Originally Posted by
yobuck
You have obviously done some home work with this, but I am curious as to what the objective is for you?
I am aware of your interest in long range shooting, but then there is as you well know long, and then there is very long.
On paper at least the 50 cal would far exceed all others as the ultimate cartridge for very long shooting.
Over the many years ive been involved with long range hunting, there have been numerous people I knew who were involved with 50 calibers, and some still are very involved. Years back, before all the big custom actions were available, the large German military anti tank gun built on a very large Mauser action was used by some for that purpose. There were also a few who ventured into building their own action, and Gene Graybil was one of them.
He was interested mostly with the short 50 spotter round case necked down to 338. His problem was lack of funds for all the cost involved, and ultimately the loss of the job that provided what he did have along with the type of machinery needed to produce it.
That was before the 300 gr bullets became available also. I have a few of the loaded rounds and unloaded cases for that gun, which are to say the least very impressive. I was also along on one of the test shoots at one of our hunting locations.
More recently Mark King, a well known PA gunsmith who has been building many of the winning 1000 yd benchrest guns has been very involved also. He builds them on the largest Bat action and does some "improving" to the standard 50 cal case. I have several friends with camps near ours who have within the last few years bought them from him for long range hunting. One is Frank Weber, who is a very old Williamsport shooter/record holder. In fact he might still hold a record there, and one of his sons has held them also.
Fact is though that even those very experienced shooters are having problems shooting the 50 accuratly, and the reason is recoil.
Weber has told me that he just cant shoot it while sitting at the bench, he has to be standing. To date to my knowledge, they have killed one deer with it at about 700 yds.
Another friend bought one about 4 or 5 years ago because his 338x378 just wasent getting the job done. Im told that the 50 isn't getting it done either for the same reason, lol.
Mark King and a buddy of his by name of John Buhay also a gun builder, are involved in the extreme distance shooting competition,
and especially Buhay now retired, travels to places like the NRA facility at Raton NM to do that.
They have also been involved with building and experimenting with 20 mm rifles for quite awhile.
Im told by the Webers that you could have about $10.000 invested in a setup like theirs, which I would assume would include the loading equipment. As I recall the powder charge they use is about double the 137 gr im loading in my 338, and that coupled with a 700 gr bullet for sure gets your attention when it goes off.
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