Care and feeding of the Big .50

[Haggis MacGurk]

Hey Fellas,
               As you can tell from my posts below, I have been looking for a rifle in 50-70 or 50-90. At the gunshow in Edmonton this past weekend, I found a Custom Remington Rolling Block in 50-90. 36' Green Mountain Barrel, 1-28 twist.

I need some help as to what to feed this thing. Make no mistake, the only powder it will see is the holy black. I'm wondering what weight bullet will work best in this setup.

Thanks

Haggis

[Pitspitr]

I use a Lyman 425 gr. in my .50/70 RB and it's worked well for me.

[Haggis MacGurk]

Thanks fer that. Someone just gave me a handfull of the same bullets, which will allow me to at least go and try it out. Anyone else out there have any favorite combinations for the .50's? I've been told that with the faster rifling, I should be going with a heavier bullet.  A little help please?

[Big Goose]

Haggis,
I built my 50-70 on an original 1867 Remington actionand used a Green Mountain barrel with that same twist. Mine prefers a heavier bullet, I modified a Lee mold to cast a 520 grain flatpoint bullet and with 70 grains of Goex 2F, .2" compression and a .015 card wad she really shoots. I'm guessing your 50-90 will like at least that heavy a bullet, but you never know till you try. Good Luck!!
Big Goose
  Post Script; bye the bye, off the topic ,but I do make a right fine haggis..

[bear tooth billy]

I have pederosoli with a HEAVY badger barrel I got a Paul Jones mold that casts a 650 grain bullet on top of 95 grains swiss1 1/2 with no compression shoots excellent

[Ol Gabe]

H. M.,
B.T.B. is spot-on with his recipe, I've had the pleasure to shoot with him a few times and he rarely misses. 
As with all rifles, your own recipe will take a bit of time to work up, but that is half the fun.
Best regards and good shooting!
'Ol Gabe 

[Montana Slim]

The twist of your barrel will have a major impact on it's preferred bullet weight.
Based on 1-28", I recommend looking at bullets with an OAL of about 1.2".
Not sure offhand, but this is probably a 650-700 grain pill....

My friend used his 1874 Pedersoli Sharps (rebarreled to 50-90) with wonderfull effect at the NCOWS buffalo shoot.
Used 700 grain slugs.....just enough gun to bring down the hard-set targets and deadly accurate to-boot. Well, he loaned it to me for some "revenge" after I finished my string (I had left a few hit, but not "down"). Well the big-fifty dropped one with each shot...recoil was less than my Pedersoli Sharps (45-70), using a 500 grain slug. If I recall correctly that rifle was around 16 lb.

Best,
Slim

[Haggis MacGurk]

Well, I have to say that after going out and firing this rifle, I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of recoil. Using the lyman 425gr, with an actual weight of 450gr(don't know what alloy he used to cast these, but they were free), 90gr of Goex 2f, milk carton wad, and a little compression, all 20 rds I loaded up made a big bang, lots of smoke, but not a heck of a lot of recoil.  I would compare it to shooting my '87 with trap loads. It was so mild, that I got my wife to fire it, and she thought it was great. Don't know about accuracy yet, as I still have to put a set of sights on it.

I have fired much smaller caliber rifles that were far more unpleasant to shoot than this.

I have been talking with the fellow at montana bullet works, and I think I'm gonna try something in a 600-650gr bullet.

[Grogan]

I recently picked up a 16# Big 50.

I already have a bit of experience under my belt shooting .45-70s and the .45-100.

I wasn't sure what the correct loadings would be for my rifle, but after contacting some other knowledgeable shooters who shoot these, most who'd experienced good results recommended loads of 1F Express in the range of 100-110 g compressed.

So far the bullets I've tried are just a 640g RN.

I've got a mould to cast 600g RNs also, but have yet to give these a try.

My rifle's in the typical "Buffalo Hunter's" configuration, a heavy 30" barrel, nothing fancy, just plain wood with Buckhorn Rear Sight.  I've added the early pattern tang mounted Sharps "Sporting Peep" on it as well.  It has the standard "Military" curved Buttplate.

Firing it is actually pleasant, no immense or objectionable recoil, about the same as my 12# #1 in .45-70.

Here's a picture of my galfriend, Miss Lil, getting ready to touch off another shot through this big cannon.  Weighing ~125# she can easily shoot 20 rnd.s without even thinking twice about it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v475/billc_sbio/Sharps501-11-081-1.jpg