Range report on the .50 Beowulf--

Recoil on this gun is hard. I'm not recoil sensitive and am not a small person (6ft 220lbs), but this kicked my butt. I had to stop shooting after only 50rnds. The hard sharp checkered butt pad did not help matters any. As it was rather warm at the range I only had on a light shirt. Next time i take this gun to range i will bring a shoulder pad. I can equatate the recoil to a .50cal muzzle loader with a brass butt plate. Started off bench resting and had to go to a sitting position after only 10 rnds because of recoil.
No failure to feeds in 50 rnds. Once sighted in I was getting 2"groups at 50 yds and 3-4" at 100yds with iron sights with a 10mph slight cross wind blowing from the target to firing line (like a 325grn bullet evan cares).
As my shoulder was very sore by the time i started measuring groups, I,m sure the grouping could have been better with a padded shoulder pad.
Noticed that 3 rnds from the first box had slightly pierced primers. This count increased to 6 rnds with pierced primers in second box of 25. The piercing was only very slight with the center of the firing pin dent in the primer black. I called Alexander Arms and they said that the firing pin may have slipped thru QC at little long (The firing pins do not settle down until approx. 10-15 rnds are fired because the recoil tends to take any microsopic burrs off of the pin and allow it to seat further in). They are shipping out a new firing pin to me priority mail today.
Noise was not to bad wearing a good quality ear muff set. (would not try to fire this gun without hearing protection.
Trigger was the now factory standard 6Lbs pull but clean breaking ( an easy fix and to be expected from any newly manufactured firarm today).
I will get a softer recoil pad and wear a padded shoulder next time for the range. If the new firing pin takes care of the primer problem I will be satisfied with this gun. Still do not know what i'm going to be using it for yet, except maybe to rattle the AR-15 owners at the range. Came away from range with bruised shoulder and a big smile on my face. .50cal holes are really easy to see at 100yds. Also shot a 1gal windshield washer fluid jug filled with water at 100yds. Jug disingregated into fine shreds of plastic and went approx. 15ft into the air. Will give updated range reports after I get new firing pin. Off to fridge now to put a cold beer on my shoulder.
Mack M.

What bullet weight were you shooting? A lighter bullet might help but heavy bullets with good velocity in a light rifle means a rapid rise to peak recoil impulse, this means a sharp hit at the shoulder rather than a hard shove, such as with .375 H&H in a 10 LB. rifle. I know that putting a recoil pad on an AR is looked down upon but might help. A match type stock weight would also help.

Thanks for the report I am very interested in this rifle.

Wow,

Just about the max for a little black rifle. No wonder you noticed the recoil. Love to have the upper but would not want the featherlite barrel or car arms lower.

Yes, I realize now it was not a .50bmg single shot upper.

Dan

Mack is this a 50bmg you are talking about? I'm kinda' confused, I thought 50 bmg bullets were typically 600+ grns. 325grs sounds more like a 50AE. Since an AE bullet dia is .500 and a 50BMG is .510, I wouldn't think it is reduced loads using the lighter AE bullet. Please help me understand.

Thanks,
Hack

DBrown and Hack,


The .50 Beowulf is NOT a .50 BMG.  Beowulf is the name of the cartridge.

It's fairly similar to a .50 AE, but I think it's slightly longer.

You can see a pic of it here:  gewehr3.hypermart.net/fagan/index.htm

once more, all i can say is WoW !!!

i'll stick to my lil'ol .223 Rem. AR-15s & my soon to be aquired .22LR conversion unit.....

i done the BIG bore heavy, mule kicking guns when i had a good shoulder & much younger, but it constantly aches from the arthritis, so .22 is my speed today

This thing is too cool. I wanted to get a Tromix upper but waited too long. Hopefully they sell them as uppers only. Here is a pic of the .50 Beowulf (left) next to the .50 AE (right).

Hack, I think Brouhaha and Bunghole probably answered your your question about the caliber.

Bunghole, yes they sell just the uppers.Mine is an A2 upper with removable carry handle and a removable front sight assy. Problem is that alexander Arms will only sell to dealers only, no direct sales. I think that the uppers are going for around $800. Pretty much in tune with any other high end AR upper. Complete gun for around$1250. But they throw in a very nice aluminium carry case ($100 value)

Ilove2shoot- Thanks for the tip. I grabbed a small gel pad off of my motorcycle seat and put it on my shoulder and tried firing a few rounds. What a DIFFERANCE. I'm pretty sure i can get the shop that made up the gel pad to make up a special one for a shooting jacket. I'm looking into getting some kind of rugged scope for this gun. Maybe some kind of shotgun scope. The iron sights work OK but are not regulated for this round. Sighted in at 100yds, hits approx. 1" high at 50yds and 14" low at 200yds.I would probably have to make up a range card for the scope too.
Good news,LEE carries dies for this round. Can probably close up the groups by rolling my own.
Mack M.

Hey Mack, what does the ammo cost from Alexander Arms?

Oh, and if I get one of these, I don't care how it looks. I'm putting a Decelerator on my buttstock.

I just got a response from Len Fagan at AA.

$599.99 for the upper complete. The ammo is $20.00 per box. Len

That sounds very reasonable. If he'll sell me the upper direct I am going to order it and 10 boxes of ammo Tuesday.

Bunghole- Sounds like a great price on the upper. $20 for a box of 20rnds is what I paid.If I start rolling my own i figure i can get it down to about 45cents a round. The neat thing about the upper is that it is a basic A2 upper with the ejector opening machined out to allow the rounds to eject. There is no dust cover on it, but the ears are still left on for it. AA is working on making a dust cover for it, and it can be put on later.The bolt carrier is a standard AR with a 7.62X39 bolt.The machine work on these guns is very high grade. The barrel looks like a  stepped heavy match barrel hogged out to .50 cal. I bent the feed lips on a steel Pro-Mag 20rnder so that the top round was at the same angle as the factory mag and it fed with no problems. Tried the same with an alumminum mag and the bottom spring keeper fell off after 3 shots.Guess thats why they only reccommend steel mags. If using aftermarket mags make sure that the cutouts on the top back off the mag are not cut to far down as the top round can be pushed past the back of the mag. Pro-Mags seem to work fine.
The expression on the faces of the other shooters at the range when i ripped off three quick rounds  was worth the price of the ammo.
Mack M.  

I'm thinking I want to top this with a Tasco Super Sniper 10x42.

Rumor has it that Tasco is going belly up. I would think that your field of view with a 10X40 would be to narrow for any quick snap shooting. After 200yds the .50 Beowulf drops very quickley. At 200yds you would need an elevation adjustment of approx. 14". At 300yds it would be about 42". I'm not sure you could get that much adjustment out of a 10X40 scope. The narrow field of vison would prevent you from evan doing a good holdover.A fixed low power scope should be more than adiquit for this slug.This is not exactly a target round.  

Hello,

Can you obtain reloading dies and load data?