458 Socom vs 450 Bushmaster anyone own one???

[Jamie557]

I cant decide if I should go with a Wilson .458 Socom upper or a .450 Bushmaster (Bushmaster) upper to go with my last completed lower AR-15. I am wanting to go with a big bore for the last one.

I have three in 5.56, one in 300 Blackout, one AR-10 308. I am wanting to hunt with it and have some fun shooting a big bore AR. I also reload my own ammo.

Anyone own one or have any comments or like to share anything???

 

[smack]

Here's a option for a big bore AR. It would have to be on a AR10. If your not set on getting a upper for the AR15 frame. It looks to be a real power house with properly head stamped brass, which is available and dies that are readily available. I'm going to put one together here in my the near future.

http://www.45raptor.com/45RAPTOR/

 

[AL1]

I'm partial to the Bushmaster, only because we can hunt deer with them here now. There are a few custom ammo offerings now too.

Smack, I have a 45 Raptor upper that I'm going to part out or part with complete if your interested. Only reason is I'm looking to get into a 6.5 Creed and something has to go to make room.

 

[smack]

AL1

PM/Message me when you have a free minute. I may be interested in you 45 Raptor barrel. I also have new 6.5 Creedmoor barrels to trade.

 

[J E Custom]

I had the same decision to make and chose the 450 Bushmaster for now other reason than the availability of brass and ammo at reasonable prices
and Having a straight sided case allowed me to use other cases to make 450 brass. Power of the two is very close with the available bullets and trajectory is slightly better with the 450.

It works well in an AR platform and recoil is that of a 30/06. It is a hammer on hogs , but the 458 would be also. so it just becomes a personal choice which one.

J E CUSTOM

 

[naja302]

Brass and ammo are way cheaper for the bushmaster. I have the socom

 

[Jkling12]

I had a socom and ammo is ridiculous. I reload so it wasn't as bad but if you don't it's a deal breaker.

 

[J E Custom]

One other advantage to the 450, 284 Winchester brass can be used to make the 450 bushmaster if brass becomes hard to find.

I had some old 284 brass and had to try it and it worked, I simply trimmed it back behind the shoulder to .705 length and ran it through my full length 450 dies (The back of the case is a few thousandths larger, but the die had no trouble sizing it down .006.

Other than the 284 case head stamp it was a match for the 450 bushmaster. I have not had a problem finding brass (Yet) but it is nice to find a case that could be an alternative.

J E CUSTOM

 

[AL1]

Starline has brass now too

 

[snox801]

If you want the best performer with lots of bullet weights and option the socom wins hands down. If you want cheap and easy the 450 is the winner.
You have to make he choice if the little added performance of the socom is worth it. For me it was the 450 is legal here so I have a use for it. I like my socom more. Especially loaded with the cutting edge raptors.

 

[Mach 1]

If your a reloaded I would definitely go with the bushmaster. The cost difference in reloading bullets alone would be what swung me.

 

[huntaxhunta]

Better selection of bullets with the .458 Socom and headspaces on shoulder so trim to length and crimp are not as critical are the major differences. The headspacing on the mouth is what killed the deal for me on the .50 B. When I got into the .458S game, it and the .50 B were brand new on the market and I really wanted the .50. If nothing else, at that time 35 years of reloading everything from plinkers to elephant guns told me that I really wanted headspacing to take place on the shoulder so if need be I can crimp as much as necessary to keep bullets from either unseating or getting set back in the case. I went with the .458 S and have never looked back. As it turns out, a crimp is not really all that necessary unless shooting the 500 gr. bullets at supersonic velocities, then they tend to get beat up a little in the mag. But my reasoning still stands. If something happens and you trim a .50 B or .450 B too short, that case is trash. No problem if they headspace on the shoulder, just trim them all to the new length and adjust your dies and you can keep on shooting. This actually happened to me when I first started loading for the .458 S and the figures were kind of floating. I had gotten one set of figures and trimmed accordingly only to find out that those specs were a bit out of date and the new specs were about .005 longer in the TTL. If that had happened on the Beowulf or Bushmaster I would have had 100 unusable cases. Not so in the .458 S. In fact, I am on my 10th loading of that lot of brass and they are still going strong.
While this is no longer the case, at the time there were very few bullets in .451 (or .500 in my case) that could stand up to the higher velocities of the rifle round and that could be a real problem. Since the SOCOM uses real full diameter rifle bullets it was the only logical choice for me. If doing over today, I would still choose the SOCOM over either the Beowulf or the Bushmaster for pretty much the same reasons. Larger selection of bullets and headspaces on the shoulder. The SOCOM using standard mags was nice but was not a deal breaker to me then, but would be now. And I am not blowing smoke about choosing it again. I currently have 4 firearms chambered in the .458 SOCOM, a 20 inch, 16 inch, and 12.5 inch (SBR) rifles and a 14 inch bolt action handgun.