500 smith advice- powder coated bullets

[Reefinmike]

I have decided to bite the proverbial bullet and jump in the deep end with a 500 s&w magnum. at $35/50ct, I do not plan to shoot many jacketed bullets at all. I will buy a hundred and call it a day for a while. In comes powder coated cast bullets. I intend to buy the lee 440gr gc mold and powder coating, loading from mild to wild. standard pistol powders on hand for light loads are unique, 700x, Hp38 and bullseye. I havent looked into it really deep but i bet hp38 and bullseye are too fast for caliber. Magnum pistol powders on hand are w296, aa1680 and lilgun.

Anyone using powder coated cast-

1. How do coated pills do with the comp? Im looking at the 8.375" models and trying to decide if I should get the one with the interchangeable comps, one being for lead, the other jacketed. I have read some negative reviews of the interchangeable ones coming loose under recoil.

2. Do you find it necessary to use gas checks? do they improve accuracy any? It would be nice to not need gas checks as they are $70/k

3. Alloy- any need for a special alloy at magnum velocities in the 500? I have a 357 164gr powder coated load cast from ~9.5-10bhn soft alloy that cooks along at 1555 fps from a 6" revolver and 2,001 fps from a 16" carbine. no issues with those soft bullets and accuracy is superb. Straight clip on wheel weight alloy is a decent bit harder than these bullets.

4. How do you coat? In general, I greatly prefer to "shake n bake" coat my bullets however I have noticed that heavy 230gr 45 bullets really dont tend to coat well with this method. I dont believe weight is the factor but rather the short, fat dense nature of the bullets as my 230gr 30 cal bullets coat just fine in airsoft bb's. I have an electrostatic gun but this method leaves the bases bare lead. going back again to- gas checks needed?


also, any favorite loads are greatly appreciated. specifically with the hornady 350gr xtp. my 100 bullet budget does not provide much room for load development, especially with three different magnum powders on hand.

 

[Reefinmike]

Daytime bump hoping someone has any advice.

 

[snuffy]

Well first, Hornady in their infinite wisdom has stopped making .501 gas checks. So you will be forced to shoot that 440 grainer without one. There's a fella over on cast boolits .com that has the 500 gas checks listed, but I don't know if he actually has any.

That said, I have loaded for my "big smith" for over 5 years. That includes about 15 different bullet/boolits at powder puff loads to full throttle stuff. I have a special mold from Slovenia, MP molds, that cast a 700 grain solid, and 3 hollow points from 620 to 670 grains. I too have the 440 Lee, it works great shoots great.

The 350 magnum XTP shoots great, actually none of the various jacketed or cast have shot bad. The revolver just eats them up shooting into tiny groups at 25 yards.( Covering a 2" 50 foot black bullseye).

The only trouble I had was keeping a sight on it. It destroyed 3 tru-glow red-dot sights a BSA red-dot and a Tasco red-dot. I finally paid the piper for a vortex red-dot that's guaranteed to stand up to the recoil force it generates. Winter happened before I could let smitty stretch his legs out to 50 and 200 yards.

My favorite cast boolit is the RCBS 375 grain semi-wadcutter. Cast to 13 BHN, then coated with powder-by-the-pound wet black, it shoots great with a sensible load of longshot. Much wilder than any 44 mag, maybe close to a .454 cassull, or 460 Ruger.

As far as the muzzle brake, I never pay much attentiontoit. Clean the barrel, even with standard Carnuba red lube, it cleans up quickly. There's a lot of hype, myth and darn few facts about MB's getting plugged with cast lead residue. Some are pretty small holes that COULD get pretty fouled, would be difficult to clean. But the big smith has a huge brake that even if fouled will still work.

 

[redbullitt]

If gas checks are tough to get or that expensive, check out pat marlins gas check maker.

He makes them however you need and to use a variety of materials.

I have one right now that uses a soda can to put a check on plain base bullets.Will probably grab one for my 44 caliber stuff when I can. Shoots just fine as far as I can tell compared to the expensive copper ones. Probably be worth looking into for that big .5 bullet.

 

[Reefinmike]

Thank you very much for the replies, gives me a little more confidence hitting the buy button on the gun at some point today. I am seeing the hornady 50 cal gas checks in stock at powdervalley. I guess I can first try without them and if Im getting poor accuracy, I could buy them. The berrys 50 cal extra thick plated bullets are also pretty tempting. So far I have not seen any negative reviews on them.

Im not a big optics guy, this will mostly be shot between 15-25 yards for casual shooting.

Snuffy- those hollow points and the 700gr lead sleds look awesome! I will definitely buy some 650-700gr cast pills at some point just to try out. im not sure if I could warrant buying an expensive custom mold for that bullet weight. I like my $18 lee molds

 

[MEHavey]

Get your 50cal gas checks here:
http://www.sagesoutdoors.com/10mm-to-50-caliber-gas-checks/24-50-500-sw-caliber-checks.html

I picked up a coupla thousand a few months ago and am using them now on both a 370gr and 440gr
-- and Lyman#2 alloy works just fine.

 

[Schwing]

I am out of my element speaking about the 500 since I don't own one but I have a lot of experience with powder coated bullets in various calibers.

My experience has been that powder coating cast bullets does very little to nothing where accuracy is concerned. You can drive them much harder than lubed bullets without having leading problems though. I guess what I am saying is that, if you have an accurate load, powder coating them won't really give you the option of driving them faster while maintaining accuracy. For that, you really do need gas checks IMO. This has been my experience over many different calibers.

As far as powder coating methods go, I have tried them all. I even bought a powder coating gun. I do use it a lot because you can make some really pretty bullets with it but it is not necessary. For my high volume favorites, I still use the shake and bake method. They don't look as pretty but it makes absolutely zero difference in accuracy or leading etc. and takes far less time.

 

[50 Shooter]

I will tell you this, the stock twist rate on the 8 3/8" barrel won't stabilize the 700 gr bullets. I could swear I saw the bullet curve to the right. I've seen it posted here and elsewhere that John Ross (?) does a barrel swap so that you can shoot the heavies.

Mine really likes 325 gr. HP's, I can drill the 12" gong at 200 yards all the time. I bought some 390 gr. Conical bullets from Matt's. Those recoil harder than the 700 gr bullets did, accuracy was ok.

If you try out some powder coated, post how they did in whatever weight that you use.

 

[snuffy]

I will tell you this, the stock twist rate on the 8 3/8" barrel won't stabilize the 700 gr bullets. I could swear I saw the bullet curve to the right. I've seen it posted here and elsewhere that John Ross (?) does a barrel swap so that you can shoot the heavies.

You're wrong! At least as far as my revolver goes. It is the 8-3/8 with the built-in muzzle brake;



Even when loaded down to about 800 fps, they stay front forward and cut nice clean holes. Then full loads of WW-296 out to 100 yards, same-same. They also make nice tight groups.