After a few hours shooting this weekend I had a few thoughts I wanted to share. I fired 4 different revolvers: .32 S&W Long, .38 S&W Special, .44 Magnum and .454 Casull. While shooting the .32 I realized that back in the early 1900's it was condidered adequate for police work. Today it's a pipsqueak. The .38 that displaced it is a great round but no powerhouse by modern standards. Along came the .357 Mag. and then the mighty .44. Back in '55 the .44 was king. When I was just a kid I watched in terror as my dad plugged away with his Super Blackhawk and I hid behind a tree when it was my turn. The .44 magnum had to be the ultimate handgun. Dirty Harry was "The Man". Little did I know that just 2 yrs. later the .454 Casull was born (1957). I think it was 1986 that I read an article on the Freedom Arms revolver and the 55000 CUP bombs it chambered. Now 15 yrs later here I am shooting the .454 (although in a Super Redhawk). Don't let the bore sizes fool you. There is no comparison between the .44 and .454. When I read that article in '86 I thought Dick Casull was crazy. How can you put that much power in a handgun? But thats not as far as it goes. I fired my first .475 and .500 Linebaughs on the same day. They weren't painfull but they sure weren't comfortable either. I thought that surely they were the ultimate in revolver rounds. Boy was I wrong! A friend of mine had a revolver built by Hamilton Bowen in .500 Maximum caliber. I already had .500 Linebaugh case forming dies so I loaded the ammo for him. If I remember right (the mind has a way of shutting out traumatic experiences) the load was 43grs. of AA1680 and a 450gr. LBT. I remember thumbing through an article on the maximums and seeing Ross Seyfried holding a Past shooting glove with the center split. That should have told me something now that I think of it. Only 10 rounds out of that .500 Max. left my wrists sore, shaking and useless for about an hour. Maybe someone will make a bigger revolver round but I think I'll be hiding behind that tree again!
                                           Just thinking out loud
                                                     Dave

Dave,

Sure do like the sound of that 32. How 'bout you?

We've been doing a lot of shooting here lately testing bullet lubes.... most of the shooting has been at high velocity with big stuff.... but one particular lube was so terrible, that I wondered if it would work on anything at all.   Curiosity got the best of me, so I lubed up a couple hundred .358"-160g FNBB's and loaded them up with my favorite .38 special load of 6.2g AA #5 in mixed brass.   Then of course I had to shoot them.

I pulled out my old Ruger .357 Blackhawk to test those bullets.... wow, I actually enjoyed that shooting session!  What fun, no obnoxious recoil, no muzzle blast, no ear-splitting thunder.... just pure shooting satisfaction!  Even these are +P loads, and I'd forgotten what fun the little .38 special could be!

Nope, bigger isn't always better!

God Bless,

Marshall