50 BMG penetrator cores.......what are the good for ???

[DEF23]

I have a friend who has a few hundred POUNDS of .50 BMG AP cores in his possession and he has offered to give them to me.

I took a few to play with and found out that they measured .430", are of a VLD boat-tailed configuration and were made from some extremely hard alloy. They weigh next to nothing for their size (400grs./ 1.875" long) and are hard enough to use a punch on hardened tools steel without any deformation. But they all have a slight surface rust from sitting outdoors.

Any ideas on usage here, guys.

I have considered swaging them down for use in my .408 CheyTach. But they seem too hard to swage down properly and to large to swage down to .408".

I have also considered casting some of them inside a cast .458 bullet for my Win Mag. But their long length (1.875") precludes from making that seem possible and I have only just began to get into casting bullets.

At this point I'd be interested in just finding out what type of alloy they are made from to sell them off as scrap metal.

It just seems like a waste to melt down perfectly good machined cores for scrap.

If any of you have any ideas, I'd be game to hear them out.

[SWANEEDB]

Boy, sure don't know how your going to get them melted down, think you won't, you'll never get them swaged down either, we have used them for many years just as a center punch, never ruined a one.

[JeffinNZ]

If they are AP cores you won't swage them into anything I would think. What about a sabot load for something?

[jmorris]

Only thing I have ever used them for is shooting through 1" steel plate, then the 8" oak tree it was leaning against, then making a hole over 3' deep (longest stick I had) into a red clay bank.

The ones that made the "pedals" was regular AP the "splat" one that left the brass color and punched the clean hole was API.

[jmorris]

[DEF23]

I think the sabot idea has a lot of merit --- although the only .430" sabots I could find were for a .50 cal........LOL ??!!

I wonder how hard it would be to chuck these up in a lathe and turn them down to .408". Also any ideas to the possible effects of one of these screaming down a barrel ??

.........MMP does make a .45" sabot for .400" bullets.........they should be somewhere right at 350 grs @ 2450fps out of my .458 Win Mag.........hummmm.......

Thanks for the ideas guys, post 'em up if you have any more.

[twotoescharlie]

Iwould like to have 4-5 to make center punches,glad to pay you if you are willing to sell.

TTC

[Mumblypeg]

Iwould like to have 4-5 to make center punches,glad to pay you if you are willing to sell.

TTC

Hey, me too !

[country gent]

We used them for "feet" point on some front rests we made one time. If I remember correctly they are a tungsten penetrator. They are very hard and solid. A few bare down a rifle barrel with our the lead / jackets cushioning would probably do a good job or ironing the rifling right out.

[ak_milsurp]

A friend of mine bought 30,000 .50 BMG jackets recently..... Maybe you two should get together... Lol. The jackets are copper washed steel....and weigh 350 grains empty, and when filled with molten lead, around 850 grains....

[zuke]

The AP core is actually turned down dowel pin's, extremely hard and tough.

[gzig5]

The penetration cores are way to hard/tough to reform or turn down. Forget about it. You've seen what they do to tool steel, what do you think they'd do to barrel rifling? If you are going to shoot them, they need to go inside something else that is going to protect the bore from them, such as a sabot or some other trick. Though it might be an interesting exercise, I doubt the results would be worth the effort.

[ThaDave]

12 or 20 guage sabots or a patched BP load would be my first guess,

If you want to get rid of a couple dozen or so I might take them off your hands after I get back to the states.

[kawasakifreak77]

How thick is a .458 jacket?

Armor piercing 45/70 anybody?

[Hickory]

A friend of mine says they will penetrate 18-20" of stone and dirt wall to get the bad guys in the first Iraq war at 1000+ yards.

[cpileri]

How about patching up to .45 and put them in a 12ga or 20ga sabot?
Might be darn interesting!
C-

[MOcaster]

I like the idea of patching them. It might actually work.

[Fishman]

I have no idea what they would be be good for, but they are the diameter of the .44 mag bullets usually used in .50 muzzle loader sabots.

[Skipper]

DEF23, check your private messages.

[SeabeeMan]

A friend of mine says they will penetrate 18-20" of stone and dirt wall to get the bad guys in the first Iraq war at 1000+ yards.

Hes not exaggeratting. We ran every 5th in the belt as a SLAP round, followed by a tracer, in both our M2s and 240s. There wasn't a vehicle or wall we may have fired at that those wouldn't go through.