.45 Professional
- Thread starter Rob Pincus
- Start date
Rob Pincus
New member
Okay.. session one is over, here are my initial thoughts.. but first, a story:
About 5 years ago I bought a chronograph. I used it maybe a dozen times since then. Today I really had an interesting purpose for digging it out and .. yep.. the thing doesn't work. I leave the range, drive to the convenience store, pay 4.72 for a 9 volt battery and try again.. still nothing. I will make some calls tonight to try to borrow a chrony or maybe just buy a new one tomorrow...
The initial impression is that this is one hell of a rifle. It is basically the same size and wieght as a 20" .223 AR. It is noticably lighter than my Armalite AR10 (even without scope & bipod). As far as I can tell there is no modification to the lower, so Good News #1 is that if you are interested, it looks like you can just buy an upper.
Good News #2 is that the rifle functioned flawlessly after a little oil was added to the bolt carrier (it is still an AR, afterall.) Good News #3, the round tears things up. 2 cinder blocks in a row... dust and little bits thrown up to 7 yards away. Bowling pins .. gutted, absolutely gutted, as much damage or more than I've seen from 12 gauge slugs. Huge chunks were rended from the poor trees unfortunate enough to be behind my targets and in front of the hill.
The last, and most "surprising" bit of good news was that the round is very accurate. Let me say that I only shot from a max of 25 yards today, but the gun shot exactly where I expected it to everytime (once I figured out that the gun was about 3" high at 15 yards). I shot two 5 round "rapid" groups offhand at 15 yards and one had a single flyer, the other group was one vertically staggered hole. For some reason, regardless of what I'd heard, I had expected this rifle to be about as accurate as an 870 shooting slugs, but it was on par with my scoped AR10 at these ranges... and quicker.
Stay tuned for longer range shooting tomorrow (100 & 200 yards vs the .308)
The middle ground:
1. It is true that the rounds feed from standard AR mags.. but they just don't feel like they should. As I loaded them into my mags, I kept thinking I was doing something terribly wrong. But, they fed fine out of the three mags I tried in the rifle. I had one mag that would only allow me to load 2 rounds, I'm not sure why.. the mag works fine with a full load of .223, but it seemed to be the mag's problem. I think that a production rifle would benefit from ammo specific 10 rnd mags.
2. Recoil was noticably more than my AR10. Now, it wasn't painful... it was less than my Rem .30-06, probably about like a 12 gauge 1 oz slug from an other wise unloaded 870. A muzzle brake might help...
The bad news:
1. The power was there, but the penetration was not. As I said, I didn't have a chrony, but it sure felt like that bullet was flying out of the gun.
. I had stopped at the scrap yard and gotten some steel pieces: 1 inch, 5/8ths (piece of an I-beam), 3/8ths, and 1/4". Here're the results:
1 inch:
.308 deep deformation front, no deformation back
.45 LeMag deep & wide deformation front, no deformation back
1 oz slug very shallow, wide deformation front
5/8ths inch: basically the same results, with minor deformation behind the .45 and .308
3/8ths inch:
.308 Ball complete penetration
.308 150 gr Failsafe bullet trapped in deep deformation with significant protrusion on back, but no penetration.
.223 62gr FMJ complete pentration
.45 Lemag very deep, wide deformation with significant protrusion on back, but no penetration.
1 oz slug shallow deformation on front.
1/4 inch:
.308 complete penetration.
.223 complete penetration.
.45 LeMag complete penetration.
1 oz slug shallow deformation front & back.
Conclusion thus far: With the standard 230 gr FMJ load in the .45 LeMag, you are giving up penetration for a (probably significant) gain in ft/lbs over .308 ball. Since most people (LE or not) are not using FMJ ammo for hunting or defense, you could argue that the pentration is about equal to the .308 HPs. The round would probably create more soft tissue damage than a .308
(especicially FMJ), but that is speculation. My immediate thought is "Where are the .45 hollow points?" I also wonder if the heavier bullet (almost 50% increase from .308 Ball) would "carry" better through cover softer than steel (wood, car interiors, building materials, etc.) I'll try to figure that out tomorrow.
Along with longer range shooting, tomorrow I plan on shooting a car (doors, engine block, etc...) and I'm going to try to get a chrony on these rounds to see just where we are in fps.
Meanwhile, here are some pics:
.223 CAR, The .45 LeMag, AR10A4:
The 3/8ths plate. Top two holes ae .45, bottom is slug, middle .308s.
The 1/4" plate:
About 5 years ago I bought a chronograph. I used it maybe a dozen times since then. Today I really had an interesting purpose for digging it out and .. yep.. the thing doesn't work. I leave the range, drive to the convenience store, pay 4.72 for a 9 volt battery and try again.. still nothing. I will make some calls tonight to try to borrow a chrony or maybe just buy a new one tomorrow...
The initial impression is that this is one hell of a rifle. It is basically the same size and wieght as a 20" .223 AR. It is noticably lighter than my Armalite AR10 (even without scope & bipod). As far as I can tell there is no modification to the lower, so Good News #1 is that if you are interested, it looks like you can just buy an upper.
Good News #2 is that the rifle functioned flawlessly after a little oil was added to the bolt carrier (it is still an AR, afterall.) Good News #3, the round tears things up. 2 cinder blocks in a row... dust and little bits thrown up to 7 yards away. Bowling pins .. gutted, absolutely gutted, as much damage or more than I've seen from 12 gauge slugs. Huge chunks were rended from the poor trees unfortunate enough to be behind my targets and in front of the hill.
The last, and most "surprising" bit of good news was that the round is very accurate. Let me say that I only shot from a max of 25 yards today, but the gun shot exactly where I expected it to everytime (once I figured out that the gun was about 3" high at 15 yards). I shot two 5 round "rapid" groups offhand at 15 yards and one had a single flyer, the other group was one vertically staggered hole. For some reason, regardless of what I'd heard, I had expected this rifle to be about as accurate as an 870 shooting slugs, but it was on par with my scoped AR10 at these ranges... and quicker.
Stay tuned for longer range shooting tomorrow (100 & 200 yards vs the .308)
The middle ground:
1. It is true that the rounds feed from standard AR mags.. but they just don't feel like they should. As I loaded them into my mags, I kept thinking I was doing something terribly wrong. But, they fed fine out of the three mags I tried in the rifle. I had one mag that would only allow me to load 2 rounds, I'm not sure why.. the mag works fine with a full load of .223, but it seemed to be the mag's problem. I think that a production rifle would benefit from ammo specific 10 rnd mags.
2. Recoil was noticably more than my AR10. Now, it wasn't painful... it was less than my Rem .30-06, probably about like a 12 gauge 1 oz slug from an other wise unloaded 870. A muzzle brake might help...
The bad news:
1. The power was there, but the penetration was not. As I said, I didn't have a chrony, but it sure felt like that bullet was flying out of the gun.
. I had stopped at the scrap yard and gotten some steel pieces: 1 inch, 5/8ths (piece of an I-beam), 3/8ths, and 1/4". Here're the results:1 inch:
.308 deep deformation front, no deformation back
.45 LeMag deep & wide deformation front, no deformation back
1 oz slug very shallow, wide deformation front
5/8ths inch: basically the same results, with minor deformation behind the .45 and .308
3/8ths inch:
.308 Ball complete penetration
.308 150 gr Failsafe bullet trapped in deep deformation with significant protrusion on back, but no penetration.
.223 62gr FMJ complete pentration
.45 Lemag very deep, wide deformation with significant protrusion on back, but no penetration.
1 oz slug shallow deformation on front.
1/4 inch:
.308 complete penetration.
.223 complete penetration.
.45 LeMag complete penetration.
1 oz slug shallow deformation front & back.
Conclusion thus far: With the standard 230 gr FMJ load in the .45 LeMag, you are giving up penetration for a (probably significant) gain in ft/lbs over .308 ball. Since most people (LE or not) are not using FMJ ammo for hunting or defense, you could argue that the pentration is about equal to the .308 HPs. The round would probably create more soft tissue damage than a .308
(especicially FMJ), but that is speculation. My immediate thought is "Where are the .45 hollow points?" I also wonder if the heavier bullet (almost 50% increase from .308 Ball) would "carry" better through cover softer than steel (wood, car interiors, building materials, etc.) I'll try to figure that out tomorrow.
Along with longer range shooting, tomorrow I plan on shooting a car (doors, engine block, etc...) and I'm going to try to get a chrony on these rounds to see just where we are in fps.
Meanwhile, here are some pics:
.223 CAR, The .45 LeMag, AR10A4:
The 3/8ths plate. Top two holes ae .45, bottom is slug, middle .308s.
The 1/4" plate:
If the velocity is close to advertised this could be one hell of a round. For what it is worth I feel that using .45 acp pistol bullets is a mistake. .45 acp bullets were never ment to hold up to this kind of impact. At a minimum I would like to see this cartridge with .45 LC/Cassull bullets. What would really make me get the credit card out though would be to have the bore size increased so 300-350 gr. jacketed 45/70 bullets could be used or even a 500 gr. soild. With rifle bullets This would be one bad (in a good way) cartridge. By the way what is the overall length? A 500 grain solid might not fit, but you could always cut the base off and make it a 300 gr. soild. A 250 grain soild bullet at 2700-2800 fps, you would need a lot of cover to not get hit by that.