Sunday, September 03, 2006

Grizzly Ammunition

Crazy Jay has chronographed these .44 Magnum Grizzly 300 grainers at 1237 fps from a 5 and a half inch Redhawk that's admittedly very, very tight. The pictured cartidges feature their "Punch" bullets that Jay has seen drop a 500 lb. black bear in it's tracks.

Their bigger-bore offerings seem fairly hot as well, although on paper not comparable to Double-Tap or Buffalo Bore. So if you're fixin' to kill some paper stick with other specialty houses, or Winchester for that matter as they make one hellacious .500 Magnum.

AND...there's talk of a 750 grain handload cranking 1600 fps from an 8" barrel. Think I'll wait a while before asking Jay to have a look.

What S&W and Ruger and Taurus have done is take business away from the Linebaugh-type specialty revolver manufacturers, and to be honest I didn't know there was that much interest in hand cannons. Silly me. Having fired and fallen in lust with a .38-40 Linebaugh revolver built from a Ruger Bisley frame, (180 grains @ over 1600 fps) I should have known that the .475, and .480, and even .500's were not only selling like hot cakes but were back-ordered to the nines. Then the big boys came along, offered their products in the $800-1200 range, and whoops. What's a Linebaugh to do when HIS guns of that caliber are 3 or 4 grand?

Work on heavier and heavier loads, but if they believe that there's a cartridge out there unsuitable for use in a large framed Ruger then I want some of what they're smoking. Cylinder gaps around .0025" aren't all that uncommon in Rugers, and since S&W can't even come close to that tolerance I guess the boutique shops will continue to exist in what will have to be a diminishing niche. Guys love custom stuff anyway, but serious handgun hunters could care less as long as the weapon is up to the task at hand.

Meanwhile, the gunrag jerks still poo-poo the bigbores for defensive purposes then recommend a rifle with comparably inferior ballistics. Handguns are weak. Except when they're not. But don't use the new cannons on the block because they're too much gun, and unnecessary. And always remember that no one came out of a fight saying they wish they'd had less gun. Except those who had too much gun.

Someone actually pays these dolts, too.

No comments: