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.

In 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 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

Mag is about one-eighth inch longer than the .38 Special, so it cannot fit in a .38 Special chamber.

Nearly two decades later, Elmer Keith was at it again. Having earlier determined that the cylinder walls of the .45 Colt were too thin to accommodate his highpressure loads, Keith turned his attention to the .44 Special.

Bullet diameter of this cartridge was actually .429 inches, significantly smaller than the .452 diameter of the .45 Colt. Before long, Keith had developed loads that yielded 1,200 feet per second (fps), using a 250-grain bullet.

In January 1956, Smith & Wesson introduced its Model 29 revolver chambered for the .44 Magnum. In the meantime, Keith encouraged Remington to develop a commercial version of his loads. Remington responded with an even more powerful .44 Remington Magnum that propelled a 240-grain bullet at 1,500 fps.

Rumor has it that a Ruger employee found empty pre-production brass in a scrapyard and gave it to Bill Ruger, who investigated and went to Remington. Provided with specifications and performance data, Ruger was able to ship his .44 Mag Blackhawk in August of that year.

Despite its January announcement, Smith & Wesson was able to produce only a small quantity of Model 29s in 1956. So, Bill Ruger’s .44 Blackhawk effectively beat S&W 29s into shooters’ hands.

The .44 Magnum achieved only modest popularity until 1971. In that year, the movie “Dirty Harry” was released. In that movie, Clint Eastwood as “Dirty Harry” Callahan proclaimed the S&W Model 29 in .44 Magnum to be “the most powerful handgun in the world.”

Within days, S&W Model 29s disappeared from dealers’ shelves. Prices skyrocketed to as much as three times normal retail prices. With limitations from production capacity, S&W was unable to immediately meet the soaring demand. Many shooters turned to other gunmakers such as Sturm, Ruger with their .44 Mag Super Blackhawk and double-action Redhawk revolvers.

Despite all the hype, it turns out that Dirty Harry was wrong. In 1958, Dick Casull, Duane Marsh and Jack Fullmer developed a wildcat based on the .45 Colt. Similar to the .357 and .44 magnums, the new cartridge was lengthened to prevent its use in older .45 Colt chambered revolvers. It was dubbed the .454 Casull.

From a 7.5-inch test barrel, the new cartridge could launch a 240-grain bullet at 1,900 fps compared with the .44 Magnum with a muzzle velocity of 1,350 fps from a similar length barrel. This increased muzzle energy to almost twice that of the .44 Magnum.

In 1983, Freedom Arms, located in western Wyoming, introduced its Model 83 revolver chambered for .454 Casull. This stainless-steel, single-action handgun is not a six-shooter. Its cylinder holds only five shots for an extra margin of safety.

In 2003, Smith & Wesson decided to regain its top dog status with its Model 500 revolver, which is chambered for the .500 S&W Magnum as well as the somewhat smaller .460 S&W Magnum. This stainless-steel, double-action revolver is built on S&W’s brand-new X-frame. The X-frame joins the N, L, and K frames in S&W’s lineup as the largest of the S&W frame sizes.

The .500 S&W Magnum propels a 350-grain bullet at 1,975 fps, generating a staggering 3,300 ft lbs of kinetic energy. This is more than 1,500 ft lbs greater than the .454 Casull.

Also chambered in the S&W Model 500 is the .460 Magnum, which is a lengthened version of the .454 Casull, which in turn, is a lengthened version of the .45 Colt. This means the S&W 500 revolver in .460 Magnum can also accept .454 Casull ammo as well as .45 Colt and even .45 Schofield ammo.

I have used the .460 Mag on successful hunts for white-tailed deer, pronghorn and feral hogs. Using a Bushnell handgun scope mounted on my .460, I took the pronghorn at a lasered 265 yards. However, I am not proud of it.

A stiff crosswind made a steady hold difficult, even using a fence post for support. Wind drift was also problematic. Let me just say, it took more than one shot and was not instant.

I harvested the whitetail at 108 yards from a steady rest over a leather bag. The buck dropped like a bag of rocks, and my feral hog was just below my deer blind.

In my opinion, the .460 performed very well on medium sized game, and the big S&W revolver was accurate with a crisp trigger pull. It is no lightweight, tipping the scale at 4 ¾ pounds.

With the size and devastating power of the S&W Model 500, it is truly a hand cannon and deserves the title of “Most Powerful Handgun in the World.”

The .45 Colt (left) was designed in 1872 as a black powder cartridge for the Colt Model 1873 “Peacemaker.” Dick Casull and Jack Fullmer lengthened and beefed up the .45 Colt in 1957 to become the .454 Casull (center), toppling the .44 Magnum as the “World’s Most Powerful Handgun Cartridge.” Then, in 2005, Smith & Wesson lengthened the .45 Colt again to create the .460 S&W Magnum, perhaps the world’s best long-range handgun hunting cartridge.

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

Stocking Ponds is a Process

Article by DR. TODD SINK, Associate Professor and Aquaculture Extension Specialist BRITTANY CHESSER, Aquatic Vegetation Management Program Specialist Photo courtesy of DR. TODD SINK

Let the good times begin. But for times to be good for both the pond owner and these young catfish being stocked, it’s important to manage fish populations correctly.

As spring begins to give way to summer, many pond owners will begin to turn their attention to stocking their pond for the first time, or perhaps restocking an existing pond to correct an imbalance in the fish population. It is important to remember that stocking ponds is a process that should not be rushed to avoid mistakes as the fish population is established. When rushed, the fish population could become imbalanced from the start and take years of corrective management.

When stocking a pond, many pond owners locate a fish supplier and purchase all the fish, including several different species, to stock at once. This can be a mistake. The proper stocking ratio is 10 prey fish (typically sunfish) for every predatory fish.

Prey fish tend to be smaller species in the sunfish family and include bluegill and redear sunfish. Less often prey fish can include warmouth, longear sunfish, redbreast sunfish, or pumpkinseed. Other prey species that are also sometimes stocked for specific situations, such as growing trophy-sized largemouth bass, include threadfin shad and tilapia. These species are not recommended for most smaller (less than 1 acre) recreational ponds or ponds that will not be intensively managed.

The recommended stocking rate is 500 sunfish per acre and 50 bass per acre. The sunfish can be 500 bluegill or 400 bluegill and 100 redear sunfish.

Stocking redear in combination with bluegill is recommended because it provides another species to catch. Redear also get larger than bluegill.

Because they do not directly compete for food resources, the pond typically ends up with more fish per acre than by stocking with bluegill alone. Bluegill feed predominantly on insects their entire life while redear feed primarily on snails and mollusks as adults.

Redear sunfish can be stocked as the only species in a pond, but if so, do not stock bass. The reproductive rate of redear is much lower than that for bluegill, so alone they are not good forage to support a bass population. Instead of bass, stock catfish at low rates as the predatory species.

Stocking bluegill as the only species in the pond is not recommended because of potential overpopulation issues. With any sportfish stocking, 5 to 15 pounds per acre of fathead minnows should be stocked prior to stocking the sportfish. They provide an easy-to-capture forage as fish population becomes established.

There is also a specific stocking order. Stock 5-15 pounds of fathead minnows per acre in the spring or early summer and allow them to reproduce and fill the pond during the summer. Stock the sunfish (bluegill and redear) in late summer or fall, and they will now have ample forage in the form of fathead minnows to establish their population and grow rapidly.

Should you choose to stock bass or catfish, do not introduce them until late spring or early summer the following year. If the sunfish (typically 1-3 inches) are stocked at the same time as bass (typically 3-5 inches), the next spring the fish population will be compromised with starving bass and few reproducing sunfish to serve as food. Why? The stocked bass ate the sunfish that were stocked simultaneously.

By stocking the sunfish during the fall and stocking the bass the following spring, the sunfish have time to grow and sexually mature. By the time bass are stocked the following spring or summer, the sunfish will be reproducing and the bass will be able to feed on their numerous offspring instead of the original sunfish that are now serving as broodstock.