Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Big game pistol

Hi every one Im new on the site. 1st post
Anyways I have a S&W 500 Mag. Bullets are very expensive to say the least. Last summer I did a small amount of reloading with a friend who has done alot. We did up 7 different loads starting 1/2 grain over min. 39.5 and ending with 1/2 grain under max. 42.5 I test fired all seven loads with 42 grouping the best. I used H-110 powder and CCI large pistol primers Hornady Brass and hornady 350 grain XTP leads. When I went to make sure it was hitting where it was suppose to be (Before I took it Moose hunting) I couldn't get it to group at all .I fired all 40 rounds and was quite unhappy with the results. The casings were very dirty and 4 primers were blown. I went to the gun shop and bought two boxes of factory ammo. Back to the range now I was getting missfires I took it to my gunsmith who found the firing pin had been damaged and determined it had to have been the loads I had reloaded. Thank God that S&W fixed it and I took it Moose hunting with factory ammo. Haven't reloaded since....... Any help or ideas would be MUCH appreciated

I don't have any first hand experience with that cartridge, but I think it may be the fact that you used pistol primers. I know that may sound strange, I mean why not use pistol primers in a pistol?

The cups of pistol primers are thinner/softer than those of rifle primers, and in other high pressure pistol applications like the 454 and 475 magnums the tougher rifle primers are often recommended. My Hodgdon manual shows a Winchester large rifle primer being used in their 500 S&W data.

My guess is the high pressure caused the primer cup material to flow into the hole around the tip of the firing pin and peened it or caused it to bind. Puncturing the cup and blowing the primer can be very hard on the pin.

I also wouldn't rely on a standard pistol primer to properly ignite that quantity of H110.

mathman

500mag, I dont have an answer for ya but I have to know 1 thing, did ya get a moose with that 500?
Welcome to the fire btw.

The 500 is designed with LARGE Rifle Primers in mind.......

Hi mathman,
thanks I printed off some info on the web that warned against using rifle primers ??????????? I am going to have to do some more digging. I haven't been able to find much info.
appreciate your help though.

tom264,
Yes I did 823 lbs. 48" spread it was wicked awesome. ONE SHOT !

so I've been told

All the new high intensity handgun cartridges use rifle primers due to the high pressures they operate at. The 500 S&W, 454 Casull, 460 S&W, ect. Pistol primers are meant for pressures in the 35-40K psi range tops, rifles often run at 60-65K psi as do these newer big boomers.
The manuals I`ve seen, stress`s this in the cartridge write up.

In what context?

Unlike small rifle and pistol primers which are the same height, large rifle and pistol primers differ with the rifle version being taller. So installing a large rifle primer in a shallow pocket designed for the pistol version will result in a high primer. There's one potential problem.

Some handguns may not strike the hard cup of a rifle primer with sufficient force to assure reliable ignition, but that's easy to check.

Even in the absence of dimensional differences, excessive pressure can arise if primer types are casually swapped. But if the data is developed from the outset by a competent testing facility then the probability of trouble is small.

mathman

The primer pockets on the 500, 460 and 454 are cut for large rifle primers and those are the ones that should be used. I've loaded hundreds of rounds of each caliber using Federal GM large rifle primers with no issues.

Congrats on the moose! Did you use factory ammo? Get a complete pass through? Fill us in!

And welcome!

I think 454 brass has been small rifle for a while.

Opps. Thanks I mispoke including the 454 in there and I just sized and cleaned a couple hundred rounds of each last night. All are for rifle primers.

To all that replied thank you very much. It is obvious that i need some large pistol primers. thanks again and i'll let you know how i make out

RickyD,
I did use factory ammo no pass through though. The bull was quartering to me when I shot didn't like the shot but the wind was swirling so I didn't dare to wait. 40 yard shot there was a nice BIG hole through his heart. he went about ten yards I love my 500

Wouldn't that be rifle?

Yep, LARGE RIFLE PRIMERS!

I'm grasping here, trying to get feeble ol' memory to do something useful .. somewhere I read something about the .500 ... something about some brass being meant for large pistol, other for large rifle ... a change between production runs I think.

Unlike small rifle/small pistol primers, large pistol primers are shorter than large rifle, so the primer pocket depth is different.

Could also be that that particular data is not safe with the (generally hotter) large rifle primers.

Right, I got my .500 right after they were introduced, along with a couple of hundred pieces of Starline brass. That early brass was produced for the PISTOL primers. There were some problems (I never had any) and the specs were changed to take large RIFLE primers very soon. Most of the .500 brass produced is designed to take the large rifle primers.

Regards, Guy

sorry for the dislexcia mathman YES LARGE RIFLE

Well I really appreciate all of you guy's help I will get some large RIFLE primers and try them out as soon as my work schedual lightens up a little.
just so you guys know I had a brain storm (hard to believe) and thought hey why not call Hornady see if they'll give me any info
they said look at the bottom of our bullets the big L on one side and the big R on the other stands for........................ you guessed it LARGE RIFLE !
As far as everything else they said I was fine.