500 S&W magnum-700 grain cast

[snuffy]

I GOT MINE!

This is a group buy from over on castboolits.com. It comes from Miha Prevec who lives and works in Slovenija. If you've never seen one of his molds, you're missing how nice they look. That's if you don't mind waiting for over a year, it started on 01-19-2010!

What a fine piece of work!

After boiling in soapy water, I preheated it on my hot plate. I decided to do one cavity with the plain pound HP, the other with the penta point. The PP didn't want to release the boolit. It flat out refused to let go. I had to melt it loose with the P. torch. Second try, same story. I removed the PP pin, coated the other pin with FA mold release. That solved the problem, but it wore off after about 10 boolits.

Here's a few pics;









Lubed with lar's red or carnuba red if you prefer, and gas checked w/Hornady gas checks. The solid is 680.7 lubed, 665.1 bare. The penta point is 625.8 lubed, 609.1 bare. The round HP is 616.0 lubed, 598.2 bare.

The alloy is 75% lino--25% pure lead, so it's pretty darned hard. It certainly don't need to be that hard, but it's what was in the lee 20 pound bottom pour pot. After inspecting the bullets, I will ladle pour them in the future. I will also use a much softer alloy, probably range lead w/tin added.

The loaded shells all are with WW-296 @ 24.5 grains,(thanks southpaw for the load reference).

Boolits dropped @ .5045, but sized nicely down to .501 in my Lyman 450.

 

[Fmjblack]

Very interesting write-up! What kind of velocities can one obtain from a 700 grain bullet in the .500?

 

[wsm]

700 grain

No matter what the velocity is, whatever it hits is going down. The recoil must be tremendous!

 

[snuffy]

Here's where I got the info for those I loaded;

http://www.reloadammo.com/500sw.htm

It looks like the velocity will be no more than 1200 FPS with those loads. I plan on getting some "lil gun", as soon as the local gunshop gets some in. One load goes to 1232 with lil gun.

I don't own the Smith that will fire these chunks-O-lead, so I'm waiting to borrow it to see if the bullet clears the front of the cylinder at that seating depth. I hope so, as it's crimped into the top crimp groove.

For myself, I plan on getting an encore rifle in 500 S&W mag. It should be a thumper in a rifle!

 

[788Ham]

Snuffy,

What are you planning on shooting with this monster-mash? Whew, my .44 mag. is plenty for me, I'll wait to hear how things plow along! Ha

 

[FROGO207]

I got a Handi Rifle in 500S&W. Those look like just the ticket to = lobbin a brick at em.

 

[snuffy]

My future son-in-law just brought the big smith by to see if my bullets will clear the cylinder. Yup, with room to spare. They look so darn long, and since I only saw the revolver once over a year ago, I wasn't sure.

What a hog leg! Massive is an understatement.









That's the 8-3/8 BBL. 4-¾ pounds empty.

SIL was out shooting some 700 grain bullets that he got from somewhere. A variety pack that had 5 bullet weights in it. He said the 700's were a piece of cake. I have no idea what powder charge they are loaded with, he was able to one-hand the big 500.

As for what I'm going to shoot at with it, just paper for now. I may try to catch an expanded HP just to see what they would expand to. It's heavy enough AND the built in muzzle brake helps out a lot.

 

[Bula]

Sweet fancy moses. At 681g ea- thats just shy of 1/10th of a pound each. Now all you need is to line up 11 Cape Buffalo shoulder to shoulder to test penetration, maybe only 8 of them for testing HP expansion. Awesome looking. I thought my Lee 310g hit like a train from .44mags! wow.

 

[Seedtick]

Snuffy -

That is some fine looking bullets right there.

Several things could be killed by just dropping one of those monsters on it.

Seedtick

 

[FROGO207]

Snuffy
I got a chance to load some up and try them out this weekend. Sweeeeet.

I was using some H110 that I had on hand in the Handi Rifle. Best accuracy with it in to crimp groove was with 26.3 grains. 1.5 inch group at 50 yards. almost same POI as sierra350 GR JHP with 43 grains H110. Similar felt recoil to my 338 win mag standard loads. There were about 25 of us shooting up the personal range of a friend and the target got peppered in short order so no cute pictures. Any way we mostly all tried out the 500 but I let them shoot the 350 grainers as that was what I had most of. I will try some lil gun when I get to the toy store to buy some. Let you know about those also.

 

[Steve Koski]

This is the best thread ever.

Thank you.

Koski

 

[snuffy]

Frogo, good to hear they worked out for you. I haven't shot a lot of those in the big smith, they're just too hurtful. Besides, a constant diet of them surely would not be good for the frame. Just because you can, doesn't mean you have to.

Oh, that red-dot scope bought the farm! The battery compartment got all bent out of shape, even dented the battery. Then the intensity dial refused to turn. I put a BSA red dot on it, but it don't look long for this world either.

I bought the bullet test tube system to test expansion of standard handgun bullets, and some rifle as well. I'm thinking that two rifle test tubes would stop the HP's. I doubt the solid would stop, unless it would expand some. I'm interested just how much the two HP's would expand, and if the noses would stay intact.

http://www.thebullettesttube.com/index.html

 

[FROGO207]

On this further the target was stapled to a spruce tree that was ~20-22 inches across and those boolits would enter with a hole I could put my little finger in and there was a splintered back side to the tree. Each shot would cause the splinters to fly around in a cloud behind the tree. One even went through a refridge about 30 feet behind it and shook that thing. Half the tree splintered and gone with about 12 rounds of 500 hitting it. With the others shooting a bunch of FMJ in 7.62X39,54 and 308 after, we cut the tree off the stump at target level in about 20 minutes. Most fun tree I ever cut down.

 

[Steve Koski]

Has anyone put a dot on their 500 mag that survived? I put a $300 Nikon something or other on mine several years back and it wouldn't hold zero.

 

[critter]

You should easily get a mixed bag limit of bulldozers and backhoes with a cylinder full of those-IF your wrist holds out!

 

[BADUNAME37]

I toyed with a Leupold Scope, however with the 4" barrel, a lot of gases would be escaping out the compensator into the forward glass. Not only that, but I could not find a decent scope mount that I felt would have been strong enough to use on the gun, seeing that the gun is so short.

So, instead, I just replaced my rear factory sight with a Millett Target Sight with adjusting tool. I got all three blade heights and found the middle height to work the best, however, should I ever drastically change the bullet and load, I may have to disassemble it and put in one of the other rear blades.

 

[snuffy]

Steve, the pictured dot sight is a simmons. They're not noted for top quality. The replacement is a BSA, again, not top-of-the-line. Both are big, bulky sights, that sit up high on top of the top strap. They're exposed to a LOT of torque, from the recoil impulse.

I doubt any optical sight will last long on this gun. Since it isn't mine, I'll leave it up to my SIL to get something else when this one falls apart. I would be fine with a stock blade front and rear sight.

You should easily get a mixed bag limit of bulldozers and backhoes with a cylinder full of those-IF your wrist holds out!

Now that right there is funny, I don't care who you are! Get 'er done! Got a good laugh from that one! Throw in a road grader and snow plow while you're at it!

 

[FROGO207]

My Handi Rifle has a set of Wiliams Fire Sights and they really show up the target. I would investigate using glow type sights on that beast as they seem rugged on mine. Snuffy I will have to wait till after the 4th for some more lil gun as I have some commitments that will keep me away from the toy store till then.