I saw a Rifle in 500 Jeff at the Bass Pro-Shop in Denver last night. The tag said it was a pre-war gun, made in Germany by Stahl and Berger. It was lying on its left side behind a glass table case, so I couldn't see any caliber designations or makers marks, but as best I could tell it was made on a standard K98 action (The bolt handle has the round K98 knob anyway) and uses the ugly three round single stack magazine that hangs well below the bottom of the stock. The price was 12K. The attendant said that the rifle is indeed marked 500 Jeffery, and a target with a three shot group (cloverleaf, fired by the fellow that runs the department) fired at 50 yards was with the rifle. How rare would this rifle be, given the 500 Jeff chambering as opposed to the 12.5x70 Schuller chambering?

This particular gun is advertised on a few sites.

The claim is that it was built in 1928.

Stahl and Berger was a well known gunmakers outfit from Hamburg who like many gunmakers of the time used artisans trained in Suhl, what happened to them after WW2 I do not know.

The gun is built in the same style as the Original Suhl style of Heinrich Krieghoff Jumbo for the 12.7 Schuler.

What is out of place is the designation 500 Jeffery, I say it's strange in that the 500 Jeffery only saw production end 1927 with production really taking off in early 1928 and on none of the rifles built in this caliber have the designation 500 Jeffery stamped on the action or the barrel.

A chamber casting will tell whether it's a true 500 Jeffery or a 12.7 Schuler. ( keeping in mind that the chamber casting of the original 24 500 Jeffery rifles do not correspond to the current CIP 500 which is based on the Original Kynoch drawing, nor the original 12.7 Schuler drawing) The original 500 Jeffery rifles all have the same chamber dimension

Now it could be that the caliber designation was later applied when the gun was imported into the USA.

I am thinking that the 500 at BassPro is in fact a Schuler Jumbo.
It is a dead ringer to mine and the one which Champlins sold a year or two ago.
Everything is identical on these guns - drop mag, front sight, std. action, cheekpiece...everything.
I bet it even has "Lyon and Lyon Calcutta" scratched on the barrel.
Definitely a 20s gun and will be proofed as such.