I have been interested in this little baby since the first time I read about it a couple years ago. The problem is I can't seem to find any actual independent info on it. i.e. I can't find anything from anyone who actually owns one. I have found several posts from people who stated they either intended to or thought of buying one of these. I was just wondering if anybody has.

I was in the same boat. I wanted a "BIG" .20 but couldn't find out much on the SMC, I ended up with a .20 Dasher (.20 BR improved with a 40 degree shoulder). I believe ballistically they are real close.



Very accurate round in a good rifle.



I believe the SMC is quite similar to my Dasher but has a radiused shoulder.

I would go with a 20 PPC or 20 BR. I shoot the 20 BR in a Savage 12 with a Pacnor heavy SS barrel. Thing shoots very accurate and very fast. You can push the 32's to 4700fps! I personally shoot the 32 at 4500 and the 40's at 4200 (most accurate loads). Miniscule recoil, good efficency and a real death ray to the varmints it meets up with.

You can even utilize 22Br dies and simply get the correct bushing for sizing. Lots of great Lapua brass for components.

Stormbringer
new member
I would go with a 20 PPC or 20 BR. I shoot the 20 BR in a Savage 12 with a Pacnor heavy SS barrel. Thing shoots very accurate and very fast. You can push the 32's to 4700fps! I personally shoot the 32 at 4500 and the 40's at 4200 (most accurate loads). Miniscule recoil, good efficency and a real death ray to the varmints it meets up with.

You can even utilize 22Br dies and simply get the correct bushing for sizing. Lots of great Lapua brass for components.

Posts: 73 | Location: Fruit Heights, Utah | Registered: 01 April 2003 Reply With Quote

You get 4,200fps out of a .20 BR with a 40 grainer? Amazing! That's what I get out of the .20 Dasher with considerably more capacity. You must have a real fast barrel or maybe I'm just a tame reloader. Can't argue with your assessment of the 20 PPC or .20 BR however both are great rounds



Left to right; .20 VarTarg, .20 Killer Bee, .20 Tactical, .20 BR, .20 Dasher.
The .20 Dasher has comparable capacity to the 5MM SMc as I understand it.

So are any of the above cheaper to build than a 5mm-35 SMc? What kind of barrel life do you expect out of each of the 4000+ fps speed demons?

Jimmy: Savage Custom Shop is building the 112 LRPV model in the 5x35SmC...two have been to my home range, getting prepped for prairie dog shooting.
Not my choice in a hot-rod .20, but the guys owning the Savages loved them dearly. Another shooter has one on a Rem 700 action.
Barrel life? I'm assuming rather short, and the 20 BR seems much more friendly, for dies, brass, etc.

Me, I shoot a 20-222 Improved (shortened 204R chamber)....nice and efficient for a .20.

Greg

I believe Muleriders right, the Savage would be the most cost effective way to get it done and most of em I've seen shoot like crazy. Mine is a full on wild cat and needs a custom reamer, custom dies and a rifle to build it on. I used a 40X and there has to be any number of cheaper ways to get er done.
As to barrel life I discussed this at length with Greg Tannel the smith who did my rifle. At the risk of starting a war I'd say that Greg's explanation made perfect sense and I think there are a lot of misconceptions about velocity vs barrel life.

Hot rods like my Dasher or that SMc are by nature over-bore, it takes boo-coo powder to get that kind of speed. According to Gregs explanation which as I mentioned made perfect sense, at least to me (by the way he's a metallurgist as well as a smith), metal starts to melt at approx 1,700 degrees if memory serves.
If you fire one round out of my rifle with a cold barrel it will not reach 1,700 degrees at the throat and nothing gets "eaten" so to speak. First round might heat the throat to (arbitrarily) lets say 400 degrees, fire another real fast it might go to 700 (Just making up numbers here but you get the idea), fire again fast 1,200. At the point you've shot enough of those big charges of powder to get the retained heat to 1,700 degrees every shot after that will take a nibble of your throat.
Bottom line is if I took my Dasher (or that SMc) to a p-dog town and lost all control running 34.7 grains of powder down that .20 caliber bore behind a 40 grainer as fast as I could till the targets ran out I could toast that barrel in no time at all.
If however I use it for it's intended purpose and shoot 20 or 25 rounds a day at long range rock chucks over the course of a day at 65 degrees ambient temp and it cools between each shot the barrel life will be in the multiple thousands. For the purpose I built this rifle it will last for years and then I'll re-barrel it which is no big deal. How much will power do ya have?
What I would look at is your intended purpose. I couldn't be more pleased with my rifle cause it completely accomplishes the task I built it for. For all around p-dogg'n, jack rabbits, and general varmint smacking a lot of the choices mentioned by the other posters would probably make you a lot happier. The .20 VarTarg moving a 32 grain .20 cal V-Max at close to 3,800fps generating little heat, capable of amazing accuracy almost zero recoil is a fantastic round and you can order dies out of Sinclair or Lock-Stock-and-Barrel. The .20 Tactical is similar only on the .223 case instead of the .221 so it's got a lot more snap (mine does 4,175 with the 32 and 3,900ish with a 40, great round). Lots of neat rounds to choose from. I'm not sure ya need a Ferrari for a first car .
As Mulerider well knows the real answer is multiple rifles, like golf clubs in golf bag. From little ones all the way to the big bangers like the 5MM SMc.
Sure don't mean to lecture. I love sub-.22 calibers and after having a few of em ya learn the mistakes ya made when ya first started. They are indeed an affliction. Good luck and keep us posted.

Doug,

Good explanation from your gunsmith...

I have to admit, that I have heard some good results from a few guys using blue dot in the 20/250 AI.. and wonder if the 20 BR wouldn't follow suit....

The less powder burned the less throat wear.....
and Blue Dot loves short fat cases like the BR or PPC cases.. especially with lighter bullet weights like available in the 20 cal bores...

I'm going to have to try to secure a 20 BR barrel for one of my Savages.. and see what it yields...

ya know, with Lapua brass and a 22 BR die, with a 20 cal neck bushing, and neck sizing capability, and Blue Dot's potential in that case... all of that has a lot going for it...

that and the 17 Fireball are at the top of my list of varmint cartridges to play with...

http://www.varminthunter.org/downloads/Issue59.pdf

here is an article on it from the Varmint Hunter Magazine...

Thanks Seafire. Most of that was so far over my head that I was looking at contrails but a good read and most interesting, I do appreciate your posting it.
A couple thoughts on the substance of the article would be that to me the "big" .20's are at their best with heavier bullets and require faster twist barrels. My Dasher was built with the 40 V-Max in mind for long range mountain rock chucking and I used a Pac-Nor 1 in 11 twist 3 groove Super Match barrel finished at 27 inches, some of my friends with big .20's focused on the 50 grain Berger's and went with 1 in 9 twists.
As I see it if the 30 Bergers and various 32's are your plan rifles like the VarTarg and smaller wild cats up to a maximum of the .20 Tactical or .204 Ruger are about max. My .20 Tactical and custom chambered .204 (zero free-bore and minimum spec chamber) are about the biggest cases to efficiently handle the lighter bullets. Either of those moving a 32 grainer at just under 4,200fps will really mess up a p-dog and they generate heat about on par with a .223 shooting 50's but are legitimate 500+ yard performers (actually even they are better with 40's at those kinda distances.
In truth IMO, smaller .20's like the .20 VarTarg or the .20 Killer Bee about 4 of us have (.218 Bee necked to .20 cal and shoulders blown out to 40degrees.) Will do a great job on about 90 percent of the varminting a guy does and do it with 16 to 18 grains of powder using 32's at around 3,800fps.
Again all this is just my opinion and I freely admit to being a bona-fide small caliber junkie and loving every minute of it .

Ya know Doug.. I don't consider myself a small caliber junkie.. but some of these little critters can get addicting...

I just never have been able to buy into the 17 HMR mystique... but these little centerfires sure fill the void that the 17 rimfires never could....

Being a bona-fide small caliber junkie I am real fond of not only the HMR but the .17 M2 as well. Having said that I'll explain, we have about a gazillion Richardson's ground squirrels we call gophers around here and shooting a brick and a half of .22 long rifle ammo in a day in an infested field is not uncommon. In the spring it's real common to see pickup's driving around in pastures with a 10-22 hanging out both windows. We use the same sophisticated approach to p-dogs only we frequently have a bench in the back of the truck. The .17 MachIV and new .17 Fire Ball are also great by-the-way for those long shots!


Montana benchrest above.

Having explained that I will also say one of the best gopher-smuckers out there is the HMR, in fact my wife has pretty much claimed my CZ452 HMR for both gophers and p-dogs. Down side is the price of ammo. I also claim the .17 Ackley Hornet (pictured on a CZ 527 platform) as a personal favorite gopher/p-dog rifle and loading for it is just about a dead push with HMR ammo at todays prices (fortunately I stocked up big-time back when Mid South had the Hornady ammo for a bit over $7.00 a box).
I guess I've high-jacked this thread long enough, Sorry.

Actually I have enjoyed reading everything so far. Where do you get one of those tables at?

Jimmy that is a "Varmint Masters-BR Pivot", it's a 360 degree swivel bench. Certainly not inexpensive but when you spend as much time as I do turning rodents into worm and magpie food it's easily justified, especially if your as will power challenged as I am. In short I like it a lot.

I'll second Dougs opinion on the 17 HMR as the best ground squrl rifle I have used. I have tried the 22 Hornet, 22 LR, 22 Mag, 20 BR, 223, 17 Rem and some larger stuff too. The only bad thing about the HMR is the ammo but it beats reloading hundreds of cases after a long day pounding the little fellows.

A hunting buddy of mine Ackman (Dave Loren) loves his 17 ackley hornet. He has killed many thousands of critters with that darn contender.

Mike.

This is my beloved bride holding my then new .17 Ackley Hornet in front of a rock chuck that should'a kept his head down.



That was done at about 185 yards, that 5MM SMc would'a done the same thing from 500.

the article is interesting, but any writer who needs to make it a point to tell you what brand of scope he has on the rifle...yeah...

So, these two guys develop a 20BR with half a Wbee shoulder on it to complicate forming brass, that shoots as well as the 20BR...the shoulder thingie lets them patent it.

It's cute, and nice to see that Savage supports such thinking. What I would have preferred is someone winning a 500/600yd BR match with one...that's the proof of the pudding. Far too many of these "Wunderkindern" never get past rave reviews in a magazine.

Rich
DRSS
Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost...

I haven't seen anywhere where the 5MM SMc has been touted as a bench rest round. Even if it had I don't see that cementing it's future in factory rifles where they would obviously like to stake a claim. The 6MM BR and .22 BR have certainly won some matches but they sure aren't tearing up the patch nor are they chambered in anything except possibly the 40X that I'm aware of.
The SMc rounds are intended as long range varmint whackers I believe. Let's face it, the whole shooting industry for farther back than an ole fart like me can remember has been predominately just taking one case tweaking it a bit and putting a new name on it. The list of these is long and distinguished and has actually brought out more than a few true classics.
Having said that I'm inclined to agree with you in that if I had to bet I'd bet the SMc rounds are high on endangered species list as factory rounds go. On the other side of that my wildcat .20 Dasher which is real close to the 5MM SMc ballistically took it's first varmint (a rock chuck) at a Leica'd 497 yards (I ranged him 5 times after I popped him cause I wanted it's first kill to be 500 yards, he must have fallen forward )
I guess time will tell. Heck I'll admit it for me as a wildcatter having something no one else does is a big part of the fun.
Oh, I also agree I'm not personally fond of the radiused shoulders but that's just me.

A gentleman I know locally, whom does a lot of work on Contenders and Encores, recent sat down with Mick McPherson for an evening at his place... and discussed a lot of stuff... including Mick's rounds here...

The Radius gig, seems to help it being a potential Encore single shot round...But as for myself, I see it as just another attmept to re invent the wheel... the radius is a good idea for Single Shot breakopen set ups... but for the rest of us...or at least Seafire...

a 20 BR would be just fine instead...

By the way, MontDoug.. by the looks of your wife, you must be in the past 50 age range like myself....

My compliments on a fairly attractive Looking Mrs there.... and then if she likes to go out and varmint shoot with you, and lets you have all of those toys... well, you just can't get any better than that at our age!!!

quote:

By the way, MontDoug.. by the looks of your wife, you must be in the past 50 age range like myself....

Well past Seafire, well past. The the next B-Day in fact will take me out of the 50's, makes me so nervous I can't even say it in years.
When it comes to wives I have indeed been blessed! One of her favorite vacations is camping over in Eastern Montana in the p-dog towns. Here she is after a long days rat whacking.



She popped these 2 dogs at well over 300 yards (346 according to the range finders) with my .17 MachIV and 25 grain V-Max's.



She shoots better than about 90% of my buddies , out fishes em too. The only part of varmint hunting that brings on a blank vacant look to her eyes is when I talk about teaching her how to clean rifles. When it comes to fishing she gets the same look when I mention teaching her how to row the raft down the river. Oh, also she's the only woman in Montana that's caught about 3,000 trout and doesn't know what one feels like (smart girl).
She gives true meaning to the term "better half".
Sorry for getting carried away but ya see I'm a repeat offender in the marriage dept. and the other one was 180 out from this one . Best 19 years of my life!

So say I wanted to make one of these in a TC. Whether it's the SMc or the Dasher. How would one go about doing that.

Never having had a Contender I don't know the names but BullBerry and Virgin Vally I believe used to be top Contender guys. (I believe the Virgin Valley owner is now reopened as "Match Grade Machine", in fact here is the like if I can pull it off.

Matc Grade Machine

If that worked and you have a list of chamberings I'd pick one he already has and that they make dies for to save the $$$ on a reamer and custom dies.
I'll try to post another link but not counting on success as I'm seriously computer challenged.
I'd also look at rounds that are easy to form cases for if this is a first wildcat. Unless your really hung up on horsepower I'd recommend that .20 VarTarg, fantastic round and way easy for a first wildcat.

Bull Berry

quote:

She gives true meaning to the term "better half".
Sorry for getting carried away but ya see I'm a repeat offender in the marriage dept. and the other one was 180 out from this one . Best 19 years of my life!

Doug,
I can relate... mine doesn't do the outdoor thing at all.. however, we are both married retreads... .I have been with mine, ( not married) since 1990.. and married since 1998...

She is pretty much the exact opposite of my first "wife"....( warden is a better description).... As me and my wife now have said for years.,... you really can't fully appreciate a real good marriage, until you survived one that waan't so good....

guess we both are a pair of luck old guys!

I'm blessed with a pretty good looker also...

quote:

Originally posted by jimmywax:
So say I wanted to make one of these in a TC. Whether it's the SMc or the Dasher. How would one go about doing that.

I'd contact Mike Bellm... http://www.bellmtcs.com/

Mike is straigth forward honest, has talked with Mick McPherson about those cases extensively... does excellent work.. and is one hell of a nice guy...

plus he is located in a great town!