Random thought and questions.

[RBHarter]

A recent post suggested that the 357 was developed "in no man's land" .
I'd say they had a base to work with the relationship between 380 and 9mm Luger isn't really any different than the 38/357 . So there had to be just basic math between with some sort of a pressure curve scale . It's sort of +2mm × (1.5 gr of xxx + 25 gr bullet weight) = +17kpsi in 3cc volume . With the 38/357 it was just a matter of if the Luger will take 40 KCUP at 120 gr let's run the 38 up to 45 K CUP cause America and let's keep the 158 but let's give it a heavy steel jacket and a hard core so it'll kill Pontiac or Packard straight 8 via water pump and timing or just shorten the chase by breaking up the water jacket . Oh and we need to fix it so it won't fit in anything but the S&W tank until we can beef up something else . I understand that it was also 1934 but the labs still had access to Springfield data and the kings of hot rodding probably spent lots of long-distance and gas to hash things out .

Glen .
I'm curious about the Schofield cases used for your feed tests in the short cases to increase tube magazines. Were they actual correct 45 Schofield/S&W cases or trimmed 45 Colts . I ask because the Schofield correct cases won't fit into magazine as the rims hang up in the M92' Rossi 45 Colts at 3 rounds but will feed and chamber although the extractor hangs about 60% and doesn't battery cleanly .
I've been trying to get the disparaged Hornady short cases for use as 45 S&W so that they could also be used in the 92' as a companion to the rechambered S&W ....45 Army/Short Colts etc . Without the narrow rims , I'm not willing to cut down the WW and Win cases , I won't know for sure but the .118 inches per case should add 1 round to the 10 round magazine just by math at 1.285 vs 1.110 case length . The added bonus of being able to hot load the short up to 18 kpsi vs it's 14 kpsi standard, 45 ACP data in the 1.11" case , it gets it to start Colts .......says the guy that was just sighting 5 reasons why there no need for anything over CIP Trapdoor loads in 45-70 ........ My Schofield used to be a 45 ACP so 21kpsi is safe there .

I did a similar deal with 38/357 . The Marlin 1894C stated in the owners manual a minimum OAL of just over the 38 Special case , a button nose WC over , 1.95 sounds right . In a fit of good idea fairy I cut back some tired 357 nickle cases to 9x25 rimmed and seated accordingly using 9×25 data . Although it would hold 15 in the 10 round tube 13+1 was all that was reliable as #14 jammed up the works from the mag . They also shot well in the Sec 6 ......

All of this runs together I guess with the 1957 Ruger BlackHawk tank like pistols and modern falling block rifle that opened up a whole new world of exploration for pistols . The convertibles that came in 9mm/38/357 , 45 ACP/Colts , 40/10/38-40 etc should have had the gears spinning. All of this was simply things that couldn't be done in 1934 with SAAs and the not N frame and Colts that the 1917 was on that I can never remember the name. Woodsman , Sportsman ? ........Mom has one you'd think I could remember it ....... It was still an era of mass over alloy and HT .
That kind of runs in with Kieth's observations about design changes to accommodate new faster tools for more assemblies per hour . Can you imagine JMB with a 1974 or 1996 new machine shop in 1905 ?

Yeah probably too much going on here ........

 

[RicinYakima]

A recent post suggested that the 357 was developed "in no man's land" .

My reading says that it was the result of people firing 38/44 loads in their light frame 38 specials. They had lawyers in the 1930's also.

 

[Snakeoil]

My reading says that it was the result of people firing 38/44 loads in their light frame 38 specials. They had lawyers in the 1930's also.

The S&W Heavy Duty Revolver And Its .38-44 Cartridge - Handguns

Smith & Wesson's Heavy Duty revolver and its .38-44 cartridge are important pieces of American firearms history.

www.handgunsmag.com

 

[Snakeoil]

I am still amazed at how thin the chamber walls are in a SAA. The wall where the bolt notch is cut is paper thin. Granted, I'm talking .45 Colt cylinders so there is more meat left over when you chamber them for .38/.357. But I sure would not want to put a hot .45LC load in a SAA. Although, didn't Keith do some of his load development for the .44 mag in SAA revolvers?

 

[Missionary]

At BP pressures it is of little concern. But I have seen a couple Colt SAA cylinders that ended as paper weights due to those bolt notches giving way holding back smokeless loads.
That is a detail I do like about the large frame DW revolvers The bolt notch is off set (right frame side) so the cylinder wall at the notch remains thick.

 

[RBHarter]

It is my understanding that getting to the first mag pistols resulted in a lot of scrap metal that used to be guns , slick cylinders , larger cylinders etc .

My point was more that it was more pushing existing materiels and designs than the cartridges themselves . As far as the cartridge goes Luger and Mauser had done the hard part of the cartridge research . The Germans had at that time probably better steel than we did England had probably made long strides and all of Europe learned from the Titanic . But they were also working out light armor and how to make steel tough enough for 4" to stop , deflect , etc shells that used to blow through 6" . That and the heat treated steels used by Paul Mauser and Luger were way ahead of what we were building the big wheel guns from . Europe was building the P35/BHP to hold 35-38,000 psi in a floating barrel only .15 thick and we were doing it with 21,000 psi in the sister pistol . But we hadn't applied that to cylinders yet . It all leads into the big push . 2nd gen SAAs are at their limits with the 357 and 44-40 . Now the Italian clones will handle the bottom of the Ruger loads in Colts and are available rated for 45 ACP +P , 40 , and a steady diet of full tilt 357 mag . Colts probably will too but at 3x the cost .

 

[Snakeoil]

Trivia tidbit. In the first Dirty Harry movie, Clint did not use a .44 Mag N-Frame. It was actually a .357 Mag. The .44 was not commercially available yet.

UPDATE: Well, with significant egg on my wrinkly old kisser, I have been politely and respectfully corrected in a private post. It would appear that whatever article I read was pure hogwash as the actual Mod 29 that Clint used in Dirty Harry and Magnum force is in the NRA museum. I'm also a bit embarrassed to admit that I had not remembered that the .44 mag and big N-frame had appeared on the market long before Dirty Harry was even a thought in its writer's head.

In my defense, feeble as it may be, I did read this somewhere, many years ago. I thought I'd read it in a gun magazine as they were my entertainment staple when I was flying to various crummy parts of the world for work. But it could also have been in some airline magazine. I guess fake news existed way back then as well.

Oh well, my Dad always told me it takes a man to admit he's wrong and I'm wrong as Hell here. For those of you who read the post, rolled their eyes and said nothing, thanks for the break. But I don't mind being called out in public. You run your mouth in public, you gotta be prepared to be called to task in public.

Humbly submitted,

 

[Bret4207]

Seeing as I was guy talking about "no mans land", what I was referring was the search for a bullet that would be a workable solution to standardizing the 357 for commercial purposes at the early Mag pressures and speeds, which BTW got cut back some time later. No doubt that the background for the 357 had been around for a long time, the 20's at least. It's just an overgrown 38 Special, which when it was introduced was also considered a real hot round. You can take a 38 Special into low end 357 speeds if you choose wisely, and your gun will survive if you use the right one. The 357 came out in '34, but the 38 Super came out in the late 20's. It wasn't that different to get the speed, it was getting a bullet that would reliably work at 14-1500 fps. The 38 Super was easy, just use a jacketed bullet. Outside of the early armor piercing rounds I think all the early 357 stuff was lead alloy. I have a dim memory of some half jacket type stuff, but I don't think there was much for hunting, and that's what the 357 was supposed to be for. Hunting animals no one would consider a 357 as adequate for these days. Brown Bear, Grizzly, Elk, etc.

Anyhoo, Elmers 358429 wouldn't work in a Smith N frame, and Smith wasn't going to lengthen the frame for one cartridge they weren't even sure would sell in the Depression Era, so Phil Sharpe, who was BIG back then, even bigger than Elmer at that time, got with Doug Wesson and they created what they thought would work. And those who could get a 357 over the next 30-40 years learned how to clean their barrels of leading!

Agree on the metallurgy being an issue too. But I think WW2 probably pushed advancements there more than the 357 itself did.

On the cylinder thickness. St Elmer mentioned specifically that when he was developing what became the 44 Mag, he tried the 45 colt first but that the cylinders would let go, so he went with the 44 Special.

 

[Ian]

I just got a Harry Callahan .44 in the wooden box with all original papers. I don't even like Smith's but hey, it's kind of a "must have". Look at stills from the "are ya feelin' lucky, punk?" scene and note how big Clint's mitts are and also how petite the N-frame really is. My other one, a sillywet model, has a bulged barrel ahead of the frame from shooting half a box of cartridges loaded with 24 grains of H-110 and 240 JHPs and skipped time backwards about every other shot when doing so. I would consider the N-frame about maxed out with .45 ACP.

 

[Brad]

I don’t hotrod any of my S&W. No need. A 44 special or 45 Colt with a 250 gr swc at 850 fps is pretty damned potent. No need for more.

 

[Missionary]

Years back I read some article in some rag that stated, " Harry's SW was actually a 41 mag". I never saw any other confirming writings on that.
It never made much sense either. The 44 was far more plentiful.

 

[RBHarter]

I don’t hotrod any of my S&W. No need. A 44 special or 45 Colt with a 250 gr swc at 850 fps is pretty damned potent. No need for more.

I only run the Ruger BlackHawk right to the top of Colts data . Because of how the 92's run I actually have to down load them .......sad kind of .

I mentioned the 45 S&W being hotrodded a little bit , ok so technically they may be proof loads in some contexts , but I don't think in a case over .1 longer a max load for a 45 ACP is going to hurt a gun built for 45 ACP . Benefits include an 800+ fps 250 , which was a pleasant surprise . Now all I have to do is fit the legal primary hunting length 1955 target barrel and I'll be hooked up with companion set with a 16 or 20" rifle that will hold 12+1 .

 

[fiver]

the Germans got their ore from Sweden.
which is kind of a big deal somehow, but it did make sure they spent a few days hanging out there from bout 1940 to 45 or thereabouts..

 

[RicinYakima]

the Germans got their ore from Sweden.
which is kind of a big deal somehow, but it did make sure they spent a few days hanging out there from bout 1940 to 45 or thereabouts..

"Swedish iron ore was an important economic and military factor in the European theatre of World War II, as Sweden was the main contributor of iron ore to Nazi Germany. The source of iron ore for Nazi Germany 1933-43 give the following average percentages when added together: Sweden 43.0 Domestic production 28.2 France 12.9.[1] Within the German military the Navy was most dependent on Swedish steel as an absolute necessity to the German war effort, according to their grand admiral.[2] It has also been argued that the Swedish export helped prolong the war."

The area of Sweden that produced the ore was unique in nature. It was low in carbon and high in the rare earths that made high quality steels with less work and costs. This is the area that produced the steel for the sword and knife making industries for hundreds of year. All of the Hudson/Terraplane engine blocks were cast from this source and the springs for Ford's Model T's.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

The development of the 357 Mag does not seem to have occurred in “no man’s land” as much as it seems to be a confluence of technology.

Smokeless powder had been around since the 1880’s, there had been dramatic leaps in firearm’s technology between the 1890’s and the end of WWI and metallurgy had advanced tremendously in the early 1900’s.

The high strength alloys to make strong guns existed in abundance after WWI (getting the manufacturers to expend the money for them is a different story). The ability to push projectiles to higher velocities was certainly well understood even prior to the great war.

Personally, I believe had Keith, Sharpe and Wesson not developed the .357 magnum circa 1934, someone else would have shortly later. They just got there first. All the technology was there.

 

[BBerguson]

Years back I read some article in some rag that stated, " Harry's SW was actually a 41 mag". I never saw any other confirming writings on that.
It never made much sense either. The 44 was far more plentiful.

Yes, I read that too, no idea where but I distinctly remember the article claiming it was a 41 magnum.

 

[Bret4207]

I just got a Harry Callahan .44 in the wooden box with all original papers. I don't even like Smith's but hey, it's kind of a "must have". Look at stills from the "are ya feelin' lucky, punk?" scene and note how big Clint's mitts are and also how petite the N-frame really is. My other one, a sillywet model, has a bulged barrel ahead of the frame from shooting half a box of cartridges loaded with 24 grains of H-110 and 240 JHPs and skipped time backwards about every other shot when doing so. I would consider the N-frame about maxed out with .45 ACP.

Wow! I feel the burn sitting here! A bit exaggerated IMO, but one can surely harm an N frame by pushing things above a certain point. Heck, people have even busted tank like Rugers! I've learned myself that seeking that last 50 fps can lead to lots of problems. The load you mention appears to be a max load with a powder known to vary between lots. Maybe that's what you get for messing with condom bullets???

 

[Bret4207]

Years back I read some article in some rag that stated, " Harry's SW was actually a 41 mag". I never saw any other confirming writings on that.
It never made much sense either. The 44 was far more plentiful.

Yeah, well I've read numerous times that you shoot a lead bullet over 1000fps in anything without leading the barrel. Probably the same author.....

 

[Snakeoil]

Guy I worked with had a Smith with a bulged barrel. He was actually out shooting with his mom one day when she had a squib load. Before he could stop her, she fired another round with no issues. Later in the day, he was cleaning the gun and as he wiped down the barrel, he felt the bulge. It was every so slight, but still there. Said the gun did not seem to lose any accuracy. He's the guy that later bought Merit Sight. He passed several years ago and his son runs it now.

 

[462]

Krupp knew how to work Swedish steel, too.