Freedom Arms Model 83 in .50AE

[akadave]

I did some horse trading some years ago and wound up with an FA 83 in 50AE. Im fond of big bore revolvers and carry a .500 Linebaugh and .475 Linebaugh in the woods from time to time. I have only fired this 83 a few times and it seems to shoot fine but from the information I read online people who own them cant wait to have it converted to another .50 cal cartridge. Is the 50AE not viable in the FA 83?

P.S. new to the forum

Thanks

Dave

[farscott]

.50 AE is viable, but the tapered case (designed for a semi-auto) bothers some revolver aficionados as it makes reloading for a revolver a bit problematic.

[oregon45]

To elaborate on Farscott's point: a key issue for hard-recoiling handguns is bullet pulling under recoil. The best way to mitigate this is with a firm roll crimp. The 50AE, however, cannot be roll crimped because it was designed for use in autoloaders, and, thus, headspaces on the case mouth requiring a taper crimp. In addition, the 50AE cannot utilize many of the most effective and common .50 bullets because those bullets have a crimping groove designed for use in a cartridge utilizing a roll crimp. So the 50AE has two strikes against it: limited crimp effectiveness and limited bullet selection. One advantage of the 50AE in an FA83 is that such guns tend to be inexpensive, and can be returned to Freedom Arms for fitting of a 500 Wyoming Express cylinder, which is a rimmed equivalent to the 50AE designed for use in the FA83 and giving one the ability to utilize proper hunting bullets secured with a proper roll crimp.

Practically speaking, unless you intend to handload bullets above 300gr you're not giving up much with the 50AE, assuming you find a bullet design that meets your needs and does not require a roll crimp. It is when you want to run 400gr bullets at 1200fps that you begin to really need a good roll crimp.