TEXAS WILDLIFE
GUNS & SHOOTING
Hand Cannons Part Two
Article and photos by STAN SKINNER
This is the “Big Kahuna,” the Smith & Wesson Model 500 revolver chambered for the .500 S&W Magnum, which has a muzzle velocity of 1,975 fps with a 350-grain bullet and generates 3,300 ft lbs of energy. This massive five-shot revolver was designed in 2003 to regain S&W’s crown as the world’s most powerful production handgun. With an 8 3/8-inch barrel, the Model 500 weighs 4 3/4 pounds empty.
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n the closing years of the 19th century, handgun shooters turned away from hand cannons to newly developed handgun technology. New semi-automatic handguns such as the Borchardt in 7.62x25mm were more lightly loaded than the dimensionally identical 7.63 Mauser. The latter, still-puny, cartridge was offered in the somewhat later broom-handle Mauser. This handgun did see use in war, notably by a young Winston Churchill in 1898 at the battle of Omdurman. Hand cannons continued to take a back seat as the 20th century began. Georg Luger perfected and patented his improvement of the Borchardt toggle action, and the Model 1900 Luger was adopted by the Swiss military and chambered for 7.65x21mm. This cartridge was designed by Georg Luger who later reworked it to become the 9mm Parabellum. In 1908, the German Army adopted the Luger chambered for 9mm, as did numerous other countries in succeeding years. However, the Luger was rejected by the U.S. military in favor of
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MAY 2022
the Browning slide-action Model 1911 semi-auto chambered for .45 ACP. Although the .45 ACP was significantly more powerful than the 9mm, it still fell short of being true hand cannon ammo. In fact, it wasn’t until 1934 that a modern-day version of a hand cannon emerged. In that year, Elmer Keith, Phil Sharpe, and Doug Wesson collaborated to design a new cartridge based on Keith’s highpressure experiments with the .38 Special. The new cartridge became the .357 S&W Magnum, which was introduced in 1935. The new cartridge’s name reflects its actual caliber size, which is identical to the .38 Special. The .38 Special name is based on a 19th century load which used heeled bullets that were the same diameter as the cartridge case. The new cartridge was designed for a maximum chamber pressure of 45,000 CUP, which is roughly twice the maximum pressure for the .38 Special. It was to be chambered in largeframe revolvers with stout chamber walls compared with most revolvers chambered for .38 Special. For this reason, the .357
