Dang beavers! No sweat, Brent. It's not going anywhere. I'm already designing a slip-on pinned base with a 3/8 dovetail for a MVA or maybe Pedersoli windgauge sight with a level. I was trying to determine at what point the bullet I'm considering for a starter (a light 462 grain Steve Brooks) would be if seated to touch the rifling. Surprised me how far out it was. I did a Cerrosafe cast and discovered a long freebore with a diameter very nearly that of the chamber neck. Looks like it was designed to shoot a really long (heavy) bullet while seated out to give maximum powder space. I decided to play with the idea. My beautiful set of dies had arrived from Dave at CH4D and a box full of 50-90 Starline had arrived from Midway. I had cut one 50-90 to the length of the 450 #2 (2.36) and run the case into the sizer. I was wondering if the sizing would increase or decrease the length but it came out the same 2.36 and dropped right into the chamber. I put just enough flare into the case mouth to have a slip start on the bullet and this gave me a friction fit on the case into the chamber but would be taken out by the seater. So all go there. Well, what would happen if I ran an uncut 50-90 into the sizer? Answer, I got a 2.51 inch case that dropped into the chamber. The flared mouth was a bit tighter since the freebore is a very bit smaller than the case neck but again the seater would take care of that. This length case would allow me to seat the 462 grain bullet to the rifling and have the two base bands in the neck and probably up the powder capacity to at least 85 grains. A nice place to start. I'm going to load a few and fire form the brass and see what happens. That would make it a 450 #2 XL;-)

Last edited by HalfaDouble; 09/25/21 06:55 PM. Reason: typo