450Bushmaster.net

If you guys are interested in jacket thickness or contruction, I did this for the Savage ML guys awhile back and with velocities being close to the same, figure it would appy the the 450 also. http://dougsmessageboards.proboards.com ... 735&page=1

I'll hopefully be joing the 450 ranks by end of summer.


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Pardon the poor machining, deburring, and pics, but from left to right,

250gr SST Flex Tip, 250gr SW, and 300gr Bonded SW. As you can see, they are of identical construction for the most part, (the 300gr SST/SW's are the same as the 300gr Bonded SW also). Base thickness is .050, sidewall .035 just below the ojive. Dunno what it is with tipped bullets, but darn near everyone I've cut has had a void in the tip.

275gr ringed Parker, (Bob added 3 rings for some testing I want to do sabotless). Base thickness is .030, sidewall .021.

325gr .458 Hornady Flex Tip, base thickness .050, sidewall .040 just under the cannuler where the interlock is. The wad of copper on the right side of the tip, is one of the heavy scallops folds they add to the nose for expansion, and me not having it squared up right in the vise.




Below Left to right

250gr .452 XTP, base thickness .025, sidewall .025, this bullet is canted a little in the pic (and not deburred so well), making the sidwall look thicker, but it's .025. (300gr version is the same construction but with a extra cannuler)

240gr .452 XTP mag, base thickness .050, sidewall .040 (300gr version is of the same construction also, no wonder these are tuff lil suckers)

300gr .451 Speer Unicore, plating thickness is .015 all around.

300gr .451 Speer Gold Dot, plating thickness is .035 all around. The copper dot centered across the cannuler, is the bottom of the Gold Dot. These were intened for the 454 Cassul, there were some expansion pics posted on the MM board awhile back, pretty impressive. http://www.modernmuzzleloader.com/phpBB ... t=gold+dot

300gr .458 Speer Unicore, plating thickness .022 all around.

Whow! Photos are great!

Very good info! Thanks! Jacket thickness is an issue when pushing higher velocities.

How are they pushing these out of muzzleloaders sabotless?

Siringo wrote:How are they pushing these out of muzzleloaders sabotless?

use a .458 groove barrel which is around .4505 on the lands, size the bullet for a snug push down the bore. Use a wool or veggie wad between the powder and bullet for the initial gas seal, big light hits, bullet obutrates into the grooves for spin.

The thicker jacketed bullets are harder to get obutrated in the lighter weights, the Parkers seem to be the easiest to get going right off the bat, I haven't run any of the Speers yet, but they are next up to wring out.

Great info, nice pictures. Thanks for this.

Al in Mi wrote:

Siringo wrote:How are they pushing these out of muzzleloaders sabotless?

use a .458 groove barrel which is around .4505 on the lands, size the bullet for a snug push down the bore. Use a wool or veggie wad between the powder and bullet for the initial gas seal, big light hits, bullet obutrates into the grooves for spin.

The thicker jacketed bullets are harder to get obutrated in the lighter weights, the Parkers seem to be the easiest to get going right off the bat, I haven't run any of the Speers yet, but they are next up to wring out.

Using smokless? What is being used to size the bullet? I used to have a White Muzzleloader that worked this way. The 500 gr 45 was more accurate that the 400 gr. Much like the Army trials of the 45-70 100+ years ago. Shooting the 400 gr required a hollow base to slug up to the .460 bore (.457 bullet), but the 500 gr had enough mass to slug.

My personal shooting with a hard cast 335gr.WNFP has shown significant slugging.

I think there is a lot of information out there on the bullets we are using in the 450 Bushy from the muzzleloading crowd.

Siringo wrote:

Al in Mi wrote:

Siringo wrote:How are they pushing these out of muzzleloaders sabotless?

use a .458 groove barrel which is around .4505 on the lands, size the bullet for a snug push down the bore. Use a wool or veggie wad between the powder and bullet for the initial gas seal, big light hits, bullet obutrates into the grooves for spin.

The thicker jacketed bullets are harder to get obutrated in the lighter weights, the Parkers seem to be the easiest to get going right off the bat, I haven't run any of the Speers yet, but they are next up to wring out.

Using smokless? What is being used to size the bullet? I used to have a White Muzzleloader that worked this way. The 500 gr 45 was more accurate that the 400 gr. Much like the Army trials of the 45-70 100+ years ago. Shooting the 400 gr required a hollow base to slug up to the .460 bore (.457 bullet), but the 500 gr had enough mass to slug.

My personal shooting with a hard cast 335gr.WNFP has shown significant slugging.

I think there is a lot of information out there on the bullets we are using in the 450 Bushy from the muzzleloading crowd.

yep, smokeless. Some guys went with a Pacnor barrel, I oped for a Shilen.

I made up my own heavy walled sizing dies, honed a c-bore to .452 to get them started straight, then push them thru with a arbor press. The heavy walled bushing helps keep the springback consistant. This particular die sizes a XTP mag to .4506 but is honed .4500, .0006-.0008 springback is typical, the FTX .458's need to be sized in .002 steps.

One of my favorities is the Hornady 300 gr. fp 458 dia. I size that using a lee die from 458 all the way to 452 without too much problem. However, the 325 fxt is tough. I got a 454 to take it in steps. Although, I am thinking of trying the 300 gr SST instead. I have a great load for the 300 fp, but it would be better to get a little flatter shooting. STILL, the flattest shooting is the 250 SST.

You gotta admit, dem fellas from MI rock...nice set up Al