.50 GI: The Gentle Giant (That Can Kill You) [Multi-post review]

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Get your facts straight

Ummmm.... Well that was a lengthy read to say the least. And this being my first post to this forum, I do not want to get off on the wrong foot, or to insult anybody but, :banghead: I'm about to.

That's quite a bit of bashing on the 50GI round if ever there was. :cuss:

I'm not sure where to begin and I certainly won't bother refuting all of the baseless claims but perhaps just a few.

First of all, I've been reading into this round since 2005. I became quite the fan and I finally was able to buy one in 2009. (Which I might add was my first handgun purchase and I'm still quite pleased with the quality of 1911 that I chose) :neener: But since this about the 50GI cartridge and not the quality of the built, I'll just hush on all that.

Who in their right mind goes on and on explaining that its not on par with magnum loads? Fun fact: It was not meant to.

I'd engage in a gun fight with a controllable cartridge over a magnum (50DE or the like) any day. Those magnum rounds are for hunting anyway and obviously fill a different niche than defensive rounds. Duh. So why are we talking about them? :uhoh:

As for those complaining of costs? It is what it is. Personally if a component of my defensive pistol gave me ANY edge or resulted in ANY percentile increase of likelihood to win/survive the battle, there would be no limit of money I would pay? Really? Would you have a limit? I mean you'll probably go your entire life never needing to draw, but God forbid you do once, its on like Donkey Kong and all bets are off. I always find it so funny when guys will spend ridiculous money on thinks like rims, TV's, clothing, etc... But have a $500 piece of garbage and say that anything more is too much? So you want more quality out of your leather shoes, than you do you sword? Okay... To each his own, glad to know.

The truth is, Guncrafter Industries was innovative enough to make the new cartridge have a rebated rim (to answer the OP question) .45 so that you can train and plink with cheaper ammo from any number of manufactures. (So much for your cost complaint)

The (expensive) SCHP's are for DEFENSIVE purposes only. Who hits paper targets with hollow points anyway? Yeh yeh,,,, you should never trust your life to a round you haven't fired____ rounds of without failure blah blah blah. Ok! Go buy ____ amount, shoot it, then load you defensive mags and be done with it. Again, I don't know of a better SD round on the market so see my pervious point about costs.

And for those claiming the ballistics just don't impress and all that jazz...
Are you kidding me? I mean... Are you? You must be. You really want to get into a math war because I can tell you right now the writing is in the sky and its a futile endeavor.
How deep in your butt did you have to dig for this math?
".45 185gr = .50 225gr
.45 200gr = .50 245gr
.45 230gr = .50 285gr
.45 250gr = .50 310gr
.45 275gr = .50 340gr
.45 300gr = .50 370gr"


Who's talking about how "ssssssssssslow" these rounds are?
230 @1000 FPS factory load with a SCHP that STARTS at .50 and expands to
1". That's 1" X pie. The 185's @1200 for those of you who like fast but light and oh... don't want to be 'small' you still get 1" expanded.

The only "slow" round that I know of is the 300gr @750. Well.... Maybe it's because you're shooting a 300gr bullet out of a hand gun. DO I need to explain why its not as fast as the smaller rounds? Do you know the penetration of a 300gr flat nose @750 FPS?:evil:

And I love the guys who chime in when a caliber debate comes up who retort "Its' all about shot placement!" Well... Aren't you the smart box awaiting a Nobel prize? I recommend a .22LR so that you can be sure to get that excellent shot placement since you wont have to worry about recoil. Heck... BB guns have improved vastly over the years, and you don't have as many laws prohibiting them. :p "All things being equal" should be in fine print down at the bottom to remind guys we "know" it matters where the bullets hit.

"All things being equal"
Point of the matter is, I know of NO other round that DOES fill as many variables WITHOUT all the downsides, such as high pressure rounds trying to gain a little in the math of "energy" to make up for their small size all the while exponentially increasing their muzzle blast. The .45 is a great round, except the will always be .05 of legal space above its head that's not being used. We're not trying to just make holes, or rely on "knock down power", we are hoping to contact vital spots, that when broken, render the threat unable to continue and as far as I know, "All things being equal" bigger holes, have bigger chances of that happening. Obviously small percentage but over the course of 1000 shootings, you may find that there is a little math involved even with good shot placements of a lethal wound, or "almost" a lethal wound just mm's away from being the former.

To each his own, but if not a fan that's cool. Just don't spout of with wrong information stated as fact. It's not polite. ; )
 
"Who hits paper targets with hollow points anyway?"
People who don't shoot fancy boutique rounds that can't be found easily at any price?

TCB
 
If I went the .50 route I'd get a Glock 41, 4th gen, for the conversion.

15 or so .50 cal rounds from a 6 inch barrel ought to do it.

Deaf
 
Well, same gun as in my prior photo, but here's a few more:

standard.jpg

standard.jpg

standard.jpg

It was, and remains, very tight. I don't shoot it a lot, but it's fun when I do. I won't get into the Big Debate regarding the caliber. I don't know enough about ballistics and buy what makes me smile.
 
Oh, well . I guess this is just another "mine's bigger than yours".
Click to expand...

I went to purchase my daughter a S&W Model 63 and two guys reached the gun counter right before I did. The one guy asked "what is the most powerful handgun I can buy?" I had to wait while these two guys coon handled a Desert Eagle and then coon handled a S&W 500. And I had to listen to their conversation otherwise I would have lost my place in line.

I am 100% that if the laws ever change and they allow .51 caliber rifles and handguns, someone will make them and someone will buy them.
 
I love the idea of a 50 cal autoloader round but just want more power than the GI offers.

It doesnt need to pack the same punch as my S&W 500 but I don't understand why they didn't make the G.I. a high pressure cartridge(like 40k) if they would have it would have sold 10x's as well.
 
C0untZer0 said:
I went to purchase my daughter a S&W Model 63 and two guys reached the gun counter right before I did. The one guy asked "what is the most powerful handgun I can buy?" I had to wait while these two guys coon handled a Desert Eagle and then coon handled a S&W 500. And I had to listen to their conversation otherwise I would have lost my place in line.

I am 100% that if the laws ever change and they allow .51 caliber rifles and handguns, someone will make them and someone will buy them.
Click to expand...
Did they dip their hands in water?
If so, I bet it made the clerk (or maybe the owner) mad.
 
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As for those complaining of costs? It is what it is.
Click to expand...

Right, too expensive.

Personally if a component of my defensive pistol gave me ANY edge or resulted in ANY percentile increase of likelihood to win/survive the battle, there would be no limit of money I would pay?
Click to expand...

There is a lack of proof that this would necessarily provide that edge.
 
And for those claiming the ballistics just don't impress and all that jazz...
Are you kidding me? I mean... Are you? You must be. You really want to get into a math war because I can tell you right now the writing is in the sky and its a futile endeavor.
Click to expand...

The idiom actually goes "the writing is on the wall".

And I'll be more than happy to engage in that debate. But it's on you to provide the .50 GI data for real world test results of penetration and expansion that substantiate your claim. You're the one trying to prove something; the extreme majority of us here already know it's a novelty round with no real ballistic advantage.

You've got your work cut out for you if your aim is convincing this crowd! THR has a lot more experienced shooters and highly knowledgeable individuals than your average gun board, which are mostly comprised of young men who play too many video games and believe that bullets can actually knock people down in the real world.
 
Super glad to be part of this forum!

I thought for SURE, I would return this morning to see hate filled angry butt hurt retorts and what I did get was substantive and fair.

I've been reading THR for many years now off and on as with others but never became a member until yesterday, simply to post. I will concur with MachIVshooter that this forum is not overly full of internet Rambo's.
And thank you for correcting my idiom "The writing is on the wall"

"Coon Hands" made me laugh once I pictured it. So also the comment that if they made a .51 people would buy it. That's not an admittance that I would, but fair point none the less.

Thompsoncustom- You can load your own (as I'm sure you know) and the rounds certainly CAN handle it. I've seen cross sections of the brass and the walls are much thicker than .45ACP by design. There used to be a forum dedicated to 50GI and some guy named "Fish" was going nuts posting reloading info all the time and he was really pushing it. I wanna say getting the 300gr up around 1000fps! I one time visited Alex Zimmerman (creator of Guncrafter Industries) and he brought that up with astonishment. Said in his opinion it would be really putting the 1911 platform under a lot of stress and that perhaps the Glock platform would handle it better. But there is was, a guy was doing it.

As many here state that their .45 does the job they need done just fine... I surmise that is the reason for the "factory" loads from GI.

To prove the math debate... Do I really need to? I suppose if necessary I can start digging around because it's certainly out there however it's a mute point. I was never intending on getting THAT into the weeds over a caliber war. When the wars over between 9/40/45 let me know...

All I was saying is that the attacks on the 50GI were extremely unfounded. And that a platform that can send a .5" round at 1200 FPS and expands to over 1" is certainly a noteworthy option.
 
And that a platform that can send a .5" round at 1200 FPS and expands to over 1" is certainly a noteworthy option.
Click to expand...

I'm not aware of any .50 GI load that even approaches the sonic barrier. I'm also very skeptical of the terminal performance of any load which uses light-for-caliber bullets to achieve unusually high velocities. So far, every such creature exhibits poor penetration, often accompanied by bullet fragmentation.

For the .50 GI to hit that kind of velocity without being severely over pressure, you'd have to be using a bullet well under 200 grains. At it's diameter, the sectional density will be very poor, and even if the bullet holds together, such featherweights generally lack momentum to achieve adequate penetration. There have been such loads for common calibers, like a 117 gr. .45 ACP load, a 60 gr. 9mm load. Pathetic performers when actually tested properly in calibrated ballistic gelatin, rather than pieces of fruit or water bottles. A ~170, 180 gr. 500" bullet would be similar.

Meanwhile, full house 10mm or .45 super loads can reach those speeds with 200+ gr. bullets that have excellent SD. My standard .45 Super load (which I use in bone stock S&W 3rd gen steel guns and 1911s with increased power recoil springs) runs a 240 gr. Sierra SJHC at 1,125 FPS from a 5" tube, while the 180 gr. 10mm loads achieve 1,405 FPS from a standard 5" gun. My 200 gr. 10mm loads clock 1,280. All of these loads are deep penetrators, with expansion from .7" (10mm 200 gr XTP) to 1.1" (10mm 180 gr. GSHP). The 240 gr. Sierra .451" pills have been pretty consistently around 1".

Another thing to keep in mind is that real-world wounds created by common service cartridges tend to be indistinguishable from one caliber to the next. A 9mm wound looks like a .40 S&W wound, which looks like a .45 ACP wound. It's not until you step it up into the full house .357 and 10mm range, where relatively heavy bullets can be driven very deeply when fully expanded, that things start to change (still nothing like rifle wounds, though). And the .043" difference between .357" bullets and 10mm bullets makes not a lick of difference, just as the .049 between .451 and .500 doesn't.

All this, and then there's the issue of .50 GI reducing magazine capacity, on top of being (much) more expensive to shoot, and very difficult to find ammunition for other than online.

So, while it may seem to you that a lot of people hate on the .50 GI, it's not actually hate. Just pragmatism.
 
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...&mid=32894FCF0DB7ACABD93D32894FCF0DB7ACABD93D

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=389124


The first link is an actual slow motion video of the 230gr in 10% BOG you might find impressive.

The second is of some guy who really tested a plethora of different rounds into wet phone books. (PLEASE hold the comments disregarding his testing material- it's not perfect but a fair test for the poor man)

Their are 4 rounds offered through GI.
300gr FNP @ 750-800 (projectile made by Desert Eagle)
275gr JHP @850 (projectile made by Desert Eagle)
230gr SCHP @ 1050 (invented and made by GI for GI)
185gr SCHP @ 1200 (invented and made by GI for GI)

The latter two came about because all things about the platform were proprietary and the brain child of Alex Zimmerman and Vic Tibets (both currently of Wilson Combat at the time)

Everything was designed and made from scratch to include the newly created 50GI case. EXCEPT for the projectiles which were already readily available from other .500 makers. For obvious reasons I'm sure, costs of making a new cartridge and fitting it into the 1911 platform without changing the external dimensions (which had never been done) were prohibitive especially to simultaneously enter into the bullet manufacturing market as well.

A few years after the company got going. I was having a debate similar to this, with a buddy on a forum who was similarly skeptic. He brought up a simple but great point and that was, that the projectiles 50GI were using did not expand at such low velocities and although starting out bigger than .45 still didn't create as large a permanent wound channel. I was unable to refute it. I contacted GI and was told to just "hang tight" something new was in the works and soon to be released!

That's when the 185/230 SCHP were offered from the factory.
These are incredible looking rounds! A completely new take on defensive load handgun rounds. They aren't just 'scored' but completely cut through in a very thin line. They retain 100% of their weight, or if you want to be picky I'm sure it's closer to 99.999998. They do not fragment. I have shot hundreds of them. Into water, into steel, bricks, etc. Obviously do not expand when hitting steel and brick but they remain intact. Each time I've shot water they pop open like a satellite deploying its solar panels to a controlled point any then you can not get them to expand any further. Unlike traditional mushroomed lead rounds which are soft, rounded, and smooth to the touch, these 4 pedals are razor sharp and uncomfortable to the touch. "Very grabby" (It should be noted however that GI did not patent this bullet design and there is a copy cat out there marketing them for the common calibers, I would recommend them for any caliber) I can't stress enough how much I think this bullet design is a game changer as far as wound channel is concerned.


Pragmatism aside. The 1911 can hold 7+1 and the Glock obviously more so I say, nay to your point about capacity. And this is a point I feel I always need to make. We're talking bullet for bullet here and it's effects. A person can carry reloads and render the capacity issue invalid. What I'm concerned with is single hit effects, not misses and multiple aggressors. If I need capacity, I need a rifle.

And again with the costs. I thought this was a caliber war, not a price war?
I concede the point that each of these rounds is upwards of $1.50 a piece. As I mentioned earlier, I do my training with .45 in the same gun.

In no way am I trying to make the claim that this new round has rendered all others obsolete. Only that there is a small but real, technical improvement over the tried and tested .45
 
Im always enamored by and interested to learn about and shoot new cartridges. I'd love to shoot one. But wouldnt even consider purchasing until a lot of other holes in my collection have been filled.
 
I'm just not convinced. However, if you want a 50GI, you should have a 50GI.
 
MachIVshooter said:
So, while it may seem to you that a lot of people hate on the .50 GI, it's not actually hate. Just pragmatism.
Click to expand...

And that's the ticket right there.

If someone wants one, great. I hope they enjoy it. But for the cost, there isn't enough benefit to warrant me buying one. That's the case for a lot of people, which is why they are expensive to own, and to shoot, and are not very common.
 
300gr FNP @ 750-800 (projectile made by Desert Eagle)
275gr JHP @850 (projectile made by Desert Eagle)
Click to expand...

Desert Eagle is not a company, it's a product. IWI (Israeli Weapons Industries, formerly IMI) and MRI (Magnum Research, Inc.) are the companies who produce it. And though IWI offers loaded ammunition, I am not aware of any source for IWI bullets. As such, those 275 and 300 gr. pills are almost certainly made by Speer (Gold Dot or Uni-Core), Hornady (XTP) or Barnes (XPB). Other than that, they'd be some kind of boutique slug, like the lighter monolithic ones.

And again with the costs. I thought this was a caliber war, not a price war?
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Ammunition cost is always a factor, especially where it concerns a defensive weapon you need to practice with. Prohibitive ammunition cost=reluctance to burn up ammo in practice=less proficiency with weapon.

Capacity is also a concern with a defensive arm, and statements like

A person can carry reloads and render the capacity issue invalid..
Click to expand...

are disingenuous at best.

As well, if you're giving up capacity, you'd better be gaining something on the performance end. Where .50 GI is concerned, not only does it reduce capacity by 25% vs. 10mm, but also does not perform as well. Who in their right mind would want to carry something that uses less powerful ammunition with double or more the PPR, AND which offers only 11 rounds vs. 15 in the same package?

Again, it has cool factor and uniqueness, but no practical merit.
 
Should I Buy a .50GI ?

I tried over the years, to assemble a collection of shootable guns, to cover every gun need possible.

In the handgun line, I have:
.22 RF, .25 ACP, .32 ACP, .32 Colt Long, .32 S&W Short, .38 Special, 9mm(Luger), 9 X 17mm (.380 ACP), 9 X 18mm (Mak), 9mm Largo, .45 ACP. SD is mainly .38 Special, 9mm, and .45 ACP.

Personally, I don't feel the need of .40 S&W or larger, since .45 ACP fills the large caliber need, again, for me.:)

Now if hunting grizz or polar bear were in my future.....well, a larger than .44 Magnum revolver would probably be in my collection.:D
 
Some pics

Howdy all;

So, I figured I'd attach a few pictures. The first is the Glock with the .50 GI conversion. The Next is is a .38 Super, 10mm Auto, .45 ACP and a .50 GI cartridge all in a row (steps from one to the next are increases of ~0.05" in diameter). Cross sectional areas are, in the above order, 0.40 sq.in., 0.50 sq.in. 0.64 sq.in. and 0.79 sq.in. So a .50 GI has almost double the cross sectional area as a 9mm, and only about 23% more than a .45. The last picture is of rounds of the .45 and .50 caliber handguns I own; .45 GAP, .460 S&W, .45 ACP, .50 AE, and .50 GI. I don't have a .500 S&W ...yet... ;)

IMG_3394.jpg

IMG_3397.jpg

IMG_3401.jpg
 
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