Category: All About Guns

The mighty X-frame revolvers and the gorgeous handguns of their Performance Center notwithstanding, the single most popular handgun Smith & Wesson makes today is the J-frame revolver. Now in its 60th year, it’s probably our most ubiquitous “everyday” handgun. While the classic service revolver has largely been relegated to the police museum, the J-frame outnumbers even baby Glocks in the backup holsters of America’s police.

Many concealed carry instructors find it the most common gun for newbie students to bring to class. When American Handgunner polled its staff writers on their carry guns a couple of years ago, the one most constant factor was one or another permutation of the J-frame in almost everyone’s “carry rotation.”

They’re handy, they’re simple, and they’re dead-nuts reliable. Their slim barrels and rounded butts make concealment easier in pocket holsters, ankle holsters, belly bands and even inside the waistband holsters. You can get them as light as 10.5 ounces (the Model 317 Titanium 8-shot .22 LR) and 12 ounces (the Model 340 PD Scandium .357 Magnum 5-shot); and with barrel lengths from 17/8″ (nominally 2″, and still the most popular), to 5″ (the Model 60 .357 variant introduced in 2005). Calibers over the years have included .22 LR, .22 Magnum, .32 Long, .32 H&R Magnum, .327, .38 S&W, .38 Special, .357 Mag, 9mm and even the short-lived .356 TSW. Of them all, though — from the first Chief Special of 60 years ago, to the single best-seller today, the Model 642 — their most enduring and most popular format has been that of a 5-shot, snub-nosed .38 Special.

A Brief History

The year was 1949. Carl Hellstrom had taken over as CEO of S&W, and didn’t like the fact that arch-rival Colt had possessed a monopoly on small frame, short barrel .38 Special revolvers since introducing the Detective Special circa 1927. He ordered his engineers to beef up the small I-frame revolver, hitherto the core of S&W’s .22 Kit Gun and small .32 and .38 S&W pocket revolvers, so it could be manufactured in .38 Special. This required lengthening the frame and the cylinder. The new revolver was introduced at the 1950 national conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Colorado Springs, and was dubbed the Chief Special. (Or “Chiefs Special” according to S&W historian Roy Jinks, or “Chief’s Special” according to the authoritative Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson by Jim Supica and Richard Nahas). The little revolver was an instant hit, and the die was cast. The new paradigm of the hideout revolver would, forever after, be a 5-shot .38 Special on a stretched .32-size frame.

There are three primary configurations of J-frame, and that was set in stone within the first five years of the line’s existence. In 1952, at the request of the already famous Col. Rex Applegate, Hellstrom blended the Chiefs Special platform with the enclosed hammer and grip safety features of the top-break New Departure Safety Hammerless, an 1880s design. Because 1952 marked S&W’s hundredth year in business, they called the new “hammerless” the Centennial. Then, 1955 would see a third option. Reacting to Colt’s introduction of an optional bolt-on hammer shroud for their small frame revolvers circa 1950, S&W designers created a Chief with a built-in hammer shroud and dubbed it the Bodyguard. The tip of its specially-shaped hammer created a “cocking button” that allowed easy-trigger single action firing, but retained the snag-free nature of the Centennial.

The J-frame would be a test bed for S&W innovation. In 1952, the first aluminum-framed Airweight to leave the production line was a Chief’s Special, a variant that would later become known as the Model 37 when S&W went to numerical designations in 1957. So was the first all stainless steel revolver by S&W (or anyone else), the Model 60, introduced in 1965. The first Titanium Smith & Wesson was yet another J-frame, the .22 caliber Model 317 of 1997. When Scandium first made its way into Smith & Wessons at the turn of the 21st Century, those were J-frames, too.

Picking Your Format

Shooting paradigms change, and tastes of shooters change with them. The Chief and the Bodyguard have been in continuous production in one form or another since their introduction. The Chief, of course, is a traditional look double/single action revolver with exposed, spurred hammer, though it has been produced for NYPD and others with the hammer “bobbed.” The Bodyguard looked different enough that some purists thought it ugly, and from the beginning Smith fans nicknamed it “the humpback,” a term you’ll see at the excellent S&W Forum (www.smith-wessonforum.com) to this day.

The Centennial was a different kettle of fish, and quickly found itself on the hind teat of J-frame sales. In the mid-20th Century, many shooters preferred to cock their wheel-guns to single action, and considered double action shooting to be something they would do only in a rare, fast-breaking emergency. The grip-safety put them off, too. The Bodyguard was just as snag-proof coming out of a pocket or shoulder holster, so what the heck was the point of the Centennial? Circa 1974, S&W put the Centennial out of its sales misery and out of the catalog.

Somewhere in the background, one could almost hear the choir singing, “You don’t know what you got, ‘til it’s gone.” By the mid-70s, people were growing savvy to the fact that if you were carrying the gun for those “rare, fast-breaking emergencies,” that’s what you should be practicing for by shooting it that way all the time, so who needed single action? Suddenly, demand for Centennials on the used gun market skyrocketed, and so did their prices.

Along about then, folks were figuring out that because the “horn” on the backstrap rose higher on the frame of a Centennial than other J-frames, the shooter could get the firing hand higher on the gun, lowering the bore axis and significantly reducing muzzle rise. A clamor arose for the reintroduction of the Centennial. Circa 1988, I was at a conclave of writers hosted at the S&W factory by then-CEO Steve Melvin. He told us he wanted to reintroduce the Centennial, this time without the superfluous grip safety. We endorsed it heartily, to a man, and the “hammerless” was soon back in the line as the Model 640 — a stainless .38 Special in all steel in its first iteration, with traditional 17/8″ barrel, sans grip safety, and marked +P+ on the frame. It sold like the proverbial hotcakes. Fifteen years after its discontinuance, the Centennial’s time had finally come in the marketplace.

Today, S&W’s head of revolver production, Jim Unger, says the Centennial is the strongest seller in the entire line. The Chief Special with traditional spurred hammer, is second. He tells me the Bodyguard is experiencing something of a resurgence in popularity and biting close at the heels of the Chief for second place honors. The single best-selling handgun in the whole S&W catalog is the Model 642. That’s the classic-look Centennial in .38 Special, with stainless barrel and cylinder and “stainless-look” aluminum Airweight frame. Weight is just under a pound, unloaded. In sales by caliber, according to Jim, the old standby .38 Special remains number one, with .357 Mag second and the .22 rimfires third. In 2009, the company responded to dealer demand and began offering the J-frame chambered as a six-shot .327, which of course will also fire .32 H&R Mag and .32 S&W Long.

The choice between Chief, Bodyguard and Centennial is among the first of many branched paths you take when you enter the vast domain of S&W J-frame options. Each has pros and cons. It goes kinda like this.

Details

Good news: Easy to cock if that’s how you like to shoot, particularly with something like the longer barrel 317 .22 carried as a trail gun. Potential snag of hammer can be overcome by drawing with thumb on hammer, turning your thumb into a “human hammer shroud.” Keeping finger off trigger and thumbing hammer back just enough to drop the bolt and free-up the cylinder allows a cylinder rotation check to make sure there are no high primers that are going to jam the gun in firing. If something does make the cylinder bind, the Chief gives you the most leverage of the three designs to force the hammer back and get a shot off.

Bad news: Too-small, too-smooth, old-style stocks (or too weak a grasp) allow the gun to roll up in the shooter’s hand. In rapid fire, that can quickly allow the spurred hammer to contact the web of the hand, which will block its motion and prevent the gun from firing. The hammer spur, even the reduced profile on the currently produced models, is still “shaped like a fish hook” as NYPD Inspector and firearms authority Paul B. Weston used to say, and can snag on something and stall your draw in an emergency. If fired through a coat pocket, it is possible for a fold of pocket lining to get caught between the face of the hammer and the frame, jamming the gun and preventing firing.

Bodyguard

Good news: That ugly hump of the hammer shroud acts as a “catch point” against the web of the hand to make it much less likely that the gun will roll upward in your grasp upon recoil sufficiently to impair your ability to fire the gun. It is totally snag free. You can thumb the hammer back for an easy single action pull for a “precision shot” if need be. You can safely perform cylinder rotation checks, as with a Chief.

Bad news: Dust collects inside the hammer shroud, and you’ll need to take a pipe cleaner or Q-tip to it regularly, particularly if you carry in the pocket. With just the tiny stub of the cocking button to work with, un-cocking the hammer can become a nightmare, and that problem increases exponentially when you have to do so with hands that are covered with sweat, shaking from adrenaline, and numb from fight-or-flight-induced vasoconstriction, or from winter cold.

Centennial

Good news: It has the best control in a J-frame because you can get your hand so high and the bore axis so low. Even with the super-light .357 Mags, which come back into the hand brutally, you can keep all shots on target fast because the muzzle doesn’t rise as much. You will stop hurting when you stop shooting. This won’t be true for the bad guy on the other side of your gunfire. You have absolute freedom from snag in any kind of draw.

Bad news: There is no safe way to do a cylinder rotation check on the fully loaded Centennial, because the trigger will have to be pulled slightly back for the bolt to release. We’ve tried all sorts of “stick another finger behind the trigger” and all that, and it’s just too awkward. With the Centennial, you have to have your double action trigger pull skills down pat, and you have to know the chambers are clean and won’t keep a fresh cartridge from seating fully, and you have to inspect and know your carry rounds have no high primers.

Shooting The J-Frame

By the time your J-frame reaches .38 Special caliber, the recoil starts getting mean with serious ammunition. By the time it hits .357 Magnum with full power loads in the 12-ounce variation, it turns into something close to a torture device. It wants to move in your hand, and your hand just wants it to move away. A few tips from an adult lifetime of teaching folks to shoot these things might be in order about now.

Hold the gun hard. Whomever it was that said “hold your gun with 40-percent strength in your dominant hand, and 60-percent strength in your support hand, and above all, just relax” had never fired a light J-frame with +P or, God help us, full-power .357 Magnum. The harder you hold it, the less it will move upon recoil. The harder you hold it, the less it can come back and whack the web of your hand with the upper part of its backstrap, or your middle finger with the back of its trigger guard. And the harder you hold it, the less the ten-ounce gun can move off point of aim as you exert a ten-pound trigger pull upon it, suddenly and swiftly.

Unless you have extra-long stocks, which kinda get in the way of the whole hideout gun concept in the first place, curl your little finger tightly under the butt. This makes the other fingers sympathetically stronger, and also creates a block against the gun rolling backward and muzzle upward/butt downward in your grasp upon recoil.

S&W has equipped these guns with at least four different cylinder latch configurations over the years. The one least likely to slice your thumb firing right-handed, and will still allow you to open the cylinder quickly, is the current production version, which is sort of a checkered semi-oval shape.

From the beginning, these guns were cursed with tiny .10″ wide front sights, with correspondingly tight rear sight notches, which were almost useless under less than perfect conditions. They’ve gotten better. The replacement fixed sights from Bill Laughridge at Cylinder & Slide Shop are so good that S&W put them on their larger framed Night Guard snubbies. Dave Lauck at D&L Sports came out with a great retrofit that I have on my 11-ounce Model 342 Titanium Centennial, and just love. Hamilton Bowen of Bowen Classic Arms also does a sterling job with his sights. At Smith, the humongous Tritium XS 24/7 sight with correspondingly large rear U-notch gives a superb combination of speed and accuracy. It’s found only on the Model 340 M&P .357 at this time, and is the primary reason I bought that gun and carry it most of the time as a backup.

Consider Crimson Trace LaserGrips. I have them on multiple J-frames. Particularly on the older models with less-perfect sights, they make huge sense. They’re now available as S&W factory options on many J-frame models.
Latest Developments

One shortcoming of the J-frame snub has always been incomplete ejection. Between the 17/8″ barrel and the traditional ejector rod lug, the ejector rod became necessarily stubby and just didn’t have enough stroke. That has been changed of late, and you can thank American Handgunner editor Roy Huntington, a long-time J-frame fan.

Roy explains, “After a comprehensive shoot at Gunsite with S&W’s Paul Pluff and about 30 J-frames of all flavors, I came away with the firm conviction a slightly longer barrel and ejector rod would be more efficient. I chatted at length with Jim Unger at S&W, and he was very open to improvement ideas. Some months later during a meeting at a trade show, Jim said, ‘Wait until you see what we have out later. I’m sure you’ll like what you see!’ It turns out the newest offering in the J-frame line-up does indeed have slightly longer barrels and ejector rods. I’m impressed Jim listened to what we learned at the shoot at Gunsite. The guns should offer more reliable ejection and a bit more sight radius to make hitting easier. On a side note, I was not surprised to see many of us regularly hitting 100 yard steel silhouettes, even with the 2″ guns. These guns are indeed accurate in the right hands, solidifying my trust in the J-frame.”

Having shot several of the new 2.5″ J-frames, I can tell you Roy’s predictions have come true. The 5/8″ difference in sight radius becomes significant in a gun as short overall as the J-frame snub, and probably most important, ejection of spent casings is much more positive. Plucking partially ejected brass out of the chambers does not make for a “speed reload,” it makes for a “slow reload.” This longer rod definitely helps. Barrel profile is dramatically changed, of course, but Jim Unger tells me that DeSantis and Galco are already on line with holsters to fit the new-length “J,” with more to come from other makers. The 21/2″ guns are available in Airweight Chief Model 637, Airweight Bodyguard 638 and Airweight Centennial 642 configurations. All weigh 16 ounces with the slight added barrel heft, and all carry a suggested retail of $640 with standard “rubber” grips, and $924 with Crimson Trace LaserGrips.

Also available from the list are J-frames with an integral recoil reduction port ahead of the muzzle. These are in the Pro Series, S&W’s line of upscaled handguns designed and engineered in the Performance Center but built in main-line mass production to reduce cost to the buying public. Upward jets of expanding gases at the instant of the shot do indeed help keep the muzzle down, but they also pose a danger of burning powder debris striking the shooter’s eyes and face if fired from a close-to-the-body retention position. Tailor your choice to your particular defensive manual of arms. My own favorite in the crop is the Pro Series Model 60 .357 with flat-sided 3″ barrel.

And More To Come

By the time you read this, S&W will have introduced their 2010 new products list, in which the J-frame line is richly represented. We will see the return of the all-steel .22 Kit Gun, the stainless Model 63, now in a 3″ barrel/8-shot cylinder format.

And, speaking of .22 Kit Guns, remember the Model 43 Airweight Kit Gun in .22 LR, and the Model 51 Kit Gun in .22 Magnum? Well, 2010 will see the Models 43C and 351C. The “C” stands for Centennial, and we’re talking about eleven-ounce “hammerless” .22s to duplicate the feel of today’s most popular pocket revolver. The 43C will hold eight .22 Long Rifles, and the 351C, seven .22 Magnum rounds. Sights will resemble the excellent high-visibility models seen on the M&P 340 in .357.

The J-frame Smith & Wesson’s 60 year history encompasses both evolution and revolution — and that history is far from over.

Sometimes things really work out the way they are supposed to! One of my greatest pleasures in the 40 years I have been writing for this
magazine has been to be able to shine the spotlight on deserving craftsmen, those skilled artisans who work with steel to create truly custom sixguns and semiautos.

We’ve never operated on a me first policy here of trying to be the first to write about every new firearm that comes along — we rarely
do. There is a very good reason for this as it takes time to test a new product. We try very hard to use actual experience not manufacturer’s hype in reporting new handguns. Sometimes this means we are six months to a year behind other publications however, readers can know we don’t bring something to print until it has been thoroughly tested.

We may not be first to introduce new products but we have been, and continue to be at the forefront when it comes to introducing talented custom sixgun smiths to shooters. I can count several custom sixgunsmiths who were relatively unknown to the rest of the country until their work appeared in these pages. We have been able to turn them from part-time to full-time and then some in custom gun building. Some of these ‘smiths have been backlogged ever since we introduced them to sixgunners 10, 15 or even more years ago.

All this leads to another extremely competent and imaginative sixgunsmith who built guns until his death — John Gallagher passed away on April 14th 2020.

** The following first appeared in the November/December 2008 issue of American Handgunner **

Big Little Sixgun

The first sixgun John ever built for me was several years ago and it’s my Big Little Sixgun — actually a big sixgun shooting a small cartridge. The .32-20 dates all way back to the last quarter of the 19th century and was first chambered in the Model 1873 Winchester
and shortly thereafter in the Colt Single Action.

Over the past century plus it has been chambered in the 1892 Winchester, the Colt Bisley Model, the Smith & Wesson M&P, and in recent years, the Marlin 1894CL and the Freedom Arms Model 97. To build a premier custom .32-20 Gallagher started with a Ruger New Model Blackhawk which is built on the same frame as the Super Blackhawk. For this conversion John basically used only the frame and grip frame.

The cylinder is a custom built, eight shot .32-20, which is made oversize to completely fill the frame window. It matches up with a slightly tapered 61⁄2″ barrel with a deeply crowned muzzle. The front sight is a serrated ramp style which is mated up with a Hamilton Bowen rear sight.

Instead of the conventional hammer, this custom Blackhawk has a Super Blackhawk hammer and a creep free trigger pull set at 31⁄2 pounds. The mainframe is color case hardened and the balance of the gun is beautifully blued. I have added a pair of stag grips with a black eagle Ruger medallion and the combination is quite attractive.

For the handloader the .32-20 is a most versatile cartridge. It must not be loaded above the level of the firearm for which it is being used. The Winchester 1892, the Marlin 1894CL, and the Freedom Arms Model 97 are very strong guns capable of handling heavy loads but the Smith & Wesson M&P isn’t. This Gallagher/Ruger can handle some pretty potent loads. Hornady’s 100 XTP-JHP over 11.0 grains of #2400 clocks out at 1,405 fps, Speer’s 100 JHP over the same load has a muzzle velocity of 1,372 fps, and this same Speer bullet over 13.0 grains of H110 hits 1,300 fps. All three place eight shots in less than 1″ at 25 yards.

A Special .41

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Gallagher’s Little Big Sixgun shooting a relatively big cartridge from a small frame. I don’t know who first came up with the idea of the .41 Special however, when I met with Hamilton Bowen at the Shootists Holiday in 1987, and he had one built on a Ruger GP-100 — shortly thereafter I had him do one for me on a Colt Single Action. The .41 Special is nothing more than the .41 Magnum trimmed to .44 Special length. This mild wildcat has become popular enough that properly head stamped brass, though expensive, is available through Quality Cartridge. The whole idea of the .41 Special is just what it says, a .41 much milder than the excellent .41 Magnum.

In my larger .41 Special sixguns I normally load a 215 grain bullet at muzzle velocities in the 900 to 1,100 fps range, or about where I load 250 grain bullets in .44 Special. Gallagher came up with the idea of making a really little gun to shoot the .41 Special by starting with a Ruger Three-Screw Single-Six. A New Model will not work as the enlarging of the loading port area to accept larger cartridges cuts into the transfer bar safety.

For this mildcat conversion Gallagher reset the rimfire firing pin to centerfire, built a custom five-shot cylinder which fills out the frame window and matched it up with a 4″ .41 barrel. The top of the frame has been “melted” or rounded off on both sides as well as the front, the rear sight in a dovetail is maintained and matched up with slightly sloping and serrated front sight.

The steel grip frame is from a Ruger Old Army, the trigger pull is set at 21⁄2 pounds, and the base pin is one of Belt Mountain’s knurled head pins with a locking set screw. This entire little sixgun has been finished in high polished blue, except the top of the frame which is matte blue to reduce glare. Gallagher not only works in steel he also does an excellent job with wood and this .41 Special wears perfectly shaped and fitted exotic wood grips. With the Oregon Trail 215 grain SWC over 5.0 to 6.0 grains of Unique muzzle velocity is from 680 to 800 fps with mild recoil and excellent accuracy.

Perfect Packin’ Pistols

Two things most readers will connect me with is great affection for the .44 Special and an unending quest for what has come to be known as a Perfect Packin’ Pistol. The quest must never end as the joy is in the searching not the finding as we just get closer and closer without ever really getting there.

Basically, a Perfect Packin’ Pistol is an easy to carry single action or double action sixgun, or even a semi-automatic, in a caliber which can be counted upon to handle any situation likely to be encountered. The parameters are quite broad and totally subjective. For me most, but certainly not all, PPPs are chambered in .44 Special.

John Gallagher has entered not onebut two Perfect Packin’ Pistols in this sixgunner’s contest and both come out right at the top. In some ways these two sixguns are quite similar. They are both chambered in .44 Special and they both have 4″ barrels, and needless to say since they come from John Gallagher they’re both excellent little sixguns however, they are definitely not twins. For the basic platform John starts with a Ruger Blackhawk, however he does not use the same platform for both .44s.

The first Gallagher custom .44 Special started life as an Old Model .357 Blackhawk. The Three-Screw Ruger .357 Magnum Blackhawks, the Flat-Top from 1955-1962, and the Old Model from 1963 to 1972, were built using the same sized frame and cylinder as a Colt Single Action which makes them about perfect for building a custom .44 Special. With most of these conversions the original cylinder is rechambered
to .44 Special. Gallagher took a different route using a custom over-sized cylinder to completely fill out the frame window and also allow for a recessed case heads — a very nice special custom touch.

The barrel is 4″ in length, the rear sight is a custom Bowen with an extra touch as the top of the frame is serrated on both sides of the sight assembly. The front sight is a ramp style with a serrated blade and the ramp is nicely contoured and blended into the barrel. The hammer is from a Super Blackhawk and both the ejector rod housing and grip frame are steel making this an all steel .44.

Details

Other custom touches include scalloping out of the reloading gate and the corresponding recoil shield on the left side as well as removing of metal, or stepping down the frame on both sides in front of the trigger guard. Because of the short barrel, and correspondingly shorter ejector rod housing, the head of the cylinder pin is abbreviated to allow the fullest possible stroke of the ejector rod to positively extract empty cartridge cases.

The entire sixgun is nicely polished blue and John also made the custom fancy walnut stocks. The trigger pull is set at 21⁄4 pounds and with my standard .44 Special load of a 260 grain Keith Bullet over 7.5 grains of Unique the muzzle velocity is right at 900 fps with
a group of 11⁄4″ for five shots at 20 yards. You might think it couldn’t get any better as far as a custom .44 Special sixgun is concerned, and maybe it can’t, however the next Gallagher .44 makes it a real contest.

This second entry into the Perfect Packin’ Pistol category started life as a Ruger 50th Anniversary .357 Flat-Top. When Ruger switched over to the New Model Blackhawks, the .357 was no longer built on the smaller frame but rather on the Super Blackhawk-sized frame, but when Ruger celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the .357 Blackhawk in 2005 by building a Flap-Top on the New Model action they reverted back to the original size and thankfully they didn’t stop there.

The grip frame on the 50th Anniversary .357 is the same size and shape as the original which had been changed in 1962. For whatever the reason, the original grip frame feels better and handles recoil much easier for me than the Old Model grip frame. I even noticed quite a difference in these two sixguns when shooting my standard .44 Special loads. It is my understanding that Ruger is switching over to the 50th Anniversary grip frame on all of their Blackhawks. For this I say a hearty Thank You!

For this .44 Special, Gallagher rechambered the original cylinder, fitted a Bisley Model hammer and melted the corners of the rear sight as well as the top strap and except for the maintaining of the original width of the frame in front of the trigger guard, the rest of this .44 Special has the same touches as the Old Model version. And like its brother it is also an excellent shooter. Using the CPBC 275 grain LBT WFN bullet over 17.5 grains of IMR4227, muzzle velocity is just under 1,000 fps and five shots group into 1″ at 20 yards.

The Someday Gun

Several years ago my friend Paco Kelly gave me a 61⁄2″ S&W 1950 Target barrel which was originally made for a .45 ACP revolver. I tucked
this barrel way with the idea of someday, and you surely know how difficult it is for “somedays” to arrive, building a .45 Colt on a Smith & Wesson Highway Patrolman. There are two problems inherent in such a conversion. Some of the .357 Magnum cylinders have bolt notches to deep to safely allow conversion to .45 Colt, and secondly the 1950 Target barrels were rifled to handle jacketed bullets not necessarily cast bullets.

Well someday really did arrive and a Highway Patrolman and the 1950 barrel were sent off to John Gallagher to build a 5″ Perfect Packin’ Pistol in .45 Colt fully realizing even if the cylinder worked the barrel may never shoot very well. John re-chambered the cylinder, cut the barrel to 5″, re-set the front sight while doing a beautiful job of tapering the rib on top of the barrel to match up with the narrower ramp of the front sight, totally tuned the action, set the trigger pull at a beautiful creep free 3 lbs pounds, and refinished the barrel to match the matte blue finish of the original Highway Patrolman. I added an old pair of Skeeter Skelton Bearhug stocks to complete the package.

Would it really shoot? Because of the specifications of the original barrel I would’ve been happy with an average shooting sixgun. A good shooting sixgun would fill me with a sixgunner’s joy. I don’t understand why it performs so well but I’m ecstatic over the way this gun shoots!

Using hard cast bullets or even soft swaged lead bullets makes no difference to this .45, it simply puts them all in one hole. Not only do my carefully tailored homebrewed loads do this, Buffalo Bore’s factory load with a 255 grain commercial cast SWC Keith-style bullet cuts one ragged hole with a muzzle velocity right at 1,000 fps; another great shooting sixgun from Gallagher.

I was not born with a sixgun in my hand as some might imagine, but rather, my early shooting days were confined to single barrel shotguns, .22 rifles and .22 pistols on my uncle’s farm in Ohio during the late 1940s.

In those days, in the mid- and late 1950s, firearms were easily accessible, and in Ohio, one only needed to be 16 to purchase on one’s own, and there were no federal forms. Colt Single Actions from what we now refer to as the First-Generation Run were readily available in both original and customized persuasions. My third firearm was a .38-40 Colt Single Action Army.

Enter Buntline

Edward Zane Carroll Judson was an author of dime novels in the last quarter of the 19th century whose pen name was Ned Buntline. He specialized more in fiction than fact and created long-standing myths about Western heroes. To this day, we do not know if it is legend or fact. However, he claimed to have presented five “Buntline Specials” to five lawmen in Dodge City in the late 1870s. Those men were Charlie Bassett, Neal Brown, Bat Masterson, Bill Tilghman and Wyatt Earp.

Researchers have found long-barreled Colt Single Actions, which the factory did not refer to as Buntline Specials, in a serial number range from 1876 to 1884. To date, they have uncovered less than two dozen chambered in .45 Colt, two in .44-40 and one in .44 Colt. Usually, these long-barreled sixguns were fitted with a wire stock and a long-range rear sight, which lifted out of its mortise on the top strap.

2nd & 3rd Gen. Explosion

While very few 1st Generation authentic Buntline Specials have been found, this is not quite the case in the 2nd Generation run of Colts from 1955 to 1975. Nearly 4,000 long-barreled .45 Colt sixguns marked Buntline Specials were produced. During the 3rd Generation run, Colt expanded the line of Buntline Specials producing them in not only .45 Colt but .44-40 and .44 Special as well as some New Frontier Buntline Specials. At the same time, Great Western also offered Buntline Specials with 12 ½” barrels. However, they are much harder to find, so I’ve made my own. Arizona single action sixgunsmith Jim Martin gave me a Colt .44 Special Buntline barrel which he re-threaded to the 2nd Generation pattern, and it is now installed on a Great Western. Shoots great!

Reality Or Myth?

Were these claimed five original Buntline Specials presented to five peace officers reality or myth? There are no factory records to confirm the shipping of five long-barreled revolvers to Judson. However, factory records are only sometimes complete. And while they cannot be confirmed, it can also not be proved they never existed. Most of us know of the Buntline Special from the 1950s–1960s TV series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, starring Hugh O’Brian in the title role. This TV Wyatt carried a Buntline Special, first in a homemade holster and later in a custom Arvo Ojala Hollywood Holster. The real Wyatt Earp told his biographer, Stuart Lake, in the early 1930s he really did have a Buntline Special, and it didn’t slow down his draw in the least. I’ll let the reader decide if this is real or imagined! Now the TV Wyatt Earp had a metal-lined holster with a long drop loop, making it much easier to draw a 12″ sixgun than from the high-riding Mexican Loop holster Wyatt Earp would have been using in the 1880s.

John’s Buntline History

When I was a teenager back in the 1950s, I had a built-up Buntline Special, which was a 1st Generation Colt put together with a .38 Special cylinder and a 12″ barrel. I spent a lot of time doing fast draw with that gun and found I could do fairly well by dropping my left knee significantly as I drew to be able to clear leather. After practicing with this gun, it seemed like my 7 ½” .45 literally jumped out of the holster. That .38 really had no practical value then, but I certainly wish I still had it today. I would enjoy shooting low recoil .38 Specials using this relatively heavy sixgun, and it would also make a superb Single Action .38/44 Heavy Duty. Alas, the emphasis is on “teenager,” and my brains were still somewhat mushy, so I let it get away.

In the first half of the 1960s, I worked six nights a week in a tire factory and attended college five days a week. We had our three kids during this same time and the oldest one will always be linked to the Buntline Special. On a Tuesday night, I received a message at work to “Come home, take a shower, sit down and watch Wyatt Earp and I will be ready to go to the hospital.” Wyatt had just drawn his Buntline Special when Diamond Dot said, “It is time to go to the hospital.” So, my oldest daughter was born right after the Buntline Special appeared on our 10″ TV screen.

Percussion “Buntlines”

My experience with percussion sixguns goes back to my teenage years when I had an original Colt 1860 Army .44, a British Deane & Adams Double-Action .44 and a very early replica of the Remington New Model Army. Over the decades, I have continued to add replicas of virtually all the Colt and Remington conversions.

Over the years, I mostly stuck with traditional percussion sixguns; I ignored things like the Pietta Remington New Model Army Bison with a 12″ barrel. Since the cap and ball revolvers were so hard to find during the COVID situation, I put my name on several lists to get individual models when they did become available.

Pietta has cataloged their Bison .44 in three versions: blued steel, brass-framed, and stainless steel. It only took a couple of months to get the first two; however, the stainless-steel version still evades me. If any reader knows of a new or like new Stainless Steel Adjustable Sighted 12″ Pietta Remington .44, I would like to be informed. These long-barreled Remingtons are equipped with excellent adjustable sights with a square notch rear mated up with a square post front.

After acquiring my Remington “Buntlines,” I took a good look at my collection of Ruger Old Army percussion sixguns. The Ruger is not a replica but a modern cap and ball revolver using the Ruger Three-Screw action and also fitted with excellent adjustable sights. When Ruger stopped production in the first decade of this century, excellent examples could be found in the $350–$400 range. Those are long gone, and today an excellent example will run close to $1,000.

Since I enjoyed my long-barreled Remington so much, I thought to myself as I looked at the Ruger Old Army, “Why not?” I contacted my friend Arizona custom gunsmith Gary Reeder, who supplied me with a stainless steel barrel blank. I turned over both the Ruger and the barrel blank to Milt Morrison. He turned the blank down to the proper diameter and trimmed it to 12″ and I now had a Ruger old Army Buntline. I also asked Milt to see if he could find a blued barrel blank (he did) and the second Ruger (this time a blued version) soon had a 12″ barrel. We kept the adjustable Ruger rear sights as is and mated them up with Fermin Garza post front sights, giving me the same sight picture as found on the Remingtons. This quartet of percussion Buntlines are excellent shooters that are easy to shoot and exceptionally accurate.

Other Variants

When it comes to DA Buntline Specials, the field is limited. I know of no company that catalogs such long-barreled double-action sixguns. At one time, Dan Wesson offered 12″ sixguns; however, my Dan Wesson is only close as it is chambered in .22 LR with a heavy under-lugged 10″ barrel. Also, it is not exactly a DA, as it was set up at the factory for SA use for long-range competition and target shooting. At one time, Taurus offered 12″ sixguns set up with a standard weight barrel and offered in two versions, .22 LR and .22 Rimfire Magnum. I was fortunate enough to acquire one of each way back then, and they are excellent, especially for small game and varmint hunting.

A relatively new player is Heritage Manufacturing, with a varied list of SA .22s offered with barrel lengths from 3″ to 16″. There is nothing fancy about these; however, they are working guns that can sometimes be found on special sale for less than $100. They also can be had with an auxiliary cylinder in .22 Magnum for about $30 more. As with all .22 sixguns, these sixguns should be tested with more than one type of .22 ammunition. I did get misfires with one brand that apparently had a rim at the thin end of the specs and probably matched up with a cylinder cut at the large end of the spec chart. I have found Aquila .22 LR ammunition to work exceptionally well in these .22 Buntlines.

My favorite sandwich shop is Subway for several reasons. They are close by, reasonably priced and offer a menu for healthy eating. There was a time when a foot-long Subway sandwich was served as a meal. Now at this time in my life, it provides two meals. I’m also quite partial to Sonic foot-long hotdogs smothered in relish and mustard; they still slide down easily, providing one meal. The sandwiches give me much foot-long eating enjoyment; however, they are second to the pleasure I receive from foot-long sixguns.

I can already hear some readers saying, “Roy, did you bring this yokel aboard so he can feed us that same old revolver versus autoloader crap?” Well — yes and no. I’m not here to repeat the same old arguments, but since I’ve attended classes at Thunder Ranch dedicated to all three types of handguns, I’d like to share a bit of insight I gained from the experiences.

My opinion is this: A single action revolver gives up exactly nothing to an autoloading pistol for the first five rounds. And that’s both when the sights are used, or the thing is just stuck out in front of you and the trigger pulled. Are you thinking “rubbish” — or some less printable word?

Let me tell you this. At one class Clint asked me to use a Colt SAA .45 for a while so the rest of the group would be exposed to something different. A little into the course he asked me, and a class member using a 1911, to step forward. With the targets only feet away and with our handguns pointed out in front in both hands, he asked us to fire two shots as fast as possible on his command. He also told the rest of the class to judge who fired fastest.

Deadly Duke

I thought, “Great, Clint put me on the hot seat!” I’d never done such a thing before and had no idea how it would go. To the surprise of the entire class — including me — they couldn’t tell which of us fired fastest. Clint had us do it again, and with the same results.

Last summer two young Marine friends just back from combat in Iraq stopped to visit me after seeing the movie Open Range. Inspired, they asked to shoot some SA revolvers and lever action rifles. We did the “Clint Drill” several times, and those young fellows were just as surprised that “old cowboy guns” could be fired as fast as “modern” combat handguns.

What about double action revolvers? I attended a Thunder Ranch class dedicated to them sometime after. And here’s what I think. The double action revolver, when fired only DA, is the hardest of all handguns to shoot well. I could never keep the bullet holes on the targets as close with the guns I brought (N-frame S&W .38s and .44s) as I can do with either single actions or 1911s. In fact, my target often looked like someone had hit it with OO buck from a ways back.

Here’s one important proviso. The autoloader and the DA revolver can easily be fired one-handed, as when the other hand is occupied — say in holding up your pants or some equally important task. To equal their speed of shooting, the single action must be manipulated with two hands. One to hold the revolver, aim it and press the trigger, and the other to cock the hammer. Be sure, I’m not talking about movie high jinks like fanning, but about aimed fire.

Shootin’ Yer Foot Off

In the beginning, the phrase “first five rounds” was used. Aren’t we talking about “sixguns” here? Absolutely, but if I thought that extra round was needed it most certainly would be in there. But for packing a traditionally styled single action about the only safe way is with the hammer down on the empty sixth chamber. Don’t doubt it. I personally have known two people who died because they doubted it.

The kicker is the reload. Autoloaders are a breeze, as long as the spare magazines are there. So are DA revolvers, as long as the speed loaders are there. Single action revolvers require numerous small movements to bring them back up to speed. Here in Montana, I have a CCW and when exercising my right to carry usually have either a Les Baer Thunder Ranch Special or a Kimber Pro Carry .40 S&W.

However, when going about my everyday life, I almost always have a single action revolver within reach. If accosted would I run off screaming into the night because that’s all the gun I possessed? I certainly hope not. Autoloaders are easy. Single actions are almost as easy for the first five shots. Double action revolvers? Now, that’s a handgun for the experts. And that’s my opinion on the matter.