Scarcity & cost of the socom & Beowulf

[wildcatter]

I'm being contacted by owners of these other products and finally did some research.. "Is this right, if you can find any ammo and in the case of the socom it's $3.18/rd for the recommended ammo made by SBR"?!" (compared to a $1.25/rd area for ours). This can't be right, is it? I know, say about a year ago, Starline started back up production of those rds after a nearly two year shut-down and redesign (seems they were splitting cases, huh, imagine that, guess that stretched pistol case just wont handle the modern rifle pressures or at least that's what I was told the problem was from Peter Pi [Corbon pres.] PS., And by my measurements the redesign, is still not up to the modern high pressure rifle case standards our cartridge is at, not even close. Remember the socom/beowulf cases are made from stretching the 50AE case.), but I digress.

Those guys have some VERY disgruntled customers that have spent a ton of money and now can't get any ammo and/or, industry support is a .."JOKE", their quote not mine, heck I wouldn't know. My Internet research is indicating that some of this may be true or is at least a big problem, but I don't want to believe it, but more than 3 bucks (in the +3x times area of what we spend) a round and finding it is a Hugh Problem.

I don't know what to tell these guys, I guess, I'm looking for the inside skinny. When Weeme, picked my mind and thought he could copy my work, did toughs guys jump the gun in their design work-ups, same for the 499/beowulf guys or is market pressures the reason for the lack of product and support or what? Any Thoughts??

[thatguy]

I know when I got 'bit by the big bore bug' its seemed that most ppl recommended the 50B and 458S over the 450B.. There reasoning was a mix of the following 1) the 50B is a 50 (name only but sounds meaner), 2) Wider selection of commercial bullet weights (especially commercially in the 458S and for the reloaders), 3) they dont use pistol bullets (which seems to be a HUGE negative for a lot of ppl), and 4) the ballistics were better (which is arguable depending on which side you want to argue i reckon)

I thought I really wanted a 50B because I had seen them at local gun shows, AA is about an hr south of me and 'beowulf' is such a cool sounding cartridge.. LOL

BUT once i looked at the entire package 1) who is making the gun (Bushmaster vs AA vs RRA) 2) who is making ammo (hornady/AA/Corbon-SBR), 3) availability of ammo and guns, and 4) cost of ammo - the 450B is a winner hands down in my opinion.. It seems that AA needs to farm out their ammunition production to other ammo makers, they certainly cant sell many new guns if they dont have the ammo to go with them..

When I bought my 450B I was just hoping that 5 to 10 yrs (or longer) down the road I am not stuck with a 'white elephant' that I cant afford to feed or even find 'feed' (ammo) for it..

Brian

[wildcatter]

..When I bought my 450B I was just hoping that 5 to 10 yrs (or longer) down the road I am not stuck with a 'white elephant' that I cant afford to feed or even find 'feed' (ammo) for it..

Brian

That looks like it is a developing problem for the other guys, not us, no-way!!..

I have alluded to this before, but at this years SHOT an announcement is going to be made (not 100% sure it will be at SHOT, but if not, it will be very soon there-after.), where-in your worry about long term support won't ever be a problem, as if ammo and support were ever a problem now, NOT!! In any event this announcement is going to make you guys very proud and secure in your investment and will assure those other guys, that own crummy boat anchors, that they might have someplace to trade-in there Sport-Fishing equipment!! Hey, we need the parts anyways!! Right?..

But I'm still looking for some answers to my original thesis and I can see right now this might go in several directions and I welcome it too. The discussion should be instructive and I am the student here..

[gunnut]

The socom and 50 beowulf were just noveties to me at the time. I was still loading for my AR10 "308". When I first saw the 450 bushmaster, I jumped on it! I can shoot the same bullets "230gr.FMJ" that I load for my 1911 & XD!! A much bigger bonus came later when I discovered I could modify 284 cases if brass got scarce and when sr primers got in short supply I could use large. I think I will be shooting my 450Bushmaster for a long long time!

P.S. I did get a spare bolt, Just in case.

[BD1]

I believe the involvement by Hornady and Bushmaster tipped the market share balance to the .450 B. Once that snow ball starts rolling it's just going to get bigger, leaving the other big bore AR's in the "wildcat" class.

At the other end of the spectrum; when the .17s first became popular there were a fair number of .17 wildcats out there. As soon as Remington put their name on one the rest of the .17s became pretty scarce. Doesn't mean they weren't good cartridges, it's just that the market won't support many options at the fringe.

I had somewhere over 600 rounds through my .450B before I moved from NY and it's yet to see it's first "factory" round. One of the major factors for me was the ability to make brass. I stumble over used .284 and .284/6mm from time to time. I can't say that I've ever seen any once fired 50 AE brass for sale, and I can't find my "brass stretcher" any place.

BD

[Siringo]

Also, I have seen many posts of a phenomon the when using hot loads, the base of the cartridge (458 or 50) beats or peens into the body of the case. Not enough base support for the thrust (sorry to use that word).

[NordicRX8]

The Beowulf and SOCOM rounds while interesting, were wildcats with little industry support. When I found out RRA was offering uppers it tweaked my interest. When Corbon started offering SOCOM ammo, I got excited... until I saw the pricing. When Starline started making SOCOM brass, it surpassed the 50 Beowulf in my eyes as a "better choice". When Hornady and Bushmaster announced the .450B, I gathered as much info as I could. When I discovered that the maker/designer of the 450 professional was not only involved with the .450B but a user and forum poster... that said a lot to me. When this site was created (thanks MudBug!) I was very excited. Its nice to be able to gleen expert opinions from someone who had involvement with a new design. When I learned that the .450B was SAMMI specified, that closed the coffin lid for those other "wildcat" calibers!

I have heard plenty of rumblings about how inferior the 450B was compared to the SOCOM, just because it used .452" "pistol" bullets... well, for an avid .45acp fan, that's a PLUS in my book! Sure the .458 has a wider selection of projectiles, but I knew one could swage down those .458 bullets to our needed size where the SOCOM users couldn't increase the size of .452" bullets for their use.

Another aspect of the 450B I liked over the other big bores was the fact that it was a straight walled case... I dread working with bottle necked cases. Then to find out one could MAKE 450B cases by trimming .284 cases down was another point for the new cartridge.

When Remington releases thier .450B offering, I'm hoping some of the other ammunition manufacturers (large and small) will also start offering loads for our Thumpers.

The scarcity of reloading components (especially the dies) at first concerned me... but Hornady has many many many resellers and if they stock other Hornady products, you can get the dies. Where do Beowulf and SOCOM owners get their reloading dies from??? That just confirmed my "gut feelings" when I heard Hornady and Bushmaster were involved with this caliber... the "spice must flow"... I mean the parts would be commonly available. Now if we can only get Starline to compete with Hornady on providing brass, I'd be a happy camper.

I understand that there are plenty of people out there that just enjoy the shooting aspect of the gun world... but with the high cost of loaded ammo (especially .50 Beowulf and SOCOM), you'd think avid shooters would learn to reload. I've taken my Thumper out almost every weekend since I bought the rifle, and regularly shoot 100 rounds (of my reloads) per session. With factory .450B ammo, that's around $125.00 per shooting session... with the other two calibers, it'd cost roughly $300.00 (with factory loaded ammo) per shooting session!!! Dang! I'd estimate my reloads to cost about $0.40 per round, when primers become less scarce and I can find a cheaper projectile (now using 240gr XTP/MAG), that cost will drop.

[wildcatter]

A little off track from my orginal question, but..

FYI, This is for you guys, when you hear about how the 458 dia has more bullets available than the 451/452 call, quote them this.. According to Mid-Way .458" has 82 bullets in .458 cal and in ours there are 144 bullets. In other words we have a nearly 57% more bullets and that doesn't count the .454 bullets and to say nothing about the fact that we can use all the 458's they have, albeit the solids will take a little more work swagging them down to .452. and these in Std Production Bullets, not the custom stuff, in weights from 395gr to 165's and rubber and plastic bullets too..

With the Bushy Chambers as tight as they are, the 458's put straight up on our case, wont chamber, unless either swagging them down or freshing the chamber.

Question: This probably for our cast expert guys, take one of your 454 dia bullets and put it on our case, does this chamber, in the std chamber, easily?

Bottom line: We can do things the others can't even think about, right?

[2zero6]

and rubber and plastic bullets too..

Funny you mention these. I was just looking at the rubber ones the other day for some non-lethal rounds I was gonna do.

[lwrkeysfisher]

Ammo availability is exactly why I went with the .450B. I love RRA products and wanted to buy a .458S with 2-300 rounds of ammo; however, I could not get the ammo for less than $6-700 (without reloading). Needless to say I started looking at other options and it seemed like everyone from Cabelas to Midway had .450B uppers and lots of ammo on-hand. I started looking harder at the .450B and found this forum--then Bushmaster had there fall sale and the rest is history. I have fired approx. 200rds through this upper so far, and the function, accuracy, and power is just incredible. The pistol bullet did not bother me because the .460 S&W is launching these projectiles at nearly the same speeds with outstanding results, and after all this is a carbine (pistol caliber w/ long barrel and stock). I was a little worried that I would not have a need for the .450B after my 16" LAR-8 got here, but I fired them both today and the weight and agility of the 16" .450B (AR-15 platform) is very nice in comparison to the LAR-8, but they both have their application (anything under 200yds for .450B and anything between 200-500yds for the LAR-8). I have an appointment with the 3 little piggies after the first of the year, we'll see which one they prefer.