The safety issue was mine from having to replace missing parts from a previous owner. I love it. I suppose that you might have seen pictures of my Blackhawk 835 Ulti-Mag. Some folks prefer wood stocks. I prefer the recoil reducing feature of my Knoxx stock. Only drawback is the 10 gauge over bored barrel prevents firing slugs. There are plenty of replacement or extra barrels available. Walmart has one of the better prices on replacement barrels and barrel scope combos. You can order on line and it's free shipping to the nearest Walmart.
From the rust and deep scratches that were on mine when I traded, I know it was abused and it came from a guy that comes to work on Monday with a huge scabbed up right shoulder on one side and a badly bruised left on the other. He said that he doubted that it had fired much more that 2 cases of shells, maybe 3 at the most.
To fix the safety was certainly no big deal. If you don't have any experience on breaking it down, just go on the web to YouTube and you can find plenty of videos on working on a 500. Same thing except for a few minor differences like the distance between the pin for the trigger assembly and the ejector screw and the length of the slide on the fore-end.
The #00 that was giving my problems, is no longer a problem and those loads were 18 pellets, twice the weight of a standard #00 nine pellet. Not as much muzzle velocity but a heavier load none the less.
Unless you are a glutton for punishment, I don't advise you run out and buy a bunch of 3-1/2 magnum rounds.
