500 Jeffery Club

[IvW]

I have the 12.7x70 chamber

 

[IvW]

Although mine is stamped as a 500 Jeff....

 

[grand veneur]

My rifle is stamped 500 Jeffery / 12,7x70 Schüler. The gunsmith did not make a decision at the time. A-Square also played a role back then in the development of the cartridge from Romey, all shortly before the definitive standardization.

 

[IvW]

When I bought mine a custom on a Brno ZKK602 action unfired from an estate I was alerted to the 3 chamber dimensions by Casey Lewis. We found a Schuler reamer and ran that in and also increased the tight jump to 3mm.....never had any issues since.....I do prefer heavy for caliber bullets and only use 570gr and 600gr not 535gr....

 

[grand veneur]

So you can use ammunition from Kynoch as well as from Norma.

As far as the bullet weight is concerned, at my time there was, apart the 535gr bullet, nothing else known for the cartridge 500 Jeffery. I stayed with this bullet.

 

[IvW]

They do work but for me in modern times 570gr and 600gr are so much better.

 

[Riflecrank]

I found some dies for the .500 Jeffery in a shop in Rapid City, SD in 2003.
They were made by "North Devon" in England.
These match the CIP dimensions.
I had Dave Kiff of PT&G make a reamer to his CIP specs but added some throat,
with 0.5108" diameter and 0.250" length of parallel-sided-free-bore, and 1.5-degree leade angle,
instead of the basically "no throat" of the CIP .500 Jeffery.
He decided to call this reamer the ".500 Jeffery Match" in 2018.

Having so many other "Fifties" (.500, .505, .510, .512) to play with, I have dithered the "Rapid City" dies into going on 21 years of procrastination. Irony is the highest form of humor.

Just waiting for that barrel lug and stock screw for the secondary recoil lug escutcheon.
The stock is otherwise reinforced everywhichway, having come off of the .500 Mbogo that handled 450-grainers at +2800 fps, and handled cape buffalo with same bullet more accurately at +2600 fps.

That fat barrel on my .500 Jeffery would not fit in the B&C stock, but the skinnier-barreled .500 Mbogo would, so switcheroo. Fat-forearmed laminate was meant for Bertha, my .500 Jeffery.

 

[Riflecrank]

Bertha has had birthing pains, prolonged labor for sure.
In 2006 I got to shoot a Sterling Davenport .500 Jeffery that a fellow riflecrank was starting to sight in.
My trial of the sights as they came from the Master Rifle Builder,
tried with the pet load of fellow rifle crank, 24" barrel,
it was a hot day in Oklahoma, nice tropical load for the .500 Jeffery:
:

I would probably add a foam wad filler for anything less than 85% net fill/LR with Varget,
or move to H4350.
QuickLOAD is pretty good for the short-throated .500 Jeffery.

 

[Riflecrank]

grand veneur confirms the A-Square manual shows the Romey Hybrid of 1997 which I guessed by the shoulder angle 20 years ago. CIP matches the Kynoch drawing of 1928.
It seems certain to me that Schuler's .500 Jumbo aka 12.7x70mm started it all a few years before Jeffery did their version.

 

[Riflecrank]

From Pierre van der Walt, above.
Woodleigh manual below:

 

[Riflecrank]

History by Hoyem sounds correct:

 

[Riflecrank]

From the monograph:

Three original .500 Jeffery rifles and one 404 Jeffery rifle (top rifle below):

Bottom .500 Jeffery is a Square Bridge Magnum Mauser, all the others appear to be standard M98 with thumbcut.

 

[colorado]

I got my handload data straight out of "Any Shot You Want" Jamison brass, CCI Magnum primers, 570g TSX, 103g H4895. Chronographs out to 2300 fps. Very accurate, recoil is "sporty". I found a load in "Real Guns" using IMR 4350 that got the same bullet with no pressure signs up to 2510 fps, but recoil was punishing. Love the caliber! Keep it fun. The power of this cartridge is not to be under estimated.

 

[cajunchefray]

I got my handload data straight out of "Any Shot You Want" Jamison brass, CCI Magnum primers, 570g TSX, 103g H4895. Chronographs out to 2300 fps. Very accurate, recoil is "sporty". I found a load in "Real Guns" using IMR 4350 that got the same bullet with no pressure signs up to 2510 fps, but recoil was punishing. Love the caliber! Keep it fun. The power of this cartridge is not to be under estimated.

In my simple mind and humble opinion, W J Jeffery co-opted Schuler's design, as spoils for the victor of WW 1. They had leverage.

A .500 caliber rifle, in a standard M98 action, bested the .505 Gibbs without the need for a Magnum Mauser. Germany was in financial turmoil during the Weimer Republic. Gun making firms were struggling. Jefferey came in, made a deal on the design right, paid them a little, and marketed it as their own cartridge. Yes, they only made 24 rifles pre-WW2 but it was the biggest new kid on the block, for a magazine fed stopping rifle, before the ivory market declined.

But the hash made by different cartridge designs still confounds me. The CIP standardization in 1998 from the Kynoch drawings "helped" standardize the cartridge dimensions.

The CZ 550 I owned had this chamber and worked well reloading with Redding dies.

The factory Kynoch 535 grain loads, listed at 2400 fps, were just brutal. I loaded 570 grain Woodleigh's to about 2175, much better on the shoulder.

 

[grand veneur]

It does not matter to us in 2024 who designed the cartridge 500 Jeffery alias 12,7x70 Schüler first. Certainly everything suggests that it was Schüler in Suhl, but Jeffery's use of Mauser magnum actions can be seen as significantly more advanced than to adapt by various modifications the standard Mauser 98 actions to this cartridge. The cartridge 500 Jeffery is in all cases better suited for a Magnum action. It's unclear whether the cartridge was ever loaded with Cordite or not, it does not seem to are the case before the WWII. I don't know what kind of ammunition was used after the WWII when rifles of this caliber were still in use, in the British and also in the French colonial empire. The Gun Digest from 1960 lists the cartridge 500 Jeffery with a load of 95gr Cordite.

 

[Riflecrank]

Bill Fleming indicates in his book
BRITISH RIFLE CARTRIDGES
A SUMMARY OF CASE TYPES, HEADSTAMPS, BULLETS AND CHARGE VARIATIONS, on page 132:

.500 Jeffery date of origin 1928.
Ammo manufacturer GECADO ( German ! ) claimed to use two different charges with the 535-gr bullet, both softs and solids,
95.0 grains Cordite
or
118.0 grains of Nitro Cellulose/flake

And I thought German ammo was not loaded with Cordite ...

A Birmingham Proof House record from the monograph is dated 1937 and shows service load and proof load charges, for "Rimless .500 German Rifle Mauser Action"
proofed with 116.1 grains "FLAKE" and 533.6-gr bullet.
Service load of 105.0 grains "FLAKE" with 533.6-gr bullet was noted elsewhere (see below).
Noted on that load was "'Special' for H. Leonard," who built the first 21 of 24 original .500 Jeffery rifles for W. J. Jeffery.
That included the customized one-of-a-kind for C. Fletcher Jamieson in 1937, by H. Leonard,
serial number 25554.
George Gibbs of Bristol made the last three of the 24 originals for W. J. Jeffery.

One double rifle was built by Westley Richards for the ".500 German Rimless" also in 1937 according to the monograph, sold to a "Mr. Gross."
This one shows proof load of 116.1 grains FLAKE with 570-gr bullet, same bullet as used in the .500 3-1/4 Cart. ? Service load is there specified as 116.1 grains FLAKE with 533.6-gr bullet !
Then we have the 105 grains of FLAKE listed as service load and 116 grains of FLAKE for proof load
with same 533.6-gr bullets ...
Then "Reports, References, etc." reads, best I can tell:
"Proved with heavier bullet (& service charge) after consultation with Mr. Green & Mr. Leonard, no Cordite service load being known.
Velocity as reported by Mr. Fenly who carried out special test at my request, with the German ammunition supplied by Leonard."
Signed "Leonard 2-3-37"

Velocity at 60 yards of 2418 fps with the 533.6-gr service load ???

"... no Cordite service load being known."
Leonard supplied all ammo used for proof.
All the ammo supplied by W. J. Jeffery to their rifle buyers was made by GECADO, a German firm in Dornheim.
D. J. Lewis says on page 7 of the monograph: "All the ammunition was of German origin supplied by Leonard of Birmingham, England." He found the double rifle proof records puzzling too: "!?"

Some Schuler records went to French occupiers after WWII, then the commie Russians took over and destroyed the rest. Chaos and confusion are mates.

 

[grand veneur]

As far as ammunition for the cartridge 500 Jeffery is concerned, the ones below are leftovers from the ammunition that was supplied with my rifle at the time. The 535gr bullet is said to have a muzzle velocity of 2400 fps. To achieve this, the cartridge contains more than 130gr of a powder that I could not identify. I tried to duplicate the load and roughly achieved it with a load of R 904 powder from Rottweil slightly less than 130gr. The recoil in both cases matches the performance of the cartridge, but it is a hard work to shoot with this rifle. The gunsmith had called to ask me if I could handle the factory loads from W.Romey as there were some problems with it from the customer side. As far as I know, W.Romey later reduced the load of his cartridges to a muzzle velocity of 680 ms/2230 fps, which is actually more in line with what is available nowadays as factory loads.

 

[Gert Odendaal]

Great information and historical facts of the .500 Jeffery. My final specifications for the .500 Jeffery barrel I ordered is :

Members, I am in the process of planning a .500 Jeffery build..it will be well received if you can upload some of your .500 Jeffery rifles and dimensions of the barrel.
My specifications of the .500 Jeffery are as follows.
Barrel lenght 22" inch /558.8 mm
Extended knox 106mm /4.17 inch
Diameter of muzzle 22mm/0.866
Will fit a 1/4 rib with a 2x distance flip up indicators .v-express standing sight.
Barrel band
Mauser MOD 98 action with a hinge bottom metal
Any comment will be well received ...

 

[grand veneur]

#8

Barrel length 24"
Diameter of muzzle 19,5mm
Mauser magnum action
Weight of the rifle about 11 lbs/5 kg without scope

 

[IvW]

24" barrel
Get a ZKK602 action it is magnum length works better on 500 Jeff
Weight 11.5 lbs empty
Will have to measure my barrel at muzzle