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Well boys, yesterday I was finally able to load up some .50AE rounds for my Desert Eagle. I went down to the gun store and bought some powder, Hodgdon H110, and went to work.
I flubbed a few times and had to pull some bullets, but all in all it went well. I also mis-read the OAL tolerances and seated about 20 bullets too deep... The min OAL is 1.575 and the way I read it, I understood that to be the MAX OAL. Anywho, for as big of a gun as the .50AE is, it's got some damn tight tolerances....
As already stated 1.575 is min OAL and 1.595 is max OAL. That only gives me .020 to play with. Not that big of a deal really, just have to make sure to set my seating die and lock that joker in. I currently have it set dead middle of the tolerance at 1.585 and it seems to be working quite well.
Oh, and all those rounds that I seated too deep. After a quick phone conference with Taurus357, Ari *Taurus relayed a message to me from Ari* and a phone call from Rimfirehunter, we decided that I should shoot those rounds, as they weren't too deep to really worry about.
SO, I took that box of ammo to the range today and all I can say is WOWZA!!!! These rounds are a bit softer than factory loads as these don't have the same bite/recoil a factory load does. Even with the rounds that were shorter than the MIN OAL I didn't get any feed issues, in fact they fed better than factory loads. I only had time to shoot a few rounds, 8 in all, but every one of them hit the steel plate on the 50 yard range no problem. One thing I did notice is that with this H110 powder, I am getting a much bigger muzzle flash/fireball. I'll need to take some video at night and post it, LOL!!
My next thing to do is to take another full box of rounds and put them on paper to establish some sort of accuracy testing for that powder load. I am using the lowest powder load I have data for on these rounds for the time being. I am going to shoot some more of them and find out what it does. If it works well, I'll prolly stay with that load as if it's accurate enough, its reduced recoil would be great. Other than that I have another tight tolerance within that load data because the starting load and the do not exceed powder loads is less than 5 grains in difference.
Anywho, first time I've ever reloaded a round of any caliber, and also the first time I've ever shot my own reloads. I just kinda wanted to celebrate a bit and share it with you guys.
I flubbed a few times and had to pull some bullets, but all in all it went well. I also mis-read the OAL tolerances and seated about 20 bullets too deep... The min OAL is 1.575 and the way I read it, I understood that to be the MAX OAL. Anywho, for as big of a gun as the .50AE is, it's got some damn tight tolerances....
As already stated 1.575 is min OAL and 1.595 is max OAL. That only gives me .020 to play with. Not that big of a deal really, just have to make sure to set my seating die and lock that joker in. I currently have it set dead middle of the tolerance at 1.585 and it seems to be working quite well.
Oh, and all those rounds that I seated too deep. After a quick phone conference with Taurus357, Ari *Taurus relayed a message to me from Ari* and a phone call from Rimfirehunter, we decided that I should shoot those rounds, as they weren't too deep to really worry about.
SO, I took that box of ammo to the range today and all I can say is WOWZA!!!! These rounds are a bit softer than factory loads as these don't have the same bite/recoil a factory load does. Even with the rounds that were shorter than the MIN OAL I didn't get any feed issues, in fact they fed better than factory loads. I only had time to shoot a few rounds, 8 in all, but every one of them hit the steel plate on the 50 yard range no problem. One thing I did notice is that with this H110 powder, I am getting a much bigger muzzle flash/fireball. I'll need to take some video at night and post it, LOL!!
My next thing to do is to take another full box of rounds and put them on paper to establish some sort of accuracy testing for that powder load. I am using the lowest powder load I have data for on these rounds for the time being. I am going to shoot some more of them and find out what it does. If it works well, I'll prolly stay with that load as if it's accurate enough, its reduced recoil would be great. Other than that I have another tight tolerance within that load data because the starting load and the do not exceed powder loads is less than 5 grains in difference.
Anywho, first time I've ever reloaded a round of any caliber, and also the first time I've ever shot my own reloads. I just kinda wanted to celebrate a bit and share it with you guys.