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![]() | #1 |
Banned Join Date: Sep 2015 Location: 29.62 N 81.219 W
Posts: 538
| The cupboard is bare.
Well, all the wheel weights & linotype are gone. So where do I start to tame the .300 Win Mag Bolt Action 18 inch Ruger & the Combat Magnum 4 inch L-Frame S&W Revolver for daily use? Should I look toward heavy for caliber projectiles at low velocities? |
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![]() | #2 |
Moderator Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: "Close, but no donut!"
Posts: 13,150
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What? I thought you already knew everything about everything. ![]() |
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![]() | #3 |
Banned Join Date: Sep 2015 Location: 29.62 N 81.219 W
Posts: 538
| The more I've learned the less I'm sure I know! Times change, folks either adapt or fall behind! Most of my experience is geared toward driving projectiles with maximum BC as fast as possible to travel as far as possible and remain supersonic along the way so that they are repeatable. Now that low cost cost lead isn't part of low speed high drag equation, I'm thinking that thier are folks aboard that have a wealth of knowledge that they can pass along on day to day operations without draining the wallet. (Hey, US fixed income folks supporting Handicapped Spouses may need to practice more than before to Master what we once considered Basic Skills?) ![]() ![]() |
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![]() | #4 |
Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posts: 10,798
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Remember that .45 Colts rule the roost from 1870s until 1911s came along then they shared to top spot. All too many PDs tried both .41 and .44 maggies. Texas DPS aka Highway Patrol has used .45 Colt, .45 ACP then women and small men forced them to go to the SIG P220 in .357 SIG and finally to the .9mm hole puncher. ![]() |
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![]() | #5 |
Banned Join Date: Sep 2015 Location: 29.62 N 81.219 W
Posts: 538
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.45 ACP 230 grain @ 850 fps, .45 Long Colt 250 grain @ 850 fps, .44 Mag Case loaded to .44 Special 240 grain @ 850 fps. I'll need to research if the 200 grain or the 240 grain comes closer to the 50 yard Ballistic Trajectory of the 265 grain (Hornady #4300) I'll be pushing out at 1300 fps. I might need to heat up either the 200 or 240 grain just a little to match point of aim point of impact at 50 yards with the full bore 265 grain load. It will be a little while before I get the time to crunch the numbers on my Sierra Program. So much to due, so little time......... |
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![]() | #6 |
Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posts: 10,798
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Texican Skeeter Skelton, Texas BP, county sheriff and a number of other LE jobs loved the .44 Special both for duty and for pleasure. IMO, both the .41 and .44 Mags are over hyped for LE work. And, yes, SAPD did issue .41 mags to those officers that could qualify with it. I'm still shaking my head in disbelief at Texas' DPS going from .357 SIG to 0mm. For those unfamiliar with the SIG round it was found to be ballisrtically equivalent to the old work horse, the .357 Magnum. |
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![]() | #7 | |
Banned Join Date: Sep 2015 Location: 29.62 N 81.219 W
Posts: 538
| Quote:
![]() I'm just wondering why that "Old Work Horse" .357 Mag never made it as a common Government Issue (GI) to the average GI? (.45 ACP ring a bell?) The .44 Mag, just like the .357 Mag, has no trouble when stoked with the accompanying "Special Round" in the same diameter. (i.e. .430 44 Special & .357 38 Special) But the Magnum Revolvers usually weighed more than Special counterparts. Advantage: even less recoil, Disadvantage: more ounces "Pounding the Beat!) Got to admit: downloading the .300 Win Mag with IMR powders and the 175 grain SMK isn't much of a challenge. ![]() | |
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![]() | #8 | |
Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posts: 10,798
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Yep, Skeeter was a writer of both gun articles for Shooting Time and bios in his "Me and Joe" series of short stories of his growing up in Depression era West Texas. Then there was Dobe Grant, a character in several of his fictional shrt stories. He also did a couple of books. My favorite was "Good Friends, Good Guns and Good Whiskey." Quote:
Last edited by csmkersh; 09-13-2019 at 07:24 PM. | |
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![]() | #9 |
Banned Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: San Antonio, TX
Posts: 551
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csmkersh, Had it not been for (former CSA General Officer & MG, USVC, too) Joe Wheeler, the US troops in the Philippines would have been "stuck with" revolvers in .38 Long Colt. = GEN Wheeler insisted that Colt "Alaskan" revolvers in .45 Colt were issued to the troops "in contact". Evidently a LOT of "the big Colt's revolvers" were issued, as self-appointed BG (Fertig was actually a LTC, USAR, Inactive) ,Wendell Fertig's guerrillas, who fought the Japanese in WWII, managed to locate any number of those "obsolete" Colt's revolvers, after the Philippines fell to the Japanese. (One cache of Colt's revolvers in .45 Colt were found hidden on the Del Monte pineapple plantation, with a few hundred rounds of ammo.) Note: An old & now sadly "Promoted to Glory" friend of my father's was "with Fertig" & said that the guerrillas were actually making cartridge cases from brass curtain rods, making primers from match-heads & casting their own bullets in the jungle. (Mr. Ames once told me, when I was a youngster, that "The General said that if any of us fired even one round of the scarce ammo that, "You'd damned sure better bring in a Jap rifle & some ammo, to replace the one that you fired.") Mr. Ames also once told me that a single guerrilla "went on a scouting mission before daylight one morning" & didn't return for 5 days & "just after black dark" came back to HQ "leading a parade of Filipino civilians", who were struggling to carry all the 6.5mm rifles, ammunition and 2 crates of hand grenades that he had captured. - It turned out that the single guerrilla "had come upon a Japanese truck driver, who was relieving himself" & after killing the driver with a bolo knife, the guerrilla looked in the cargo truck & found that it was filled with rifles, ammunition, the grenades & some other "useless to military use cargo". Mr. Ames said that that young man was given a "field spot promotion" from LCPL USMC to 1LT, USAR by GEN Fertig "for supremely meritorious service in support of the mission of USFIP." yours, sw Last edited by Doughboy; 09-13-2019 at 09:55 PM. Reason: addenda |
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![]() | #10 |
Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posts: 10,798
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The Colt Alaskan was a big a$$ed double action pistol with a bird's head grip and shell ejection rod like the Colt Peacdemaker. I blew a chance to buy one several decades back. ![]() |
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![]() | #11 |
Banned Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: San Antonio, TX
Posts: 551
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csmkersh, I've only SEEN a Colt's Alaskan in a museum but never even held one. = GEN Wheeler DEMANDING that those "obsolete" revolvers be sent to the Philippines & issued likely saved many US troops from being wounded/killed by the Moros. yours, sw |
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![]() | #12 |
Banned Join Date: Sep 2015 Location: 29.62 N 81.219 W
Posts: 538
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So back to Topic at hand, taming Elmer Keith's .44 Mag in a S&W L-frame once all the low cost lead has dried up? The .45 Long Colt is quite a round, yet it isn't a .44 Elmer Keith Magnum as loaded by most manufactures today.
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![]() | #13 |
Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: San Antonio, Texas
Posts: 10,798
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Keith started is long walk down the road to the eventual .44 Magnum started with him blowing up more than a couple of .45 Colt SAAs. When that proved not to work he switched to the .44 Special and the very slightly more cylinder wall thickness was had he needed. He asked Remington and they complied and gave him the N frame .44 Magnum and the cartridge to his specs.
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![]() | #14 |
Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 1,428
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The guerrillas in the Philippines used brass curtain rods to make BULLETS. The rods sold there were actually almost exactly .30 caliber. They cut off a section and hand filed them to a point. Cartridge cases they couldn't make so everyone had to carefully police up their brass. I forget what they used as primer compound in the fired primers, possibly ground up match heads. I read all this so long ago I can't remember the details. Army Special Forces (Green berets) treated Fertig as a god whenever he visited. |
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