WTB 50 Beuwulf Barrel

[carlosrod]

I am looking for a 50 beowulf barrel or a used upper.

[Sojorboy]

there's a guy on gunbroker.com who has a few Beowulf barrels

[bwaites]

IF you buy Beo barrels, make sure you have a gas block located that will work, unless you can machine your own.

[Sojorboy]

Bill, I see different vendors selling Beo barrels and bolts. Are all these headspaced correctly from AA ?

[bwaites]

Bill, I see different vendors selling Beo barrels and bolts. Are all these headspaced correctly from AA ?

So far as I am aware, at this point, there is only one source for correct Beowulf barrels, and that is AA. They've never licensed it elsewhere to my knowledge, (I don't work for AA, so I'll admit I certainly don't KNOW that it hasn't been done, only that I've never heard it as such!) though there may have been some tacit or even contractual allowances for certain barrel makers to sell them elsewhere in the past.

Because of some early issues, AA no longer sells barrel/bolt combos, only complete uppers.

At one point there were a couple of people selling the parts to make Beowulfs, but because AA kept getting the, "it won't work right, something's wrong" calls when people rolled their own, AA has tried to keep the Beowulf in house. Its not as simple a system as some of the other calibers, its a heavy bullet, with a lot of gas, and timing and the other little issues are tougher than it would seem to get right. Not to mention that there were quite a few uppers built with standard ejection ports, and guess what happened when they wouldn't run right?

To top it off, there were barrel/bolts sold, but the gas block isn't exactly standard AR due to the barrel diameter, so people then complained that they couldn't find gas blocks. AA never wanted to sell parts for the Beowulf, so people would get mad when AA wouldn't do it!

There have been some suppliers who built Beowulfs in the past, not necessarily with AA's actual blessing, but without AA throwing down the legal gloves. Those rifles are out there, but currently no one is doing that to my knowledge, and AA would, at this point, not allow it because of those past issues and complaints. Some of those guys built good rifles, but the complications of a trademark caused problems. Some of those good rifles got tinkered with, and then the people called AA complaining that there were problems. That put AA in the position of "its your design, fix it" when it wasn't one of their rifles!

So, for right now at least, it comes back to this...if you want a Beowulf, get an upper from AA, and be sure you get the right thing, the real Beowulf. Its a boutique cartridge, not everyones cup of tea.

Just as a final thought....If you buy a "Beowulf" that isn't an AA Beowulf, and you put Beowulf ammo in it, and it blows up, who's responsible? Not AA, Beowulf is a licensed trademark, and there is no other current licensee. So if it says Beowulf and not AA, its not a legal Beowulf. If it says .490 SAOD, and you fire Beowulf ammo and it blows up, who's responsible? It doesn't say Beowulf, so why would you use Beowulf ammo?


Sorry for rambling, just trying to give a bit of the history behind the issues with the Beowulf.

[Sojorboy]

No rambling, and Thanks for sharing. That's what I like about this forum, people who are willing to share their knowledge so others don't make costly mistakes ! We all learn from History and it's good to have Great people willing to share. Thanks again