Wildcatting the BMG

How to beat the gun grabbers, making a better long-range rifle in the process!

So I've been thinking, which can be a dangerous thing...

Back in the old days, someone got the idea of making a .30 caliber military cartridge that would shoot a long bullet at high velocity.  They chambered the Army's new bolt-action battle rifle in said round.  Deer just haven't been the same since.  Or elk.  Or moose.  Or bear.  Or African plains game.  Or wildcats.  But I'm not talking about the felines (Green Lantern will be relieved).  I'm talking wildcat cartridges.  You see, the round in question here is the .30-'06, which has killed more game, defeated more foreign enemies, and spawned more wildcat rounds than all other cartridges combined.

What makes to .30-'06 so legendary?  It's a great case size, holding enough powder to launch most bullets at high velocity, without going "over bore."  That's wildcatter talk for "holding more powder than you can ignite without spewing unburned power out of the chamber."  The long case is easy on reloading and resizing dies.  It's the right length to make the most use of the standard bolt-action length.  And field results, from the beanfields to the battlefields, gave testimony to the design.

In the early 1920's, a number of Springfield battle rifles became available to gunsmiths and hobbyists.  And you know American ingenuity: a good thing is never perfect.  So by the end of the decade, the case had been stretched, shortened, blown out, necked down, necked up, folded, spindled, and mutilated.  After much experimentation, someone got the bright idea of crimping a lighter, narrower, and more aerodynamic bullet into a .30-'06 case that had been blown out ever so slightly, with the neck shortened ever so little.  The .270 Winchester was born.  Jack O'Connor was never happier.

Next to the .30-'06, no cartridge has killed more game.  And devotees of the necked-down Springfield will tell you, a lot, how the faster, lighter bullet makes for better down range performance (on smaller creatures, although Jack would kick me for saying that).

What does this have to do with the BMG, you ask?

Not yet.  You need to know more.

Back when the .30-'06 was still young and virginal, a man named Browning was called upon to build a superior weapon, powerful enough to defeat the armored vehicles being used for the first time in war.  He created the .50 BMG; that's Browning Machine Gun.  Ma Deuce.  Target shooters and military snipers have never been happier.  Gun grabbers in our government have never been more afraid.

But to say that the .50 BMG round was wholly the work of Browning isn't quite true.  Take a look at a .50 BMG shell.  Now take a look at a .30-'06 shell.  Now look at the .50, now the .30, now the .50, now the...

Wait a minute, you are saying, the .50 is HUGE and has nothing in common with the puny little .30 caliber... you are wrong.

WRONG!

Euclid taught us the principles of geometry.  Amongst his teachings: too objects are similar if the ratios of their sides to each other are equal, even if the objects are different sizes.  That means a 1" square is similar to a 2" square: even though one is bigger than the other, they both have four sides of equal length.  They're both SQUARE.

This isn't rocket science.  Well... never mind...

The .50 BMG is similar to the .30-'06, and not just a little.  Browning literally was so impressed with the natural perfection of the .30-'06, he just scaled the whole thing up to .50 caliber.  Place a .50 BMG five feet away.  Place a .30-'06 three feet away.  Close one eye to kill depth perception.  Look at them side by side: identical.

IDENTICAL!

And what does this have to do with gun grabbers?  Or long range shooting?

Patience, grasshopper...

Take a look at competitive rifle shooting and you find there are a few general classes into which all shooters fit:

You got your small-bore: those who think the .22 LR is the be-all, end-all.

You got your .50 BMG crowd: all that energy, and 1000 yards seems downright close.

You got your benchresters: they don't care about anything that isn't bolted down and aimed at an immobile target at a fixed distance.  And they hate weather.

Finally, there is oddest crowd: those who try to build the ultimate all-around long range rifle.

These guys want more power than a .22 LR, or even than the 6mm benchrest guns.  After all, they hunt.  Or they fancy themselves snipers.  Whatever.  They want some power.  But they don't fuss about with the big fifty.  Too unwieldy.  Too much power.  Not in terms of performance, but in terms of being able to shoot it comfortably, repeatedly, without adding 20 pounds of dead weight to the stock.  And too expensive!  Mass-produced military surplus ammo isn't too expensive, but it ain't cheap; factor in match bullets, etc., and costs go through the roof.  So...  What do these guys shoot?

Wildcats.

What do they use as a base?  Mostly the .30-'06, although modern beltless magnums are really catching on.  But they like the ought six because brass is cheaper and actions are already tailor-made for it.  And they like the way Jack O'Connor thought: build something that is ideal for the readily available actions, using a sleek bullet you can push to a high speed.  You hit the ranges where these guys compete, and you see wildcats like the 6.5mm-'06 Ackely Improved.  An old buddy of mine built one of these babies, and uses it to push a 140 gr bullet, with a high ballistic coefficient, to velocities close to a 7mm Magnum with the same bullet weight.  He hits golf balls at 500 yards.  He takes his baby deer hunting and gets clean kills further out than I can usually even see a deer.  It's a ballistic dream.

Now logically, if the .50 BMG is similar to a .30-'06, you should be able to create similar wildcats... but there are problems.  You can buy a barrel for a long-action hunting rifle in just about any bore and twist you can imagine.  Give a gunsmith your barrel, and action, and a chamber reamer, and you can create a rifle ready to fire just about any wildcat you can fathom.  But decide to tinker with the .50 BMG, and suddenly you are elevated to a whole other world of custom work and high price.  It's not that it's harder, per se.  It just takes more money and time, because the vast supply of ready-to-use parts isn't there.

OK, you have an inkling where this is going, but what about gun grabbers?

Remember that stupid assault weapons ban?  One of the problems the gun grabbers faced was that naming a specific gun to ban, like the Colt AR-15, resulted in manufacturers renaming guns to get around the ban.  Ban the AR-15?  We'll introduce the Sporter!  Gun grabbers got smarter (they thought) and came up with the idea of banning by attribute.  Got a bayonet lug AND a pistol grip AND a flash suppressor?  HA HA!  Ban it!

Now they want to ban .50 BMG rifles.

But what happens when you wildcat the .50 BMG?

Would a ban on all .30-'06 rifles and ammunition result in a ban on the .270?  Or the 6.5mm-'06 Ackley Improved?  My limited legal knowledge says NO.

So let's flood the market with wildcats of the .50 BMG before the gun grabbers can succeed.  And even where they have banned already, like Kalyfornya, the ban fails when the rifle and ammo are no longer ".50 BMG."

This is good news for extreme shooters.

Let's face it: the .50 BMG is NOT an ideal long range round.  Yeah, I went there.  It's slow.  Drop at long range is huge.  The bullets have a lot of drag.  Windage at long range is huge.  Not as bad as with the smaller cousin, but still far from ideal.  What the extreme shooters need to do is think like my buddy with his 6.5mm-'06 Ackley improved.

What would happen if you necked down the .50 BMG to fire something more like a .40 caliber bullet?  What if that .40 caliber bullet was extremely long and heavy for its diameter, giving it an extremely high ballistic coefficient?  And what if said bullet was still significantly lighter than the usual 750 gr slug in the big fifty?  Now imagine the fifty case blown out, shoulder sharpened, neck shortened, to fit in the most powder possible?  Imagine this sleek bullet with the high B.C. flying out the barrel, not at 2,700 fps, but more like 3,300 fps...

This is great news for extreme shooters.  It's also good for the tactical guys, but let's not tell the media.  We want them to think only the .50 BMG is bad news.

What do you call this new wildcat monster?  How about the Remington (or Winchester, or whoever we can get to tool up) 10mm Magnum?  Sounds like some sort of hunting round to me.  Certainly no terrorist weapon.

As long as we are tinkering, how about redesigning the case head to take a standard-sized primer?  One of the biggest gripes of the .50 BMG handloaders is that you need to buy special primers.  When Browning scaled up the ought-six, he scaled up the primer, too.  That's one mistake the genius made.  I can name one or two more, but no point starting a flame war.  Had he been thinking, he would have modified the design to use shotgun primers: about the right size, about the right amount of spark, but standardized.  Handloaders buy little bushings that allow them to fit shotgun primers into surplus brass.  Forget that.  Tool up and crank out millions of rounds, with the case already resized for the smaller bullet and increased powder load, and ready for shotgun primers.  This also makes it impossible for the gun grabbers to find a way to steal the wildcats by default: if surplus .50 BMG brass doesn't match up, it doesn't meet the attribute test.

So now we have a new round with a bullet under .45 caliber (they won't get away with banning anything this size or smaller; it's too obvious a grab for our pistols), it takes a new type of brass not compatible with military surplus .50 BMG rounds, and it is clearly designed from the ground up to be a sporting cartridge.  No "military" guns are chambered for it.  No one makes a machine gun to shoot it.  There are no belts of surplus ammo to hold up when testifying before Congress.  And so what if will drop an elephant?  Elephant rifles already do that.

I think this is a necessary step.  We need an "improved" version of the .50 BMG cartridge that is ban-proof.  And once brass becomes available, we just might see the wildcatters out there cramming in smaller and smaller bullets at higher and higher velocities.  Maybe someone will try launching a .30 caliber, 220 gr match bullet at 5,000 fps.  Talk about a varmint gun!  And it won't be long before someone shortens the case, much as the .30-'06 was shortened to make the .308 Winchester.  A "short" .50 BMG, necked down to 10mm, and firing a 500 gr slug at 2,700 fps makes an incredible round for dangerous game.  Sure, we already have Weatherby and those Nitro Express rounds... but collectors always want another.  And it adds to the credibility of the family as hunting guns.  What to call it?  How about the 10mm Patriot or the 10mm Liberty? 

Something that sounds so patriotic and American couldn't possibly be a terror weapon, right?

Most importantly, it sends a powerful message to the gun grabbers: whatever you propose short of an outright ban, we will work around. 

And if you propose an outright ban, you will lose.

I have spoken!  Let the new generation of ultra-high-power, ultra-long-range SPORTING rifles begin!  And if any of you readers know anyone working over at Winchester or Remington, pass this along...

Comments

[Jay G]

I. LOVE. IT.

Personally, though, I think the bullet should be a .45, and the name should be something along the lines of the "45/??? (I don't know offhand what the second designation would be, something like 200 or so?) American" or something like that...

[Gullyborg]

No reason why we can't have both a 10mm and a .45 version now, is there...

[Jay G]

It's all about the diversity...

[Chris Byrne]

Sounds like somebody needs to give Lazzeroni a call.

This is right up his alley. Your talking about a guy who chambers a 6.5mm bullet in a 300 win mag case, at up to 4300fps; and a 10mm bullet in the same case for up to 3000fps.

[Gullyborg]

I don't suppose you know his e-mail address?

[Gullyborg]

update: got it! I e-mailed Lazzeroni and Barrett both.

[Libercontrarian]

I like it! Keep it coming, GB!

[kevin]

Hmmmm. I got a consulting contract from someone who owns a gun company. I'd go with a 30 caliber myself. I wonder how much the twist would need to be changed.

[publicola]

Two problems.

The first is you has me interested until you started talking about a different case (cause of the primer pocket). If handloaders are anything it's cheap..er, economical. If you could offer them surplus brass to form the cases from then it'd sell. Buying fresh brass? Nope. Too pricey.

But the main problem I have is the idea behind it. Work around the gun grabbers? That's the wrong attitude. That's like saying (in the mid 70's) "when the soviets take over we'll set up secret signs to let each other know we're free". A much better tactic would be to stop them cold. We can do it (if we can get the NRA off their compromising asses) & we can go on the offensive (i.e. start pushign for repeals). But not if we're already spending time & effort into thinking how to "work around" the next ban. It's not just conceding to the enemy, it's putting our resources into conceding when we could still fight them off.

Hey, far be it from me to discourage anyone from trying to improve our cartridge selection, but do it cause you want a new toy to play with, not because you think it'll teach the gun grabbers a lesson. We can put the gun grabbers on the run. We can do this by pushing hard for repeals of various gun laws. Politically we shoudl put our efforts into that rather than working out what to do when we get more gun control.

Want to play with a neat wildcat? Then let's push for a repeal of GCA of '68. Then we can see what a necked up .50 BMG case (say to .60 caliber) will do with a 1,000 grain bullet (I'm thinking around 1800 fps).

[Gullyborg]

I agree with Publicola's points, but would like to add that the best way to win a war is to attack on multiple fronts. We ABSOLUTELY need groups like the NRA and conservative politicians to tackle the issue head on. But if we can also attack the gun grabbers from another angle, an angle that doesn't draw resources away from our front line political soldiers, then we drain the gun lobby all the faster.

And Publicola, check out the Barrett XM-109! That might be exactly what you want.

[Gullyborg]

oh yeah, cost:

the primer issue makes reloading (not to be confused with handloading) the .50 BMG expensive. A new case that is otherwise identical except for using a shotgun primer would probably actually be cheaper, especially after a huge release of new factory-loaded ammo.

[Kevin Baker]

Well, there's already the .404 Cheyenne Tactical, which is supposedly ballistically superior to the .50BMG, but it's based on the .505 Jeffery African cartridge, I believe. The .404 Chey-Tac is a true 10mm/.40 caliber round, but the projectiles (right now) are custom lathe-turned peices for the most part.

There's a .50 Spotter round that is smaller than the .50BMG and has similar ballistics to the 105 recoilles rifle round (it was used as a spotting round for that projectile.) I know those cases are sold surplus, so I assume someone loads them for some wildcat firearm.

I don't know why the .404 Chey-Tac people chose the Jeffery case over the .50BMG. It might have been for the primer pocket size.

[Homer]

First, I side with Publicola. Rights are rights, maintain a "no compromise" position. Line in the sand and all that.

While we're doing that, if we want to create new cartridge/caliber combinations, why not? Personally, I think a 20MM case shortened an inch and necked down to .338 might make a nifty varmint cartridge. For large varmints, of course.

[Don Meaker]

There is already a .510DTC Europa that is one millimeter shorter than the .50BMG but has the same case volume.

I am hoping that Barrett etc. will chamber and sell their weapons in this developed chambering.

[rosignol]

I'm starting to get the impression that some people think everything that isn't big game is a varmint.

Not that there's anything wrong with that... ;-)

[Brad]

Beaten to the punch

Wildcatting the .50 is a neat idea, but from what I know there are already wildcats of the .50 out there. I can't recall the name but I know there is one .50 wildcat designed for greater accuracy that uses .50 match bullets and a modified .50 BMG case.

And as for other high power options especially those that get around .50 BMG bans, rather than .50 wildcats I like the .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge and the SSK industries .50 Peacekeeper cartridge. Supposedly the .50 Peacekeeper drives a standard .50 caliber bullet at a velocity only 300 fps less than the standard .50 BMG but using a rifle action no larger than an elephant gun. And the .338 is very powerful, very accurate, and available in the inexpensive AR-30 rifle which has a massive recoil brake that supposedly reduces the pounding .338 down to less than the recoil of a standard weight .308 rifle

[Brad]

one other idea for getting around .50 BMG bans

Why not use the Soviet 12.7mm heavy machinegun cartridge? From what little data I have on hand, it appears to use identical diameter bullets to the .50 BMG and the case size is very slightly larger. I bet an existing .50 BMG barrel could get chamber reamed and it would then fit the Soviet 12.7mm cartridge with no problem.

Since the .50 BMG ban laws seem to very directly attack the .50 BMG cartridge using definitions that only fit the .50 BMG cartridge, using the Soviet 12.7mm HMG cartridge would bypass the law.

And what about cost? I bet there are mountains of Soviet 12.7mm ammo floating around the world. A huge untapped resource of cheap imported ammo yet to be exploited.

[Gullyborg]

Why limit ourselves? Why not do all of the above? As for the Soviet 12.7mm... why is that liberals want us to import every idea the Communists ever had, except for how to build inexpensive but highly useful weaponry?

[LC Wil]

So Sorry - Whooops. Been there, done that.

See Guns and Ammo, about 1973, the .44 - 50 Jug. Skeeter Skelton, 50 BMG, necked to .44, long heavy 44 bullet, in a Single Action HANDGUN.

Quadruple load (that means 4 types of powder, in order, for you rookies) Earschplittenloudenboomer from hell.

As always, Skeeter beat us...

[Gullyborg]

Yes, people have experimented with this stuff before... but that's only part of the battle. We need to A) use new technology especially with powders and barrel metallurgy to get the most out of the case, B) turn it into factory loads for the masses and to promote a surplus of brass for handloaders, and C) create a work-around for potential gun bans to confound the enemy while the NRA attacks them on the legal front.

[Gullyborg]

That is a real problem. Note that I am not the one most gung ho on the notion of taking it down to .30 caliber... I personally think taking it down to .375, which creates about one and a half times the internal barrel volume using the same barrel length--that's a hell of a lot better in terms of bore capacity. But still, I do think it could be done. It would take an extremely long barrel, though, and barrel life would be short--working up a good load might take up most of your barrel life. Still--given the newest in both powder and barrel technology, why not try it?

Does anyone know about the ceramic "artificial diamond" coating technology used on the most expensive chef's knives? Could it be applied to rifle barrels?

[Dean]

I don't have the dimensions in front of me now, but I have read of a round called the .460 Steyr. It is a 50BMG case shortened a few mm, and necked down to .458 dia.
No further info.

[Kyle]

I am thinking 50BMG Ackley Improved and shoot lighter bullets. Futher refinements would inevitably follow.
Like maybe aluminum bullets in a copper jacket.(really long) Or hollow bullets shaped like a football.(no drag)<>

[Fred]

Loose the 50 case and use a 10,000 PSI scuba tank to make it an air rifle. Then it won't come under "fire"arm laws!

[just hunter]

i know just enough about guns to say some of you guys have the right idea and know just enough to admit that i am just a greenhorn . we all want more powder, more speed, and over more distance and with less inaccuracey and without causing the bullet to com tumbling out of the barrel or damage the rifling . a smaller bullet something like a 7mm or my familys favorite model 70, 300 Winchester or evan down to 6mm are the perfect size to necked down to with a larger case to back them up would make the best hunting rifle for at least 20 years and some one if can find me a 300win case necked down to a 6 or 7mm or somthing close to it, that would me so happy i would seriously consider naming my second born son after you

[wayne]

I have a friend with a XP-100 chambered in a 35 Rem. necked to .338. It is called something with "Jones" in it. Does anyone have any loading info on it?

[wayne]

I have a friend with a XP-100 chambered in a 35 Rem. necked to .338. It is called something with "Jones" in it. Does anyone have any loading info on it?

[mark]

The big fifty has been modified extensively and with SOME succeess... .50 Ackly Improved, 338/50 Talbot, etc. The sacrifice has always been barrel life. Comes with the territory for "snipers" but just not acceptable for serious long-range hunter/varminters, who want a gun that you can sight in and forget. Constant rebarreling and breaking in of ones hunting rifle is a hassle most will avoid. The solution? Take a clue from Browning's genius, not his product. Look to newer rounds for inspiration and scale these up like Browning did to get the .50 from the .30-06. My suggestion? the 6mmbr. Takes 1000yard matches left and right. Most importantly, LONG barrel life, due in part to a geometry that allows more of the powder to burn in the chamber, not in the barrel.

[Joe]

I'm thinking of a .50 BMG necked down to a 10mm firing a .30 sabot. Just thinking.