450Bushmaster.net

This week while traveling thru Nebraska, I stopped in Grand Island and took a tour of the Hornady Plant. Needless to say -- but they are quite busy and expanding. They have doubled the size of the plant since last year. Got a tour where they make the bullets -- although not the "sensitive areas". If you ever get a chance -- worth while! I find it interesting that they can make such accurate ammo - on machines, no charge weighing, ect. -- and here we are micro managing our reloads with mixed results. They take tremendous pride in their work and quality control. I was always sold on them -- now so more than ever.

Talked a little with some folks about the 450. The tech I talked to said they get most inquiries regarding light bullets. He said to expect poor results with .451 bullets or less. Too much gas leakage around the bullet for consistant results. He suggeted the new 200 FXT for the 460 S&W Mag, using 2400 instead of any type of ball powder. Ignition should be better, an primers not as critical.

They did reinterate that their design is 38,500 psi and did hint/suggest that the SMR primers not only produce good accuracy --more so that large pistol or rifle -- but limit the amount of powder that can be burned.

For those of us that like a little heavier bullet, call them and tell them that you want to see the 300 gr. FXT packaged instead of having to buy them in Muzzleload packs.

nice report.

As a side note, watch for the blem sales that happen once a year or so, Midway, Lock Stock Barrel, or Midsouth, are usually the main players. Midway had a bunch of blems last fall, with the 300gr SST's and the 250gr yellow tipped Shock Waves being part of them.

Good Tip. They do accuracy testing on an indoor 200 yard range for every 100K bullets produced per caliber. I didn't ask about the culls. However, I did try to get once fired 450 brass and they chuckled -- like me and everyone else.

Good info... I'm already hittin' all the Wally Worlds for leftover ML bullets with the .45 cal projectiles

If your going by a Bass Pro you might check there. The BP in Auburn, NY has the 250 grain FTX in boxes of 50 on the shelf.
BD

This is the huge advantage we have over the other, more-prone-to-pipeline-shortages, Big Bore AR's out there.

At the Shot Show Hornady and Remington and some others, told me they where tooling up to supply the food chain, much, much better, even better than they already are (heck i find supplies everywhere I go, how much better could it get for us?). There is even some other Big-Time Players coming in and some really cool things are about to be announced, that I am not supposed to talk about, but, just rest assured that the 450 is here to stay and is not going to have the supply prone problems (be it ammo or parts or barrels or anything else) that those others guys have that thought copying my work was a good idea, with their mere wildcats.

The 450 Bushmaster is here to stay, with the backing of the Majors, and the R&D we have here, there is no limit to what we will accomplish now.

Siringo wrote:Talked a little with some folks about the 450. The tech I talked to said they get most inquiries regarding light bullets. He said to expect poor results with .451 bullets or less. Too much gas leakage around the bullet for consistant results. He suggeted the new 200 FXT for the 460 S&W Mag, using 2400 instead of any type of ball powder. Ignition should be better, an primers not as critical.

Siringo-

Your whole report was valuable information, but the quoted part is particularly relevant to my experiments with the 185-grain bullets.

The tech's predicted leakage problems with 451 bullets may not be a problem with my efforts with the .451 SWC 185-grain Hornady bullets, because my barrel was originally made to .45 ACP specs.

His suggestion of 2400, along with Wildcatter's recommendation of the same powder, prompts me to plan to try it soon.

Many thanks for posting this.

--Bob

Thanks! Your bore size certainly will perform better than .452. I wonder what pressure it takes to get the bullet (.451) to slug into a .452 bore?