With long range components being hard to find and overpriced, making precision shooting difficult, I've been looking into other ways to have fun. With large caliber cast/swaged bullets in a switch barrel setup you can again use your gorified paperweight to make noise. In my case, I set myself up with a barrel vice, lug and torque wrenches and switched my 26" 7mm barrel out for a ~18" 50cal one chambered in .510WSM.
The only issue with 50cal bullets is that, while they're not hard to find, they are not cheap unless they're 50BMG surplus tips. So I decided to go cast. In general cast bullet BCs suck, they're not especially accurate and they leave pock marks in your range berms. However, they really ring the closer steel gongs, they splatter jugs of water, they massage your shoulder all while putting a big smile on your face.
I didn't want to invest in grease-groove bullets with gas checks and associated equipment so I went another route and got some dead-soft 505gr bullets for paper patching just to experiment. If everything works out I'll probably invest in a melting pot and mold. Afterall, wheel weights are free at most of my local tire shops, paper is cheap and plentiful, and I can usually find magnum pistol powders on shelves when I can't find H4350 or Varget. On top of that I can actually afford to go to the range frequently and shoot 20-50 of these.
Paper patched bullets require a little experimentation, but once you figure it out it's easy to wrap up some lead and assemble some inexpensive rounds. A 41gr low-pressure load of W296 behind a 505gr gift-wrapped slug manages ~1715fps out of my gun and blows confetti like it's New Year's Eve and never leaves any copper fouling! The soft lead has a dramatic effect on jugs of water too. 3800ftlbs of energy stops in just 3' of water and makes pretty mushrooms 1.380" in diameter, nearly 3 times the original size! Heavier loads of slower powder give even more velocity (~1850fps so far) while making a nice flash for good lighting while taking pictures.
It's been such a bummer with the ammo/component shortages and I had so much fun this weekend I just had to share. There are alternatives when your favorite precision ammo is unavailable. This Fall/Winter sometime I'd like to go try it out on some pigs down South. I keep hearing how tough they are!
Pics:
freshly rebarreled
business end
BOOM! Can you see the chrony in there? haha
crown afterward
Confetti and result of 3' of water
The only issue with 50cal bullets is that, while they're not hard to find, they are not cheap unless they're 50BMG surplus tips. So I decided to go cast. In general cast bullet BCs suck, they're not especially accurate and they leave pock marks in your range berms. However, they really ring the closer steel gongs, they splatter jugs of water, they massage your shoulder all while putting a big smile on your face.
I didn't want to invest in grease-groove bullets with gas checks and associated equipment so I went another route and got some dead-soft 505gr bullets for paper patching just to experiment. If everything works out I'll probably invest in a melting pot and mold. Afterall, wheel weights are free at most of my local tire shops, paper is cheap and plentiful, and I can usually find magnum pistol powders on shelves when I can't find H4350 or Varget. On top of that I can actually afford to go to the range frequently and shoot 20-50 of these.
Paper patched bullets require a little experimentation, but once you figure it out it's easy to wrap up some lead and assemble some inexpensive rounds. A 41gr low-pressure load of W296 behind a 505gr gift-wrapped slug manages ~1715fps out of my gun and blows confetti like it's New Year's Eve and never leaves any copper fouling! The soft lead has a dramatic effect on jugs of water too. 3800ftlbs of energy stops in just 3' of water and makes pretty mushrooms 1.380" in diameter, nearly 3 times the original size! Heavier loads of slower powder give even more velocity (~1850fps so far) while making a nice flash for good lighting while taking pictures.
It's been such a bummer with the ammo/component shortages and I had so much fun this weekend I just had to share. There are alternatives when your favorite precision ammo is unavailable. This Fall/Winter sometime I'd like to go try it out on some pigs down South. I keep hearing how tough they are!
Pics:
freshly rebarreled
business end
BOOM! Can you see the chrony in there? haha
crown afterward
Confetti and result of 3' of water
