50 B&M.......... THE B&M RIFLE...........

Michael458

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This is "The B&M Rifle"..............

Stainless 18 inch Winchester M70 50 B&M........... True .500 Caliber......... 8lbs with Hi Grade Bastogne Walnut stock from Accurate Innovations, 38 inches total Overall Length............

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Another 50 B&M with a Accurate Innovations Maple Stock....................

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We did a lot of bullet design because of this cartridge. Working first with Lehigh, then later with Cutting Edge and North Fork. We did come up with some superior DG Bullets, designed specially for the cartridges. 50 B&M is a 2.25 inch RUM case, this series of cartridges has the same case capacity as a 458 Winchester, just shorter, and fatter. They use Winchester M70 WSM actions, control feed only. Very efficient and in the case of 50 B&M, barrels over 18 inches is a waste of metal. Capable of sending 500 gr Solids downrange at 2150 fps, or 450s at 2300. There is an extreme combination we worked with at CEB 450 Solid and matching 410 Raptor. From North Fork we have 450 Solids and 450 Expanding CPS (Cup Point Solids)......Raptors and CPS are extremely effective on buffalo, and of course the solids for follow up buffalo shots and elephant/hippo. This is a stopping rifle, a rifle that you go to do battle with Dangerous Game. Extremely short and easy to handle, fast on target and does not wear you down after carrying all day. At .500 caliber it hits very hard with the right bullets................
 
Thanks for the photos and the information you are sharing with us.
The wood on those stocks are what I dream of having.
 
I’ve handled one of these and it was the nicest rifle I’ve ever had my hands on. Beautiful
 
Some splendid wood on those rifles.
 
Man, those are some really clean rifles. What hide is in the second pick? Elephant?
 
B&M RIFLES TURN COVER INTO CONCEALMENT chadam

A buffalo was not able to hide behind this tree. One of the 450 CEB Solids, that was designed here, hit the tree at 2500 fps, so hard it knocked the bark off as you see, drove straight through the tree, into the buffalos right shoulder, traversed the buffalo, exited the far left shoulder as well...... Buffalo, DRT............. This was the second round fired naturally. First round had more than done its job, but one never stops shooting until the problem is solved.

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Please everyone do keep in mind, I am not trying to sell you anything, just sharing some of my passion for big bore rifles, and what they can do........ And for the last 15 years most all my big bore rifles just happen to be B&M.
I carried long, cumbersome, heavy guns for many many years and many miles across Africa, meaning standard 24 inch Winchester M70s in 458 Winchester, 458 Lott, and various 416s. Today, just taking one of these to the
range for test work seems insane. I think to myself, how in the world did I carry this big long stupid thing so far, so many miles, thinking I would NEVER in my life take one again. A 24 inch rifle seems like a Long Bess
musket to me now. So nothing to sell you, just sharing. I am not in the rifle business, nor bullet business, but I do know what works, and what does not work..............
 
Many of you might not know the B&M Story...... Well, B&M is either Billy & Michael, or Bruton & McCourry, does not matter, but it is rather catchy we thought.

One night Billy calls up, wants a 500 S&W on a lever gun. This was late 2005. I told him he could not have one, there was no suitable action at the time, Win 94s and such were too small to handle the cartridge, and the various Marlins and 1886s were too big.

So we are pondering around, I happen to notice a 338 WSM that I had been working with. Picked up a case, looked, and did some quick measurements while on the phone. Damn, it looked right..... I took the hacksaw to it, cut it off
at the shoulder, trimmed it up to 1.65 inches, and .500 caliber bullets fit in it perfectly. The only rifle I had that would fit was that Win M70 338 WSM The case slid right under, and looked good. I told Billy that I could not give him
a lever gun, but I damn sure could give him a bolt gun in .500 caliber! And that was it, B&M had been discovered.

I had not yet even thought about a WSSM action, shorter. So I had this longer WSM action, and not enough CASE to fill up the action. I had room to grow. So I started thinking that very night about what Case/cartridge would fit in this magazine, and be longer than WSM and easier to make? RUM came to mind. Next morning I took a hacksaw to some RUM Brass, and now the first prototype 50 B&M was born. First case was 2.25 inches, I started thinking case capacity, and bullets available, and 2.25 was way too much case for any bullet made at the time. So I cut it back to 1.95.......... and rolled the first prototype out with SSK Industries. That rifle was capable of handling the various .500 caliber bullets available at the time, and even then over running some of their terminal capabilities. I slowed those down to velocities they could handle, and took the first gun to Africa on a trail shoot. Shot some 25 or more animals in 5 days testing, learned a lot, and back home to change things. Started looking for real .500 caliber bullets.

JD Jones and I started working with David Fricke of Lehigh. Now we were cutting some serious solid copper bullets, that would hold up to any velocity you could run them at. The original 50 B&M at 1.95 inches changed to the 2.25 inch case, because we were starting to get real bullets now, for elephant, buffalo and hippo. The 1.95 inch .500 was forgotten for a couple of years, and we proceeded with the 2.25 inch RUM case. By 2007 we had some really good bullets and designs. I took them to Africa, Zimbabwe, and was extremely successful on a couple of night raiding elephants, and later 5 buffalo. We now had a serious stopping rifle, with serious bullets, and in a package that was unheard of in African hunting. Small, light, easy to carry, short and handy, and handled close range situations incredibly fast. This was a go to war, fighting gun now.

Later I started working with Dan Smitchko at Cutting Edge Bullets and John Koegler from North Fork. We all became fast friends, and went to work on proper designed bullets. Dan from CEB, most all his experience was long range bullets at the time, none with the type of things we were doing. He was great to work with, and made changes to the bullets weekly as we were testing and discovering new things. In the end, Dan was able to produce for us, what is now called the Safari Raptor and Safari Solid designs. If you go to the Cutting Edge website, you will see those in all the major calibers. At some point in life, I will tell you how they work, but that is a book unto itself. John from North Fork and I worked on some similar projects, but one I liked in particular was the Expanding Cup Point Solid. John later redesigned some of their solids to match up the nose profile of what we were doing here.........

The rest is actually history........ The 50 B&M was the First B&M, and first viable true .500 caliber rifle. Many more would follow this. Later I dropped the 2.25 inch case down in caliber to .458, .416, and 9.3 caliber. I DESPISE 375 caliber anything, so refused to do a B&M in .375. A true B&M fanatic, John Hauldy wanted a 375 the worst way, I agreed to do one for him, but he was doing to do load development and get it up and running. I do not own a 375 B&M, and never will. As far as I know, John has the only one, and has used it very well......... I am not a great fan of .474 caliber either. But, someone talked me into a .474 caliber B&M, hence the 475 B&M. I found it no more effective than the 458 version. And at some point will drop it from the line most likely. The 2.24-2.25 inch B&M Lineup is 50 B&M, 475 B&M, 458 B&M, 416 B&M, 375 B&M, and 9.3 B&M...............

In addition to that, the Super Short Versions, the 50 B&M Alaskan for lever guns, the 50 B&M SA for Semi Auto................

And all because Billy wanted a damn 500 S&W in a lever gun! Ya See what he Started...........................
 
Looking through some photos this morning and ran across another 50 B&M that sports one of the Accurate Innovations Laminated Stocks............ This is a great option for some of these guns that need a AI Stock, these are extremely effective in distributing recoil, along with doing well in wet weather. I like the color on these as well..............

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After the shooting fest in April of 2006 with the prototype 50 B&M, we went to work to find some better .500 caliber bullets. At that time JD had started working with David Fricke of now Lehigh Bullets. JD was having several bullets made in various calibers, so we had David do several versions of .500 caliber bullets that might be suitable for heavy game, buffalo/elephant. I needed in the worst way a decent solid. We had tested a lot of different things, including Round Nose designs which were nearly USELESS. No way to track straight. I know I had good success with the Barnes banded Flat Nose Solid back in 2005 in Tanzania for buffalo. We had David make a Flat Nose bullet, similar to that for .500 caliber, at 510 grains. It seemed to work extremely well in all the test work. We also worked with various Copper Hollow points, and other solids.

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In late 2007, October as I recall, I arranged to take some left over quota, buffalo and elephant, at a reasonable price. I wanted to take the 50 B&M over for another test run, with some of these new bullets. I also had a brand new 50 B&M with a 20 inch barrel. Later I would learn that 20 inches in 50 B&M was totally wasted metal, that the cartridge topped out at 18 inches max, anything over that was wasted metal and time.........
But regardless, I was hot to take it..........

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Up first was 2 elephant in Zimbabwe, hunting with Dudley Rodgers. My Long time PH, Andrew Schoeman knew Dudley well, and had hunted many times with him, so we met Andrew and Dudley and went to the field. Now the elephant hunting that Dudley did is a bit different, we were hunting crop raiding elephants and village trouble makers. We were not hunting big bull trophy elephants, but the most intriguing part is that we were hunting elephants in the night. Black ass zero dark thirty! Dudley had two sets of Night Vision, and I am sure it was not very modern. He and Andrew took the two sets. I did not want them, I needed to keep my eyes adjusted and ready for shooting.

What we would do, is get out and take walks around the village, and fields when it got dark. Dudley had a good idea where most of these elephants were anyway. Andrew and Dudley would wear the night vision, My Wife Jaun and I would follow behind, her behind me. It was so dark, she had to hold onto my belt to know exactly where I was, she could not see me even one step in front of her. Sometimes, I was doing the same with Andrew to know where they were. It was a tight line. The plan was this, Dudley and Andrew would study any elephants we came across. If there was a shooter, meaning a medium bull, not trophy bull, then they would point me in the right direction, I would get shooter ready, they would hit the light, I would have about 3-4 seconds to see the elephant, pick the shot and get the first round down. This was going to be BIG FUN to say the least................

So off we go......... Single file hunting in the dark, and going to Shine Elephants! HEH........ Before you ask, yes, this was 100% Legal and the way they dealt with these elephants. Nothing illegal and all up an up.
We hunted 6 nights total, but only shot two nights. There was one time we were very close in on a group of elephant, I mean 12-15 yards close. I of course could not see anything, but could hear them feeding. It was in thick brush, and we were on a road, they just off the road. It was noisy, wind in our favor of course, or they would have been long gone. There were some extremely tense moments being that close to a group of elephants, in the dark. There were several moments like that over the nights we hunted......... I had two elephant left on quota, or permit.

The first elephant, and I don't recall which night it was. We were walking along a dry river bed when we heard elephant up on the bank feeding along. Dudley and Andrew determined there were two of them, and glimpses they caught both were medium bulls, if we got a chance, we were going to shoot. We waited, and followed along. There was a small open area up on the river bank, and one of the elephants stepped out in the clear, I got into position, and ready for the light. When Andrew hit the light, the elephant was facing us at 30 yards, front on, I lined up for a frontal brain shot and turned a 510 Solid loose on him. I watched as his back end dropped first, followed by the front. I knew I had hit the brain, this was typical of all elephants that are brain shot, rear drops first, followed by the front. He was down. But Andrew cut the light before I could put an insurance shot in. We were thinking the second elephant might step out and present a shot. In the end, he did not, he went the other way, lights back on, insurance shot made, even though there was no reason. One always pays the Insurance...........

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I thought I had some photos of the school kids that came to help with the elephant. The local school closed because of the elephant. Everyone pitched in the next morning to get their share of protein. It was a very big ordeal, and lots of happy kids....... I could not find the photos.........

Not sure which night it was that we got the second elephant, but probably the 5th night, as I think we left on day six. At any rate, we waited on full dark before heading out. We were walking along the top edge of the same dry river. The edge was about 6 or so feet higher than middle of the river bed. Andrew and Dudley spotted a group of elephants coming in. The fields and village was on our side of the river. They were headed for a spot just up from us where they could easy get out of the river bed without much effort. We caught up to them and they had stopped for whatever reason, and we had the high ground. The two PH's looked them over and decided that the third one back from the front was the elephant we were going to take. I could not see any of them of course. They whispered the instructions to me, and I made ready. Andrew hit the light, I counted back to the third elephant, there was no brain shot, too much of an angle, distance was around 25-30 yards, I dropped the sights to the shoulder/heart and fired. The elephants left front end dropped, I thought he was going down for the count, but he got his feet under him, turned directly away from me, by then I had loaded the 2cd round and put it through just to the right of his spine, through the top of his back. He kept going, I loaded round 3 and hit him about 2 feet further back than round #2. I was busy loading the magazine just as the elephant attempted to get out the far side of the river bed, about 40 yards from where we started, but it was over, he was spent, and could not climb the bank. The other elephants had scattered by now and out of sight. We approached from the rear of course, but it was done and no need for further action.

We took some photos that night. Studied the area and what went down. But it was too dark and late to do anything, like the first elephant the other night, we waited until the next morning early to get decent photos and start the butchering process. This was a photo from the next morning of course.......

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We pulled up in the shade and made ready for a long morning of it, while the locals went to work....... I was extremely interested in studying the path of bullets and if we could recover any. The first round fired, shoulder/heart from left to right had exited perfectly in line. To our great surprise, the 2cd round fired from the rear had exited dead center of the chest! That would have been close to 7 feet of elephant. Eventually we found the 3rd bullet fired way up in the chest cavity and lung area..... Estimating at least 7 ft of penetration with that bullet.

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Eventually we got the heart taken out. It had two bullet paths criss crossing the heart. Bullet one had passed through the heart from left to right. Bullet #2 had passed through the heart from rear to front. Both of these exited. I was extremely pleased with this out come.

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Elephant hearts are damn big, and pretty heavy..........

This was the end of Part One of our journey, and the 50 B&M with the new solids we were using had done one hell of a good job. Hit hard, and plenty of penetration.........

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Now we were off to the Matetsi for the second part of the hunt, and had 5 buffalo on Quota there.

Michael
 
@Michael458 , in the photo above where you're holding the heart, I can't help but notice the marks between your eyes. Is that a case of Magnum Eyebrow?
 
@Michael458 , in the photo above where you're holding the heart, I can't help but notice the marks between your eyes. Is that a case of Magnum Eyebrow?


HEH HEH HEH....... Yep! I had received this rifle about 2 weeks before leaving. I did some very quick work with it, and the bolt stop was broken, bolt would jump out of the damn action and you would be holding rifle in one hand, bolt in the other. I sent it next day back to Brian at SSK, but time was short, he tried to fix it, but we did not have another to put in. He rushed it back, and it worked, or it worked, before I left with it. I very quickly put the damn scope on, and off we went. Now I sighted in at the bench, holding down hard. In the field, you can't lock it in that tight to your shoulder, things move. And every single time it was fired, it would bust your ass between the eyes and the blood would pour. And I shot it a lot on this trip! I was bloody every day. I honestly do not know how in the hell I ended up shooting as well as I did with this going on. And, everyone wanted to shoot the gun, they had never seen such a thing. All of us walked around with bloody marks between our eyes, it was a hoot...........

The gun was shooting great, and I was not going to change anything in the field. I know I must have had a spare scope with, but I didn't change. When I got home, I saw immediately my mistake before leaving, it mounted 1/4 inch too far back! In my haste to get the rifle set up, that 1/4 inch cost me a damn quart of blood................... LOL..........
 
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I had a 7mm Remington Magnum get me once. I was prone and in an awkward position getting ready to pulverize a groundhog. I saw stars. Then I couldn't see anything for the blood in my eyes. There's not much meat up there to cushion the blow and there sure is a lot of blood.
 
When I was a kid I let a scope knock me in the head, it had not happened again until this hunting trip! And, thank goodness, it has not happened since. I threw that gun together quick, and got on the airplane. I paid for it across the pond! HEH............. I would shoot something, be really happy about it, turn around, and everyone would be looking at the blood pouring down my face, I didn't have a clue. When you are in the field things shut down, you don't feel recoil, your ears don't ring at the shot, and I guess you don't feel a scope knocking your head silly either, nor feel blood pouring down your face..........................
 
After the elephants, Dudley loaded us up on his airplane and we took off for the Matetsi. I had 5 buffalo on quota there, 1 bull left, and 5 cows. Cow buffalo are just as dangerous as the bulls, just not quite as big. I was testing bullets, and bullets do not know the difference either..... I was hunting with a PH I did not know and had not hunted with before. Ross Johnston. Ross was waiting for us as we landed on the dirt strip. 2007 was a hard year for the folks in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe and sanctions was rough on everyone, diesel fuel was in short supply, grocery shelves empty, even a coke was hard to come by. But the camp at Matetsi had done good on supplies and we managed to get by.

We set out that next morning in search of buffalo. We found them, plenty of them. We were on a big herd, must have been 50 or more animals. We were in no hurry for the bull, so decided to see if we could get a nice cow out of the way first thing. There was this one cow, and it was behind the only bush in sight! There was a woods line, and then large open area, and damn this one big cow was behind the only piece of brush in sight. Was not big brush, but the cow was directly behind it. I did not shoot, Ross said shoot, it will go threw it. And back and forth we went, Me, No, him Yes, finally I said OK and dropped the hammer! Buffalo bucks up, runs, gets mixed in the herd, can't tell one from another, and off they go, no second shot! NOT GOOD. Did not like that brush.

We tracked and tracked, and did not find anything but a drop of blood here and there, and not good blood, dark ugly meat blood! Not bright lung or heart blood! Crap! We left, came back later that evening hoping to try and sort something out. We decided to split up to see if we could cover more area that way, run across a track or trail. I followed the herd, Ross took off to the right thinking maybe the buffalo turned out of the herd at some point to lay up. Probably a couple of hundred yards up I also turned into the wooded area to take a look when I heard Ross's 375 HH fire. He was carrying a POS CZ in 375 HH..... Could not be much worse. I took off running in his direction where he was holding the buffalo at bay, he had ran across it, it had jumped up and charged him. He hit it in the nose with the 375 and it stopped, his gun jammed. I threw up the 50 and hammered it to the dirt, end of story....... Except we saw what had happened with the first shot. First shot had hit that brush, turned sideways and hit the animal too far back. Brush!

2007 was also the year I had a heart attack! That was in July that year, we were now hunting Zimbabwe in October. My Wife had told Ross about this, in case I had any issues I suppose. I carried Nitro in my pocket. She was concerned. Now Ross had this in the back of his mind.

We got on another big cow buffalo. Little far out for my taste, about 60-70 yards. I was ahead of the group, and the buffalo was facing me frontal. I took what I thought was a easy shot. Now I work a rifle hard, when I am loading another round in, I am snatching the living hell out of the bolt, no way I could ever short stroke a bolt gun! Remember the bolt stop issue I mentioned on this gun before leaving on this trip? Well, it had worked perfectly up until now. I snatched that bolt back HARD, and it flew out of the gun in my right hand, and gun in my left hand. My arm came back so damn far, it felt like it was going to tear out my right side, pulling muscles and such. I went down, probably did some squalling as well! HEH......... They came running up, Ross started digging through my pockets, I looked at him like he was crazy as hell and said "WTF are you doing?"....... to which he replied he was looking for the Nitro to give me a pill! I said I don't need a damn pill get off me! Then I told them what happened, I still had rifle in left hand and bolt in right hand, and explained the situation. They were releived, and had thought I was having a damn heart attack.... HEH HEH.............

Went up to where the buffalo was standing, and I saw a damn stick about a 1.5 inches thick, that had a nick shot out of it! It was 10-12 feet in front of the buffalo when I shot, and of course I had to hit the damn thing! Not a drop of blood was ever found, and all we could decipher was the stick I hit had thrown the bullet, missing the buffalo completely!

Put the bolt back in the gun, and tried every way in the world to get it to come back out, snatching hell out of it, but it never came out again for the rest of the trip..............

I took care of the quota fairly quick, one buffalo a day........ Ended up with a really good bull too. Close, about 20 yards and he dropped to the shot, never moved again. I was very pleased with this. All the bullets I had tried were good. Nothing was failure, but I still felt like there was room for improvement in some areas. When we got home, I sent the rifle back to Brian at SSK, he put a new bolt stop in. I removed the scope, and saw immediately what the problem was, that 1/4 inch too far back in the rings. Solved that problem. Also solved the gun issue with the bolt stop. But, I retired that rifle after that hunt. There was zero reason to have a 20 inch 50 B&M. I gave the rifle to my son Matthew and its in his rack at home now. He does not mess with it much, but I think he is just keeping it because I shot two elephants and 5 buffalo with it. He much prefers his 50 B&M Super Short.

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I took 50 B&Ms out a few more times on various hunts, took one to Alaska and found the rifle does extremely well on bear................

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And then in 2008 I had it when I took the boys to South Africa............ After this, I started using some of the other B&M rifles which needed field time...... Including the big 500 MDM................

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It was on this trip that I got my BIG FIVE completed, Rhino! Well, as far as I was concerned anyway. I actually DID NOT PULL THE TRIGGER on this. It was just a SHOW.... for the Photo. In fact, I made sure the gun was completely EMPTY so I would not be tempted, and I could not make a mistake, Rhino were extremely Expensive, I did not want to spend that dime! I figure this photo shows I COULD HAVE, and that will have to do as my BIG FIVE.................. HEH HEH......... and it was damn CHEAP too! Didn't cost a thing............

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That's incredible penetration. But two boolits through that elephant's heart, and he still tried to climb up the river bank! That's incredible will to live...

Nice way to kill a Rhino...
 
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