I've read all kinds of crazy stuff on the internet about the 17-50 BMG and 22-50 BMG but have never saw anything. Have these been done and does anyone have pictures? A 375-50 BMG would be an excellent round for every animal that walks, especially super long range elk and moose and stuff. Except it would probably burn barrels really fast. And it would either bruise your shoulder without a break, or bruise your ears with one.

Thanks for any replies.

You have the .416 Barret wcich is a 50 shortened and necked dow, there is also a short 338 also,but that is older and just a wildcat.

I think that the barrel on that .22-50 BMG will last ca 200 rounds due to the massive burn of powder and the gases that follows the bullet.

I shot a 375-50 BMG when I lived in South Carolina in the early 80's. A friend had built one for the mile matches that they used to shoot. I do remember that it weighed about 20 Lbs with about a 36 inch barrel and it seemed to kill at both ends.

If memory serves me correctly,P.O. Ackley did something like that back in the 50's.Called it the .22 Eargeschplitenloudenboomer.In theory + on paper only as I recall.

NC,
yep.. that's what he called it...

it's been done from .700 (700bmgIMP, 700 Hubel, 700DA) and to 17, iirc.. the 17 required the powder to be loaded from the PRIMER hole and, when shot, it was found that only monometal bullets would hold together.

jeffe

I thought the earsplittingetc. was a 378 Weatherby Necked down? With the 17 caliber, what do you mean by non-metal bullets? What would hold together?

I think that is mono-metal, meaning no cup and core.

I had also heard that the eargensplittenloudenboomer was the 378 W necked down.

Oh monmetal. Whoops I thought it said non-metal.

I figured it out! Neck a .416 Barret down to .375 and you have a rifle that will kick really hard, but you wouldn't have to have a muzzlebreak to protect yourself from serious harm. The ultimate long-range hunting caliber. When I turn 18 I might have to pursue that project...

I just looked in P O ackley's book and the eargesplitten loudenboomer is a necked down 378 wby with a 40* shoulder.

Rad

I actually spoke with JD Jones about a .458 BMG. LOTS of bullet choices. Cost of rebarreling, dies, and machine work to be in the neighborhood of $10K. Also, I would think that ANYTHING shot out of a BMG derived case would be appropriately brutal to the loose nut behind the trigger

10k! Holy cow I'll just buy 20 guns instead!

I stand corrected.They say the memory is the second thing to go.In my defense however,I read about that many,many years ago.Seriously though,one that I thought would be fun to try is Ross Seyfreid's 30-416 AI.416 Rigby necked to 30 cal. W/ 40 deg. shoulder.The price on the case form dies was what put me off temporarily though.Might be able to eliminate a couple of steps by using 338 Lapua brass however.Any comments?

quote:

416 Rigby necked to 30 cal. W/ 40 deg. shoulder

30-378 Weatherby without a belt?

I used to live near Lewistown, Pennsylvania and there was a gunsmith named Alex Hoyer. He necked down a 50 BMG to 30 Cal. He used a 40" barrel. The rear of his house faced the Juniata River and he rested the rifle on the railing of the back porch and fired accross the river. He was sitting on a chair and the recoil slamed him against the wall behind him. Wanna try it.

quote:

Originally posted by Norman Conquest:
416 Rigby necked to 30 cal. W/ 40 deg. shoulder.The price on the case form dies was what put me off temporarily though.Might be able to eliminate a couple of steps by using 338 Lapua brass however.Any comments?

Yep..
the 300 RUM is massively over bore, and if you put a long enough tube on it to work, you wouldn't see any improvement... the 30-378 is 2x this much!!

my comments? buy a 28-31" RUM and shoot that!

jeffe

quote:

Originally posted by tsiero:
I used to live near Lewistown, Pennsylvania and there was a gunsmith named Alex Hoyer. He necked down a 50 BMG to 30 Cal. He used a 40" barrel. The rear of his house faced the Juniata River and he rested the rifle on the railing of the back porch and fired accross the river. He was sitting on a chair and the recoil slamed him against the wall behind him. Wanna try it.

Great story,
but that's REACTION not recoil(unless it was n 8# sporter). He literally threw himself when he touched it off, unless he was leaning back... like guys saying a 300 whizbang blew a deer off it's feet... the physics just don't work. I saw a 135# sow hit with a 585 nyati, in the spin, at 45-50 yards... she rolled over and slid downhill... when we looked at her, the spine shot had shut her down, and she feel toward the slope of the hill...

135# sow, 146lb-ft of recoil, and about 8500# of ME..

and she rooled and died exactly as if I had hit her with a 35rem.

and the shooter didn't weight 160#

I would shoot it. I might regret it but a 30-50 BMG is a rare oppurntunity you shouldn't pass up.

Tyler, what you really need is one of Kirby Allen's new 338 Allen Mags... he modifies a .404 Chey- Tac case for around 150 grains powder capacity. I think he's getting around 3400-3500 fps with a 350gr bullet (36 inch barrel). Recently killed a prarie dog at 2300+ yards. Lots of good stuff over at longrangehunting.com

Jon

Wow I'm getting on that site. I think Kirby Allen should let me test drive one.

quote:

Originally posted by Tex21:

quote:

416 Rigby necked to 30 cal. W/ 40 deg. shoulder

30-378 Weatherby without a belt?

A.F.Boyer in Slatington, PA had a used (not used much) Weatherby Accumark in 30-378 on the used rack as of Noon wednesday, the price on it was $1189... Real nice looking rifle, not my cup of tea though...

AllanD

Update, I told my brother about that 30-378 and he bought it....

in 1992 I built a 338Ghryphon. 50 Spotter round necked down to 338. 140-something grains of 8700.
We drilled out and then bushed the primer pocket to use shotgun primers...50Bmg primers were about 50-cents apiece at the time I think. The 50 spotter is a 2.5(?)" "short fifty" used by artillery crews to dial in. They were mostly tracer and loaded to match the trajectory of the field pieces. Crews would bolt this barrelled action on a mount on the barrel and shoot it until the tracer rounds were impacting where they wanted to drop arty, then crank up the big guns. Gunsmith Dan Lilja, of Plains, Mt, was doing the field development/testing of the Sierra 300gr 338MK and gave me a handful and an intro to Sierra. I built it on a McMillan Bros action and stock; it was a stone killing long range rifle, but hard on scopes even at 22lbs. I sold it to a guy in Statesville, NC who came out to shoot Rockchucks the next spring. I wrote for Precision Shooting Magazine for several years, and there was always something neat going on.

regards,

Rich

That's sounds cool, do you have any pics of it?

quote:

Originally posted by Tyler Kemp:
I've read all kinds of crazy stuff on the internet about the 17-50 BMG and 22-50 BMG but have never saw anything. Have these been done and does anyone have pictures? A 375-50 BMG would be an excellent round for every animal that walks, especially super long range elk and moose and stuff. Except it would probably burn barrels really fast. And it would either bruise your shoulder without a break, or bruise your ears with one.

Thanks for any replies.

Hello there young man!

If you gave the town of your residance, (NOT your adress, just a general location) then possibly an AR member or more could envite you and your parents to partake in trying out various rifles. That a youth shows such interest in rifles should not go unabated! We older guntoters should be encouraged to nuture such exuberance.
Passing down safety and knowledge, is the best way to keep rifles in regard and respect.

I doubt it...I've already tried before.

Tyler,

I have a friend that has figured out how to post pix here. I will get him a loaded round to try and post for you all. Still have those reamers around somewhere and the Savage boltface we thinned down to almost nothing. We used a single shot stainless action and rant thru 4 barrels in the course of some 560-odd rounds thru the rifle. 100 to perhaps as many as 150 rounds per barrel. The good news, Savage barrels are very consistent, and the two accurate loads we worked up in the first barrel shot as accurately in the other three. The 80gr JLK VLD (copied pretty closely by Sierra in their 80grMK) shot in the high-threes for a 5-shot group at 100, and under an inch at 300 yards. At 4200+fps. The Nosler solid base 60gr bullets went just over 4800fps, but even the Noslers would ocasionally vaporize about 20 yds downrange. It was a neat thing to do as a project, but not very practical for the average or slightly off-center shooter. I may build another one in the spring to test the Winchester 64gr Powerpoints.

regards,

Rich

If it was a 338 how come the bullets were so light?

About the BMG necked down to 458.

What would a round like this produce with:

300 grain bullet
400 grain bullet
500 grain bullet

First, in a long barrel.. 30"++
And then in a 22-26" barrel?

I have no experience calculating these things. But I would imagine well over 3000fps..

Using a Serbu, just change the barrel.. could be a nice moose gun.

Evidently the Phillipine Military did some testing back in the 1970s or 80s necking down the Browning 50 Cal...to 338 and 375 ranges...

Gather it was for a sniper rifle round...

HOwever test results showed that they were not getting much more velocity than cartridges like the 340 Weatherby and the 378 Weatherby.... but were increasing recoil and powder consumption dramatically over those rounds and decreasing barrel life even more substantially....

they scrapped the idea...

Tyler,
I meant the 22-378Wby-Ackley Improved.

The 338 Gryphon (338-50Spotter) shot 320gr Sierra Match King bullets just under 4000fps, but it ended up taking 225gr of Hodgdon H1000, 50Bmg powder.

PM me your address and I will send you a dummy 22-378 for your collection. Don't have a collection? This would make a good start.
DO publish your town, somebody here will get with you to do some boomer shooting.
regards,

Rich

Rich