500gr Cast Bullet - .500 S&W Magnum

[Confederate Tyrant]

I recently began casting with the RCBS 270gr SAA. Shortly after, I ordered a 500gr mold from Mountain Molds for my S&W 500.

I used John Ross's suggestions for a long nose bore riding flat point bullet design. I powder coated the bullets using Eastwood's Copper Penny PC and sized them to .501" with the Lee sizer die.

I used Trail Boss, IMR 4895, IMR 4198, and Vihtavuori N110 for my initial loads. Every single load had a strong recoil, but nothing quite like the 700gr loads. I plan to experiment more with Trail Boss and N110.

I'm still pretty new to casting and powder coating, but everything appeared to come out quite well. There truly is nothing like casting your own and loading it however you want (from mild to wild and everywhere in between).

I'm really looking forward to my journey into casting.

[P.W.Herman]

A 500gr bullet is going to have a stout recoil no matter how you load it. Heck, 500gr bullets out of my sharps rifle have stout recoil....

[Bakebfr480]

Good looking chunk of lead!

[Nightowl]

Excellent work. That's a great looking casting job. I used to get great satisfaction in casting a bunch of bullets. Now, I find it just too much work! and it's so much easier to just run over to Missouri Bullets and buy a couple thousand bullets!

I really like that it's a flat based bullets, rather than bevel base. I use bevel base because that is what most commercial casters use, but I prefer flat base.

[colt_saa]

Great looking projectile.

I cast, but have not started powder-coating yet.

[glowe]

Let's see, 2000 rounds of 400 grain 500 S&W will cost you near $300 $3000 with shipping. A pound of lead will run $1.00 to $2.00 per pound. A pound will cast 175 17.5 bullets, so 11 110 pounds of lead. So maybe $150 in lead cost. Even with the decimal point error, I still think casting bullets will save substantial money and buy more guns with the savings.

There was a good article in a recent Handloader magazine, but I cannot find it online. It basically concluded that multiple coatings are needed to give a thick enough coating to resist leading in high velocity loads. Worth reading if you can find the article online.

[colt_saa]

Originally Posted by glowe

Let's see, 2000 rounds of 400 grain 500 S&W will cost you near $300 with shipping. A pound of lead will run $1.00 to $2.00 per pound. A pound will cast 175 bullets, so 11 pounds of lead. I think I will keep casting bullets and buy more guns with the savings.

Your decimal point was off

A pound of lead will only yield 17 1/2 of the 400 grain projectiles.

[Confederate Tyrant]

Thanks everyone. It took some getting used to, but after a couple of casting sessions I got the hang of it. Looking to get molds for the .44 and .357 next.

A 500gr bullet is going to have a stout recoil no matter how you load it. Heck, 500gr bullets out of my sharps rifle have stout recoil....

I was expecting the recoil to be a little stouter with 4198 and N110, but I wasn't expecting the recoil with Trail Boss to be as stout as it was. I was using a max load though, so I'm going to reduce the load by 10% and 20% for the next outing.

There was a good article in a revent Handloader magazine, but I cannot find it online. It basically concluded that multiple coatings are needed to give a thick enough coating to resist leading in high velocity loads. Worth reading if you can find the article online.

Sounds like a good read, please share it if you happen to find it (I searched too and couldn't find it). From what other users have posted, they're pushing 2,000+ FPS with powder coated rifle bullets and getting no leading. But I'm not sure how many coatings that are applied. I checked the barrel after firing all 20 rounds and I didn't see any obvious leading, but I will clean it and find out for sure.

[Qc Pistolero]

Woosh!Shooting such a heavy projectile from a handgun...only a few decades ago shooting it at the same velocity from a rifle was considered good ballistics.
The times they are achangin'!

[reddog81]

Originally Posted by glowe

Let's see, 2000 rounds of 400 grain 500 S&W will cost you near $300 with shipping. A pound of lead will run $1.00 to $2.00 per pound. A pound will cast 175 17.5 bullets, so 11 110 pounds of lead. So maybe $150 in lead cost. Even with the decimal point error, I still think casting bullets will save substantial money and buy more guns with the savings.

There was a good article in a recent Handloader magazine, but I cannot find it online. It basically concluded that multiple coatings are needed to give a thick enough coating to resist leading in high velocity loads. Worth reading if you can find the article online.

2000 rounds will run closer to $3,000 at about $1.25+ per round.

Casting and reloading will be closer to $.30 per round. $.10 to $.15 for the bullet, $.10 for the powder and $.03 for the primer. 2,000 rounds would run about $600.

The more you shoot, the more you save! LOL

[glowe]

Thanks Reddog. Can't seem to calculate these big numbers?! I am buying lead for $1.30 per pound and was only calculating the cost to cast bullets alone, not reloading, but now do not know where the heck I got the cost of 400 grain 500 S&W bullets. Checked MidwayUSA and got $1.32 for 400 grain lead, so the cost differential between buying and casting is huge.

Now that I am thinking about it more, how long would it take to shoot 2000 rounds of 500 S&W anyway??? One shot would be enough for me, let alone what my wife would say about me running over to Missouri Bullets and picking up a couple thousand 500 S&W bullets @ $3000 price tag.