Solid before soft point

[Brian]

My next hunt may be for 6 old cows. using my 50-110 Winchester. 410 grain CEB Safari Raptor at 2150 FPS and 450 grain CEB Safari solid bullet at about 2050 fps. I have not yet used the solid, the 410 Raptor has alway worked for a drt kill. Rifle is a TC Encore with a MGM 24" barrel and a small self made Tank type, muzzle brake. ( No it is not too loud.) Brian

 

[Rafiki]

My next hunt may be for 6 old cows. using my 50-110 Winchester. 410 grain CEB Safari Raptor at 2150 FPS and 450 grain CEB Safari solid bullet at about 2050 fps. I have not yet used the solid, the 410 Raptor has alway worked for a drt kill. Rifle is a TC Encore with a MGM 24" barrel and a small self made Tank type, muzzle brake. ( No it is not too loud.) Brian

Brian, what powder are you using? I see you are getting 2150fps for a 410gr bullet; I'm getting 2064fps with a 575gr bullet out of my 50-90. I have a tad more case capacity to work with but regardless that seems like a sizeable difference.

 

[Surgeon1]

Do you have mechanical sights or an optical one with a double barrel?

Trijicon Red Dot on all but one of my doubles. Have had great luck with them even years ago in 3-gun competition, only failure was a month ago when a newly installed Eveready disc battery split in to and forced me to remove sight in the middle of a stalk on 2 Grant's Zebra Stallions. But even with irons it worked out well..... Bang-Bang in less than 5sec at 65 & 85 yds both dead done!

 

[Brian]

Brian, what powder are you using? I see you are getting 2150fps for a 410gr bullet; I'm getting 2064fps with a 575gr bullet out of my 50-90. I have a tad more case capacity to work with but regardless that seems like a sizeable difference.

50-90, Nice case.
I load 75.9 grains of VV 530, one card on top of the powder.
I went to my notes before posting this and I realized that I never did chronograph this load. My old chronograph quit on me before got around to it. So, my MV might be more like 2050fps or even less.
( I have been telling myself that the MV 2150 fps for a long time. lol.
My 50-110 is actually a custom chamber for a true .500 cal like 500 S&W, not .510.

Your MV of 2050 sounds right to me. What rifle is it. Please say it's 1886 Win!

 

[Rafiki]

50-90, Nice case.
I load 75.9 grains of VV 530, one card on top of the powder.
I went to my notes before posting this and I realized that I never did chronograph this load. My old chronograph quit on me before got around to it. So, my MV might be more like 2050fps or even less.
( I have been telling myself that the MV 2150 fps for a long time. lol.
My 50-110 is actually a custom chamber for a true .500 cal like 500 S&W, not .510.

Your MV of 2050 sounds right to me. What rifle is it. Please say it's 1886 Win!

Ruger No 1.

I'm currently using H335 at 95% load density with Peregrine bullets; can't remember exactly but 80.? grains. I just recently lengthened the throat to gain a bit more case capacity on my quest for 2150fps.

 

[Rafiki]

My 50-110 is actually a custom chamber for a true .500 cal like 500 S&W, not .510.

Curious about why you chose .500 over .510. isn't a 50-110 a .500 bore? I just don't see the advantage unless it's a availability thing; that you can shoot pistol bullets at less cost.

What did you do about brass and dies?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm a bit of a nerd about this stuff.

 

[Brian]

Ruger No 1.

I'm currently using H335 at 95% load density with Peregrine bullets; can't remember exactly but 80.? grains. I just recently lengthened the throat to gain a bit more case capacity on my quest for 2150fps.

No. 1 Very nice. Lengthening the case. Good move. I am thinking about doing that with a 45-70 barrel for my TC.
At 2150 fps you will get excellent expansion with the Peregrine bullet.

 

[Brian]

Curious about why you chose .500 over .510. isn't a 50-110 a .500 bore? I just don't see the advantage unless it's a availability thing; that you can shoot pistol bullets at less cost.

What did you do about brass and dies?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm a bit of a nerd about this stuff.

Good question. Yes, it's just a 50-110 Win (.510 to .512 bore.) with a .500 bore.

When I was building the rifle I was in contact with Michael 458. He had developed his series of B&M cartridges, 500 B&M Long, 500 B&M Super Short, 500 MDM. and also had developed a series of "Safari" .500 bullets that are now manufactured and marked by Cutting Edge Bullets. I was impressed with his work and his range of .500 cal bullets appealed to me so I just got carried away and made my 50-110 Winchester into a ".500-110." ( .500 bore)
It was more of a whim, thats all. The only logical thing about it was that first, I already was into 500S&W and secondly I thought that I might do more cartridge development .500. But I never did.

I want to say also that your 50-90 has the same velocity per bullet weight as the mighty 500 NE. That's a good thing.

 

[Rafiki]

I want to say also that your 50-90 has the same velocity per bullet weight as the mighty 500 NE. That's a good thing.

Yes, that was the intent, same performance as a 3" NE case with 2 1/2" Sharps case. They are both black powder cartridges where the NE made the jump to smokeless and Sharps didn't. With "traditional" bullets that was pretty easy to achieve but as you know mono-bullets are a bit different. I ran out of case volume to stay within my parameters.

I'm a believer in bullet mass over velocity. I could have reduced the bullet weight to get more powder in but I wanted the weight so I extended the throut to have more volume to play with.

The other somewhat related thing is that the 500 NE 2150fps advertised sweet spot is from a 28" barrel where mine is a 25" barrel. That's a 3" difference at about 20fps per inch so apples to apples I'm about there now.

 

[Brian]

Yes, that was the intent, same performance as a 3" NE case with 2 1/2" Sharps case. They are both black powder cartridges where the NE made the jump to smokeless and Sharps didn't. With "traditional" bullets that was pretty easy to achieve but as you know mono-bullets are a bit different. I ran out of case volume to stay within my parameters.

I'm a believer in bullet mass over velocity. I could have reduced the bullet weight to get more powder in but I wanted the weight so I extended the throut to have more volume to play with.

The other somewhat related thing is that the 500 NE 2150fps advertised sweet spot is from a 28" barrel where mine is a 25" barrel. That's a 3" difference at about 20fps per inch so apples to apples I'm about there now.

Yes, when it comes to big bores, especially the 50s, velocity is not nearly as significant as bullet weight, design and construction. ( the Peregrine bushmaster does like a minimum MV of 2000 fps due to it's plunger expansion design.) Brian