Hey guys, just wanted to know if anybody else has had problems with their Performance Center .500 John Ross? I love mine but have had to send it back to the shop multiple times. When I first got it it was spitting and skipping during recoil. Now I just got it back the second time after sending it in for spitting lead and jacket again.Both times Smith replaced the cylinder and recut the forcing cone. To be fair I do shoot a lot but so far only have about 1500 rounds through this particular gun. I was mildly entertaining the thought of purchasing a two tone John Ross as I really love the gun but I'm not so sure I want to spend the money after having so many issues with this one. All my other 500s have been great will no issues. I should tell you S&W has been fantastic about fixing it.

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As for me....make mine .500

I have a pair of them, sent one back for light primer strikes.
Other than that no issues, each has about 2500 rounds through them now about 1/2 jacketed, half lead.

I’ve had 5, Model 500s, have only two now. None have had any problems. None were John Ross models, one is a PC gun.

Good luck with getting the issues resolved. Don

Can you describe about the spitting, skipping, and any other issues you've had with more details? What kind of loads do you shoot? How did you determine the gun has some issue? I am an another owner of JR500s and yes, I have sent the guns back to the factory a couple of times but now I think I know what I can expect from these guns and how to deal with them. Some are typical S&W revolver charactaristics and some are particulers apply only with JR 500s. At the end of the day, if I were to look for serious power, that will be nothing but another JR500...

Hi .

I just found this post after searching for "Problems" with the JR500 .

I just bought one a few weeks ago , and have had a few issues with it .

I only have a couple hundred rounds thru it , mostly all cast bullets , and not many real heavy loads , mostly 1100-1300 with 475 gr bullets.

First it doesn't seem very "cast bullet friendly " .
The cylinder throats measure about .4995" and the groove diameter is right around .5015"

It leads up pretty quickly with anything other than some light
Trail Boss loads.

I was also disappointed when I measured the barrel/cylinder gap.
That was supposed to be .0035" inch , mine measures .008"

I also had some light primer strikes.

I may have tracked that down to two things.
I noticed that when I pulled the trigger and just lowered the hammer , instead of letting it drop , it would hang up on something halfway down .

I pulled the side plate , thinking there might have been some kind of "crud" in there .

I found that there is a pin in the hammer that holds the double action sear in place .
This was sticking out a bit , maybe .005-.010 " on one side of the hammer , and was dragging on the side plate .

The other issue ,was that the hammer was actually hitting the side of the frame , right at the top of the hammer .
Maybe the top 1/8 " of the hammer , it was just brushing it and you could feel it drag mostly on a double action pull.

There was a bit of a burr there , that may have been caused by the hammer being pushed to one side by the pin sticking out that I mentioned earlier .

The hammer does seem to be a bit closer to the right side of frame than the left side , only by a few .001" s .

I would also like to hear of any other problems folks have had with there JR500's and more so, of what Smith did to correct them

I don't know if the cylinder throats are in spec ,or not .
I know that you can' t easily tap a jacketed bullet thru them.

I also wondered of the barrel might be over sized also .
If it was closer to the sammi specs i found of .4998 or so groove diameter it would work well with the size of the cylinder throats now in the gun .

thanks

Joe C

Much like all the old 44 Magnums with 0.432-0.433" exit bores when trying to shoot 0.430" cast bullets. I could never keep them from leading with anything less than a 0.4325" bullet.

You'd have to get the exit bores up to about 0.502" to cure the leading problem, I suppose. As tight as everyone likes to cut chambers nowadays, I wonder if you would have room for a cartridge with a 0.502" bullet seated in it?

My older S&W 44 Magnums with pretty big chambers will accept a cartridge loaded with 0.4325" cast bullets without a problem, but I have no experience with the 500s.

M29

I actually loaded up a few round with some "as cast" bullets that I have , that measure .502-.503"

They seem to chamber fine .

The loaded round measures .530" and the chamber will take a .532" plug gauge .
Kind of close but it should work .

I even pulled the bullets after I checked for chambering ,to see if they were swaged down after I seated them , and they still measured .502"

Even doing the "math" on them , case wall thickness of the starline brass is .014 , .502 bullet total is .530" .

I just have to decide if I really want to open up the chamber throats on this gun !!!!!!

Hoping to hear from others that have done this to their revolvers and if it helped .

Joe

Ah the joys of revolver-hood!
First, revolvers aren't meant to be shot a lot...magnum revolvers aren't meant to be shot with magnum loads "a lot."
The irony of the .500 S&W revolver is that they built it to handle the FULL-HOUSE load which encourages shooters to SHOOT IT....a LOT because of the effectiveness of the muzzle brake!
Fact is, the .500 needs a good "mid-range" load in the 1,000 lb-ft catagory to allow shooters to have fun without pushing the gun.

Joe, in my 44 Magnums sizing the throats or exit bores properly compared to the bore diameter and using cast bullets that fit has always completely eliminated leading issues. I don't know why the .500 would be different if it is loaded to similar velocities and pressures. Seems like if you are going to shoot cast bullets, you don't have much choice.

I'm late but, mine runs like a Swiss watch.
Steve