A good friend in Florida passed away recently and his family
sent some of his custom guns to us to sell for them. I will get more into these guns in the next day or so but one is so rare that I wanted you to see it. And before I do remember these guns have been in storage for probably 20 years and we have not yet cleaned them up so look past the wear on the finish. This gun is based on the TC Contender frame. We built it for him in 1987 or '88. It is one of only 2 guns made in this caliber. He hunted with it at the Tellico Junction preserve taking a couple of big hogs.
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Here is the gun.
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A pure hunting gun but with some gold accents like a solid gold lion on each side of the frame plus gold plated hammer and trigger.
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It has express sights with special front sight.
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And here is what makes it special..
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The other of the two has been on the internet quite a bit lately with a fellow shooting a box or two of ammo thru it.
When I unwrapped the gun, Robert, my main guy around here grabbed it and ran into the back yelling "mine mine mine".
So I guess the gun is sold. Here is the ammo for it.
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And the 500 Nitro compared with a 30-30.
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I’ll bet there’s a bit of recoil there!
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Mercifully the short barrel won't allow all 115 grs. to burn
Now much is only a guess, but you get your money's worth! I have a 22" braked Encore and it's all I can handle. I have to set my RCBS powder measure to drop 50% of the charge I actually need as it tops out way before it gets to my 105-115 gr. full charge volume. With that much powder if you are off a grain even with really bulky stick powders it's less than 1% variation. Lots different than loading .22 K-Hornet at 10 grs. a throw.
Bully for the gleeful new owner! There are not many things in a man's life that bring that kind of harmless (mostly) fun and excitement. It's lots cheaper and safer, overall, than the long two legged kind of fun. And should last longer.
The 500 Nitro was one of good friend Mark Sullivan's
favorite rounds for Cape Buffalo and other critters that would enjoy removing parts of your body. But there is another beast of a round that we built rifles in (and should have a brain scan due to that) and that round is the 585 Nyati. This round makes the 500 Nitro seem like a pussy cat in comparison. The 585 Nyati uses a 750 grain bullet in front of 160 grains of 4350 powder. The velocity is a bit under 2500 FPS with 10,300 foot pounds of energy. In a comparison the 30-06 has 20 foot pounds of recoil. The 585 Nyati has 180 foot pounds of recoil. For those doubting these figures go to Cartridges of the World in the "Wildcat Cartridges" section.
We have built 11 of these rifles for those wishing to punish themselves for something they did in years past. I did the test firing on all 11 of these guns and regretted it every time I pulled the trigger. The recoil of the Nyati bloodied my nose every shot. It loosened the teeth on the right side of my face. My shoulder was numb for an hour after each shot. I would shoot one round then set the rifle aside for an hour or two. I shot 5 shots thru each rifle in test firing the gun.It would take all day to shoot those 5 rounds.
One gentleman who ordered the rifle had a really pretty stock on a Weatherby 460 he wanted to use as the base stock. It was blond with dark streaks all thru the stock. I told him those streaks were sap running thru the gun and were weak spots and that the 586 would probably crack the stock. He argued with me so we used his stock. On the first shot the stock exploded into about 30 pieces. So we ended up with a bland walnut stock with no sap streaks thru it. But it held up. Each gun had a Decelerator butt pad and our muzzle brake and it still was all the fun I could stand. There were a couple of times when I was enjoying the recoil so much that I came close to having tears running down my face.
I currently have 5 screws holding my right shoulder in place and I don't even shoot a 12 gauge shotgun these days. I have had a couple of friends ask why did I recently buy that 28 gauge double shotgun that I showed on here. You now know the reason.
So if you ever want to experience the joy of shooting a 585 Nyati give me a call. I am sure I can find some brain dead gunsmith that will build it for you.
Here is the 500 Nitro Express on the left and 585 Nyati on the right for comparison.
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