500 S&W

[Shooter75]

Hello everyone.  I'm a new member to GBO.  I have a question about the 500 S&W.  I recently acquired one of these in a multiple gun purchase.  I was wondering what the effective range on this is with around a 350 grain bullet?  I am thinking of using it for whitetail hunting this fall but I'm just not too familiar with the caliber.  I know it's huge.....maybe too huge?  Just looking for some opinions.  Thanks.

[Swampman]

With factory ammo they kick quite a bit.  They seem a lot more finiky to find an accurate load for and harder on scopes than the .45-70.  If you want a scope I'd suggest the Nikon 2-7X32.  It will hold up.

I'd shoot it.

[petemi]

Welcome home friend.  I'm not the guy that should be replying to this first, cause I don't own one.  My thoughts are that if you can hit it you can kill it.  Much like my .45-70.  If I can put a bullet in it, it's down.  It's never too huge....fat and slow'll do it every time.  I'd do as I did, work out the trajectories, and know where your bullet is going.  I still hear crap that the .45-70 is only a hundred yard rifle from idiots that never worked with one.  Perhaps they can only shoot to 100 yards, but there are a few of us that can poke the .45-70 5 or 10 times that distance.  I'm old and slow and still working on it.  I'm pretty close to 400 yards now.  There's nothing finer than hearing the BANG..........clang.  There's no such thing as overkill.  Your .350gr. is a teddy bear to my .405s and much much smaller than a lot of guys shoot in the .500.  Stick around and search the topic.  There's lots here.

best of luck,

Pete

[tacklebury]

Might look at this recent post from someone making a shorty out of one. 

http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,212643.0.html

[quickdtoo]

Welcome! Here's a trajectory chart for the 350gr Hornady XTP, I get 2150fps with it out of a top load of Lil'gun, as you can see, the poor BC of the short, fat 350gr bullet really slows down fast, it's not much better than a round ball in a muzzleloader! 4" high at 100yds will be 3½" low at 200yds, 8½" low at 225yds and 15" low at 250yds.

Tim

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQY/is_1_53/ai_n16866654/

Trajectory for Hornady .500 dia. 350 gr. XTP-Mag at 2150 Feet per Second
At an Elevation Angle of: 0 degrees
Ballistic Coefficients of: 0.145   0.145   0.145   0.145   0.145


Range Velocity   Energy    Drop        Bullet Path
(Yards)(Ft/Sec)   (Ft/Lbs)      (inches)
0   2150.0   3591.8     0.0            -1.7   
25   2014.8   3154.2   -0.25              0.6   
50   1884.8   2760.4   -1.03            2.37
75   1760.4   2408.0   -2.42              3.53   
100   1642.3   2095.6   -4.52              3.98   
125   1531.0   1821.4   -7.42              3.63   
150   1427.7   1583.7   -11.25          2.35   
175   1333.1   1380.8   -16.15           0.0   
200   1248.4   1211.0   -22.27         -3.57   
225   1175.0   1072.9   -29.78         -8.54   
250   1113.5   963.4          -38.87   -15.08   
275   1063.1   878.3          -49.71   -23.36   
300   1021.4   810.7          -62.47   -33.58   

[Shooter75]

Thanks for all of the responses.  Getting a lot of good info.  Is there another size bullet I should consider for decent performance at 150yds and closer?  I don't reload...yet, so I would have to use factory ammo.  Any suggestions?  Thanks.

[guns-o-fun]

Hope you have a healthy balance in your bank account, because almost all of the factory ammo is pretty pricey.  The really good stuff, like Grizzly Cartridge Co., will run you $3 a round or more.  I think the cheapest I have seen is around $45 for a box of 20.  You can load them yourself for $1.50 or maybe a little less if you are alert to sales.  Not a difficult round to load.  If you start, be sure to study up and hopefully find someone with experience who can get you started.  It is a lot of fun and you can match your ammo to your particular gun.  Don't feel to bad though.  I have a 50 Alaskan on the way and good factory ammo for that caliber runs up around $85-90 a box of 20.  Looks like I will be buying another set of reloading dies.  Its all good.