This is a three-shot group fired at 100 yards though a windshield into a target three-feet behind the class. It's clear the Shoot-N-C target provides lots of immediate feedback.
The sniper exists to provide protection. Because of that the sniper must be counted upon to make the shot. It is that simple: First shot. Cold Bore. Every time.
Equipment provides the technological advantage but training provides an even more vital element: confidence. Snipers need to know what they can do and what they can't and also what their equipment can and can't do.
That explains why I spent nearly five hours on the range recently with snipers from the Waupaca County, Wisconsin SWAT team. We had a plan, but the long and short of it was that this time on the range would provide confidence in both ability and hardware.
Here's the backstory. Correspondence between the Sheriff's Department and the maker of the chosen ammunition for departmental snipers revealed that the current ammo was not suitable for use against commonly encountered barriers. Specifically, the ammo maker said the round currently in use by the department was not recommended for use against glass; auto glass in particular.
“They told us they wouldn't stand behind the round if we had to fire through glass. They wouldn't testify in court and they wouldn't claim that it was effective at all against glass,” said one of the snipers as we gathered at the range to make some decisions.
You see, in most cases where a police sniper is deployed in a rural setting like Waupaca County, the subject is likely to be inside a house or vehicle in some sort of standoff scenario.
Snipers Nick Kamba (left) and Cameron Durrant assess the exit holes on the back of a 100-yard target and wonder aloud if the case separation or glass particles caused the extra damage. Either way, it was decided that the round would do its job.
The snipers needed to be confident they could shoot through glass and neutralize a target efficiently. So that's what we did.
For the grand total of $12 in lumber and screws we built a rack to hold scrap windshields and discarded windows from area remodeling projects. Then we grabbed some of Birchwood Casey's Shoot-N-C targets and commenced the testing.
As an aside, should you wish to duplicate this experiment, do not attempt it without the Shoot-N-C targets. The green backing not only made tracking hits fast and easy, but it also showed the extent and intensity of the glass fragmentation… an important consideration if the standoff includes a hostage.
The final tabulations not yet done, but I can tell you this: Two rounds provided amazing performance against all the glass barriers we put between shooter and target. They are Hornady's 165-grain TAP Barrier and Black Hills Ammunition's Bonded 180-grain ammo.
For their part, the snipers learned that auto windshields, storm windows and even double-paned insulated windows are not a hindrance when using the proper ammo fired from a well-maintained .308 rifle.
When the snipers complete their reports watch for the findings in an upcoming issue of Tactical Gear Magazine.
Obama has deliberately and repeatedly lied to America's 90 million gun owners across the country when he insisted that he would not try to take away anyone's firearms. Now Obama's silence endorses Lautenberg's latest attempt at banning guns.
Dem. Senator Lautenberg (D-NJ) proposes “Extraordinary Powers” be given to the U.S. Attorney General to limit gun sales.
Lautenberg has now introduced bill S. 1317 that would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales to people on terror watch lists. One must wonder, when did the U.S. Attorney General become the “Gun Czar”? This appears to be yet another bill requiring an effort by concerned Americans to defeat. If passed this bill will give extraordinary powers to limit gun sales exclusively to the U.S. Attorney General.
Lautenberg To Reveal Names on Secret List
The names of the people on the watch list are secret, and Lautenberg said he was frustrated by the F.B.I.'s refusal to disclose to investigators details and specific cases of gun purchases beyond the aggregate data.
Sen. Lautenberg requested the gun grab study from the Government Accountability Office. He is using statistics, compiled in the report that is scheduled for public release next week to invade US citizen's privacy and put more restrictions on the Second Amendment.
Sen. Lautenberg said he wanted “a better understanding of who is being allowed to buy guns.” Riiiight.
How you ask? Trial by innuendo and misinformation that has put 1,000,000 Americans and maybe even you on a terrorist watch list without your knowledge by saying: people placed on this government's terrorist watch list can be stopped from getting on a plane or getting a visa, and will also be stopped from buying a gun.
It is decidedly convenient to have had DHS give justification for placing anyone who disagrees with Obama or the Marxist-style administration he runs into the category of potential “terrorist”. With the DHS memo leaked earlier this year, remember, Napolitano only apologized to and removed the veterans, she left, in tact, the groundless accusations of all the rest of the Americans who hold dissenting opinions. This makes way for any one of those “right-wing extremists” to be placed on the government's terrorist watch list. Or, possibly, anyone “flagged” as “fishy” on the “Spy on your neighbor” white house website?
Sen. Lautenberg wants gun purchases stopped for just being on the list. Current law states federal officials must find some other disqualification of a would-be gun buyer, like being a felon, an illegal alien or a drug addict.
Is your name on the list and can you get it removed? Read more
Norton, who sits on the Homeland Security Committee, made the request after numerous news reports have shown groups of people brandishing firearms while outside of events held by Obama over the past several weeks.
“It is clear that if the Secret Service can temporarily clear all aircraft from air space when the president is in the vicinity, the agency has the authority to clear guns on the ground that are even closer to the President,” Norton said.
But the Secret Service says that Obama was never in danger when a group of about a dozen protesters brandished their firearms outside the Phoenix convention center earlier this week where he was speaking.
One man carried an AR-15 assault rifle, but Arizona law allows people to carry unconcealed guns and police made no arrests.
“This doesn’t change what already exists for Secret Service,” said Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley of Norton’s request.
“Whenever the Secret Service travels somewhere in the country, we are able to determine what the security parameters will be for any particular site and anything within those parameters fall under federal law as far as being able to control what happens there.”
“So even if the state law says that you can have a gun as long as it’s not concealed, it doesn’t mean that you can bring a gun into a protected site.”
Norton has been battling with gun rights supporters for years because of the District’s former ban on handguns, which was struck down by the Supreme Court last year. More recently, a bill to grant the District a representational vote in Congress has stalled in the House because of an amendment that would make it easier to own a gun in D.C.
The Arizona event followed a similar instance in New Hampshire – which has open-carry laws – last week when police arrested a man for having a loaded, unlicensed gun in his car near where Obama was set to hold a healthcare-related forum. Another man outside of that event had a licensed handgun strapped to his leg and held a sign that read: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
“In both instances, those guys were outside of the outer-most perimeter of security, so what would apply is state law,” said Wiley. “They never had any proximity to the president at any time. They weren’t trying to gain access to the event and they weren’t in a position outside the event where they could have affected the president.”
But the Brady Campaign, a gun control group, said that these increasing instances of brandishing firearms in public could lead to escalated scenarios in the future that put the president at risk because it stretches law enforcement thin.
“Law enforcement has to keep an eye on these people,” said Paul Helmke, president of the group. “So the more people [who] carry guns, the more people you need to keep an eye on them, which stretches limited resources further. You get an event like in Phoenix with maybe 12 or 13 people, what if at the next event there are 100? And when you take the law enforcement resources away, that makes the president more vulnerable.” Read more
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said that, even after the Supreme Court's high-profile gun rights decision last year, the Second Amendment is no obstacle to mandatory gun registration.
The case arose out of the Chicago-area town of Cicero's mandatory registration requirement for firearms. A local man named John Justice was raided by the Cicero police on suspicion of violating business ordinances including improper storage of chemicals; the police discovered six unregistered handguns during the raid.
Justice runs the Microcosm laminating company on 55th Ave., which sells special adhesives and does custom coatings for customers, and argued in a civil lawsuit that the local ordinance violated the Second Amendment. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
In a 3-0 opinion published last Friday, the judges said that this was a different situation from the District of Columbia v. Hellercase, which led the Supreme Court to strike down D.C.'s law effectively prohibiting the ownership of handguns.
“There is a critical distinction between the D.C. ordinance struck down in Heller and the Cicero ordinance,” the court said in an opinion written by Judge Diane Wood, a Clinton appointee. “Cicero has not prohibited gun possession in the town. Instead, it has merely regulated gun possession under Section 62-260 of its ordinance.”
If the court had merely written that the Second Amendment doesn't apply to the states (a concept called incorporation), this would not have been especially newsworthy. After all, a different three-judge panel from the 7th Circuit already has rejected the incorporation argument.
What's unusual — and makes this case remarkable — is that Wood went out of her way to say that even if the Second Amendment does apply to states, mandatory gun registration would be perfectly constitutional. “The town does prohibit the registration of some weapons, but there is no suggestion in the complaint or the record that Justice's guns fall within the group that may not be registered,” she wrote. “Nor does Heller purport to invalidate any and every regulation on gun use.” Read more
A jeweler spent the rest of his life wishing he had never chased after two men who robbed his Brooklyn store. He told his family that he meant only to wound them when he pulled the trigger. Insurance, he lamented, would have covered the theft.
For as long as there have been stickup men, there have been shopkeepers who fought back. Shooting the robbers was in some ways the simplest part, requiring only the reflexes of a survivor, and a gun — though more than a few store owners have been prosecuted for using unlicensed firearms.
The real pain came in the weeks and years that followed. The proprietors replayed the violence that had marched into their cramped bodegas, restaurants or jewelry stores, cursing the career criminals or desperate men who had threatened their livelihoods — their lives, even — and their sanity.
The deep regret such violence can create was hinted at last week when the owner of a restaurant supply store in Harlem killed two robbers with a pump-action shotgun. The owner, Charles Augusto Jr., expressed sympathy for the families of the dead men, and said he wished they had just left his store.
His emotions echoed those of Peter Giron, the co-owner of a South Bronx dry cleaning establishment who shot and killed a 17-year-old gunman in 1978. Mr. Giron collapsed and had to be sedated after the 17-year-old’s father visited his store and politely asked about the shooting.
A few owners said the shootings in their pasts, even those from decades ago, were still too painful to talk about. One, who would speak only anonymously, said, “I’ve been trying to forget about this since it happened.”
Ivan Blume, who wrested a gun away from a robber and killed both him and his accomplice at his store, Quality Canines, in Brooklyn, in 2003, would say only, “It’s a chapter in my life I’d rather close.” Read more
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said people are entitled to carry weapons outside such events if local laws allow it. “There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally,” he said. “Those laws don't change when the president comes to your state or locality.”
Anti-gun campaigners disagreed with Gibbs's comments, voicing fears that volatile debates over health-care reform are more likely to turn violent if gun control is not enforced.
“What Gibbs said is wrong,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “Individuals carrying loaded weapons at these events require constant attention from police and Secret Service officers. It's crazy to bring a gun to these events. It endangers everybody.”
The past week has seen a spate of men carrying firearms while milling outside meetings Obama has held to defend his health-care reform effort. On Monday, a man with an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle strapped to his shoulder was outside a veterans' event in Phoenix. He was one of a dozen men who reportedly had guns outside the forum.
Phoenix police made no arrests, saying Arizona law allows weapons to be carried in the open.
Last week, a man with a gun strapped to his leg held a sign outside an Obama town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., that read: “It's time to water the tree of liberty.” Read more
(Editor's note: Wisconsin does not have a concealed carry provision. CCW is a misdemeanor in the state).
It all happened early Thursday near 1st and Clarke. The 23-year-old man was walking his girlfriend home when two teenagers pulled out a gun and tried to rob them.
But the victim also had a gun. He shot and killed one suspect, 17-year-old Kevin Ollie. Ollie's gun also went off, and he accidentally shot the other teen robber before he died.
The robbery victim's family says he had no choice but to fight back.
The District Attorney's office agreed. Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern said the victim acted in self-defense and will not be charged with any crime. Read more
John Allen Elom, 34, 4125 Woodmont Drive, Tuscumbia, is charged with second-degree burglary, Sheriff Ronnie May said.
May said Elom is accused of breaking into a residence only a few doors down from his house on Woodmont Drive early Monday.
During the break-in, May said the 32-year-old homeowner tried to protect herself and shot at Elom. The incident occurred around 1:20 a.m.
“The victim said she was awakened by dogs barking,” May said. “She said she got out of bed, picked up her pistol (a 9 mm) and walked down the hallway.”
May said the woman told authorities that when she got near the kitchen, she saw the suspect and fired the gun. Read more
Burglars in West Fargo are taking their crime to another level, little fear as they break into homes while people are inside, sleeping.
“This could have been very tragic.”
In this latest break in, this usually quiet neighborhood was disrupted by the sounds of gun fire early this morning. Around 1:30, West Fargo Police say a husband and wife woke up to a man in his early 20's in their house. Police say the man was in between the parents and their 2 year old daughter's room. The husband yelled for his wife to call 911. He then got a handgun and shot at the man. Police are still looking for the brave intruder.
“This is your castle and somebody's stepped inside that mote. And they’re attacking your castle; you don't know what they're attacking it with.”
Although authorities don't believe the suspect was shot, they did alert local hospitals and clinics right away to watch for anyone who came in with a gunshot wound.
“The police department works best when you have a community that cares.” Read more
Gun-rights advocates say they're exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.
Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.
The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. “In Arizona, I still have some freedoms,” he said.
Phoenix police Detective J. Oliver, who was monitoring the man at the downtown protest, said police also wanted to make sure no one decided to harm him.
“Just by his presence and people seeing the rifle and people knowing the president was in town, it sparked a lot of emotions,” Oliver said. “We were keeping peace on both ends.”
Last week, during Obama's health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading “It is time to water the tree of liberty” stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.
“It's a political statement,” he told The Boston Globe. “If you don't use your rights, then you lose your rights.”
Police asked the man to move away from school property, but he was not arrested. Read more
A proposed resolution set to go before the Belleview City Commission urges the head of every household in the city to have a gun in order to protect their families and to keep the peace in an emergency.
On Tuesday, the board will consider the plan, which has been introduced by Belleview resident Donny Barber, to encourage “all law abiding citizens to own a handgun, rifle or shotgun and receive adequate training to become proficient in the use of and safe handling of the weapon so they are prepared to protect themselves and their families.”
The resolution also calls on homeowners to “maintain a firearm, together with ammunition” in order “to provide for the emergency management” of the city, as well as “to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare” of Belleview and its residents.
Tuesday's action would be the first of two steps to enact the resolution.
Commissioners would have to vote to direct staff to draft the document in the city's official format.
If they agree to that, the resolution would come back a second time in September for final adoption.
Barber is the executive director of the Sovereignty Action Committee, an Ocala-based group that wants the state to assert its rights against federal encroachment, as outlined in the Constitution's 10th Amendment.
His resolution offers 14 reasons why Belleview residents should arm themselves.
He cites the Second Amendment, as well as the District of Columbia vs. Heller case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution grants private citizens the right to own firearms.
Barber also notes other court rulings that have held “citizens are ultimately responsible for their own defense. Read more
Gun Digest is the source for firearms news, pricing and guns for sale. Readers benefit from in-depth editorial expert advice, show reviews and practical how-to instructions. Subscriptions are the First Amendment way to stand up for your Second Amendment rights. Click here to begin your subscription to Gun Digest.
Inside This Issue
• Bob Hausman takes a look at the background, function, and assembly of Century’s version of the Israeli Galil rifle.
• Gun writing is a changing business, muses Kevin Michalowski in his “Editor's Shot” column.
• Rifles: Whitney • Shotguns: Verona – Union • Handguns: Wilson – Wurfflein
• Gunsmithing: Herr Frankenpistole: Part II
• NRA Update: Interstate Conceal Carry Bill Fails
• Tactical Gear: Precision Rifle Optics
• Performance Handloading: The Real Deal on Recoil
Recently, Associate Editor Andy Belmas told the world, after a day at the range, “These are the days I really love my job.”
Yes, gun writing does have its perks, but rest assured, it is still a job. And any more these days it is a job at the crossroads of two rapidly changing industries subject to the whims of political regulation, technological advances and consumer demands.
Quite frankly, sometimes it is tough to keep up. But that’s what we do. Sometimes we even do it without complaining.
In our ongoing effort to keep up with the demands of the consumer and the changes in the marketplace, we at Gun Digest the Magazine have been making large strides into digital publishing. Our website, wp.gundigest.com, is currently home to all manner of feature stories, classified ads, political information and gun owner forums that encourage the free exchange of ideas on too many topics for me to list here.
We are also in the e-mail newsletter game. If you have not been receiving the Gun Digest e-newsletter, log onto the website and sign up. It will come right to your e-mail in box and give you up-to-the-minute information on all sorts of gun-related topics.
Our goal is to provide the best possible information in any form the consumer demands. That’s a lofty goal, but businesses don’t get ahead by standing still. So, when you log onto the website, if you don’t see something you think would be cool, please, fire us an e-mail and let us know what you might like.
Speaking of cool, word is getting out about the research element of the Gun Digest website. For a small fee, you can dig through every issue of the Gun Digest annual book going all the way back to 1945. Making this searchable database of information user-friendly was a monumental scanning and tagging process. But now, if you want to find every article Gun Digest ever published about the Lee-Enfield rifle, or about Colt pistols, or anything else you can think of, all you have to do is sign up and type your key words into the search box. It’s all there, right at your fingertips. The “research” tab is in the upper left, just below the Gun Digest logo. Click on it and take a look. You’ll be amazed at what you find.
And if you want books, we’ve got those, too. You may not know that I spent the first eight years of my career here at Krause Publications in the Book Division, developing, editing and even writing some of the company’s most popular titles. During most of that time I wondered aloud where avid shooters were going to find our books. Problem solved! You can now find them right on our website. And cooler than cool, you can buy the whole book or, in some cases, you can get digital downloads of just the portions you like.
It doesn’t matter if you are into gunsmithing, self-defense, historical military firearms or modern tactical weaponry, somewhere in our line of books we have something that will pique your interest.
Yep, Andy and I still get to the range on a regular basis, but it’s not all fun and games. We only go shooting to make this a better magazine for you, the readers. It’s a tough job, but these are the kinds of sacrifices we are willing to make to bring you all the information you desire, in any format you demand.
FOR OVER THIRTY YEARS I wore a sixgun as regularly as I did my trousers. Without it I did not feel fully dressed. It was a tool, and a mighty useful one at that. I still like to have a good gun in easy reach at all times.
During those years I tried out, on both stock and game, every make and caliber available – everything from the 36 Navy Colt, 44 caliber Dragoon, and Single Action Army Colt down through modern revolvers and semi-automatics. During that time I killed three elk, seven mule deer, one whitetail, three black bear, one record cougar, and one mountain goat with a sixgun, not to mention coyotes, bobcats, eagles, and a Mexican javelina.
Over the years the small game ran into the thousands, but the only record kept was on blue grouse when I killed from 41 to 43 of the big birds for three successive years with a sixgun. I remember killing 125 jack rabbits on the Pahsimeroi in three days when testing one of the first 357 S & W Magnums. In over twenty years of big-game guiding, I also trailed and finished with a sixgun many animals of all species that my parties had wounded.
Sixguns by Elmer Keith. Single Action Colt with elaborate engraving by R. J. Kornbrath.
On two occasions I had to stop mad cows I had roped. They wound me up and threw my bronc and came for me with sharp horns. On another occasion I had to get out of bed, saddle up a bronc, and go to the rescue of a local butcher who had tried to kill a big Durham ball with a Colt by planting the slugs in the forehead.
The beast had put the butcher up a tree and, as it was cold weather, he was fast freezing when the neighbor called. When I rode up close to the tree, the bull charged. A single 265 grain 45-cal. Ideal slug, backed by 40 grains of black powder, in the forehead from my old 5 1/2″ Single Action Colt did the trick. The bull stuck his nose in the ground and turned over on his back with all four legs stiff in the air, his tail stretched out toward my bronc, then he relaxed in death.
On another occasion, a mean outlaw bronc I was riding stuck his foot in a badger hole and turned somersault over me. He knocked most of the wind from me and came up running, kicking me with his hooks because one spur had caught around the stirrup leather and held my boot in the stirrup during the roll. Three 45 colt slugs angling upwards from where I bounced along the frozen ground did the trick. The third one reached the spine and put his hind quarters down, and I simply planted the fourth in his brain – and had a long hike home packing heavy saddle. But for that Colt Single Action, I would have been dragged and kicked into doll rags.
On one trip out to Ovando, my sixgun kept my partner and me in meager food supply for six days while we traveled with a pack string of twenty-three horses. The grub horse had busted a yellow-jackets' nest and bucked off down the mountain and across a river. When we found her, there was no food left in the pack. We lived by that sixgun alone for those six days.
Far more often the sixgun was needed to kill a rattler, collect a mess of grouse or sage hens, or rabbit for the cow dogs' dinner. Whether I had to climb out of the blanket to kill a porcupine that was eating the pack outfit, or clean the pack rats out of some cabin wished to sleep in during a rainy night, or simply heave a slug in front of a band of running horses to burn them toward the corral, the old sixgun was always hear and handy. It was a tool of the trade.
On other occasion the old gun was packed for social purposes — when serving on sheriff's posses, hunting cow thieves, or to back our honor and judgment. I still remember seeing one cow thief squirm when I watched him and his three riders while my partner cut four of my steers from two cars of beef that he was preparing to load on the train. Those steers had my brand, badly blotched, and the wattle cut off their noses, but I would have known their hides in a tan yard; so I took them by force. Suffice to say, I would have been pushing up daisies over twenty years ago instead of writing this article now, had I not carried and known how to use a good, heavy sixgun.
Guns were usually carried in a shoulder holster or, more often, in an open-top, quick-draw belt holster that left both hammer and trigger fully exposed. The bottom of the belt holster was tied to the leg or to the chaps so that the gun would not fly up and hit the elbow when riding a pitching bronc. Holsters were just large enough to accommodate the gun, and the belts were more often than not a combination of money and cartridge belts of double-soft chap leather. We never did see any of those huge buscadero Hollywood corsets in use on the range, nor did any of the old gun fighters I knew in my younger days use such an outfit.
Helena, Mont., was settled in the late sixties, largely by Confederate Civil War veterans. I knew, lived, and hunted with several of these men, most of whom owned or carried a good sixgun, either an old cap and ball Colt or a more modern single action. Now they are all dead and gone, and the modern trend seems more to small-caliber target guns. Colt has even stopped manufacture of the best gun they ever built – the Single Action Army.
I witnessed three gun fights when a kid in Helena and was not much impressed by the results from the 38 Special. In one, one man proved the quicker on the draw and a couple of 38 Specials through the heart stopped his opponent even though the opponent did draw and fire two shots that hit the pavement short of his executioner. In another, a cop planted five 38 Specials in a gunman's chest, about center, yet that gunman emptied his break-top 32 at the cop. One bullet, I thought the first, hit the cop right over the heart but went through a notebook and lodged in the bottom of his blouse pocket. One more went through a kid's leg as he was peacefully engaged in eating noodles in his booth, and the rest came through the front window over my head and flattened against a building across the street.
The gunman then threw his gun at the cop, and it also went through the window and across the street. He died as he was carried up the hospital steps. Another time my friend Bill O'Connel, the night cop around the N.P. Depot, killed two holdup men who had stuck up a saloon, with one shot each from his 45 Colt Single Action. Their one return shot only went through a transom window over Bill's head as he entered the saloon.
The 22-caliber sixguns and semi-auto pistols are useful for just one thing – target practice and competition. They may also be used effectively on very small game with high-speed hollow points occasionally. The 32-20 and 38 Special factory loads are far better small-game loads as a whole, but both lack power for any serious social purposes, for shooting game of any size, or for use against mean stock.
I have killed three mule deer with the 32-20 low-velocity smokeless soft-point load, and the cartridge proved entirely inadequate. I have also killed a couple of muleys with a K-22 S & W at close range, working on the backs of their heads double action. I had walked out on the edge of a small cliff and a big buck and a doe appeared just under me at about six yards range. A quick shot, double action, to the back of each head put both of them down, but each got up on its feet almost instantly. Two more shots were taken at each, and then the gun was empty. Both were down and kicking, but I had hardly reloaded when both were up again.
Then I started shooting at the back of the neck, just to the rear of the skull. When the gun was again empty, both were dead, but I will never try that stunt again. Another time, I had put two 172-grain 30-06 slugs in a big mule buck and he went down. Not wanting to shoot him up any more, I borrowed Jim Robbin's Colt Woodsman and proceeded to empty the gun in him. I hit the deer between the eyes with the first shot and heard the tiny slug whine as it ricocheted away. As the buck ran past, I put the rest of the magazine in close behind the shoulder. The buck went a couple hundred yards and again lay down. I approached to within 30 yards as he lay in the sagebrush watching me. I bounced most of another magazine off his skull before one bullet went through the tiny nerve hole over the left eye and killed him. No more 22's for me on anything bigger than bullfrogs, squirrels, or cottontails.
Contrary to popular opinion, the 32-20, 38-40, and 44-40 factory soft-point low-velocity loads will expand very well on deer and, if bones are struck, turn wrong side out. Yet the bullets will not expand in pine wood, simply smearing off the soft point and leaving the jacket intact. I wore out completely one 32-20 barrel with both factory loads and handloads in game shooting. I have also shot a 38-40 and a 44-40 a great deal. All three cartridges are bottlenecked and the chambers are much too long for the body of the case. When fired, the cases expand nearly to the mouth, leaving only about half of the original neck and requiring considerable resizing to reload them. I used to use No. 80 powder and the 260-grain 40-82 Winchester bullet sized down to fit in the 38-40.
The combination was superbly accurate from a 5 1/2-inch Single Action Colt, and a real killer on anything, but constant resizing made for short case life and I finally gave it up. The 44-40 is by far the best of these three rifle cartridges, and it was old-timer Ashley Haines' favorite sixgun load, but the 44-40 does its best work from a long 7 1/2-inch barrel owing to being loaded with rifle powder. I never could get much penetration with factory 38-40 or 44-40 loads from a sixgun, and soon came to prefer longer, heavier bullets that would give better penetration on stock or big game when the necessity for such use arose.
A factory 38-40 load almost cost me my life while monkeying with a wounded bull elk. The bullet simply splattered on the elk's skull, and did not penetrate. Had the cylinder not been loaded alternately with heavy black powder loads, that bull would have ended my hunting. With both cartridges, the case body is large and the neck short for short bullets. The charge must be held down religiously to safe pressures or it will bulge the bolt cuts in the cylinder.
My Preferences
I much prefer the 44 Special and the 45 Colt cartridges for sixgun use. For the handloader, the 44 Special is by far the best of all sixgun cartridges for serious work, either target, defense, or game killing. The cylinder walls are thicker over the case body than in the 45, and the cartridge is superbly accurate.
The old black powder loads with 250-, 255-, and 260-grain government bullets and 40 grains of FFG black powder gave 900 feet in the 45 Colt and would surely penetrate. I planted a 250-grain Remington black powder load in the seat of a goat's pants and it penetrated through to the left shoulder, which it broke. On broadside shots on both elk and goats, it went clean through unless heavy shoulder bones were hit. The 38-40 and 44-40 factory loads stopped under the skin on the off side on lung shots on elk. With the heavy 260-grain 38-40 handload, penetration was excellent.
Another 45 Colt load that gave excellent accuracy and penetration was the Winchester 300-grain 45-90 lead bullet sized down to .454 inch and backed by 35 grain of FFG. It killed mule deer and wounded elk well and was very accurate. I once had a case head separate with this load, blowing the loading gate out of the gun and cutting through the side of my trigger finger. That case had been reloaded many times, however, and the load was safe enough in good cases.
The factory 45 Colt pointed bullet punched a rather small hole through game and would not expand unless it hit a heavy bone. With that bullet I shot a great many grouse with little damage to the meat. In search of the best sixgun bullet, I designed a blunt-nosed bullet (No. 454260) for Belding & Mull but found that it or the same design worked out for the 44 Special in 260- and 280-grain was not accurate at any great range, so we dropped them and designed another bullet for Lyman.
First in 44 Special, 250-grain solid and 235-grain hollow base or hollow point, then in 45 Colt 250-grain, later in 45 semi-auto rim 240-grain, and still later in 173-grain solid and 160-grain hollow base or hollow point 38 Special, these Keith bullets have proven ideal, for me at least, for all sixgun work in twenty years of continuous use. They cut full caliber holes in anything and penetrate almost as well as the old pointed 45 Colt black powder load in solid persuasion. In hollow-point design, they will expand at velocities of 1,000 feet or more, and at 1,200 feet are very destructive to all game and ruinous to small game.
The Keith 160-grain 38 Special hollow point, backed by 13.5 grains of 2400, from the Colt Single Action or Shooting Master, or the S & W Heavy Duty or Outdoorsman will simply blow a grouse to bits and wings. The legs and neck will fly off at all angles when the bird is centered. The Keith 235-grain 44 Special hollow point, backed by 18.5 grains of 2400, is even worse in its destruction of living tissue.
It's certain death on either elk or deer if placed in the lungs broadside at close range, but it will not penetrate quite as well as the 250-grain solid in bone or when meaty portions of an animal are struck. Bob Hagel killed eight treed cougar last winter with a 44 Special 4 1/2-inch barrel Single Action Colt using these loads. He said the hollow point was much the best for a chest or lung shot and the solid bullet best for shoulder shots to break the big cats down so that they would not fall out of the tree full of fight.
I have tried both the Super 38's and the 9 mm Lugers on game, also the 45 semi-auto, for many years and they are one and all far inferior in actual knockdown power to the heavy revolver loads. A friend emptied a Super 38 Colt into a cougar's chest at close range in a tree, but the big cat jumped out and ran a short distance. One heavy 44 Special or 357 Magnum or 45 Colt in the same place would have done the business. Metal-patched bullets from the semi-auto pistols are simply not as good stoppers as are the soft lead bullets of the revolver, but the 45 Colt semi-auto has more actual shock on game than either the Luger or the Super 38. I have shot enough game with all three to prove the point, to my own satisfaction at least. Read Part 3 →
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