The .500 Bushwhacker is a .50 caliber semi-rimmed revolver
cartridge developed by TII Armory for the
Magnum Research BFR
The Magnum Research BFR is a single-action revolver manufactured by Magnum Research. Modeled after the Ruger Blackhawk, it is constructed of stainless steel and chambered for a number of powerful handgun cartridges, such as .460 S&W Magnum and . ...
revolvers. It is currently the most powerful revolver cartridge in the world, offering a similar level of ballistic performance to African
stopping rifles, such as the
.416 Rigby and
.470 Nitro Express. Given comparable barrel lengths, it is nearly twice as powerful as the
.500 S&W Magnum.
A 10-inch barrel revolver chambered for the cartridge is capable of penetrating 103 inches of 10% Clear Ballistics gel. A 24-inch barrel rifle chambered for the round can penetrate 127 inches of the same medium.
A 14-inch .500 Bushwhacker revolver can exceed 3,000 ft/s (914.4 m/s) with select loads.
Cartridge history
Brothers James Tow and Keith Tow of
Halsey, Oregon
Halsey is a city in Linn County, Oregon, United States. The population was 904 at the 2010 census.
History
The city was founded in 1872, and legally incorporated by the Oregon Legislative Assembly on October 20, 1876. The city takes its name fr ...
, developed the .500 Bushwhacker in 2021 to produce a repeating handgun capable of ethically harvesting dangerous game. They initially used the
.375 Ruger for a parent case, fireforming the brass cylindrical and threading the bases for rims. The result was a cartridge that is essentially a lengthened .500 S&W Magnum. New manufactured brass is now produced by the Bertram Bullet Company.
Design, specifications, and use
The .500 Bushwhacker is designed to operate at comparable chamber pressures to the .500 S&W Magnum. Since the case is simply a lengthened version of the .500 S&W Magnum, the cylinder wall thickness remains the same on a firearm converted to the larger cartridge. Accordingly, the same pressure level can safely be maintained in firearms capable of accommodating the additional cartridge length. Firearms converted to the .500 Bushwhacker are also capable of firing .500 S&W Magnum,
.500 S&W Special, and .500 JRH ammunition.
To ensure manageable recoil in converted revolvers, all .500 Bushwhacker conversions produced by TII Armory include the installation of a rifle-style muzzle brake.
Since the .500 Bushwhacker is capable of firing equivalent weight bullets at nearly twice the velocity of other large bore handgun cartridges, such as the
.480 Ruger and
.500 Linebaugh, it is advisable that monometal bullets be used for dangerous game hunting, so as to guard against bullet failures.
Commercial loadings of the .500 Bushwhacker outperform all rifle loadings of
.45-70 Government, making the cartridge not only the most powerful revolver round but also very powerful by rifle standards.
See also
*
12 mm caliber
This is a list of firearm cartridges which have bullets in the to range.
*''Length'' refers to the cartridge case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Instances
* Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design
* Specia ...
*
List of handgun cartridges
This is a list of handgun Cartridge (weaponry), cartridges, approximately in order of increasing caliber.
Table of handgun cartridges
Other cartridges used in handguns
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Table of handgun and rifle cartridges
This is a table of selected pistol/submachine gun and rifle/machine gun cartridges by common name. Data values are the highest found for the cartridge, and might not occur in the same load (e.g. the highest muzzle energy might not be in the same ...
Footnotes
References
*
The .500 Bushwhacker: Do You Feel Lucky? " by William Lawson
*
Wheelgun Wednesday: New .500 Bushwhacker Cartridge for BFR Revolvers by TII Armory" by Hrachya Hayrapetyan
*
" by James Tow
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Pistol and rifle cartridges
Magnum pistol cartridges
Weapons and ammunition introduced in 2022