50 Beowulf SBR upper or 12" slug gun?

I am about to move out of Washington and get to the free state of Montana, and this frees up the option of SBS which aren't legal in Washington. The debate i keep having with myself is weather or not to just build a 12" rifled slug gun, or a 50 Beowulf 12" upper for the sbr lower... Both would do the same job close in (bear defense and home protection), but would the Beowulf actually be any better at longer ranges than the slugs in a rifled barrel. Cost is roughly the same, the Beo is one less tax stamp... Decisions, decisions...

Ryanxia said:

Do the Beowulf since you can have several different uppers/calibers for the same SBR lower, and then pick up one of these tax stamp free..

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Wow, my thoughts exactly!

I looked at a KSG today, and they are rather compact

I

CraigC said:

The .50 is going to be much more capable and versatile.

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I Believe this is the answer, thanks CraigC. Now the question is weather it should be Beowulf or 458 socom... Decisions, decisions...

Yes, one of each is the right answer! But which one first... I do think the ar upper will come first since I can use it now, but once i get moved I'll probably want the slug gun too. I may try out a Mossberg shockwave to see if the short barreled style works for me, and if so i may sbr that, who knows...

MCMXI said:

I got my .450 BM barrel back today. I had it cut down from 20" to 12" and threaded 5/8"-24. I'll post a photo once I have the upper put back together. Next up is subsonic load development with 300gr bullets, probably Hornady XTPs with Trailboss.

I'm going to run at least one 9-round mag on full-auto just to see how well it works. It should be fine with subsonic ammunition, kind of like a Thompson.

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Let us know all the details on the full auto run, sounds like a blast!

MCMXI said:

Will do. Too bad that a 9-round magazine is the highest capacity available.

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I wonder if one of the ar drums could be converted to work...

I do reload, but not currently for anything in 45. Have the stuff but not the gun at the moment. I like the bushmaster idea, but really good heavy bullets arent as plentiful as the .458 offerings, and if I want to headspace off the case mouth I might as well go 50 Beowulf. I am probably gonna go with an sbr upper and a sbs eventually, but the upper doesn't require another tax stamp... And I'm not afraid of recoil at all, if I need a gun for a specific job and it requires a heavy recoil cartridge I just make sure the stock fits me well...

CraigC said:

There are plenty of heavyweight .45 bullets available. You just need to get away from the idea that you might need a 500gr bullet. I wouldn't even go that heavy for Cape buffalo.

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I know you're correct here CraigC, but I would like to try it once or twice to see if the performance subsonic would be acceptable. I didn't want to muddy the waters of the question between the SBR and shotgun with a lot of suppressor questions and opinions, maybe I'll start another thread about that. Realistically, i will probably build two loads that work for a big bore upper and be done with it, a 350grn bullet is plenty big enough. The versatility is more what the shotgun would be about anyway, but ALL of the discussion in this thread has been helpful to me.