published voluntary standards for the cartridge in January 1994, hence it is not considered a proprietary cartridge.
The 460 Weatherby Magnum case is made from a necked up.378 Weatherby Magnum case. Although the.378 Weatherby Magnum case was influenced by the.416 Rigby case, it is regarded as a one-of-a-kind case that has served as the parent cartridge for various high-performance cartridges. The.460 Weatherby Magnum requires a large propellant capacity in order to propel a 500 gr (32 g) bullet at 2,700 ft/s (820 m/s).
The.460 Weatherby Magnum is intended to have headspace on its belt. Because of their tight chamber tolerance, they headspace on the belt rather than the shoulder, as opposed to most current belted cartridges, which headspace on the shoulder regardless of the belt.
Although the 460 Weatherby Magnum is a powerful cartridge, it cannot compensate for inexperience or bad aim. Harvesting bison, elk, moose, and brown bear can be performed by lowering the cartridge's performance to meet the criteria. The.460 Weatherby Magnum cartridge may be loaded to perform similarly to the.45-70 Government and the.450 Rigby. The much-decreased recoil of such loadings is a benefit.
