does the 500 s&w make sense?

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Right now the only problem with loading it down and packing it as a CCW is you only get five shots (five really GOOD shots), and then you have to single load it or use speed strips. I'm waiting on speedloaders, although it WOULD look like you are carrying apples in your pockets...........:D
 
My dad reloads so I know a LITTLE and I know the room requirments, and when I say I have no room, I mean like my desktop computer is on the dining room table and my road bike (bicycle) is leaning against the entertainment center int he living room. HAHA. we are looking for a house but right now we live in a 900sq ft one bedroom condo.
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Okay rha600, you're excused.... :D Sounds like you're living in your own shirt pocket.

Glad you found room for the bike. That's another of my favourite hobbies. I'm currently sitting at 6 of them thanks to selling one recently. I commuted mostly year round until I retired recently and now I try to ride at least two out of three days a week. Too many toys out there when you're seriously afflicted with Shiney Object Syndrome.... :D

Anyone got links to recipes for this so called .500 Special ammo to try some reloads of it?
 
I'm waiting on speedloaders, although it WOULD look like you are carrying apples in your pockets...........
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LOL And a strip loader would have to be slung over your shoulders like you were some old time Mexican bandito.... :D

I tried to wrap my head around a speed loader for even 5 of my .500 rounds. She'd be a handful alrighty..... :D
 
Okay rha600, you're excused.... Sounds like you're living in your own shirt pocket.

Glad you found room for the bike. That's another of my favourite hobbies. I'm currently sitting at 6 of them thanks to selling one recently. I commuted mostly year round until I retired recently and now I try to ride at least two out of three days a week. Too many toys out there when you're seriously afflicted with Shiney Object Syndrome....

Anyone got links to recipes for this so called .500 Special ammo to try some reloads of it?
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HAHA I still have a Cannondale mountain bike in a POD as well. Along with 75% of my other belongings. Like I said, once we find a house though and I have MY garage :D I will have a small reloading setup.

And maybe I'll be able to get out on the bike more often as well. right now I'm out maybe once or twice a week.
 
I have the 4" 500. I hand load the 350, 440 GC and the 500 gr. All using H110. The 350 and 440 come straight back during recoil. The 500 grain torques your hand. Better hold on.

They're fun!!!!:what:
 
heres my take on it. I dont own one. Why? because the to big to carry in a hip holster. Even the 4 inch guns are to heavy and drag down my pants. I dont care for shoulder holsters so that idea is out. As to which is more versitile ill go with the 500 any day! I shoot a ton of 500 and 475 linebaughs and cant see where a 460 could possibly be more versitile other them maybe finding ammo at your dealer and if your shooting factory ammo and not loading your own you will never be able to afford to shoot a big gun like these enough to really master them.


Ive killed enough big game with big bore handguns to know one thing is fact. Id does littel good to push a cast bullet past 1400 fps. As a matter of fact it can hurt the performace of the load. A guy would be much better armed with a 500 shooting a 450 grain bullet at a 1200 fps then any load that could be dreamed up in a 460. As to loading down. You can load a 500 down with a 400 grain bullet to 8 or 900 fps and it will kick aobut like a mild 44 mag load and still kill about anything you hit it with.
Now i cant wait to here all the experts claim the 460 is flatter shooting. WHO CARES! A 500 is capable of hitting out to and a bit past a 100 yards and the bottom iine is theres only a handgun of sixgun shooters in the US that have any business shooting even a scoped handgun under the pressure of shooting live game any farther then a 100 yards and take the scope off and we will call it 50 yards.


Now when we use the gun for really large game (what it was intended for) the 500 leaves the 460 in the dust. A 500 grain hardcast lfn at 1400 fps will kill anything on earth.


I dont own a 460 either but do own a couple 454s, another caliber i think for the most part is a waste. Mine are loaded to about 1300 fps with a 350 grain cast bullet and i can pert near do that with a 6 shot large framed ruger and can do it with a redhawk.


John Linebaugh has forgot more about big bore sixguns them most know and he will tell you that hands down the way to increase the power of a sixgun is not with velocity it is with bullet size and weight.


Now to sumerize the only possible advantage a 460 has over a 500 is ammo availability and if your conserned about that your not loading your own and your better served by a 44 mag that you can actually master and can buy ammo without morgaging your home.
 
71Commander said:
I have the 4" 500. I hand load the 350, 440 GC and the 500 gr. All using H110. The 350 and 440 come straight back during recoil. The 500 grain torques your hand. Better hold on.

They're fun!!!!:what:
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that's how mine reacts. for people that have never shot one I try to describe it as ctching a fastball from a pitcher with no glove. it doesn't really have the muzzle rise that people think it will have, it comes straight back at you.
 
Lloyd Smale said:
heres my take on it. I dont own one. Why? because the to big to carry in a hip holster. Even the 4 inch guns are to heavy and drag down my pants. I dont care for shoulder holsters so that idea is out. As to which is more versitile ill go with the 500 any day! I shoot a ton of 500 and 475 linebaughs and cant see where a 460 could possibly be more versitile other them maybe finding ammo at your dealer and if your shooting factory ammo and not loading your own you will never be able to afford to shoot a big gun like these enough to really master them.


Ive killed enough big game with big bore handguns to know one thing is fact. Id does littel good to push a cast bullet past 1400 fps. As a matter of fact it can hurt the performace of the load. A guy would be much better armed with a 500 shooting a 450 grain bullet at a 1200 fps then any load that could be dreamed up in a 460. As to loading down. You can load a 500 down with a 400 grain bullet to 8 or 900 fps and it will kick aobut like a mild 44 mag load and still kill about anything you hit it with.
Now i cant wait to here all the experts claim the 460 is flatter shooting. WHO CARES! A 500 is capable of hitting out to and a bit past a 100 yards and the bottom iine is theres only a handgun of sixgun shooters in the US that have any business shooting even a scoped handgun under the pressure of shooting live game any farther then a 100 yards and take the scope off and we will call it 50 yards.


Now when we use the gun for really large game (what it was intended for) the 500 leaves the 460 in the dust. A 500 grain hardcast lfn at 1400 fps will kill anything on earth.


I dont own a 460 either but do own a couple 454s, another caliber i think for the most part is a waste. Mine are loaded to about 1300 fps with a 350 grain cast bullet and i can pert near do that with a 6 shot large framed ruger and can do it with a redhawk.


John Linebaugh has forgot more about big bore sixguns them most know and he will tell you that hands down the way to increase the power of a sixgun is not with velocity it is with bullet size and weight.


Now to sumerize the only possible advantage a 460 has over a 500 is ammo availability and if your conserned about that your not loading your own and your better served by a 44 mag that you can actually master and can buy ammo without morgaging your home.
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ok well first of all the 460 ammo isn't THAT expensive.
http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct/?productNumber=339595
http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct/?productNumber=614317

It's not any worse than buying say 7mm mag rifle ammo or even 22-250 ammo. As for the 500, it's about $2.50 per round if you're buying factory ammo which definitely isn't going to break someone that is paying $1000+ for the gun. That's like saying someone buying a ZO6 corvette can't drive it much because the gas is $4 per gallon. Personnally I think you've gota bigger problem with the recoil then the cost as far as shooting it a lot.

Second, I think there are a lot more than a handful of people that can kill a deer (or other animal) with a handgun past 100 yards. I've seen photos of people in gun shops, message boards and people I know personally that have taken deer with handguns. Mostly thesingle shot TC type chambered in something like .270 or 30-06 but regardless it's a handgun and out to and past 100 yards.

I do agree though that the 500 destroys any numbers the 460 can possibly come up with once you get into the 400+ gr bullets. As for the 500gr being able to kill anything on earth? I don't know. I have no data telling me it can or can't so if I had a cape buffalo or an elephant coming at me I'm picking something else.

Oh, and both of these guns are fiveguns, not sixguns. :D
 
I got the 6.5" 500 and its not that bad to pack. Its about the same size as a 44 SRH 7.5" when you hold them side by side exept just on a larger scale and wieght.
As far as shooting I load the Sierras 350 & 400 JSP's over lilgun. As to be expected recoil is heavy but manageable and accuracy is really good off handed. I should mention besides the 500 I have BFR475 and the SRH480, as far as the big guns go I like the 480 SRH best of all. It is the go to gun as far as shoot ability in a large gun. Thats my 2 cents worth.
 
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If you have a use for the 500, I say go for it. Unfortunately though, half the people who buy them are trying to overcompensate for something, have zero use for the gun, and flat out can't shoot it well. Hell, I know guys that can barely handle a .357 without flinching, yet rave about how they just gotta have that new Smith .500. They buy it, shoot 20 rounds (never hitting the target because they flinch it 4 feet low), then it ends up in the used gun case down at the local shop for some other schmuck to repeat the cycle.

Obviously, I am not accusing any of you guys of this phenomenon, but it is the truth, ask any gun store clerk. Personally, I stick with what I shoot well, a .44mag SBH or a .454 Casull FA83. I have shot the 500, and it certainly is King of Power, but it is also King of Resales. I just don't understand needing a sling to carry my sixgun, I'd just use a rifle instead. These are just my opinions, but if I was fishing in Alaska and a big grizzly came charging my way, I wouldn't mind a .500S&W. I don't though, I live in the tame midwest like many of you.
 
rha600 said:
HAHA I still have a Cannondale mountain bike in a POD as well. Along with 75% of my other belongings. Like I said, once we find a house though and I have MY garage :D I will have a small reloading setup.

And maybe I'll be able to get out on the bike more often as well. right now I'm out maybe once or twice a week.
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When I started reloading I was in your boat. Just got out of the Army and the wife and I lived in her parents house. 4 adults in a 1000 sqft 1 bathroom house.

My friend bought me a Lee handloader. All the components can fit in a shoebox and doesnt need to be clamped to a table. Plus it was total like 100 bucks.
 
"Biggest load of bull.

You win the prize for the idiot post of the day. "

Think what you will, but I am not an idiot, I am very observant. I didn't say anyone who owned one is doing this, I just said many are. I've met them, I know them. They are the guys who would never drive a car instead of a big lifted truck, who would never shoot a measly .22 because it doesn't "look cool enough", and who buy the biggest calibers and meanest looking guns simply because they think it makes them look like Billy Badass.

I think anybody who wants one should have one, but personally, if you don't have even the most remote reason to own one...why would you? I have guns that I don't "need", but I enjoy them for one reason or another, as I'm sure many 500 owners do. These aren't the folks I'm talking about. The guys I'm talking about are loud-mouth mall-ninjas and morons who think that having the biggest/best makes THEM the biggest and best. Perhaps "half" was an overstatement, but "many" isn't.
 
You got me. Darn!

I'm done with this convo, apparently people got their feelings hurt about my comments. The fact is, I've seen it, so have others. It isn't that uncommon, and it doesn't just apply to the 500, it applied to the .44mag when Dirty Harry came out (then all those 29's went on the "used" shelf). My point is, if you can shoot it decently, if you have a use for it, or if you simply like to own what is truly the most powerful handgun in the world, go for it, more power to ya.


I just don't like the people who buy things based on status, or who buy them to look tough. Why would you get offended unless that applies to you? :)
 
I hear someone is making a rifle for the S&W 500. Anybody have any details on that?

UPDATE-- I just saw the Handy rifle, but is there someone making a uh..."real" rifle for the 500?
 
C-grunt said:
When I started reloading I was in your boat. Just got out of the Army and the wife and I lived in her parents house. 4 adults in a 1000 sqft 1 bathroom house.

My friend bought me a Lee handloader. All the components can fit in a shoebox and doesnt need to be clamped to a table. Plus it was total like 100 bucks.
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wow! I will have to look into that! Thanks for the info. I'd love to get into reloading if for nothing else than just something to learn and have fun. I shoot enough between my rifles and handguns that I probably should reload just to save money.
 
Diggers said:
I hear someone is making a rifle for the S&W 500. Anybody have any details on that?

UPDATE-- I just saw the Handy rifle, but is there someone making a uh..."real" rifle for the 500?
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I saw something the other day over at the AR15 forums.

there is also a barrel for the Thomson Center rifle as well. It's a 20" fluted barrel. Single shot of course.

http://www.tcarms.com/firearms/encoreRifleCharts.php
 
There are some break-actions and leverguns currently in the works, if not already available. An 1895 Marlin in 500 would be a fine brush gun in a carbine length package.
 
the lever action is the one I just saw. Maybe it wasn't on AR15.com. man it sucks getting old... But I just saw it not a day or two ago.
 
One of the new issues of one of the gun mags has a picture of a 500 levergun. How's that for vague, I just can't remember either!
 
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