by wildcatter » Thu Sep 16, 2010 8:14 pm
Pretty much any bullet you can shove into the case and still chamber the round. As has been pointed out, the longer bullets come into contact with the taper, on the inside of the case. The case then expands and finally wont allow chambering the finished round. The 458 socom will handle longer bullets, due to the fact that it is a low pressure pistol case and thus has far less metal in the web, with much less inside taper.
If really long/heavy bullets are wanted and I don't know what weight that would be, one could make a bullet as long as the inside of the case and fill the magazine at the same time (2.260" OAL). Use something like 3 grains of xyz powder, it'll go boom. To allow for the inside taper of the case, you'd have to have a really long boat-tail, so chambering would not be hampered. Such a bullet would be in the 900-1000+ grain area.
So you lead guys might have a little project here. What if you weighed a case case with a 3/8 inch hole through the primer pocket. Now seat your favorite lead bullet, as normal, and through the primer pocket pour in molten lead. Now weight that cooled case again and subtract the original weight, that would be the outside max weight bullet. With a little applied heat, one might be able to extract that bullet and get some really great pics and beside you'd have the exact tapper, of the shade-tree boat-tail and bragging rights, to making the heaviest 450bushmaster bullet.
Who will be first..t
Safety First..t