Sorry guys...been out of touch for a while. Lost my job late last year and had quite a busy spring looking for another one. Just landed it and started 3 weeks ago but we'll have to move from IL to MI...all in all that is a good thing but moving still sucks.
Here's a relatively crappy range report...in 3 parts.
PART I: Getting the BOHICA
I was traveling on interviews with my BOHICA FAR-50 Mk II .50 BMG upper arrived back in March. Info on this rifle (and the feeding frenzy that has ensued is here
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=278762) However, with Good Friday off, I figured I could assemble the rifle, go through some familiarization and sneak off to zero it at the range in the afternoon.
First, I've changed the set up from the picture shown below. Instead of the Burris scope, I now have a 16x Super Sniper from SWFA on it with a 20 MOA rail. I've also filled the A2 stock cavity with a competition lead weight, adding 4 lbs to the rifle. I have a DPMS lower and kept the stock trigger because it was (surprisingly) crisp. A Wolff extra power hammer spring will make sure military primers are ignited but also leaves me with a 9 lb pull weight...I added an EZPull device which cuts the pull to about 4 or 5 lbs. I put a plastic dust cover/plug in the mag well and removed the buffer, spring and bolt hold lever since this is a dedicated lower.
Impressions? Overall, the improvements the company made seem good. The muzzle brake looks like it will be much more effective (similar to an AR50 brake). Reasonably good metal and polymer work but not perfect. The spring loaded bipod works really nicely. It took a bit of fiddling to get the upper on the lower. The rear pin didn't want to go in, but the more I work it, the easier it is to assemble. The bolt wouldn't cock the hammer when I first tried, however, I found a burr on the cam and 5 swiped with a fine file and now it works fine. All in all, it is very good workmanship for the price (about 1/2 of what others want for a .50).
It is a BEAST.
With a 24 lb upper and the weight I put in the stock, it tops 30 lbs on the scale.
Bolt, action and cartridge shots
Here's the obligatory muzzle shot...that's a big hole.
Finally, as another way to get a sense of scale of the thing, here's a comparison of a 16" M4-gery, a 24" 6.5 Grendel and the BOHICA.
NEXT: FIRST SHOTS
I finally got it out to the range in April...I had a horrendous Spring Break trip with the family and needed to blow some things up. I only shot it at 100 yards after boresighting the scope. This trip was not trying to wring out the rifle but rather make sure it worked.
THE GOOD NEWS...see the attached picture of the target. The lower left are the 3 sighter rounds as I walked the scope up (1st is lower left, 2nd is up and over 1", 3rd is up 4" and over 3") The center hits are 3 rounds after finding the target center ...looks like about 0.5-0.6"...granted only at 100 yards but pretty darn good for mil-spec Igman M33 ball ammo. Also, recoil really isn't nasty...it is about like shooting 3" slugs from pump shotgun. It certainly gets your attention but it isn't painful. More of a big shove rather than a sharp THWACK.
THE BAD NEWS...I had a lot of failures to fire with the mil-spec ammo. Unfortunately some home gunsmithing was performed and through no fault of BOHICA, we buggered up the bolt head. That incident will not be publically discussed in order to protect the (not really) innocent.
I sent an email to Chris Rosequist, the owner of BOHICA Arms, on Sunday night and to my surprise, he called me. We discussed the issue and he said send it back and I'll get it fixed right up.
LAST REPORT: BACK IN THE SADDLE
No pics for this section. Chris gave me a new bolt head, more firing pin protrusion, headspaced the rifle and shipped it back to me free of charge (even after MY screwup. Superior customer service. He was slow but since he didn't owe me anything I didn't complain.
I finally got the rifle back out to the range in late May right before I started my new job. I had 100% ignition on the mil-spec ammo and the accuracy was just as good/better than before (e.g., 1 big ragged hole at 100 yards).
Fired about 25 rounds through the rifle but I actually pulled the trigger only about 15 of those time. I let other people at the range shoot the other 10 when they came wandering over to investigate the ENORMOUS BOOM that was coming from my end of the range. The brave ones that actually took me up on shooting it all left with a HUGE smile on their face. Most didn't even hit the paper (the common emotion is fear that they are going to have the living crap beat out of them from the recoil) but they really liked the experience.
I'll stress that after the initial shot, the recoil really isn't objectionable. You won't mistake it for a .223 but it isn't life threatening.
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