American Handgunner Uncovers Secret Prototype Ammo
Roy found a new secret experimental round at the 2018 SHOT Show. Shown next to a .380 ACP at left for size comparison.
While at the SHOT show recently I found this display of two prototype big bore rounds ostensibly slated to go into production in a Serbian-made, single-shot, break-open pistol. They could not get licenses to bring live ammo into the country yet so these shop-made prototypes (inert) were used. The .380 is there for size. The cartridge on the left is their “Gigantor” load, a hunting round, while the one on the right is the “Targeting Bombard” used for steel plates at distance.
The gun is called the “Eliminator” and is a sort of “biggie-sized” Encore with a built-in bipod and a nifty set of small wheels which sort of spring out from the base of the grip so you can roll it around. The pistol needs multiple special licenses to be imported and owned but the maker feels, as the guy in the black suit in the booth said, “American shooters are not afraid to let a bit of red tape get in their way of having a good time shooting!”
The maker says it will make an ideal big game gun (natch) and thinks the steel plate round will cause a new generation of bigger, harder targets to get made, helping to increase that side of the industry too. Rumor has it RCBS is looking at making dies and Dillion is looking hard at making a progressive loader for the Targeting Bombard caliber. Let’s hope so. Stay tuned for a review in Handgunner if they sort out the import issues. Good thing they still sell powder in those 10-lb. canisters, eh?!
Just kidding! It’s not really dummy prototype ammo. Really, it’s me horsing around on my lathe on a Sunday night. Someone gave me the steel dummy round on the left while I was at SHOT Show and it was sitting on the bench. I spied it when I was doing another project, then spied an aluminum bar, then my lathe, then the dummy, then the bar … etc. About a half-hour later, I had a sort of “biggie-sized” .45 ACP — sorta’.
I didn’t draw up any plans, of course, just stuck the bar in the lathe’s three-jaw chuck and started turning and cutting. It’s like the guy who was watching an old guy carve a bear out of a tree trunk one time. “Hey,’ he asked him, ‘How do you know how to carve like that?” The old guy with the chainsaw said, “It’s easy, just cut away everything that don’t look like a bear, is all.”
So, I cut away everything that didn’t sorta’ look like a loaded .45 target load. It was so fun, I may need to make more! Just think was a .45-70 might look like if I started with 4″x12″ aluminum bar stock … .
