good loads for .500S&Wmag and .44mag?

[coosbaycreep]

I just bought an RCBS rock chucker(?) earlier today. I'd been wanting to avoid reloading because it all seems complicated and potentially dangerous, but with the price of ammo, I went ahead and bought one.

Anyway, I have absolutely no idea what the hell I'm doing. A friend of mine recommended the RCBS, because that's what he's been using for years. I have an older book with load data, but it was made before the .500 came out. The reloading kit came with a load book from Speer, but all my reloading stuff is at my folk's house since I don't have room where I live, so I don't know what kind of loads Speer has listed.

I've got around 100 rounds of factory ammo for this caliber, and don't plan on buying anymore if I can help it.

Midwayusa is my favorite gun website to order from, and looking at their selection of bullets, they don't have anything bigger than 500 grains. Is their some place that sells 600 or 700 grain bullets for this, and does anyone have load data for it?

Midway's cheapest .500 bullets are the Rainier leadsafe bullets. They're backordered, but I'm thinking about getting some anyway because of the price. I would probably get some 275 and 400gr bullets from that brand. Can someone recommend some load data on those, and are those bullets any good?

I don't plan on hunting anything with this gun. I don't target shoot or shoot long distances either. I also want as much power as I can safely get, and don't mind sacrificing some accuracy for velocity. I mainly got this gun for shooting car parts, cinder blocks, water jugs, and other assorted garbage.

My .500 is a handi rifle BTW, in case that makes a difference in what loads will work best for blowing the crap out of stuff.

I don't have dies for .500 yet, but I am ordering some tomorrow most likely. I did get dies for .308 and .44mag though. I know pistols use different powders than rifles, but I'm trying to keep my initial reloading costs as low as possible, and would prefer to buy as few kinds of powder as possible. The other main gun I want to reload for is my S&W 29-2 with a 6.5" barrel. I won't shoot hot rounds through it because it's old and I want to take care of it, and I don't plan on shooting anything heavier than 240gr. Is there a kind of powder that would allow me to have hot .500 rounds and mild .44 rounds?

I don't mind shooting cast bullets through the .500, but only want to shoot jacketed bullets through my .44. My .44 is strictly for plinking and shooting garbage as well, no hunting, and I already have some good factory SD ammo for it. So, can someone recommend a mild, accurate, and affordable load for my .44 using jacketed bullets?

Also, what kind of primers do I need to order?

The place I bought my reloading kit/dies from was almost out of primers, powder, had very few .44 bullets, and no .500 stuff either, so I'm going to have to get most of what I need online.

Thanks

P.S. I plan on reading through my book and stuff more before I actually load anything, and my friend is going to help me get started. I'm just trying to find out what I need to order to get started.

 

[coosbaycreep]

I just found a place selling 700gr bullets and ordered some from ranger rick's big bullets.

I'd still like to get some load recommendations for my handi rifle and my 29-2 though.

 

[MovedWest]

**CAUTION**: I do not know the velocity and pressure vitals on this round and excessive pressures can cause damage to firearms and/or the person operating them. As with all loads, start small and work the load up until it you find a usable, safe load for your firearm. Use this info at your own risk. (Sorry... rules are rules...)

Now that the obvious is stated and I've C'ed my A, I have a new favorite load for my Ruger 44mag super blackhawk. I've hunted high and low for recipes for the 44, but was unable to find exactly what I was looking for. I found bits and pieces of data that I put together and worked this round up. I don't know the muzzle velocity or pressure, but do NOT use this round in a dedicated 44spl revolver that cannot fire magnum rounds. Yes, 44spl...

I thought the factory 44spl rounds I was firing were too light and the factory 44mag rounds were too much for plinking. I wanted something in between. Ironically my round is built on a 44spl shell (you can try magnums, but the short shell helps me identify it easily). It gives a decent recoil response that's a bit lower than a 9mm. At 25 yards, I'm hitting 4 out of 5 bulls handheld and standing with only factory iron sights. The other round is in the black and probably because of me. The holes in the paper are clean with NO tearing around the edge - this is a fast moving JHP that prints like a wadcutter.

Here's the full recipe:
Remington 210gr JHP (.429)
44special brass case
8.7gr green dot (yup... green dot)
CCI 350 large pistol magnum primer
OAL: 1.500"

Say what you want about my powder selection, my brass caliber, my funky bullet size, or give me grief about using magnum primers in a non-magnum round. It's devastatingly accurate, flat, fast, burns clean (no birdseed or gunk on the frame), and I recover for the next shot immediately.

I like this as my plinking round, a 240gr JSP with 2400 for my magnum rounds, and 300gr JHP over 2400 for bear and other large beasts.

-MW

 

[buck460XVR]

Anyway, I have absolutely no idea what the hell I'm doing.

Do yourself a favor.......read the Speer manual that came with your kit. Then buy another manual, maybe Hornady's or Lymans 49th....better yet, both. Read them and then decide on a bullet and a powder. Buying a bunch of bullets before you have the faintest idea of what you're trying to do is probably foolish. If not for hunting, why do you need a 700 grain bullet? Once you read your manuals and understand them you'll realize that no ONE powder is gonna give you plinkin' loads and full house loads.....if you do find one it probably won't do either well. Closest thing I could think of would be Lil' Gun.......you can push a 240 gr. .44 cal bullet at a modest 1100 fps and a 500 gr .500 @ a relatively fast 1300 fps. Powder is relatively cheap .......read your manuals, decide on a bullet and a velocity and then get a powder that works for that load. A year from now, you'll probably be ashamed you even posted this................

 

[coosbaycreep]

What I'm trying to do is find a powerful load for a .500 and a mild, accurate load for my .44 and try to keep my costs as low as possible. I don't consider that "foolish".

All my reloading stuff is at my parent's house which is a 3 hour roundtrip for me. I was just trying to get suggestions on what I should buy that will hopefully work good in my gun. The person who's going to help me set up all my stuff has been reloading for decades, so I'm not worried about that. I bought several kinds of powder at bimart today, but just looking at the velocities and pressure levels online don't really tell me a lot. That's why I was asking for advice.

quote: "If not for hunting, why do you need a 700 grain bullet?"
Because I can. I'm sure Obama would question why ANYONE needs ANY kind of bullet for doing ANYTHING.

Everywhere I went was out of Lil Gun. I was able to get 1 container of H110, which seemed to have the next biggest list of loadings in the calibers I'm interested in.

quote: "A year from now, you'll probably be ashamed you even posted this................"
Why would I be ashamed? Because I've never reloaded and was asking for advice about it?

Thanks for all your knowledge and wisdom. Your post was oh so very helpful and enlightening.

 

[buford1]

Go here plenty of data on the 44 and S&W 500.

http://www.hodgdon.com/

 

[buford1]

I have good luck with 400gr bullet and H110 powder. You need to check your 500 brass for a R in the headstamp. This brass uses rifle primers verses the older brass that used a pistol primer. There was a problem with Winchester 296 and pistol primers.

 

[buck460XVR]

Thanks for all your knowledge and wisdom. Your post was oh so very helpful and enlightening.

you're welcome........didn't mean to sound like an azz, but I got a little harsh with my words cause I see someone who's jumping in with both feet without looking at how deep the water is first. You say you've held off reloading because of potential danger, but yet you buy components and want unverifiable loading info from strangers on the internet before consulting your basic reloading manuals. Instead of starting with a mild load for your hand cannon and learning basic principles as you work your loads up, you want to load the biggest badazz load there is....just because you can. Just because you can, I assume you'll skip the starting loads also and go with the max load first. I have half a dozen load manuals and not one list a safe starting load for a 700 grain bullet for the .500 S&W....I assume the reason is that those bullets are meant for experienced handloaders, that know how to work up a load and can recognize obvious signs of high pressure i.e, not someone who states "Anyway, I have absolutely no idea what the hell I'm doing". Most reloaders are responsible cautious folk for good reason, and they respect their guns and the safety of those around them when they shoot. My fear is that you will run home to momma's house with some unverified load info that you got from some individual from the WWW and stuff some shells without reading your manuals...because you can. I wish you the best of luck....to me you sound like an accident waiting to happen.

 

[Kernel]

Unique for the .44 Mag plinking loads. It's a bulky powder and would fill the case better than most pistol powders. It's known for not being position sensitive. Important considerations for that big ol' .44 Mag case. About any powder between Unique and Bullseye would work.

http://www.alliantpowder.com/products/powder/unique.aspx

 

[coosbaycreep]

I have no intentions of starting with the max loads. True, I want to get as much power as I can out of this caliber, but I don't want to blow myself or the gun up in the process.

Reloadammo.com has load data for 700gr bullets. I plan on using the same load that ballistic supply does, since I haven't read anything negative about their loads.

I've looked through a lot of load data online, and there's so many different loads that all seem pretty close in velocity or pressure level that I wanted to ask from people who have already been loading for awhile what they've had luck with. I've got 5 kinds of powder right now, and at least two more I want to buy that have good sounding loads. I got some .223 dies today too, but it looks like I'll be stuck with just .44 until someone gets some rifle primers in stock around here.

I don't think I'll have any accidents either. For the time being, I really do not have a clue what I'm doing, but I'm not going to actually load or shoot anything until I can get my friend to help me figure everything out and I've done some more reading. I'm still waiting on some calipers and some other crap I ordered from midway before I can do anything too. But hopefully I'll get to load my first round sometime next week.

Trust me, I'm not as careless or stupid as I sometimes sound in my posts. I just have an odd and sarcastic sense of humor that few people understand, and I don't always express myself very well.

 

[Strongbad]

For additional info and help tracking down some big bullets for the 500 S&W, check the "Handgun Hunting" section over at AccurateReloading.com. There are lots of folks over there with plenty of trigger time behind a 500 S&W. My 500 likes Lil'gun, but since you can't get your hands on it, maybe AA-9, H-4227, or H-110. H-110 is my least favorite, because atleast for me, it was dirty as hell. Accurate has data on their website, as does Hodgdon (as was mentioned above). Alliant recently added data as well.

Since you're shooting a single shot rifle, it doesn't really matter if the bullet has a cannelure or not, so the Rainier bullets should work ok. Not sure how heavy the plating is on them though and whether or not they're designed for the velocities of the 500 S&W out of a rifle. Just something to think about there. Honestly, some of the cheapest bullets I've found for the 500 S&W are the 385 gr. Remington Core-Lokt bullets available in bulk from Cabela's. They shoot well and expand well and they're not too terribly expensive.

The other thing to consider is the recoil of the 500 S&W in the Handi-Rifle. I've got the S&W 500 pistol and recoil is pretty serious. I've heard numerous reviews describing the recoil from the H&R as "Severe" among other things. Haven't read a write-up yet that said it was a pussycat. If you're stepping up to a super heavy bullet like the 700 gr. recoil is going to be all that and more. Coming from someone that has loaded more than a few rounds of 500 S&W ammo, try something light first and work your way up from there. You might find your own limits quicker than you think.

For starting out, Hornady is now selling the FTX bullets in component form. I've been hunting with 350 gr. Sierra's which are excellent, and not too terribly expensive. Then there's the aformentioned 385 gr. Remington's.