From time to time someone mentions building a 500 Jeffery and the inevitable response regarding the difficulty of getting it to feed correctly is posted. I'll add, however, that it has been shown to work if a good smith is putting the rifle together.

With that said, what say ye about the 500 AHR? I don't know much about it other than some browsing of the internet but it would seem to be a better designed cartridge. And at a glance, it looks almost like the original.

Have any of you worked with this cartridge? And if so, what might you share of the experience?

Thanks,

Landrum

Landrum, I think it's a fine, well-designed cartridge.

When I had AHR build a .500 for me, I almost went with it. But I decided on the .500 A-Square instead, mostly because it's a SAAMI cartridge, brass is readily available (it's based on the big Weatherby case) and there's a lot of loading data for it as well.

But that being said, I do like the .500 AHR. I think of it as the cartridge that the Jeffery firm would have designed, if only they had had access to magnum Mauser actions.

Last time I looked, Bertram brass was the only make available for the 500 AHR.
Horneber brass would make it a great cartridge,
or Jamison,
or Hornady ...

The 500 AHR cartridge was designed by Ed Plummer about 10 yrs. ago. He wanted something that would duplicate the 500 Jeffery ballistics but work better in the CZ magnum action that he was doing so much work with. The bullets in the Jeffery can get battered under recoil in the magnum action because the OAL is so short, and it is really just too big to be placed in a standard action.
Load data for the AHR is the same as the Jeffery. Length to shoulder is basically the same for both with slight differences in shoulders. The big difference is in neck length, the AHR is .150" longer.
Ed went to Australia and met with Bruce Bertram to have the brass made. There was only one lot produced and we have approximately 3,000 pieces left. I would put these cases up against any that are being produced by any other maker for strength, adherence to spec. and finish.
I have been shooting this cartridge for five years as have quite a few others on this forum and we have never had an issue with the brass.
The cartridge was not designed to do any more than the Jeffery, just to fit a magnum size action where it belongs.

What Bitterroot said. I have one of Ed's original 500 AHR's and its a nice gun ( Once I got it to feed right-but thats another story). I liked the longer neck of the AHR over the Jeffery and at the time, the gun was a real steal. I've enjoyed mine. I have about 200 pieces of brass and for Bertram its great stuff. Wonder if BB actually made it?-Rob