My New 500 B&M.......

[buckmarkhunter]

The b&m guns look like a sweet setup. I love that a big gun can have a great looking pc of wood.

 

[michael458]

I have a M70 CRF WSM action waiting to become a 458 B&M. Looking for a deal on another for my son. I'm sold on the B&M line up, I like short barrel big bores. This is my 500 MDM with it's new stock and a hippo I took this year in Zimbabwe with it. 1 shot 72 yards on land. View attachment 327001View attachment 327002

John J............. Will be shooting your 500 MDM this week. Maybe starting today. Want to give it a good work out. If all goes well, I will be sending it first of next week......... I suspect it will, Wes had dummy rounds to run through it to make sure the stock was fit proper for the bottom metal. But still need to shoot it a bit and make sure........ And while working with your 500, I will work with mine and get it up and running..........

BTW, your stock looks really good, better than the photos can show.

 

[Tanks]

Speaking of 500 MDMs I love mine and it worked real well on a couple of elephants in Africa.

 

[michael458]

Hey Tanks....... Tried to give you a call back but you were out too...... Tanks has the only left hand 500 MDM in existence........ Back in the day, I wanted to try a couple of Montana actions in RUM. This left hand of Tanks was one of them. I always get calls on Lefty guns and they are hard to come by. 500 MDM requires a Winchester M70 Control Feed RUM action. There was never a lefty one of these that I am aware of. The Montana turned out very well and proved to be as good as the Winchester for the build. I still have the other Right hand Montana action.

 

[John J]

Hey Tanks....... Tried to give you a call back but you were out too...... Tanks has the only left hand 500 MDM in existence........ Back in the day, I wanted to try a couple of Montana actions in RUM. This left hand of Tanks was one of them. I always get calls on Lefty guns and they are hard to come by. 500 MDM requires a Winchester M70 Control Feed RUM action. There was never a lefty one of these that I am aware of. The Montana turned out very well and proved to be as good as the Winchester for the build. I still have the other Right hand Montana action.

Michael how much does a Montana action go for vs buying a complete rifle for the action?

 

[michael458]

John, I had those Montana actions made probably sometime 2011 or so? At the most a year before Tanks built his gun, I can't remember exactly. At any rate, they were $800 at the time. Not sure what they would be now?

I have not looked in a long time for a Winchester M70 RUM gun, but last I looked you could still find them on occasion for $1000 or so. Since I have 4-5 on hand, I have not looked for any, and in addition have that Montana still on hand too.......

For WSM actions I think you can still get the Winchester New Haven guns fairly reasonable, probably less than a new Montana. I looked at the Montanas hard because the Winchesters are are going to dry up completely one day. Most people are wasting them on 404s.... LOL.............

 

[John J]

For WSM actions I think you can still get the Winchester New Haven guns fairly reasonable, probably less than a new Montana. I looked at the Montanas hard because the Winchesters are are going to dry up completely one day. Most people are wasting them on 404s.... LOL.............

Haha, I have a few on my gunbroker watch list for $600. I picked one up in Colorado for $450 with a scope. The PH in Zim loved that 500. He and the trackers shot it. It was a great experience for them ( the trackers) he said. They don't get to shoot clients rifles let alone the big ones. The two government game scouts didn't really want to but the couldn't look like sissys in front of the others.

 

[michael458]

John J........Just finished putting 20 rds through you gun, some minor iron sight in and tests...... So far. So Good. Shooting some crap ammo as well. Ammo fine, but the brass is Die Formed, so not nicely ironed out proper brass. The kind Paul T uses! LOL.... I most certainly would not show anyone this ammo..... I had made a 100 rounds or so last fall with various obsolete bullets, some 460 Raptors, that are now 450s because I enlarged the cavity some back many years ago. Running these a modest 2350 fps. Then some 550 #13 Solids. These were done with a .540 nose projection above the bands, I later changed that to a .600 on the .500s. So the 550s while good are basically obsolete as well. These are not top end, but running nicely at 2180 fps in your gun...... So far, zero issues feed and function.........

Also shooting the 500 B&M and sighting it in too........ All good with that one as well...........

 

[John J]

Great, I appreciate you going over the rifle. Looking forward to seeing the new stock in person. Paul T was the facilitator last year. Quite a round about way to get a rifle. Almost had a baboon with that rifle. The large flip up white bead popped up when I pulled it out of the soft case unknown to me. It looked like the moon on the end of the barrel when I went to take the shot and he got away. I'll probably trade it out for a plane old bead of the correct height.

 

[PaulT]

All this talk of the 500 B&M.

Meh, a little too vanilla ice cream for my liking !

If you're going to rock a .50 cal then make mine the "grand-daddy" !!!!
THE MDM ULTRA MAG, yeeehaa.

John, please note that all of Michael's derogatory comments towards my hand-loads are driven out of pure jealousy.
He is OCD when it comes to handloads, I mean he expects all of the wrinkles to be gone from the cases, the necks the correct lengths and the shoulders in exactly the right spot, well blow me down with a feather that's what chambers are for, getting all the rough spots out of your loads is what I reckon !!!!!
So long as you can ram-em up the spout the firing process will smooth everything else out

 

[michael458]

Paul T most awful looking ammo I ever seen in my life. Knots, wrinkled up, dirty, looks like it rolled around the back of the pickup for an entire hunting season........Exactly what you would expect out of a Australian I reckon...................LOL..................

And he was hunting with it and showing it off! Worse, he had boxes of it! I rummaged thru and could not find even ONE decent piece of ammo.

Needless to say it was an experience I could not ever get out of my mind.........................HEH................

Our friend Sam made both Paul and I some forming dies. And while it gets you there, there are some bumps and wrinkles. I love it and it beats blowing the cases out with corn meal as far as time consuming, but they sure are ugly as hell. Nothing you want to show anyone for sure............

Anytime that I would do any load development on the 500 MDM I would use this formed brass. When I finished, I had nicely ironed out proper brass. And it worked out nice as far as pressures, because the formed brass would always be about 2000 PSI higher pressure than the Nice and Proper Fire Formed brass., this left you a little cushion on the data, especially with Paul T using the data, keeps him SAFE, maybe......????? I guess not in Paul's case, since he don't use proper brass, only Ugly, gnarly looking stuff..............

OMG....... I just thought of something, I bet Paul discards the nice Fire Formed brass! HEH.................

I have been giving poor Paul grief over that ammo now for some years...............

Now, back to the 500s........ and Myrtle...........The first 500 MDM built busted two stocks before I discovered Accurate Innovations. First one took 18 rounds, second one took 4 rounds. AI was still in South Dakota at the time, and I let them talk me into a Myrtle Stock for two guns, a 416 and of course the 500. This gun I hunted with Paul the first time in 2009. Will never forget, I was rather excited, first time out with the 500, had several new .500 caliber bullets I was working with, and was spouting off numbers and this and that to Paul for a day before going to the field. Paul would sit across from me, just kinda smile a little and nod his head. I had seen that look before, Guides, PH's and such always get idiot clients in, know everything, and Blah blah blah. Well, Pauly was giving me that look! HEH........ OK, yes, don't blame him, he hears BS all the time, every client.......... HEH.............

Anyway, we hunted that rifle well, and the Myrtle started turning color, from white to nasty dirty looking on that trip....................

Later I decided I did not want or need the long and cumbersome 21 inch original barrel. Wes had bought out AI and moved it to North Carolina, and I had been working with Wes on many other specific B&M stocks/rifles. We modified all the B&M stocks to suit the shorter barrels. It was time to completely redo the original 500 MDM. So sent the rifle part to Brian at SSK, had barrel shortened to 19 inches and hi polish blue removed and replaced with Matte Black GunKote. In the meantime the Myrtle Stock went to Wes for total refinish, shortens some, new shorter Ebony tip and some standard checkering.......... It came out perfect...............

Then it went back to hunt with Paul in 2013 I believe and we put it through the ringer once again.................

Today it has turned color again, since it was not sealed with a clear coat hi gloss. Still looks good, just dirty looking. Perfect Australian rifle I reckon, and matches Paul's Ammo!
HEH..............

 

[michael458]

The large flip up white bead popped up when I pulled it out of the soft case unknown to me. It looked like the moon on the end of the barrel when I went to take the shot and he got away. I'll probably trade it out for a plane old bead of the correct height.

Yes, that NECG Flip up BIG BEAD is standard fair on all the B&Ms. Yep, its big, but its easy to put on a buffalo at 15 yards or so........ and fast...........

I hope to be on the range this morning again, both with your gun and the other 500 B&M. Which is actually the new gun and not fired yet. I put the old 500 B&M in the new stock, the new gun in the old stock.... bastogne. That barrel I got from Russ had the slanted square partridge sight on it, very nice for irons, but I also had a red Fiber Optic, so I put the fiber optic on this gun. I am going to try it this morning and see how I like it.

Now don't forget, ON YOUR GUN, with the big white flip up, there is a smaller brass bead behind that, just flip the big white one down, and you have the other in place. I will try to see if I can shoot that bead for you this morning. You already have it, just find it.... HEH...........

 

[PaulT]

"because the formed brass would always be about 2000 PSI higher pressure than the Nice and Proper Fire Formed brass., this left you a little cushion on the data, especially with Paul T using the data, keeps him SAFE, maybe......????? I guess not in Paul's case, since he don't use proper brass, only Ugly, gnarly looking stuff.............."

Hey, I may have lost my eye-brows a couple of times, but there's nothing wrong with way my brass and loads look and work. Way too many buffalo fertilizing the Northern plains to dispute that fact. Pretty or not, they certainly go BANG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[michael458]

Hey, I may have lost my eye-brows a couple of times, but there's nothing wrong with way my brass and loads look and work. Way too many buffalo fertilizing the Northern plains to dispute that fact. Pretty or not, they certainly go BANG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HEH...... No argument there. I think you can measure that in "tons of Buffalo in the Dirt"............ Forget numbers, easier to keep up with tonnage...................

Another good day with the 500s yesterday........ John T's gun keeps on performing. I found some more ugly ass ammo I did, some with 335 Raptors with Talon Tips, 95/RL 7 they were hammering along at 2765 fps. I can attest to these being extremely effective on all plains game. Some few years ago I was in South Africa on a bullet test mission, with this same bullet and load. I had been shooting several things, zebra, wildebeest and such, and all were DRT on the spot, I don't think they even kicked a leg back and forth. Then there was this one big wildebeest buck, and he was close about 35 yards. He turned to run, and I was a little off balance, and not the best running shot, but I turned one loose regardless. CRAP, gut shot and off he goes, no chance second shot! I knew we were in for a very long follow up, kicking myself hard for being STUPID. And not to mention eating into my bullet testing time as well!

Andrew had a good follow up dog at the time. Named Ruger of all things, I would have at least named him Winchester, or something proper! At any rate, the dog took off on the trail running, and we were following up behind the dog. In a very short couple of minutes the dog started going crazy, and had stopped. Off we go........ We only went around 250-275 yards or so, and there was the Wildebeest "Stone Cold Dead"........... Inspecting the shot, sure enough, entered the guts, and exited the guts far side, never going into vitals, but here he was stone cold dead!

Inspection back at the skinning shed showed a complete MESS inside, everything rear of vitals was literally MUSH......... So much damage back there from the Raptor blades and bullet, it killed the thing. I never seen anything like that, or even ever heard of anything like that.

Anyway, back to the range work..... Had some 450 #13 Solids loaded, 106/H-4895. Not sure when I had loaded these, but shot most of them up, maybe 10 or so. Gets your attention at 2600 fps. Excellent bullet as well.

Then I sighted in the other 500 B&M and shooting same bullet at 2400 seemed like a mouse gun.... HEH....... I used the 410 Talon Tipped Raptor at 2500 fps on a buffalo back in 2104, my last hunt, it ripped it to pieces, could do nothing but turn around 180 degrees. Followed up with one of the 450 #13 Solids, and aimed for the shoulders, fired, and down went the buffalo on the spot. I did not know it, see it, but I had fired through a 12 inch diameter tree! How, I cannot tell you to this day, I saw buffalo shoulder, and never saw a tree in front? At 2400 fps the bullet hit the tree so hard it knocked all the bark off on one side, penetrated the tree completely, went dead through both shoulders of the buffalo, exited, and may still be rambling about Zimbabwe somewhere................ I can only imagine what one of these does at 2600 fps..........

Anyway, back on the range today with the 500 MDM and 500 B&Ms and some other stuff I have had pending for months now...................Paul, you need to plan a visit sometime, I could use some assistance here with various things............Kinda miss having you around ole Pal!

 

[geoff rath]

John, I had those Montana actions made probably sometime 2011 or so? At the most a year before Tanks built his gun, I can't remember exactly. At any rate, they were $800 at the time. Not sure what they would be now?

I have not looked in a long time for a Winchester M70 RUM gun, but last I looked you could still find them on occasion for $1000 or so. Since I have 4-5 on hand, I have not looked for any, and in addition have that Montana still on hand too.......

For WSM actions I think you can still get the Winchester New Haven guns fairly reasonable, probably less than a new Montana. I looked at the Montanas hard because the Winchesters are are going to dry up completely one day. Most people are wasting them on 404s.... LOL.............

I know a couple of 404 fans who would take umbridge at your last comment; their loss

 

[michael458]

I know a couple of 404 fans who would take umbridge at your last comment; their loss

Yep, I stand 100% with that statement.......... nothing wrong with 404, its getting close to a decent caliber, not quite there, but working towards that goal................ But wasting a gun on .421 when you can use it in .500, just don't make good sense to me.........The numbers don't add up correctly..........

 

[Wyatt Smith]

@michael458 I’ve always wondered why the 500 MDM and B@M were .500 instead of .510.

 

[michael458]

@michael458 I’ve always wondered why the 500 MDM and B@M were .500 instead of .510.

Well, I will tell you......

In the beginning there was first a 1.65 inch case, WSM. Basically just cut it off and trim, stick a .500 caliber bullet in it. At .510 it would have bulged out too much, and just been plain ugly. At that moment, I had not even heard of a WSSM, never paid them any attention. I had a 338 WSM, WSM action. I saw that I had a lot of empty magazine there? What is longer than WSM, but very close dimensions? How about an RUM? OK great, now cut a RUM to 2.25 inches stick a .500 caliber bullet in it and like magic, fit the magazine perfectly, taking up all that magazine space! Nice..... Except, I was very sure that 2.25 inch RUM case would exceed terminal velocity for any of the current .500 caliber pistol bullets available, I had too much case capacity for available bullets in .500 caliber, so I cut it back to 1.95 inches............ and had a gun built by SSK.........

In Spring of 2006 I took this 18 inch gun on a shooting trip to test bullets, cartridge, rifle, shot about 25 animals in 5 days..... Everything did great, except for some Round Nose Solids I had JD make up for me, via Lehigh, before there really was a Lehigh.......... They were awful..........took 90 degree turns up and down, around and out the wrong directions, just awful........

Returning we went to work on solids, and also discovered CNC machined bullets....... now I had bullets that could handle more case capacity...... the 50 B&M .500 caliber, RUM case at 2.25 inches became real........

After discovering WSSM rifles...... it was a natural for the WSM case at 1.65, the 50 B&M Super Short was realized.........

.500 was becoming excellent, we had numerous .500 S&W bullets that were actually capable of great terminals, up to a point. Now we had CNC Lehigh bullets that could really hit some high marks......

In the RUM and WSM cases, anything over .500 would bulge outwards, and if you did anything about it, you had zero taper in the cartridges......... so .500 became THE caliber of choice to fit the cartridges, and the rifles.

I found a use for that 1.95 inch RUM as well, later on, 50 B&M SA.......... The SA standing for Semi-Auto and the big AR 10 platform...... perfect fit for the magazines..........

But even before that, I love the lever guns too.......... And now, there were far far more bullets available in .500 caliber than .510 caliber for lever guns, and specifically comparing 50 B&M Alaskan to 51 Alaskan.......... all based on 348 Winchester. Simple matter to run Starline 50 AK brass in the size die and load .500s........... We had, and have excellent 500S&W bullets that are just perfect in these guns terminally. One of the best is the 500 Hornady and in Marlins you can run it to 1850 fps or so in 18 inches, and a little more in the M71s..... and its a hammer. But, we also designed a slew of CEB and North Fork bullets for the lever guns as well.......... some nice big solids...........

So with the 50 B&M Alaskan, it was available bullets that made it inviting........ .500

Then I found the big RUM Winchester M70s........ and this brought on the big 2.8 inch RUM 500 MDM, and later this shorter version at 2.5 inches which is the topic of this thread..........

Short story........ Bullet bulge and taper keeping us to .500 caliber, bullet availability in the case of the lever guns.... and now today I have way way more .500 caliber CEB and North Forks than is available in .510 caliber...........Lehigh is also making some fantastic .500 caliber bullets...........500 just worked and fit the desired rifle platforms much better than .510 would have in those cases.......

Currently there are 6 .500 caliber B&M cartridges, for various sizes of bolt guns, semi-auto, lever, and single shot rifles..............unless I forgot one.........

Far more bullets available today as well........ Just from CEB I have 10 different weights of Solids to fit every cartridge and rifle type from 375 gr to 550 gr......... a couple of dandy solids from North Fork that John and I worked on before it was sold. Numerous Raptors, and Softs from CEB and North Fork.........a bullet for every use and every mission is available, and then a few more..............

No beast on the planet is safe now, not with .500 caliber on the loose...............LOL

This was an early shot of the first North Forks, later we made a change in the Solid Designs.......

Below is the newer designed North Fork Solids................

This was also early in the process of development of the CEB bullets ................

North Fork Premium 400 gr, and there is a 450 gr version as well........

These were developed specially for the 50 B&M, but incredible performance can be had in the larger 500 B&M and 500 MDM as well.........

An early photo of 50 B&M Alaskan, the 375 NonCon (Non-Conventional) was later named correctly as the "Raptor", and this version is no longer available, I thinned the blades on the hollow point, the bullet now weights 365 grains......Part of the tweaking process to get perfection.

And we did not leave the 50 Super Short out, it got the full bullet treatment from CEB and North Fork as well..........

 

[Wyatt Smith]

As always, you are a wealth of information.
Thanks.

 

[michael458]

As always, you are a wealth of information.
Thanks.

Thanks Wyatt, not sure about all that, but thanks.........

One thing I want to mention, in addition to the post above, and what was most important to me at the time, and actually still is. Its the Platform.... The Rifle. I wanted a specific size rifle, at this time it was the Winchester M70 WSM action. I wanted 18-20 inch barrel maximum. I did not want a big heavy long bulky gun, which is what most normal 51s would have been. I was still learning a lot back then, and what I learned that was of the most importance is that I could overcome any deficiencies that I might incur, with Bullet Tech.........And that is exactly what we did.

Even recently I saw or read somewhere that you just had to have at least .300 Sectional Density for such and such a bullet to be able to do whatever it was they wanted to do.............

B F S............ B*LL.... F**K*ING... S**T................... that is Old Tech, Old thinking and so out of date its ridiculous............. As proven in the 8 Factors of Solid Penetration....... Sectional Density is #8 on the list....... Number 8.......... Dead last, end of the line.............There are 7 Factors above #8 that are far more important. And, this goes for Non-Conventional CNC Trauma inflicting bullets as well......... I have Solids with .221 SD that will out perform, out penetrate and inflict more trauma than solids of over .350 SD time and time and time again and repeats in either test medium and or animal tissue.
And the same is true with Trauma Inflicting bullets.........

Bullet Technology.............. that is what makes any cartridge successful

A simple example is this............

The only measurement that matters is "Straight line Penetration" Anything after that is unstable.

No, I don't think you come up short at all in .500 Caliber..............................