I alluded in another post that the wheel has come full circle and that there are now AR-15's chambered in cartridges that duplicate the performance of the .50-70. That in fact is pretty much the case and I did a little digging to flesh out the story.
I stated that there was even an experimental .50-caliber cartridge used in Vietnam. There was, it was developed by Frank Barnes and was called the .458x1 1/2-inch Barnes (none of this metric stuff!). It was however chambered in a heavy barrel bolt action rifle and was not well received by anyone that tried it, according the the story as written by Frank Barnes himself. It was based on a .458 Winchester magnum and it had a belt.
Today there are a few other similar rounds, all what you might call wildcats or perhaps proprietary rounds, which means you can't buy them at Wal-Mart. But if you shop at Wal-Mart, you probably won't be willing to buy the rifles either, since they are all more or less custom. I have only seen one in person but didn't handle it. It really looked like a fairly ordinary AR-15 type except for the barrel. I didn't see the ammuntion.
I think there are some interesting things here, even though it is highly unlikely any of these will be used by the military.
First, they all do really have energy figures and presumably ballistics similiar to the .50-70 and .45-70 of the Indian War period. There are about a half-dozen around, all developed from different cartridges and none interchangeable. One interesting difference is that all of them appear to have lighter bullets than would have been used originally. That appears to be the trend in cartridges of this class even though it hasn't been that long that a 405-grain bullet was about all you could get for .45-70. Oddly enough, there is a different trend with .357, .44 and .45 Colt of using heavier than standard bullets for certain uses.
It goes without saying that none of them use plain lead bullets and the quality of the case is much, much higher than when the Trapdoor Springfield was on issue. There were different loads for carbines and rifles back then, too.
Another interesting point is that all of this development has taken place using the AR-15 or copy as a starting point. I don't know of another weapon that has been played with the same way. At any rate, one of the design limitations was that the ammunition had to work using standard magazines. It isn't really the magazine that is the limitation so much as if it wouldn't work in the magazine, then the entire received would have to be redesigned. When the AR-10 was reintroduced, the receiver was in fact redesigned to allow the use of relatively common M-14 magazines. I have to doubt that M-14 magazines are all that common but that is another story.
All told, I doubt that any of this will have any influence at all on general small arms development but it sure is interesting.
I stated that there was even an experimental .50-caliber cartridge used in Vietnam. There was, it was developed by Frank Barnes and was called the .458x1 1/2-inch Barnes (none of this metric stuff!). It was however chambered in a heavy barrel bolt action rifle and was not well received by anyone that tried it, according the the story as written by Frank Barnes himself. It was based on a .458 Winchester magnum and it had a belt.
Today there are a few other similar rounds, all what you might call wildcats or perhaps proprietary rounds, which means you can't buy them at Wal-Mart. But if you shop at Wal-Mart, you probably won't be willing to buy the rifles either, since they are all more or less custom. I have only seen one in person but didn't handle it. It really looked like a fairly ordinary AR-15 type except for the barrel. I didn't see the ammuntion.
I think there are some interesting things here, even though it is highly unlikely any of these will be used by the military.
First, they all do really have energy figures and presumably ballistics similiar to the .50-70 and .45-70 of the Indian War period. There are about a half-dozen around, all developed from different cartridges and none interchangeable. One interesting difference is that all of them appear to have lighter bullets than would have been used originally. That appears to be the trend in cartridges of this class even though it hasn't been that long that a 405-grain bullet was about all you could get for .45-70. Oddly enough, there is a different trend with .357, .44 and .45 Colt of using heavier than standard bullets for certain uses.
It goes without saying that none of them use plain lead bullets and the quality of the case is much, much higher than when the Trapdoor Springfield was on issue. There were different loads for carbines and rifles back then, too.
Another interesting point is that all of this development has taken place using the AR-15 or copy as a starting point. I don't know of another weapon that has been played with the same way. At any rate, one of the design limitations was that the ammunition had to work using standard magazines. It isn't really the magazine that is the limitation so much as if it wouldn't work in the magazine, then the entire received would have to be redesigned. When the AR-10 was reintroduced, the receiver was in fact redesigned to allow the use of relatively common M-14 magazines. I have to doubt that M-14 magazines are all that common but that is another story.
All told, I doubt that any of this will have any influence at all on general small arms development but it sure is interesting.
