I gave up on my LAR and took the plunge for the Armalite. It sure is a good looking gun! I will try to get it sighted in this weekend. Any tips or suggestions? I am pretty excited.

Congrats on your new rifle. What type of scope are you going to mount on it? 50's can be rough on scopes because of the muzzle brakes. I have been shooting BMG's for about 19 years. Great fun. Think about joining the Fifty Caliber Shooters Association. Great bunch of guys and a wealth of info. Web site is FCSA.ORG if you didn't already know. Good luck with it.
Bob G.

I have a Leupold Mark 4 4.5-14X that I will use. I am already a proud member of the FCSA, the suggestions and ideas in their forum really helped. I have some Surplus 5010 powder on hand that I will make up some loads with. I have AP and 750gr. AMAX projrctiles. Any suggestions for a starting charge?

yes about 205 grains

Get one of these headspace gauges from MidwayUSA.
L.E. Wilson Cartridge Headspace Gage 50 BMG
Product #: 472914
Status: Available
Our Price: $17.69
It will tell you if you are sizing your brass too much and also checks your case length.
Quality is great and price is also.
Hopefully the link below will work or you can enter the product no.
http://www.midwayusa.com/esearch.exe/search
Good Luck

Thanks!

I gave up on the AMAX a while back and have been working my way thru a large stock of Lapua projectiles that I got at a special price of $.98 ea.
Monolithic solids are the way to go, and the new designs are no harder on the bore than the jacketed lead. CNC lathe turned solids are much more uniform than jacketed lead and they dominate the competitions.

One up and coming manufacturer of such bullets is Lehigh Bullets & Design I just met and shot in competition with the owner of the company, Dave Fricke, at the Quantico FCSA match this weekend, 10/20-10/21/07. It was Dave's 1rst match and with a borrowed rifle, never before fired by Dave, and he did real well, better than I did, this time around. Dave is a down to earth fellow shooter and it's good to be able to meet and talk with someone who will likely be getting a lot of my money for their product.

Dave Fricke got to take home a couple of award plaques, but me and another competitor each won a 50 round box of his .510 Match Hybrid Long Band in a name drawing. Worked out perfect for me, I was just getting ready to get a box to try. The Lehigh bullets are fairly new on the .50 caliber scene, but they have already garnered a formidable reputation for accuracy. I can tell you that if they shoot as good as they look, I'll be way ahead of it.

Congrats on your new rifle purchase. I hope you enjoy shooting .50 BMG as much as I do!

quote:

Originally posted by goneballistic:
I gave up on the AMAX a while back

Why? what rifle are you shooting these out of, what twist?

quote:

Why? what rifle are you shooting these out of, what twist?

2 Vipers, one with a match chamber, .560" neck, the other a match chamber with a .554" neck. Both 1-15" twist.

I've found that the quality CNC lathe turned solids are much more uniform than the AMAX, and anymore, the solids are no more expensive. After measuring the AMAX with this bullet comparator that I made, I concluded that the AMAX Boat Tails varied quite a bit. After I bought another comparator that had just then came on the market, Doug Giraud's 50 BMG case and bullet comparator, I was able to prove it.

Check out this pic of my results. The 10 boxes of sorted AMAX shown all were of the same lot. The AMAX weights, ogives and tips varied very little, the same with the bearing surface. But, the boat tails had a .011" spread with respect to the length. A very critical area of the bullet and this slop explains why I was never satisfied with the results I got while using AMAX.

Another aspect of the AMAX design that I don't like is the transition of the ogive to the bullet's bearing surface. It's too abrupt. I prefer the hybrid bullet designs that many of the lathe turned solids are being offered as.

Hybrid, as being a cross between a conventional bullet and a borerider bullet, and able to be shot out of either a standard throated rifle, or a rifle with a borerider throated chamber.

A hybrid bullet is slightly subcaliber at the front etching band, and the ogive/bearing surface transition is very gradual, like a variation of a VLD design. The advantage to this is, that when the bullet is seated to an OAL that brings it close enough to "kiss the lands", (NOT jammed to the lands), the bullet/cartridge is held in alignment by the throat lead angle, or so the theory goes. Of course, a rifle with a very long throat will not give these results, if you can't get close to the lands.

This train of thought follows the reasoning behind the borerider design. The bore rider bullet has a rear driving band, usually .510" or a little more in diameter. The front of the bullet bearing surface, just after the ogive, is usually .502" in diameter. When chambered, this subcaliber portion of the bullet actually slipfits into the specifically reamed borerider throat. A top custom B.R. .50 BMG builder has said that when a cartridge loaded with a borerider bullet is chambered into a borerider chamber, bullet runout will be corrected. Notice however, he didn't claim it corrected case runout, (banana case).