I posted a pic of the 411 Win (411 / 308) in a cartridge line-up the other day. Here are the last two 411 Win cartridges I have residing in the last magazine I have for them.



Another shot



This was a neat little project that I did about two years ago. The rifle used was a Century arms L1A1. I had fired off about 1500 rounds through the rifle as a 7.62X51 Nato and decided that it was time to improve it's terminal performance.

So I procured a 0.411 barrel and made me a 411 Win FAL. The case is simply a 308 Win necked up to .411". No other modifications. The barrel was contoured to fit the FAL gas block and duplicate the barrel shank shoulder. Other than that it was a straight tube. The chamber was cut as follows, and it worked slicker than snot. Started off with a .4375" reamer. Had the reamer specially step ground. The first 0.995" of the reamer was cut down to 0.4115" +0.0005" / - 0, which formed the free bore (there is 0.44" with the Hornady 300gr FP and 0.25" with a typical spitzer). It was cut with a 15 degree lead in chamber. The remainder of the reamer was reground to provide a diameter of 0.4365" +0.0005" / - 0, which forms the neck portion of the chamber.

The barrel was placed in the lathe and the bore indicated in. The modified, stepped, reamer was advanced into the barrel bore to a depth of 2.95". After this operation a stock 308 Win chamber reamer with solid pilot was utilized to cut the chamber itself. A 0.436" OD bushing was fitted to the solid pilot, and then was changed out for a 0.411" just prior to completing the chamber.

The ballistics of the round exceeded expectations. With 43.5 grains of a particular IMR powder (Hodgdon also has an equivalent) the Hornady 300 grain FP is propelled to 2270 fps from a 21" barrel. This is everything that the 50 Beowulf wishes it were. Feeding is flawless, although the front of the magazine had to be filed down and chamfered slightly to feed the flat points reliably. A twenty minute job. With 41 Magnum hand gun bullets, which were used for the initial work, there were many feeding issues due to the excessively short COL of the cartridge. This phenomena can still, rarely, be an issue with the Hornady 300gr FP.

No head spacing issues were experienced, although there is only about a 0.011" shoulder, so a good tight chamber is a must. The cases needed neck turned in the shoulder to neck area. The cases in the photographs above have not been neck turned and you can clearly see a step extending from the shoulder forward about 0.01". The step is a result of the brass being thicker in shoulder area of the parent 308 case. The cases were neck turned in an Atlas 6" swing lathe after necking up. The case head was chucked up in the 3 jaw with the case mouth support by a live center in the tailstock. Worked great.

A reworked Lee 308 FL sizing dies were utilized for neck sizing. I farmed out the reworking of the Lee die since it was hard! Decapping and expander ball were RCBS stock items. 7/8 X 14 SAE 4140 prehard threaded rod (Rc 38 - RC42 by spec) was used to made a decapping / expander die, as well as, a bullet seating/crimping die.

The vast majority of cases were fabricated from once fired surplus Hirtenberger 7.62X51 Nato boxer primed cases that I had fired off during the rifle's life as a 308. The cases were lubed up on the inside and decapped / expanded to 0.406" on in one stroke of the press.

The cases are 1.955" long after forming from trimmed 308 or 7.62X51 N brass. COL can be as long as the 308 Win. Base and shoulder diameters are the same as the 308 Win, the neck OD is 4.34" on the Hirtenberger cases.

After completing this thing, I read about the 50 Beowulf. Being the overly curious type I just had to have one. I sold off the L1A1 to a gentleman I know, and purchased an Alexander Arms 50 Beowulf. If I knew then what I know now I would still have the L1A1, and not have a 50 Beowulf. Too bad I did not have a digital camera when I was making / shooting this thing. It was very fun to shoot, with mild recoil, not much heavier than the 308. Of course the L1A1 weighs in at about 10 pounds.

Scott

Hmmm . . . I've thought of making a serious bear gun out of a Remington 760 or 7600 in 358 with the 10 round magazines from Cabelas. This little wildcat would be even better! Nice work, there, ScottS. Most wildcats are a bloody waste of time and effort, only good for stroking the ego of the would-be developer. This one, on the other hand, makes sense.

I have a friend with one of those rifles, I'm going to try to connect him with this thread. He loves the way the rifle shoots, but would be interested in the cartridge. According to him, with the NATO round, there is no recoil. I concur, but it can be a beast hauling that weight around the Idaho canyons in search of elk or deer. Looks like a 41 Mag on steroids!

So it was basically a short action version of the .400 Whelen? The gun probably didn't even know it was feeding something different...

Who would have thought that you can come up with such thing? Very interesting indeed! What it is about these .411 cartriges? Can it be done in true .416 caliber instead? Thanks for sharing it with us!

P.S. You are on your way to come clean!!!

Urodoji,

You are correct! The rifle suffered the same feeding gremlins as a stock 7.62X51 Nato chambered FAL. They are sensitive to COL, as are most magazines in any rifle, so the new Northfork 300gr Spitzer or the Barnes X make much better sense. Also, all the inch pattern magazines I came across needed major tweaking to get them to feed a 7.62X51W Nato round. The one in the picture would not release a 308 cartridge when I first acquired it. It took about 30 minutes of motivated filing to get it to spit out 308 cartridges with any degree of reliability. When I started the project I was using 41 Magnum handgun bullets as they were all that were generally readily available.

With the Hornady 300 gr FP the rifle routinely grouped better than 1.5" at 100 yards. Groups typically hovered around 1.25". As a 7.62X51 this particular rifle would be lucky to group 4" @ 100 yards with match ammo!

The entire point of the exercise was to do the most for the least amount of cash expended. I had a grand total of ~ $50 in chamber reamers. The dies were mostly cobbled together from existing "in-house" stock. The prehard threaded bar stock cost another $20. Reworking of the 308 die was $75. The barrel cost another $140. All together I think I had ~ $750 to $800 in the rifle and the conversion. It would have been a bit cheaper if I had not opted to replace the entire gas system, ie tube, piston, block, regulator, etc.

It is a straight forward conversion, and I do not understand why these types of conversions are not more common. The FAL is heavy, but it is FAR more reliable and potentially just as accurate as the AR platform.

If any of you are considering it, however, there is considerably more work to converting a gas operated auto loader than there is rebarrelling a bolt rifle. Bolt guns are EASY relatively speaking. I don't generally mess with bolt actions anymore, except perhaps to lap in lugs and tweak headspace.

Now if I could only talk the guy I sold the rifle to, to trade it back to me for the 50 Beowulf. Not going to happen I am afraid.

Scott

Yup, I've thought about coming up with a few switch-barrels for mine. A 358 Win for hunting, and a 260 Rem for what it shoulda been in the first place.
And I do believe a short-barreled 358 shooting 250g FP would have some tactical applications as well.

Switch barrels??? That would be a great deal of work, unless you simply wanted a straight pull. A better alternative would be switch uppers. An upper can be swapped out in 30 seconds flat, or less if properly motivated.

The 411 Win is essentially a short action, auto loading 405 Winchester.

Scott

Marty,

I agree 110%! However, Bwanabe's desire to "switch" barrels would be far easier by swapping between various uppers than changing out individual barrel/gas system groups.

That was all I was speaking to.