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.50 Beowulf?

40K views 264 replies 22 participants last post by  TRX 
#1 ·
I'd been planning to do a .50 Beowulf AK with a bent receiver, but a milled Chinese receiver is now laying on my workbench. It's part of some kind of training/DEWATS rifle; the barrel is welded up, the top cover has a few short (and pretty!) TIG welds anchoring it to the receiver, and it's missing the bolt and carrier.

I'll need the following:

.50 barrel

7.62x39 bolt to match the Beowulf case head

bolt carrier and operating rod

.223 magazine (may require some "adjustment" according to the AR15 sites)

modified or full-custom RSB, gas block, and FSB - the .50 barrel would have to be thinned unworkably to match the OEM bits. Though machining them from scratch is okay, I might cheat, saw the rings off, and weld or silver solder them to appropriate-sized tubes

At the moment, the only real point of uncertainty is the barrel attachment - it appears to be threaded into the receiver. I know I saw a chart around somewhere that gave the thread specs, but darned if I can find it now...

Anyone see anything major I've overlooked? Other than the gas and sight blocks, it looks fairly easy.
 
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#30 ·
>I cant see why the chamber coud not be cut on a lathe with
> boring bar and the tool post set at the aproperate angle.

It would work, and I have some old machining books that show similar operations. You'd have to offset the steady rest and tie the drive dog to the faceplace with shoelaces, and for some reason I'm leery of the whole thing. I don't have enough travel on the cross slide to do an accurate job that way.


> my plan was to cut the freebore/bullet lead with a much
> cheaper throating reamer (around $40)

I found a couple of places that claim to make piloted taper reamers for regular machine tools. I'll contact them later in the week and see what they'd want for a reamer.


> I was looking at the extra long blank idea as well and
> doing a rifle and a pistol . or say getting a 30" blank and
> doing two 14" barrels and then adding perminate muzzel
> breaks on for the extra length to be legal.

Well, duh! I never thought of adding a muzzle brake...
 
#32 ·
1biggun directed me to the "pistol barrel" page at Green Mountain, where they had a 15" .500 bore barrel for $79.95. Twist is 1:18, close enough to the recommended 1:19 for the Beowulf. I gave them the credit card information and it'll be on the way tomorrow for $87 with shipping.

Impactguns still seems to have the best price on Beowulf brass, but their order page is either hosed, or doesn't work with Konqueror. I'll have to call them and order the brass.

I was going to order a .223 AK magazine, but when I went to the closet and dug out an M-16 mag, I found out it appeared to accept and feed 5.45x39 just fine. I'm now unsure what the difference between a 5.45 and .223 AK mag would be, unless the x39 case is a bit more tapered. The Eyball-O-Meter couldn't see any difference with the single .223 cartridge I have on hand.

I also found out that the standard ex-military mag I have accepts 7.62x39 just fine, too. The M-16 mag tries to center the cartridge (more or less) as opposed to the left/right feed from the AK mag.

There's only a couple of dollars' difference between a 5.45 and .223 mag, so I'll probably just go for a .223... the Beowulf case is darned near straight, only .010" taper, so an ideal mag would be almost straight. Since Alexander Arms says a standard AR-15 mag will work, I'm guessing it's close enough.
 
#34 ·
Hmm. So far the only .500/.501 bullet moulds I've found are ".50 S&W" ranging from 375gr (ok) to 440gr (heavier than I want). All of them are "semi-wadcutter" with a mild ogive and a flat nose. I was hoping for a round nose bullet.

I was concerned about the flat nose, then I realized if a Saiga can feed a shotgun shell, I can probably figure out how to twiddle the bullet guide to handle a flat nose bullet.

440gr Lee bullet below; others I've found look similar:

Lee Precision, Inc. Reloading Tools and Equipment: Available Bullet Molds

Looks like Lee moulds are still $26ish. Wow, the other brands have become expensive... I've been out of this for way too long.
 
#35 ·
Steel .223 magazines seem to be few and expensive; I just spent 90 minutes searching. Lots of "out of stock" pages. Apex has steel 5.45 Tantal mags for $23; I ordered one of those.

15" barrel $87, Beowulf brass $67, magazine $30, all after shipping.

The Chinese milled receiver came out of the hot tank nice and clean. I'll have to do some careful grinding to get the welded-on top cover off. I have a Yugo flat on hand too; I had the idea I might do both a milled and bent receiver while I'm on a roll, but Yugo trunnions seem to have become elusive and expensive also. I still intend to make up some trunnions from scratch, but I'm trying to avoid the "one project waiting on another" thing.
 
#36 ·
I was poking around the black powder section on the Lee web site and found something very interesting - "Improved Minie, Traditional Design." .500 diameter, 360 grains, still a flat point, but a much more rounded nose than their S&W bullet. Three large grease grooves. I'm not sure where the case mouth would wind up in relation to the grooves, but for $26.98 I'm sorely tempted to find out.

Lee Precision, Inc. Reloading Tools and Equipment: Black Powder Molds

Second bullet down, part number 90472.

The "Modern Minie, Target Design" grease grooves might work better, but I don't like the wadcutter nose.


[note: I started off looking to build something in .45-70, to shoot inexpensive cast lead bullets at modest velocity. I'm just using Beowulf brass now instead of .45-70.]
 
#37 ·
I'm going to do my own reamer out of O1 drill rod. I think the Beowulf might be about as easy as it gets to do a reamer. The barrel has a .491 bore, the case is .525 at the neck, .535 at the rim. Wholesale Tool has 36" lengths of 19/32" drill rod for $10.

If I bore or ream the rifling out of the chamber before I start, the reamer only has to cut .025/.035"; actually, half of that, on each side, a maximum of .0175 + chamber clearance. For that, even very shallow flutes will do. Three or four shallow mill cuts. The lack of deep cuts should also help keep it from warping when heat treated.

I was sketching earlier and realized I don't know how much clearance there needs to be between the case and the chamber. I also don't know how I'm supposed to handle the transition from the case mouth to the rifling - taper? Square? Will the reamer try to snag on the rifling? Any suggestions are welcome.

Since such a tiny amount of metal has to come out, the plan is to clamp the barrel muzzle-down in the big bench vise, put the tap wrench on the square end, and do it by hand. I don't see why it should be greatly different from my NPT pipe reamers.
 
#38 ·
The difference in the 545 and 223 mags is a slight taper diff and if you look the "bump" into the shoulder of the round to aid feeding, it is slightly to the rear on the 545 mag Modified 545 mags will reliably hold about 25 223 rounds
Have you looked at the leverlution bullets, they have/had some 50
 
#39 ·
Have you looked at the leverlution bullets, they have/had some 50
Those are jacketed, and expensive. I'm going with lead.

I think I'll try the Minie ball mould from Lee. If the grease groove comes out in an unfortunate place, I might have them make up a custom cherry. At $100, that's not much more than anyone else's mould blocks. Or I might be able to reach into the Lee mould with the die grinder and remove the ridge that makes the offending groove.
 
#41 ·
Agreed!

All of the bullet core molds I have in my swaging kit are custom deals. Use some aluminum blocks in the appropriate size, index them so as they mate properly, and thread them for set screws for the handles.

The trick would, IMO, be to set them on the lathe and/or build a custom cutter. A custom cutter on a milling machine would be... troublesome. Best, IMO, to use a lathe with an appropriate mounting plate. Your cutting process would be in reality a boring operation, as you're going to bore out the holes. You'd be doing it with a custom boring bit vs. one of those indexable boring heads. It will be a bore! lol
 
#43 ·
I went to the Lee page and ordered the Minie ball mould and the Beowulf die set. Took a while to find it because they spelled it wrong. Also picked up another tube of case lube, since my old one has dried out in the 20+ years since I last used it...

The first order of the day will be to cast a Minie ball and load it into a Beowulf case. Then I'll know whether the grease groove will be an issue.

Every time I think "Minie ball" and "AK" I think of that really bad book by Harry Turtledove...
 
#44 ·
>with the chamber you will need the free bore in front of the
>bullet to have the aproperite angle at it transitons into the
>rifleing this is important to avoid high pressure.

I've found some benchest commentary on this, but mostly of the "My Way Is The Only True Way And Anyone Who Questions It Will Be Struck By Bolts Of Lightning" type. The Minie is a fat, stubby bullet, so I think I should be looking more at what kind of angle is used by barrels chambered for similar bullets. That would be more like .45 ACP, I think. Now to find out what the angle would be for an ACP...

> you will have to or should cut the throat as well as the
> neck of the chamber with a piloted reamer. these are not
> super expensive although I have not looked at .50 stuff.

I was planning to do all of the cuts with the chambering reamer, if possible. That would guarantee everything was concentric. Would there be an advantage to doing it separately?

Modern thinking seems to be that the bullet should touch, or nearly touch, the rifling when the cartridge is chambered. The old guys liked lots of freebore.


> I would call a few places for a reamer befroe trying to
> make one.

I'd happily pay $150 for a properly made chambering reamer. I ass-umed no reputable company would grind one, given Alexander Arms' patent, trademark, and Black Mall Ninja Helicopters of Doom.
 
#45 ·
Since I'm going to have to make the gas block from scratch, I figured it might as well be adjustable. Several people have converted FAL L1A1 gas blocks, and the Saiga-12 uses an adjustable gas block.

Would anyone like to make a case for the use of one type over the other? (or any other adjustable block, for that matter)

An FAL block would be easiest to obtain for use as a pattern, but I'm open to suggestions.
 
#46 ·
I think I just discovered the parent case for the .50 Beowulf - the 11.2 x 72 Schuler.

Beowulf Schuler
rim .445 .469
base .535 .536
neck .525 .510 (at shoulder)
OAL 1.65 2.80

Other than the rim size, you could cut a Schuler case, run it through Beowulf dies, and make Beowulf brass, other than the rim, which is 8mm Mauser size, close enough to standard American "large base."


So you'd have to have a reamer made for a 12.7 x 54 Schuler Short, and you'd be ready to go...
 
#47 ·
magazine curvature

Magazine curvature: the 5.45 mag should curve more than a .223, and both should curve more than an ideal Beowulf mag. But I'm betting a 5.45 mag will work well enough. The mag, bullet mold, and brass are on the way, so I'll know for sure soon. Ssooonnnn...

Beowulf .535/.525 over 1.65 .010/1.65
5.45 .394/.370 over 1.18 .024/1.18
.223 .376/.354 over 1.76 .022/1.76
 
#52 ·
>the problem with most of them is getting them to fit around
> a .50 barrel.

All I need to know is how they work and get an idea of the adjustability range. I hate to spend $50-$100 just to find out. It might be more reasonable to just built something with replaceable restrictors.
 
#58 ·
if you have a mill and a lathe you can make any thing id look at the 500 S&W build closely it has a rotating drum in it with differant ports its pretty slick.
When I search for ".500 S&W" the search function says "S&W" is too short to search on. I found http://www.gunco.net/forums/f244/conversion-500-s-w-37685/ by clicking through the subject lists but it doesn't have anything about gas blocks. Can you point me to the gas block discussion?
 
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