bruised sholder from an ar!

[Lloyd Smale]

Had the beowulf out today. I found a new load that outshot the previous load by a lot so i had 217 loaded rounds to blast off. the rocks caught hell but so did my sholder. Had so much fun doing it i didnt pay attention till i went to hop in the jeep and realized my arm was sore. that gun is one of the most fun guns i own!

[dk17hmr]

I have been there also. Keep shooting until you run out of ammo only to find out later you should have saved some ammo and maybe you could still lift your arm over your head.

Are you running cast of jacketed through your Beowulf? Seems like and intersting round and I might have to look into it in the future, I already cast for my 500 S&W so Im already half way there.

[BD]

Hey Lloyd, Hows cast doing in your Beowulf? The best I've been able to do with the .450B is about an inch and a half at 100.

I added a slip on recoil pad to my stock. While I was doing a lot of shooting off the bench working up loads I put the butt stock weight from my HP rifle in with a cross bolt through it. That tamed it right down.

BD

[Lloyd Smale]

Ive been shooting mostly reniers since ive been able to get them again. I did do some cast shooting last year with it and Ive got a couple new molds for it now and even have a bunch of bullets casted but ran out of gas checks and its just not a high priority right now as long as i have reneiers. Sure is good to finally have a pile of brass and bullets for it though. It sure smacks the hell out of things though!

[klcarroll]

The comments about using cast boolits in big-bore ARs caught my attention.

How many rounds can you get away with before the lube and lead fouling start to occlude the gas tube??

I ask because I have been considering the purchase of a .45 ACP upper, and the guy who is building them has expressed doubts about the use of cast projectiles. (Mainly because of possible lube fouling of the gas tube.)


Kent

[BD]

As a test I left my .450B dirty for 300 rounds of cast and could find no evidence whatsoever that any crud at all was deposited in the gas tube. The lube does grease up the bolt carrier after awhile, but it doesn't effect the operation of the rifle. The only issue I've encountered to date is a small lead build up on the back of the bolt when using plain base boolits. Apparently with plain base boolits the gas port takes a little bite out of the boolit heel as it passes by. This small amount of vaporized lead condenses on the back of the bolt in exactly the same place that all the other fouling builds up, and you scrape it off along with the rest of the fouling when you clean the gun. As the resulting accuracy with plain based boolits is pretty poor, I don't think this will be a problem to me.

The pic shows a 300 grainer I designed, the lee 300 grainer and a sized down RD 425. The best accuracy I've been able to get consistently is using the boolit I designed over WC297 which will shoot into about an inch and a half if I do my part. I think it could do better, (as I often get three shots touching with two flyers), if I had a taller gas check. The gas port is .09 and the gator checks, and Hornady checks, that I have on had are only about .07 tall. My feeling is that the gas port can disrupt the check somewhat on it's the way by.
BD

[Lloyd Smale]

same experiences here. Ive shot 200-300 rounds before cleaning and probably could have gone longer. Bolt gets very dirty but the gas tube has never had a bit of fouling in it. Using a slightly harder lube then you normaly do helps with the fouling. I guess in something like the beo im not to conserned with a little more dirt and fouling. Its not really a self defense gun that could have to stand up to a thousand rounds between cleanings. Its more of a plinker and hunter and i pull it down and clean it about every 300 rounds with jacketed too. my other ars are cleaned probaly every 1000 rounds. Only exception is the one i keep for home defense. that one is kept clean and oiled.

[richbug]

The comments about using cast boolits in big-bore ARs caught my attention.

How many rounds can you get away with before the lube and lead fouling start to occlude the gas tube??

I ask because I have been considering the purchase of a .45 ACP upper, and the guy who is building them has expressed doubts about the use of cast projectiles. (Mainly because of possible lube fouling of the gas tube.)


Kent

This confuses me. The 45 ACP uppers I have seen were all blow back. No gas system at all.

I don't see how you get enough gas out of a 45 ACP to operate a gas AR action without considerable modifications.

[rockrat]

BD, it might take a bit more effort in sizing, but I wonder if 45 Rifle gator check would work for you. I have some that I used with the Lee boolit and they fit fine, but haven't made it to the range yet.
The 458 Rifle checks are quite a bit taller than my 45 Lyman checks

[klcarroll]

This confuses me. The 45 ACP uppers I have seen were all blow back. No gas system at all.

I don't see how you get enough gas out of a 45 ACP to operate a gas AR action without considerable modifications.


@Richbug

Check out this site: http://bazookabrothers.com/products2.htm

They are handling the new RMW DI Upper, which has gotten pretty good reviews.

According to the advocates of this new upper, it features a better ejector system and a much more reasonable Bolt/Buffer mass than the simple blow-back conversions.

Kent

[richbug]

@Richbug

Check out this site: http://bazookabrothers.com/products2.htm

They are handling the new RMW DI Upper, which has gotten pretty good reviews.

According to the advocates of this new upper, it features a better ejector system and a much more reasonable Bolt/Buffer mass than the simple blow-back conversions.

Kent


Interesting. the blowback 9s and 45s I have shot had way too much recoil to be useful in my book.

[BD]

Rockrat, could you measure the height of one of the installed .458 gators? if they're .1 or better I'd give them a try.
BD

[Milltown353]

I've been casting without gas checks for my Beowulf with moderate success. If you guys have any personal load data, I would definitely be interested.

Do any of you guys have a muzzle break on you big bore ARs?

I built my Beowulf off of a Stag lower with Magpul Accessories.

Here's Mine:
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Labrador6029/Beowulf/034.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Labrador6029/Beowulf/035.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b375/Labrador6029/Beowulf/036.jpg

I'd love to see pictures of your guy's.

[BD]

I have an Izzy brake and a custom Gentry "Quiet" brake for my .450B. Some of the guys at .450Bushmaster.com got together with a pair of acellerometers and a decibel meter and did some serious brake testing. The results are in the forums at .450Bushmaster.com

The bottom line is that brakes do not offer as much benefit as we had hoped due to the bore ratio and fast powders involved. There's just not that much gas pressure available at the muzzle to conteract the recoil of such heavy bullets. My custom gentry brake was about the least effective of the bunch, and offered only a couple db of noise advantage over the standard Izzy brake.

Apparently brakes are significantly more effective on higher case to bore ratio cartridges shooting lighter bullets over slower powders. Less work required and more gas pressure available to do it with.

Which is not to say that brakes have no value for these guns. I'm sure not taking mine off as every little bit helps and they do eliminate some of the muzzle rise.

There is also some very interesting work being done on more effective mechanical methods of recoil reduction. Guys are playing with bolt carrier weight, buffer weight hydraulic buffers and shotgun style recoil reducers in the stock. It's interesting reading and much of it applies to all big bore ARs, not just the .450B.

BD