50 Alaskan Loads

[Coloradoyaler]

Hello

I have a 50 Alaskan built by WWG. I have shot alot of the Cast Performance bullets and am not happy with the performance. I am lucky to get 3-4" groups at 100yds! I have sped them up and slowed them down to no avail. Can you guys suggest a bullet and load which will better this?


Regards
Mark

[BerdanIII]

I think Ken Waters did an article on big-bore lever action wildcats, lemme look...

There is a Fouling Shot article on a Mosin-Nagant reworked to .50 Alaskan, I'll post that data.

[wiljen]

what components have you tried?

Have you tried it off the bench and slowly instead of just fast and furious with no real aim?

[stubshaft]

I get the best accuracy from a 390gr Arcane (pointy) boolit followed closely by my thumper which is a 580gr. LBT LFN. I have gotten a few 2" groups out of my Encore pistol at 100yds with the 500/512 GB boolit ahead of 54.0 3031.

[jtaylor1960]

The Hodgdon site has data.

[waksupi]

I'm not sure what the video was supposed to show. The shooter didn't know how a dangerous game rifle is supposed to be manipulated. I know from experience you can do aimed shots a lot faster than that with one.

[Lloyd Smale]

Best three bullets in mine are the ballistic cast 450 and 480 lfngc and the group buy 510 lfngc that noe did a while back. Check with him he still may have some of the molds. Mine will shoot any of those three bullets into a inch and half at a 100 yards and thats with a apature sight. With a scope theyd be scary as my eyes sure arent what they used to be. Mine doesnt like any bullet lighter then 450 grain. RE7 is my powder of choise in it.

[Lloyd Smale]

http://www.leverguns.com/articles/anderson/50_alaskan.htm this is an article my best friend wrote a while back on his.

[FinnCollector]

I think Ken Waters did an article on big-bore lever action wildcats, lemme look...

There is a Fouling Shot article on a Mosin-Nagant reworked to .50 Alaskan, I'll post that data.

Sorry to bring up this old post, but I was curious.

Do you have this article?

AFAIK, I'm the only one who has done this conversion.

In fact, NOBODY wanted to touch it with a ten foot pole.

Fred Zeglin @ Z-Hat Custom was the only one who had a reamer and experience with the cartridge who would take the job of rebarreling/chambering/bolt face modifications/magazine sheetmetal reshaping. He was many months later than the promised delivery date back in 2003, but I did eventually get the barreled action back.

It has a Redfield Palma Match rear sight and Redfield International globe front, Green Mountain 4140 chromoly Sharps #1 Heavy Taper octagon barrel, Huber Concepts trigger, custom bolt handle and rework, and a Richard's Microfit Monte Carlo-style stock in presentation-grade Claro walnut with a wide forend and ebony tip/cap.

Here is a pic from when I was inletting the stock and starting to shape it. You can see above the barrel a .50 Alaskan case and a 975gr cast bullet made with a CBE Australia mold. I also have a 700gr wide meplat mold from them that is nice.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/hochsj/LAB/P1010347.jpg

[BerdanIII]

PM sent.

That looks like a pretty hefty barrel. What's the all-up weight of the rifle? The Fouling Shot author kept his as a single shot; getting that magazine to feed must have been a real headache.

[BerdanIII]

From: Big Bore on a Budget, The Fouling Shot, #110, July-August 1994

"As I requested, he welded a thick steel plate on the underside of the action to make it a stiff single shot, cut the barrel to twenty-one inches, bored it to .510" with a twist of one turn in nineteen inches and chambered the tube for the .50 Alaskan round."

"While this work was transpiring, I ordered a RCBS case forming set and several boxes of .348 Winchester brass. The forming process required that the case be necked up in two steps. As soon as I got my rifle together, the necking-up was followed by fire forming. My fire-forming load consisted of fifteen grains of Bullseye under a case full of grits held in place by a small wad of cast bullet lube. Yankees could use oatmeal filler in place of grits if civilized fare can't be found. This fire-forming load produced a case that would readily accept projectiles, but the case did not fully fill out until the first firing with a real bullet. Cases were trimmed to 2.100 inches."

" I decided that I would shoot cast bullets exclusively, and ultimately ordered three moulds: an RCBS mould for a plain-base 515 grain bullet, a Lead Bullet Technology (LBT) mould for a plain-base 600 gram projectile, and a North-East Industrial (NEI) mould for a gas checked 715 grain projectile."

"Although I am still fiddling with loads for the rifle, I would have to conclude, based on the results so far, that the RCBS bullet is probably the best one for this outfit. It shoots particularly well backed by 45 grains of Reloder-7 and a LDPE wad."

"For good squib loads, the LBT bullet (of nominal 600 grain weight) shot very well backed by 28 grains of T-680 powder and 3.1 cc of buffer or by 25 grains of SR 4759 powder with 2.5 cc of buffer. (I measured the buffer with the cute little scoops from a Lee Powder measure kit.)" [Precision Spherical Buffer, Precision Reloading, Inc.]

"The big NEI bullet (715 grain nominal weight) will continue to be a shooting challenge. One load which worked very well was the NEI bullet lubed, but without the gas check, seated over an LDPE wad and 35 grains of SR 4759. Like all the loads with this projectile, recoil is impressive. But accuracy is good and there is no leading with softer alloys. One advantage here is that this is a compressed load. There is no airspace between the powder and LDPE wad at the base of the bullet."

[FinnCollector]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/hochsj/50AKMOSIN2.jpg

[FinnCollector]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/hochsj/50AKMOSIN.jpg

[W.R.Buchanan]

Finn: That is definately the best6 looking MN I have ever seen and extra points for the Octagon barrel and Palma sights.

There is an article on loading the .50 AK in the May 2012 issue of Rifle Mgazine #262 by Brian Pearce. He covers all the bases from commercial Bullets, to boolits.

Some of his loads are pretty serious **** kicker loads running 500+ gr Boolits at 2000 fps.

Way too much for me to hang onto.

Randy

[FinnCollector]

It has been a loooong time coming...almost ten years. My goal is 1300FPS with the 975gr. CBE bullet and 2000+ with the 700gr. LFN. The barrel is 1-18 twist, so it may have a problem stabilizing the real heavy bullets. I wish I had ordered a 1-14, in retrospect. I just have to finish barrel bedding and I'll have some data to publish.

[ttrailz]

I have 600 Barnes original bullets .510 diameter 400 grain SSP. I asked Barnes if they had any load data for these bullets . They told me load data .com did . Wrong answer pilgrim . Load data said the bullets don’t exist . Again wrong . After about a dozen emails to them they sent me a wimp load 40 grains of IMR 4198 going a little over 1400 FPS CCI Benchrest 2 primer. Now you tell me is this not a wimpy load .Does anyone listening have a better more efficient load ? I have a Marlin 50 Alaskan but am looking to get a custom encore barrel 26” for cover hunting whitetails . I appreciate any input .

[FinnCollector]

I have 600 Barnes original bullets .510 diameter 400 grain SSP. I asked Barnes if they had any load data for these bullets . They told me load data .com did . Wrong answer pilgrim . Load data said the bullets don’t exist . Again wrong . After about a dozen emails to them they sent me a wimp load 40 grains of IMR 4198 going a little over 1400 FPS CCI Benchrest 2 primer. Now you tell me is this not a wimpy load .Does anyone listening have a better more efficient load ? I have a Marlin 50 Alaskan but am looking to get a custom encore barrel 26” for cover hunting whitetails . I appreciate any input .

If you are on Facebook, ask J.D. Jones. He's probably done more .50 Alaskan loading than anyone.