Freesom Arms 83 .500 WE/.500 JRH
Originally purchased as a .500 WE a .454 cylinder and the gun were sent to Jack Huntington and then fitted and rechambered to .500 JRH.
A NOE 350 RNFP for the .50 AE was used for initial loads in the .500 WE. Velocity with 10.0 grains of Trail Boss was 899 fps from the 4.75" barrel.
Next was a MP 400 grain mold with pins:
Solid: 394 grains
PentaPoint: 384 grains
HP: 382 grains
Using .500 WE express brass:
10.0 Unique: 925 fps
11.0 Unique: 975 fps (3 fps difference between the Solid, PP and HP)
Only problem being that even though the area in front of the crimping groove is .500 the loaded rounds have to be vigorously pushed into the chambers because of the typical short leads from the chamber to the forcing cone on FA revolvers.
Accuracy was excellent. First round with 10.0 grains went high because of operator error...the next three rounds was a ragged hole and the 5th round a 1/2" to the right. This was at 15 yards. The 11.0 grain loads were just shot over the chrono but still grouped ok.
Because .500 WE brass is now very hard to obtain some .500 JRH brass was purchased from Buffalo Bore. Trial load will be 12.0 grains of Unique trying to obtain 1000-1050 fps MV with the MP bullet. Big advantage of the JRH brass and chamber is that the rounds drop right into the cylinder...
