I am afraid that we have strayed a bit off course from the beginning.... 45JCE/B&M Super Shorts.... ok with me, not a worry, great discussion on several factors.......all good fun.......
I think the one I have not spent much time on is the 475 B&M Super Short.... .474 caliber. Along with its two brothers, 50 and 458, it actually is a good little cartridge. But here is the kick on it, it does not do anything that the .500 or the .458 can't do. I had no plans to actually do this or the larger 475 B&M, but I had pretty much ran the B&M course, and some lively chaps, much like many of you guys, wanted me to do the .474s...... well, OK, so off we go......... and that is really how they came about.
One issue with the .474s, there are not a lot of suitable, viable bullets for either cartridge. Remember, the 2.240---2.250 RUM has the same or close case capacity to a 458 Winchester, and this size case begs for 450 gr bullets. Well, there are not many, if any, commercially available 450s in .474 that I know of, but I have not looked at them in 10+ years either. And for the Super Short .474, there was basically nothing, a few .475 caliber pistol type bullets which is fun, but of no real consequence. So for both cartridges, I turned to Cutting Edge and North Fork once again and we came up with some very serious extreme bullets for both cartridges. We will not worry with the larger 475 B&M right now, but I do not like it, anyone that wants one gets steered to the 458 B&M, and I own all three of the ones that have been built. Now I can go further and deeper, but that is off topic for the Super Shorts.... at least in this post.
For the .474 Super Short I had CEB do a 350 gr #13 Solid, and matching 320 Raptor....... In the early days of CEB, the Name Raptor had not been conceived and we used Non-Con, short for Non-Conventional.
Over on the North Fork side of things John and I came up with a 375 North Fork Solid and a matching 375 Expanding CPS. This was Pre-Newer Profile, and I was not so enthusiastic once the new profile came on line, that I did not do the new profile for either of the B&M .474s.
I gave the first rifle built to Mark David back in 2012, he was very successful with it on Paul's Aussie buffalo and pigs using both CEB and NF bullets.
The little rifle and cartridge was pretty impressive Down Under. But where it really came to shine, and where Mark David really showed off was Zimbabwe 2014. He had grown up a bit, and honed his shooting skills to seriously incredible levels. He did a lot of shooting, and NO MISSING ANYTHING, not one shot was off. And, he did not wait around to see what happened, he ran that little gun like a semi auto it was so fast, I thought I was fast with a bolt gun, I was not even in the running with this show. First up was the hippo on the dirt.. right on the beach, he and Andrew did the sneak up, and next thing I know I heard 3 fast shots and it was done. All with the 350 #13 Solids.
Then the main attraction, his buffalo...... Once again, I lagged behind, let him and Andrew handle it, heard one shot, then a quick followup, and done......... He used the 320 Raptor for a broadside heart shot, followed by a #13 Solid. The bull went 5 steps and fell over. He was a happy boy. My rule of thumb is I like for a buffalo bullet to penetrate 20 inches in my test medium, I will go with 18" but rather have more. The 320 Raptor does not make that, but it sure worked fine, I believe we recovered the base in the hide far side.
For days every time we drove by the local village, the elders would stop us, and complain about 3 young bulls that was terrorizing them every night, every evening. Finally Coris relented, and turned to us and asked if Mark David wanted to shoot an elephant? Well, "Does a bear Crap in the Woods?" Of course we were up for it. I had Mark David load up with the 350 gr #13 Solids..... I forget the hunt exactly, but the jest of it was, we were set up in a small cleared area, not very wide, and were ahead of where these three bulls were moving along towards the village to start the evenings rampage. So we just squatted down and waited. The plan was, Mark David would take the first shot, and I get to play back up. I have the first of only two, 500 B&Ms in the field for the first time... this was a special, personal project of mine, nice gun, short 18 inch barrel, 2.5 inch RUM case and I was shooting a 450 gr #13 .500 caliber solid at 2400 fps. I was surely going to get to fire the second shot on this elephant!!!!!!! Well, here they came, Coris told Mark David to take a particular one as he passed by...... They passed CLOSE, only 10 steps away, Mark David had been versed on side brain, frontal brain, and of course heart shot from different perspectives. As the bull walked by at 10 Steps, Mark David rose to his feet and just as quickly fired a 350 Gr .474 caliber #13 Solid dead center on the side brain shot, rear end drops, followed by the head........ There was no reason at all I needed to shoot, it was done, it was over just that quick. Mark followed up with an insurance heart shot......... What an experience for a young man! And, I was very impressed with the little bullet, it exited the far side of the head as well............
I was very proud of his shooting. But crap, I never got to back up anything either......... so there is a downside to hunting with a shooter........
Some data on the 475 SS;
After I had given Mark David the first 475 SS, I had SSK build another for me, at the same time Wes touched base from Accurate Innovations and told me he had one stick of Zebra wood that was only long enough to fit a Super Short rifle........ So you know the rest of the story just from the photo....
I am not sure when this was, might have been shortly after 2014, I have no data, simply because I have never fired the rifle...... I just never felt the need to do so...............
It is fine to look at however and very unique wood.
There was just enough wood left over, Wes also made a couple of sets of 1911 grips for me, which I had two nice Commercial guns to put them on........
There are only two of these 475 Super Shorts. Mark and I have both.
There are quite a few 50 and 458 SS out in the world........ and that is as it should be. I sure have enough .474 caliber CEB and NF to feed these for the rest of our lives however....... HEH
