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.
A MILITIA LIKE GROUP MAKES THEIR WAY TO A RALLY FOR US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP IN WASHINGTON, DC ON JANUARY 6, 2021. (PHOTO BY JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Militias who like to spend their weekends training to overthrow the government could find themselves running afoul of federal law, under new legislation being proposed in the House and Senate Thursday that seeks to curtail paramilitary activity.
The “Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act” is being introduced by Senator Ed Markey from Massachusetts, and Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, both Democrats.
The lawmakers propose different tiers of criminal penalties, depending on whether violations result in injury or property damage. The bill would establish harsher penalties for repeat offenders, and probationary sentences for first-time offenders. It would also create paths for the DOJ and private individuals to seek civil federal lawsuits against paramilitary activity.
This legislation comes almost exactly three years after Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of Trump supporters—many dressed for war—stormed the U.S. Capitol over conspiracy theories about the presidential election results. Leading the charge were members and leaders of the Oath Keepers, a militia, and Proud Boys, a quasi-paramilitary group often described as a far-right street-fighting gang. Top brass of those organizations have since caught seditious conspiracy charges.
“Private paramilitary actors, such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, pose a serious threat to democracy and the rule of law,” Sen. Markey said in a statement. “We must create new prohibitions on their unauthorized activities that interfere with the exercise of people’s constitutional rights. The forces of bigotry, hatred, and violent extremism must be stopped for the sake of our democracy.”
The Capitol riot was the culmination of surging anti-government sentiment and paramilitary activity seen throughout 2020. That year, armed paramilitary groups swarmed government buildings to protest COVID-19 restrictions, plotted to kidnap Michigan’s governor over those restrictions, conducted armed neighborhood patrols in response to racial justice protests, and killed law enforcement officers.
The modern paramilitary movement surged in the 1990s, galvanized by new federal gun laws, and by armed FBI raids on extremist compounds such as Waco and Ruby Ridge. The movement has waxed and waned in the decades since. And as the dust settled from the Capitol riot, many asked why these heavily armed, organized groups had seemingly been able to operate with impunity for so long.
Gun rights organizations and anti-government groups have typically argued that paramilitary activity is constitutionally protected by the Second Amendment’s language about “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.”
But constitutional experts hold that it is not protected. After the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, a team with Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) sought to examine the legality of the kind of brazen paramilitary activity on display that weekend. They found that all 50 states had some kind of laws on the books, but were rarely enforced.
The team, led by Mary McCord, former acting assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice’s national security division, also found that the historical context of “militia” did not mean a private paramilitary group that was answerable only to themselves, but an armed group that predated the National Guard, was first established in the colonies in the 1600s and was meant to be deployed at the behest of the governor. Additionally, McCord told The Trace in an interview two years ago, Supreme Court decisions in 1886 and 2008 found that the Second Amendment did not prohibit states from banning private paramilitary groups.
“Our legislation makes the obvious but essential clarification that these domestic extremists’ paramilitary operations are in no way protected by our Constitution,” Rep Raskin said in a statement regarding Thursday’s bill.
How the proposed legislation is received by hardline conservatives in Congress and by Trump voters will remain to be seen. Grievances against the federal government, particularly the FBI and DOJ, have continued to mount since 2021, amid the slew of indictments against Trump and the massive prosecution effort against Capitol rioters. A recent poll found that a quarter of American voters believe the baseless “Fedsurrection” conspiracy theory that the FBI instigated the Capitol attack. These grievances and conspiracies have established the false narrative that the Biden Administration is hellbent on persecuting its ideological or political opponents.
(Disclosure: Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, was a co-founder of VICE in 1994. He left the company in 2008 and has had no involvement since then.)
Categories
What the Heck is a “Dum-Dum” Bullet Anyway
Hershel House, one of the preeminent builders of American Long Rifles and knives of the Long Hunter era, has died. He was a giant in the traditional field, and by all accounts a fine man. He was 82 years old and had a fine run, but his passing has left a hole in the world for many people.
Mel Hankla wrote a really fine piece on House for Muzzleloader Magazine years ago. Read it here.
Hershel Carmen House was born July 4, 1941 and needs no introduction to these pages. His work has been nationally known for the better part of four decades. Hershel and his younger brothers Frank and John are the progenitors of what is known as the “Woodbury School” in today’s contemporary longrifle society. Named for the small Kentucky town on the banks of the Green River in which they grew up. Products made by this family ingenuously express their personalities, exhibit varied artistic talents, and reveal a genuine way of life that has significantly influenced many aspects and countless members of today’s contemporary longrifle culture.
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Monk scouted up a novel to be released later this year titled Dark Frontier.
A thrilling historical western set in 1890s Oregon, from the author of the critically acclaimed Bernicia Chronicles. An English soldier turned policeman escapes to the American West for a new future, but life on the frontier proves far harder than he ever imagined…
A man can flee from everything but his own nature.
1890. Lieutenant Gabriel Stokes of the British Army left behind the horrors of war in Afghanistan for a role in the Metropolitan Police. Though he rose quickly through the ranks, the squalid violence of London’s East End proved just as dark and oppressive as the battlefield.
With his life falling apart, and longing for peace and meaning, Gabriel leaves the grime of London behind and heads for the wilderness and wide open spaces of the American West.
He soon realises that the wilds of Oregon are far from the idyll he has yearned for. The Blue Mountains may be beautiful, but with the frontier a complex patchwork of feuds and felonies, and ranchers as vicious as any back alley cut-throat in London, Gabriel finds himself unable to escape his past and the demons that drive him. Can he find a place for himself on the far edge of the New World?
I just discovered that the pulpy goodness that is Warrior had a third season in 2023. Lady Marilyn and I will need to catch up on that…
Set during the Tong Wars in late 1870s San Francisco, the series follows Ah Sahm, a martial arts prodigy who emigrates from China in search of his sister, only to be sold to one of the most powerful tongs in Chinatown.
Warrior came out of an old pitch by Bruce Lee and one of the men at the helm is Jonathan Tropper, who created Banshee (the Irish pub in Warrior is named The Banshee. Nice meta touch there.) We enjoyed the first two seasons on Cinemax, but the show got derailed by COVID and the demise of Cinemax original programing. HBO Max picked it up and delivered a third season last summer. That may be it, although I hear there’s a possibility of Netflix picking it up…
Warrior is pure pulp, but it is exploring a real, international frontier phenomenon.
I ran across a book in the library that takes on The Chinese Question across multiple 19th century frontiers.
How Chinese migration to the world’s goldfields upended global power and economics and forged modern conceptions of race.
In roughly five decades, between 1848 and 1899, more gold was removed from the earth than had been mined in the 3,000 preceding years, bringing untold wealth to individuals and nations. But friction between Chinese and white settlers on the goldfields of California, Australia, and South Africa catalyzed a global battle over “the Chinese Question”: would the United States and the British Empire outlaw Chinese immigration?
This distinguished history of the Chinese diaspora and global capitalism chronicles how a feverish alchemy of race and money brought Chinese people to the West and reshaped the nineteenth-century world. Drawing on ten years of research across five continents, prize-winning historian Mae Ngai narrates the story of the thousands of Chinese who left their homeland in pursuit of gold, and how they formed communities and organizations to help navigate their perilous new world. Out of their encounters with whites, and the emigrants’ assertion of autonomy and humanity, arose the pernicious western myth of the “coolie” laborer, a racist stereotype used to drive anti-Chinese sentiment.
By the turn of the twentieth century, the United States and the British Empire had answered “the Chinese Question” with laws that excluded Chinese people from immigration and citizenship. Ngai explains how this happened and argues that Chinese exclusion was not extraneous to the emergent global economy but an integral part of it.
This is outside my reading scope for The Ranger Project, etc., but I will mark it down for future exploration. The Chinese story is an important one, and it ain’t pretty. Oregon was the site of a terrible crime involving the massacre of some 34 Chinese gold miners in 1887.