Here’s a quick update on things we’ve posted about recently.
Someone else won the auction for Hank Williams .357 Ruger Blackhawk, and like I said I would, I ordered a New Model Ruger Blackhawk instead. To my astonishment, the Hank Williams gun sold for a whopping $4,993.37 (when new in 1972, it was a scosh over $100). My New Model .357 Blackhawk is at the local dealer, and I’m in the Peoples Republik 10-day cooling off period. I snagged it for $659 on Gunbroker, a reasonable price in today’s economy. I’ve got a bunch of ammo in a variety of flavors reloaded and ready to test, but I think I know what works in a Blackhawk. We’ll see.
I took Poppy’s watch to the repair shop and it was enlightening. My guy opened the watch up, which confirmed it is 14-carat white gold and revealed the serial number. The watch tech looked it up, and I learned that Poppy’s watch dates to 1884. It’s 138 years old and it’s still ticking. It’s the oldest and coolest thing I own.
Gresh’s blog on a proposed vintage bike gathering in New Mexico garnered a lot of comments and it was picked up by Motorcycle.com. I think this event it is going to happen. A few guys have posted it on other forums (we appreciate that). We’ll keep you updated right here on the ExNotes blog.
The Harley that flew off the Oakland Bay Bridge? It’s still under water (dive crews can’t find it). I wouldn’t have thought it worth the effort (you know, you can buy a brand new Chinese motorcycle from CSC for less than what a used Harley costs). I would think the divers could just look for the oil spots and work back, but hey, what do I know?
I found the piece Gresh did on the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club particularly appealing and I joined the VJMC, too. Like Joe, I recently received my first print magazine, and Gresh was right….there is a special excitement in getting an actual printed magazine in the mail.
The Gresh Husky saga soldiers on. Joe is already deep into the guts of his Husky’s transmission, and his engineering talents and Ebay prowess are moving things in the right direction (you’ll get an update on that in the very next ExNotes blog). Good buddy Terry pointed out that Gresh could have bought a used Sportster for what he’ll have into his Swedish meatball (it seems that Harleys are the benchmark for all things motorcycle). With Gresh’s considerable skills and Harley’s rumored reliability, maybe the best approach would be to wedge a Milwaukee transmission into the Husky (a Husky-Davidson?). Like you, I’m looking forward reading about how this adventure progresses.
And finally, one last comment, this one on Mosin-Nagant rifles. We’ve done Mosin stories (see the Tales of the Gun page). It’s no secret I’m a big fan, and it looks like that interest could pay dividends if I was interested in selling my Mosins (I’m not). Rock Island Auctions recently published an article on Mosin-Nagant price trends, and it shows they are sharply up. That’s good.
So there you have it. We appreciate you following the ExNotes blog and we appreciate your comments. Please keep the comments coming, and as always, please keep hitting those popup ads!
I’ve owned three Colt Pythons. Back in the ‘70s I had a blue 6-inch Colt Python and another 6-inch nickel-plated one (they were only about $250 back then, and I could buy them for even less through the Post Exchange). Both those Pythons went down the road, and yeah, I’m sorry I sold them. Who wouldn’t be?
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These days, I have a 6-inch bright stainless Colt Python, the new model, and I love it. It’s the one you see in the photo above. I’ve been to the Colt factory to see how they are made, and both the Python’s design and its production are impressive. I’ll let you in on a secret: The new Pythons are better guns. I shoot my Python a lot. In the last few months I’ve been hitting the range with it at least a couple of times every week. I’m old school, I guess: I prefer a revolver to a semi-auto, and I prefer .38 Special and .357 Magnum over 9mm. Your mileage may vary. I know what I like.
Winchster 110-grain jacketed hollow point bullets waiting to be seated and crimped.
I remembered that back in the day I found a 110-gr jacketed hollow point bullet with 10.0 grains of Unique (the max load in the Hornady manual in the 1970s) and it was extremely accurate in my blue steel Python. I mean, like one-hole accurate. Accurate enough to keep that load in my memory for five decades.
Fast forward 50 years and you’ll find me scrounging for reloading components on a fairly regular basis. On one of those scrounging expeditions Rick Phillips (of Phillips Wholesale) had Accurate No. 5 propellant in stock. It’s a handgun powder, and Rick told me that Accurate No. 5 has a burn rate about like Unique. Hmmm. Unique, huh? That stuck in my mind, mostly because I had some 110-grain .357 pistol bullets in my components stash: I had Winchester jacketed hollow points, and Hornady jacketed hollow points. I bought a bunch of the Winchester bullets during the Obama years when everything was scarce, and I was down to one unopened bag of 100. I had an unopened box of the Hornady 110-grain bullets, too.
Winchester, if you’re paying attention, this bag was 15 bullets light.
I loaded the last of the Winchester bullets recently using some junk 357 brass. I have Unique, but I wanted to see if I could get good results with Accurate No. 5. Rick’s comment about Accurate No. 5 being about like Unique stuck in my mind. The max load on the Accurate site for 110 grain bullets is 11 grains, so I loaded some at 10.1 grains and some at 10.5 grains, both with magnum CCI primers.
Winchester shorted me on that last bag of 100 grain bullets. The last bag I had was unopened, but it had only 85 bullets in it. I wrote to Winchester customer support, and they responded with an answer that was left blank. I wrote to Winchester again after receiving the above non-answer for an answer, but I’m not holding my breath.
The results with both the Hornady and Winchester bullets were great. Here’s a 5-shot group at 50 feet with 10.1 grains of Accurate No. 5 and the Winchester bullets. This was the best group this morning, but they were all good.
That’s how we like to do it. I know the brass is dirty. This was a quick and dirty test. The laod was 10.1 grains of Accurate No. 5, a CCI 550 primer, and Winchester’s 110-grain jacketed hollowpoint bullet. The distance was 50 feet.
The 10.1 and the 10.5 grains of Accurate No. 5 loads shot about the same from an accuracy perspective, but the 10.5 grain loads made the primers flatter, so I’ll load the 10.1 grain load the next time I reload this ammo. No sense burning up more powder and stressing the gun and the brass if there’s no accuracy improvement. It’s already excellent at 10.1 grains.
Rugged, reliable, regal, and rewarding: Today’s Colt Python.
The Winchester bullets looked cruder than the Hornady bullets but I think they maybe had a slight accuracy edge. I went online to buy more, but I learned Winchester discontinued them. One of my buddies had two bags and he gave them to me, but the odds of me ever getting any more are slim. Hornady, Speer, and Sierra all make JHP 110-grain bullets, but nobody has any in stock. I have 85 left of the Hornady bullets (I used 15 of the Hornady bullets to make up for the ones Winchester shorted me) and now, an additional 200 Winchester bullets. You still owe me 15 bullets, Oliver.
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.
As I mentioned in a recent blog, good buddy TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks) reworked the trigger on my Colt Python. The original single action trigger had a lot of creep, it was heavy, and what surprised me most of all was that it actually cocked the hammer another few degrees before it released. I was getting a little double action when firing single action.
That bothered me enough to call my contact at Colt Manufacturing, and I think he was surprised when heard about it, too. He checked with his engineering department, and the word came back: They had to do that to meet the California and Massachusetts drop test requirements. I checked the California regulation and it requires dropping a loaded, cocked revolver from a height of 1 meter six times on a concrete surface without the gun firing inadvertently. Think about that. Dropping a loaded and cocked revolver, a .357 Magnum, onto a concrete floor. Six times.
Me? I’m going with an alternative approach. I’m not going to drop my loaded, cocked, .357 Magnum revolver on a concrete surface even once. It’s kind of a common sense approach, one that the politicians in California and Massachusetts apparently think we can’t be trusted to take.
A loaded revolver. Cocked. Dropped. Six times. Onto a concrete floor. What were they thinking?
I’m not one to to argue Darwinism versus Divine Creation (we don’t do politics or religion here on ExNotes), but here’s a thought. Maybe someone who drops a cocked, loaded, .357 Magnum revolver on a concrete surface six times, well, maybe Darwin was on to something. Maybe that person needs to be culled from the gene pool. Before you get your shorts in a knot, though, remember my preface: It’s just a thought.
Anyway, back to the main attraction, and that’s the trigger job TJ did on the new Python. TJ took photos of the Python’s internals (the complete parts interface is shown above in the large photo). The photo below shows what was causing the trigger creep and the hammer movement during a single action trigger pull:
That’s the hammer on the left, and the trigger on the right. You’ll notice that the hammer’s sear area (denoted by the red arrows) is kind of rough and it contains a hooked ledge of sorts. That’s what was rotating the hammer back a few more degrees when the trigger was actuated in the single action mode.
TJ modified the sear to eliminate the hooked ledge and create the angles and surface finish the Python trigger-to-hammer interface deserves. That’s what you see below.
Before he improved the sear interface, the Python’s double action trigger pull was 9 1/2 lbs; it is now 9 lbs. The single action trigger pull was a very creepy 5 1/2 lbs; now there is no perceptible trigger or hammer movement before the hammer is released and the trigger breaks at a very clean 2 1/4 lbs. The upgrade completely changes the character of the new Python. I can’t imaging anyone buying a Python and not wanting to have the trigger cleaned up in this manner. TJ is the guy to do it.
The next big question is: Did the new trigger a make a difference in how the Python performed? Hey, you tell me. Here are two 5-shot groups shot at 50 feet with the improved trigger:
Those two groups were shot with my go-to .38 Special target load (a 148-grain wadcutter and 2.7 grains of Bullseye prepared on my Star reloader). The group on the left measures 0.680 inches; the one on the right measures 0.830 inches. Some of the .357 Magnum loads performed just as well. I’ll share all my Python load testing results in a near-term future blog. I didn’t adjust the sights during my load testing because I’d be moving them with each new load; I’ll zero the gun when I’ve selected the load I want for the Python. I am a happy camper; these are phenomenally good results.
You might be wondering about now why you’d need a trigger job on a $1500 handgun. Folks, this isn’t Colt’s fault. They’re doing what they have to in order to meet a requirement imposed by people who don’t understand what they are doing. Don’t get upset with Colt. Do the right thing and vote.
If you have a Python and you’re not happy with the trigger, take a look at TJ’s Custom Gunworks and drop TJ a note. Trust me on this: You’ll be glad you did.
Colt has a custom shop, Remington has a custom shop, Winchester had a custom shop, Savage has a custom shop, Springfield Armory has a custom shop, CZ has a custom shop, and Smith and Wesson has a custom shop. It seemed Ruger was the only one of the big players that didn’t have a custom shop.
That’s changed. Ruger recently announced that they, too, now have a custom shop, except they do things differently. Rather than taking orders for custom features on their regular line of firearms, Ruger’s approach is to produce limited numbers of highly-customized guns. Stated differently, Ruger picks the features they want to add to their custom guns; your choice is to purchase it (or not). It’s not a bad way to go.
Note the new Super GP100’s dark PVD finish, the green fiber optic sight, the slotted barrel shroud, and other custom touches.
Ruger’s two most recent custom shop models are revolvers they call the Super GP100; one chambered in 9mm and the other chambered in .357 Magnum. These revolvers have a number of custom features, including a shrouded and vented barrel, 8-shot capacity and the ability to use star clips for speedy reloads, radically-fluted cylinder (I like the look), PVD (that’s physical vapor deposition) finish, polished and slicked up trigger and internal componentry, oversized Hogue hardwood grip, an 11-degree barrel crown (that’s supposed to enhance accuracy), and a fiber-optic front sight (never had one of those before; I’m eager to see if it really does anything for me).
Befitting its custom status, the Ruger Super GP100 comes with a higher-quality carrying case.
The Super GP is offered in two chamberings: .357 Magnum and 9mm Parabellum. The 9mm version is not approved here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia. That’s probably okay, as I would go for the .357 if given the choice. But that’s not a choice that’s going to be offered any time soon. Read on, and you’ll see what I mean.
The 9mm version of Ruger’s new Super GP100 revolver. It looks good. Note the shorter cylinder.
I like the way Ruger handled the 9mm Super GP100. The cylinder is shorter to match the 9mm cartridge, and the barrel extends back into the frame. This means the 9mm bullet has less of a jump to the rifling in the barrel, which should improve accuracy. It’s the same thing Smith and Wesson does on its .45 ACP revolvers.
Ruger doesn’t stock these guns. True to the custom shop concept, Ruger builds them as orders are taken. But it wouldn’t do any good to order one now, unless you just want to get a place in line. Due to the press of handgun orders induced by the election, the pandemic, and the recent civil rioting in major US cities, Ruger has its workforce focused elsewhere on meeting the unprecedented demand for its standard guns. As an aside, it’s tough to buy ammo right now, too, for the same reasons. That’s not bothering me, as I reload on my RCBS reloading gear and I’m well stocked.
I’m in the market for a .357 Mag revolver, but I’ll probably go with a more traditional handgun. Maybe a .357 Blackhawk or a S&W Model 27. I’ll keep you posted.
Revolvers, rifles, reloading, and more…check out our Tales of the Gun page!
Good buddy Greg and I (along with about a gazillion other people) are long term Ruger Blackhawk fans, and last week we were on the range with a new .357 Magnum Blackhawk Greg recently acquired. It’s one of a limited run offered by Talo, a distributor specializing in custom guns from a variety of manufacturers.
Greg’s Blackhawk has a 5 1/2-inch barrel (standard New Model .357 Blackhawks have either a 4 5/8-inch or 6 1/2-inch barrel) and really cool birdseye maple grips (most Blackhawks these days have black plastic grips). The birdseye maple grips contrast well with the Ruger’s deep bluing, and that 5 1/2-inch barrel just flat works on a single action revolver. At 40 ounces (one ounce heavier than a 1911 Government Model .45 auto), the Ruger balances well and feels right. Greg’s birdseye Blackhawk is beautiful, it groups well, and it has a superb trigger. This particular offering from Talo includes an extra cylinder chambered in 9mm, so Greg can use .357 Magnum, .38 Special, or 9mm ammo (I guess he won’t be running out any time soon).
Greg loads the same .357 Magnum ammunition that I do (a 158-grain cast lead bullet with 7.0 grains of Unique), which is the “go to” accuracy recipe in .357 Magnum. It sure shoots well. A target load that is superbly accurate in a Blackhawk is the .38 Special with a 148-grain wadcutter bullet and 2.7 grains of Bullseye propellant (that’s been a preferred .38 Special accuracy load for decades).
Ruger makes a beautiful revolver, and this Talo birdseye Blackhawk’s limited production run almost guarantees these will be investment grade guns. Most dealers are sold out, but if you poke around a bit on Gunbroker.com, you may still find one.
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A favorite load that seems to work well in any .357 Magnum revolver, including my stainless steel Ruger Blackhawk, is 15.7 grains of Winchester’s 296 propellant and the Hornady 158-grain jacketed hollow point bullet. I use standard rather than magnum primers. This was a 25-yard target.
The .357 Ruger Blackhawk
Ruger’s Blackhawk is an iconic firearm, one that’s been in production since the 1950s in one form or another. I bought my first one in a department store in Texas for under a hundred bucks back in the mid-1970s, and I’ve bought and sold several since. I wish I had not sold any of the Blackhawks.
I’ve owned a few .357 Magnums over the years…Rugers, a couple of Model 27 Smiths, a Model 28 Smith (remember that one?), a Model 19 Smith, and a Model 65 Smith. I’ve owned a couple of Colt Pythons, too. The Pythons were nice, but not nice enough to command the premium prices they pulled in the 1970s, and certainly not nice enough to pull the exorbitant amounts they sell for today. The Smiths were accurate, but they didn’t hold up under constant use with magnum loads. I had a new Model 27 that I wore out in a couple of seasons in the metallic silhouette game; it suffered from extreme gas cutting under the top strap and a cylinder that sashayed around like an exotic dancer in a room full of big tippers. The Ruger Blackhawks seem to last forever.
Every Ruger firearm manufactured in 1976 carries the 200th year bicentennial stamp, just like the one on my 200th year Blackhawk. On my gun, the liberty scrollmark is on top of the barrel.
I’m down to one .357 Magnum now and it’s a 200th year stainless steel Blackhawk with a 6 1/2-inch barrel. It’s one of my favorite revolvers and it’s not for sale (it never will be; I learned my lesson about letting good guns get away). I have a few favorite .357 Magnum loads I’ve used over the last 50 years. I thought it might be a good idea to document how they did in the Blackhawk, try a few more to see how they do, and share it all with you here on the ExNotes blog. I guess this is the appropriate place for the disclaimer: These are loads that work well in my Blackhawk. You should never just take these loads (or any others from the Internet) and simply run with them. Always consult a reputable reloading manual (I like the Hornady and Lyman manuals best). Always start with lower charges and work your way up, looking for any signs of excess pressure, and go no higher if you see signs of excess pressure. Okay, so that’s out of the way. Let’s get to the good stuff.
Last week’s .357 Magnum testing at the West End Gun Club.
.357 Magnum Accuracy Loads
I’ve played with a lot of different .357 Magnum loads over the years. I have a few favorite .357 Mag loads that have been superbly accurate in any of the .357 sixguns I’ve owned. That’s a bit unusual because frequently a load that is accurate in one gun won’t be accurate in another, but that rule doesn’t seem to apply here. The loads I like have worked well for me in any .357 I’ve ever shot. I verified these loads in my Blackhawk with this latest round of testing, and like I said above, I explored a few more loads.
A few of the loads tested for this blog. From left to right, the first five are .357 Magnum cartridges and the last three are .38 Special cartridges (you can fire .38 Special rounds in a .357 Magnum handgun). The bullets (from left to right) are the 110-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point, the 158-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point, the 158-grain Hornady jacketed flat point, the Xtreme 158-grain plated flatpoint, a cast 158-grain flatpoint, a cast 158-grain flatpoint in a .38 Special case, a powder-coated 158-grain semi-wadcutter in a .38 Special case, and the Missouri 148-grain double-ended wadcutter in a .38 Special case.
So, with the above as background info, let’s get into the loads. I’ll start with one of the standard “go to” .357 Magnum loads. That’s the 158-grain cast semi-wadcutter bullet (the Keith-style) over 7.0 grains of Unique. This is not the hottest .357 load (it’s a mild-recoiling .357 Magnum load), but it’s hot enough, it’s very accurate, and it’s relatively flat shooting. I have a guy who casts 158-grain flatpoint bullets for me and I like those with 7.0 grains of Unique even better than the semi-wadcutter bullets. The load is very consistent, and with the same zero and six o’clock hold I use at 50 feet (seen in the target below), I pretty much hit right on target at 25 yards, 50 yards, and yep, even at 100 yards. I was hitting a steel gonger last week at 100 yards consistently with this load. My shooting buddies were impressed, and after all, that’s what a lot of this is all about. This is a good load.
A 50-ft target with the .357 Blackhawk using 158-grain cast flatpoints with 7.0 grains of Unique. Like they say, this is close enough for government work.
For hotter .357 Magnum loads, any of the Hornady 158-grain jacketed bullets (hollow points, flat points, and full metal jacket flat points) work superbly well with 15.7 grains of Winchester’s 296 propellant. These loads have a distinctive bark, high velocities, snappy recoil, and they are superbly accurate.
15.7 grains of WW 296 and the 158-grain Hornady jacketed flat point resulted in the best group fired in this test series. Two shots went through the hole in the lower right.
Another long time favorite load is a bit unusual but it’s accurate as hell. That’s the 110-grain Hornady jacketed hollow point and a max Unique load (10.0 grains of Unique, as listed in a Hornady reloading manual from the 1970s). I first tried this one 40 years ago when I had a Colt Python and I was impressed with its accuracy. I tried it again in this test series and the results were similarly impressive. It’s probably the fastest load I tested because of the max load and the light bullets. My old Hornady manual indicates the 110 grain Hornady bullet with 10.0 grains of Unique exits the muzzle at 1450 feet per second. That’s fast.
If light bullets and high velocity float your boat, try this one (but work your way up to it): 10.0 grains of Unique with Hornady’s 110-grain jacketed hollow point.
Plated Bullets: Are They Any Good?
Surprisingly, the 158-grain plated flatpoint bullets I tested didn’t do well with any charge of Unique, and in the past, they have performed very poorly with 296 (the bullets frequently shed their plating in the bore). These plated bullets are offered by Berry and Xtreme. These are not jacketed bullets; the copper plating is chemically applied and the coating is very thin. I did get one decent showing with a lower-end charge of IMR 4227 propellant, but given the choice, I’d go for a plain cast bullet rather than plated bullets. You may feel differently. Please leave a comment here on the blog if your experience is different than mine.
Powder Coating and Paint Fumes
I tried powder-coated bullets last week, too, to see how they would perform. Powder coating is a concept that’s been around for a few years as an alternative to lubing cast bullets. I found that accuracy was more or less on par with lubed bullets, but not really any better. The powder-coated bullets look cool (the cartridges kind of look like lipstick). When I fired several powder-coated bullets fairly quickly, I could smell the paint. Some folks swear by these bullets and love them for IDPA and similar competitive pistol events. For me, performance was the same as conventional cast bullets. Your mileage may vary. Leave us a comment if you feel differently.
Powder-coated 158-grain semi-wadcutter bullets. I found their accuracy to be comparable to conventional cast and lubed bullets.
A Metallic Silhouette Load
When I shot metallic silhouette competition I used a 200-grain cast roundnose bullet in my .357 Magnum Model 27 Smith and Wesson. That bullet worked extremely well, and because of its heavy-for-caliber nature and high length/diameter ratio, it carried a lot of energy downrange. It was superbly accurate with 12.4 grains of 296. But finding those bullets is next-to-impossible today. It used to be a standard .38 Special bullet for police duty, but very few (if any) departments carry .38s today, and nobody seems to stock the 200-grain bullets. Maybe I need to get back into casting. I sure loved that 200-grain bullet in the .357 Magnum. They actually made the .357 Magnum work better on the 200-meter rams than a 240-grain .44 Magnum. The .44 Magnum wouldn’t consistently take down the rams; the 200-grain .357 Magnum did so every time.
.38 Special Loads
One of the great things about a .357 Magnum handgun is you can also shoot .38 Special loads in it. I guess that’s a good thing, as the .38 Special cartridges have lighter recoil. I tried three .38 Special loads with three different bullets. The accuracy load in .38 Special is a 148-grain wadcutter bullet seated flush with the cartridge mouth over 2.7 grains of Bullseye propellant. That load is super accurate in my Model 52 Smith and Wesson target pistol, and it did okay in the Ruger, too. I’ve always believed that a .38 Special cartridge would never be quite as accurate in a .357 Magnum handgun because the bullet has to make a longer jump to reach the rifling, and my testing last week did nothing to change my mind on that count. The .38 Special does okay in a .357 Magnum handgun, but I believe the best accuracy resides in a .357 case.
.357 and .38 Accuracy Testing Results
Here’s a chart summarizing my accuracy results:
Ruger Blackhawk accuracy testing results. All testing was with a two-hand hold at 50 feet. All groups are five shots. All loads (except the plated bullet loads) were crimped. All cast bullets were sized to 0.358. Note 1: Two shots went off paper. Notes 2 and 3: One shot went off paper.
There you have it. If you have a load that works well, please leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you.
Colt’s ad for the new Python. I have high hopes for this gun.
The Colt Python was the king of the handgun world back in the ’60s and ’70s. It was the Rolls Royce of revolvers. I owned two of them at different times in the mid-’70s. I bought one while I was deployed overseas in Korea (we could actually order guns through the base exchange) and it was delivered to me in Korea. I paid something like $150 for it back then, and it was sleek…deep bluing (Colt called it Royal Blue), a 6-inch barrel, and then I had to worry about bringing it back to the US. I was told I would need a certificate signed by the Director of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Bureau and I could only imagine how long that would take, but it didn’t take long at all. I submitted the request and three weeks later I had a hard copy (this was the 1970s) signed in ink by the actual top guy at the ATF. That gun came back to America with me in a duffel bag. I remember that 10 grains of Unique behind a 110-grain jacketed hollowpoint Hornady tore one ragged hole at 25 yards. It was phenomenally accurate.
I traded that Python for a new Ruger No. 1 in .30 06 and a couple of boxes of .30 06 ammo, and I still have that rifle. But back at Fort Bliss I missed the Python. Good buddy Roy told me I could order one through the Fort Bliss Rifle and Pistol Club, so I did (this time in nickel, but still a 6-incher). It was stunning, with flawless nickel plating and a absolutely jewel-like, luxurious look. The I sold that one when I moved to Fort Worth. It was not my brightest move ever. I’ve done a lot of dumb things in my life. This was definitely one of them.
Colt quit making the Python several years ago, and prices went through the roof. An original Python goes for something around $3k, give or take a K or two (almost always to the north). Big bucks, and way more than I want to spend.
Pete’s Python. It’s one of the originals, and it is phenomenally accurate.
I sort of got the Python fever again a few months ago when good buddy Python Pete let me take a few shots with his vintage 8-inch barreled Python. It was the accuracy that got me excited. These were great revolvers. I wrote about that day here.
And then suddenly, just a few weeks ago, Colt announced that they were reintroducing the Python, and it would retail at $1500. That was a good thing, I thought. It’s still pricey, but a new Python would be great. Maybe when the supply exceeds the demand prices might drop, I thought.
I want the new Python to succeed. A frontline company like Colt (an iconic name if ever there was one) deserves nothing less.
My stainless .357 Blackhawk, with a 25-yard target. It’s one of my favorite handguns. The loads you see here use WW 296 propellant and Hornady’s 158-grain jacketed h0llow point bullet.
One of my good buddies wrote to me over the weekend asking about the Ruger Blackhawk in .357 Magnum. He wanted to know if I felt they were good guns. In a word: Yes. My friend was specifically considering the .357 Blackhawk with the extra cylinder for 9mm ammo; I’m not a big fan of the combo Blackhawks (I think they’re a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist). But the basic .357 Blackhawk? It’s a winner, and I think it’s one of the world’s great handguns.
I’ve owned several .357 Blackhawks over the last 50 years, starting with a plain vanilla blue steel New Model I bought at a K-Mart when I lived in El Paso (yep, they used to sell handguns). I traded that one away, and then I bought an Old Model Blackhawk with the convertible 9mm cylinder. It was a pristine used gun, still in the original box, with the shorter 4 5/8-inch barrel. I never fired that gun and I only owned it for about a week. I paid something like $75 for it, and then I sold it to my boss at Fort Bliss a few days later because he wanted it. That Old Model with its convertible 9mm cylinder would be collectible today. Eh, live and learn, I guess.
There were two convertible Blackhawks back in the 1970s, and I guess there are still two available new today. One is the 9mm/.357 combo I described above; the other is the .45 ACP/.45 Colt deal. I had a New Model Blackhawk .45 ACP/.45 Colt around the same time as I bought that Old Model 9mm/.357. I only shot .45 ACP in it because I had a ready supply of .45 ACP ammo. Mine wasn’t very accurate. It might have been because the .45 ACP bullet had to make a big jump to the rifling (it’s a shorter cartridge), or it might have been that I just had the wrong .45 ACP load for that revolver. I think the same accuracy detractors exist with the 9mm/.357 arrangement. The accuracy challenge is perhaps even more significant for the 9mm Blackhawk because of the slight difference in bore diameters between the 9mm and the .357 (the barrel diameter is .357 inches; the 9mm bullets are .355 or .356 inches in diameter). If you have the .357 Blackhawk with the extra 9mm cylinder, you can actually shoot three cartridges in it (9mm from the one cylinder, and 38 Special and 357 Magnum from the other). But I don’t have an interest in any of that. I only shoot .357 Magnum in mine.
My .357 Blackhawk is the stainless model you see in the photo above. It’s accurate (I can usually hold all my shots in the 10-ring of a silhouette target at 25 yards). They are super strong and I think they are more rugged than a Smith and Wesson. I sold all my S&W 357s years ago. And on that subject, I owned a couple of Colt Pythons back in the 1970s and I sold them, too. I never understand all the excitement over the Pythons; their fit and finish was great, but they didn’t shoot any better than the Blackhawk (at least in my hands).
No targets? No problem. My Blackhawk is a shooter.
There are several variants of the Blackhawk; I have the full-sized Blackhawk with the 6½-inch barrel. I like the feel of it, I like the grip, and as a kid who grew up watching Westerns, I like the idea of a single-action sixgun. Today, Ruger makes several variants of their .357 Blackhawk. There are fixed-sight versions they call the Vaquero, smaller frame versions they call the flat top, different barrel lengths, stainless models, blue steel models, and more. I like the stainless version because the grip is made of steel; in the blue version it’s anodized aluminum. The stainless grip is a little heavier and the gun feels better to me. But there’s nothing wrong with the blued-steel Blackhawk. They are great guns.
My Blackhawk was manufactured in 1976, and like all Rugers built that year, it carries the “Made in the 200th Year of American Liberty” rollmark.
I like loading the .357 ammo, too, and I loaded a bunch this weekend. It’s a cool cartridge to reload. WW 296 is my preferred propellant. Unique does okay, too, but 296 is the cat’s meow for the .357 Magnum cartridge. It’s a flat-shooting cartridge, and I can hit consistently with it all the way out to 200 yards. I may set up a target or two at that distance the next time I’m on the range just to back up that statement.
Good buddy Python Pete and I went to the range a few days ago to let loose with a pair of prancing ponies (that is to say, Colts), in both revolver and automatic flavors. The auto was my tried-and-true bright stainless Colt Government Model 1911; the wheelgun was Pete’s stunning 8-inch Colt Python. Both are stunningly beautiful and both are good shooting guns.
A custom bright stainless Colt, with Baer barrel, Millet sights, and a few other nice touches.
I bought the 1911 you see above at a pawn shop brand new back in the mid-1980s for just over $500. Colt no longer offers bright stainless steel guns, so I guess you could say mine is collectible, and when you see bright stainless Colt 1911s come up for sale (which doesn’t happen very often), prices start at $2,000 and go north from there. I guess you could say I made a good investment (except I won’t ever sell it).
A few years ago the front sight popped off my 1911, so I took it to a local gunsmith to have it restaked. That repair lasted all of 50 rounds, and I realized I needed to see an expert. That’s when I hooked up with TJ’s Custom Guns, and I had TJ revamp the Colt. It’s got a Les Baer match barrel, an extended one-piece guide rail, an engine turned chamber (I love that look), high profile/high visibility Millet fixed sights, and TJ’s exclusive high reliability tune. That last little bit means that my Colt 1911 will reliably feed any bullet configuration (semi-wadcutters, hollow points, etc.) and it will work no matter what. Folks, I’ve put tens of thousands of rounds through my 1911 since TJ massaged it, and it’s never had a failure of any kind (no failures to fire, no failures to feed, and no failures to eject…it just goes and goes and goes).
On to the Python. I’ve known good buddy Pete for more than 30 years (we sort of grew up together in the aerospace industry). Pete owns a Colt Python, a gun that is arguably the finest revolver ever made. His is the super-rare 8-inch model, too.
Revolver royalty…the stunning Colt Python. The Colt Python is perhaps the finest revolver ever made.
Colt no longer makes the Python, probably because they were too expensive to produce. The fit and finish are superior, and the feel of the thing is just sublime. It’s a .357 Magnum, one of the world’s all time greats, and a cartridge that dominated the police market before 9mm became all the rage. Colt revolvers were hand-fitted and involved lots of custom assembly, and I suppose it just didn’t in with the need for low cost manufacture in a market dominated by black plastic 9mm handguns. No, the Python is from another era characterized by highly polished blue steel and finely figured walnut, an age in which I felt more comfortable. Seeing a Python on the firing line again was a treat, and when Pete asked if I wanted to try the big Colt, he didn’t have to ask twice.
Pete and I had four handguns with us (the two mentioned above, plus a SIG 9mm and my Rock Island Compact 1911). I shot my two 1911s offhand for a while, and then I tried my luck with Pete’s SIG and the Python. It was fun.
You can argue about a good automatic being as accurate as a high-end revolver, but you won’t convince me. The Python is a tack driver.
I fired 5 shots of “nothing fancy” factory ammo with the Python, and the accuracy was superb. The targets don’t lie, folks.
I’ve owned two Pythons in my life, and both were back in the 1970s. When I was in Korea, I found out I could order one though the Base Exchange at a substantial discount. I couldn’t believe what the nice lady was telling me at the Kunsan AFB Exchange, so I ordered a 6-inch blue steel Python for something like $150 (it sounded too good to be true). Incredibly, it came in the mail to me in Korea. Before I rotated home, I had to submit a form through the Army to get permission to import the revolver back to the US. I did that, and a few weeks later I had a letter signed by the Director of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Bureau allowing me to bring my Python home. It went into my duffel bag, I produced the letter when I went through Customs in San Francisco, and that was that. Better times.
You know how it goes with these things. When I was back in Texas shortly after my stint in Korea, I saw a Ruger No. 1 single shot rifle in .30 06 I couldn’t live without, and I traded the Python for it (the guy at the store through in a couple of boxes of .30 06 ammo, too). Then I felt a void in my life because I no longer owned a Python, so I ordered another one (this time a 6-inch nickel-plated model) through the Fort Bliss Gun Club. It was under $200. Then I traded that for something else (I can’t remember what). Ah, the mistakes we make. But maybe they weren’t all mistakes. I’ve sent a lot of lead downrange with the Ruger No. 1 over the last 45 years, it’s one of the most accurate rifles I own, and it has stunning walnut.
The Ruger No. 1 in 30 06 I traded the Kunsan Python to get. It’s a 200th Year Ruger. I miss the Python, but I love my ’06 No. 1. Some day I’ll do a blog on this rifle.
Today, Colt Pythons typically sell for something in the $3,000 to $4,000 range. Pete’s would command even more, because it’s the 8-incher, which is a rare item. I’ve asked Pete if he wanted to sell his, but all I got in return was a smile. That’s probably just as well; I couldn’t afford it at today’s prices.
and I’m well stocked.
Good buddy Python Pete and I went to the range a few days ago to let loose with a pair of prancing ponies (that is to say, Colts), in both revolver and automatic flavors. The auto was my tried-and-true bright stainless Colt Government Model 1911; the wheelgun was Pete’s stunning 8-inch Colt Python. Both are stunningly beautiful and both are good shooting guns.
