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Joe Arterburn

The Beretta Model 70: More Than Just A Plinker

An otherwise unassuming .22 LR pistol, the Beretta Model 70 saw heavy use with Israeli anti-terror units and spies for several years. Its interesting history makes this little gun a lot more than just your average plinker.


 
In 1969, airplane hijackings were common occurrences. In the U.S. alone, there were 159 hijackings between May of 1961 and the end of 1972; more than 130 of which were between 1968 and 1972, which has been called the “golden age of hijacking.”

At times, there were more than one on the same day. Hijackers, quickly dubbed “skyjackers,” demanded to be flown to communist Cuba (so common that “take me to Cuba” became a punchline). Some were Cubans wanting to return to the fairly new Cuba under Castro, which they hoped promised to be a socialist paradise. Others wanted millions in cash or gold or to make a political statement.

Airplanes were easy targets, and airline policy was to comply with demands in hopes of getting passengers and planes returned to safety. Though it’s hard to imagine today, there was essentially no airport security in those days.

There were some deaths, mostly from shoot-outs with law enforcement, but there was no deliberate flying of planes into targets like we experienced on 9/11. However, a similarly minded scare in 1972 caught the attention of airlines, federal authorities and the public when three skyjackers threatened to crash a plane into an atomic reactor in Tennessee.

Shortly after that, the Federal Aviation Authority implemented physical screenings, metal detectors and luggage searches, entering a new era for airline travel.

Skyjacking wasn’t limited to the United States, and none of them grabbed headlines as much as the Arab terrorist campaign against El Al, Israel’s national airline. In July 1968, a plane bound from Rome to Tel Aviv was hijacked to Algiers, and Israeli passengers were held prisoner until exchanged for Arabs imprisoned in Israel. In December 1968, an attack on an El Al plane killed one passenger. In reprisal, two days later, Israelis attacked the airport in Beirut, destroying 13 planes.

The July skyjacking prompted the Israeli government to increase security by putting armed veteran Israeli soldiers aboard El Al planes.

Beretta Model 70

The Beretta Model 70 Sees Action


The sky marshals trained with .22-caliber Beretta Model 70 pistols; the only attack scenarios studied at the time were those occurring inside airplanes. The Model 70 was reportedly already the “signature terminator pistol of the Mossad,” Israel’s intelligence and covert operations agency. There are no public records, of course, but Model 70s in the hands of Mossad agents are believed to have brought about the demise of many terrorists, perhaps tabulating the most assassinations of any handgun.

Then came February 18, 1969, the most famous incident involving the Beretta 70. According to reports, four terrorists jumped from a white Volkswagen parked in a lot near the fenced runway of Zurich’s Kloten International Airport and opened fire with AK-47s on an El Al airplane taxiing in position for take-off, riddling the tires and cockpit with bullets.

Beretta 70 Rachamim
A Beretta Model 70 sets amid news accounts, headlines and photos of the 1969 terrorist attack on an airliner at Zurich’s Kloten International Airport. Aboard the plane was sky marshal Mordechai Rachamim who drew his Model 70, left the plane and engaged the terrorists, killing one. The other three were captured by Swiss police.

Aboard was sky marshal Mordechai Rachamim, who drew his Model 70 and went into action. With bullets hitting the body of the plane, Rachamim rushed to the cockpit and looked through the cockpit window. Seeing a man lying in the snow, Rachamim shot twice, but his pistol jammed—an unusual occurrence for the Model 70 chosen by the Mossad for its reliability.

Rachamim ran to the back of the plane and asked a flight attendant to open the back door and engage the emergency slide. Rachamim slid to the tarmac and ran behind the plane in a flanking maneuver of the location shots were being fired. He reloaded while on the move. (He reportedly carried two spare magazines.) He climbed the fence, saw a shooter with an AK-47 about 30 to 40 meters away between two snow piles. As he approached, Rachamim ordered the man, in English, to drop the rifle. When he didn’t comply, Rachamim fired three shots from about four meters away, one shot striking the attacker in the neck, the other two near the armpit, the wounds proving immediately fatal.

Beretta Model 70 with mag
The magazine will hold nine rounds but won’t engage with the action closed—the top round lining up with the barrel when the action is opened. The Mossad reportedly carried them with a full magazine but the barrel empty. The magazine’s curved pinky extension adds a measure of stability to the grip of the pistol.

Swiss police had then arrived and disarmed Rachamim and placed him under arrest. As he was led away, he saw the other terrorists being apprehended at gunpoint. The El Al pilot later died of injuries suffered in the attack; seven passengers were wounded.

Rachamim reportedly later told the court, “I started running in a wide circle toward the barrier behind which the Arabs had been shooting at the plane. I ran in a very wide circle to draw their fire toward me and prevent them from hitting the plane because I feared that any moment bullets might reach the fuel tanks and cause an explosion.” In court, he said the terrorist, armed with Kalashnikov automatic rifle made what appeared to be a threatening gesture. “It was then that I fired three shots at him,” Rachamim said.

Rachamim was released on bail and returned to Israel to a hero’s welcome. He was later acquitted of manslaughter charges; the terrorists, two men and a woman, received 12-year sentences. They were released a year later to meet hijackers’ demands.

Rachamim went back to work and would be back in the thick of things in 1972 when he and other commandos disguised as airline mechanics stormed a hijacked Sabena Airline flight in Tel Aviv. Rachamim killed one of the Palestinian terrorists with his Model 70; a second terrorist also bit the dust, apparently killed by other commandos.

Why The Beretta Model 70?


Always working to be at the top of security matters, the Israelis reportedly picked the Beretta 70 because it was compact, accurate and, despite Rachamim’s jam, a reliable performer. With little recoil, the Model 70 could easily be fired with less anticipatory flinching in rapid succession with fast recovery, delivering the eight-round magazine’s worth quickly and accurately. And, since they trained for engagements inside airliners, it was thought the .22-caliber rounds wouldn’t cause significant damage to the cabin or collateral damage to passengers.

22 ammo
A .22 caliber pistol was selected in part due to its intended role of being used inside pressurized airplane cabins.

The Model 70 was introduced in 1958 to replace and was based on Beretta’s 1935 pistol (replacing as well as the 1934, 948 and 949) which had been popular for about 25 years. Available in .22, .32 and .380 calibers, it was known as a smooth-operating, reliable and pleasurable handgun to shoot.

The Model 70 is nearly identical to the Model 71 that followed, though the 70 has low-profile fixed front sights while the 71 has adjustable sights, seen by some as an improvement that came about after the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Beretta Model 70 with sight adjustment tool
Beretta Model 70 with a sight adjustment tool.

Gun Digest’s Book of Guns & Prices notes that in the late 1960s some Model 70s were designated Model 100 for the U.S. market, where it was also known as Puma. (Model 71s were known as Jaguars.) In the late ’70s, a magazine safety was added, and the model designation switched to 70S.

Made of steel alloy, these have a solid, well-built feel with enough heft to hold the already negligible recoil to a minimum. The exposed hammer has a comforting throwback look, feel and function. And the slant of the pistol grip seems to naturally align sights with your eyes for a comfortable focal picture. The magazine features a curved forward extension that hugs the pinky finger, providing a snug, secure grip.

Beretta Model 70 sights
The simple fixed sights provide simple, effective accuracy. Both the front and rear sights are low profile, which helps when drawing from a holster.

The trigger, a sear-release mechanism, is crisp, neither light nor excessively heavy. At the time, Beretta touted the Model 70’s increased accuracy at short and long ranges, achieved by lengthening the barrel guide fitting the barrel into the receiver. The original design featured a cross-bolt safety (which was replaced with a levered sear-block safety), hold-open catch and push-button magazine release and was available with a 3.5- or 5.9-inch barrel.

Production of the Beretta Model 70 stopped in 1985 but interest remains and some, including the .32 and .380 models, can still be found for sale on websites and at gun stores.

Model 70s can be carried cocked and locked, but the Israeli technique was reportedly to carry it with a fully loaded magazine but an empty chamber, racking in a round as they drew it from the holster. And it’s hard to argue with Israeli technique.

Beretta M70 muzzle
Beretta Model 70s were also produced with threaded barrels, allowing for the use of suppressors, which can be assumed were used by the Mossad in clandestine operations.

Though it wasn’t designed for personal defense or law enforcement/military applications, the Model 70 has certainly proven itself capable of holding its own, though undoubtedly the vast majority of instances when it was brought into play against terrorists will never see the light of day.

They don’t publicly announce such things, but the Israelis reportedly took the Model 70 out of service in the mid to late 1970s, replacing it with a 9mm Beretta, model unknown.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the November 2021 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.


More Historical Handguns:

Punt Gun: Market-Hunting Mayhem With The Legendary Fowling Piece

Punt Gun 9

If utilizing a punt gun sounds like a dangerous proposition—firing an oversized shotgun from a fragile craft in frigid conditions at night—it was.

What Exactly Is A Punt Gun:

  • Generally, an oversized blackpower shotgun with a bore from 1½ to 2 inches.
  • Most specimens weight 100-plus pounds and could measure up to 12 feet in length.
  • Typically used in conjunction with a small skiff (or punt) for waterfowling.
  • Used around the heyday of the market-hunting era around the turn of the 20th Century.

Punt guns were oversized black-powder shotguns used by market hunters in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They were capable of downing scores of ducks with a single shot. However, to impugn them is to misunderstand the purpose, economic demands of the time and the world in which market hunters lived.

These were specialty guns, relatively rare, singular and deadly effective in purpose in the hands of skilled hunters plying their trade in a time of flocks of ducks so thick they darkened the sky.

A 1914 listing of “owners of big guns in the vicinity of Susquehanna Flats, Maryland,” listed 16 owners, three of them with two big guns each, for a total of 19 guns.

A description of the guns stated, “These guns are all about the same weight—100 to 125 pounds; length, 12 feet; diameter of bore from 1½ to 2 ins [inches].”

Punt Gun 6
An up-close view of a typical flintlock punt gun. Early flintlock punt guns were usually converted to fire percussion caps as firearms improved. (Photo: Lori
Burskey Bouchelle, Upper Bay Museum)

These guns of awesome dimensions are often associated with Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic seaboard, where many were employed in feeding the seemingly insatiable demand for wildfowl in the finest restaurants in the East.

The listing of big-gun owners is published in one of two definitive works on marketing hunting. The Outlaw Gunner by Harry M. Walsh (1971; Tidewater Publishers) focuses on the Chesapeake Bay area, home of the market-hunting heyday. The second book, Texas Market Hunting: Stories of Waterfowl, Game Laws and Outlaws by R.K. Sawyer (2013; Texas A&M University Press), covers the rise and fall of market hunting along the Texas coast.

Although the punt gun was more common with hunters on the Atlantic seaboard, some Texas market hunters, quick to pick up on successful tactics of the Chesapeake Bay watermen (shooting from sink boxes was another), manhandled cumbersome punt guns. As Sawyer states, the punt gun “was the most infamous, considered ‘the deadliest weapon known to waterfowl bagging.’”

Walsh said that even in the heyday, around the turn of the century, there were probably fewer than 100 guns in operation around Chesapeake Bay— more than on the list because, undoubtedly, many went unreported.

Market Hunting Heyday

The culinary demand, along with the market hunting trade, picked up after the Civil War, thanks to post-war advances in technology—particularly advancements in rail and water transportation.

Market hunting developed, or at least was perfected, around Chesapeake Bay, located relatively close to large population centers to which rail and water routes provided ready transportation. As rails connected other parts of the country, such as the Texas coast, the market hunting trade sprang up. Hunters filled thousands of barrels with ducks bound by train for northern cities and, with the advent of refrigeration aboard steamships, Europe.

Punt Gun 10
You can see just how huge these punt guns were and how much support they required to do their duck market-hunting job. Pulling the trigger set off a charge that could be heard far and wide, and the boat would be forced backward 40 feet or more. (Photo: Lori Burskey Bouchelle, Upper Bay Museum)

To be sure, when pump and semi-automatic shotguns (many side-by-sides served as well) came onto the scene, market hunters were quick to set aside their muzzleloading fowling pieces: Rapid-firing and rapid-reloading firearms that could be held to the shoulder had obvious advantages over a punt gun.

PUNT BOATS

Many punt boats were brought to the United States from England, where market hunters employed them with similar results, according to Jack Manning, curator of the Upper Bay Museum in North East, Maryland.

The name comes from the type of boat, a sneak skiff called a “punt” in England. It was a shallow-draft, flat-bottom craft designed particularly for getting the big gun in position to kill as many ducks as possible with one shot, he explained.

In his book, Walsh describes these boats. They were usually custom made by the watermen who understood the requirements.

Punts were generally one-man boats (although some two-man boats were used) from 16 to 18 feet long and with a 3½- to 4-foot beam, with boards running the length of the boat to reduce friction. Both bow and stern were sharp, Walsh said, to prevent gurgling in dead water as the hunters silently paddled toward a raft of sleeping or feeding ducks.

If it sounds like a dangerous proposition—firing an oversized shotgun from a fragile craft in frigid conditions at night—it was. “Here, one thin plank and 6 inches of freeboard were all that separated the hunter from eternity,” Walsh wrote.

The Punt Gun

Everything about a punt gun is oversized—the barrel, the hammer, the trigger and the stock. Stocks, Manning said, “were pretty crude, because they were just a tool,” not fine hunting pieces. Many were homemade, but some, such as the one in the Upper Bay Museum, show touches of gunsmith craftsmanship, such as a tapered, 1½-inch barrel and a “pretty well-made stock, with a dip in it; made almost like a real gunstock.”

Punt Gun 5
This front view of a punt boat shows a huge punt gun’s barrel resting in chocks on the bow. Burlap bags filled with sea grass were positioned to absorb recoil and (hopefully) not take the stern out of the boat. (Photo: Upper Bay Museum)

Manning pointed out that they were nicer than many of the crudely fashioned ones. And, he added, stocks often had a drilled hole through which the hunter could run a rope tied to a cork so if a game warden showed up, he could throw the gun overboard. If he wasn’t caught with the gun, he wasn’t charged. The hunter would come back later to look for the floating cork and pull up the gun.

One gunner went a step further to foil game wardens wise to this practice, Manning said. He tied on a heavy block of salt, which kept the cork submerged until the salt melted away. This allowed the cork to bob to the surface a couple days later, when the hunter would row out and retrieve his gun.

Market hunting was legal—a respected profession of watermen who made their living on the bay, fishing and crabbing in season. These men would hunt during the waterfowling months; and many of them guided sport hunters by day and then market hunt at night. Night hunting, however, was illegal. And because punt gunning required carefully approaching a large raft of ducks, it was most effective just at last light, when the gunner would silently slip into range.

“The best time to get on them was just before a storm, because they feed really heavy and don’t hear you sneaking up—because they make so much noise when they’re feeding,” Manning said (not that he knows from first-hand experience; although he did make a non-firing punt gun from patterns of the gun used by a local gunner).

Aiming was accomplished by shifting body weight to lower or raise the muzzle, which protruded over the bow. There was no need to finely sight the gun; just point it in the direction of the thickest part of the flock. There were tricks to get into range for what was mostly likely one shot a night.

Once rowed or push-poled to the vicinity of the resting flock, the hunter lay atop the big gun and, using short hand paddles, worked his way toward the flock, often guided by the sound of thousands of feeding and murmuring ducks. Some hunters used kerosene lamps in a reflective box on the bow, which produced a “duck-in-the-headlights” effect. White was the most effective camouflage, blending better in faded light on the water than a dark silhouette, which would stand out.

The gun muzzle protruded a few inches past the bow, the barrel resting in chocks on the bow and about mid-barrel. Burlap bags filled with sea grass were positioned to absorb recoil and “hopefully not take the stern out of the boat,” Manning said. Kickerboards provided reinforcement to “keep the gun from going out through the side of the boat,” he explained.
When in position, the gunner would slap the side of the boat, causing ducks to raise their heads and some to take wing. Pulling the trigger set off a charge that could be heard across the bay, and the boat would be forced backward 40 feet or more.

Manning cited an example of a punt gunner who once slid his skiff across ice, pulling it forward with ice hooks toward an opening packed with ducks. Upon firing, the recoil of the big gun spun the boat three or four revolutions. The shot killed 80 ducks.

The Load

There are accounts of punt gunners loading their guns with as much as a pound of powder and 2 pounds of shot, but Manning believes this, like many stories of past gunning exploits (such as hundreds of ducks being killed with one shot, when 40 to 60 were more likely), is an exaggeration.

Punt Gun 7
Definetly not a shoulder-fired scatter gun.

“A pound of powder is way more than what you’d put in one of those guns,” Manning pointed out. “More likely, the load was a pound of shot propelled by a like volume of black powder. So, whatever the volume of a pound of shot—usually No. 4s—was the volume of powder; maybe one-third of a can of powder. As big as they were, the guns could take only so much pressure.”

Over the powder, the gunner rammed wadding to compact the powder and build pressure as the powder ignited. Oakum—teased-apart rope fibers—was used, Manning said. (He also heard of cork balls wrapped with oakum being rammed down on the powder charge.) Then came the shot, over which was placed a cardboard disk cut to fit tightly and hold the shot in place.

Early flintlock punt guns were usually converted to fire percussion caps as firearms improved. Some didn’t bother with a trigger and hammer mechanism; they were fired by striking the cap with a common hammer, Manning said.

Ducks were bringing $2 to $3 per pair—except for the highly prized canvasbacks, which would bring $8 to $9 a pair. That was good money for a waterman trying to keep his family fed. (In fact, during the Depression, “The people who made money around here were the market gunners and moonshiners,” Manning said.)

The End Of Market Hunting

The passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 effectively put an end to market hunting. It was followed by additional conservation legislation well into the 1930s.

Bear in mind, however, that market hunters weren’t the only hunters racking up large daily kills. Sport hunters were also shooting hundreds of ducks a day, many of which undoubtedly were bound for restaurants. The combination of sinkboxes and easily reloaded cartridge shotguns (both pumps, such as Winchester’s Model 1897, and semi-autos, such as John Browning’s Remington Model 11s), was taking an enormous toll in the hands of market gunners and sport hunters alike.

Punt Gun 8
Even though it could bag up to 50 birds with one shot, a punt gun still had to be sighted in for maximum effectiveness.

Manning said sportsmen in New York and other Eastern states first sounded the alarm of declining duck populations, and states began clamping down with limits outlawing the sale of wildfowl and other regulations, but enforcement was sparse.

However, restrictions on bore size meant the end of the punt gun, many of which were confiscated and destroyed (the result was that surviving punt guns became highly sought-after collectables). Sawyer’s book admirably details the fight for game laws in Texas and the push for federal legislation.

And it would take federal legislation, in the form of the MBTA, to put real teeth and resources behind the new laws. “Practically,” Sawyer summarizes, “the most essential part of the MBTA was allocation of federal funds for enforcement.”

Market gunners were forced into an outlaw existence that lasted for years—well through the Great Depression—but the death knell of market hunters and punt guns had sounded.

We haven’t even talked about other market-gunner tools, such as swivel guns, multi-barreled battery guns and pipe guns made of ½-inch-thick boiler pipe … but that’s another story.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the June 2019 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Aspen PCP Pumps Up The Air Rifle

Seneca Dragon Claw 8

Giving you the ability to top off via an integral pump, the Aspen Pre Charged Pneumatic air rifle frees you from compressors and air tanks.

How The Aspen Outdoes Other PCP Air Rifles:

  • PCP air rifle that can be topped off with integral pump.
  • Built-in regulator ensures all shots achieve the same velocity, even as pressure deminishes.
  • Onboard pressure gauge and automatic over-pressure air release assure you don’t over-pump.
  • Feed off a 10-round rotary magazine.

Air Venturi’s latest introduction, the Aspen, combines the best of pre-charged pneumatic and pump air rifles. This means you can shoot, shoot, shoot to your heart’s content without being tied to a compressor or air tank.

The Aspen can be pressurized with compressed air from a compressor or tank but is quickly topped off with the built-in pump. As a result, you can keep a consistent pressure level. This means consistent velocity and performance from shot to shot to shot.

The Aspen (MSRP $429.99) also features a built-in regulator (a big deal in air guns), so all the shots go out under the same amount of power; and velocity and point of impact won’t change as onboard pressure diminishes—as they can in some PCP air guns. Essentially, impact won’t change from shot to shot as long as there is sufficient pressure on board to meet the regulated minimum.


Reap The Air Rifle Whirlwind:


Pumping up the Aspen does add to the air supply, but it won’t increase velocity, because the built-in regulator controls the actual pressure behind the pellets. In addition, there’s an onboard pressure gauge and automatic over-pressure air release to assure you don’t over-pump—no matter how enthusiastic you get.

Depending on the caliber (and power setting), you’re likely to get eight to 10 consistent shots in .177- and .22-caliber Aspens and about 20 overall before needing to replenish the air supply. In .25-caliber, figure on fewer shots. Nevertheless, the shot count goes up if you switch to low power for, say, practicing in your basement or shooting short range.

You can load the Aspen one pellet at a time or switch to a 10-shot rotary magazine (eight shots for the .25-caliber) for faster follow-up shots. And it comes with a 4×32 AO scope.

The article originally appeared in the June 2019 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Elmer Keith’s Smith & Wesson Triple-Lock .44 Special

Elmer Keith Triple Lock 44 Special 1

Elmer Keith proved that with practice and know-how, long-range shots with a revolver are possible.

What's Special About Smith & Wesson Triple-Lock:

  • Built on S&W's N-frame.
  • Cylinder has three locking points making it fit for larger and more powerful cartridges.
  • Original Triple-Lock did not have special heat-treated cylinders.
  • Available with barrels from 3.5 to 8.5 inches.
  • At first, there were two major models, one with fix sights and the Target Model with adjustable sights.

Item No. 17 on the auction list reads, “.44 Hand Ejector First Model (Triple-Lock) serial number 4325, .44 S&W Special, 7.5-inch barrel, blue finish, shipped April 7, 1910, Honeyman Hardware Co., Portland, OR.”

This is interesting in its own right for wheelgun aficionados, but it’s even more so when you ponder the revolver’s journey from Oregon and its intervening experiences in those 100-plus years between 1910 and 2016, at which time it landed in the hands of a Nebraska firearms collector.

Elmer Keith Triple Lock 44 Special 4
A bolt mechanism locks into the face of the cylinder, providing a solid lockup of the frame to cylinder.

Although much of the Smith & Wesson revolver’s early history is unrecorded; and it might have remained unnoted, perhaps being passed anonymously from generation to generation, owner to owner—had it not landed in the hands of one of the foremost pistoleers of the 20th century: Elmer Keith.

About Elmer Keith

I know you know about Elmer Keith. But humor me while I briefly describe his influence as one of the top gun writers of his day, which is to say a good portion of the mid-1900s. To give you an idea of the Elmer Keith era, he published his first firearms book, Sixgun Cartridges and Loads, in 1936, and his last, Hell, I Was There in 1979.

Keith was a rancher in Idaho, as well as a hunter and firearms enthusiast. He is perhaps most often associated with handguns and handgun hunting, but he was also an expert with the rifle and shotgun and made significant contributions to all three of those disciplines.

A man of small physical stature but a large personality and reputation, Keith favored a large Stetson cowboy hat and cigar; sometimes, a pipe. In addition to books, Keith wrote popular firearms columns and articles for American Rifleman and Guns and Ammo magazines, as well as other magazines (for one, True magazine). He’s best known, in my mind anyway, for his affiliation with Guns and Ammo, even though I have some 1950s-era editions of American Rifleman listing Keith on the masthead. This included the March 1950 edition, in which Keith was introduced as a staff writer—or as they put it, “Keith Joins Rifleman Staff: The noted Western gun writer augments Dope Bag panel of experts.”

Elmer Keith Triple Lock 44 Special 6
Elmer’s revolver features a McGivern Gold Dot inset on the front sight.

Keith was known for his fondness of big-bore firearms, particularly handguns—even more particularly, revolvers. A serious hunter who believed in using enough gun for the job at hand, Keith was not content with the handgun cartridges of his day. Large, slow bullets were not for him, nor were light, fast bullets. He wanted large, fast bullets, and he experimented with available cartridges, pushing the limits of cartridges and firearms alike.

Hefty, Hefty, Hefty

The beefy Triple-Lock, also known as the New Century (it was introduced in 1907), was right up his alley.


More Gun Collecting Info:


In designing the Triple-Lock, Smith & Wesson set out to create a large-frame wheelgun that could fire more-powerful loads. Based on earlier swing-out cylinder double-actions, such as the .32 Hand Ejector, .38 Military and Police and .38 S&W Special, the new revolver was beefed up, especially in the frame, to handle the company’s newly designed .44 Special cartridge, which was based on lengthening the .44 Russian case to provide additional space for powder. The result is often considered one of the finest revolvers ever made.

The “Triple-Lock” aspect of its name came from a design that incorporated three locking mechanisms—one at the forward end of the ejector rod, one locking into the face of the cylinder and the third in between a notched lug and bolt forward of the cylinder but at the rear of the ejector shroud. The three mechanisms provided solid lockup and a strong foundation capable of handling more-powerful loads, such as the .44 S&W Special.

Elmer Keith Triple Lock 44 Special 5
Detail of the slim, checkered handle. Keith preferred slim, rather than bulky, grips for the better fit they provided his hand.

And that gets us back to Elmer Keith. He is acknowledged for his work in heating up handloads for the .38 Special, .41 Long Colt and .44 Special—and pushing firearms and ammunition manufacturers to follow suit. This resulted in the development of Magnum cartridges we know today: the .357, .41 and .44 Magnums.

If you play firearms word association with a handgun aficionado and say, “Elmer Keith,” the response will likely be “.44 Magnum.” (We’ll save for another discussion Keith’s work with wildcat rifle cartridges that was instrumental in developing other cartridges. .338 Winchester Magnum, anyone?)

King of the Six-Gun Cartridges

But back to the .44 Special. Keith reportedly proclaimed the .44 Special “king of the six-gun cartridges,” but he continued to push it, using it as a basis for reloading and range experiments to push velocities of heavy bullets. He is known to have used triple-locks (as well as Colt single- actions) in his work with the 44 Special.

As the reliable reference book, Cartridges of the World, points out, as an accurate and powerful big-bore revolver cartridge, the .44 Special was never factory loaded to its full potential. “It was left to the handloader to develop truly effective hunting loads … Experiments to maximize the .44 Special’s big-game hunting potential by men like Elmer Keith culminated in the .44 Magnum.”

Elmer Keith Triple Lock 44 Special 8
A detail shot of the .44 Special marking on the barrel.

But we were talking about this particular Smith & Wesson .44 Special—the one purchased from the Keith collection after his death in 1984.

A Shooter, Not A Collector

Ben Heskett, owner of Serial No. 4325, can attest to Keith’s penchant for overpowered, if not overpowering, loads.

“It obviously saw a lot of heavy loads and a lot of shooting, because it was noticeably out of time,” Heskett said. “And that’s kind of the curse with Elmer’s hot-rod .44 Special loads.”

Heskett sent it to a gunsmith, Alex Hamilton of Ten-Ring Precision in San Antonio. “[He’s] one of the few remaining Smith & Wesson revolver meisters left,” Heskett said. “He re-timed it and went all through it.” However, otherwise, he left it intact.

Heskett doesn’t just set the revolver on a shelf to admire; he shoots it.

Elmer Keith Triple Lock 44 Special 3

“I agree with what Elmer once wrote: ‘I’m a shooter, not a collector,’” Heskett said. “That’s why I shoot it—albeit with milder loads.”

He brought it out and let me shoot it too. We went through about 100 rounds of Heskett’s handloads with a formula he picked up from gun writer John Taffin: 6.0 grains of Unique powder with a 250-grain Keith bullet (an Elmer Keith semi-wadcutter design).

The action and trigger pull were smooth, accuracy consistent. It fit the hand well. Elmer was known to prefer smaller stocks. He was not a big guy. And that stock worked well for me. The front sight featured an inset Ed McGivern-designed Gold Dot, which provides a nicely noticeable visual reference point, even in subdued light.

Heskett explained that the smooth action and trigger pull are inherent, not a tune-up.

“That’s exactly the way I got it. It’s pretty characteristic. The early (Smith & Wesson) guns were noted for being very, very smooth … back when quality control was at the top of the list.”

Elmer Keith Triple Lock 44 Special 7

Heskett purchased the revolver in March 2016 from gunbroker.com. Previously, it had been sold at a 2015 auction offering Keith’s nearly intact firearms collection.

Other than the authentication from the auction house, including notes from Keith’s son, Ted, Heskett knows little of the role the revolver played in Keith’s work, how it came into his possession or its previous owners. He does know it was sent back to the factory in the 1920s for rebluing, but he doesn’t know if it was sent by Keith or a previous owner.

Heskett, a former police officer in Lincoln, Nebraska, and lifelong firearms collector, is now a rancher near Arnold (central Nebraska). He preferred not to reveal the price he paid for the revolver but said he was a long-time admirer of Keith and gets satisfaction of owning one of his personal handguns.

“I’ve been a big fan of Elmer’s ever since I was a kid. I suppose I shared a commonality with him—the love of six-guns; the fact that he had been a cowboy, rancher and a big-game hunter. And there was that connection with the West. I was basically all of those things, too, at one time or another,” he said.

Elmer Keith Triple Lock 44 Special 11

Heskett said he admired Keith’s proficiency with wheelguns, in part, because he used to shoot in police competitions.

“I shot thousands and thousands of rounds through my competition revolvers, and I do love what you can do with a six-gun at long range,” he said.

Keith wrote about a 600-yard shot he made to stop a wounded deer from escaping over a hill. He drew criticism for taking the shot but made it clear he only did it because the deer had been hit by another hunter. He described walking the shots in and connecting, preventing the possible loss of the wounded animal.

With practice and know-how, long-range shots with a revolver are possible, Heskett said.

“It can be done, and Elmer was the one who could prove it. And he kind of led others to it.”

The article originally appeared in the August 2019 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Big Air: Seneca Dragon Claw .50-Caliber Air Rifle

Seneca Dragon Claw 10

The Seneca Dragon Claw .50-caliber air rifle is a far cry from your grandpa’s Red Ryder.

How The Dragon Claw Blows Its Competition Away:

  • Capable of firing a 210-grain ‘pellet' 679 fps.
  • Also shoots air bolts and shotshells.
  • Generally takes three shots before velocity degrades to the point the PCP needs refilling.
  • At close range, able to take most medium to small game.

When I mentioned I was hunting wild hogs in Texas with an air rifle, a lot of people looked at me as if I were crazy. The usual questions were, “You’re going to shoot a mean-tempered wild boar with a BB gun?” or, “What are you taking as backup when he charges?”

“No, no, no!” I exclaimed.

Seneca Dragon Claw 4
Here, details of the engraved receiver are sharp and crisp. It’s strange to see a bolt handle without an ejection port nearby.

Air rifles have changed since we were kids. And, it’s no BB gun; it’s the 50-caliber Air Venturi Dragon Claw, firing stout chunks of lead—210-grain pellets, if you can call a 210-grain lead projectile a “pellet”—at serious velocities. Test results with a 225-grain projectile hit 679 fps and 230 ft-lbs of energy at the muzzle.

Here’s the kicker: The Dragon Claw also shoots an Air Bolt, a 23-inch arrow designed to be fired out of an air rifle. And, not to overload you, but it will also shoot shotshells and shot-filled projectiles … but that’s another story.

Long, Deep Roots

Big-bore air rifles have been a thing for centuries. You have to go back to at least 1580, the date of the oldest-known preserved air gun, which is located in a Swedish museum. But air guns were really coming into their own around 1780, when Tyrolean gunsmith Bartolomeo Girandoni (1729–1799) developed a .46-caliber air rifle with a removable iron flask that served as the stock. The air-tight flask could be hand pumped (1,500 strokes for a full charge) with air pressure to fire lead balls. These could be loaded 22 at a time into a tube paralleling the barrel. The lead balls were gravity fed to a push-button loading mechanism that placed the ball in battery.

Seneca Dragon Claw 11
Fifty-caliber air gun pellets, 185-grain hollow-points and 210-grain flat-noses. Though technically correct, it’s hard to define these projectiles as “pellets.”

Closer to home, and more importantly, to U.S. history, Meriwether Lewis purchased a Girandoni rifle that had made its way across the ocean. He took it on his and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery across the Louisiana Purchase and back. According to journals, Native Americans were greatly impressed with this weapon, which produced results without the smoke and fire of blackpowder.


Reap The Air Rifle Whirlwind:


These demonstrations are generally credited as perpetuating an elaborate bluff that impressed and intimidated the tribes, preventing them from amassing a force to overpower the expedition (which never numbered more than 38 explorers). So great was its historical significance as a key component in Lewis and Clark’s returning to promote Western expansion that Lewis’s Girandoni is on special display at the Pentagon.

Seneca Dragon Claw 6
The built-in pressure gauge monitors the Dragon Claw’s air pressure when refilling, as well as letting the shooter keep an eye on pressure drop, shot after shot.

Fast-forward the history of air guns to the late 1970s or early 1980s. Air guns gained popularity, especially in Europe, as laws on firearms ownership began to tighten and firearms design and technology began to focus on getting more power out of other sources “that don’t depend on fire and gunpowder to generate energy,” said Air Venturi President Val Gamerman. “And that’s when some of the modern-day PCPs were born.”

The Rise Of The PCP

PCPs are “pre-charged pneumatic” rifles that carry a pressurized air source that provides propulsion. Other popular types of air guns include variable-pump rifles; these, as the name implies, can be pumped to various pressure levels. Spring-piston rifles, which are cocked between shots, compress a heavy spring that, upon firing, pushes a piston to compress air (these are cocked between shots); CO2 air guns that are powered by vaporizing CO2 stored in small cylinders; and gas ram or nitrogen pistons, in which the cocking action compresses nitrogen to build propulsion power.

Seneca Dragon Claw 9
Air Venturi’s Seneca Dragon Claw comes with single or dual tubes that hold the pressurized air. Performance is the same, but with the larger air supply of the dual-tube model, shooters get more shots between refills.

However, we’re talking about PCPs, which utilize a reservoir of pre-charged air to propel pellets (or Air Bolts) shot after shot until the pressure diminishes. And that brings us back to big-bore air guns, which have seen a surge in popularity since consumer demand and popularity in Europe, along with accompanying improved design and technology. All of this transferred to the United States in the form of accurate and affordable air guns.

Air Venturi has been selling the Dragon Claw for about 10 years, and more companies have been getting on board the wave of big-bore air gun popularity.

Seneca Dragon Claw 5
Air gun shotshells add another dimension to the Dragon Claw, which also shoots lead pellets and Air Bolts. The capsules are filled with 85 No. 6 or 125 No. 8 lead pellets, which provide about a 12-inch pattern at 20 yards.

States, too, are recognizing air rifle capability, and more are allowing air rifles for hunting—even for medium- to large-sized game. An interactive air gun map on the Air Venturi website (AirVenturi.com) or the Airgun Sporting Association’s website (AirgunSporting.org) lets you check air-gun regulations state by state, species by species.

The Dragon Claw

Air Venturi calls the Dragon Claw a PCP rifle—the workhorse of its Seneca line. It features a classic hunting firearm look with laser-etched, checkered Monte Carlo hardwood stock, forend and the engraved receiver.

Air power is stored in two under-barrel tubes—there’s also a single-tube version—that will hold enough compressed air for eight or more effective shots per tank filling (or about four shots with the single-tube version). The Dragon Claw does not regulate the pulses of air (some designs meter the pulse of air so each shot goes out under consistent pressure), so velocity drops from shot to shot—but almost imperceptibly for the first handful.

Air Venturi tests (with a 225-grain projectile and filled to 3,000 psi) show the first shot travelling 679 fps; the second at 668; third at 624; fourth at 552, fifth at 457; and sixth at 363.

Shooters can count on those first three shots to be consistently on target. Then, a refill is called for. And you don’t fill a PCP air rifle with a standard shop air compressor. Handy, take-along compressors and carbon-fiber tanks are available.

Seneca Dragon Claw 1
The proof is in the pork: The author and the Seneca Dragon Claw made quick and lethal work of a sizable Texas hog.

A magnetic dust cover protects the male quick-connect fitting on the muzzle end of the air tube; the female fitting of the tank or compressor fits into that. And a quick tip: Do not rush the filling process. Doing so could cause heat to build up and skew pressure readings.

Sighting in the Dragon Claw, which was topped with a 3-9x-40mm Mantis scope, was done at 30 yards. I have to admit that the report was a bit more than I expected. I was expecting a puff of air, but there was a sharp report … though not as sharp or loud as the crack of a centerfire rifle.

Seneca Dragon Claw 7
A battery of Dragon Claw air rifles awaits hunters in search of hogs.

It was a simple matter to dial in the scope for the 210-grain pellets on paper and then switch to an archery target for the 23-inch Air Bolts, which had similar points of impact and similar-sounding reports.

Venturi Air introduced Air Bolts in 2016 after two years of perfecting the design. Made of carbon fiber, they weigh 430 grains with a 100-grain tip. They come with field points for practice but accept broadheads for hunting. Instead of a nock, they have a flat end with an O-ring that seals inside the barrel so pressure propels it. Plus, it’s soft enough to squeeze into the rifling, creating spin to increase accuracy.

It’s true that air rifle technology has come a long way, so much so that calling one as such is almost a misnomer.
BB guns they are not. Big game hunters they are.

The article originally appeared in the June 2019 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Remington Model 11: Behind The Business End Of A Family Jewel

Remington Model 11 with Family Photos

Few feelings parallel that of pulling the trigger of a family treasure, such as Grandpa's Remington Model 11.

What You Need To Know About The Remington Model 11:

  • The shotgun is a lisensed version of John Browning's Auto 5.
  • Remington produced the John Browning design from 1905 to 1926.
  • Long-recoil action, the barrel and bolt both move back upon recoil.
  • Adjustable friction rings allows the shotgun to shoot light and heavy loads.
  • Available in 12-, 16- and 20-gauge models.

Ellsworth E. Arterburn, my great-grandfather, was an early promoter of Chase County, in the southwest corner of Nebraska. Old plat maps show parcels of land he bought and sold as the county was settled in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His advertising in eastern states like Illinois, touting the agricultural riches of the county, were apparently effective because my Uncle Keith’s research turns up numerous parcels changing hands as the county was settled.

One parcel in the western reaches of the county included a 35-acre lake, bordered by an earthen dam holding back the Frenchman River to create a reservoir that provided irrigation through a snaking canal. The lake also provided recreation year-around: fishing and swimming in warm months, hunting in the later months, ice skating in winter. Ice was also cut from the lake and stored in an underground icehouse for use throughout warmer months.

My grandfather, Roley W. Arterburn, told his father that he wanted to live on that parcel, known as Lakeview Ranch, and become a farmer and rancher. According to Uncle Keith, Ellsworth told his son he didn’t know anything about being a farmer or rancher, to which my grandfather replied, “I can learn.”

Remington Model 11 Buttpad
The 103-year-old rubber recoil pad is brittle with age, losing small rubber crumbs with continued use.

And so he did. He and Grandma Ruby raised their family — my aunts, Barbara and Virginia; my father, Roley Ellsworth; and Uncles Keith and Kermit — in a two-story clapboard house a couple hundred yards from the lake. That’s the same house in which I grew up.

In addition to being a farmer and rancher, Grandpa was a pheasant hunter, hunting to add to the dinner table and regularly hosting officers from the McCook Army Air Base, one of 11 Army Air Corps training bases in Nebraska during World War II.

A New Family Member

At some point, Grandpa acquired a Remington Model 11, wearing John M. Browning’s famous Auto 5 humpback design, which was also the first successful semi-auto shotgun and the first made in the United States. Nowhere on his 12-gauge is it stamped “Model 11” — but it’s all Model 11 and, according to Remington records, it was manufactured in 1915.

Remington Model 11 Receiver Rear
The edge of the broken-off stock section has been worn smooth with lots of years and thousands of shots worth of use.

Neither Uncle Keith nor Uncle Kermit remembers when their father acquired the shotgun, but both remember him hunting with it, and hunting with it themselves. “I shot it a lot,” Keith said. “I learned on a .410, but the first 12-gauge I shot was my Dad’s.”

Kermit remembers shooting the Remington Model 11 and, one time, “It went fully automatic and just emptied five shells all at once: bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,” he said. A pin, since repaired, had sheared off, causing the “eye-opening” incident, he said.


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Keith used the Remington Model 11 on a rabbit and coyote roundup, where neighbors encircled a large expanse of open pasture and walked slowly toward the middle, shooting coyotes and jackrabbits as the circle tightened. The roundups had two purposes: knock down the population of coyotes, which preyed on calves, and provide coyote and rabbit furs to be sold.

Remington Model 11 Full View
The stock, though dinged from use, still shows nice grain for a gun of this vintage.

Kermit also remembers his father encouraging him to take the Remington Model 11 and sneak on Canada geese sitting on the edge of lake ice. Though ducks were common, he reported that seeing geese was unusual in those days, so he slipped up on them and shot, bagging three. They then spent most of the day rounding up a boat and working through the ice to retrieve them.

Neither Keith nor Kermit recall how a chunk of the stock was broken off. A piece is missing on the top right side of the grip, but it must not have made any difference to Grandpa because the broken edges and ridges are worn smooth with use.

Coming Of Age For The Auto 5

To say Browning’s Auto 5 design (so-called because it held five shotshells: four in the magazine and one in the chamber) was innovative doesn’t begin to explain how far ahead of its time it actually was. It would be decades before competitors were to come up with a successful competitive design. The Auto 5 was revolutionary in the truest sense of the word, and it was quickly adopted by hunters, clay shooters, law enforcement and the military. In fact, A5s served from World War II through Vietnam. Before commercial game hunting ended in 1916 with the Migratory Bird Treaty, the five-shot semi-autos were favorites of market hunters who made use of its rapid-repeating firepower.

Outlaws also liked the firepower of the A5. Clyde Barrow reportedly favored one with a sawed-off stock and barrel. Bonnie and Clyde posed for a now-famous gag photo of Bonnie holding a sawed-off A5 on Clyde as she reaches for a revolver in his waistband.

Remington Model 11 Receiver Side
The famous humpback — or square-stern — receiver of the Model 11 accommodates the bolt as it’s driven back by recoil.

According to Browning himself, the semi-automatic shotgun was the most challenging design he faced during his lengthy and innovative career. He succeeded with a long recoil design in which the barrel and bolt both move back upon recoil; the recoil spring around the magazine tube then drives the barrel forward as the bolt is held back, allowing the spent shell to eject and a new shell to be lifted up from the magazine and be driven into the chamber as the bolt returns, pushed by the action spring housed in the stock. Simple, right?

Learn More: Browning Auto-5: Those Hammerin’ Humpbacks

This started in 1898, remember, on the heels of Browning’s successful Winchester Model 97 pump-action shotgun design. The trick with the semi-auto was how to regulate the force of recoil so it would work with light-recoil loads or heavy game loads. If built for heavy loads, light loads wouldn’t have the power to cycle; if built for light loads, heavy loads would hammer with excessive recoil that would batter the gun.

Browning and his brothers reportedly went through several variations, testing each extensively, and finally arriving at a system of adjustable friction rings that slide over the magazine tube and regulate the compression of the recoil spring. If you planned to shoot light loads, you set the rings a certain way; for heavy loads, a simple adjustment to how the rings were arranged was needed.

Remington Model 11 Receiver Bottom
The serial number is stamped on the ramp of the loading gate of the author’s Model 11.

And, by the way, it’s not so much a humpback design as it is a more a squared-off action that accommodates the bolt being driven back by recoil — but the humpback moniker has stuck.

Browning took the A5 design to Winchester, which had patented (Winchester filed patents for Browning, who shied from doing the paperwork) and purchased many of his previous designs. But, Winchester balked at Browning’s insistence for royalty payments, so Browning took it to Remington in 1902.

In a bizarre turn of events, Remington’s president, Martellus Hartley, died of a heart attack moments before he was to meet with Browning. Browning then took his design to the FN factory in Belgium, where the shotguns were produced until 1975. In 1905, an agreement was in place for Remington to produce the shotguns in the United States, which they did from 1905 to 1947 — the Remington Model 11. After Browning’s death at the age of 71 in 1926, the design was licensed to Savage, which produced them from 1930 to 1949.

Passing The Torch

Knowing my interest in firearms, Uncle Keith presented me with Grandpa’s Remington Model 11 — with the caveat that it never leaves the Arterburn family. That will not be an issue, with my three sons and, so far, two grandkids — and another on the way.

Remington Model 11 Barrel Rollmark
A detail of the barrel, reading: Remington Arms — Union Metallic Cartridge Co., Remington Works, Illion, N.Y. U.S.A. Browning’s Patents Oct. 9, 1900, Dec. 17, 1901, Sept. 30, 1902, June 16, 1903.

I gave the shotgun a quick inspection: The action was smooth, probably from cycling thousands of rounds. The bluing was worn to a gray patina; the stock and forearm were nicked, dinged and well used. And, the barrel showed fouling that dated back to who knows how far.

The safety of Grandpa’s shotgun is a sliding bar just ahead of the trigger, inside the trigger guard, which was the original design before the safety was shifted to a behind-the-trigger crossbolt system. Its barrel, with a solid rib leading to a brass bead sight, is fixed with a full choke and is so stamped just forward of the action.

Before I took it apart for cleaning, and to get a better handle on adjusting the recoil-regulating friction rings, I called gunsmith David Orten.

Remington Model 11 Brass Bead
The solid rib, topped with a matte or matted finish, ends at a brass bead sight.

Breaking the Remington Model 11 down was simple: again, that’s a mark of Browning’s genius. Removing the threaded endcap allowed me to slide off the forearm and barrel, leaving the recoil spring and friction rings easily accessed. The trick, Orten said, was knowing which way to face the beveled end of the steel friction ring, which would provide adjustable braking action. Photocopies of the original manual, including diagrams on adjusting the friction rings, are available online. I’d read that a diagram was originally included inside the forearm, but that’s not the case with Grandpa’s shotgun.

I cleaned the barrel and all disassembled parts, but fearing the assemblage of screws and locking screws, I resisted taking the action apart, settling for a thorough hosing with Birchwood Casey Gun Scrubber. After lightly lubricating with Barricade, I reassembled according to Orten’s instructions and set out to shoot a few clays.

My plan was to focus on the first five shots. The first I fired harmlessly into the ground to assure everything was in working order; then I launched four clays. Grandpa’s Remington Model 11 came up and pointed easily and naturally, and we broke each clay in turn. No brag, just fact … as Walter Brennan would say. I’m not an ace shooter of clays, but something about the shotgun helped pick up my slack.

Remington Model 11 Disassembled
Rudimentary breakdown of the Model 11
shows its major components: barrel, action, forearm, recoil spring, steel and bronze friction rings, and threaded end cap.

There will be more clays to come, but I’m really looking forward to next pheasant season. I’d like to think Grandpa will be there with me.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the April 2019 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Holster Options For The Colt 1903 Hammerless Pocket Pistol

U.S. Armament Colt 1903 Holster
U.S. Armament Colt 1903 Holster

Sure, you can carry it in your pocket, but there are plenty Colt 1903 holster options.

Who Makes Holsters For The Colt 1903:

  • U.S. Armament
  • Barranti Leather
  • Winthrop Holster
  • 1791 Gunleather

My brother, Roley, and I agree the Colt 1903 Hammerless Pocket Pistol is indeed comfortable to carry as its name implies — in a pocket — but it also rides easily in concealed-carry holsters, which are readily available in modern and traditional models for this century-old firearm design.

Testing John M. Browning’s “pocket” intent for his design, I’ve toted my 1916-vintage 1903 consistently in coat pockets, vest pockets and even front pant pockets. Its smooth, rounded-edge design created no hang-ups or obstacle to drawing. The thin design rides snuggly without bulk and prevents undue giveaway printing. All that said, carrying in a holster is superior for a plethora of reasons.

Barranti Leather custom makes holsters for the Colt 1903, such as this Ranger model. Barranti Leather offers four designs for the Model 1903.
Barranti Leather custom makes holsters for the Colt 1903, such as this Ranger model. Barranti Leather offers four designs for the Model 1903.

A handful of holster makers offer holsters for models compatible with the 1903 (and outwardly identical 1908, the .380 ACP version), including a U.S.-stamped military flap holster, plus custom makers whose work can provide functional and complementing style to the classic handgun.

U.S. Armament (USarmcorp.com) offers a custom-made military-style flap holster, stamped with “U.S.”, as a fitting companion to their Colt 1903 reintroduction.

Mike “Doc” Barranti (BarrantiLeather.com) can fit four of his custom-made popular models — the Ranger, Border Ranger, Barranti-Myres Lonewolf Ranger and Barranti-Myres Barton’s Special — for the 1903. I went with the Ranger, and if I thought the 1903 carried unobtrusively in a coat pocket, this holster took unobtrusive to another level. This stylishly and simple all-leather holster holds the 1903 snugly, positioned high enough for easy concealment with a forward cant, ready for straight-forward draw.

Another holster-maker I found, Winthrop Holster (WinthropHolsters.com) offers both IWB and OWB, in right- and left-hand models, in your choice of black or brown leather.


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Also, 1791 Gunleather (1791gunleather.com) makes its IWB Smooth Concealment Holster out of soft, breathable cowhide lined with suede for the 1903.

The fact that holster makers continue to offer holsters for the Colt 1903 is testament to the longevity and genius — and reliability — of its century-plus-old design.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the Concealed Carry 2019 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

Colt 1903: Is The U.S. Armament Re-Release Fit For Concealed Carry?

While in a marginal concealed carry caliber, U.S. Armament nonetheless has created a Colt 1903 fit for everyday carry.

How the 1903 Pocket Hammerless Is Fit For Concealed Carry:

  • Increased the hammer hook depth and sear surface to create a sharper angle
  • Patterned to match original's size, weight and snag-free design
  • Holds 8+1 rounds of .32 ACP
  • Gun proves very accuracy at close range, even in rapid fire

Let’s start with this premise: The Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless is a viable concealed carry handgun. Yes, even though there are more powerful personal-defense calibers available. And, yes, even though there are lighter, more compact, higher-capacity concealed-carry handguns available. And, even though there are more contemporary handguns than John Browning’s 115-year-old design.

Concealed carry was clearly Browning’s intent for the Model 1903, with its sleek, rounded design, not to mention “pocket” in its name — which is but one of the many names by which it’s known. It’s referred to by many names, including Model M, Pocket Hammerless and General Officer’s Pistol.

The Model 1903 wasn’t Browning’s first semi-automatic pocket pistol. His first was the Model 1900, produced by Fabrique Nationale in Belgium, which was based on an 1897 Browning patent and was the first chambered for the .32 ACP (7.65mm) round, designed by Browning for the gun.

Browning’s design underwent tweaking and became Colt’s first successful semi-auto handgun, the Colt 1900 in .38 ACP (another Browning-designed caliber) and the .38 ACP 1902 Sporting Automatic Pistol, then a reworked military version of the 1902, then an exposed-hammer 1903, also in .38 and presented as a pocket pistol, though it was boxy, somewhat heavy and not particularly easily concealed.

U.S Armament’s Colt 1903 with personal-defense ammunition. On the left is Hornady’s Custom 60-grain XTP rounds and on the right are Speer Gold Dot 60-grain hollow-points. With the right ammunition, a 115-year-old gun can be a viable carry gun.
U.S Armament’s Colt 1903 with personal-defense ammunition. On the left is Hornady’s Custom 60-grain XTP rounds and on the right are Speer Gold Dot 60-grain hollow-points. With the right ammunition, a 115-year-old gun can be a viable carry gun.

The 1903 Hammerless, chambered for the Browning-designed .32 ACP, corrected much of that, with a more compact and sleek design with rounded edges, 8+1 capacity and weighing 10 ounces less than the Hammer version. By the way, the Hammerless wasn’t hammerless; the hammer was just concealed under the closed, rounded slide.

The 1903 was an immediate success. The caliber was considered adequate and was highly regarded in its day, though it has slid in favor behind today’s more potent offerings. The simple design, easy disassembly and reliability added to its appeal as an easy-to-carry hideaway pistol. Civilians snapped them up, as did some law-enforcement agencies. And so did the criminal element. Al Capone was said to have toted a 1903. John Dillinger reportedly was carrying one when he was gunned down in Chicago by FBI agents and Bonnie reportedly broke Clyde out of jail by taping a 1903 to her thigh and, according to reports, two were found in their bullet-riddled car when Frank Hamer and the boys caught up with them.

The 1903 also saw service in the military as early as World War I, purchased for British forces, and during World War II the U.S. military purchased numerous 1903s, some for the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the CIA, and by 1944, the 1903 (and its descendent, the .38 ACP Model 1908, which is outwardly identical, except for caliber) were widely issued to officers, including Eisenhower, Patton and MacArthur, along the way picking up the moniker of “General Officer’s Pistol.”

Dad’s Model 1903

The author’s father’s Model 1903 compared with U.S. Armament’s reintroduction. Originals were disassembled and measured piece by piece to endure the reproduction models remained true to the original in design and specification.
The author’s father’s Model 1903 compared with U.S. Armament’s reintroduction. Originals were disassembled and measured piece by piece to endure the reproduction models remained true to the original in design and specification.

And that brings us to my father’s 1903. My father was a World War II Army Air Corps pilot and co-piloted the Glory Bee, a B-24 Liberator bomber, over Europe. As kids, we used to go through his footlocker stored in an upstairs storage room, trying on his pilot’s cap, fingering medals, including his Purple Heart. He didn’t keep his 1903 in there.

I always assumed Dad had been issued the pistol during the war, but my brother, Roley, thinks he picked it up after returning home. I could get additional clues by contacting Colt’s archive department and learning, among other things, if it was shipped to a U.S armory, but sometimes it’s better to just leave well enough alone. From looking up the serial number, I know it was manufactured in 1915, which maybe makes it less likely to have been issued 25 or 30 years later during WWII. Maybe not. Like I said: For now I’ll just leave it alone.


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One downside of the 1903 from a carry-weapon standpoint is the fixed sights, front blade and drift-adjustable notched rear, which are not high visibility. The .32 ACP is light for carry duty, but I’m fine with that.

The simple notch sight of the U.S. Armament 1903, like the originals, provides a low, no-snag profile for concealed carry.
The simple notch sight of the U.S. Armament 1903, like the originals, provides a low, no-snag profile for concealed carry.

Short story long, I looked around and discovered 1903s are still rather plentiful and available so, like anyone smitten with a particular firearm, I bought one. It had some exterior pitting, but it’s otherwise solid and functional. I’ve shot the heck out of it since with no hitches.

Spot-checking a few places shows them still plentiful and available. Cabela’s Gun Library had a handful, ranging from $710 to $1,599. Gunbroker.com showed a variety of models, quality and conditions with prices such as $549 and $2,750. Similar price ranges popped up on GunsInternational.com.

But, we wondered, could a 100-year-old-plus pistol be relied on for personal protection? From these two examples, we couldn’t see any reason why not. And that led to another observation: How many things can you list that still function more than 100 years after they were designed and manufactured?

In testing on the range, U.S. Armament’s Colt 1903 produced good results, these with Winchester’s 71-grain full metal jacketed ammunition. This group was fired by the author as a close-quarters, rapid-fire group from a makeshift rest.
In testing on the range, U.S. Armament’s Colt 1903 produced good results, these with Winchester’s 71-grain full metal jacketed ammunition. This group was fired by the author as a close-quarters, rapid-fire group from a makeshift rest.

Taking it a step further, of those 100-year-old-plus designs still functioning, how many are Browning’s? I don’t know either, but I do know Browning’s list would be long and impressive, including the Winchester 1885, Winchester 1894, Browning A-5, Browning Hi-Power Winchester 1897, 1903 and 1908 Hammerless and, of course, the 1911.

But, if you don’t want to trust your personal protection to a century-old handgun, how about a brand new pistol of the same proven design?

What’s Old Is New

The Model 1903 got a new lease on life in 2015 when U.S. Armament came out with their Colt-licensed 1903 Hammerless General Officer’s Pocket Pistol. The project was the brainchild of company owner Curtis Wolf.

Colt 1903 7

Wolf purchased about 125 surplus 1903s, which were dismantled and measured by hand and a coordinate-measuring machine. So true to the originals, most of the new parts will transition directly into originals.

The only changes were to incorporate improved manufacturing techniques and improve safety beyond the originals’ turn-of-the-century standards, said Brent Turchi, a former Colt employee who Wolf brought in to oversee the 1903 project. One safety improvement was to the sear and hammer hook, which on the originals appeared hand-polished or stoned to a small, essentially rounded surface so they had light trigger pulls, Turchi said.

And that gave them the idea of drop-testing the originals. “Every one of them fired,” Turchi said. “If we dropped the gun, it was going off.” (As a concern for carrying an original today, I’m already looking into U.S. Armament replacement parts.) So, U.S. Armament increased the hammer hook depth and sear surface to create a sharper angle, and the new models passed drop-fire tests.

Colt 1903 6

Colt 1903s are generally categorized into four types (some say five) based on production dates. U.S. Armament’s most closely approximates the Type III model, except it has no magazine disconnect safety, which was omitted from the final design. Turchi said other improvements came from changes to the production process, including improvements to the heat-treating process. There were also other changes, changes only Colt purists are likely to notice, Turchi said. The new version “feels a little more like an original — but with the safety of modern touches we have added.”

Production numbers of the originals vary a bit, depending on the source, but I defer to firearms expert Jerry Lee who reported in Gun Digest’s Standard Catalog of Firearms that more than 572,000 Model 1903s were produced between 1903 and 1945 (and another 134,500 of the 380 ACP Model 1908s). Lee also notes that Colt 1903 values today range from $1,200 new in box; $1,000 for excellent condition; $600 for very good; $450 for good; $300 for fair and $200 for poor.

The .32-caliber version was a lot more prolific than the .380, Turchi added, probably mostly because it had a 5-year head start on the larger-caliber twin and the U.S. government choice of them for officers.

Colt 1903 9

But it wasn’t designed as a military sidearm. “Browning designed the 1903 to be a small, flat, packable firearm that did lend itself to nice side-holster carry, which is what most officers in the military do,” Turchi said. “But I don’t think the initial design intent was that 32 ACP was a military caliber. I think it was more that he was looking for size and functionality.”

And that, he said, led to its popularity with such a diverse population. It was a sign of the times that Capone, Dillinger and the like carried them,” Turchi added. “The 1903 was popular at the time, but I also think because th ese guys at the time, for the lack of a term, were a ‘classier’ class of criminals. The gangsters wore suits and jackets, so it was easy to conceal a 1903 in a holster or pocket.”

“It’s an amazing thing to be able to design something with functionality and fit — and a use that can continue to be viable 100 years after its inception,” he said. “To me, that says the guy who designed it must have been some kind of genius.”

And, U.S. Armament has more good news for those interested in carrying a classic: Their next project, expected to be available in late spring or early summer of 2019, is a reintroduction of the 1908, the .380 version of the Colt Pocket Hammerless. Ready your holsters.

For more information on the U.S. Armament Colt 1903, please visit www.usarmcorp.com.

Ammo: Blindsiding Waterfowl With Hex Steel Shot

The impressive engineering in Winchester's Hex Steel Shot in Blind Side Shotshells delivers superior results on the hunt.

How Winchester is gleaming the cube:

    • Winchester Blide Side shotshells are filled with coated Hex Steel Shot.
    • Hex refers to the shot's shape — hexahedron.
    • The hexahedron delivers energy to a target quicker due to its flat surfaces.
    • They also pack tighter into a shell allowing more pellets per load.
    • A specially designed wad allows more powder and thus more velocity.
    • The extra velocity makes up for the less aerodynamic shape of the Hex shot.

On a Texas teal hunt, I used Winchester Blind Side No. 5s. Jimmy Wilson, product management specialist for Winchester Ammunition, also brought along some 3½-inchers. A couple other hunters talked about grabbing 3½s, but 3-inchers would be plenty for teal.

Blind-Side-Hex

Blind Side shotshells caught the attention of hunters because they are filled with coated Hex Steel Shot. The “Hex” is trademarked and refers to the shape of the shot, which is not a hexagon, but a hexahedron. It’s cube shaped with rounded corners — kind of like dice — but the edges are also rounded.

The hexahedron shape delivers energy quicker because the flat surface packs more punch, trauma and wound channel than round shot. It’s like the difference between getting hit with a ball or getting thumped with a brick.

The flat surface delivers the punch on impact, acting immediately like lead pellets do, which can cause the softer lead to deform and flatten. And what if a rounded corner or edge hits first? More penetration. Either way, the teal we shot came down like they’d been hit with a ton — well, 1 3⁄8 ounces — of bricks traveling 1,400 feet per second. (The 3½-inch 6-shot shells fire 1 1⁄8 ounces of shot at 1,675 fps, so I did give up velocity with my choice.)

The cube-shaped shot also packs tighter in the hull than round shot, allowing for more pellets in a shorter shot column. The space saved allows for the unique over-powder wad, which consists of two wads connected by a hinged section. Upon firing, the hinged section of the over-power wad collapses, cushioning acceleration of the shot and essentially reducing peak pressure of the load.

“When ignition occurs, the gases start to expand rapidly; they compress that wad, and it acts like a shock absorber,” Wilson said. “We truly get the reduced pressures, which allow us to bring the pressure back up through higher velocity with the addition of more powder.”

If you’re thinking, There’s no way a cube can fly as well as a ball — you’re right — and Winchester thought of that, too. The additional initial velocity makes up for the less aerodynamic shape of the square, compared to round shot, “making up for the aerodynamic flaw of the square,” he said.

Also helping deliver the payload on target is the Diamond-Cut Wad, from which three diamond-shaped petals flap out from the middle of the wad, causing it to drop back without affecting the flight of the shot column.

Blind Side also incorporates Winchester’s Drylok Super Steel System, comprised of a sealed primer and watertight seal between the wad and hull so moisture cannot get to the powder. and spoil the round. Not that I know anyone who’s ever had to fish a shotshell out of the freezing fall slough water.

Editor's Notes: This article originally appeared in the January 2018 issue Gun Digest the Magazine.

Super X4: Building On Scattergun Success

Winchester’s new Super X4 takes the manufacturer’s already great SX3 and improves upon it, offering a do-all shotgun fit for a number of shooting endeavors.

How Winchester has advanced its Super X line:

  • The SX4 is the next generation of Winchester’s popular Super X shotgun line.
  • The line of semi-automatic shotguns was first introduced in 1974.
  • The reliable Active Valve Gas System remains the same on the SX4.
  • The stock was redesigned, making it lighter and thinner.
  • The balance point was moved forward.
  • The trigger guard was made bigger as was the bolt-release button.
  • The gun comes with Invector-Plus in-barrel choke tubes — full, modified and improved cylinder.
  • Depending on the model, the SX4 costs from $799 to $1,069.

I’ll say this up front: Although I’ve shot the Winchester Super X3 several times, I don’t own one — and have never owned one — so it’s difficult to do a side-by-side comparison with the new Super X4 or to even recall it well enough to note differences in handling and performance.

Building on the success of the earlier SX3, the new SX4 is a great shotgun for any pursuit.
Building on the success of the earlier SX3, the new SX4 is a great shotgun for any pursuit.

Of course, there are the notable improvements Winchester points out it has made between the SX3 and SX4, and I have not, with rare exceptions, found improved models of shotguns to not actually be improved to some degree in performance or design, if not both performance and design.

Let me say the same thing with different words: Usually the new-and-improved firearms brought out by manufacturers to keep up with improvements in technology (not to mention the competition) are, in fact, both new and improved. Attempts to foist little more than cosmetic changes on the more and more knowledgeable — and more and more vocal (via blogs, customer comments, social media) — shooters are usually quickly brought to light.

Field Ready Function

That said, let’s get on with it. My first experience with the Super X4 was on a duck hunt, a teal hunt near Matagorda, Texas, to be exact, and in the rush and excitement of incoming ducks and a line of hunters all rising in unison to pick out the fleeting targets it’s difficult to remain conscious of a shotgun’s performance.

However, with moderate concentration before, during and after a volley, you can develop an overall judgment of basic shotgun qualities. Namely, does it operate and handle easily and instinctively? Does it naturally and smoothly point, swing, track and follow through? Does it quickly cycle shot after shot? Does the recoil hammer you down into the mud? And, most importantly, does it cause the ducks at which it is pointed to splash into the water?

A strap of ducks hangs with decoys from a Yamaha Viking used to transport hunters and gear to a Ducks Unlimited wetlands project.
A strap of ducks hangs with decoys from a Yamaha Viking used to transport hunters and gear to a Ducks Unlimited wetlands project.

Yes on the first. The SX4 handled smoothly and was easy to operate, and it did well cycling shot after shot of Blind Side 3-inch No. 5s without fail (the real test would come later with lighter target loads, which it cycled with equal ease), and it did not pile drive me into the mud fringing the Ducks Unlimited projects we hunted.

As is often the case, recoil goes unnoticed in the heat of shooting, but I’ve had shotguns that made their presence known, particularly after firing that third shot after a rapidly climbing, retreating bird. And most importantly, on our second day’s hunt, we took a heavy toll on blue-winged teal, wrapping up our shoot in 45 minutes.

Sitting on a stick-in-the-mud seat behind a wispy cedar bush, meager cover on the edge of the wetlands, I examined the shotgun and did a few dry-run shoulder mounts to compare how it comes up when I’m not rushing to catch up with feathered rockets. It had a solid, comfortable feel, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what the improvements could be from the SX3, so I asked Rafe Nielsen, communications manager for Winchester and Browning firearms, who had been just down the shooting line from me on both days.

Turns out, I had been putting my finger on the improvements.

Making Good, Great

The major changes weren’t internal; the Active Valve Gas System remains the central component, as it was (with tweaks and improvements along the way) for the SX2 and SX3. (The Super X’s long history started with the first model of Super X shotguns introduced in 1974. SX2 followed in 1999; SX3 in 2006, and now, the SX4, in 2017.)

The system, Nielsen said, gives you the two things you want out of a gas system: extremely soft shooting and extremely fast cycling. Because gas pressure from the shot activates the action, it takes some of the punch out of the recoil and provides fast cycling from shot to new round. “We can’t say it’s the fastest,” he said, “but it’s the fastest auto-loading gun out there.”

The redesign doesn’t tinker with the mechanics of the Active Valve Gas System, other than minor tweak improvements, Nielsen said. The SX3 “is a great-functioning gun and we didn’t want to mess with what was making it great, but we wanted to do some things to upgrade it, give it a fresh look and feel and make it relevant again to the next group of guys coming up and coming through and wanting an update. Because the operating engine is still working great, we had to look at some other pieces of the pie,” he said.

And one of the things Winchester was able to do, he said, (totally upending my next question: “By ‘updated,’ do you mean more expensive?”) was bring the price down. Taking for example the highest end model, the camouflaged Waterfowl Hunter capable of handling 3½-inch shells, they were able to knock off a couple hundred bucks, getting it under a grand at retail stores. They pulled that off with improvements to manufacturing processes, cutting parts costs — but not cutting corners. The only noticeable change is the trigger guard in that the easy-to-drop-out trigger assembly is now made of polymer, not aluminum, which he called an improvement because it’s lighter, won’t ding like aluminum and better matches the finish, especially on the synthetic-stocked models.

Improved Ergonomics

The stock has been redesigned; it’s lighter, has a thinner and textured pistol grip and forend (which is grooved for comfortable, natural finger placement), and the balance point is more forward than the SX3. It’s more ergonomic, Nielsen said, and is “a little bit more fluid swinging gun.”

With Winchester SX4 shotguns ready, the author and, in the background, Rafe Nielsen, wait for teal on a Ducks Unlimited wetland project near Matagorda, Texas.
With Winchester SX4 shotguns ready, the author and, in the background, Rafe Nielsen, wait for teal on a Ducks Unlimited wetland project near Matagorda, Texas.

Nielsen has been able to do side-by-side shooting comparisons. “From a personal standpoint, the SX3 is a fine gun,” he said. “I shot it OK, but I shoot the SX4 noticeably better. It just fits me better. So, outside of what the specs are, I can tell the difference shooting the two different guns and will gravitate to the SX4 every day, all day long.”

Shooters are becoming more demanding, and manufacturers are becoming more scientific, Nielsen said. Gone are the days of simple buttstock, recoil pad, forend, action and barrel, he said. Now, they are diving into how the shotgun fits and feels. With the SX4, there was a theme to build improvement upon improvement “all the way through to improve the entire gun, from recoil pad to muzzle.”

Three of those improvements I had indeed put my fingers on.

First, the bolt handle has been enlarged to make it easier to grab with cold or gloved hands. The safety, which is reversible, is also larger and, likewise, the bolt-release button has been enlarged and is somewhat recessed into the receiver so it’s easy to press yet not as likely to hit accidentally. The trigger guard is also larger, again for easier use with gloved hands.

The Inflex Technology recoil pad directs recoil down and away from your face, Nielsen said. And it has a larger footprint, so recoil is “spread out across a larger area so it dissipates more and [can] be a softer feeling gun,” he said. Also, synthetic-stock models come with one ¼-inch spacer installed in the stock for a 14¼-inch length of pull and an additional spacer in the box. Wood-stock models come with two spacers in the box.

SX4-specs

The guns also come with a selection of Invector-Plus in-barrel choke tubes — full, modified and improved cylinder. When I asked Nielsen about extended-length tubes, he said they have found most shooters interested in switching choke tubes have aftermarket favorites, and there’s no point second-guessing them; therefore, they outfit the shotguns (other than sporting clays models, some of which come with specialty Briley tubes, and turkey models with a specialty turkey tube) with three perfectly functional options.

Currently, the SX4 is available in camo Waterfowl Hunter versions, black synthetic and wood-stocked Field and Field Compact models. In 2018, Winchester is slated to add Universal Hunter, Cantilever Deer and National Wild Turkey Federation Turkey models.

Though Winchester makes all these models, it knows “most people are going to buy one gun,” Nielsen said. “They’re going to use it for the specific purpose they buy it for, so if they’re pheasant hunters, they’re going to buy the wood or synthetic version; if they’re duck hunters, they’ll buy the camo version, and then they’re going to use it for everything from the trap field to everywhere they go. This is going to be their go-to gun.”

Editor's Notes: This article originally appeared in the January 2018 issue Gun Digest the Magazine.

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