Category: Guns

Gats and Hats I: The Model 60 S&W

There’s a Facebook group called Snub Noir and I enjoy it.  They have a lot of good info there about concealable revolvers, and it projects kind of a ’40s/’50s/’60s vibe having to do with private investigators and police officers (and movies, TV shows, and novels from that era).  It’s centered on the Colt and Smith snubbies of the day, and on today’s snubbies, too.  If you’re into snub nosed revolvers, you’ll like this place.  If you visit it, you’ll understand the Gats and Hats thing.

That beautiful S&W Model 60 you see in the big photo above is my personal carry gun and it’s a sweet piece.  It’s been selectively polished, it has Altamont grips, and it has a TJ action job (you can read more about TJ’s work on his website and I’ll give you a few more links on my Model 60 at the end of this blog).  I’ve done a fair amount of load testing with the Model 60 and I know the loads it likes from accuracy and shoot-to-point-of-aim  perspectives.  The best load is the FBI load, which is a 158-grain bullet over 3.5 grains of Winchester 231 propellant.

Five rounds of .38 Special, with a 158-grain flatpoint cast bullet and 3.5 grains of Winchester 231. It’s a great load. You can read about it in the links provided at the end of this blog.

I wanted to try something different, though.  I’ve shot the Model 60 at 50 feet, 25 yards, 50 yards, and 100 yards.  I know, I know: Those latter two distances are not really what the snub nose revolver designers had in mind when they designed these guns.  But I was curious when I did those tests.  I know a retired police officer who can hit a clay target at 50 yards (the kind you dust in trap or skeet shooting).

The police sometimes qualify at 7 yards, and I think that’s more in line with what a snubbie is intended to do.   And, you know, there’s this zombie apocalypse thing that’s coming down the road.  I’ve done my homework, and I know that most zombie hostage incidents (i.e., where a zombie is holding a damsel in distress) occur at 7 yards.  I wondered:  How would I do firing my Gat double-action as quickly as I could at 7 yards?  I want to be prepared, you know.

Five rounds is all the Model 60 holds. It sure is slender and it conceals well.

Fortunately for me, zombie-holding-hostages targets are readily available on Amazon, so I grabbed a couple and headed to the range to test my hostage rescue skills with two different loads.  The first was the old bullseye target competition .38 Special standard:   A 148-grain wadcutter (in this case, copper-plated wadcutters from Xtreme Bullets) over 2.7 grains of Bullseye propellant.  It’s the load I’m set up to produce in large quantities on my Star reloader, and it’s the load you see in the top photo (the Dr. Seussian Gat in the Hat pic).  The other is the FBI load mentioned above: A 158-grain bullet and 3.5 grains of Winchester 231 secret sauce.

So how’d I’d do?   The short answer is not too bad.  Not as good as I thought I would, but good enough and certainly close enough for government zombie work.  The first target (the one immediately below) shows the results of six full cylinders (30 rounds, as the Model 60 holds five rounds).  The good news is 29 of those shots went directly into the zombie’s noggin and none hit Betty (the hostage).

Betty and her zombie captor. He’s toast. Note the one round that tumbled just above Betty’s head. These were low-velocity wadcutter loads.

The bad news?  One of the wadcutter bullets tumbled.  Fortunately for Betty it went right over her head.  You can see the bullet’s outline in the target above.  It might have been that the Star threw a light load on that round, or maybe a case split and let too much pressure escape, or maybe these light target loads are marginal in the Model 60’s short 2-inch barrel.  Win some, lose some.  Betty’s okay, though…that’s the important thing.

Not surprisingly, the FBI load did much better (old J. Edgar know what he was doing against both zombies and commies, I think).  The 30 holes you see in Mr. Zombie below went into a tighter group, none of the bullets tumbled, and most importantly, none of them went into Betty.

Betty liked the FBI load better. So did I. The zombie offered no opinion.

I feel better now.  I know if I can keep my wits about me and I have my Model 60, and if I can get the zombie to pose with Betty like you see above at 7 yards, he’s toast and Betty’s going to be just fine.  For any zombies who follow the ExNotes blog:  You’ve been warned.

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As this blog’s title states, this blog is Gats and Hats I.  Will there be a Gats and Hats II?  Stay tuned, my friends.  Two more days, and we’re calling in the heavy artillery.

More gun stories?  Hey, it’s what we live for!

Want to know more about the Model 60 featured in this blog?   It’s all in the links below:

The Model 60 heads to TJ.
A TJ Roscoe.
New shoes for the Model 60.
A Model 60 load development plan.
Model 60 load testing results.
Getting hammered, and the effects of incomplete primer seating.

ExNotes Book Review: The Devil’s Hand

As airport bookstore thrillers go, it doesn’t get too much better than Jack Carr’s The Devil’s Hand.  Yeah, it’s a bit formulaic, and yeah, the ending is predictable (spoiler alert:  the good guys win), but the plot basics are timely and a bit unusual.  Instead of just plain old bad guys, rogue nations, and Middle Eastern terrorists, this one involves unleashing a bioweapon on US soil.  The good guy, James Reece (why do they always have such WASPy names?), manages to thwart the effort and limit the death toll to about 5000 people.  The parallels between the plot’s Marburg U virus variant and Covid 19 (and the riots and insurrections that follow) are eerily similar to what the world has gone through in the last two years.

Reece checks all the airport bookstore thriller main character boxes:  Former special forces operator on a revenge mission, the US president’s personal assassin, martial arts expert, handgun expert, rifle expert, shotgun expert, knife expert, tomahawk expert, and on and on it goes.  That’s the formulaic part.  The plot basics are where the story diverges from what you might expect, and that makes The Devil’s Hand interesting enough to be worth a read.  At 576 pages, you probably won’t get through it on a single flight, but that’s okay.  You can finish it on the return leg.

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A Competition Taurus .44 Special

I recently visited with my good buddy Paul and he let me photograph his Taurus Model 441 .44 Special revolver.   Paul and I grew up together in rural New Jersey.  We’re both firearms and reloading guys, and I love getting together with Paul and talking about both topics.

Paul told me he purchased the Taurus new in 1986 or 1987 from Harry’s Army & Navy store on Route 130 in Robbinsville, New Jersey.  That shop is no longer there, but back in the day it was a major gun store in central Jersey.   Paul said he is 98% sure he paid $249 for it.

I know Paul likes this 5-shot .44 Special revolver very much.  He used it extensively in monthly defense revolver matches.   Those matches required a defense revolver with a barrel length of 4 inches or less and a caliber of .38 or larger.  The matches were shot at distances up to 50 yards. Paul did well with the Taurus in the Eastern Regional Defense Pistol matches, taking many medals in his class. The matches attracted over 60 shooters from Maine to Florida and they were held over three days.   The awards you see below are just a few Paul won with this handgun.

The frame size is between a Smith & Wesson K and L frame. The grips you see in these photos are from Hogue.  Paul has the original grips.  He told me the Hogue just feels better in his hand.  Paul did all his match shooting with the original grips and changed them for the Hogue grip about two years ago.

Paul is a very competent machinist and gunsmith, and he modified the Taurus to his tastes.  He did a trigger job on it and replaced the springs with a Wolf spring kit.  He also added the trigger over-travel piece on the back of the trigger.  That’s to limit any further rearward trigger movement after the hammer has been released.  It helps to minimize gun movement and improves accuracy.  I dry fired this gun both single and double action at Paul’s place and the gun is silky smooth. It’s a really nice weapon.

Paul is also a very experienced reloader and he does it all, including casting his own bullets.   He’s the guy I call when I have reloading questions.   For this gun, Paul uses the 429215 Lyman gas check bullet mould, but he does not use a gas check.   Paul’s preferred .44 Special load is the 215-grain Lyman bullet and 7.0 – 7.1 grains of Unique.  Paul told me it’s very accurate in this gun and the load has mild recoil.

While handling the Taurus, I was impressed.  I was tempted to make Paul an offer on it, but I knew doing so would be pointless.  When you have a handgun you shoot well, you modified to fit your tastes, and you have a history with, you keep it.  It sure is nice.

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A Custom TJ Combat Commander

We’ve featured TJ’s Custom Gunworks a few times here on the ExNotes blog.  I’ll take credit for influencing another good buddy who had TJ work his magic on a Colt Combat Commander, and this one is a honey.  Colt’s Combat Commander is a 4.25-inch barreled version of the 1911.  This TJ custom auto is hard chromed and it is a stunning example of TJ’s workmanship. You can see it in the photos and you can see the results on the range.

The Combat Commander shown here has had the following modifications:

      • Polished hard chrome finish over stainless steel.
      • Throated and polished barrel and frame.
      • Fitted and polished extractor.
      • New match trigger and action job.
      • New match hammer.
      • Smoothed breech face.
      • Polished full length guide rod.
      • Satin polish on barrel hood and chamber.
      • Extended slide catch.
      • New and rounded steel mainspring housing.
      • Trigger pull set to 3.0 lbs.
      • Melted sharp edges.
      • Reduced strength and smoothed magazine release button.
      • DayGlo red front sight.
      • Honduran rosewood burl grips.

I’ve seen this gun in action on the range and it is a thing of beauty.  I’ve had a few guns customized by TJ, and I’ve steered a few friends there. I’ve had six handguns and a rifle customized by TJ, and every one of them is a stellar example of his craftsmanship.  These include a Model 59, a bright stainless Colt 1911, the MacManus Colt 1911, the Rock Island Compact, a Model 60 Smith and Wesson snubbie, a Ruger Mini 14, and a new Colt Python.  TJ’s emphasis is on reliability and perfection and on all of my guns he met those objectives in every case.  When it comes to custom firearms, it doesn’t get any better than TJ’s Custom Gunworks.

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I’ll be Bach: The AMT 1911 Hardballer Long Slide

“I’ll be Bach,” of course, is the written Austrian-accent impersonation of the Governator (i.e., Arnold) in what has to be one of the best sci-fi movies ever, Terminator.  One of the several guns that received top billing in that movie was an AMT Long Slide Hardballer equipped with a laser sight.

There are a lot of cool things to know about the Terminator movie and its armament, not the least of which is that laser target designators were not yet available for handguns when the movie was released in 1985.  Ahnold’s (misspelled intentionally) AMT Hardballer had a custom 10,000-volt laser, and the wiring for all that power was hidden in the future governor’s jacket sleeve.  I liked the movie, but I especially liked seeing the Long Slide Hardballer 1911 in it.  You see, I own one.  It cost just $365 back in the day and it was manufactured by Arcadia Machine and Tool (hence the AMT moniker) just up the road from me in Monrovia, California.  It is a stainless steel 1911, it has a 7-inch long slide and barrel, and it is accurate.  That’s my gun you see in the phot0 at the top of this blog.  One of these guns recently sold for close to $2,000 complete with box and papers.  I have the box and papers that came with mine.  And no, it’s not for sale.

The Hardballer is surprisingly accurate.  The 2-inch longer sight radius really works.  Mine has not been tightened up, accurized, or modified in any way.  The trigger pull is a bit higher than I would like, but it’s crisp (one of these days, I may get around to having TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks do a trigger job on it).  I found the targets you see below in an old reloading notebook; they were all fired by yours truly, standing, at 50 feet.  I guess that old saying is true:  The older I get, the better I was.

I’ve owned my Hardballer for close to 40 years now.  The AMT company is no more, so there won’t be any more of them.  It’s a classic, and I need to get out and shoot it more often.  Maybe I’ll do that today.

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A Tale of Two Bicentennial No. 1 Rugers

I’ve been a Ruger No. 1 fan for close to 50 years.  It started with one I’ve written about before, and that is a Ruger No. 1A chambered in the awesome .30 06 Government cartridge.  I’ve spent time on the range and I’ve hunted with this rifle, and it is probably my all-time favorite firearm.

What attracted me to the No. 1 was my father’s fascination with the rifle (he never owned one, but he wanted to), the beautiful and exquisitely figured walnut Ruger used on these rifles, and their style.   To me, they just look right.  My fixation started in 1976.  Ruger roll-stamped every firearm they manufactured with “Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty” that year.

Rugers with this roll-marked stamp are known as Liberty or Bicentennial guns.
Like I said, the walnut on my Ruger .30 06 is exquisite on both sides.
As I said, the highly-figured walnut is exquisite on both sides of this .30 06.

The Ruger No. 1 came in different configurations, and the ones you see here are what Ruger called the 1A.  They had 22-inch barrels, iron sights, and the Alex Henry fore end (that’s the fore end with the notch at the front).  There are all sorts of suppositions about what why the notch was originally included on the Farquharson rifles that influenced the Ruger No. 1 design, but no one seems to know for sure.  I just like the look of the thing.  To me, these rifles are elegant.  They’re not particularly light, but they’re short and it’s easy to get around in the woods with one.  Back in the day, I bought a straight 4X Redfield scope and a still prefer a 4X non-variable scope for hunting (even though it’s tough to find one these days; high-powered variable scopes are all the rage).

Those west Texas days back in the ’70s were good.  We spent a lot of time (essentially every weekend) out in the desert north of Fabens chasing jackrabbits and coyotes, and the No. 1 you see here sent a lot of those critters to the Promised Land.  Jackrabbits were grand fun.  It was hard to believe how big some of them were.

The accuracy load for my .30 06 No. 1 is the 130-grain Hornady jacketed softpoint bullet over a max load of IMR 4320 propellant.  IMR 4320 is no longer in production, but I’ve got about 10 pounds of it so I’m good for a while.  The rifle will put that load into an inch at 100 yards all day long, and the 130 grain Hornady bullet seems to be perfect for jackrabbits.  Yeah, I know, that’s maybe a little more power than needed for Peter Cottontail, but hey, like Donald Rumsfeld used to say: You go to war with the army you have.

Gee whiz…a group I shot 40 years ago!

The .30 06 also does well with other loads.  I was on the range with the ammo I had on hand a week or so ago with heavier bullets and I was pleased with the results.  I tried 180 grain Remington bullets loaded on top of 48.0 grains of IMR 4064.  Those loads shot low and had perceptibly heavier recoil, but they grouped under an inch at 100 yards.

Three shots at 100 yards with the Ruger .30 06 No. 1A. The load was the 180 grain Remington jacketed soft point bullet and 48.0 grains of IMR 4064, with military brass and a CCI 200 primer.

The title of this blog is A Tale of Two Bicentennial No. 1 Rugers, and that brings us to the second rifle.  I was in Ohio on a secret mission about 15 years ago and the guy I visited there learned of my interest in guns.  He took me to a local shop that only sold through an online auction (that was the gunshop’s business model).  When we arrived, I quickly noticed another Ruger No. 1A, this time chambered in .243 Winchester.   It was a bicentennial rifle, it looked to be a near twin to my .30 06 1A, and I had to have it.  I tried to buy it while I was there and have shipped to my FFL holder in California, but the owner confirmed what my friend told me…I had to bid on it at auction.  I did, and I won the auction at $650.  Bear in mind that these rifles’ list price in 1976 was $265, and they typically sold at $239 back then.  If you think I got scalped, think again.  I won the auction, and the MSRP on these rifles today is something around $2,000.  And the ones made back in the 1970s are, in my opinion, of much higher quality in terms of walnut figure, checkering, and other attributes.

A .243 Winchester Ruger No. 1. It wears a period correct El Paso Weaver 4×12 telescopic sight.
The left side of the .243 No. 1.
Ruger used to put fancy walnut on the No. 1 rifles. Today, not so much.
A fancy walnut, red pad Ruger No. 1. Sweet!
Like the .30 06 No. 1 featured above, this .243 is also a Liberty gun.

Most recently, good buddy John gave me a bunch of assorted brass and I started loading bits and pieces of it.  I loaded the .30 40 Krag and wrote about it a week or so ago.  There were a few pieces of .243 Winchester brass and that had me thinking about the .243 No. 1 in this blog.  You see, I bought that rifle, stuck it in the safe, and never fired it.   That was a character flaw I knew I needed to address.

I thought I had a set of .243 dies, but I was surprised to find I did not.  I had some ammo, so I guess at some point I had .243 dies.  I bought a new set of Lee dies, and I already had some .243 bullets.  And as it turns out, the Lyman reloading manual lists IMR 4350 as the accuracy load for 60 grain bullets, and I had some.  I only loaded six rounds (using the brass John gave to me), and I thought I needed to buy .243 brass (everybody is sold out of .243 brass right now). Then I started poking around in my brass drawer and it turns out I have five boxes of new Winchester 243 brass.   I swear I’m gonna find Jimmy Hoffa or an honest politician in my components storage area one of these days.

The Tula factory ammo I had didn’t shoot worth a damn.  Tula is cheap ammo, this stuff was old, and it grouped around 2.9 to 3.5 inches at 100 yards.  I also had some very old reloads that had 100 grain Sierra bullets and 34.0 grains of IMR 4064, and it did only marginally better.  The six rounds I loaded myself with the brass good buddy John provided was better.  At least I think it was better.  I used 65 grain Hornady V-Max bullets and 43.2 grains of IMR 4350 powder.  I had one good group and one lousy group. But hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I’m just getting started.  I’ll buy some heavier 6mm bullets (.243 is 6mm), I’ll try them with a few different loads, and you’ll get to read about it here on the ExNotes blog.

More stories on Ruger single-shot rifles (the No. 1 and the No. 3) are here.

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A .30-40 Krag Ruger No. 3

I am a fan of both the No. 1 and the No. 3 Ruger single shot rifles.  The No.  1 is the more elegant rifle with a fancier lever, a pistol grip stock, checkering, a rubber shoulder pad, a slick quarter rib, fancier walnut, and more.  The No.3 was the economy version without checkering, plain walnut, an aluminum (and later plastic) shoulder pad, and a no frills look.   When I started collecting these rifles in 1976, the No. 1 was chambered in contemporary cartridges and priced at $265.  The No. 3 came in classic chamberings; in 1976 that included .22 Hornet, .30-40 Krag, and .45-70.  Ruger listed the No. 3 at $165, and you could buy them all day long for $139.  Which I did.  In 1976, I bought No. 3 rifles in all three chamberings.  All had the “Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty” inscription.

Take a look at the finish on this Ruger No. 3. It’s better than how they came from the factory.

I was younger and dumber in those days, and I stupidly sold all three rifles within a year of purchasing them.  The Hornet went to Army buddy Jim, the .45-70 went to another Army buddy also named Jim, and the .30-40 was traded for something else I can’t remember.  If you’re reading this blog, you realize the phrase “stupidly sold” is redundant.  We have all sold guns we wish we kept.

Ruger has to have one of the best fonts ever for chambering designation.

I wanted to undo the wrong I did, and about 15 years ago I started a search to replace my No. 3 rifles.  The .45-70 was the easiest to find and the .22 Hornet followed shortly thereafter.   The prices had gone up (used, they were going for about $650-$700 back then).  The .30-40 Krag was tougher to find.  I’m assuming it was because Ruger made fewer of them.  Then I spotted something I had to have:  An unfired .30-40 No. 3 advertised on Gunbroker, and it had significantly nicer wood then No. 3 rifles typically have.  I had to own it and I paid top dollar.  When I called the shop, I used my American Express card instead of a certified check because I was eager to get it.  I had to pay a 4% premium, but that turned out to be a good thing (more on that in a second).

Unusually highly-figured walnut on a No. 3 Ruger.

The shop that sold it to me did something stupid.  They shipped the rifle in the original box with no additional padding and they didn’t insure it.  You could get away with shipping a No. 1 Ruger in the original box, as they were stout and contained big pieces of foam padding.  The No. 3 had a flimsy cardboard box in keeping with the No. 3’s lower price.  You can guess where this story is going.

A view of the No. 3’s port side at the West End Gun Club.

Yep, the rifle arrived with the stock broken at the wrist.  Wow.  The wood was as beautiful as it looked in the Gurnbroker.com ad, but it was busted.  I had a brand new, unfired 200th year No. 3 in .30-40 Krag with nice wood and its collector value was ruined.  Like the box, I was crushed.

I called the shop owner, who turned out to be a real prick.  “It’s your problem, and it’s between you and the US Post Office,” he told me.  “You didn’t tell me to insure it, so I didn’t.  Once it leaves here, it’s yours.”  I told him I was going to have the stock repaired and I offered to split the cost with him, but he kept repeating his mantra:  Once it leaves here, it’s yours.

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I told this sad story the next day during our usual geezer gathering at Brown’s BMW in Pomona, and good buddy Dave asked if the gun shop had asked me about insurance.  “Nope, he never asked and I didn’t mention having it insured.  I guess I just assumed it would be.”  Dave explained that I was right to make that assumption, so I called the shop owner again, I explained to him I had learned about insurance responsibilities, and I again offered to split the repair cost.  He said no again.

Then I remembered I had used my credit card.  I called American Express, I explained the situation, and I told them it would cost about $275 to have the stock repaired and refinished.  Not a problem, the guy on the other end of the line said, and just like that, he took $275 off the charge and said that the shop owner had 30 days to appeal.  He didn’t, and that was that.

I sent the rifle off and when it came back I was both pleased and disappointed.  I had asked the place I use for such work to match the original Ruger finish, but they did not.  Instead, it was a much deeper and more glorious oil finish.  It was nicer than the original finish, but it wasn’t original.  That was good news and bad news.  I had planned to keep the gun in its unfired condition, but now that it was busted, repaired, and refinished, it would be a shooter (that was the good news).

You can just barely see where the crack was in the stock wrist, but that’s because I used flash for this photo. In normal light, you really can’t see it.

I didn’t shoot the No. 3 immediately.  This all happened 15 years ago before I retired and before COVID hit.   I recently decided I needed to shoot the .30-40, so I ordered unprimed brass and Lee’s Ultimate four die set.  Both were initially unavailable, but they came in and I was in business.  I already had large rifle primers, a stash of what has to be one of the best powders ever for cast bullets (SR 4759), and a bunch of 173-grain gas checked bullets.

.30-40 Krag ammo in new brass, loaded by yours truly.
Ready for the range.

I seated the cast bullets to the crimping groove and used the Lee factory crimp die, and the cartridges looked great.  I tried a number of different SR 4759 powder charge levels in the Lyman cast bullet manual.  When I fired on the 50-yard line at the West End Gun Club using the rifle’s open sights, I found that 20.0 grains of SR 4759 is my accuracy load.

I held at 6:00, and the rounds shot very close to point of aim at 50 yards. The target was mounted on its side, as you see it here.
Very modest bore leading in the No. 3. That SR 4759 load with the 173-grain bullet is accurate even with the Ruger’s factory iron sights.

The .30-40 Krag is an interesting cartridge.  It was the US Army’s standard chambering after they phased out the .45-70 Springfield.  The new rifle was the 1892 Krag-Jorgensen rifle made at the Springfield Arsenal.  It was the first military cartridge designed for smokeless (as opposed to black) powder, and it originally fired a 230-grain jacketed bullet.  The .30-40 is a rimmed cartridge that looks a lot like the 7.62x54R Russian cartridge (which came out just one year earlier).  The ballistics of both are fairly close to the .308 Winchester (which is the 7.62 NATO round we currently use).

.45-70, .30-40  Krag, 7.62x54R Russian, .308 Winchester (7.62 NATO), .30 06, and .300 Weatherby cartridges.  The .300 Weatherby is the fiercest recoiling cartridge in the group when loaded with jacketed bullets at factory velocities (the cartridge shown here is loaded with a cast bullet).  With the exception of the .300 Weatherby, Gatling guns have been chambered in each of these cartridges.  Modern mini-guns are electrically-powered Gatlings chambered in 7.62 NATO (.308 Winchester).

After our experiences in the Spanish-American War, our government load plant created and issued a hotter version of the .30-40 Krag in an attempt to match the speed and ballistics of the Spanish 7mm Mauser round, but the Krag rifles started cracking bolts.  All the .30-40 Krag ammo was recalled and reconfigured with the original, lower pressure load.  The .30-40 Krag was also used in the Gatling gun.  You can read about that here:

The .30-40 Krag only lasted about a decade in US government service.  It was replaced with the .30-03 in 1903 (which was soon replaced with the .30-06, which became one of the most popular hunting cartridges ever).  The history of this fine old cartridge is interesting; shooting it with cast bullets in a sleek Ruger No. 3 is good old fun.  I might never have known that if the stock had not broken.

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Rifle Primers in Revolver Ammo

With reloading components still hard to find, the question emerges:  Can you use rifle primers in handgun cartridges?   If you’re flush with rifle primers but hurting for pistol primers (as I am), it’s a logical question.  To evaluate this, loaded a box of .357 Magnum ammo for my Colt Python.  I tried to different loads of Bullseye (not an ideal .357 Magnum propellant, but it’s what I had available) and Winchester small rifle primers.

I thought I would simultaneously test for accuracy and reliability on Alco 4-silhouette targets at 25 yards, firing single action at the top two targets and double action on the bottom two targets.  The first load was 3.2 grains of Bullseye, a 158 grain cast flatpoint bullet, and Winchester small rifle primers.

Accuracy was mediocre (if you’re ever assaulted by four little men with orange bullseyes painted on their chest, you’d be good enough for government work, but you won’t be taking home any accuracy trophies).  The upper two little orange guys were fired single action, and every round discharged.  The bottom two little orange guys were fired double action, and on those two targets, I had two misfires.   That’s two misfires in 10 rounds, and that’s not good.  When I fired the two misfired rounds a second time, they discharged normally.

The next target was a repeat of the first, except the ammo I shot at it had 4.0 grains of Bullseye.   Everything else was the same.  The top two targets were fired single action and the bottom two were fired double action.  All rounds fired normally.

You can ignore the shots below the bottom two targets.  I was just shooting up some ammo I had left loaded with different combos.  The lower left group on the zombie’s green hand were .38 Special 148 grain wadcutter loads (with 2.7 grains of Bullseye); the ones between the two targets were .38 Special loads with the 158 grain flat point bullets and 4.5 grains of Bullseye (a very hot .38 Special load).

The propellant’s name notwithstanding, none of the above were not particularly accurate loads.

As to the primary question:  Will rifle primers work in handgun cartridges, my take on this is yes, if fired single action.  In double action, ignition is unreliable.  On handguns with heavy hammers, you’re probably okay if firing single action.   That’s true on the Colt Python, and it’s definitely true on single action Ruger Blackhawks (I have a .30 Carbine Ruger Blackhawk and I always load .30 Carbine ammo with rifle primers).

I suppose it’s possible that the two rounds that misfired double action in the Python may have been suffering from primers that were not completely seated, but I don’t see a need to continue testing.  I learned enough from this quick look.

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Bringing a 405 Ruger No. 1 Back To Life

Good buddy and fellow Inland Empire shooter Jose recently posted on Facebook about what has to be one of the best deals ever for a highly collectible Ruger No. 1 in .405 Winchester.  Ruger produced only a small number of these rifles (I’ve only seen one in person at a gun show a few years ago).  This one has exceptional walnut, which makes it even more desirable.

Here’s Jose’s story.  Enjoy, my friends.

I’ve never had any desire to hunt African game and I probably never will. But I’ve enjoyed reading about the African plains rifles since I was a kid in junior high school. Bringing a copy of Guns & Ammo magazine to school would probably get you a quick trip to the principal’s office these days…but I digress.

Exquisite walnut is often found on the older Ruger No. 1 rifles.

Quite a few years ago I saw an old Ruger No.1 Tropical in the consignment rack of a small gun shop that is now long gone. The owner said, “just pick it up and feel the heft.”  And of course, I did and the next thing you know we were talking price, knowing I would never pay $2,000 for a collectible Ruger No. 1.  Shaun confided in me that the rifle’s owner couldn’t find the obsolete 405 ammo for it anywhere and he wasn’t a handloader, so he wanted to sell the rifle. Another problem with the rifle was that a previous owner had cut down the front sight, probably because he had been shooting handloads with .41 caliber pistol bullets. So we settled on $500 and I became the owner of my first “unobtainable” Ruger No. 1!

In the gun shop years ago eyeing the Ruger No. 1. Salesman Shaun said, “hand me your phone and let me take a photo of you so you can see how good you look with that rifle!”  Shaun passed away a couple of years ago, but I know he smiled down from Heaven yesterday as I fired the Ruger No. 1H Tropical for the first time. And he was right, this gun was meant for me!

It took me a lot of searching over the past few years, but I finally located a set of 405 Win reloading dies, the shell holder, and all the components to bring this rifle back to life.

Hornady had made a run of new 405 Winchester brass and I was lucky enough to find a New Old Stock box of 50 shells. I also located some new Barnes .412, 300 grain TSX bullets.

The first step in restoring the old 1H Tropical was to contact Ruger and purchase a new gold bead front sight. That was a simple install as the blade is held in place by a small detent spring.

New Ruger NOS gold bead front sight blade installed.

Not wanting to use the expensive Barnes TSX bullets quite yet, lead bullets were cast from lead wheel weights with a bit of tin added using a Lyman 412263 plain base mold to cast 288 grain bullets. These were sized to 0.413 inch and lubed with Alox. Lyman has since discontinued this fine old bullet mold.

A Lyman 412263 bullet, lubed and sized.

Finally, yesterday morning I decided it was time to resurrect this old rifle! Besides, the project would give me the opportunity to test some old “salvage” Hodgdon 4198 powder I’ve had sitting on the shelf for nearly two decades. The powder is probably from the 1950s or early 1960s. I also had some ancient CCI 200 large rifle primers on hand.

Hodgdon “salvage” 4198 smokeless powder. The powder is probably WW II US Military surplus powder that Hogdon bought in bulk and repackaged in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
Vintage components for a vintage cartridge.

I loaded 20 rounds of 405 Winchester ammo using the cast lead bullets and a starting load of 38.5 grains of 4198 and headed down the hill with good friend Yvon to an informal shooting range on BLM land.

The obsolete 405 Winchester cartridge (left) and the popular 45-70 Government cartridge (right) used by 1880s plains buffalo hunters of the American west. I don’t shoot buffalo and never will. But I enjoy reviving and firing old guns!

Let me say that this Ruger No. 1H Tropical in 405 Winchester lives again. It shoots incredibly tight groups with the cast bullets and gold bead open sights.

My next project will be to develop a non-lead hunting load using the 300 grain Barnes TSX bullets.

Bringing life back into old obsolete rifles can be tons of fun.

That’s an awesome story, Jose, and thanks for allowing us to share it here on the ExNotes blog.  Your No. 1 has to be one of the best deals ever.   The dealer’s original asking price is probably what that rifle is worth if you could find one for sale.  Well done, my friend.

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A Tale of Two Creedmoors

The 6.5 Creedmoor cartridge draws a lot of flak on the Internet.  I suspect most of the folks who go negative do so with no real experience.  I have two 6.5 Creedmoor rifles, and both do very well for me.  Will they magically overcome a shooting skills deficit?  No.   Are there other cartridges out there that can do as well?  Sure.  But the 6.5 Creedmoor, in my opinion, does what it is supposed to, and that’s provide accuracy with modest recoil.  I’m a believer.

I had my two Creedmoors on the range a few days ago, a Browning X-Bolt and a Ruger No. 1 (you’ve seen them on these pages recently).  Both are elegant rifles and each has what I would call exhibition grade wood.  The Browning has a curly maple stock and the Ruger has fancy walnut.  Both are factory rifles, and other than mounting scopes on each, both are unmodified guns.

Which one is prettier?  It’s a tie in my opinion.  Good wood, to me, is one of the best parts of having a fine rifle, and both these 6.5 Creedmoors answer the mail in that regard.  The wood seems to be alive on each, changing  depending on the viewing angle and how the light hits it.  This sensitivity to light orientation is probably more pronounced with the maple-stocked Browning.  The curl runs from front to rear and top to bottom on both sides (this rifle has an unusually highly-figured stock).  When photographed from the front (as I did in the photo below), the figure on the Browning is more subdued.

When photographed from the rear, though (as you can see below), the Browning’s curl really pops.  The Ruger’s fancy walnut looks good from any angle.

The Browning is a bolt action rifle based on the Paul Mauser design (as are nearly all bolt action rifles) and it holds five rounds (four in the magazine and one in the chamber).  You can buy extra magazines and carry them with four more rounds ready to go in each (you know, in case your deer starts returning fire).  The Ruger is a falling block action and it is a single shot.  I prefer that and I admit it is a bit of snobbery on my part; I like to think I only need one shot.  On the rifle range, I only load one round at a time.  Come to think of it, on a hunt I also only load one round at a time.  California’s magazine restrictions are irrelevant to me; to my way of thinking if you need a 30-round magazine you aren’t much of a shot.

As much as I love Ruger No. 1 rifles, I prefer the scope location on a bolt action rifle better.  A telescopic sight on a bolt action is in a more natural position.  The Ruger No. 1 positions the scope further forward, and even when I mount the scope as far to the rear as it will go, it requires an unnatural amount of forward stretch to get the correct eye relief.  You can get Ruger scope rings with a rearward setback to overcome this problem, but they look goofy and they add more weight to the rifle.

The Ruger is a heavier rifle.  Part of that is the slender and shorter barrel on the Browning.   Walnut is lighter than maple, but the Ruger barreled action is heavier that the Browning X-Bolt barreled action.  Browning’s specs put the maple X-Bolt at 6 1/2 pounds; a Ruger No. 1B (this rifle’s configuration) is listed as 8 1/4 lbs.  On the rifle range the Ruger’s heft doesn’t bother me.  If I was carrying a rifle all day on pig hunt, I’d prefer the lighter Browning.  The Browning feels almost dainty compared to the No. 1.

I mounted inexpensive scopes on both rifles.  The Browning has a Vortex 4×12 scope and the Ruger has a 3×9 Redfield. The optics are equally bright on both.  The Vortex has indistinct indexing on its windage and elevation click adjustments; the Redfield turret is snappy and allows counting clicks by feel alone as you make them.  The Redfield Revenge is discontinued (the Redfield company is no more), but it is a good scope.  I prefer the Redfield to the Vortex.

Both rifles are accurate at right around minute of angle, and both will occasionally get down in the 0.6-inch group neighborhood.  The Ruger didn’t like the Speer 140 grain jacketed soft point bullet with 41.0 grains of IMR 4350, although I’ve used it before with a lighter charge of that same powder and achieved sub-minute-of-angle groups.   Rifles have their preferences.  With a load dialed for each rifle, the accuracy of both rifles is comparable.

I tried a few loads in both rifles recently with IMR 4350 and Varget powder, and I also tried neck-sized-only ammo in the Browning.  Here are the results:

If there’s an advantage to neck sizing fired cases in the Browning, it’s not obvious to me.  I’m going to full length resize the brass from this point forward, which will allow me to use my reloaded ammo in either rifle.

When I bumped the IMR 4350 charge up to 41.0 grains, accuracy deteriorated from previous sessions.  The Browning likes 40.7 grains (or maybe a little less); the Ruger did better with the Speer 140 grain jacketed softpoints at 39.5 grains of IMR 4350.

What’s next?  I found Berger Bullets load data for IMR 7828 SSC propellant.  That’s a slower burning propellant ordinarily used in magnum cartridges, but I like the fact that it fills the case (which should make for a more accurate load) and I thought I would give it a try.  I have 20 rounds loaded and I’ll test this combo later this week.   Stay tuned, and you’ll read about it here on the ExNotes blog.

More Tales of the Gun!

Our recent Browning 6.5 Creedmoor story!

Our recent Ruger No. 1 Creedmoor story!

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