What happens when you fire a .500 Smith & Wesson with no barrel?
The mighty 500 Smith & Wesson is known as one of the most powerful handguns on earth. This massive revolver can push bullets downrange at a staggering 2,000 feet per second depending on the type of ammo used. This firearm fires huge bullets capable of downing some of the biggest game on earth.
As a result, the 500 has a nasty reputation as being unpleasant to shoot due to the massive recoil from shooting such a large round. Especially in the shorter-barreled versions.
Recently, there has been a lot of YouTube shooting channels that have been experimenting with both short and extreme long barreled 500s. Edwin Sarkissian decided to take things to another level by removing the barrel completely. What will happen when he fires a massive 700-grain bullet from a barrel-less revolver?
Well, there you have it. You CAN fire a Smith & Wesson 500 without a barrel. Just be warned that if you're firing 700-grain bullets, it might lock up the cylinder. Of course, the better question is: "Who would want to?" As we already mentioned, this firearm has a mixed reputation among shooters and probably only YouTubers performing crazy experiments would be the ones to try something like this.
We were expecting a larger or more noticeable fireball from this experiment. However, there wasn't much of one at all. Aside from the cylinder locking up, it would probably be possible to hold and fire the revolver like this. Can't say we'd recommend that out of safety concerns. You'd likely need a moment of silence for your wrists after not having a barrel to channel and tame all that energy too. Ouch.
As silly as this experiment was, it was still fun to see the results. This is one of the things we love about all these Internet gun channels. They answer the weird questions you never thought to ask.
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
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