500 S&W Mag cyl. throat size??

[Iron Whittler]

I recently acquired a 500 S&W mag W/8 3/8 barrel. Front sight was missing and grips split below hammer. S&W sent me a new front sight, grip, owners manual, and lock key. Looks like throats ma be tight. Some jacketed bullets (Rem)came with it. These bullets will not pass thru the throat of any cyl. Miced the bullets, they measured .5005 - .501 depending on where you checked them. I will be casting lead boolits for it sized .501. This being my first 500 mag, I am hesitant to use any projectile that will not pass thru the cyl. throat. Recommendations? Ideas? Suggestions? Thanks for input Iron Whittler:Fire:

[readr1]

Ideally they should be right at .501. Had to send my cylinder out to get the throats reamed as they were at .4995 and .499

[Radarsonwheels]

They are optimized for jacketed bullets and while tight actually work pretty well. I had dougguy ream my cyl out on my 4" and now it will chamber the really long boolits. I also have a 10.5 performance center 500 but that gets either h110 jacketed screamers or gas checked miha 385 penta HPs that work just fine over 37gn 4227 or 10gn trail boss- interestingly to same poi at 100!

[DougGuy]

I would recommend .5015" ~ .5018" on the cylinder throats, and urge sizing boolits twice at .501" once after casting and again before loading and I do advise not to let loaded ammo sit on the shelf for very long before shooting as boolits can grow quite a large amount and could fail to chamber.

One of my customers sent his 500 S&W cylinder in for throat reaming, he sent dummies and loose boolits that were sized and lubed .500" just after casting, and as they age hardened they grew from .500" to .5015" on average. In lieu of how much these long cast boolits can grow, I would size the throats .0015" over groove diameter, and size the boolit .001" over groove diameter and then maintain this arrangement by sizing to .501" shortly before loading and firing. I would not allow the boolits to grow to the point they won't go through the throats, and I would not size the throats any larger than the figures I mentioned.

These are large framed very robust revolvers, and it is one thing to use a .454" or .456" diameter boolit in a RBH loaded to 30,000psi, but I would not want to subject a 500 magnum to the forces required to swage the humongous boolits they use over about a thousandth or thou and a half at the most.

[Bzcraig]

Send it to Doug to be done right, It's not worth fussing with!