The .500 S&W Special

Cor-Bon’s factory loads for the .500 Special with Jack Huntington’s
custom .500 Special Ruger Bisley Model — maybe a perfect match?

In 2003, Smith & Wesson went directly to the top of the heap and introduced their .500 S&W Magnum. This cartridge is basically the same length as the .500 Linebaugh Long, however it differs in that it uses .500″ bullets. It is a brutal recoiling cartridge, yet it is manageable to a point in the Model 500 Smith & Wesson revolver, weighing in excess of four pounds. I can’t even fathom what it would be like shooting this cartridge in a “normal” 2 1/2-pound sixgun.

Four shots fired at 20 yards from the Huntington custom .500 Special!

The Big Guys

For the past several decades I’ve done a lot of work with the heaviest sixgun cartridges beginning with the .44 Magnum and progressing through the Heavy .45 Colt, .454 Casull, .445 SuperMag, .475 and .500 Linebaughs, .475 and .500 Linebaugh Longs, .480 Ruger, .460 and .500 S&W Magnums, and the .500 Wyoming Express. During this time I have received numerous requests for full house loads for all of these cartridges. I still get many requests for loading data for all of them, however a strange thing has happened. Rarely does anyone ask anymore for full house loads; instead, in their words, they are looking for loads that are powerful but yet pleasurable to shoot.

All of these cartridges in their full house loadings are good choices for really big game, but what about the other 99.9 percent of hunting endeavors? If we need the power it is there, but for most sixgunners big- game hunting consists of deer, and deer are not all that hard to bring down. A heavyweight bullet at 900 fps in any of the above cartridges will give total penetration on a deer-sized animal. Even larger animals such as bison cannot stand up to a 400-grain bullet at 1,100 fps; with a broadside shot my bullet went in one side and out the other and I had a beautiful trophy bull.

Awesome is a totally overworked word, however the factory .500 S&W with a 400-grain bullet at 1,675 fps is definitely an awesome load. That is nearly 400 fps more from a sixgun barrel than a standard .45-70 from a rifle barrel. Apparently a lot of folks have found the .500 S&W Magnum more than they want to handle and it has now been downsized to the .500 Special.

Top: The Barnes 275 DPX and Sierra 350 JHP are excellent choices for reloading
the .500 Special. Left: The .500 Special compared to the 500 Magnum.

Modest Loads

Corbon offers two loadings for the .500 S&W Special, a 275 gr. Barnes DPX rated at 1,350 fps, and a 350-grain Sierra JHP at the same velocity. These may be “Special” loads when compared to the original .500 S&W Magnum, however they are not light loads by any means.

The case length of the .500 Special is approximately 1.28″ while the .500 Magnum has a corresponding length of approximately 1.6″; this means the .500 Special bullet has to jump an extra .3″ in that long cylinder. Sometimes Special loads shoot accurately in a Magnum cylinder; other times they don’t. Every sixgun is a law unto itself when it comes to this.

Both Corbon factory loads were test fired in a S&W Model 500 Magnum with an 83/8″ barrel. I was most pleasantly surprised at the accuracy.

The 275 DPX round clocked at 1,195 fps (1,005 fps in a 4″ Model 500) and the heavier 350 JHP came in at 1,285 fps (1,160 fps in a 4″ Model 500) with both rounds placing five shots in 11/4″ at 25 yards. Again both of these loads are more than adequate for anything short of elephant/rhinos/Cape buffalo/big bears. For any of these I would still want the heaviest possible hard cast or flat-nosed bullet for maximum penetration. It’s been a long time since an elephant or Cape buffalo was spotted in Idaho so I feel well served with the .500 Special loads.

Reloading

Next it was time to go to work at the reloading bench to come up with loads for the .500 Special. I found it necessary to modify the RCBS .500 Magnum dies to accommodate the shorter cartridge. The expander button extends too far into the Special case and the Special case was too short to reach the crimping shoulder of the seating die; both were shortened appropriately. For powders I chose some of the same propellants I normally use to produce every day working loads in large capacity sixgun cartridges, namely Hodgdon’s TiteGroup and Winchester’s 231. My goal was to come up with relatively easy shooting loads in the 1,100-1,200 fps range using bullets from the Barnes 275 DPX up to the Cast Performance Bullet Co. 400-grain LBT Gas Check.

For bullets I could choose from the Barnes 275 DPX, Sierra 350 JHP, BRP’s 380 designed for the .50AE as well as a 370-grain .500 hard cast bullet, the CPBC 400-grain hard cast LBTGC, and a couple of hard cast bullets of unknown origin weighing in at 325 and 335 grains.
With the Barnes 275 DPX over 10.5 grains of TiteGroup, muzzle velocity is 1,170 fps from the 83/8" S&W Model 500, basically duplicating the Corbon factory loading, with a 25 yard group for four shots of 11/4". With the Sierra 350 JHP over 11.5 grains of TiteGroup, muzzle velocity at 1,150 fps is about 125 fps slower than the Corbon factory load, however it shot into a very pleasing 7/8".

The Cor-Bon .500 Special loads proved accurate in the S&W Model 500 S&W Magnum.

Compact Wheelgun

With the arrival of the factory loaded .500 Special and brass available from Starline it is only natural to look for a much more compact and easier to pack sixgun. Life is full of trade-offs and the Model 500 is easier to shoot than a sixgun weighing a pound and a half less, however it is not something one would normally want to pack all day, day after day. The ideal sixgun for the .500 Special is a 5-shot single action of approximately the same size as a Ruger Blackhawk. Gunsmith Jack Huntington was able to provide me with just such a vehicle.

Jack’s answer for a home for the .500 Special is one of the most attractive and practical packin’ pistols I have ever come across. Starting with a stainless steel Ruger Bisley Model, Jack fitted a 5-shot un-fluted cylinder, modified the grip frame to make it smaller and rounder at the butt end, and then topped everything off with a 4″ Colt Anaconda barrel re-bored to .500. This sixgun epitomizes everything a Perfect Packin’ Pistol should be; lightweight, compact, and certainly powerful. CPBC’s 400 grain LBTGC over 11.0 grains of WW231 clocks out at 950 fps from this short-barreled .500 Special with four shots in 11/8″ at 20 yards, while the Sierra 350 JHP over 11.5 grains of TiteGroup places four shots in 13/8″ with a muzzle velocity of 1,055 fps. Either of these loads suits me just fine.

For more info: JRH Advanced Gunsmithing, (530) 268-6877, www.jrhadvancedgunsmithing.com

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