500Gr 500 Nitro express loads

[P-J]

Hello all, odd bullet weight but let me explain. I bought 100 bonded 500gr .509" soft points for my 50 alaskan years ago and they were too long and never fed right so they sat on the shelf. I recently acquired a 500ne double and thought I would make up these as a mid weight bullet for use around the ranch just to burn them up.

Goals would be to match 570 gr velocity (~2100 fps) as the gun regulates well with both hornady 570gr DGS and Federal 570gr A-frame. Hopefully it will regulate with these lighter 500gr pills.

I have H4350, W760, And Varget (close to RL15) to work with. At this point I'm thinking a starting load of 92grs Varget should get me around 90% case capacity, be on the faster end of powders (lighter bullet) and be well under max load. Then work up from there. But I wanted to ask if anyone has been down this road?

Thanks all!

 

[Tanks]

Seeing that usual loads for a 570 grain bullet with RL 15 seem to go between 92 - 95 grains of RL 15 to hit the velocity you are after I am not sure that 92 grains of Varget is a good starting point for a 500 grain bullet.

 

[deewayne2003]

I was surprised to find a 450gr load in Woodleighs manual …. Notice the # beside the 95gr load denotes the need for Dacron filler to take up the extra case volume.

African Dangerous Game cartridges lists a load for 500 NE 3” with 500gr bullet & 108.0gr of IMR-4350

 

[P-J]

I love this forum! You guys are amazing. Varget is a bit less dense then RL15 with a very similar burn rate so I actually thought it might be a good choice to start low and work up, but your data is a huge help! 95-98grs varget would be touching the bullet base.

the IMR-4350 data is great, I know I have H4350 but starting low here also would be much easier with your data then experimenting with Varget.

It's a blizzard here today but I will try and report back my findings with the chrono and regulation

Greatly appreciated!