With a pending trip to Africa, a Marlin .45-70 was sent to Wild West Guns in Alaska to rebore and chamber to the .50 Alaskan. I wanted to be able to fire larger, heavier flat point cast and jacketed bullets at very large and heavy game. It worked quite well…
I have always loved big bore rifles. When you can look into a rifle case, and easily see the flash hole at the bottom, you have a cartridge that makes me smile. Back in early 2001, with an upcoming trip to Africa, I made the decision to send a Marlin 1895 in .45-70 to Wild West Guns in Anchorage, Alaska (www.wildwestguns.com). They have been converting these for quite some time into .50 Alaskans. The lowest cost method is to have them cut back the original barrel to 20-inches, which is necessary due to the depth the original front sight screws are drilled, and have it rebored to .510. They then perform some action work, opening things up here and there to feed the fatter round.
Lots of additional options are offered, but I chose to keep it simple. A must is a Pachmayr Decelerator pad as the rebored and shortened gun weighs a little less than an unaltered 1895. I passed on the barrel porting. I do not care to injure a tracker’s ears for the sake of my shoulder. Firing at game in the field, you will never notice a gun’s recoil anyway.
What is a .50 Alaskan? It is based on the .348 Winchester rimmed cartridge, blown out straight to .510 diameter. While the rim on the .348 is the same OD as a .45-70, the case diameter above the rim is larger at 0.545” (the .45-70 measures only 0.505”). The .50 AK case is 2.100” long. Loaded rounds go from 2.510” for a 525-grain cast bullet, to 2.570” for a 450-grain jacketed round. It can push a 450-grain bullet to almost 2,000 fps, or a 525-grain to just over 1,800 fps. “This man is crazy!” you may be thinking. Perhaps. But handloading allows us to make the .50 AK into a mild .45-70 if we so choose. Of course for my hunt, I chose not to download it. In the field, I never noticed the recoil when firing at game in Africa.
Chapter 1: Brass, Ammo, Bullets and Dies
Click to LOAD DATA SHEET
Fortunately, now there is a factory alternative for both brass and ammo. Starline Brass (www.starlinebrass.com) offers new brass with the...
.50 Alaskan headstamp. i was fortunate to be sent some of the first production brass in this caliber. It did itself quite proud in Zimbabwe. Most of the fired brass was left behind in Africa, and the locals were very impressed by it. Wild West Guns also offers loaded ammo in the .50 as does Buffalo Bore Ammunition (www.buffalobore.com), and Grizzly Cartridge (www.grizzlycartridge.com).
They make a 410 and 430-grain plain base bullet, as well as two gas-checked designs- a 430 and 525-grainer.
Jacketed bullets can be had from Barnes Bullets (www.barnesbullets.com ) in 300, 450 or 600-grains; Hawk Bullets now offers 350, 425 or 450 grain flat points (www.hawkbullets.com). My primary soft point bullet, the 450 Barnes, was modified by adding a second cannelure. Using a Corbin hand cannelure tool (www.corbins.com), a
second was placed .150 lower than the first to create a longer round for better feeding. I also modified some of their 525-grain solids to be 515-grain flat-points. None could
ever be recovered from game!
Excellent cast bullets for the Alaskan are made by Cast Performance Bullets and are available from Grizzly Cartridge. They make a 410 and 430-grain plain base bullet, as
well as two gas-checked designs- a 430 and 525-grainer. You can also cast your own since molds are available from many makers. Hornady now also offers gas checks for the .50.
A lot of fun can also be had with surplus .50 BMG bullets with some weighing in at around 650-grains. I brought along some tracers and incendiary rounds. My PH, Paul
Meyer, was very impressed! At around 1,300 fps, they kick like heavy hunting loads in a 12 gauge shotgun.
A 430-grain lead bullet pushed to 1,460 fps by only 38-grains of Accurate 5744, can still drop a lot of game without beating you up at all.
The dies I used came from Wild West. They sell the Lee brand of dies and also offered a Lee Factory Crimp die. I never had to use the special crimping die, The standard seater/crimping die did just fine. Through experimentation, I found that Hornady One-Shot spray lube worked best on the almost straight Alaskan case. The Starline brass proved to be very strong. After five loadings on some of the cases, they have not yet needed trimming.
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Chapter 2: Powders for the Alaskan
Powders for the .50 Alaskan fall in the medium-fast burning range due to the small-for-bore case capacity. Excellent results can be had with Accurate 5744 for lighter loads. I also used IMR-4198, Hogdon RL-7 and H-322, and Accurate 2015. Other suitable propellants would include IMR-3031, Benchmark, and Vihtavuori N134. Do not cringe when you look through the load data. For most powder and bullet combinations, I have listed a broad range of charges. Some velocities differ by 500 fps from the lightest to the heaviest loads. You do not have to load at the top to have fun or be effective in the field. A 430-grain lead bullet pushed to 1,460 fps by only 38-grains of Accurate 5744, can still drop a lot of game without beating you up at all.
Chapter 3: A “Not Recommended” Reload
I had visions of almost 12 gauge performance from my .50… imagine potting a grouse with the same gun I just dropped a moose or bear with!
Not all of my handloads are always a success. I have had great reloading failures. Shot loads for handguns can be effective for pests up to perhaps three or four yards. A .44 handgun load will contain only about 130-grains of #9 shot. For the .50 AK, when I seated a modest charge of powder in a case, followed by a gas check (cup side up). Amazingly, there was room for 420-grains of #9 shot (about 560 pellets). Carefully seating another gas-check, cupped side down, I had a most impressive looking round when crimped. I had visions of almost 12 gauge performance from my .50… imagine potting a grouse with the same gun I had just dropped a moose or bear!
I hurried to the range, and posted a legal-size piece of paper at only six yards. When I fired the “grouse load”, the expectation was that the paper would be destroyed by the
almost one-ounce of shot. How surprised I was to walk up and only find seventeen pellets had struck the paper! Where had the other five hundred forty pellets gone? One look down my bore showed me where! Apparently, the shot did not like being accelerated down a 20-inch rifled bore. I could not believe the amount of leading that came out with the first and subsequent passes of a tight brass brush. Do not duplicate this load!
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Chapter 4: Hunting with the Alaskan in Africa
Big bore rifles will tend to throw bullets of different weights to varying points of impact. My hunting load with the Barnes 450-grain SP original (at 1,842 fps with 62.5-grains of 2015) shoots about six-inches higher than the 525 grain heavy cast load at 1,712 fps. This did not turn out to be a problem in the field. With my Leupold 1.5-6 Vari-X III having the illuminated German #4 reticle, I found that the 450’s struck to the point of aim, while the 525-grainers were hitting at the top point of the lower thick post. Both of these loads consistently shoot into 1-1/2” at 100 yards. As I did not mix loads in the magazine, this proved to be no handicap in the hunting field.
The first animal taken with the .50 was a younger eland bull that weighed about 700 lbs. The broadside shot at 124 yards was placed just behind the left front leg. At the shot, the animal jumped straight up, wheeled around, and disappeared behind some brush. It was quickly found just 54 yards from where it was shot cleanly taken. A bulge in the hide on the far right side confirmed that the 450-grain Barnes soft point had performed as designed. It broke a rib going in, wrecked both lungs, and broke a rib on the far side, stopping under the hide. Retaining 428 of its original 450-grains (95%), it had incredibly expanded to 0.87”!
Again, using the Barnes Original, a wildebeest of around 450 lbs was taken broadside at 112 yards. The bull barely made it 34 yards from where he was shot. While dressing the animal, the bullet was again found in the far side between two ribs (a rib had been broken on entry). This time, the bullet was picture-perfect. It had expanded to 1 inch, and still retained 99% of its original weight (446-grains) – incredible performance to be sure..
For medium to light-heavy game, making certain that you take only broadside shots on the bigger game, I feel that the 450-grain Barnes Original is an excellent choice for the .50 Alaskan. If you anticipate hunting in heavy brush, or where shots may have to angle through more of the game, and wanted to stay with a 450-grain bullet, I would recommend a thicker jacketed...
bullet.
About a half-hour later, as we eased through the brush, we came upon him standing under a large gum tree. Talk about shooting pressure!
An excellent bullet for heavier game, or where greater penetration than the Barnes 450 is required, would be the Cast Performance Bullet 525-grain, gas checked, hard-cast WFN (Wide Flat Nose). The meplat on this bullet (the flat point of the nose) measures a full .410”. The impact it has on large game has to be seen for you to truly appreciate it. The final animal was taken with this bullet towards the end of my safari. I was looking for a truly big eland bull, one that would look awesome mounted on the wall. The landowner told me about a bull that they simply called “the BIG ONE”. He promised that I would be proud to hang him on the wall.
We hunted all morning looking for him. Later in the day, the tracker pointed across the valley and said, “There he is!” Though we were about a mile from the bull, even at that distance you could tell he was huge. We circled around and headed for him from downwind. About a half-hour later, as we eased through the brush, we came upon him standing under a large gum tree. Talk about shooting pressure! The landowner was watching me prepare to shoot, along with his son, the PH, two trackers, and my good friend. The eland was facing us almost directly on at about 75 yards distance, but quartering slightly to the right.
Everyone encouraged me to take a rest with my .50 on the tree before us. However, I knew that the gun would recoil up and break branches, keeping me from getting off another shot. As I took aim at the point of the right front shoulder, I decided to step to the side away from the tree. At the same moment, the eland spotted me, but the 525-grain bullet was already on its way. The bull reacted violently to the impact then turned to the left and tried to run away. I quickly levered in another round, and made a perfect broadside shot just behind his left front leg. The second shot caught him before he had made it 15 feet. He went down before he was able to cover another 15.
All of the locals around me were shouting and hollering with excitement. The landowner said that he had never seen a big eland go down so fast. “You cannot just turn off an animal that weighs almost a ton, especially if the nervous system is not hit!” Examining the bull (and the post-mortem...
in the butchery) showed how the shots had gone.
The first shot, at 74 yards, clipped the right front shoulder blade leaving a half-moon, .50-caliber cutout in the front edge. The bullet then diagonaled through two ribs, the
the front lobe of the right lung, cut the 1-1/4” diameter aorta off the top of the heart, continued through the lungs, liver, and stomach, then exited just in front of the left hip. We measured the penetration at well over six-feet! The second shot taken at the running bull was just behind the left front leg, and exited at almost the exact same spot on the right side (breaking a rib going in and out). Field-dressed and verified on a scale, the carcass weighed 823 lbs, putting the live weight at around 1,650 lbs.
Animals are brought back whole, so all of the entrails can be saved and eaten- nothing goes to waste in a land where protein is so hard to come by for the natives.
In about twenty minutes, a Toyota mini pickup showed up with about a dozen locals in the back to haul the bull off to the butchery. I asked the PH how in the world they were ever going to get the bull into that little truck. How could they possible lift it into the bed? “Watch and you will see” he told me. So they backed the little truck up to about 3 feet from the tail end of the huge bull. Then working all together with six on a side, amazingly they stood the bull up on his rear and let him topple over into the bed- no lifting required! Note that in Zimbabwe, they do not field dress game as we do in the U.S. Animals are brought back whole so all of the entrails can be saved and eaten. Nothing goes to waste in a land where protein is so hard to come by for the natives.
Chapter 5: Summary
If you truly need a BIG BORE rifle, or you just have to have one, I can heartily recommend the .50 Alaskan. It sure made a big impression on the game and the people in Zimbabwe. The trackers and my PH were singing praises of the Alaskan from the time I first shot it until I finally took the big eland bull. As the landowner said when I left, “You could certainly take a Cape buffalo with that .50, and be confident about doing so!”