xausa - I am surprised at the ballistics of the straight case using a mere 80gr. of what would be a fairly slow powder in the straight case - in comparrison to your 90gr. 4064 (slightly faster) load in a greater capacity case.

This is, unless you are running substancially lower pressures - while the straight case at 2.5" is running max pressures for it's design, say 55,000psi.

As far as barrel length goes, I saw little change in my own testing when using such efficient rounds (yes there was some drop in vel., but not like large cased, small bullet rounds).

What I did see, was the greater capacity case needed considerably more powder to match the speed of a smaller case, but higher pressure load.

The similarity between these two rounds is virtually identical to what I got with the .458 Alaskan at 2.1" compared to a .45/70, also 2.1" in a bolt gun. It took a lot more powder in the .458, to match a top-end load for the smaller case, but the greater capacity of the larger case could do, oh, so much more. But of course, how much more is necessary in these large rounds - it's fun, though.

Those .50's are pretty cool rounds! Like a .450 Dakota compared to a .458 Win Mag.