Gunblast Review GP100 44 Special

[bigted]

I have been under the impression that Elmer went to the 44 because the old Colt had too thin a cylinder walls to withstand the direction he was moving toward.

The ball benefit over a bullet ... according to his book ... was in comparison within the 36 and 44 cal cap and ball and between round balls versus the pointed bullets loading in the cap n ball revolvers.

I had not read of his preferring a round ball in percussion over the 45 Colt in any of its loading's of the day. I have always been impressed that he actually liked the old Colt 45 and had the revolvers of the day been built stout enough, this would have been his choice for "magnatizing".

I may need to return to my books to refresh my memory and I mean no disrespect in these utterances.

Personally my choice has always been the old 45 Colt over any other cartridge.

Until I bought this short 44 double action. Tis a pretty nice revolver. I like it a lot and find great confidence in this deminitive 44 special for plenty horsepower with none of the sharp report of the magnum 357. Not taking away from the 357 at all. They are good revolvers and I own a small herd of them.

Were I in a crowd tho ... I would prefer this 44 Ruger to not over penetrate and still present plenty of stopping power from a 250ish grain flat or semi flat soft lead wadcutter moving along at 6 or 7 hundred FPS. Just me tho and what makes sense to me does not need to make sense to another. I have never been enamored with magnums. Altho I carried one every day in the brush when we lived in Alaska. I hated the thing , recoil being very harsh in the 4 inch 629 loaded with 320 grain hard cast boolits moving along at nearly 1300 FPS ... but it made me feel secure that I carried enough for Grizz. None of them in my neck of the western Oregon cascades and coast range.

Great conversation in this thread. Thanks to all.

[megasupermagnum]

You could very well be right, I may have extrapolated the 45 colt thing. Both cap and ball conicals and 45 colt bullets of the day sure look pointy to me, and I doubt it matters what gun they came out of. It must have been a hold over from the then current development of the minie ball.

As for the 44 special not over penetrating, don't forget the whole point of the 45 colt, 45 acp, and likely the 44 special, is that they could shoot through a horse, and kill the guy behind it. That is what these calibers excel at. You don't need the high velocities to penetrate amazingly. And with a flat point bullet they do decent damage too. Trying to turn them into a magnum doesn't make sense to me when you can buy the same handgun in a magnum caliber like 357 or 10mm auto. That is just my opinion, and many hot load 44 specials anyway.

[Piedmont]

I believe the Elmer Keith reference is that Elmer said the .36 Navy was a better stopper than any .38 Special. Of course the cap and ball was actually a .375 and the ball became flattened by the rammer at least to a degree and may well have expanded on impact, too, plus it was going faster. I don't recall Elmer saying the .45 Colt was not as effective as a .45 round ball.