Thoughts on gun control

Foxfyre wrote:



I wouldn't. I can't speak for the Canadian government. Besides, I think it is our beer that they really want.

Perhaps you could expand on this great revelation of yours. How do you know if I know nothing about hunting? How did bow and arrows get into a discussion on guns? Which urban wasteland are you speaking of?

The one between your ears.

That is only one answer. You neglected the other questions.

Fifty years ago, there weren't a whole lot of large caliber handguns inexistence and I'd guess that with the ones that there were, such as they were, the bear would have a chance.

I'm sorry, but what oriface are you pulling out this information from.

Nobody mentioned large calibre 50 years ago. cjhsa was talking about currently for the large calbre. However, you are incorrect about there not being large calibre handguns 50 years ago. 44 and 45 are what immediately come to mind.

Why do I get the feeling I have to explain EVERYTHING in detail on this forum....

The first pistol anybody would have ever felt really good about trying to kill a big bear with was the 44 magnum, which if memory serves came in around 1965 or thereabouts.

Prior to that there were pistols which you COULD have killed a big bear with, if you could get enough shots into him before he killed you, but nobody would have felt warm and fuzzy about the deal.

Those pistols included the 357 magnum, the first magnum revolver made as a cop gun to give cops a bit more knockdown power than the 38, the Browning 45 ACP, and your older type 44 and 45 caliber revolvers either still using black powder cartridges or whatever non-standard smokeless loads anybody might have made for them at the time, but whether or not any of those pistols were strong enough to shoot anything which would be called a modern heavy caliber load is totally problematical.

here's a handgun instruction manual for all you gun nuts....

Well, gunga, the .44 Magnum was introduced in the early 1950s, first as a custom handload then developed as a commercial response to hand-load soup-ups of the .44 Special and .45-70 Springfield and the .45 Long Colt, cartridges which had been around since shortly after the turn of the 20th Century for the former and the 1880s for the latter 2. One of the more influential proponents of the .44 Mag round was the late outdoorsman and writer Elmer Keith (who also was hugely instrumental in the success of the .357 Mag), though hot-loading long had been a popular subject in gun p[ublications worldwide. Thanks largely to Keith's efforts, both Smith & Wesson and Remington began commercial support for the .44 Mag round, in 1955. Smith & Wesson in 1956 introduced the now legendary Model 29, chambered specifically for the new Remington-made cartridge, with Sturm, Ruger beating them to market by a few months with the also legendary "Flattop" Blackhawk. Both revolvers were immediate runaway successes, selling in far greater quantity than either manufacturor had anticipated - something which disrupted other production plans for a couple years. This year, Sturm, Ruger proudly introduced a 50th Anniversary Commemorative re-run of the original Flattop Blackhawk, updated only to current safety standards (including Sturm, Ruger's new keyed action lock).


(Around $600 MSRP, but there's a waiting list and you'll likely hafta pay up some if you wanna actually get one)

My own Blackhawk is over 40 years old (1962 production serial number, bought new in '64), and over those years, its brought down a pretty fair quantity of fairly large-sized game critters. Does a helluva job on things like old refrigerators, too. For hunting, I do use a very high performance .44 Magnum load, but for plinking and target practice, I'm kind to myself and use a much lighter .44 Special load. Helluva difference in recoil and muzzle flash ... nowhere near as loud, either, and quite a bit cheaper to boot.

As for older types, while range is nowhere up to modern standards, within a hundred yards or so the stopping power - foot-pounds of energy delivered to the target - of a black-powder .44 is on a par with just about anything of similar caliber available today, and though the penetration isn't all that great by current standards, that's a big part of why it hits so hard; it's a massive projectile which does not pass through the target, but rather imparts all its energy to the target. Not saying I'd take one on a bear hunt, mind you - just that in a pinch, it'd very likely work well enough.

You're saying I was off by ten years with the 44mag? I mean, having the thing available as a wildcat cartridge and being able to buy ammo at reputable places are different things. The 44mag available from Ruger or Remington and the like to me is the first handgun I'd ever have felt good about going after bears with.

Big, big difference in power between black powder and smokeless and particularly the smokless powders available after WW-II. Take a look at a 308 and a 30-06 cartridge side by side. Ballistics are the same despite the difference in size; the 308 corresponds to a major improvement in powders which came in around 44, too late for use in WW-II. I'd guess that the newer powders were a prerequisite for something like the 44mag to exist.

There is no way anybody could have made a pistol cartridge anybody would have been happy about hunting grizzlies with using black powder.

In fact, if anybody had ever felt terribly good about going after bears or bison with a 45/70 in the black powder age, then things like the 50/90, 50/120, 50/140 etc. etc. would not exist. The 45/70 by the way is a rifle cartridge; it wouldn't have been that easy finding a pistol chambered for it in 1950.

I like the 10mm Glock 20. Yes, the ammo is expensive and hard to find, but you can run .40S&w through it at the range no problem. Best cartridge combo out there. It kills.