Category: All About Guns
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A Remington Model 50 in 12 gauge
Whether munitions drove the development of firearms or firearms drove the development of munitions is one of those chicken and egg questions which keeps coffee table philosophers busy and off the streets. There’s at least one case where we can make the argument that available munitions drove the development of the guns — with the great .577 revolvers produced in the late Victorian Era.
With the exception of the huge Dragoon and Walker Colts, percussion revolvers were typically anemic performers by today’s standards. Even the .44 1860 Army model, perhaps the most widely made and distributed of the Colt percussion revolvers, offered mediocre ballistic performance. The 148 grain conical ball ambling along at a stately 800 fps sounds suspiciously like the .38 Special round-nose factory load which nobody has ever accused of superior man-stopping prowess. Yes, you could kill somebody deader than a hammer with one, but not always right now.
The advent of cartridge revolvers and ammunition didn’t improve matters a great deal. Only the .45 Colt with its 250 gr. bullet at 900 fps was really an adequate performer. Pity the poor English whose concurrent revolver developments offered nothing nearly so useful. The early British cartridge revolvers were chambered for a variety of pathetic little numbers such as the .442 Webley and .450 Adams, most of which tossed along 200-220 gr. bullets at 550-650 fps, underwhelming to say the least. But lackluster performance was no academic question to users of these guns.
The British Empire spanned the globe and was, in many cases, peopled by reluctant participants in this imperial glory. Often as not, these folks did not domesticate well and caused all manner of trouble. Indeed, many offered spirited and effective resistance. Whether on a mission from God to expel the white devils, or simply fortified by locally manufactured pharmaceuticals, the locals often took a lot of killing.
Many a brave officer in the Queen’s service discovered this the hard way after emptying his token side arm to no effect, then getting gigged in the guts or sliced from crown to crotch. Didn’t take much of this for the brighter members of the officer corps to understand more stopping power was in order. Since officers provided their own side arms, those who could afford to procured better ones.
In those days, the only propellant was black powder. The only way to get more power was to use more powder. More powder, in turn required larger
cartridges which, not surprisingly, required larger guns. Out of the quest for effective man-stopping revolvers came some of the most fascinating revolvers ever made, the .577s. Doubtless, designers settled on the .577 caliber because of the familiar Enfield and Snider rifles of the day, figuring that a shortened case suitable to revolvers would do the trick. Regardless, in this instance black powder was the chicken that laid the revolver performance egg.
Cartridge Guns
While some .50 and .54 caliber percussion revolvers exist, the literature doesn’t show any .577s. Most known .577s are cartridge guns. Even so, these guns evolved some over their brief history. Early coiled-brass cartridge cases were not terribly dependable and caused function problems. The earliest known solid-frame specimens had complicated cylinder assemblies with backing plates with firing pin holes that fitted between
the case heads and standing breech to assure dependable cycling even in the event of a case failure.
Problem was that reloading was time-consuming and troublesome since you ended up with a handful of parts during the loading operation — cylinder, backing plate and axel, to say nothing of the ammo. Drop any one part and the gun was disabled, a real bummer in a square surrounded by dervishes intent on doing Allah’s work against the infidels.
Improvements in cartridge cases gave rise to the more conventional revolvers made along the lines of the familiar top-break ejector Webleys. In
their final iteration, .577 revolvers used a drawn brass cartridge case heaving a 400 gr. bullet at about 725 fps — by all accounts an effective manstopper. Determining who made the .577 revolvers is a bit tricky. Patent holders and retailers were not always manufacturers. While Webley and Tranter probably produced the earlier solid-frame guns with the backing-plate cylinders, it isn’t clear Webley ever produced any top-break .577s. Some were probably made by Pryse in England, and perhaps by other licensed English makers. Some were manufactured on the continent by August Francotte & Co. of Liege and retailed by outfitters such as the Army and Navy cooperative and various sporting arms makers.
All top-break ejector revolvers I’ve seen have been made on the Pryse patent, regardless of the retailer’s name. Distinguished from the Webley latch system, the Pryse top fastener between barrel extension and receiver consists of a couple of frame-mounted levers which retract a couple of pins from a hole in the barrel extension to permit opening. At least a couple variations in the guns exist with subtle differences in barrel
form, cylinder length and hammer fastener. One thing is for certain, .577 revolvers are extremely rare. Credible estimates suggest fewer than a hundred or so of all stripes were ever made.
Rare or not, vintage .577 revolvers are magnificent arms. The examples we have here are very similar in size and weight to the contemporary Ruger Redhawk. They are perfectly handy and agile in their handling. Recoil, while not insubstantial, is a gentle heave and not bothersome. Sadly, most devout gun cranks will never have a chance to see, let alone shoot one of these marvels. That gave rise to the notion it might be nice to try and build a modern .577.
Ordinary?
In keeping with the character of the original .577s, we (“we” being the Bowen Classic Arms crew, shop dog, et al) wanted a revolver of relatively ordinary size and shape, not some outsized, eight-pound monstrosity with all the grace and handling of an anvil. The basic problem was the cartridge size. The original .577 revolver cartridges were based on shortened .577 Express cases. Since these cases were quite heavily tapered, the original .577 revolvers actually have groove diameters more on the order of .610″-.615″ rather than the usual .585″- .588″ for .577 rifles.
Our only hope of shoe-horning a .577 cartridge of some kind into a revolver lay in dramatically reducing its diameter. Pegging the groove diameter, rather than the bore diameter, at .577, was a good place to start. Even so, if you added in .015″ per side for the brass and a bit of cartridge taper, you’d still have a case with a head diameter of about .610″. For the smallest possible cartridge, the solution was a heeled bullet with a .577 front driving band in a .577″ diameter case, basically a giant .22 Long Rifle cartridge.
So far, so good. But if the groove diameter is .577″, how could the gun shoot well with a heel of only .547″ diameter? More head scratching offered the answer in the form of the Minie ball with its hollow base. In theory, the skirt would obdurate to driving-band diameter and give guidance on each end of the bullet. Since bullets would weigh around 400 grains and be subject to considerable recoil inertia, how to crimp them
firmly was the next question. Heeled bullets can’t be roll crimped because the case mouth is covered by the bullet. Time-tried technology in the form of collet crimping saved the day.
All that remained to complete the basic cartridge design was to procure a suitable parent case. Perusing spec sheets on virtually every known cartridge case turned up nothing useful. Alas, our baby was a bastard. Nothing would do but to make cases. Obviously, drawn brass would have been prohibitively expensive so we turned to the Ballard Rifle & Cartridge Company who, at the time, produced excellent turned brass (now produced by Rocky Mountain Cartridge Company). With the flexibility of CNC machinery, they could make cases of virtually any description. And thus was born the .577 No. 2 revolver cartridge.
Redhawk Rebore
The smallest .577 revolver cartridge still required a substantial gun. At the time, the Ruger Redhawk was the obvious candidate since no other normal revolver had its cylinder and barrel shank diameters. Even then, the .577 No. 2 Revolver cartridge is a tight fit. The chamber walls and webs of the 5-shot cylinder are quite thin, limiting the gun to black powder pressures. Barrels with .565″ bore and .577″ groove diameters are not a size found in nature, so to speak, but we were able to gull our good friend Cliff LaBounty into making a rifling head to rebore the
original Redhawk barrel. In keeping with the vintage nature of the gun, the top strap and barrel were modified to resemble a Smith & Wesson M&P fixed-sight model. Building the gun was simple enough — ammunition proved to be much more troublesome.
Initial test firing was conducted with standard pistol primers, FFFg powder and a generic black powder lube. Muzzle velocity was about 725 fps but accuracy was disappointing. After 15- 20 rounds, powder and lead fouling were so bad bullets would not stay on the target paper at 20 yards. Consulting with an expert may be unmanly but, in this case, it saved the day.
Mike Venturino and his shooting cohorts had begun to unravel the lost secrets of sustainable black powder accuracy. Mike counseled there are
three basic elements: Use magnum primers, use a drop tube to charge the cases with powder and use SPG lube. Armed with this intelligence, we tried again. Muzzle velocities were still around 725 fps +/- 5 fps. Off-hand groups shrunk to a couple inches and fouling, even after 25-30 rounds, never impaired accuracy or function. Recovered bullets showed the skirts hadexpanded to engage the rifling as hoped.
With good ammo in hand, regulating the sights was a snap. The .577 Redhawk has performed flawlessly to date. Thanks to the weight reduction afforded by .577 chambers and bore, handling is light and quick. Recoil is substantial, much like a heavy .44 Magnum loading but without the bite and piercing report. Scientific penetration tests conducted against a handy fence post demonstrated very modest penetration but a great deal of whack. After two or three solid hits, the post stayed right where it was, unable to escape.
Sadly, the future for newly-made .577 revolvers is pretty bleak. The National Firearms Act of 1934 classifies rifled, breech-loading guns with
bores larger than .5″ as “destructive devices” and levies on the transfer of such arms a $200 tax. Production for resale of destructive devices requires a license costing thousands of dollars a year to maintain.
Big-bore sporting long arms are largely exempt but the BATF would not extend any such sympathy to a .577 revolver and treats the gun exactly the same as a 155MM howitzer. Quite a distinction for a revolver that was state of the art in 1885. Within a few years of their introduction, the .577
revolvers disappeared, usurped by smaller guns made possible by smokeless power — yet another argument in favor of ammunition as chicken and gun as egg.
During the last quarter of the 19th century, as the industrial revolution was flourishing, a great deal of experimentation occurred. The firearm industry was as big a player in this as anybody. Winchester’s Model 1873 rifle had virtually set the American West on fire; its .44-40 Winchester Center Fire (WCF) was the go-to cartridge of the day. Then, as now, there were always a few who sought minimization—a way to use less resources to achieve a similar end.
In 1874, Winchester reduced the neck of the .44-40 to accommodate a .40-cal. (.401″) bullet. Someone must have thought that “.40-40” didn’t have much of a marketing ring to it, so they looked at the bore diameter, .394″. Apparently, that didn’t have the “zing” they wanted either, so they came up with .38-40 WCF. As it did with the .44-40 WCF, Colt would chamber its Single Action Army (SAA) for the smaller bore some four years later.
In 1882, Winchester once again pared down its cartridge to .32 cal. (.3125″), reduced the charge of black powder to 20 grains and called it the .32-20 WCF. Originally touted as a combination cartridge suitable for varmints, small game and deer, the deer component was fairly quickly dismissed, save for shots less than 100 yards in the neck or head.
Two examples of a .32-20 WCF cartridge.
This was when 20 grains of FFFg black powder would generate 1,250 f.p.s. and just 399 ft.-lbs. of energy with a 115-gr. bullet. Compare that to a .30-30 Win.—considered by many to be the “floor” of deer cartridges—with a 150-gr. bullet at 2,390 f.p.s. and 1,903 ft.-lbs. of energy. Having said all that, Paco Kelly, of leverguns.com fame, says he shot some two dozen Virginia whitetail deer with a Model 92 Winchester chambered in .32-20 WCF in the 1970s.
As with its predecessors, it took Colt about five years to chamber its SAA in .32-20 WCF. Still later, it would chamber its double-action Frontier, Army Special and Police Positive revolvers in .32-20 WCF. Not to be outdone, Smith & Wesson chambered its .32-20 WCF Hand Ejector First Model in the Winchester cartridge. Martini chambered its single-shot Cadet rifle in .32-20 for use as a trainer and target rifle. Remington chambered its Model 25 and 25A rifles in .32-20 WCF from 1923 until 1935. With that, the .32-20 WCF remained popular throughout the first quarter of the 20th century.
That popularity is quite similar to the small and lightweight pistols of today. They are usually carried by one of two types, either more-or-less novice types that want some protection but are unwilling to dress around a full-size pistol, or the really savvy, deep-cover, gun guy (or gal) who is cool as ice under fire and can accurately place their shots. The former are more plentiful than the latter. Their logic is that no one wants to get shot with anything.
The .32-20 WCF (left) compared with the .44-40 WCF (center) and .45 Colt (right).
The accuracy of the .32-20 WCF is another reason for its popularity. Small game hunters and pest shooters found the cartridge to be very accurate within its range limitations. Hunters wanting to kill a rabbit or squirrel for the stove liked that the cartridge didn’t tear up too much meat.
By the time World War II rolled around, all three Winchester cartridges, .44-40 WCF, .38-40 WCF and .32-20 WCF were moribund. Winchester stopped chambering rifles for them, Colt was lowering the curtain on the SAA and hunters were becoming more fascinated with magnum cartridges. The general consensus on into the 1960s—even the ’70s—was that you couldn’t kill a prairie dog or a woodchuck unless the bullet was traveling at more than three times the speed of sound.
As with so many things, however, what goes around comes around. The sport of handgun metallic-silhouette shooting renewed some interest in the .32-20 WCF. Winners needed a flat-shooting, accurate cartridge that could tip over a steel target at 100 meters, and didn’t threaten to separate their hand from their wrist.
Older examples of .32-20 WCF revolvers were quickly swept up, and for a while the only feasible way to get one was to build it. More than a few Ruger Blackhawk revolvers chambered in .30 Carbine were converted to—or had another cylinder chambered—for the .32-20 WCF.
In reality, these were actually “.30-20 WCF” revolvers because the barrels remained .30 caliber, with a groove diameter of .308″, as opposed to .3125″. As such, in order to retain its accuracy reputation, handloaders had to use .30-cal. bullets. More than a few Thompson/Center Contender barrels chambered in .30 Carbine also got a reaming as well. Even in the stilted world of Schüetzen matches, the .32-20 WCF has made some inroads on the traditional .32-40 chamberings.
All of this resulted in a mild renaissance of the chambering in the Marlin 1894CL in 1988 and Ruger making a limited run of Blackhawk revolvers for Buckeye Sports, of Canton, Ohio, chambered in true .32-20 WCF. Both, sadly, are no longer produced. The .32-20 WCF has been fruitful and multiplied. Spinoffs include the .25-20 WCF (1895), the .218 Bee (1937) and its case has been modified slightly to produce usable ammo for the Nagant M1895 revolver with its 7.62×38 mm R cartridge, as well as the .310 Cadet rifle cartridge of British fame.
Today’s .32-20 WCF shooters are pretty much relegated to handloading the cartridge, though occasionally you’ll find a handful of factory ammo. Since it’s a bottlenecked cartridge, carbide dies are out, and because of its very thin neck and the necessity of being extra careful—read slow—in the reloading process to keep from ruining too many cases, producing ammo for it is not for the impatient.
An example of a Winchester Model 92 chambered in .32-20 WCF.
The first order of business is to determine whether you are loading for a .30-cal. or a true .32-cal. barrel. That, of course dictates bullet diameter, which may or may not limit your bullet selection.
Then you must decide what power level you can load, which is determined upon your gun type. Model 1873 rifles and first-generation Colt SAAs should not be subjected to hot loads. Their design and metallurgical makeup won’t hold up to that kind of abuse. Newer guns like the Marlin 1894CL, Ruger Blackhawk and T/C Contender can take hotter loads. The .32-20 WCF is inexpensive to load, especially if you use cast bullets.
The .32-20 WCF may not set the modern world on fire. It’s not a popular choice in the self-defense world anymore. Small game hunters wanting a .32-caliber rifle or pistol can choose the .32 H&R Magnum or .327 Federal Magnum can get the job done just as well. But for the traditional minded hunter, the gentleman who may choose to hide a short-barreled single action deep in his coat or the man who embraces history, they will find that the .32-20 WCF suit them right down to the ground.
The 2024 session of the Tennessee General Assembly is scheduled to convene in Nashville on Tuesday, January 9.
According to his personal website, Daniel Lubetzky was born in Mexico City in the late 1960s and came to the United States with his family as a teenager.
In 2004, Lubetzky is the founded the snack company Kind LLC. It was reportedly worth $5 billion when the company was sold to Mars Inc. in 2020. When the company was under his management, Lubetzky was named a Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship by former President Barack Obama and his administration’s Commerce Secretary, Penny Pritzker.
His foundation received its tax-exempt status in 2017, and a federal tax filing from 2021 indicates the Lubetzky Family Foundation has offices at 3 Times Square, also known as the Thomson Reuters Building, in New York. The Lubetzky Family Foundation spent nearly $3.5 million in 2021, when its eight highest-earning employees were each paid more than $100,000, and collectively were compensated $1,294,410.
Lubetzky’s involvement in Tennessee politics comes through a group called Citizen Solutions, which is a project of Starts With Us, which in turn is a project of the Lubetzky Family Foundation. Citizen Solutions seems to exist to spread awareness of the suggestions made by the Tennessee 11, a group of 11 Tennessee residents affiliated with Citizen Solutions.
The Tennessee 11 apparently met for the first time in September, when the group held a “solution session” in Franklin.
In October, the Tennessee 11 announced eight proposals for new laws, regulations, and initiatives they claim would contribute toward the prevention of gun violence. Among the proposals, according to a press release by Citizen Solutions, are calls for Tennessee to pass a red flag law, which would allow courts to order the temporary suspension of an individual’s right to bear arms, require Student Resource Officers (SROs) be trained in “mental health first aid” and “trauma-informed care,” and create “an incentives-first approach to gun ownership rights and responsibilities.”
Another proposal includes Tennessee investing resources to prevent traumatic childhood experiences that could potentially precipitate gun violence.
The Tennessee 11 also proposed laws or regulations requiring Tennesseans obtain a license or permit to carry a handgun, though the group noted, “the TN11 reached a majority but not unanimous consensus on this proposal and now asks the public for feedback.”
In November, the Citizen Solutions “opened a public feedback platform,” according to The Daily Beacon, which reported the activists “are encouraging [University of Tennessee] students to give feedback on the proposals” made by the Tennessee 11.
On the Citizen Solutions website, the activists claim their gun control proposals were drafted by “Tennesseans with very different perspectives.” Citizen Solutions also bills itself as “an ambitious civic experiment empowering Americans to counteract the extreme voices dominating media and politics by elevating the will of the people.”
However, several of the activists who comprise the Tennessee 11 appear to be partisan, and some worked for the Democratic Party or are former Democratic political candidates.
One of the Tennessee 11, Brandi Kellett, is an Associate Professor at Lipscomb University, and her “areas of scholarship focus on culture, memory and faith as a resistance to oppression in the African disapora across the Americas,” according to her university biography.
Arriell Gipson, a Memphis Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for Shelby County Clerk in 2022, is another member of the Tennessee 11. A profile for her campaign revealed she is “the committee chair for the Mayor’s Young Professional Council, Violence Prevention and Criminal Justice Reform Committee, First Vice President for the Shelby County Young Democrats, a graduate of Leaders of Color, Organizing for Action, New Memphis Leadership Institute, and The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology.”
Another member, former Tennessee state trooper Mark Proctor, wrote in a guest column for The Tennessean in August that “stricter gun regulations save lives.” The Tennessee 11 member specifically argued in favor of a “[s]trict permitting process” and new legislation to “[k]eep guns away from the wrong people.”
Therapist Adam Luke joined the Tennessee 11 from Columbia, Tennessee. In October, Starts With Us published a lengthy statement from Luke on social media. Luke lamented, “When we talk about guns, there’s so much division. Either we’re attacking traditions or we want people to be in harm’s way.”
He urged Tennesseans to “have that bigger discussion of recognizing that what you’re feeling is legitimate, but sometimes our feelings alone aren’t the only information we need to be taking in.” While Luke seemed hesitant to support a red flag law in his statement, the group’s proposal to “[a]llow courts to temporarily remove someone’s firearms if they are deemed a danger to themselves or others based on certain criteria showing they are at risk of committing violence” had the unanimous support of the Tennessee 11.
While Lubetzky funds the Tennessee 11 through his New York-based Lubetzky Family Foundation, he is also an Inaugural Board of Directors member for the controversial Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The ADL notes Lubetzky is the recipient of awards from the World Economic Forum, Skoll Foundation, Conscious Capitalism, and Hispanic Heritage Foundation.
It remains unclear if Lubetzsky’s efforts will bear fruit after a significant push for gun control failed in 2023, when Democrats were joined by Governor Bill Lee (R) in calls for restrictions following the Covenant School shooting.
Red flag legislation was unsuccessful during the regular session in 2023, and though Lee called a special session for the Tennessee General Assembly to pursue gun control initiatives, the governor did not back a red flag law proposal for a second time. Ultimately, no gun restrictions were passed during the special session, and Lee recently signaled that he does not intend to push for red flag legislation in 2024.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times.