For a couple years now I've been loading a moly coated 340 grain lead bullet with 40.5 grains of H-110 for my S&W 500ES with 2 3/4" barrel. It's a nice load and throws a pretty impressive fireball.
I was happy with this load until three things happened recently.
1) Shot some factory Hornady ammo. This stuff is quite a bit hotter than what I have been loading. Still just a 350 grain bullet, but you can feel the difference.
2) Bought a chronograph. My ammo is doing a measly 1220 fps for 1124 ft-lbs. of energy. Didn't write down what the Hornady ammo was doing, but I remember it being over 1400 fps.
3) Bought a Freedom Arms 454 Casull with a 4 3/4" barrel. Ordered some 340 grain bullets, but they haven't shown up yet. In the mean time I loaded some 230 grain 45 ACP bullets and managed to get 1547 fps out of them for 1222 ft-lbs. So even with these lighter bullets the 454 is more powerful than my 500.
Now what I'm trying to do is load the 500 to match the Hornady load, and beat the 454. Problem is load data is very limited. The Lyman manual lists these loads:
325 grain jacketed 42 grains H110 max 46500 PSI
350 grain jacketed 40 grains H110 max 45100 PSI
375 grain jacketed 35 grains H110 max 45600 PSI
375 grain lead 35.5 grains H110 max 32900 PSI
Entered my bullet data into QuickLOAD and it gave me this information:
340 grain lead 47 grains H110 49000 PSI at 100% load density.
Pressure max for the 500 is 60000 PSI, but would have to have a compressed charge to get there. Anyway, does anyone have any better load data, or any ideas on a safe way to work up this load? I was thinking of working up in half grain increments shooting a full cylinder each time and checking for extraction difficulties as well as checking the primers.
I was happy with this load until three things happened recently.
1) Shot some factory Hornady ammo. This stuff is quite a bit hotter than what I have been loading. Still just a 350 grain bullet, but you can feel the difference.
2) Bought a chronograph. My ammo is doing a measly 1220 fps for 1124 ft-lbs. of energy. Didn't write down what the Hornady ammo was doing, but I remember it being over 1400 fps.
3) Bought a Freedom Arms 454 Casull with a 4 3/4" barrel. Ordered some 340 grain bullets, but they haven't shown up yet. In the mean time I loaded some 230 grain 45 ACP bullets and managed to get 1547 fps out of them for 1222 ft-lbs. So even with these lighter bullets the 454 is more powerful than my 500.
Now what I'm trying to do is load the 500 to match the Hornady load, and beat the 454. Problem is load data is very limited. The Lyman manual lists these loads:
325 grain jacketed 42 grains H110 max 46500 PSI
350 grain jacketed 40 grains H110 max 45100 PSI
375 grain jacketed 35 grains H110 max 45600 PSI
375 grain lead 35.5 grains H110 max 32900 PSI
Entered my bullet data into QuickLOAD and it gave me this information:
340 grain lead 47 grains H110 49000 PSI at 100% load density.
Pressure max for the 500 is 60000 PSI, but would have to have a compressed charge to get there. Anyway, does anyone have any better load data, or any ideas on a safe way to work up this load? I was thinking of working up in half grain increments shooting a full cylinder each time and checking for extraction difficulties as well as checking the primers.