The Smith & Wesson X-Frame: The .500 and .460 Magnums

The Smith & Wesson X-Frame: Living With the Biggest Revolvers Ever Built

The first time you pick up an X-Frame, you laugh. You can't help it. It's the biggest revolver Smith & Wesson has ever built — so big the company had to design an entirely new frame to hold it, because nothing else in the catalog was up to the job. Hand one to someone who's never held a .500 and watch their expression change. It is a lot of gun. That's precisely the point of it.

There are two of these giants, and between them they hold two different world records. The Model 500 is about the most powerful revolver you can buy over a counter. The 460 XVR is the fastest. Smith built one to hit like a freight train and the other to shoot like a laser, and set them both on the same oversized frame — five shots, a ported barrel, and enough steel to keep the recoil in check. The people who carry these are usually handgun hunters pursuing the largest game that walks, and they're some of the most demanding customers I build for, because a revolver this size makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about carrying one.

The .500: All the Power There Is

The Model 500 came first, in 2003, and it made headlines for one simple reason — Smith aimed it squarely at the title of most powerful production revolver on earth, and hit it. Chambered in .500 S&W Magnum, it will drive a 440-grain bullet out of the muzzle at close to 1,700 feet per second. A figure like that doesn't mean much until you consider what it does: this is a cartridge with no real ceiling on what it will take. Cape buffalo, the great coastal brown bears, anything on the continent. There is very little you can hunt with a handgun that a .500 cannot answer.

It's a five-shooter, and it's a serious armful of steel — but that heft is the feature, not the flaw. Between the weight of the gun and the ported barrel venting gas at the muzzle, a .500 is considerably more civil to shoot than its reputation suggests. Gentle? No. But it won't punish your wrist the way people expect, either. It is simply the most power Smith & Wesson will sell you in a single hand.

The .460: The Fastest Revolver Alive

Where the 500 chases power, the 460 XVR chases speed — and the name states it plainly. XVR is Smith's shorthand for X-treme Velocity Revolver, and it is no exaggeration: the .460 S&W Magnum is the fastest production revolver cartridge in the world, driving a light bullet past 2,300 feet per second. That velocity flattens the trajectory considerably, which is exactly what you want when the animal is a long way off and there's no time to hold a foot over its back.

But the real trick the 460 performs — the one nothing else can — is what it will chamber. Because of how the cylinder is cut, a single 460 will fire .460 S&W, .454 Casull, .45 Colt, and even .45 Schofield. Consider what that gives you: mild, inexpensive .45 Colt for an afternoon of practice without punishment, then full-house .460 loads in the same cylinder when it's time to hunt. One revolver, four cartridges, mild to wild. There is nothing else quite like it — and it's why a good many shooters who will only ever own one big Smith choose the 460 over the 500.

So Which Way Do You Lean?

It comes down to what you're pursuing. If you want the last word in raw stopping power — the heaviest bullets, the largest and most dangerous game on the planet — the 500 is the hammer. If you'd rather have flat-shooting speed and the run-anything versatility of four cartridges in one cylinder, the 460 is your revolver. Neither answer is wrong. Both are far more gun than most animals will ever require, and in all honesty, plenty of people buy one for no better reason than they want the most impressive revolver ever made — which is reason enough.

Now For the Hard Part: Carrying It

This is where I come in, because owning an X-Frame and carrying one are two very different problems. A .500 or a .460 with a long barrel runs right around four and a half pounds and better than a foot in length. Hang that from your belt and it will pull hard to one side and wear your hip raw within the first mile. A hip holster and a gun this size simply aren't friends.

A chest rig is the answer to that. Ride the revolver high on your chest and all that weight sits close and square to your center, clear of your pack straps and out from under your hands. When a quiet day turns into a fast one, the gun is right there beneath your chin — not buried under a pack belt down on your hip. For a revolver this heavy, in the country these guns are carried, chest carry isn't a luxury. It's the only thing that makes sense.

I build a great deal of X-Frame leather. For backcountry carry I'd point you to my Kodiak Leather Chest Holster, wet-molded to your exact revolver and barrel length, and I keep a handful of Smith & Wesson chest rigs built and on the shelf, ready to ship. Whether you're after a Smith & Wesson 500 holster or a 460, the fit is cut to your revolver — right down to the barrel. Running a scope, a red dot, or one of the longest barrels? Reach out before you order so we get it exactly right the first time.

An X-Frame is Smith & Wesson with the governor removed — one built for power, one for speed, both built to put a grin on your face the moment you lift one out of the box. Give it the right leather to ride in, and that big Smith will go with you every mile into the high country instead of staying home in the safe.