Straight Case

What caliber for attacks by vehicle?

Awful attack in Nice, France, on their celebratory day, Bastille Day. It seems most of the 70 dead and 100 wounded were run down by the vehicle, after which the driver started shooting.

THIS is where your high-capacity semi-auto comes in. Your defense is to fill the cab of the assault vehicle with bullets, as many as you can. This is NOT a "one-shot stop" situation.

You need to be armed with a high-caliber, full-size service arm, with high-capacity magazines, at least three magazines. My choice would be a Glock 22 converted to 357 Sig.

The 40 S&W as a revolver round

Whatziss you say? a Fotay Revolver? Ain't no sucha thang, you say. Yes there is, and I own one. It is the Charter Arms Pitbull snubbie in 40 S&W caliber. Charter arms deals with the concept of using rimless ammo in a revolver by a mechanical construct which projects little tabs out of the ejection star to grab the cartridges by their rebated-rim channel for ejection. The cartridges headspace themselves in the cylinder by the mouth of the brass.

When you think about the 40 S&W, it is simply a larger semi-auto cartridge than the 9mm Luger, and it will handle the pressures that a Nine will, up into the mid 30,000 CUP range. 38 Special, even in +P+, won't take over 20K-CUP. 45 ACP, same as 38 Special. 357 Magnum will take up into the low 40,000 CUP range, but for most snubbie applications, you have to load it down well below what it will take.

So, the Fotay makes a decent snubbie cartridge. Out of the Charter Arms' 2.5" barrel, it will make close to 1,000 fps in most defensive loadings, and closer to 1,050 fps in the lightest bullets.

I am currently loading some 40 S&W for my Pitbull in 135-gr, the lightest bullet commonly available. I get these from MidwayUSA, which house gets them from Rainier Bullets. They are Copper Plated Lead Truncated Cone. The first batch for testing will be shoved by 6.2-gr of IMR Hi-Skor 700-X. Federal Small Pistol primer lights the fire. In a 4" test barrel, these get 1,210 fps, which would be 439 #/ft muzzle energy, about a third more than a 9mm out of that barrel. Out of the 2.5", with a cylinder gap to jump, I will likely get 1050 fps, translating to 330 #/ft muzzle energy, about a third more than a 38 Special loading out of a snubbie revo. For comparison, the NATO 124-gr 9mm war round gets 336 #/ft out of a 5" service auto.

After the 135s, I will load some with Hornady Action Pistol JHP-180s. This is a bullet designed for the competition crowd. It has a tough hide of copper to handle metal targets, unlike the lightly-plated Rainiers. It will make decent penetration, pushed by 6.0-gr of Unique out of the snubbie at about 950 fps, giving me 361 #/ft of muzzle energy, just a tad more than 45ACP military ball gives. I have a 1911A1, and it weighs twice as much as the Pitbull, carries 3 more rounds and does not easily conceal. My shoot-all-day Glock Model 22 doesn't conceal well, either (no Glock double-stacker does).

The revolver, with two reloads of ammo, gets me to my rifle, in the case I can't end the fight with five rounds, but that's why we make lots of ammo and practice a lot, isn't it?

The OLD handgun cartridges...

By "old", I mean cartridges which started out as blackpowder rounds. In other words, 38 Special, most of the 32 rimmed stuff (EXCEPT the H&R & the .327 Federal), ALL of the short (and weak) 38's, and most everything the Colt Single Action Army was chambered for. Gawd, I'd have to fire up the Wayback Machine to list all of those, because I believe Colt had a rule then: if they thought they could sell 2000 revolvers in a particular caliber, they would tool up for it.

As the era of black powder began to wane (although not knowing it yet), some manufacturers began to experiment with bottleneck rounds. The rounds built for the Winchester Model 1873 are a good example: 32-20 and 44-40. The whole idea of bottleneck rounds in ANY form is to put more push behind the bullet. In black powder days, that push was important, since black powder is very anemic compared to modern (or even original) smokeless powder. The SAAMI max pressures for black powder run around 12,000 CUP, where hotter large cartridges like the 44 Remington Magnum run closer to 50,000 CUP.

It all translates to energy, or that measurement of the whack the bullet imparts to what it hits. In the 44 Russian, an originally-blackpowder round, which we will look at in detail below, the max energy is just under 300 pounds/feet at max SAMMI pressure of 10,000 CUP (with smokeless powder). In the 44 Remington Magnum, the max energy is closer to 1800 pounds/feet, a sixfold increase, even though the cartridge capacity is maybe 25% more than 44 Russian.

I have been shooting .44 guns for about 8 years. I have a Marlin Model 1894 in 44 Magnum, a Colt Anaconda revolver in that caliber, and a pocket 5-shot Charter Arms Bulldog revolver in 44 Special, the blackpowder precursor to 44 Magnum. The 44 Special has a SAAMI max of 14,000 CUP, so all I get out of the snub-nose Bulldog is 1,000 feet per second at best, but that is okay for short-range defensive duty, and the Bulldog's bark is worse than it's bite. If ever called upon to be in a multi-enemy shootout, I plan to yell "forty-four" before I fire the first round. The enemy WILL believe I am shooting at least a 44 Magnum, maybe even a Cassul at them. They will hesitate, which gives me the advantage.

The 44 Russian. 

One of the issues which keeps me from shooting my Anaconda more is it's savage recoil. I am a lightly-built dude with my wrists being only 6 7/8" at the forearm end. I also have small hands, taking the smallest work gloves made for men, or medium women's gloves. I can just barely grip the Anaconda's Hogue-style grip with one hand, and I never shoot it that way. I can and have shot 60 rounds of full-power 44 Magnum through it in one range session (Cap'n Jim will remember that!), but I had leather gloves on which were taped to my wrists! Okay, the smarties say, why don't you just carry and practice with 44 Special? I did that until I got the Charter Bulldog. The Anaconda is a HUGE revolver, weighing 47 ounces. Add the ammo, and it's almost 4 1/2 pounds. The Bulldog weighs 20 1/2 ounces, and is almost an inch narrower. It conceals nicely. I carry the Anaconda open when I carry it. I have decided to drop back 3/4 of a century and load some 44 Russian ammo to practice with. I came up with this:

Bullet: 200-gr LFN, 5.0-gr Green Dot, LPP. Performance: 836 fps, 2" groups at 15 yards out of a Bulldog!

These will make shooting the Anaconda about equal to shooting an old S&W K-22: 22LR out of a heavy old 38 revolver. They will make shooting the Bulldog. about like shooting 38 out of a heavy old revolver.

And, of course, it is one of the missions of Straight Case to promote shooting the old firearms/loads which figured so prominently in our Nation's history...

"Hammerless" revolvers

In my not-so-humble opinion, "Bobbed" and "Hammerless" revolvers are nothing less than a waste of tactical advantage, which is what defense with firearms is all about.

In this post, esteemed gun-blogger PawPaw writes about how he gave a Smith MDL 60 to a family member, and she shortly complained that carrying it caused the hammer spur to dig into her body, and the solution sought was to bob the hammer spur off. With all the gun-talent in that family, they evidently did a nice job of cropping the hammer, but doing the job in the first place bothers me enough to write about it.

Why not sell the gun, and get a revolver with a shrouded hammer? These have vestigial spur on the hammer, can still be cocked for single action, but don't rub holes in your flesh if you choose to carry IWB.

There is just a little checkered stub of the hammer showing on that Smith, and the shrouding offers the advantage of adding some weight to the firearm, for steadier shooting.

There is HUGE tactical advantage of single-action fire, well aimed, at a distance from the target.

It is a somewhat extreme example, but I have made 4 out of 6 hits with table-supported single-action fire on a man-sized target 300 yards distant with my Colt Anaconda 44 Magnum, shooting factory 240-gr JHP. When I carried a .357 Magnum Ruger Security Six 4" on patrol duty, I was required to be able to put 5 out of 6 on a man-silhouette, using single action, two-hand Weaver, at 50 yards. Towards the end of my duty-revolver days, just before going to a Glock 17, I routinely warmed up for that qualification stage at 60 yards, the max range available on our Sheriff's tactical pistol range.

I, too, carried a Smith & Wesson Model 60 on duty in the olden days, both as a second gun in a pocket holster sewed into the pocket of my winter prowl jacket, or OWB holster under a blazer if I was working plain clothes. My only modification to that gun was done by an expert armorer, who put an outstanding "action job" on it while he and I worked the Front Desk in the station-house one evening. I later put neon green dots of paint in the rear sight channel, and painted the front sight orange neon. Foolishly, I sold that gun when I went back on Extended Active Duty in the USAF in 1979.

Today, I have a Ruger SP101 five shot two-inch. It is a heavier revolver, has a fine spur hammer on it, painted sights, and I can easily hit the man-silhouette at 60 yards with it.

Yes, with very long practice and continued familiarization, you can get ALMOST as good double-action results with a revolver as you can with single-action, but most folks don't have the time or ammo to do those hours of work. One fifth of that work on the range with single action and you are safe and proficient with your revolver.

Most who carry snubbie revolvers are confident people: confident that they can get the job of defense done with 5 shots. That confidence level increases markedly when proficiency at longer ranges is attained, and that calls for single action practice. 

One gun only

If you could only have one gun, or you wanted one that would fit in your Bug Out Bag, but still be useful at a distance, which one would you get?

Mind you, if you only can have One Gun, it needs to be a serious caliber, at least .357 magnum if a rifle, or at least 20 gauge if a shotgun. If it's a rifle, you won't be able to get many birds with it. If it's a shotgun, you can get medium game out to maybe 100 yards, but not much beyond. Finally, it has to have some intimidation factor, so a shotgun might be best.

Sounds like no compromise is possible, right?

Wrong.

Consider:

A shotgun that converts to a rifle. No, I'm not talking about something exotic like a Drilling, or one of the Rossi barrel-swap single shots. No, you need to have at least two shots, because sometimes you miss with the first, or there are two targets to be struck.

Here's the shotgun:

That's the Stoeger Double Defense, available in 12 or 20 gauge. Note the Picatinny rails for mounting sights and/or lasers/lights. It's also an Over/Under design, which makes for a slimmer gun by about an inch than a Coach Gun. Of course, with 12-ga, you have excellent ammo commonality for all purposes from anti-materiel to armor-piercing to big game OR upland hunting. From one company, too, if you shop here.

You have only just touched one half of the possibility, however. You can load many lesser calibers with this product. That insert is 10" long, and if you select it in the 44 Magnum caliber (shown), and if you happen to have some of this ammunition, you are set to deliver a ton of muzzle energy to your target way past where that Ddupleks slug will get to. If you have a decent scope mounted to that upper rail on the Stoeger, you might notice that you still have a half-ton of energy and over 1,000 ft/sec velocity left at 250 yards with between 3 and 4 feet of drop.

If you have a more slightly-built member of the family who needs arming, get this shotgun in 20 gauge, and get the inserts in .357 Magnum. Ddupleks sells their amazing ammo in 20 gauge also, and Buffalo Bore has this amazing .357 ammo. Using the 1700 fps chart, we can see that you will have well over a half-ton of muzzle energy and almost a quarter-ton at 250 yards, with about the same drop as 44 Magnum.

Cost? List for the Double Defense is $500, the inserts are $150 each, and you will probably spend $200-$400 on an optic. I would choose a 1-4X tactical if it were me.

For about a thousand bucks, you have your One Gun, and I can hear it now, "but, but 'Dog, for that kind of money, I can have two decent guns that will do all that stuff."

What you said, lad, "two decent guns"....unlike in the movies, you can't shoot two guns at once. If you stayed with this One Gun Only concept, and carried about 5# worth of ammo, you'd be set for any encounter, two rounds at a time. If you go down, and one of your buddies winds up with your gun, your bud can operate it with 5 seconds worth of OJT.

One Gun Only, think about it.

Reloading Fail

Yep, I had one. A total fail. I recently got some of these 310-grain boolits, with the intention of making some serious "bear loads" for the Colt Anaconda and also some heavy rifle rounds for the Marlin 1894C.

After I got the boolits in, I began to look at published loads, and the first thing I found out is that the Marlin shouldn't use a boolit that heavy! 260-grains is tops, due to the twist rate of the rifling. Crap on a stick! Oh, well, load the revolver rounds, says I, and maybe I'll melt down the remaining 310s and recast them as 240 SWCs, I have that mould.

I primed up 50 new Starline cases with LPPs, and ran them through the expander die. I decided to skip the usual step of building a dummy or two, so I put the powder in one case to make this load:

310gr LSWC	21.5 gr	H110	1,275 fps	1.749"	Win LP	Admin

So, I decided to short the powder a full grain and load 20.5 grains of H110. Weighed it out and funneled it into the case, lined up the case and boolit under the seating die, set almost wide open, since that 1.749" might just be too long for the die. I push on the RCBS handle...and the boolit stops cold a full quarter-inch from the seating cannelure. Powder compression limit. This COAL is right up to the 1.9" area, way too long for any .44 Magnum gun, and probably going to be way over SAAMI pressure if it was ever capped off.

Then I make a primerless, powderless dummy, it COALs out at 1.66" just at the start of the cannelure, and I now have to acquire a syringe to fill the hull with a measured amount of water to see how much room there actually IS in there for powder, then calculate the powder so as to be in SAAMI limits. I suspect that I'll use Unique, and I suspect that the load will be between 8.5 and 10.0 grains, but some science lies ahead here.

The usual bleg applies: any one with experience in 44 maggy 310-gr Bear loads please chime in.

Advanced gunny bleg

Very advanced. You might have to be a serious benchrest shooter to answer this.

Problem: I have acquired a rifle in the caliber of .300 Savage. Highly advanced for it's 1921 day of introduction, the 300 Savage had the approximate power of the .30-06 Springfield, but was built into a shorter case. Chuck Hawks says that much later, in the 1950's, the .308 Winchester, then the 7.62X51 NATO was developed from the 300 Savage, and of course we know of the provenance of the .308 Winchester.

Here's my personal problem: time has passed this caliber by. Once the most popular non-military deer AND elk caliber in the Northwest woods (Northwest hunters are cheap bastards, and used a lot of milsurp rifles to hunt with), it is still available, but there is little in the way of new cases to be reloaded, and the ammo itself commands a high price, almost $30/box. Hulls are over $25 for 50, and they are VERY hard to find.

I just completed some study, both in the SAAMI charts and by detailed measurement with a dial caliper, and it seems to me that the body of the 300 Savage cartridge case is virtually identical to the .308 WIN from the base to the start of the bottleneck. The only difference below the bottleneck is that the rim-cannelure (is that called the rebate or the extraction-channel?) is much wider in the .308 WIN than it is in the 300 Savage. I would guess that the 300 Savage, being designed for bolt or lever guns only, would not need as wide an extraction-channel as the .308 WIN, which was designed with semi-auto and full-auto battle rifles and MMGs in mind.

So, the big question is: Can the profile of a .308 WIN case be changed to the 300 Savage profile? Of course, the bottleneck in the 300 Savage is much steeper, it reminds me of Ackley-Improved calibers, and the actual case neck is much longer in .308 WIN, but that is just a matter of using a case trimmer on it. The main thing is changing the angle-profile of the bottleneck.

Can that be done?

If it can be done, there might be a few grains of difference in powder capacity between a re-made .308WIN/300SAV hull, but that can be measured and the powder loads recalculated so as to have the right pressures.

Secondary question: if the change can be made, will it best be made with dies or fire-forming?

Another secondary question: what will the longevity of these changed hulls be? My intent would be to use them with cast-boolit loads, which are much lighter in pressure than high-power jacketed hunting loads.

Some photos:

On the left is the .308 WIN round, a Hornady 168-gr AMAX match round. On the right is the 300 Savage round, a 150-gr Remington Corelokt. This gives you an idea of the cartridge profiles, side-by-side.

Another sXs view:

Well, there you have it, advanced gunnies. All advice welcome. Of course, I also know that I can just start hoarding the scarce 300 Savage ammo, but apparently, it is only made by Remington now, and I just don't like the Core-Loct bullets. Yeah, I have killed deer with them myself, and they did their job, but that little lead protrusion at the tip gets beat up easily, and I figure it causes some inaccuracy. I suppose I could pull the Core-Loct bullets from factory, and reload with my choice, that's always an option as well. I have a large selection of .308 bullets to try out in load development, everything from 110-gr up to 180-gr with several in between.

It's going to be a fun Winter, both at the bench and the range. Speaking of winter, it starts here in the PacNorWest in 2 days, so I need to get my bippy iun gear and put all the summer-living stuff away.

Russ shotgun bleg - RAAC MK-1919B

Does anyone know whether this Russian American Armory shotgun uses the same magazinges as a Saiga-12? You can get 10 & 12-round magazines for the Saiga-12, as well as this drum-type 20-rounder, but the RAAC MK-19B comes only with a 5-rounder.

I'm impressed with the book stats on this gun, though, and might get one if it takes bigger magazines. I will probably go look at one soon, but I might have to drive a ways to do that...

 

Charter Arms Pitbull - Range Report

Finally got the Pitbull to the range. I went to the Clackamas Co (OR) Sheriff's Training Center, the facility at which I do my annual LEOSA04 quals.

After the usual check-in, and re-do of all my range-user paperwork (because I dummied and didn't bring my old copies), I was issued two boxes of Federal American Eagle 180-gr FMJ. This stuff is steamy enough, with a muzzle energy of 400 #/ft.

 Sharp eyes! Yes, that photo was snapped just as I was leaving.

I was also issued an IPSC target (which will be the new target to qualify on this year), so I started out at 7 yards with the first five...

Not too bad, I'll take it. Hands were fresh, eyes, too...

After each five rounds, I practiced my manual of arms for reloading, which after 21 of these drills, still needs work (one time only, I managed to eject all five spent hulls from the gun with one stroke on the ejector rod. Once out of 21, aaarrrrggggghhh!

So, it proceeded apace. Fire five, pull in the target and take a photo, reload and do it again. After half a box, my hand was starting to take a beating. This gun has a SHARP recoil. Not a push, it is a sharp SPANK to the palm and especially the area at the base of the thumb. I kept rechecking my grip, but wimped out after 25 rounds and put on a glove. Yep, the Michael Jackson look, one military lightweight shell glove for the right hand. The eyes were getting squinty, too. The R/O had given me one of the dimmer lanes to shoot in, practice, I guess.

After 75 rounds or so, the gun started to loosen up noticeably. The Federal ammo didn't crud it up much at all, but the trigger lost about 2-3 pounds in double action and was now much smoother, the cylinder opened easier, and the gun just felt better in the hand. Too bad the strong hand was going in the other direction.

I moved a fresh target down to 25 yards and put on my best off-hand supported fire. Hmmmm, not exactly snub-nose sniper, am I?

 

 That leftward pull was very pronounced shooting double-action. I put up a couple of 2" orange pasters and kept at it, changing to a sighted 4:30 hold about 2" from the edge of the orange. the Kentucky windage worked, and then, switching to single-action rested hold from behind the barricade, I fired the last 20 or so...(upper right paster)

That's more like it. That's minute of gourd shooting for over 75% of the rounds, at 25 yards. Now I know that the gun can do it and I can still do it too!

I didn't get a chance to work on load development, since shooters may only shoot the range ammo, but it was reasonable enough at $19/box, and I bought a box of Speer LE Gold Dot 165-gr JHP to take with me for another $30, not bad either, but for now, I'm carrying the Speer Short-Barrel 180 Gold Dots.

Looking for a Pitbull load...

Okay, now that I have the Pitbull, what do I shoot in it? What do I shoot for practice and what do I carry for the best defense loads?

Here's my first trip around the reloading bench:

For max defense, I'm using the Hornady "Hornady Action Pistol" (HAP) bullet, a tight-jacketed JHP of 180 grains. First, I'm building loads around it because I have some, and second, I'm bearing in mind that this IS a Snubbie revolver I'm loading for, and so I will lose some oomph with the cylinder/barrel jump AND with the short barrel, so I need to work for penetration as the primary wounding effect of the round, not expansion. I had similar considerations with the 44 Bulldog, if you recall.

So, at the bench, I have these fine Hornady bullets, actually two different bullets. The second one is the classic Hornady JHP, their XTP, in the 155-gr weight.

Last night, though, I loaded only for the Hornady 180-HAP.

Three loadings, one powder. I'm sold on Unique for a fast powder. Old School, yes, but it works. PITA to measure because it comes in large flakes, but a fine powder.

I set up to reload.

First, it's so cold here I had to turn on TWO propane heaters to take the chill off my Survival and Reloading Shed. Late Spring, yes, but as it began to warm up, I worked up 60 once-fired cases, the usual Range Brass, from the Sheriff's Tactical Range. I used my new RCBS Carbide dies in my ancient RCBS (pre-Rock Chucker) press. The brass was done soon enough, so first, I loaded the maxi-rounds with 6.0 grains of Unique. Twenty of those, just enough for 4 cylinders-full. Next, I went down to 5.5 grains of powder, another 20, then finally, 5.0 grains. The comparison between these rounds will tell me where to fine-tune the final product.

The 6.0 might be close to SAAMI max for standard-pressure, but they won't be up to +P max, so I should be all right.

JHP	6.0 gr	Unique	1,020 fps	1.125"	CCI SP	guest
	Speer Gold Dot bullet. Gun used was a Colt Z40 with a 4.4" barrel. Velocity was a 10 shot average. Extreme spread was 27 fps.

No pressure listed, but another listed load with MORE Unique, 6.4 grains, is from the Alliant tables, and they are unlikely to list a load which is over SAAMI max, in fact, theirs lists well below SAAMI max of 35,000 CUP.

JHP	6.4 gr	Unique	1,065 fps	1.125"	WSP	Alliant
	Suggested starting load: 5.8 gr Pressure: 33,800

(Both these loads are from Handloads.com, using a search term of "180" only)

When I go to the range next week, I'll take these, and some Remington Green Box 180's for comparison. I don't do penetration tests myself, but if I meet the guy with the chrono there, the velocity ought to tell the tale on what I've brewed up so far. I'll probably shoot 5 of the $$pendy Hornady Gold Dot Personal Protection rounds as another baseline, since it's the closest thing to a purpose-built factory round for this gun that I've found so far.

Of course, I will need beaucoup loading/unloading drills if I'm to depend on this revolver for personal defense. I've noticed that small but definite positive force is required to PUSH each round into each chamber, to get it by the little spring-loaded tab in the star which holds it in place. I need to dig up a .357 speedloader for my SP-101 to see if it will work with Fotay rimless. The chambers in the loader ought to be big enough, considering that the .357 is rimmed, so the question is whether the star mechanism of the HKS speedloader will retain the bullets in it, then to see how much force would be involved to get by all 5 of those spring-retainers at once.

Ah, I love a good mystery!