Furthermore, new regulations prohibiting the hunting of heavy, thick skinned, dangerous game with sub-.40 caliber (10.16 mm) cartridges were being enacted in some African countries.

These regulations would essentially ban the use of all previous Weatherby cartridges for the hunting of elephant, African Cape buffalo and rhinoceros.

During Weatherby's partnership with J.P. Sauer/Dynamit-Nobel, production at Norma ceased and shifted to RWS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dynamit-Nobel.

[7] The Commission Internationale Permanente pour l'Epreuve des Armes à Feu Portatives (CIP) has also provided specifications for the cartridge to which all member states must comply when exporting, importing or manufacturing ammunition.

[12] CIP recommends that rifling commence at .975 in (24.8 mm) from the case mouth reflecting the longer leade provided by Weatherby in the early 1960s.

[13] Typically a full-metal-jacketed or monolithic solid type bullet will penetrate more than 40 in (1.0 m) when impacting a dangerous game animal such as the Cape buffalo or African elephant.

The .460 Weatherby Magnum provides a significant step up in performance over other production .458 caliber (11.6 mm) cartridges.

This is due to Weatherby's (Norma) factory loaded ammunition using Hornady's DGS and DGX bullets which have identical G1 ballistic coefficients of .295.

For this reason, the mono-metal bullets similar to the Barnes TSX may have to be seated more deeply into the case displacing volume which could be filled with the propellant.

At present only the modern classic .700 Nitro Express exceeds the performance of the .460 Weatherby and then in only a single category: energy.

When loaded to its full potential it has little use outside this primary use - although it can be used to hunt any species, there are far better cartridge choices for other game animals.

At the 250 yd (230 m) mark, the .460 Weatherby has enough remaining energy and velocity to make quick kills on elephant.

The capability of the .460 Weatherby Magnum to hold flatter trajectories with appropriate bullets provides the cartridge the ability to take African plains game at distances beyond 250-yard (230 m) with no holdover adds to the versatility of .460 Weatherby Magnum as an all round African game cartridge.

Harvesting of bison, elk, moose and brown bear can however be accomplished by reducing the performance of the cartridge to match the requirements.

The .460 Weatherby Magnum cartridge has the flexibility to be loaded to duplicate the performance of the .45-70 Government[34] to the .450 Rigby[2] - and have significantly lower recoil.

The California Style Monte Carlo stock's slanting comb will under recoil push away from the shooter's face.

[35] The rifle stock is also designed with a generous cast off to help tame the heavy recoil of the .460 Weatherby Magnum.

The rifles are ruggedly build to perform well with hard recoiling cartridges such as the .460 Weatherby Magnum, .500 A-Square, .577 Tyrannosaur.

[41][42] The cartridge's performance even at 200 yd (180 m) leaves enough energy necessary to bring down large dangerous thick skinned game.

It also has the added benefit of preventing the hunter from getting their eyebrow cut by the scope, which is not uncommon with a firearm with as much recoil as the .460 Weatherby Magnum.

Even with a 12 lb (5.4 kg) rifle (scope, base, rings and cartridges included) the recoil against the shooter's shoulder is measured at 100 ft⋅lbf (140 J).

Among bullet manufacturers Barnes, Hornady and Lyman provide reloading data in their manuals for the .460 Weatherby Magnum.

Powder manufacturers Accurate Arms, Hodgdon and Norma have also provide reloading data for the cartridge.

Roy Weatherby contacted Charles L. Horn, the founder of Federal Cartridge Company and explained his problem.

This primer was created specifically to provide reliable ignition for compressed powder charges in large capacity cases.

Most Weatherby manufactured rifle chambers are machined to very tight tolerances making full length resizing has little effect on extending the case life as the cartridge brass does not have to be worked as much to reform it.

Safari hunters had variously reported the 500-grain (32 g) round nose bullets' fragmenting and the solids' deforming and core separation[21] which lead to poor terminal performance on heavily boned animals.

[10] Subsequently, Hornady introduced the 500-grain (32 g) InterBond FMJ (IB-FMJ) and RN (IB-RN) bullets which featured a brass jacket with a welded lead core.

[56] Hornady has since developed the copper-clad steel-encased bonded core DGX and DGS bullets rated for a velocity of 2,600 ft/s (790 m/s).

The large case capacity of the .460 Weatherby Magnum lends itself to various forms of conversion and experimentation.