WB
That gets me in trouble sometimes...
Friday, November 01, 2019, 07:44

As some may know I ended up with TWO .50 BMG rifles to play with. MY backyard range is set up for only 200 meters. At that range a .50 BMG ball round will fully penetrate a 55 gal. drum of wet sand! Some barely make it out, one or two it did stop so I know I'm close.

I had the idea of machining a Meplat on the 700 gr. projectiles to give more energy transfer and hopefully reduce penetration some. It sounded fun for a test anyway.

I made one and had fun looking at other applications for .50 AK or .500 Nitro and some really mean projectiles. One truly needs to KNOW what projectile you are working with however! I'd not fancy turning a APIT bullet on a lathe. This one was a AP steel core. One concern was my opening the nose jacket enough to shoot the "core" out and leave the jacket in the bore. Seemed a plausible concern with my experience with .45 Colt bullets and the .454. MY latest fix is to add a gas check to the base of the FMJBT. That would do it. Now I've toyed around so much I forgot the original question!

The original .50 AK used a 700 gr. FMJBT .50 BMG bullet cut about in half (450 gr.), then turned upside down forming a truncated nose hard jacket projectile. They look a lot like the silhouette bullets Serra made that Gary likes so much. That's still a valid idea with a $1 surplus projectile for playing around. Also they can be modded easily to a lighter weight and would be fine in the .500 Nitro at around 500 grs. This example I trimmed for the .50 BMG still weighs 650 grs. however. Would be awfully hard on the .500 shooter and gun, I'd want to trim at least another 100 grs. off.

It's all mostly harmless fun. I'm not trying to prove anything or build a better mousetrap. It takes tension and stress off and I find it fun. Don't want anyone trying to duplicate anything I do, but if they find it amusing that's great.