I've been thinking about his for a while but an article in the current Shooting Times has kicked me over the edge. I'm going to get an upper assembly or a whole rifle for one or the other. After a bit of reading, I'm leaning towards the .458, mostly for the vastly larger bullet selection available, and the attendant possiblity of reducing the recoil levels for some loads. Anyone have any hands on experience with either one, especially as it relates to accuracy and reliability. Thanks.

SOCOM..
1: a texas boy invented it
2: I've shoot tiggertate's a bit, both semia nd bolt gun versions... very nice
3: better bullets, and "normal" bullets.. which means you can shoot, A BUNCH

jeffe

FWIW, teppo jutsu has licensed Rock River Arms to produce a ".458 socom for the masses". Go to RRA web site and it says ".458 Socom" "New for 2006"........sooooooooo.......I had my dealer call them up......(quotes from RR arms guy) "earliest" delivery will be "at least 3 months out"......well, that doesn't make it new for 2006, does it?

Sooo.....go to teppo jutsu's site and they say www.458socom.com is their current distributor for remaining in house built tops. So....they are out of 16 inchers (this is not necessarily a bad thing.....but it would be short and handy in the pig wars) and the 20 inchers cost $845.....which is about $150 bucks less than I can get a whole rifle from RRA if they ever get around to making them and $175 more than I can buy a .50 Beowolf upper from Cabela's. Decisions, decisions. I do like that the TJ barrels are from Lothar Walther tho.

quote:

"earliest" delivery will be "at least 3 months out"......

They are running that long for their 223s as well.

I'll have to chime in for the Beowulf. My 16" Alexander Arms upper is very accurate, a decent choice of bullets for handloading though not nearly as many as the .458. I've settled on 325 gr. Speer HP's and 400 gr. SP's for mine.

Look at ar15.com also, in the ar community they have a section that covers the comparison between the two pretty well, although they lean toward the Socom.

Ramrod:

I'm always glad to hear of a business doing well, and Red River Arms may well be 3 months behind in their .223 deliveries, but they told my gun dealer that they had not made ANY .458s yet. This seems to be common in the gun industry, hyping a new product long before you get it out the door.

browningguy:

Thanks for the advice. I have read that thread on AR15.com and it doesn't really clarify the situation, to say the least. What levels of accuracy are you getting out of your .50? I'd hope for 2 MOA or less. Certainly not necessary for pig work, but I like to shoot groups not patterns.

Just to throw another iron into the fire, Bushmaster has announced a 45 Bushmaster. According to their web site, it was developed in conjunction with Hornady, which would lead to speculation that brass might be available at a reasonable cost. Hornady doesn't have any info on their site, and the whole thing is "coming soon"

quote:

Ramrod:

I'm always glad to hear of a business doing well, and Red River Arms may well be 3 months behind in their .223 deliveries, but they told my gun dealer that they had not made ANY .458s yet. This seems to be common in the gun industry, hyping a new product long before you get it out the door.

Thanks for that info. I knew my ex boss had ordered a 223 and they told him 6-12 weeks. I was thinking of a 458 to put on my bottom. I "assumed" the same delivery time. Interesting that they have not delivered one yet.