Now some people may look at at that less than flattering pic of me around camp and conclude that my fitness was not up to scratch and that may have been partially true although I had dropped quite a few KG's before the trip and was walking big KM's every morning but nothing prepares you for what we did up there except for doing exactly that many times over and training in high heat, something impossible to do in Victoria in Winter. Still I had one of the best trips of my life with an absolute ripper bunch of blokes, really fantastic. The flights were good with no trouble at the airports either.

By the way that picture of me standing in front of that termite mound shows their height. I am 165cm so that gives you and idea.

As to the 505, it is one of the easiest cartridge to load for once you have to appropriate components which are all bigger than anything else. A factory crimp die is necessary as the bullets definitely move under recoil however I couldn't buy one even though Safari Arms in South Africa had them for sale, a special run from Lee Dies. Sending it with the post was not an option and DHL SA wanted $1000 AUD to ship something that fits in the palm of your hand, obviously corrupt. So I made one by reverse engineering a 458 crimp die and scaling it up to suit the 505.

It doesn' mater what brass you use or what projectile, they all shoot into the same point of impact. Before I went I did significant load testing of different projectiles which included:

525 grain RNSN Woodleigh 2100 fps
525 grain RNSN Barnes (Old stock with a lead core) 2130 fps
525 Grain RNSN Hornady DGX 2200 fps
525 Grain RNSN Bertram 2100 fps
600 grain PPSN Woodleigh 2030 fps

For some reason the Hornady's were noticeably quicker and you could feel it in the recoil but all projectiles shot to the same point of impact over 25 and 50 yards.
Brass was a mix of Bertram, Norma and Jamison.
All loads used 130 grains of ADI AR2213SC with and a 1" long 1/2" diameter foam filler except the 600 grain Woodleighs which used 121 grains of the same powder. Federal 215 Magnum primers were used.

Some advice when chronographing, stand well back.

I will do a post on the rifle itself in due course.

Matt.