For about the last 9 months I have been having problems getting a decent hot handload for my 500 to be reliable, and I have used every trick in the book to try and get consistent velocities.

Things started off well enough when I was loading Ranier PLATED 335 grain bullets with 26 grains of AL-8, which were running at about 1350 FPS at DE 50 velocities. Then I started trying to work up hotter loads with Lil' Gun, and my velocities became erratic and my standard deviations went to hell. I switched to Berry's plated bullets, and thing just got worse. I tried different OAL's and crimping techniques, and nothing helped. So I finally listened to people telling me that plated bullets can't handle high velocities, and went out and shot a string of duplicate loads with 325 grain Speer JACKETED bullets. All of a sudden, all the problems and crappy velocity variations went away. In addition, the velocities finally went UP like they were supposed to, and for the highest powder weight string of 5 I had one round that went 1937 FPS!!

Moral of the story: Plated bullets aren't good for more than about 1300 - 1400 FPS, and after that they're USELESS. Berry's suck worse than Ranier's in the 500 S&W.

Yup.

Never understood why people were so concerned with these numbers, so please explain to me why.

I understand what you want to achieve, but if it is consistently within pressure limits and accurate, why worry about deviation? Yes, velocities may be a concern when looking for a power factor that you need to achieve for a certain application, but isn’t the 50GI got enough of what you need to do, considering the cartridge design?

Awhile back I was working a load using 200 gr lead SWC over a charge of Universal Clays. The load I was shooting basically shot into one hole after 5 shots, but there was a lot of unburned powder and the deviation amazed me when I considered the accuracy. So I dropped pursuing that load because of that reason and of course a couple others such as felt recoil verses velocity.

I am not trying to discredit or argue what you are saying, but there are several thing that I read in gun rags that I don't understand, so I am just asking why things like deviation is so important?

Your answer will humble me.

Jeez, Sam, I never thought of the 50GI as a backup gun before!

Deviation can be due to multiple things.
One is that unburned powder concept. A little more or less powder burns and it alters velocity. Slow powder, short barrel, bad ignition all can feed this. It may or not be an issue for your needs.
But another is a quirk of hot loads and soft bullets. A friend was trying to make major power factor with a 10mm revolver. With plated bullets. Velocity was all over the map. And he couldn't get the velocity up where he was expecting. He discovered upon trying to reload the gun that there was a donut of a bullet left in a couple chambers. The hot load had sent the center of the plated bullet on it's way, but left the outer skin of lead and plating in place. He switched to real jacketed bullets and the problem was solved. The conclusion was that the soft plated bullets weren't making the trip down the barrel intact and were either leaking pressure around the edges or coming out in multiple pieces.

Kurt

Consistency is the key - lets you know that you are doing things right - and safely - that is the most important thing -

A big SD can be a sign of big problems - start diagnosing the possible problems - move towards the solutions - make sure that things are allright - then move on.

When you are dealing with the power and potential for disaster that you can run into with the 500 Smith (HUGE Pressure and HUGE power factor) - you need to be very conscious of what you are doing.

Not something to take lightly.... SD is an indication of where you are - and more important than the overall velocity - you seee fluctuations of SD in a shot string - there is something wrong that needs to be looked into.

Most plated bullet vendors (Rainier and Berry's) say 1200 fps is the max; I've always wondered why they sold bullets for .41 Mag and .44 Mag when many loads for those calibers, especially in lighter bullets, are well over 1200 fps. I don't use them for 10mm, either, but I suspect in lighter and/or 40S&W loads they might be fine.

I didn't like loading them in .45 ACP, they deformed too easily and too often but they seemed to shoot OK. Perhaps for the price, it's a reasonable alternative for non-magnum use.

I fully agree, but have seen loads that are not near a max load, have more deviation than a person would like and they get all hung up on that one particular. Maybe because a person couldn't shoot for crap, he wants the numbers to look good on paper.

In view of a FEW other posts on this site, SD could stand for Governor Pawlenty SD!!!!

But I digress...

When you have a 5 shot string from a S&W 500 that has one round going at 1720 and another going at 1490, something is seriously Pawlentied up. In spite of the fact that you really don't have to worry about either the DE 50 or the S&W 500 falling apart before you hand does, something just isn't right with strings like that. Primers failing to ignite the powder?? Taper crimp not good enough?? One cylinder in the gun overbored?? Chrono not working with a 500 muzzle flash?? Bullet stripping out of the lands and losing pressure??

Until I went to jacketed bullets, I couldn't prove the last one was the true cause. The SD on my Alcan-8 was WAAYYY smaller than Lil' Gun, but running up charge weights of AL-8 got NO increase in velocity, so Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??

In addition, with a S&W 500, SD is about ALL you got to work on as far as consistency is concerned. You seriously think you can judge handload consistency with the accuracy of 5 shots groups with a 5.5 pound handgun that is putting out sligthly less energy than a 30-06 rifle round?? No way in hell can you shoot the 50th round like the first or the 25th.

Regardless of how fresh or tired your arm may be, the chrono doesn't lie, and a good SD means an inherently CONSISTENT load, no matter how crappy or good you are shooting that day. Until you get that consistency, there's NO point in even worrying about how good you can shoot at all.