Reeder Custom Guns - Boys get a physics lesson, Reeder style...

This nice college boy comes over every so often to do some target practice with Roman. This time he brought a couple Foreign students from China in tow. They had not handled forearms before and Roman gave them some lessons. In the melee, Roman decides to drag out Uncle Doug's Reeder built .500 Nitro Express Encore rifle. It has a 1" diameter 22" barrel with muzzle brake. I modified the laminate stocks and added lead to the mix bringing up the weight in the field to about 9-1/2 lb. Actually a pound or two light for a .500 but you are supposed to carry it more than shoot right? This one has well over 100 rnds. through it.

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The thing is recoil moves the gun back 6". It matters not how big or tough you are, it's coming back 6". The scope eye relief is about 5". Pre-shoot briefing always included this information. The boys ambled out with (3) prized 570 gr. SP (Perhaps Roman forgot they are $10 each, or more). The Lion Loads run about 2150 fps. Roman showed the boy how it was done first. The young man has some AK type carbines and a few handguns of his own, a young enthusiast.

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Now he is a member of the Crescent Club. Almost everyone has done it, if not you just were not trying. My last was a .308 Win. bolt gun that surprised me with my loose grip, I remember Doug got dinked, rightfully so with a .375 Rem. UM. Now this boy has a bragging scar from a prestigious .500 Nitro Express, not many can say that. He's actually proud of it well after the fact, not really hurt but now smarter. Roman fired a follow up to save face for himself, he got dented but not cut once, he remembers. lol

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I got hit in between the eyes with a 98 Mauser that had been re-barreled to a.458 Winchester one time. I had sunglasses on and it drove them into the bridge of my nose luckily I didn't get scared up, just a little swollen and bruised! It was built too light and had the ol slick Ram Line stock. Needless to say it went down the road. I have an old Ruger 77 tang safety in .458 now that's actually pretty fun to shoot its no worse than a 12 gauge. I've always heard the .378 Weatherby is brutal but I've never fired one, real fast slapping recoil.

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Give them the trail boss loads next time, at least to start. It’s for sale! $950 delivered to your ffl. Africa 2019 needs donors.....billdougfaith@yahoo.com

thing. Light Remington sporter stock with a quarter inch of varnish on it, couldn’t hardly feel the checkering. Like holding a greased pole (no comments here) . As I remember you didn’t keep it long....

maximum a normal human body can stand without flinching. One of the nutty gun writers was really pushing the 585 Nyati. A 300 Win Mag has around 31 footpounds of recoil if I remember correctly. A 30-06 has 21. The 585 with it's 750 grain bullet and 160 grains of powder has 180 foot pounds of recoil and well over 10,000 foot pounds of energy. We were building them on Ruger #1 rifles, about a 10 lb rifle.

On recoil the gun would instantly bloody your nose and loosen a couple of teeth on the right side of your face. Your lips would be numb for several minutes. We were shooting it with iron express sights so no scope tap. Kase and Nate and I would take turns shooting it. Two shots were the most any of us could handle at a time. We would set the gun aside for an hour or so, then pick it up and shoot one more shot, if our nose bleed had stopped.

For reference, in order of power, the 375 H&H shoots a 300 grain bullet at 2400 fps. The 470 Nitro is a 500 grain bullet at 2150 fps. The 500 Nitro is a 570 grain bullet at 2150 fps. The 505 Gibbs is a 525 grain bullet at 2300 fps. The 500 Jeffery is a 570 grain bullet at 2300 fps. and the 700 Nitro is a 1000 grain bullet at 2000 fps. The 585 Nyati leaves them all well behind (except the 700 Nitro) in power and recoil with a 750 grain bullet at 2500 fps. . if you are dumb enough to shoot it. A few years later I had to have 5 screws put in my right shoulder and I kinda think I know what caused it.

In the pic below..left to right..
50 Alaskan, 470 Nitro, 500 Nitro, 500 Jeffery, 505 Gibbs, 585 Nyati, 700 Nitro.
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By the way, we still build the 500 Jeffery in the #1 if you have a few rampaging elephant in your area.

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With sweaty palms I waited monthly and read those articles. Thankfully I was naive and believed everything I read. It was a joyous blissful time.

The idea was to make a .577 Nitro bolt gun. But the .577 Smokeless, in reality, was almost always held in complete emergency reserve and seldom used. The .577 (BP) Express had some validity in a 10 lb. double but the performance was not in the same ballpark. The big problem was, as you said, vicious recoil even to the seasoned big rifle shooter, plain dangerous. A detached retina is a more plausible and serious effect in my opinion. A 15 lb. gun is truly needed and that would be unmanageable. It all hearkens to the emergency 4-bore BP guns that themselves trace to the water-fowling "Punt" cannons never intended to be shoulder fired. Someone's wild idea that didn't pan out in reality but they did it anyway. The .577 Nitro actually evolved from the military .577 Snyder when transitioning to smokeless powder and comparatively very high pressures. True bore size is between 28 and 20 gauge!

To my reckoning, and from my limited experience, the varied .50's are about all that can be practically managed and truly effective. The .500 Nitro, .500 Jeffery, .505 Gibbs, filled the bill, worked, were proven. The efforts to push it further lost effectiveness and efficiency. IT is arguable if an animal can tell the difference from the .450's and .475's but some with experience do have opinions. But there is a tipping point.

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would have to tell you. I was worried the scope would give up (so I tried what I had laying around) but it shoots fine. It is really a push like a 3 inch 12 gauge more than a sharp jump (like that demon 375 UM...)

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hunting once back in high school. He had never been around firearms in his life. We gave him a brief on general gun safety and a once over with the rifle he was going to use, A Model 70 on .243. All was fine and dandy until he sealed his whole eye socket up to the bell of the scope and got ready to touch one off. We hollered before he could fire. I've often wondered how bad that would have smarted.

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