Serbu Firearms, Inc., Tampa, Florida

[Lazarus]

I’ve done a lot of prairie dog shooting with hot rod wildcat cartridges and I develop my loads in the same weather I will be shooting, such as… If you dial in a brand of powder/bullet/weight of charge/OAL at Christmas time and then go to shoot dogs in the Texas panhandle with 107*F+ temperatures with that load… you are going to be in real trouble. The pressure is going to be so much higher due to the heat differential between Christmas and July.

Usually I have compressed loads (you hear the powder crunch when you seat the bullet) and there is nothing wrong with that as long as your primers don’t flatten to badly or start falling out/your shell bases don’t have shiny scrape marks on them from the extractor/you don’t have to hammer your bolt open. If you are seeing any of those signs, you probably have excess pressure and NEED to make adjustments! Strong rifle actions will usually let you get away with excess pressure a time or two but looking at your fired brass will tell you if you are “on the hairy edge”. Stoney Point makes a tool called an “OAL Gauge”. You screw on an empty cartridge (at the primer hole) with your favorite flavor bullet (in the neck) and stick it into your chamber and lock down the pushrod. Then pull all of it out and measure the OAL. That gives you the distance from the base of the shell at the bolt face to the ogive of any shaped bullet. Then you can back off about .010 or so, shoot it and check your group and brass for any signs of excess pressure. (very brief explanation). I use this tool regularly and it works very well.

If you have a Barnes/Hornady etc. Loading Data Book from about 25 yrs. ago and compare ANY caliber load from back then to the same load in a current book… you will find that ALL manufactures have backed off on all their data… It’s going to be tough to find anyone list loading data for the 50 BMG because of product liability considerations and today’s political/social environment… Politicians Prefer Unarmed Peasants.

I probably didn’t say anything you don’t already know… just wanted to pass along to the people in this forum how important it is to pay attention to signs of excess pressure.
Lazarus