|| / || Currently in production |- | style="background: #eeeeee" | Federal P458E || Barnes BS || || || / || Currently in production |- | style="background: #eeeeee" | Federal P458SA || Swift A Frame || || || / || Currently in production |- | style="background: #eeeeee" | Norma 20111102 || Barnes BS || || || / || Currently in production |- | style="background: #eeeeee" | Norma 20111202 || Swift A Frame || || || / || Currently in production |- |colspan="6" align="left" | Values courtesy of the respective manufacturer. MPBR/Zero values courtesy of Big Game Info. Temperature: Altitude: † Discontinued |} Criticism The .458 Winchester Magnum has had critics in its over 50 years of existence. By the late 1960s, professional hunters such as Jack Lott and others, suspected performance issues with .458 Winchester Magnum ammunition, particularly as produced by Winchester. Winchester loaded the cartridges with a ball powder that required compression to fit enough in the .458 short case to provide required performance. In time, however, the compressed powder charge "caked," causing erratic burn and poor performance levels. By the 1970s, Winchester rectified this issue by manufacturing the cartridge with non-clumping propellant. While the design specifications had called for a bullet at through a barrel, hunters wanting a lighter, handier faster swinging rifle were gravitating towards rifles sporting shorter barrels. Barrel lengths became the norm with hardly any rifle manufacturer producing .458 rifles with barrels greater than . Shorter barrels, as expected, produced reduced performance levels due to lower attainable velocities. When fired from these shorter barrels, chronograph velocities fell from , in line with expectations. However, the .458 Winchester Magnum cartridge was blamed for the loss of performance, and Winchester was accused of over-stating the cartridge's performance. Due to the negative publicity, Winchester increased the performance of the .458 Winchester Magnum, which allowed the bullet to achieve . While Winchester, like most .458 Winchester Magnum ammunition manufacturers (except Norma), continues to state velocities achieved from the test barrel, the velocity from a barrel is in keeping with the original expectations of the cartridge. See also 11 mm caliber .458×2-inch American .450 Marlin .458 Lott .458 SOCOM .50 Beowulf List of rifle cartridges Table of handgun and rifle cartridges References Pistol and rifle cartridges Winchester Magnum rifle cartridges