John Ross
03-17-2011, 11:02 PM
Big Bore Rifles and an Amazing Handgun
After I’d been shooting my Buhmiller .50-.460 for a month or two, Charley Steen called. He had some surplus incendiary .50 bullets and did I want them? Oh, boy. I about cleaned out my checking account on that one.
In case you are wondering where a junior high school kid got the money to pay for this kind of shooting, I had income from several sources. When my father died, I started receiving his Social Security, as I was a student. It was $80.60 a month, which doesn’t sound like much, but I really didn’t have any other expenses, being a kid and living at home.
Second, I was good at math and got $4 an hour tutoring from parents who were afraid their kids weren’t going to get into college.
Third, I kept my locker at school full of snacks I’d bought at a wholesale food distributor and sold them to other students for about what you’d pay at a store. It was only a few dollars a day, but it added up.
Last of all, I loaded .44 ammo for several other local shooters. I never sold it outright, but always insisted they bring me the brass. My uncle’s buddy at Olin always gave them a good price if they didn’t have any. I charged $9.50 per hundred for Keith loads, either 25 grains of H110 or 9.5 grains Unique, your choice. Primer, bullet, and powder cost about $3.00 per hundred, so I was making $6.50 for less than 15 minutes work (not counting casting time). Years later, I got an ammunition manufacturer’s license, but when I was a minor, I didn’t worry too much about going to prison for some paperwork violation.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun shooting incendiary .50 bullets out of my Buhmiller Enfield, then one day in July of 1972, my uncle showed up at the back door with a cardboard box under his arm and a big grin on his face. He had just returned from a trapshoot in Texas, where he also had an interest in a sporting goods store.
“Got you a present down in Texas,” he said, grinning as he pulled a black plastic case from the box. I immediately recognized the logo on the case.
“You got me one of Harry Sanford’s Auto Mags?” I said in disbelief.
“You’ve seen one before?”
“Only pictures.”
“Well, get it out and see what you think.”
The gun was beautiful, gleaming satin in an era where stainless was the exception instead of the norm. “I’ll order dies and a reamer today,” I said, knowing the Auto Mag used cut off and reamed .308 rifle brass.
“They’re in the box.” When he said that, I couldn’t stop grinning. An hour later I was busy making cases and loading ammo. Over the next few days I discovered you could get more velocity out of the AM than the 29. I ordered a swage die from Frank Hemsted (who died of cancer on Christmas night a year later) and discovered a 173-grain hollowpoint could be driven 1970 FPS when seated out to fill the magazine, with only about 1/10” in the case.
The Auto Mag had a quick-change barrel, so I ordered an 8 ½” .357 Auto Mag (necked down .44) barrel from Bob Barbasiewicz at B&B Sales in California and dies for same. Kent sent me about 15 pages of notes on the guns—he had been working with Auto Mags too.
When I looked at Kent’s data, he had some loads for the .357 AMP with a 90 grain HP 9mm Super Vel bullet, the top load going some 1950 FPS with H110 powder. That didn’t look like a max load to me—it should have been much higher. I worked up loads with the same powder and bullet and kept increasing the charge until the case was full or close to it. Pressure seemed okay; no cratered primers and good case life. The chronograph made my jaw drop: 2870 FPS! Off sandbags, I could keep that load in under 5” at 100 yards with open sights (my eyes were 20/11 back then). It would also punch a hole through 3/8” steel plate, which astounded my uncle. I had NEVER fired a repeating handgun that shot anywhere near as flat as the .357 Auto Mag. It was spooky how fast the bullets got to distant targets. I wrote Kent and explained what I had found. He duplicated my findings and called Lee Jurras at Super Vel in Shelbyville.
“HOW FAST?” Lee said on the phone, Kent later told me. “And you got this from a NINTH GRADER in Missouri? Hell, he ought to drop out and start working HERE!” Lee had a pressure barrel made in .357 AMP and discovered my .357 loads were giving 48,000 CUP, slightly under what was the gun’s maximum safe operating pressure (or so we all, including the designer, thought at the time.) Lee Jurras called me with the news, and told me Super Vel was going to offer the load I had developed commercially. That was one of the best days of my life. I couldn’t stop smilng.
More to come...
After I’d been shooting my Buhmiller .50-.460 for a month or two, Charley Steen called. He had some surplus incendiary .50 bullets and did I want them? Oh, boy. I about cleaned out my checking account on that one.
In case you are wondering where a junior high school kid got the money to pay for this kind of shooting, I had income from several sources. When my father died, I started receiving his Social Security, as I was a student. It was $80.60 a month, which doesn’t sound like much, but I really didn’t have any other expenses, being a kid and living at home.
Second, I was good at math and got $4 an hour tutoring from parents who were afraid their kids weren’t going to get into college.
Third, I kept my locker at school full of snacks I’d bought at a wholesale food distributor and sold them to other students for about what you’d pay at a store. It was only a few dollars a day, but it added up.
Last of all, I loaded .44 ammo for several other local shooters. I never sold it outright, but always insisted they bring me the brass. My uncle’s buddy at Olin always gave them a good price if they didn’t have any. I charged $9.50 per hundred for Keith loads, either 25 grains of H110 or 9.5 grains Unique, your choice. Primer, bullet, and powder cost about $3.00 per hundred, so I was making $6.50 for less than 15 minutes work (not counting casting time). Years later, I got an ammunition manufacturer’s license, but when I was a minor, I didn’t worry too much about going to prison for some paperwork violation.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun shooting incendiary .50 bullets out of my Buhmiller Enfield, then one day in July of 1972, my uncle showed up at the back door with a cardboard box under his arm and a big grin on his face. He had just returned from a trapshoot in Texas, where he also had an interest in a sporting goods store.
“Got you a present down in Texas,” he said, grinning as he pulled a black plastic case from the box. I immediately recognized the logo on the case.
“You got me one of Harry Sanford’s Auto Mags?” I said in disbelief.
“You’ve seen one before?”
“Only pictures.”
“Well, get it out and see what you think.”
The gun was beautiful, gleaming satin in an era where stainless was the exception instead of the norm. “I’ll order dies and a reamer today,” I said, knowing the Auto Mag used cut off and reamed .308 rifle brass.
“They’re in the box.” When he said that, I couldn’t stop grinning. An hour later I was busy making cases and loading ammo. Over the next few days I discovered you could get more velocity out of the AM than the 29. I ordered a swage die from Frank Hemsted (who died of cancer on Christmas night a year later) and discovered a 173-grain hollowpoint could be driven 1970 FPS when seated out to fill the magazine, with only about 1/10” in the case.
The Auto Mag had a quick-change barrel, so I ordered an 8 ½” .357 Auto Mag (necked down .44) barrel from Bob Barbasiewicz at B&B Sales in California and dies for same. Kent sent me about 15 pages of notes on the guns—he had been working with Auto Mags too.
When I looked at Kent’s data, he had some loads for the .357 AMP with a 90 grain HP 9mm Super Vel bullet, the top load going some 1950 FPS with H110 powder. That didn’t look like a max load to me—it should have been much higher. I worked up loads with the same powder and bullet and kept increasing the charge until the case was full or close to it. Pressure seemed okay; no cratered primers and good case life. The chronograph made my jaw drop: 2870 FPS! Off sandbags, I could keep that load in under 5” at 100 yards with open sights (my eyes were 20/11 back then). It would also punch a hole through 3/8” steel plate, which astounded my uncle. I had NEVER fired a repeating handgun that shot anywhere near as flat as the .357 Auto Mag. It was spooky how fast the bullets got to distant targets. I wrote Kent and explained what I had found. He duplicated my findings and called Lee Jurras at Super Vel in Shelbyville.
“HOW FAST?” Lee said on the phone, Kent later told me. “And you got this from a NINTH GRADER in Missouri? Hell, he ought to drop out and start working HERE!” Lee had a pressure barrel made in .357 AMP and discovered my .357 loads were giving 48,000 CUP, slightly under what was the gun’s maximum safe operating pressure (or so we all, including the designer, thought at the time.) Lee Jurras called me with the news, and told me Super Vel was going to offer the load I had developed commercially. That was one of the best days of my life. I couldn’t stop smilng.
More to come...