HAM'R

If I had a HAM’R I’d HAM’R in the morning, I’d HAM’R in the evening. All over this land. Stop, it’s HAM’R time! Or is it “HAM’R” as in a gun for turning hogs into hams? The ham-er? See what I/they did there? Not to hammer the point home. Or ham-er it. Or HAM’R it. I repeat, this is not a drill! (it’s a HAM’R)

Back on Earth, Wilson Combat takes their new .458 HAM’R and breaks some stuff with it. Jugs of water, various gourds, pig heads, cinder blocks. The usual. All caught in glorious slow motion:

 

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49 COMMENTS

  1. I built one from Tony over at tromix. Tromix there’s some good people over there and they were the ones that got the whole 458 Socom thing going to begin with. As I think I remember there was an Asian fellow that designed the cartridge and Tony who actually built the components to work with the cartridge. But I have to say is very effective and very accurate. Two thumbs up on 458 Socom.

    • With what they were able to pull out of this round, they really didn’t need to. But they did use a modified AR10 BCG.

      • …. and AR10 upper, and AR10 lower, and AR10 barrel….etc etc etc….. Using proprietary/heavilly modified AR10 stuff just to use a proprietary/heavily modified AR15 magazine is a total waste. You have the available space in the receiver halves, why not save money on the machining end and use off the shelf AR10 parts and save the design novelty for the ammo? The beauty of the .458 SOCOM was the ability to use as many off the shelf parts as possible (minus the modified ar15 bolt, slightly modified mags, and super hogged out barrel).

    • They say the .458 HAMR is capable of 3,000ft/lbs of energy which is right there with the .45 Raptor. On the other hand, WC is only selling 180 Gr. rounds right now which are rated at 2,100lbs.

  5. They say it’ll stop a car in its tracks. I wanna see that video.

    I don’t like being an early adopter if there’s not much but the company marketing, but I am a fan of the 7.62x 40 WT. I think it’s better than the 300 BLK. If they got this HAM- ER to market before the .458 SOCOM (which came out of Broken Arrow, OK), the SOCOM guys woulda done something else.

  6. If a 300 gr bullet at 2000 fps came in anything other than an AR platform no one would be ininterested put this same cartridge in an AK, and it would get nothing but bad mouthed.

  7. I still fail to see the point of this. Completely. It looks to me as if some guys wanted to prove something to someone, so they made something completely pointless, just to prove it could be done.

    This is this century’s version of the Garand in .35 Whelen. When you’re going elk or moose hunting, are you going to pack along a Garand in .35 Whelen? No. You might take a sporterized ’03 in .35 Whelen, but you’re not packing a Garand around in .35 Whelen.

    Same deal here.

    • Uh, no. An M1 Garand in 35 Whelen has better ballistics than this thing…and is awesome. As is a Garand in 458 Win Mag (so much want).

      • OK, I’ll give you that. A .35 Whelen has it all over this cartridge, in abundance. Even the original cartridge that spawned the idea of a blown-out infantry cartridge, the 9.3×62 Mauser (from a Berlin gunsmith named Otto Bock in 1905) has it all over these new-fangled cartridges in terms of ammo availability in areas where dangerous game is hunted. Both the Whelen and the 9.3 have proven track records.

        I’m just not enthusiastic about semi-autos as a dangerous-game rifle. Any semi-auto.

        • I know all about Otto Bock’s cartridge. If I could only own 2 rifles (I mean, #IWillNotComply but, just hypothetically…) it would be a 6.5×55 (specifically my Sako Bavarian), and a 9.3×62. Old rounds that just plain work.

        • After I learned of the 9x3x62, I got to wondering why the .35 Whelen and all successive mid-30 cartridges (including the .338 WinMag, .35’s, .358’s, etc) had ever been designed. What was the point? The wheel was already quite round and effective.

        • Nothing to do with the .458 Ham’r but stumbled in here happy to see your input, Dyspeptic.
          Miss the mix of folks over at Weaponsman and miss HN and his prodigious curiosity.

          Respectfully,
          DaveP

  9. I’m trying to figure out what the niche is for this cartridge in the civilian market. It’s a fat (low ballistic coefficient), relatively slow bullet so it won’t have the range of more traditional hunting rounds.

    If you want a fat, slow bullet you can go with a muzzleloader or shotgun slugs. Wilson was apparently trying to minimize overall length of the rifle here, but I just don’t know who it will appeal to. Make this gun too light and it will kick like a mule. You don’t need that much mass to kill a pig, and if you’re going after elk or moose you’re going to want something with a flatter trajectory and longer range.

  10. Stop trying to re-invent the bullet….. 45-70 GOVT. has worked decades for big game
    Buffalo bore offers an excellent variety of loads to choose from.

  12. I’ve been following this in several places . . .is it too powerful for what it does well and as a result requires an over built and basically incompatible with everything else rifle with not enough payback on the performance end for the cost and loss of interoperability and/or under powered for the really tough jobs that are better left to dedicated high powered rifles?

    The more I hear about the HAM’R the more I’m looking at the .458 SOCOM and wondering “Am I missing something?” it seems to have similar energy with the main advantage of the HAM’R being that it achieves these from a barrel a couple of inches shorter at the cost of interoperability of basically the entire rifle?

    I guess what I’m asking is “is that it?” Is it just the shorter barrel to achieve the 3000ftlb energy mark or is there something else the HAM’R is doing that the SOCOM isn’t? If it’s just the shorter barrel, I’m really starting to think about diminishing returns on cost of the platform and its ammunition over the SOCOM. . . which is to say, even if you don’t mind the proprietary, dedicated platform, is there enough here to upgrade from the SOCOM round, or would this only fit if you were looking for a big bore AR pattern rifle but were not already invested in the SOCOM set up? If so, how much of a drawback is the dedicated platform? Neither the HAM’R nor the SOCOM is an inexpensive proposition, and both are semi-niche platforms, I’m not sure the loss of parts interchange is much of an issue until one gets into replacement parts or spares arguments from places and/or times when such resupply might be a bigger proposition than ordering online and hauling the considerable freight of the cost of the ammo and equipment. . .

    Also, the ‘biggest’ AR pattern rifle I have experience with is simply an AR-10 in .308. . . I know what the extra weight and recoil does to the AR in terms of handling, follow up shots, etc. . . how much does going from .308 to either the SOCOM or HAM’R round change this?
    I ask because, to me, the best case for the AR platform is the light weight of the weapon and its ammo, the virtually non-existent recoil, and the way that allows for very rapid follow up shots. To my thinking (and I’m not saying I’m thinking about it the right way) the point of a .308 AR is that it gets .308 performance out of a platform that is familiar to AR users, rather than there being anything particularly great about an AR pattern weapon in .308. Given this, and the lack of interchange on the parts between a HAM’R and anything else, is there anything particularly good about this other than milking the performance of the HAM’R cartridge out of the familiar AR pattern rifle? That is; it’s surrendering capacity, interchangeability of parts, rapid follow ups and weight of ammo for this performance, this isn’t a ‘do it all’ platform like the AR sort of is to a degree. . .
    Also, given that they bill the HAM’R as being both a hunting and an anti-vehicle/materiel rifle, it’s suggested that there are tactical advantages to this weapon. . . is the increase in energy worth the sacrifice of over half the capacity per mag over .308 from a tactical perspective?

    Really, I’m suspecting that I’m missing something, so any thoughts on any of this are more than welcome.

    • Good post Ardent. I am also struggling to see the actual advantage to this platform. I am reading the reviews and do not see it. My Beowulf platform is all standard AR-15, except for a big bore barrel.

      I have two AR-10 platforms. One, a heavy barrel Armalite 7.62. Two, a new Falkor Petra 300 win mag. If you are looking for a hard hitting AR-10 platform, the Petra is a savage setup. It is a big and long gun, but light for it’s size. The bolt carrier group is huge. I expected the recoil to be a margin less nasty than my 300 win mag hunting bolt gun (that one gave my nose a kiss on the first shot). I was wrong, with the Petra, you can bang away all day…it is a nice girl. I am still tuning it. If you want to launch a 220 grain bullet at about 2400 fps, than this is the way to go.

      I guess that I am not inclined to go with a hybrid setup. Granted, with already owning hard core AR-10 guns and a AR-15 Beowulf, it is easy to decline getting a HAM’R. If I was going to get a big bore AR-15, it would be the SOCOM.

      The Wilson Combat chambered in 6.5 Grendel is awesome. Shitty to tune for hand loaders, but great once dialed in. I use Speer Gold Dot bullets with AR-Comp powder.

      Is the

  13. Great way to earn $’s from guys with too much money that want every new gadget that comes along. For a budget shooter that likes to burn a lot of ammo – don’t waste your money.

  14. Great way to earn $’s from guys with too much money that want every new gadget that comes along. For a budget shooter that likes to burn a lot of ammo – don’t waste your money.

  16. I’m not an AR pattern rifle fan, but would love to see this ammo and/or 350 legend in a lever-action.

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