In the throes of World War II, a weapon emerged from Germany’s war machine, earning a fearsome reputation from the American and Soviet soldiers alike. The Panzerfaust, a crude yet deadly anti-tank weapon, transformed the battlefield with its potent ability to penetrate armor. This article unravels the story of this humble device that armed even the least experienced German soldier with the power to destroy the mightiest tanks.
The old vet was decades out from war. He had since enjoyed a successful career in business, raised a family, and just generally made the world a much better place. Asking him to relate his experiences in Europe during World War II clearly took him back to a very different place.
His mind remained as sharp today as it had been in 1944 when he arrived in Europe. He rendered a reasoned opinion about the effectiveness of American small arms. He respected the M1 Carbine for its modest weight and maneuverability and revered the M1 rifle. They all revered the M1 rifle.
There really was only one M1. We call it the Garand, but they generally didn’t. The M1 Carbine was the carbine and the M1A1 Thompson was the Thompson, but the .30-06 semi-automatic battle rifle designed by John Cantius Garand was the only M1. What was surprising, however, was his take on the enemy weapons he faced.
We are enamored with the StG44 and MG42 for their groundbreaking design, and rightfully so. The terrifying ripping sound that the MG42 made as it cycled at 1,200 rounds per minute got this man’s attention as well. However, the one German weapon he held in highest esteem was the Panzerfaust.
It’s tough to imagine how junky modern war is. Industrial nations pour themselves into war production and simply blanket the battlefield with weapons, ammunition, and gear. In this case this man said his unit captured German Panzerfaust antitank weapons by the unopened crate. He made a point to keep a handful of these handy little monsters in his jeep at all times.
By 1945 Axis tanks were not the omnipresent scourge they had previously been, and Allied tanks, tank destroyers and fighter bombers were forever on the prowl for the big German cats. However, the Panzerfaust was just the ticket for making an unannounced entry into an occupied building. If your mission is to seize a defended structure from a determined enemy the last thing you want is to knock on the front door. This old vet said that captured Panzerfausts would reliably blow a hole through stucco or plaster that was adequate to admit grenades or even assault troops. He said they burned through dozens of the things and loved them.
Details on the Tank Fist
Panzerfaust literally translates to “tank fist,” and it was one of several desperation weapons fielded by the Germans in the closing months of World War II to blunt the Soviet juggernaut and the increasing threats on the Western Front. First developed in 1942, as Germany’s fortunes waned, the combination of low cost and ease of training made the Panzerfaust a mainstay of the final defense of the Reich in 1943 and beyond. In Normandy, the Panzerfaust accounted for 6% of the Allied tanks knocked out in combat. By war’s end, when the battlefield was dense with poorly trained Volkssturm units, that number climbed to 34%
The prototype Panzerfaust was code-named Gretchen (“Little Greta”). The technical appellation was faustpatrone or “fist cartridge.” The casual observer could be forgiven for presuming the Panzerfaust was a rocket launcher. However, it was really more of a recoilless gun firing a projectile from a disposable tube. The design was a study in simplicity.
The warhead contained a shaped charge comprised of a 50/50 mix of TNT and trihexogen explosives. Fitted to the warhead was a wooden dowel adorned with folding sheet steel fins that deployed when fired. The round was shipped attached to a simple steel tube. Propellant was otherwise unremarkable blackpowder. The Panzerfaust came in four different sizes. Each variant was designated by its expected effective range.
The first model, the Panzerfaust 30, weighed 11.5 lbs. and burned 3.5 oz. of blackpowder propellant. The warhead moved at 30 meters per second and had an effective range of, you guessed it, 30 meters. The Panzerfaust 30 would burn through 200mm of steel armor, or just shy of 8”. The Panzerfaust 60 weighed 13 lbs., burned about 4.5 oz. of black powder, and traveled at 45 meters per second. The Panzerfaust 100 weighed 15 lbs., burned 7 oz. of powder, and traveled at 60 meters per second.
The Panzerfaust 150 sported a redesigned warhead that could accept a fragmentation sleeve to improve its anti-personnel effects when it would explode. Though 100,000 copies were produced, none were known to have been used in combat.
A prototype Panzerfaust 250 developed at the end of the war used a reloadable launch tube with a pistol grip but never went beyond the design stage. It is believed it could penetrate thicker armor in addition to other upgrades. This weapon served as the inspiration for the Combloc RPG-2 that was subsequently widely exported.
Firing the Panzerfaust
The Panzerfaust did not have a trigger in the classical sense. In its place was a lever just behind the warhead that was squeezed to detonate the boost charge. When the operator was ready to ignite the boost charge, he cradled the weapon underneath the armpit and used the simple pressed steel sight to align the warhead.
The Panzerfaust 100 had holes punched into the folding sight marked 30, 60, 80 and 150 meters along with luminescent paint to make the launcher easier to use at night. Most launcher tubes had the words “Achtung. Feuerstrahl.” printed on the side which translated to “Beware. Fire jet.” The backblast that came out of the rear end of the tube was considered dangerous out to about two meters.
Though I’ve never had the pleasure, I’ve read that firing the Panzerfaust in combat was a serious gut check. The thing was fairly imprecise on a good day, and the huge plume of white smoke produced by the propellant charge invariably attracted a crowd. It took some proper stones to get within 30 meters of an enemy tank screened by infantry and touch one of these puppies off. However, the warhead was undeniably effective when it did connect.
Despite the crudeness of the design, the beyond-armor effects of the Panzerfaust, particularly in its later versions, was undeniably impressive. Where the American 2.75” bazooka typically punched a roughly half-inch hole in armor plate, that of the later Panzerfausts was about five times that diameter. Subsequent spalling and incendiary effects were distressingly horrible. I once met an old vet in the VA who had lost a Sherman to a Panzerfaust. He had great respect for them.
Panzerfaust Legacy
The Panzerfaust was the classic desperation weapon. Churned out in vast quantities in a vain effort to slow the inexorable Allied tide toward the end of World War II, the Panzerfaust was not important so much for what it was as for what it became. Yes, it did stop many a Soviet tank and caused more than a little concern for Allied tank crews. The German antitank weapon caused many crews to improvise supplemental tank armor in the field: from sandbags to welded iron and steel additions.
The technology spawned by the German infantry weapon inspired the M72 LAW, the AT4, and the infamous RPG-7 AT weapons developed after the Second World War. In so doing, the Panzerfaust changed the face of modern war.
The .500 WE shows its family relationship to the same basic guns in .454 and .475.
This is a Potently Powerful Package. It can be Pleasurable or Painful, it comes at a Premium Price, and it’s even Purty. It’s the latest candidate for the title of Perfect Packin’ Pistol. The cartridge it houses is Proprietary and the sixgun itself will last in Perpetuity. This Phenomenon is the latest sixgun/cartridge combination from Freedom Arms, the .500 Wyoming Express. Perfect Packin’ Pistols are highly Personal and very dependent upon the Perception of just what is Perfect and quite often dependent upon the user’s locality. For anyone looking for the most Power Per Pound of Packing weight, this is it!
Since 1983, Freedom Arms has been producing the finest single-action sixguns to ever come from a factory. In the early 1980s, Wayne Baker and Dick Casull came together to produce not only the finest single action ever manufactured but the most powerful as well. That sixgun was the Freedom Arms .454 Casull. Both the sixgun and cartridge were destined to change the sixgunning
scene drastically. The .357 Magnum had arrived in 1935 heralded as the world’s most powerful revolver, unable to be handled by mere mortals. Twenty years later the .44 Magnum arrived pushing a bullet 100 grains heavier at the same speed of the early .357 Magnum loads. As a teenager I fired an early 4″ Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum with Remington factory loads and from my perspective then, I could not see any way I could ever handle one. It was a long learning process as I grew older.
While our early heroes were experimenting with heavy .44s in various forms, Dick Casull was experimenting with the .45 Colt. Casull started using heavy loads in the then new solid head .45 Colt brass in Colt Single Actions. When he soon discovered his loads where too heavy for production Colts, he started making his own fiveshot cylinders.
It did not take long to get past the safety factor and he soon decided to build his own larger, stronger revolver. He not only entered new levels of sixgun power he also disproved the old myth of .45 Colt brass being weak. However, when his .454 Magnum became reality the .45 Colt case was lengthened to prevent any of these heavy loads entering the chambers of older .45 sixguns, especially black-powder guns where the results would be decidedly disastrous.
FA X-Draw holster, Sparks belt and Von Ringler carrier.
The Beginning
In the 1970s a very few .454 Casull chambered five-shot revolvers were produced by North American Arms, however it remained for Wayne Baker to form Freedom Arms and really begin producing what is now known as the Model 83 revolver. From the very first, these premium quality, five-shot, stainless steel sixguns were built with the best materials and exceptionally tight tolerances to be able to handle the power of the .454 Casull. In those days it was not easy to convince many writers to even try the .454. It gives me great pleasure to have been one of the first to spotlight the .454 as well as provide extensive loading data in Handgunner in the mid-1980s. It took awhile for the shooting public to discover the .454 and Freedom Arms went from a vault full of sixguns looking for owners to a back order situation. Handgun hunters especially, went for the .454 in a big way.
Freedom Arms did not stop with the .454 Casull-chambered Model 83. They soon offered their premium revolver in .44 Magnum, .357 Magnum, .41 Magnum and even the greatest of all cartridges, the .22 Long Rifle. A very few were even chambered in .50 Action Express. While Freedom Arms was producing those first .454s, John Linebaugh was experimenting with even larger calibers first using cut down .348 Winchester for his .500 Linebaugh (see The Sixgunner in this issue), which was followed up by the .475 Linebaugh using .45-70 brass. In the 1990s, Bob Baker of Freedom Arms took a good look at the .475 for chambering in the Model 83, however the rims were too large to fit the five shot cylinders of their production revolvers.
Baker experimented with the .475 by reducing the diameter of the parent .45-70 brass rims and found the cartridge would perform exceptionally well in the Model 83. However, he did not wish to produce a revolver for which shooters could not obtain factory loaded ammunition or at least factory brass of the proper dimensions. When loaded ammunition arrived from Buffalo Bore as well as factory brass from Starline, the Model 83 was chambered in .475 Linebaugh and to this day sixgunners still argue over which is more powerful, the .454 or the .475 Linebaugh. My answer in these types of situations is always “Buy ’em both!”
The next natural step up in caliber was the .500. However, this cartridge is so large that even by trimming the rim it was impossible to make it fit the Freedom Arms cylinder without also altering the cylinder ratchet. Baker hit on the answer and showed me the cartridge nearly two years ago. Meanwhile, Baker spent a long time experimenting with loads, tweaking the brass, and as he reached the top level of power possible with the new cartridge, he told me “I’m getting too old for this!” That should tell you something about the power possible in the new .500 Wyoming Express as Bob Baker handles the .454 Magnum like it’s a .44 Special.
To solve the problem of cylinder size the Wyoming Express uses a belted case. Baker says of the new cartridge: “The .500 WE is a proprietary cartridge of Freedom Arms, Inc. using a 1.370″ length belted case. The belt provides reliable head spacing on a small shoulder which was required to work in the Freedom Arms Model 83 revolver. It also uses a .500″ diameter bullet with a maximum nose length of .395″ which gives a maximum overall cartridge length of 1.765″.
The cartridge was designed to not only get outstanding and predictable ballistic performance but to also minimize forcing cone erosion, thereby extending the useful life of your Freedom Arms revolver. This is done by matching powder column length, powder volume and bullet diameter to an expected range of bullet weights, velocity ranges and pressure levels.
Notice a couple of things here when comparing the .500 Wyoming Express to the .500 Linebaugh which inspired it. The .500 Linebaugh uses a large rim, the .500 Wyoming Express head spaces on a belt. The .500 Linebaugh brass is 1.400″ while the .500 WE is set at 1.370″. Bullets are not interchangeable with the .500 Linebaugh using .511″ diameter bullets and the .500 Wyoming Express designed for the use of true 1/2″ diameter bullets.
Left to right: .500 WE, .50 GI, .50 AE, .500 S&W Mag.
Strong Spirit/Weak Flesh
When Bob Baker first provided me with his experimental loading data for the .500 Wyoming Express with 350- and 370-grain bullets at 1,600 fps, 400s at 1,500 fps, and 440s at 1,400 fps (Freedom Arms will supply this data with their revolver) I remembered his
comment of “I’m too old for this!” I responded with “How do you think I feel with about two decades on you?” I knew there was no way I was about to be able to handle the heaviest loads in the .500 Wyoming Express. Twenty years ago, maybe; today, no way!
My heaviest loads just topped 1,200 fps and while manageable in a 71⁄2″, scope-sighted Model 83, they were brutal in the relatively lightweight 43⁄4″ version. The heaviest loads I used in the Perfect Packin’ Pistol 43⁄4″ Model 83 was the Cast
Performance Bullet Co.’s 440-grain Hard Cast Gas Checked LBT over 19 grains of Blue Dot for 1,201 fps in the 71⁄2″ version and 1,143 fps in the short barreled PPP. In the latter I was able to put three shots in 7/8″ at 20 yards and there is nothing I
am ever likely to encounter in the game fields I cannot take cleanly and completely with this load.
As I was testing both sixguns, my loads, and myself with the .500 Wyoming Express I thought of Elmer Keith and Tom Ferguson. When Keith finally got his much awaited .44 Magnum after 30 years of urging of manufacturers on his part, he reported in 1957 he had fired 600 rounds the first year; I fired more .500s than that from the Freedom Armsrevolvers in three days.
When Ferguson tested the .500 Linebaugh many years ago he fired a one-shot group and said that was enough. Both were smarter men than I am! Believe me even with the “lighter” loads the .500 WE recoils more, much more, than comparable revolvers chambered in .44 Magnum.
The middle 5-round “group” was fired by t he .50-g r. Sierra.
20-yard groups.
Test Guns
My pair of test guns were a brand new 43⁄4″ Freedom Arms Model 83 chambered in .500 Wyoming Express and my 71⁄2″ Model 83 .50 Action Express which was returned to the factory to have a second cylinder fitted in .500 WE. While it was there I had Freedom Arms fit an SSK T’SOB scope base as there is no other I will trust with really hard kicking revolvers. For a scope I chose a Leupold, as I’ve had excellent results with their products on hard kicking sixguns and single shot pistols for more than two decades. In this case the choice was one of their silver, 4X long eye relief scopes mounted with three rings on the T’SOB base.
Any Model 83 originally chambered in .50 AE can be retrofitted with a .500 WE cylinder, however at least at this time Freedom Arms is not offering the .50 AE cylinder as an option with the .500 Wyoming Express.
Freedom Arms is also offering the .500 Wyoming Express brass in plastic cartridge boxes holding 64 rounds as well as RCBS loading dies. The carbide three die set includes a special die setting gauge which is actually a washer which will place the carbide sizer at the proper position to not engage the belt on the cartridge case when full-length sizing. This washer is placed on top of the shell holder and the sizing die is then screwed down until it meets the washer. Once this is accomplished there is no danger of squeezing the belt, which would result in poor head spacing and possible misfires. Freedom Arms recommends seating and crimping in two separate operations so it would be handy to have a second sizing-crimping die.
For my loading of the .500 Wyoming Express I used four hard cast gas checked designs, Oregon Trails’ 370, and from Cast Performance Bullet Co. came 370, 400, and 440 LBT bullets. For jacketed bullets my choice was Sierra’s 350 JHP and 400 JFN. These were originally designed for the .500 S&W Magnum and when seated normally in the center of the cannelure that serves as a crimping groove will protrude from the front of the Freedom Arms cylinder.
I was able to use them by crimping at the very top of the crimping groove, however Sierra will be offering .500 WE versions with the cannelure set a little higher. Even in my hands the .500 WE has proven to be exceptionally accurate. The scope-sighted 71⁄2″ version is an excellent choice for the hunting of big, heavy, mean, nasty critters, while many will find the 43⁄4″ version to be the Perfect Packin’ Pistol. Should I dare to roam among mean nasty critters looking to end my sojourn here I would certainly load it to full horsepower. If needed, I doubt I would even feel the recoil! I like ’em both.
For more info:
Freedom Arms, P.O. Box
150, Freedom, WY 83120,
(307) 883-4432,
www.freedomarms.com
Leupold,
14400 NW Greenbrier Pkwy,
Beaverton, OR 97006,
(503) 646-9171
www.leupold.com
Former National Rifle Association operations director Joshua Powell has settled civil claims of fraud and abuse brought by the New York Attorney General’s office.
The admission comes hours after Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, announced his resignation ahead of a trial scheduled to begin Monday. LaPierre cited health reasons, according to the NRA. The resignation will be effective Jan. 31.
Powell was employed by the NRA from 2016 through January 2020 and in that time “Powell breached his fiduciary duties and failed to administer the charitable assets entrusted to his care by using his powers as an officer and senior executive of the NRA to convert charitable assets for his own benefit and for the benefit of his family members,” the settlement agreement said.
“Joshua Powell’s admission of wrongdoing and Wayne LaPierre’s resignation confirm what we have alleged for years: the NRA and its senior leaders are financially corrupt,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Saturday.
The attorney general is suing the NRA, which is registered in New York as a non-profit charitable corporation, and its senior management for misappropriating millions of dollars to fund personal benefits, including private jets, family vacations and luxury goods.
The NRA tried to file bankruptcy in 2021 but a federal judge rejected its petition, saying “the NRA did not file the bankruptcy petition in good faith.”
James’ lawsuit seeks an independent monitor to oversee the NRA’s finances.
As part of his settlement, Powell admitted he breached his fiduciary duties of care, loyalty and obedience by using the NRA’s charitable assets for his own benefit and the benefit of his family. He also admitted he failed to administer the charitable assets entrusted to his care properly.
He agreed to pay $100,000 in restitution and accept a permanent bar from serving as an officer in a nonprofit. He also agreed to testify against LaPierre and others at trial.
LaPierre previously said the New York AG’s lawsuit was an “unconstitutional, premeditated attack aiming to dismantle and destroy the NRA — the fiercest defender of America’s freedom at the ballot box for decades.”
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