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Any WHEEL GUN lovers out there...?

Hey Tom,

I didn't know you hung out here:thumbup: Excellent! Just posted a pic of the Phoenix you did for me. What a coincidence.

Anyway, yeah, I'm a fan. I have a few, but my favorite? S&W 500!



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.50 cal. It's like a stick of dynamite going off in your hand. What a blast this thing is to shoot.

There are some great videos on YouTube of this thing in action.

Cheers,

Ken


another busse collector....nice
 
If a fellow wanted one single handgun for all purposes for which a handgun could reasonably be considered useful and needed it to be utterly dependable then that Smith & Wesson Model 13 revolver, in that caliber, and with that barrel length would best fill the bill, Vance.
 
If a fellow wanted one single handgun for all purposes for which a handgun could reasonably be considered useful and needed it to be utterly dependable then that Smith & Wesson Model 13 revolver, in that caliber, and with that barrel length would best fill the bill, Vance.

thanks......the airweight i bought her had too much recoil at the range.....3"bbl smiths are awesome
 
It's been a month now so we need to see some more revolvers show up here.

Here's an offbeat revolver from bygone times that shoots an orphaned, obsolete cartridge. The revolver is quite modern, its design lived on in several later Colt models including the vaunted Python. The cartridge is still quite effective but technology and competition caught up with it pretty well sinking it by World War II though it continued to be factory loaded in fits and starts. Winchester Western made up a last batch of factory ammunition in the mid 1970s for L. M. Burney, one of their distributors. Since then the Cowboy Action shooting craze has caused a few boutique makers to produce a dribbling of .41 Long Colt ammunition.

An Old Colt In the Stable

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2010 must have been the "year of the .41" for me. A Colt New Navy in .41 Long Colt came my way in early January of 2010. A Smith & Wesson Model 57 .41 Magnum came along later in the year and on the second to the last day of 2010 this Colt Army Special in .41 Long Colt showed up. It was one of those "sorta" accidental, unanticipated purchases but is a revolver and cartridge I've long wanted to play with.


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This revolver was produced in 1925 just before the Army Special was replaced by the Official Police in the Colt catalog. The .41 Long Colt was nearing the end of its run too. Never a common chambering in the Army Special, the old .41 only soldiered on until 1930 in a bare smattering of Official Police revolvers (have read claims that Official Police revolvers could be had in .41 Long Colt until 1938) before being dropped. The Army Special .41 is not often seen but the Official Police .41 is scarce!

The folks who study such things over on Colt Forum claim that the Army Special in .41 Long Colt is uncommonly found and .41 Army Specials with 4-inch barrels are even more uncommon, most being supplied with 5-inch or 6-inch barrels.

If the Army Special looks like the Official Police that filled so many holsters of America's lawmen in bygone years it is because the Army Special and Official Police are the same design, being built on what is termed as Colt's I-Frame. The Army Special came out in 1908. Perhaps Colt envisioned selling them to the Army. It never happened but the model did become popular with law enforcement agencies so the Army Special was renamed the Official Police in 1927. The Official Police continued with the same serial number sequence used for the Army Special. This particular Army Special is serial numbered higher than the beginning serial number for the Official Police series so some Army Special frames were used to make the first of the Official Police revolvers. The overlap in serial numbers shows in the Wilson Colt reference book, the last Army Specials bearing serial numbers as high as 540000 while the first Official Police wore serial number 513216.


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The only difference between the two that I can discern is that the Official Police has a superior rear sight notch, square and visible with a correspondingly thicker front sight blade while the Army Special has a shallower "U" notch rear sight with a thin front blade.

This Army Special has a decent amount of remaining factory blue finish, softened by honest holster wear. The action is so very fine. It is very smooth with good tight lock-up and timing. The single action trigger is very crisp and only slightly heavier than the Python. The double action trigger is the very best Colt double action I've ever handled, beating out even my Python. The Python is a derivative of the Army Special design. The frames are the same size and internal parts are the same. Grips (stocks) are interchangeable as well. The Python has a frame-mounted firing pin while the Army Special's firing pin is mounted on the hammer. The Python is said to receive special attention in assembly to make it the ultimate in smoothness but the craftsmen at Colt in the 1920s did a outstanding job of fitting out this revolver.

Army Special revolvers are slightly larger than the revolver that was the main competitor, the Smith & Wesson Military & Police. Army Specials have a frame size similar to the Smith & Wesson L-Frame.

Either an "A" or a "T" may be observed on vintage Colt revolvers upon swinging out the cylinder and looking on the inside of the frame beneath the serial number. "A" stands for "aligned" and "T" stands for "targeted." My revolver has an "A." It has usable accuracy but does shoot a bit to the left, about 2-inches at 10 yards. I could wish that it shot closer to point of aim but if one "thinks to the right" as he sights and squeezes then good hits may be obtained at reasonable handgun distances.

This is the second Colt I've owned that didn't shoot precisely to point of aim. Fixed sight Smith & Wesson revolvers have always happened to shoot to point of aim for me, no matter which era in which they were manufactured. May be just luck.

The .41 Long Colt cartridge has a reputation for really bad inaccuracy but I'm just not finding this to be the case with either the guns or the old ammunition I've scrounged up. Even out to 25 yards I obtained a 3-inch group, carefully shooting from a rest when I combined chronographing with an accuracy effort in order to conserve limited supplies of ammunition.

Best effort at six rounds fired single action, two-handed at 10 yards
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I rapidly ripped through a cylinder-full double action at 7-yards and was pleased with the results. I've never really cared for the feel of a Colt fired double action but the revolver acquitted itself well for me.
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Last summer I chronographed some .41 Long Colt ammunition from the 3 different boxes I have on hand. I repeated the test with the same 3 boxes using this revolver. The loads were a little slower in the Army Special than they were in the New Navy. Could have been any combination of things working in concert with each other. The New Navy has a 4 1/2-inch barrel while the Army Special has a 4-inch barrel, dimensional differences were noted between the two, and the temperature was in the mid-50s rather than the high 90s.

Here are the chronograph tests of the Army Special.

Remington 195 Grain Lead Round nose

662 fps: Muzzle Velocity
195 ft./lbs: Muzzle Energy
26 fps: Extreme Spread
9 fps: Standard Deviation


Winchester Western "White Box" 200 Grain Lubaloy Round Nose

671 fps: Muzzle Velocity
200 ft./lbs.: Muzzle Energy
50 fps: Extreme Spread
22 fps: Standard Deviation



Western "Yellow Box" 200 Grain Lubaloy Round Nose

679 fps: Muzzle Velocity
204 ft./lbs.: Muzzle Energy
27 fps: Extreme Spread
9 fps: Standard Deviation


Here's the data obtained last summer when firing this ammunition from the .41 Colt New Navy.

Remington 195 Grain Lead Round Nose

692 fps: muzzle velocity
207 ft./lbs.: muzzle energy
48 fps: extreme spread
18 fps: standard deviation


Winchester Western "white box" 200 Grain Lubaloy Round Nose

709 fps: muzzle velocity
223 ft./lbs.: muzzle energy
107 fps: extreme spread
46 fps: standard deviation


Western "Yellow Box" 200 Grain Lubaloy Round Nose

720 fps: muzzle velocity:
230 ft./lbs.: muzzle energy
16 fps: extreme spread
6 fps: standard deviation

Yep, the .41 Long Colt just plods along, at least in factory guise. I'm intending to address this using new Starline cases and trying some different styles of component bullets.

Factory loads were suppose to give 750 fps or so. I'm intending to fiddle with handloading the round to see if I can come up with a general purpose load that honestly achieves 750 fps with a 200 grain lead bullet from this revolver. As it is a tight, late vintage Army Special, I also intend to explore modern powders and carefully and judiciously attempt to develop a "self-defense" load, hoping to attain perhaps 850 fps with a 200 grain bullet. This would be for educational purposes only and once developed wouldn't be generally used in the old revolver. The older Ideal manuals show 900 fps as possible with their published maximum charge of Unique for instance.

It is easy to see why the .38 Special supplanted the ancient .41 Long Colt. There would be little performance difference in the .41 Long Colt factory load and the old .38 Special "Super Police" load with a 200 grain round nose lead bullet. The .41 Long Colt just serves up its 200 grain bullet in a little larger diameter, that's all. A good +P .38 Special load ought to have it all over a factory .41 Long Colt load.

However, while there is no real reason for the .41 Long Colt in modern times, there "ain't no flies on" a blunt nosed 200 grain .40 bullet traveling 800 to 900 fps. A .40 S&W in a revolver so to speak. The old round would still serve extremely well, even if it is redundant.

A nickel plated .41 Army Special seen in a pawn shop many years ago fired my imagination and curiosity. I let that one get away. This revolver is more what I had in mind for playing with the old obsolete round than the New Navy obtained a year ago.

A Glock could have been had for about the same price as this Army Special but I will enjoy having this one so much more. Still need to come up with a Colt Government Model though.


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I wouldn't call myself a full on wheel gun nut since I only own a few. But choosing to carry a wheel gun for my off duty piece certainly buys me SOME clout, yes? Smile. Here's a pic of my beloved Smith 640 used as a prop for a SOTD:

$100_0628.jpg
 
Well I finally found a 3" N-frame. It's a 24-3 in 44 Special and is also my first .44 caliber handgun. This one belonged to a LEO who carried it on and off duty, so I decided to make a "leo-esque" rig for it :)

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Here's one of my favorite revolvers. It's a S&W Model 1917, a couple of full moon clips and a couple of the original style half moons, as well as a tool for popping the cartridges out of the clips. I think I even have a box or two of .45 Auto Rim brass as well.

She was made in the last days of the contract, in January of 1919. I'm not sure, but I think she's been re-blued, even though the markings are all nice and crisp. Some prior owner has cut some checkering on the front of the trigger guard, moving it from collectible to the shooter category, even though they did a real nice job of it.

With the full moon clips it's like having a built in speedloader. Ninety-three years old and it shoots just fine.

While it was made too late to go "over there" with the Doughboys, I sure wish it could talk. From the condition I'm guessing it probably didn't see active service in WWII or Korea. Maybe it followed a soldier home, or maybe it was sold as surplus after being issued for rear area guard duty.

As much as I love my 1911 autos, I'd not hesitate to reach for this wheelgun in a crisis, and it may well become my "house gun" if time ever robs me of the ability to manipulate a slide.

Great thread.
 
I'm a semi-auto sort of guy mostly, but there is something about the simplicity of operation of a revolver that still appeals.

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Wasn't much of a Dirty Harry fan but love the Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver. This one saw heavy use in Hunter Pistol Silhouette competition for 4 seasons until scoped Contenders were allowed to compete.


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Here's my latest acquisition, a 1916 dated Webley Mk VI revolver (sadly shaved to accept .45 ACP in moon clips or .45 Auto Rim). Imagine what she might have seen, a revolver from the year of Jutland and the Somme. Having seen what using factory .45 ACP could do to a Webley, I have opted to reload. I reload the ammunition down to .455 Webley levels (using 185 grain plated Berry Round Nose Hollow Base bullets and Starline .45 Auto Rim brass with Trail Boss powder). She's a bit rough, alas. The original finish seems to be turning a rich plum colour but there's a trace of what looks like black paint on the barrel (hence the splotchy appearance) and there are two of my finished shells.

$NewWebley1916P1010030.JPG
 

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simon1

Self Ignored by Vista
I only have 5 revolvers at the moment. Haven't seen one of these posted yet, so here's a 1st gen. Model P in .45 Colt. The factory letter says it was shipped to Simmons Hardware Co. in St. Louis, Mo. in a lot of 15 on May 9, 1894. Where it has been from then until I picked it up at a Dallas gun show in 1992....

Second pic. also shows a rig I had El Paso Saddlery make up for me. The spurs are my Dad's he had when he was young. Notice the two attachment points for the straps on the spurs...the ones you see now only have one attachment point per side.

Its one of my favorite fun guns, although I've only put about 50 rounds of black powder reloads through it. A friend of mine who used to be on the Border Patrol pistol team and I took it out to the range and used a folded up towel on the roof of a car as a rest. The blast from the barrel/cylinder gap set the damn towel on fire!!! :w00t:
 

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OkieStubble

Dirty Donuts are so Good.
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Here's one of my favorite revolvers. It's a S&W Model 1917, a couple of full moon clips and a couple of the original style half moons, as well as a tool for popping the cartridges out of the clips. I think I even have a box or two of .45 Auto Rim brass as well.

She was made in the last days of the contract, in January of 1919. I'm not sure, but I think she's been re-blued, even though the markings are all nice and crisp. Some prior owner has cut some checkering on the front of the trigger guard, moving it from collectible to the shooter category, even though they did a real nice job of it.

With the full moon clips it's like having a built in speedloader. Ninety-three years old and it shoots just fine.

While it was made too late to go "over there" with the Doughboys, I sure wish it could talk. From the condition I'm guessing it probably didn't see active service in WWII or Korea. Maybe it followed a soldier home, or maybe it was sold as surplus after being issued for rear area guard duty.

As much as I love my 1911 autos, I'd not hesitate to reach for this wheelgun in a crisis, and it may well become my "house gun" if time ever robs me of the ability to manipulate a slide.

Great thread.

Very nice Top. Very.
 
There's that Webley Mark VI. Good to see it. I got to shoot an English friend's Webley Mark VI in a basement pistol range underneath a local pub near his village in West Yorkshire, England on occasion. Sadly, the infamous 1997 UK handgun ban snapped up his small collection of firearms.


I really appreciate seeing the M1917 Smith & Wesson .45 and the 4 3/4-inch Colt Single Action Army in .45 Colt.
 
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We need a "like" feature on here as some other forums possess. I'd click it the Colt Single Action Army revolvers, the Webley, M1917 Smith & Wesson, Model 24 Smith & Wesson in rig...well probably all of them here in this thread. Revolvers are still great.

Hi John;

It was either an "Artillery Model" Colt Single Action Army just like yours or a Smith & Wesson Model 15 that represent the first handguns I ever shot. Both belonged to my uncle. It was in 1968 but I can't now recall which one was first. I was eleven but got to hang around older cousins.

My aunt still uses that Colt for home defense.
 
This is a compilation of two completely different threads placed on other forums a couple of years back, discussing the Nagant revolver.

Today being a bank holiday, my wife and I spent the afternoon out at the old family place on the lake shooting, hiking, and picnicking. The mid-January day was gorgeous. The thermometer on the old cabin made it to 70F while we were there.

In addition to some other handguns, the Russian Nagant revolver made its inaugural trip to the lake for shooting. I was very enthused to take it along and experience it for the first time. I stoked it up with 7 of the Fiocchi factory rounds with the funny crimp on the end and squared off against a target at 10 yards. At the end of my first "test drive" with the Nagant I had 6 holes fairly well centered in the target. I'm so used to revolvers holding no more than 6 rounds that I forgot to fire the seventh.

The revolver isn't so bad when fired in single action mode. The grouping wasn't very tight though. The ammunition gave the impression of being inconsistent, with some rounds giving a decent "pop" and some a sniveling "puhhh..." All Fiocchi ammunition fired today seemed to be very weak. I'll have to chronograph the Fiocchi ammunition to find out what's going on with it.

I switched over to some Aguilla 98 grain S&W Long. Some folks have claimed that .32 S&W Long works great in the Nagant and some say it's unsatisfactory or down right unsafe. After shooting 6 out of 7 (forgot again), it was apparent that the .32 S&W Long is the way to go for immediate gratification with this particular revolver as the accuracy difference is as daylight to dark. The revolver seemed to like the Aguilla stuff and turned in a much better performance. I also wondered if the Aguilla .32 Long ammunition was actually more potent than the proper Fiocchi cartridges.

Loading a revolver with 7 rounds but only shooting 6 is an ammo conservation method and represents my entire effort at "going green."

I tried the Nagant double-action with some Fiocchi but the result on target was dismal even though I moved in to 7 yards. The double-action pull is reasonable until one is about half way through it and then it stiffens considerably and becomes very heavy. There's no staging it as is possible with a Smith & Wesson revolver. It feels more like operating the Arrow stapler that I used to put up the targets than it does a revolver trigger. The mid-trigger cycle stiffness coincides with the initial movement of the cylinder forward as it completes it's gas seal feature.

My wife tried the Nagant and found it pleasant to fire when the hammer was cocked first. She was completely unable to pull the trigger hard enough to pull it through its double-action cycle so was unable to shoot the gun in double-action mode.

The .32 S&W Long cases did swell noticeably when fired in the Nagant chamber but none cracked. Many were sooty on the sides. I'm sure they may be resized and used again though case life is likely fairly short if cases are reused repeatedly for shooting in the Nagant.

I'm wondering if .32-20 cases could be partially sized in a .30 Carbine sizer and employed as substitutes for the factory 7.65 Nagant cases for reloaded ammunition. Might work a little better than the .32 S&W Long case.

After once watching me extract the empties and reload the revolver, my wife remarked that the Russian soldier attempting to reload in the heat of battle probably would have never managed it. The ejector rod requires a bit more precise alignment in order to eject cases than does a Colt Single Action Army or Ruger single action revolver. It also has no spring to assist with the retraction of the ejector rod. One must precisely align the cylinder with the ejector rod, poke out the case, and manually pull the ejector rod back out of the cylinder, and then turn the cylinder to index the next chamber. It is very slow. Of course this revolver was either never issued or was completely refurbished to new condition so its operation is a bit stiff. The rod would probably slick up with use and become easier to employ for its task.

I didn't expend much of the Fiocchi ammunition today as I want to save it for more thorough accuracy testing and chronographing. The Aguilla with its lead round nose bullet was first rate and a similar handload could make the Nagant a satisfying plinking companion.


This image is reduced by 25%, click it to view full size.

The group above the revolver was shot with the Fiocchi ammunition. I used a 6 o'clock hold and set the numeral "10" on top of the front sight. The group below was shot with Aguila ammunition. There are two holes crowded just left of the 6. I set the "6" on top of the front sight


This image is reduced by 22%, click it to view full size.


Fired cases with a loaded round at the bottom, the .32 S&W long on the left and the Fiocchi factory 7.65 Nagant on the right. Notice how the fired .32 S&W Long cases are all swollen.













I tried Aguila in a 7.62 Nagant revolver that I won in a shooting contest, just because so many claim that it is ok to shoot .32 S&W Long in the Nagant's factory cylinder. I've already tested the revolver for accuracy with .32 S&W Long and satisfied myself that it is a non-event to fire .32 S&W Long ammunition in it. All that remained was to test .32 S&W Long for velocity and consistency.

Aguila .32 S&W Long ammunition fired in a Nagant revolver

574 fps MV
72 ft./lbs ME
25 ES
15 SD

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By studying the 7 cartridge cases in the above photo, one may see a slight bulge in the .32 S&W Long that forms when it is fired in a Nagant revolver. I've fired most of a box and have not had a split.


The Nagant will give a really good accuracy performance with the .32 S&W Long ammunition, better in fact than it shoots its own proper ammunition. It handles, balances, and points much better than it looks. It is hopeless to load and unload. Slower than molasses, it operates like a Colt Single Action Army but with a curious pivoting ejector rod that has no spring to retract it. Most awkward. If under attack or fighting hand-to-hand in a combat situation, one would have its cylinder's compliment of 7 shots with no reasonable way to reload in a timely manner. The gas seal system for which it is famous does work, but for no purpose since the ammunition is so feeble.

Here's a test of Fiocchi factory 7.62 Nagant ammunition with a 98 grain jacketed bullet.

672 fps Muzzle Velocity
98 ft./lbs Muzzle Energy
84 fps Extreme Spread
28 fps Standard Deviation


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When considering the operation of the Nagant, one would have been better off to try to beat back the German hoards in 1941 if he'd been armed with a more conventional Colt Police Positive .32 revolver.

Chronograph: Oehler Model 12
The Nagant revolver had a fouling shot fired through its barrel prior to testing and recording a 10-shot string. Ammunition was kept out of the sun as the temperature was over 100F the day the chronograph test was conducted.
 
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