14.9 SOP Cartridge information!
June 14, 2012 at 11:50 am
Disclaimer: This rifle and cartridge are not for sale in any form to the public, this project is for testing only as a sporting rifle for extreme range target shooting.
What happens when you take a 30-06 Springfield cartridge and neck it down to .270″? You get a new cartridge called the 270 Winchester, both great cartridges with different uses. Now imagine taking a 20mm Vulcan case and necking it down to 14.9mm. Put a super aerodynamic bullet in it and you have a new Ultra Long Range cartridge. That is the heart of the 14.9 SOP, to reach out past 2000 yards for interdiction of targets beyond the range of existing rifle systems.
The current record for a long range hit is 2700 yards, give or take. This was done with a 338 Lapua Magnum cartridge, if we asume the bullet was a Berger 300g hybrid leaving the rifle at 2800 fps we get the following results. According to my ballistics software this bullet was in the air for about 5.2 seconds and arrived at it target with about 670 ft-lb of energy. If there was a 10 mph crosswind it would have drifted 400 inches as it flew. What an incredible shot! Now if that shooter had a 14.9 SOP rifle here is what he would have seen. Time of flight 3.2 seconds, energy 15498 ft-lb (more than 50 BMG at the muzzle), and 103 inches of drift. To see the same drift as the 338 at 2700 yards you have to shoot the 14.9 SOP 4900 yards! Would this cartridge make that 2700 yard shot a lot easier? You bet it would!
Enjoy the pictures!
