[F. Guffey]

JRLSH, “to get your rifle's exact headspace dimension, you'll need an adjustable 50 BMG headspace gauge and follow its directions to measure the chamber headspace”
AND THEN

I've searched the internet on earth as well as Mars and Jupiter and no specific 50 BMG chamber headspace dimension specs could be found. Lots of gauges out there, but nothing as to specs in the traditional manner of measuring them.



“to get your rifle's exact headspace dimension......etc., etc..” Next? Bench resters, bench resters for years have done it this way and or that way? And me? I say fantastic, just fantastic.

JRLSH, In the big inning there was a gage, something like a thickness gage (OR? the companion tool to the press, the feeler gage) one end was stamped ‘go’ the other ‘no-go’. The difference in thickness between the two was ‘IT’. With the ‘go’ on one end and ‘no-go’ on the other was a chain that attached a timing gage in two pieces.

‘IT’ was described as:

Headspace is the distance between the face of the bolt and base of the cartridge case, fully seated in the chamber. Head space adjustment is correct when the when the following conditions are met:

1. etc..

2, etc..

Again, nothing drives me to the curb, nothing lock me up, the 50 BMG is one of the easiest chambers to measure for length from the bolt face to the shoulder of the chamber, back to ‘I said’, “I can measure the length of any chamber without a head space gage, I am not determining head space, I am determining the length of the chamber (again) from the bolt face to the shoulder of the chamber”, how is that possible? ‘PREDETERMINED’ the word predetermined, to most, has a magical significants or grants insight to the user of the word. Predetermined. the word, is used in glossy of terms, you ask ‘How to check ‘it’?” the answers you get are getting appear to be answers to “What is head space”, not answers as to “How to check head space”.

I believe it is safe to say I have 200+ 50 BMG cases, I have access to 1,000s more, fired and new, again I said the light does not go out when the bolt closes meaning the chamber does not get dark because it seems there is no way light can get, the light?.

Many years ago Springfield claimed they never say a 98 Mauser, the 98 came with a third safety lug, the Springfield 03 came with a third safety lug, the Mauser 3rd lug was hidden, the 03 Springfield lug was exposed on the right side when the bolt was closed. I thought the design was brilliant, Springfield could have measured the gap between the rear 3 lug and front of the rear receiver ring, THEN! made a permanent record of the position of the bolt in reference to bolt seating surface, they could have had a a running record of bolt set back, they were not brilliant and they never noticed the potential. Had they noticed the exposed lug ahead of the rear receiver ring they could have determined the difference in length between the length of the case and the length of the case/ammo from the usual places being fired, they ALSO could have determined head space as in the length of the chamber from the bolt face to the shoulder of the chamber if they had been brilliant, the were not....brilliant. they could have chambered a head space gage as in go-gage length then measured the forward movement of the bolt until the case shoulder hit the chamber shoulder, back to the gap, the difference in the gap with the lugs seated and the bolt pushed forward with a go gage would have determined the difference in length between the case length and chamber length in thousandths, then came Hatcher, to Hatcher it was a ‘sticky-out’ thing in front of the rear receiver ring. To collectors the protruding lug is a way to determine period correctness, and of course JIC, as just in case something going wrong with the other two lugs. Collectors have noticed the gap is not as wide as the gap on later models.

JRLSH, I can make a gage, again, the 50 BMG is not difficult, the one thing I can not do is use a reloading forum, I need your email address, a phone number would help.

F. Guffey