Winter Project: .50 Beowulf AR15?

[Tiktock]

Hello,
I am toying with the idea of a winter project to build myself an AR15. I do not have an EBR and now is the time!

The fun part of this project will be that it will cost me zero out-of-pocket. I am funding the project 100% from custom knife sales. I will first cost everything out, then make a run of knives that will cover those costs. Who knows, maybe i'll do a run of NES knives with the NES logo etched into the blades.....you NES guys are suckers for logo'd gear!

Anyways....

I am planning to do something different than a standard .223 and have settled in on the .50 Beowulf. Seems like a lot of fun! KaBoom!

Does anyone have any experience building an AR for this round? It seems to me like its simply a matter of getting a complete upper and mags for the cartridge and putting it on any normal AR15 lower receiver. Are there any other considerations I need to make?

 

[FPrice]

Somebody (Chris?) recently posted pics of his .50 Beowolf in another thread. Show us your Ar maybe? It looks like a great build.

edited to add:

http://northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=30846&page=12

It was Chris. Post no. 222

 

[EddieCoyle]

Ammo is very expensive and very hard to find. Do you reload?

 

[Tiktock]

Ammo is very expensive and very hard to find. Do you reload?

I would certainly be reloading since ammo appears to run a little over $1 per round for bulk factory ammo....plus I doubt my local mom and pop gunshop is going to have this stuff, haha!

I figure I don't shoot as much as I like, so I may as well go big when I do shoot....I looked at the .458 socom uppers but the ammo seems absurdly expensive (double the beowulf)

 

[EddieCoyle]

It's only $1 per round? Wow. S&W .500 is running about $2.80 a round for the good stuff.

I'd talk to Chris about ammo availability first though. He's a pretty savvy and thorough guy, and if I recall correctly, he was having a hard time finding anybody with the stuff in stock.

 

[Tiktock]

Ammo does seem to be the problem. I did a bunch of searches and there are people complaining everywhere that ammo is not available or is on backorder. Looks like i'd need to start loading it right away or wait for it to become available....hmmm...i'm going to see if the components for reloading it are easilly available which would solve that problem....

 

[EddieCoyle]

Bullets are easy; brass, not so much.

 

[Chris]

Ammo is becoming easier to get. Alexander Arms is using a new company (notice the change in the look of the boxes) and they are doing a fairly good job of cleaning up the backorders. Since there was a serious hoarding when the original ammo company closed shop, it will take a few months to get the pipe flowing again.

There is also talk that Wolf will begin loading as part of their premium line (Actually pretty good stuff) which should help a lot as well.

Rainer bullet factory loads are running about $230/case of 200 ($1.20 each) plus shipping and markup. Speer bullet loads run $245/case of 200 ($1.23 each) +S&M, but my favorite 400 grain Hawk loads are up to $410/case of 200 ($2.05 each) + S&M.

Gotta love the S&M (^_^)

There is a lot of reload data on the net, but haven't see much in the books yet. You can use .500 S&W data so long as you reduce the load based on the chamber pressures. (See my post in the ammo section for more information) However, the better loads will use a slightly slower powder than works for the S&W as you will be able to use time to compensate for pressure loss.

Alexander Arms has some reload data on their web site that should be able to get you started:

http://www.alexanderarms.com/beowulf_reloading.pdf

 

[Tiktock]

Thanks again Chris!

Well after pricing everything out including the reloading stuff, I had better make it a point to get into the shop to start turning out knives, as this is going to be an expensive little project...

 

[Arioch]

My back ordered .50 Beowulf just became available. If you want to meet at the range sometime Tiktock, you can try it and we'll get the bastidge sighted in.

 

[Tiktock]

My back ordered .50 Beowulf just became available. If you want to meet at the range sometime Tiktock, you can try it and we'll get the bastidge sighted in.

Hell yeah! My wedding is November 1st and I wanted to get together to talk knives sometime shortly after that anyways, so we can kill two birds with one stone! I'll msg ya once I am back from my honeymoon.

 

[ArmedMainer]

You can get some info from this website. www.50beowulf.com/forum. Also Curlymaple42 who used to be on here quite a bit could probably give you some advice on casting and reloading this caliber.