50 report

[Grizz]

I got out of work and headed down the highway up yonder . . .

Hung the plate, and started the process of discovery.

I fired 2 each of the 380gr hardcast, the 350gr hollow point, and the 400+gr "extreme penetrator".

And a load from the 1911 so I can see the difference in the videos.

First up the hardcast. It's the one with red powdercoat, or lipstick, whatever.
First shot low on the bottom edge of the plate. Good damage for a lead bullet.

Second shots I held the red dot up and splattered a couple of the 350gr hollowpoints.
They give themselves away by a little bump in the middle of their demise,
and otherwise just blew up.



Third shots were the "extreme penetrator". First one left no sign whatever,
the second left a "footprint" of the 4 faces of its flat nose. Have to hold it
just right in the sun to see it. Other wise it disappeared. It's possible that it
deflected intact, it's possible that it blew apart. Have to jug test them.

Then a last shot that actually penetrated into the stainless plate. I forget which
load it was !!!

After that I unloaded the 45 on the plate just to watch it dance.

All of this is on video, but the 50 hits just make the plate disappear, and there
is about 30s of dead air while I am setting up the shot...

Distances are CLOSE. About 7 yards, which is my standard OP with a new setup.

I don't think the red dot survived. But my last shot was with the 45 degree offset
open sights with a perfect sight picture, that's the shot near the wire.

I was in a place where I couldn't get any more distance and still film. The forest
access is getting shut down by the spandex collusion coalition. Grrr.

Not much of a report, except that I am extremely pleased with the new to me caliber.

I will edit the video, but don't know how to share it, it will be some megabytes.....

Oh, and recoil??? Sorry, I forgot to turn the camera on me for a shot, so I couldn't say
for sure.... but, substantially less than a 444 Marlin.


I like it. I like it a lot.

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.. Oh, BTW, for the confused ones out there,
.

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[octagon]

Glad to see this report Grizz, I can't help but think this would be a dandy setup for big pigs, you got my interest with your initial post and bullet selection. Is it your intention to chrono these loads?

[AJMD429]

I think the 50 Beowulf is great. It hasn't had the glamour advertising of the 45-caliber AR cartridges, but like 45-70 vs 444 Marlin, the larger-meplat and potentially heavier bullets make a difference.

We really have two kinds of bullets we shoot; heavy ones and light ones, and within the same size cartridge (and thus same amount of potential energy), the light ones will go fast and the heavy ones willl go slow. That's just physics.

Sometimes a compromise of something in the middle is ideal, but often if you want the best results you go to one end of the spectrum. Flattest trajectory and best penetration of hard armor goes to the light fast one, but best knock-out and flesh penetration goes to the big bowling-ball at a slower velocity.

With the Beowulf there is plenty of powder capacity to push the heavy bullets plenty fast.

The cartridge case is almost identical to the 500 S&W.

[Grizz]

Glad to see this report Grizz, I can't help but think this would be a dandy setup for big pigs, you got my interest with your initial post and bullet selection. Is it your intention to chrono these loads?

Yeah, big pigs, moose, bears, bison, elk, trucks, SUVs, etc. . .

The commercial loads have their velocity data on the box. I will eventually chronograph the hand loads... My 45/70 load is 535gr bullet at around 1410fps from a guide gun... When I hand load I will be comparing TaylorKnockOut values and water jug penetration to get the same basic terminal performance I am using now.

Doc is right, this is almost exactly the 500 mag case size, with the caveat that the AR runs at a lower pressure than the S&W pistol.

Again, I rate these commercial loads as moderate recoil, with as much difference as the difference between a 308 from a Savage 99, the old plank on edge geometry, and the PT91 roller locking blowback action, which, compared to the Savage, has insignificant recoil.

[Bill in Oregon]

Reminds me that I need to get back out there with the .458 SOCOM and continue load workup.

[Grizz]

Reminds me that I need to get back out there with the .458 SOCOM and continue load workup.

I like the idea of the 458 because I could use the collection of bullets I already have. When this upper came up on BCA there wasn't a 458 at the time, and I like this side-charging design so I decided to roll the dice on it. Now I'm glad I did. 458 should have a little better penetration, but at these heavy-for-caliber weights I don't know how it matters, especially since I dial them down in velocity any way. I am counting on TKO, OR momentum, to carry the load....

What loads does your 458 like?