I have my 6 1/2" barreled .500 S&W Magnum coming this Wednesday. Yay!
So, sticking with my historical practice of NOT BUYING FACTORY AMMO when I buy a new gun..... I'm doing final prep to assemble some rounds for Wednesday (will shoot it on my way home!)
I have my .505 M-P Molds (Miha) mold, and have run some with the larger size HP's, using 50% WW and 50% pure lead, air cooled. Not convinced I need the water dropped yet.
I have a .501 sizing die in hand, and a .500 die coming in a week or so. The bullets that I will size for now will be .501", which won't be a problem. They may not be perfect, but they'll work. I have some .019" thick gas checks made up, and they fit the base of the bullets I have cast perfectly! The OD of the gas check is right at .5005" or so.
I spent some time today researching the load options for this round, with these cast lead bullets.
I see in the Lyman book a mention of some of the brass having a "R" after the word mag... the R designating that the brass was made for Large Rifle primers.
So, I go looking through the batch of once fired brass that I bought from GunBroker..... Most of it (80%) has the R designation, and the rest does not. The Lyman book suggests that you should not use their load data on any brass that doesn't have the R designation (meaning that the brass without the R should be loaded with large pistol primers, and you can't use the Lyman load data for the large pistol primers.
So, my question of the hour is this::
Has anyone looked into this R designation? How important is it really? Supposedly, the pocket is deeper for the R brass.
I'm a stickler for detail and following the rules of safety. I sure would appreciate the comments from those who are already reloading successfully for this round.
(BTW, I have ordered a couple of hundred Starline NEW brass from one of the on line retailers. Supposedly, ALL of the Starline brass for this size comes through with the R designation. Can anyone confirm this?)
AND.... rather than triple post, I just thought of an additional question:
Do any of you run this caliber on your Dillon 550b press? Or, is the sizing/flairing/bullet seating/crimping force too much.... requiring that they be assembled one at a time, on a single station press?