Early days I knew Leslie Dengler at the Winchester Custom Shop pretty well. I had several Custom Shop rifles, and got in on the Big 5 Series a tad late, but near perfect timing for me.... I missed the 375 which is just as well, since I would have had no use for such....... I got in late on the #50 Series and the #97 Series that was still available, 338 WInchester, 416 Remington, 458 Winchester, and the last one the 470 Capsticks....... Speculation was that it would be 458 Lott for sure, the 470s really was not expected.........
Right from the start, neither #50 or #97 would retain cartridges in the magazine, load 3 down, work the bolt and one would pop out. I did some load development, was actively shooting both guns, but retaining was an issue. I called Leslie and had a little pow wow........ She said no one else was having that issue? I told her duh Leslie, do you really think other people are shooting them or making Safe Queens out of them? Anyway, Leslie asked me to send them up to her with some dummy rounds and they would try to get them to retain. She also stated that she was not confident in the results, they had gunsmiths, but they weren't of top tier quality, good guys, I spoke to some of them, but the experience with such things was just not up to par............... A few phone calls, and a few weeks later they thought they had solved the issue and sent them back.
Lo and Behold, both guns worked as the should...... for about 20-25 rounds each, and the retaining issue started again. Leslie did not have the expertise to sort it out. I think the 470 was just a tad bit thicker in body than the 458 Lott and it was just enough to cause a problem..............
Life went on....... shortly after 2005 I had hooked up pretty tight with Brian Alberts and JD Jones of SSK Industries. I learned that Brian was indeed "The Man", Brian could sort out nearly anything with a big bore rifle! I told him about the 470s and sent both up to him. While I had them there, I had him chop those long 24 inch tubes down to 21" and 22"....... put a serious SSK Blue on them, add NECG Barrel Band front sight and removed the rear completely. I used a scope on one, and XS Ghost Ring on the other...... The guns really lookded great to me at this point...............
#97 with 22 inch barrel.....................
#50 with 21 inch barrel...........
When I received these back from Brian at SSK, they did indeed retain cartridges in the magazine, regardless of how hard you worked the bolt and also retained during firing....... Problem Solved, or so I thought...............
With the retaining issue sorted out, I had it in mind to take these to Africa for a workout..... so I started doing some test work with bullets available at the time........
I was not having any good luck with this..............and I started noticing that there was no engraving on many of the bullets tested for terminals........?????
Just some light markings, but no engraving..........
Amazing enough both guns were shooting one hole groups at 50 yards, so before terminals I never gave the bores a thought. I never fired one past 50 yards however. I started measuring .474 caliber bullets, and found that most were .472 to .473, the only true .474 caliber bullet I measured was from North Fork......... and of course later the CEB versions.......
I put the 470 Capsticks away for a few years at this point.
When my test partner Sam Rose and I started working on various bullet designs, we slugged those two Winchesters and both came out to .477 caliber. All I can figure is that when Winchester Custom Shop ordered those barrels they got all the wrong size. My guess is, that all 125 rifles had the same barrels, it would not make sense that only mine, #50 and #97 would have oversize barrels and the rest would be .474......... I doubt it to be honest.
But in addition to the issues, we did learn something extremely valuable out of this......... Take note of just how good the Barnes Banded Solid penetrated, WITH NO ENGRAVING........... this bullet with its 65% Meplat penetrated dead straight to 57 inches and 60 inches before becoming unstable! This is quite a testament to Meplat being very important to stability! Basically "Self Stabilizing" itself for terminal straight line performance, for most of its journey.
My BAD LUCK with .474 caliber would not end with the Capsticks.......... One of the last B&Ms to be developed was the 475 B&M (.474 caliber).......... The first gun was a high polish blue 18 inch Winchester M70, and I used it for all the load development, pressure work, and Terminal performance of the new CEB and North Fork bullets we developed in .474 true.........
The second rifle was stainless 18 inch gun, with beautiful Bastogne AI Stock....... I took it to Australia to shoot buffalo in 2012 I believe........ I took one of my most favorite Aussie buffalo with it, using a 425 North Fork Expanding CPS....... bullet exited broadside heart shot.......
I shot several more buffalo with the CEB Solids and Raptors, and North Forks, no issues, until I recovered a 420 Raptor that had gone about 4 ft in depth on a Redskin and the base had ZERO ENGRAVING on it????? No other bullets were recovered, and as far as I could tell all the CEB and North Forks had penetrated dead straight............... When I returned home I sent the rifle to Brian at SSK, and it was an oversized barrel from PacNor........ they put a new barrel on at no cost. But that was the end of me and .474 caliber rifles, I never allowed another 475 B&M to be built, and I own the 3 that were built.......
I just had bad luck with .474 caliber or supposed to be .474 caliber rifles..............
And that is "The Rest of the Story"............
