Thought ya'll might enjoy this.
I have had my 500 S&W barrel for a while now and never really got around to playing with it.
The past few days I have been messing around with it a bit. This is a second hand barrel I bought here and finally fitted it properly yesterday. I got a mold and Lee .501 sizer kit in a trade a few months ago and I bought the gaschecks for $15 at a gun show the weekend after I got the barrel, long before I picked up the mold because I knew I wouldnt be able to feed it jacketed bullets because of the price.
Using new Starline brass, Winchester Large Rifle primers, my own cast bullets, and Lil Gun Powder (very close to max) I was able to produce this group at 25 yards, off hand. The "flyer" was my fault, but still the group is 1.25 center to center, if you take the pulled shot out of the group the remaining 4 measure .90 center to center. Fluke right? Wrong. I was able to produce 10 shot groups with the same load at 25 yards off hand again roughly the same size, making a large hole in the paper. I found that the recoil was much worse with the bullet seated to the crimp groove of the bullet and the accuracy wasnt the best about 2" at 25 yards.
I didnt take the chrono with me but I will next time I take it out. Over the summer I shot some 440gr hard cast with a starting load of H110 and remember it being much higher than the max loads listed velocity.
I need to file down that front sight some more because the rear peep is topped out and the groups are still low. Once I get point of aim at 25 yards I will back up the yardage to see how it does at longer ranges (75-100 yards), maybe out to 200 yards just to see, although I doubt I will ever use it on anything that bleeds past 50-75 yards.
