I'm loading up some shells for my buddies 500 and there's no canelure groove on the bullets. I had loaded 350 gr XTP's before and now he bought Speer 325 JHP. The speer bullets don't have a groove to crimp to. Should I just run them through the die like the XTP's and hope that it's holding on tight enough? I don't want the bullets to jump back and cause the pressure to go way up! Any help would be great.

quote:

Originally posted by Brad from ND:
I'm loading up some shells for my buddies 500 and there's no canelure groove on the bullets. I had loaded 350 gr XTP's before and now he bought Speer 325 JHP. The speer bullets don't have a groove to crimp to. Should I just run them through the die like the XTP's and hope that it's holding on tight enough? I don't want the bullets to jump back and cause the pressure to go way up! Any help would be great.

They won't jump back they will jump forward & lock the cilinder get a Lee FCD.

As tsturm pointed out, get a Lee factory crimp die OR cannelure them, I do. I don't think you can roll crimp them enough to hold them, at least I didn't want to take that chance pushing them at excessive speeds. Both Speers 300gr and 325gr slugs can be shot out of the S&W 500 and they can both be cannelured even though they are plated. The plating is much thicker than traditional plating and doesn't distort.
Here's a picture of the cannelure tool I made and one of their bullets.

The Speer 50 cal pistol bullets without a cannelure on them are made for 50 Action Express....only!!!!

They are not safe to shoot in the 500 S&W for two reasons.

1. no place to crimp so the recoil could cause the bullets to "pull" leading to a locked cylinder.

2. their jackets cannot withstand 500 S&W velocities and you run the risk of them opening in the bore.

I had a long email exchange with Speer technicians on this subject back in 2004.

DO NOT LOAD THEM IN YOUR 500 S&W!!!!

Barstooler

Barstooler

I would expect nothing less from a bullet manufacturer, and rightly so, and I probably should have prefaced my post with "they shoot in my guns, don't try this at home". In fact I've been loading them and shooting them in all five of my S&W 500's since I bought my first one in 2003. Not one gun, but five different guns with different barrel lengths.

Some reloaders, yours truly included, don't always follow the beaten path and take advice with a grain of salt. I experimented very carefully, as I usually do, and found that I can push the 300gr GDHP to almost 2200fps and the penetration is phenomenal. My S&W 500's also have polygonal rifling which tends to be a little more forgiving on the jackets than traditional cut rifling.

The bullet in my previous post is in fact a Speer 300gr GDHP that I cannelured to .010" under nominal dia. After cross sectioning it I found no separation in the jacket and after firing it into different types of media saw no signs of jacket separation before penetration. That's when I began pushing them. The ONLY drawback I've found in shooting them is excessive flame cutting of the top strap on my revolvers because of the fast burning powder. I also loaded some of them down so others could actually shoot the big beast without fear of being hammered. I've literally fired hundreds of them out of my guns.

While I'm an advocate of the novice following sage advice I will continue to experiment exercising caution. But to say they won't hold up to S&W velocities is a blanket statement and simply isn't true. That's not my opinion, that's a fact.

1) Can be overcome by using a Lee factory crimp die OR canneluring them.

2)False

I think it's up to the reloader to make their own decision all the while exercising a certain amount of common sense and caution. Be safe.

I was born and raised in Idaho and went to High School with one of the engineers, who now works at Speer.

It was a private email between him and I and I only repeated his warnings to me. I did not take it as a "company" line, but as his private opinion to me.

Frankly, I can buy bullets already made for my 500 S&W and see no reason to be altering bullets for what ever reason. It just makes no sense to me with the availability of 500 S&W bullets on the market.

I hope you continue to get away with it, but I would not be recommending the practice to anyone.

Barstooler