Another old article from the old Sixgunner.com website

[JimT]

NOTE: This is something I wrote for the old Sixgunner.Com website about 22/23 years ago, so some things may be out of date.

This n' That

Driving out to Raton, NM for The Shootists Holiday gave me time to reflect on a number of things that had been festering in the back of my mind. Listening to Milton Morrison of Qualite' Pistol & Revolver... and then John Linebaugh of Linebaugh Custom Sixguns .. during the seminars they put on solidified some of my thinking. Or at least caused it to coagulate into a semi-hard form. Here are some of the thoughts rambling around in my head....

SHOOTING IT IN

I have noticed a tendency for some shooters to buy a gun and then go to work on it before it has been proven to be bad or good. Part of this I blame on the gun media. Stories get put out about "all" of a certain type of gun having too tight or too loose throats, barrels, chambers... whatever. Some shooters tend to put a lot of stock in what they read and while that is not all bad it can present a problem. The problem being that not every gun is alike even though it may look alike and be made by the same manufacturer. As John Taffin says, "Every gun is a law unto itself."

Before you go to work on that new sixshooter let me suggest you shoot it awhile. It can takes a lot of shooting for some guns to "settle in". Why... I don't know. Linebaugh related an incident in which he built a gun for a customer, shot it to test it and then sent it to him. The customer called complaining that the gun would not group better than 2". John had fired much smaller groups and knew the gun was better than that, but asked the customer to send it back and he would check it out.

The gun was taken to the firing line upon being returned. Targets were set at 25 yards and shooting began. The 5-shot groups ran 2 1/2" ... 2 1/2".... 2 "... 2 1/4"... 1 1/2"... 1 1/2" ... 1"... and then settled down into shooting one-hole groups. It took over 30 rounds to get the gun to settle down. They changed ammo, went to the line and fired 5-shot groups that were 2 1/2"..... 2 1/2".... 2 1/2.... etc. until about 25 or 30 shots into the test the gun settled down and began shooting one-hole groups again. This happened every time a change was made in ammunition.

Mr. Linebaugh says he never did figure out why.

I personally have had a barrel that required over 100 shots for it to settle down and start shooting groups. Until it did the shots "walked" all over the paper and gave groups more on the order of patterns. Once the gun settled down it shot fine.

So... my suggestion is.. shoot it awhile before you work on it.

BULLETS

When jacketed bullets first made their appearance they received a lot of bad press. Bullets blowing up in game were reported and most people did not trust them. The first jacketed handgun bullets were soft and had thin jackets and could be pushed beyond their capacity to hold together.

With the high-performance handguns we have today we face the same problem, but not with jacketed bullets only. Cast bullets can be run faster than their strength, resulting in bullet blowup or fragmentation when it hits game. If you are shooting rocks or steel targets or paper it's not a problem. If it is bear or some other critter that is big and mean it could be fatal.

There are jacketed designs on the market now that hold up very well to high pressure/high velocity loads such are developed in the 454 Casull. Early on in the game Freedom Arms developed the Heavy Jacket Hard Core line of bullets that work very well. Today Cor-Bon produces a line called "Penetrators"... solids designed to give maximum penetration. Lynn Thompson of Cold Steel has used these to take elephant, rhino, and hippo. He told me that on a frontal shot in a hippo he never did find the bullet. Penetration is measured in yards.

There have been some failures with jacketed bullets. One such failure is told in the Guest Speakers section of this site. "Bear Hunt" relates the failure of some 300 gr. .45-70 ammo on a bear. I also had a call from someone who lost a moose using the same bullet design in a different caliber.

Cast bullets work very well but there have been some spectacular failures. I do not know all the particulars of each case, but in several it was obvious the bullets were pushed at a velocity beyond their ability to stay together when they impacted hard, tough bone.

It pays to test your bullets. I would no more go after dangerous game with untested bullets than I would lay down on an LA freeway at 3 in the afternoon.

Test them in several types of medium at different velocities so as to get an idea of how they hang together.

The other side of the coin is: Match the bullet to the game animal.

I shot a Whitetail at about 30 feet with the .348 Winchester using a Hornady 200 gr. JFP at 2650 fps. The shot was through the right front shoulder, clipped the heart, got both lungs and exited the left shoulder. The deer ran 100 yards like it had not been hit before slowing, stumbling and finally falling.

Later in the week I shot another Whitetail at about 40 yards. I used a 6" .41 Magnum with 200 gr. Speer JHP's at 1420 fps. The deer collapsed at the shot, then made a leap off it's back legs, hit the ground and kicked it last.

Why the difference? Bullet performance. The .348 bullet simply punched a small .34 caliber hole through and never expanded. The .41 bullet expanded but still punched clean through breaking both front shoulders. While the rifle had much more muzzle energy on paper it's performance was less than spectacular..... due only to my having used too hard a bullet for the animal being hunted.

Match the bullet to the game. Match the velocity to the bullet.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

You cannot read pressure signs from primers or case extraction, especially in sixguns. This was reinforced to me last week by John Linebaugh showing us a blown gun with the cartridge case still in the cylinder. The primer looks normal. Just because you are not getting sticky case extraction does not mean the load is safe.

READ!

Read the Loading Manuals. You should have 4 or 5 different ones and you should read them faithfully. A lot of questions will be answered for you if you will simply read. Buy books on ballistics if you have an interest that way. But stick with the loading manuals. That data was developed to help you. It was not developed to hinder your creative ability. The people who put the manuals together are not holding back some deep dark ballistic secret from you. This world has physical laws and limits. Ballistics labs learn where those limits are. Stick within them.


ADOPT A SHOOTER!

If you don't have kids or grandkids, find someone and teach them to shoot. Show them the enjoyment of true gun control... Hitting Your Target! Please be considerate of those who are just starting out and go easy. Don't start them with your ear-splitting wrist breaking magnum. Try something like breaking clay targets on the backstop or take them to a Cowboy Action Match. Show them the fun side of things. And be sure to sign them up in the NRA and pay the first year's dues for them. It will be the best investment you ever made.

ONE GUN

Some of you reading this don't have the funds available to get custom guns built or to purchase a Freedom Arms. Maybe you are saving toward that goal. Either way, I want to encourage you. YOU CAN DO ALMOST ANYTHING THAT SHOULD BE DONE WITH AN OPEN-SIGHTED SIXGUN WITHOUT A CUSTOM-BUILT SPECIAL!

A good .44 Magnum Ruger or a .45 Ruger will do almost 90% of what the custom 5-shot guns will do, speaking practically. You do not even need to be a handloader with all the fine ammo that is now available. 30 years ago it was not that way, but today we have Cor-Bon, Garrett, and Buffalo Bore loading heavy bullets at good velocities for these calibers. (Garrett loads only for the 44 Mag but that in no way diminishes the fine ammo they produce).

In a standard 6-shot Ruger these are good for deer, elk and moose. A hunter who has to use one on bear would not be under armed. I doubt any critter shot with one of these loads would be able to tell the difference. The main thing is, you are not in any way "out of the loop".

Practice and practice and practice with your gun. Shoot light loads, medium loads and heavy loads. Learn where it hits at all ranges. Shoot it in the rain. Shoot it in the snow. Shoot under all kinds of light conditions. In the end you will be much more proficient than the guy who is always swapping guns or the guy who shoots 3 or 4 different kinds and only sporadically.

Accuracy under pressure depends upon familiarity. Get intimately familiar with your gun. Handle it, point it, dry-fire it. Use it until it becomes an extension of your arm. You will have no reason to hang your head when shooting with the boys who can afford lots of toys.

[Scott Tschirhart]

The last few paragraphs contain some really good advice.

[samsi]

Yes it does. I'm the guy swapping 3-4 guns these days, but I remember how good I got when I used to stick with one.

[JimT]

My Dad had about 4 handguns, but he rarely shot them except for his S&W 586 .357. We counted over 350,000 rounds he put through that gun. How many more would only be guessing, but he shot it 3 to to 5 times week. And not just a few shots. He would put an hour in at the least. He rarely shot magnums ..most of the ammo he shot was reloads with 3 gr. of Bullseye in .38 Special cases. I know that he had the crane tightened up several times, at least one new hammer and trigger, cylinder gap tightened and one new barrel due to a bullet stopping in the bore in the middle of a very rapid fire string. Barrel had a big bulge in the middle. The finish is gone off the gun but it still shoots amazingly.

He only fired double action. I took him Javelina hunting and he got his first Javelina with that pistol. We were sitting on a wash watching them come toward us. When one was broadside to us about 50 yards away Dad cocked the hammer and fired single action and shot right over the back of the pig ... which took off away from us at high speed. Dad stood up, double actioned a shot right up the pigs rear and out the front, rolling it over .. a good 60 yards or so. He looked at me and said, "I knew I shouldn't have shot single action."

Tom_Dad 1985.jpg

That's him on the right with the pig.

He was a Corrections Officer at the Arizona State Prison in Florence and was named Top Gun at the facility. He won nearly every match he entered and had a roomfull of tophies. They asked him to sit out a match so someone else could win and he asked if he could shoot if he only shot left-handed for the entire match. They let him and he came in Second about 2 seconds behind the winner.

He was an amazing shot ... and stuck with one gun 99% of the time. Here's a couple photos of him shooting cans in the air.

dad.JPG

2022-09-05-14-56-0008.jpg

[Ysabel Kid]

The last few paragraphs contain some really good advice.

+1

[Bill in Oregon]

Thanks for sharing Jim. I admit to giving up on more than one sixgun before giving it a chance to settle in. I'm getting too old to do that anymore!

[gamekeeper]

Jim, that was a hard act to follow but you have done good...I'm sure your Dad's proud.