building a 500 Jeffery. P14

Evanguy

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ok so i know the title doesn't much make sense as the rounds are 25$ each so there isn't much cheap about shooting a 500 Jeffery. but I'm working on a rifle that is chambered in this beautiful short, fat stubby round on the cheap, a few people asked about it so i figure id post a few pics and some info.

its a no frills strong utilitarian rifle used for carrying while in the bush and shooting stuff with zero worry of damaging it.
its 39 inches over all length and weights almost 10 pounds

it started life as a sporter p14 i got in a trade. i wanted to build another big bore (at the time i was working on my 460 weatherby) so i picked up a gunsmith special 50bmg barrel from Canada ammo and ordered a 500 Jeffery reamer from Pt&d. what i liked about it was its short, fits in the action no problem and it thumps good. i used a 13.10mm Kentip drill to go as deep as the case goes as the barrel was nitrated coated so i didn't wipe out the reamer. she rubbed a little cutting the free bore and lead, but cut it

i went with an 18.5" barrel. 6" long knox at 33mm diameter then 6" of 2 (maybe 3) degree taper then 6" of straight 27mm diameter

the way i used the p14 extractor and set head space was, i reamed the chamber so the case was sticking out 0.065 (back of barrel to bolt face) then counter bored the barrel to expose the extractor grove in the case and the counter bore lets me use the 303 extractor with the end worked over a bit.

in the pics one you will see a 308 case in the muzzle, the weight pic is missing the mag box so its a little more and the other speak for them selves

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Now that is a thumper. I remember an article I read once said, "the .500 Jeffery is more than enough for elephant and overkill for Cape buffalo."

Where are you finding ammo?
 
I got the ammo from "halifax army and navy store" they ordered it in for me.

That sako ammo seems like an awesome price. Ill have to find some

Im not sure what the rifle was. I just bought it as a p14 sporter but the ear removal was tastefully done.

Im going to use iron sights on it. The p14 barrel has a marbles buck horn sight so ill use that and ill silver solder a front post.

And yup it should thump pretty good. Not as much as my wearherby but thats in limbo. I still shoot it but i wont take it across the country with me as my main carry gun.
 
That's going to be awesome. The more I have read about the 500 Jeffery and 505 Gibbs the more I want one. 458 Lott belts me about as hard as I like though.. It would be great fun.
 
Thats when people hotrod it, you can load anything real hot. This has a factory pressure limit of about 47k so using that pressure you cant get above 10kj but load it to the same as the 460 weatherby (64k) and yes its more.

Grey area for sure..but my box of ammo says 6500 ftlb at the muzzle
 
When you test fire the rifle, do it remotely. I'd be very suspicious of that stock splitting apart. The old dangerous game rifles often had cross bolts to reinforce the wrist.
 
Yeah i plan to bed it and add 2 cross bolts on infront of the trigger and one behind. But yes the first test fire wil be remote as my weatherby was.

My weatherby is holding up with one cross bolt but its a new made stock. Im pretty light so the rifle moves me out of the way. But a bigger guy may not be so lucky.

Im going to bed them both and add cross bolts.
 
There is 2 standard loads for it. Both use the max pressure of 47k

Load 1 is the original and its
570gr bullet
2200 fps
6160 ftlb
8400 j

Load 2 is from the 40's
535gr bullet
2400 fps
6800 ftlb
9200j


My 460 weatherby runs
600gr bullet
2440 fps
8000 ftlb
10800j
 
You should put a dovetailed recoil block on the barrel to bed into the stock, this will help extremely well in stopping stock split. All my guns 375 H&H have this, no stock splitting. My friends 505 Gibbs has a barrel dovetails recoil block too.
A good rear sight would be one of the NECG adjustable rear sights!
I'm building a 9.3x62 on a Remington model 30 (Enfield) very similar build to yours minus the recoil :)
Great actions the Enfields, tough as he'll,love'm !!!
Great project!
 
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