Advice, tips and tricks for .50 BMG

broncman · Jan 20, 2021

I finally broke down and ordered a .50 BMG and was curious if anyone has reloaded for it and would be willing to share their experiences. Heck even sharing places for components/ammo via personal message would be great too.

Thanks in advance for any and all help,
Joe

Member 34319 · Jan 20, 2021

Being that 50bmg primers are about the only ones on the shelves at any store I've been to, this might have been a pretty good purchase right now! (Cabelas in Tualatin had a bunch of primers)

I have zero advice, but will be following this thread for curiosity reasons.

JuglansRegia · Jan 20, 2021

50 BMG powder and primers are ready available. Check out polygunbag.com for boolits

xlsbob · Jan 20, 2021

50 is an easy load once you have the components, Everglades ammo used to have an excellent deal on once fired brass with free shipping. Be ready to pay for bullets, its hard to find decent price on .50 ball. if you see a deal buy it. Scott over at Tactical Manufacturing in Warren knows about what there is to know about loading .50 and he usually has a good price on good reloads.

TTSX · Jan 20, 2021

What rifle did you go with? Is this a precision/long range endeavor or just for fun? Reason I ask is I've been buying my ammo online, factory, for about $3/round for M33 ball and last time I checked I wouldn't be saving much money at all loading ball ammo myself but if I were loading premium bullets which I typically buy for $6-7/ factory round it might start to make sense.

I believe primers are about .50/ea, FMJ pulldowns about $1/ea and you're looking at 250 grains of powder, or 28 charges per pound so about another dollar there. That's $2.50 in components and we haven't talked about brass yet. You'll also need a special press as most aren't nearly big enough for that cartridge and if you buy any die sets that aren't Lee, you'll be $300 or so into those alone.

So my reasoning is just to buy factory as reloading .50 just isn't financially incentivized in my opinion unless I was going to shoot man, many thousands of the high dollar stuff. Oh, and you might feel really crappy if you blew up a few thousand dollars of gun to save enough money to buy a cup of coffee

. Please keep us updated how this goes for you if you do end up reloading

Certaindeaf · Jan 20, 2021

I'd get a 900 grain gas checked bullet mold..

xlsbob · Jan 28, 2021

I got a deal on a bunch of API a couple years ago, you have to be careful where you shoot them but they shoot well in my BA-50. Scored a killer deal for primers at bimart a while back so Im fixed for primers quite a while