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I still see those clam pack rifles locally in "Babby's first black powder" type starter packs. Midway still has the revolvers and cylinders, too.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1015810052?pid=216279

They look fun if on the expensive side for what you get. I don't think I'd trust those conversion cylinders with anything other than the lightest "cowboy action shooting" loads. Just get a Ruger or equivalent if you want to shoot the "good" ammo.

 Grey Templar wrote:
They're not legally firearms anywhere in the US as far as I know.

Fun fact: Michigan has a pistol registry and there was some confusion as to whether kit gun pistols applied. No one knew how that was even supposed to work, but 20 years ago the law was changed to say that no, black powder handguns (whether assembled or not) are not considered firearms in the Great Lakes State.

 Grey Templar wrote:
They're not legally firearms anywhere in the US as far as I know.

Federally, no. But at a state level, it varies.

In New York, for example, a cap-and-ball black powder revolver is not legally a firearm... unless you also possess ammunition for it, in which case it becomes a pistol and requires a pistol permit.

Similar deal with antiques. According to federal law, a pre-1898 firearm is not a firearm and does not require an FFL, so I was able to get a Nepalese Martini-Henry mailed to my door. But states have different laws and not all recognize that same exception.

Time for an idiot’s question?

I feel it’s time for an idiot’s question!

Super cursory google “pistol with the largest ammo” turned up the The Pfeifer-Zeliska .600 Nitro Express Revolver

Apparently, so large its rounds are in fact rifle rounds. British made rifle rounds if that matters a single jot.

Anyone got one of these slices of supreme, but not quite 40K silliness?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Time for an idiot’s question?

I feel it’s time for an idiot’s question!

Super cursory google “pistol with the largest ammo” turned up the The Pfeifer-Zeliska .600 Nitro Express Revolver

Apparently, so large its rounds are in fact rifle rounds. British made rifle rounds if that matters a single jot.

Anyone got one of these slices of supreme, but not quite 40K silliness?

British small arms are something of an embarrassment, honestly. The British Army proudly stood alone in retaining revolvers as side arms well after such luminaries as Spain, Portugal and China had recognized they were obsolete. Indeed, Britain's eventual choice of modern service pistol was the same one China was using: the Browning High Power (GP 35 to the collector circuit).

That being said, the Brits do make some sweet big game cartridges, and if you have enough steel on hand, you can build a revolver thick enough to fire one. Some years back I fired a single-shot handgun chambered for a rifle cartridge (.375 something or other) and it was just painful - and I say this as someone who is quite comfortable shooting .44 Magnum. (Comfortable being a somewhat elastic term with large bore handguns.)

I've fired quite a few .44s now that I think of it: Taurus Tracker, S&W Model 29 (Dirty Harry's gun), Ruger Bisley and of course the absurd Desert Eagle. I almost bought one of those many years ago, but my sanity returned before I completed the sale.

I'd be willing try heavier weapons (.460, .500 mag, .50 AE) but the opportunity has not presented itself. I guess I need to find wealthier friends with high pain thresholds.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Time for an idiot’s question?

I feel it’s time for an idiot’s question!

Super cursory google “pistol with the largest ammo” turned up the The Pfeifer-Zeliska .600 Nitro Express Revolver

Apparently, so large its rounds are in fact rifle rounds. British made rifle rounds if that matters a single jot.

Anyone got one of these slices of supreme, but not quite 40K silliness?

My .69 light dragoon pistol disagrees with this assessment. (Only England could call a .69 'light').

(Not mine, though similar and has the same stamps)

 BaronIveagh wrote:


My .69 light dragoon pistol disagrees with this assessment. (Only England could call a .69 'light')

I believe it is the Dragoons that are Light, not the calibre.

Commissar von Toussaint

I shoot a .454 Casull often. Before the .500S&W and then the .460 S&W it was effectively the most powerful handgun cartridge around.

It's great fun to shoot but recoil is stout as hell. Even with a heavy pistol with a compensator it is borderline unpleasant. Pushing a 300grain projectile at 1600fps delivers a punch.

I much prefer shooting it with medium .45 Colt loads.

.410 At the ready, hen protector, rodent repellant.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

I shoot a .454 Casull often. Before the .500S&W and then the .460 S&W it was effectively the most powerful handgun cartridge around.

It's great fun to shoot but recoil is stout as hell. Even with a heavy pistol with a compensator it is borderline unpleasant. Pushing a 300grain projectile at 1600fps delivers a punch.

I much prefer shooting it with medium .45 Colt loads.

Taurus makes a Judge in .454 Casull that also takes .410 shotgun shells. I actually thought about getting one but then the codeine wore off. IIRC, the literature for the cartridge was that it had twice the horsepower of a .44 mag and 5x that of a .357.

At a certain point, heavy handgun calibers are just performance art. The .454 made some sense because it was just 'wildcatting' .45 LC, which is how .357 and .44 mag were created.

My favorite magnum is .32 H&R. Mild recoil, compact package and hits like a sledgehammer.

I've never even seen any of that boutique safari stuff IRL. Custom made, hand fitted guns are always going to be super expensive, and combining that with the niche nature of the safari guns kind of puts them out of the reach of people who aren't an independantly wealthy playboy. That revolver costs 18 grand! I'd tend to doubt anyone here has one, but I suppose you never know.

Still, big guns are undeniably cool and there are some guns out there in the "normie" price range. The BFR can be chambered in all the lever rifle cartridges including .45-70 and can be fired offhand by the average person. A few common bolt actions like the CZ 550 and Remington 700 are out there chambered for the smaller more modernized safari calibers, most/all not in current production.

I'd be sorely tempted to get a CZ 550 in .416 Rigby. There are some jaw dropping videos on Youtube of it shooting through 2 feet of wood, level 4 armor, and as you might expect, very large animals.

As it stands, 12 gauge 600 grain "Black Magic" magnum slugs are the most powerful ammo I've owned/fired. Comparable in power to those huge S&W magnum loads, and more powerful than 450 Bushmaster, so I imagine they do have a real purpose in states that don't allow necked cartridges for hunting.

BFR's are cool. I was thinking of getting one with an 8 inch barrel chambered in 30-30 just to share ammo with my lever action Marlin.

Fact of the matter is that Pistols are stupid and serve one purpose and one purpose alone. Buy you enough time to get to a real gun

Bolt pistol.

 Adeptekon wrote:
Bolt pistol.

Based on the 2nd ed Wargear book, these are Gyrojet pistols.

I check this thread occasionally to see if anyone is using their firearm to do carpentry or build a house. So far you're all letting me down.

Since bolters are technically possible with current technology, it would be cool if some gunsmith took it upon themselves to try and make a better gyrojet.

Essentially, you just have to combine the gyrojet rocket projectile with normal bullets. IE: Have the rocket be part of normal cased ammo as the bullet and not the whole projectile. This would solve the short range lethality issue, and with a rifled barrel also the inaccuracy, of the Gyrojet.

The hardest part would be carefully matching the rocket's spin with the spin of the rifling so they work together and not in counter. It would probably involve a much lower twist rate than normal firearms, along with a low spin rate from the rocket motor as well.

The ammo would be massively expensive due to the precision machining required.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Essentially, you just have to combine the gyrojet rocket projectile with normal bullets. IE: Have the rocket be part of normal cased ammo as the bullet and not the whole projectile. This would solve the short range lethality issue, and with a rifled barrel also the inaccuracy, of the Gyrojet.

The hardest part would be carefully matching the rocket's spin with the spin of the rifling so they work together and not in counter. It would probably involve a much lower twist rate than normal firearms, along with a low spin rate from the rocket motor as well.

The ammo would be massively expensive due to the precision machining required.

The difficulty is making basically a two-part cartridge. You'd have the casing effectively serving as a sabot to boost the round out of the barrel and then the rocket would kick off. To make it worth the effort, it should be at least .50 caliber, maybe bigger.

If you can get a handgun with low recoil and 1,000 yard range, now you're cooking with gas!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ahtman wrote:
I check this thread occasionally to see if anyone is using their firearm to do carpentry or build a house. So far you're all letting me down.

That's been going on for decades, at least since the 1980s.

When my father had a sub-floor put in, they used a nail-driver that fired .22LR shells. I'm pretty sure there are ones that use blank shotgun cartridges as well.

Of course no one is using a Colt 1911 to do that work because that's not what it is designed to do, just as you wouldn't try to drive a nail with a coping saw. But there are construction-oriented firearms.

SemperMortis wrote:
Fact of the matter is that Pistols are stupid and serve one purpose and one purpose alone. Buy you enough time to get to a real gun

I disagree. In extremely confined spaces, they're very useful while a 'real gun' can be hard to manage.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Fact of the matter is that Pistols are stupid and serve one purpose and one purpose alone. Buy you enough time to get to a real gun

I disagree. In extremely confined spaces, they're very useful while a 'real gun' can be hard to manage.

Plus they give police a fighting chance when ill trained individuals try and shoot them from 20 yards away with a pistol.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Fact of the matter is that Pistols are stupid and serve one purpose and one purpose alone. Buy you enough time to get to a real gun

I disagree. In extremely confined spaces, they're very useful while a 'real gun' can be hard to manage.

Absolutely. Pistols were at one time something only cavalry or officers might carry, as much a status symbol as a practical weapon. Then came trench warfare, and a pistol was absolutely easier to maneuver in confined spaces and faster to reload that a bolt-action rifle. As warfare became technically more complex, soldiers operating machineguns, artillery, radios, vehicles, etc. needed a compact weapon for personal defense. Just look at the production numbers for handguns. If they weren't needed people wouldn't have been making them by the millions.

Pay particular attention to the WW I need for them - everyone was scrambling to put something into the hands of the troops.

It's axiomatic that the .32 in your pocket is better than the .45 you left in the safe at home, and it's even more true that the pistol in your holster is better than the rifle sitting in the armory or just out of arms' reach.

Well, yeah, handguns were used by trench raiders in WW1 because the only alternative available at the time was a bolt-action rifle literally designed to be longer than the other guy's for the sake of bayonet fighting. As soon as submachine guns came onto the scene, the handgun as a primary fighting weapon disappeared.

Post-WW1, handguns were largely relegated to a PDW for non-combatants or a secondary weapon for specialists, and even then there have been numerous weapons explicitly designed to provide something better than a handgun in that role. The M1 Carbine, M4, P90, AKS-74U, and MP7 were all intended to replace handguns out of general consensus that handguns suck for actually fighting, and are only desirable if the alternative is having nothing.

Unless you are a SOG operator crawling through VC tunnels, a submachine gun or compact carbine is pretty easy to manage even in fairly tight indoor spaces. I've never had an issue running kill house drills with a 14.5" AR, let alone an 11.5" or subgun.

Well a cavalry pistol was a different beast due to how it was expected to be used. And trench raider pistols were I think defined by their high magazine capacities. Even then didn't yanks prefer slam firing shotguns?

 catbarf wrote:
Post-WW1, handguns were largely relegated to a PDW for non-combatants or a secondary weapon for specialists, and even then there have been numerous weapons explicitly designed to provide something better than a handgun in that role. The M1 Carbine, M4, P90, AKS-74U, and MP7 were all intended to replace handguns out of general consensus that handguns suck for actually fighting, and are only desirable if the alternative is having nothing.

But in many cases that is the alternative, which is why every military has one.

It's also not clear that carbines/SMGs are a satisfactory solution because everyone keeps deciding they love them and then hate them. One of the big drivers of the "bullpup" configuration was that it (theoretically) eliminated the need for a separate SMG.

Spoiler alert: it didn't.

SMGs have very marginal range and even PCCs can only go 100 yards, which is fine in a very dense urban environment, but even there you can find yourself outranged by someone across the town square or a river.

Thus the "intermediate" carbine, which has better characteristics but now you get another type of ammo in your logistics train.

And in both cases, you can't just have the thing on your leg in case you need it.

So yes, if you're setting out to clear a house, or expect and attack and have have an SMG or carbine within reach, they're awesome, but as a last resort, handguns have a place.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
It's also not clear that carbines/SMGs are a satisfactory solution because everyone keeps deciding they love them and then hate them. One of the big drivers of the "bullpup" configuration was that it (theoretically) eliminated the need for a separate SMG.

Spoiler alert: it didn't.

We talked about this a few weeks ago. The demonstrable outcome is that it very much did. France, the UK, Australia, and Austria all adopted bullpups and then issued them to non-infantry roles (drivers, clerks, administrative officers, armor crewmen) that historically had been given submachine guns or pistols, and stopped issuing submachine guns outside of very niche SF applications (usually cases where subsonic ammunition was needed for suppressed use).

I'm really curious as to who exactly you have in mind that allegedly went back on bullpups and started issuing subguns as PDWs again.

Anyways, nowadays the submachine gun is on the way out worldwide, as modern rifle-caliber loadings provide both better subsonic performance and better ballistics in short barrel lengths. Carbines are now the standard, be it bullpup or conventional layout. I'm not aware of any Western (or Eastern, for that matter) military doctrinally replacing a carbine with a handgun in the last twenty years.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
SMGs have very marginal range and even PCCs can only go 100 yards, which is fine in a very dense urban environment, but even there you can find yourself outranged by someone across the town square or a river.

Thus the "intermediate" carbine, which has better characteristics but now you get another type of ammo in your logistics train.

And in both cases, you can't just have the thing on your leg in case you need it.

Well, as above, the common answer to submachine guns and PCCs lacking range and armor penetration is carbines chambered in the already-standard intermediate rifle calibers. One of the driving factors behind the M4 program was that it eliminated the need to maintain .45ACP in inventory for the M3, instead using the same 5.56x45 as the standard-issue M16A2 and thus simplifying logistics. Same deal with all those nations that adopted bullpup rifles.

In the case of the P90 and MP7 among countries that use them in this capacity, the use of 5.7 and 4.6 is in lieu of standard pistol calibers among infantry units, so it's pretty much a wash. PDWs like the MP7 can be carried in holsters, but the need to quick-draw from the hip has not featured in any of the RFPs I've seen. Carrying a carbine on a sling isn't an issue.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
So yes, if you're setting out to clear a house, or expect and attack and have have an SMG or carbine within reach, they're awesome, but as a last resort, handguns have a place.

I would think 'as a last resort' tracks pretty well with 'buy you enough time to get to (your fighting weapon)'. Definitely not an ideal CQB weapon as Baron was suggesting.

Overall the point is that a pistol is not a go-to weapon of choice for any particular combat niche, and militaries around the world have been keen to develop better answers for the non-infantryman use case. Sure, pistols are still around as sidearms for machine gunners and officers, but your artillerists, radio operators, and vehicle crewmen aren't carrying handguns anymore, they're carrying carbines, and that trend doesn't show signs of reversing.

 catbarf wrote:
We talked about this a few weeks ago. The demonstrable outcome is that it very much did. France, the UK, Australia, and Austria all adopted bullpups and then issued them to non-infantry roles (drivers, clerks, administrative officers, armor crewmen) that historically had been given submachine guns or pistols, and stopped issuing submachine guns outside of very niche SF applications (usually cases where subsonic ammunition was needed for suppressed use).

The thing is, those "niche" SF forces now make up a significant part of national combat capability for many countries. The other day I was noodling around checking up in British regiments and they've been compressed to an incredible extent. The Duke of Cumberland had a bigger army during the War of the Austrian Succession. So far from being mostly dropped, they're one of the few weapons still getting heavy use.

Anyways, nowadays the submachine gun is on the way out worldwide, as modern rifle-caliber loadings provide both better subsonic performance and better ballistics in short barrel lengths. Carbines are now the standard, be it bullpup or conventional layout. I'm not aware of any Western (or Eastern, for that matter) military doctrinally replacing a carbine with a handgun in the last twenty years.

I'm really curious as to who exactly you have in mind that allegedly went back on bullpups and started issuing subguns as PDWs again.

Who still uses bullpups? I think the UK is the last of the old guard, but I guess some Balkan countries are flirting with homebrew designs.

As for SMGs, I think that the term PDW exists to entirely to obscure the fact that they are SMGs.

"So his pistol uses the same cartridge as his carbine."

"Yes, sir."

"Like a submachinegun, then."

"No, submachineguns use existing pistol rounds. These were designed from the start to use stronger, more robust cartridges that push the envelope of a handgun and bringing additional hitting power for the long weapon."

"Like the Soviets did with the Tokarev pistol and PPSh, then? So the PPSh was really a PDW."

"No, because these have polymer."

Seriously, what's the difference? 5x7mm was designed to have greater range and armor penetration than 9x19mm. 7.62 Tokarev was also designed to have greater range and penetration than 7x63mm Mauser. Both cartridges got two complimentary platforms designed around them.

Overall the point is that a pistol is not a go-to weapon of choice for any particular combat niche

So why are there all these new contracts for them? If they're duds, on the way out, no real point, why did the US just make a huge new order? And why do the Spec Ops guys always get fancy ones? If they have no role other than to buy time, why are they even bothering with them?

The answer is that they do serve a role and lots of militaries spend a lot of time (and money) on them.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Of course no one is using a Colt 1911 to do that work because that's not what it is designed to do, just as you wouldn't try to drive a nail with a coping saw.

Sounds like a lack of imagination and the will to do something magnificent.

 Ahtman wrote:
Sounds like a lack of imagination and the will to do something magnificent.

So would you hire a mechanic whose only tool is a pipe wrench in the hope that his imagination and will can do something magnificent?

Because I'd like to see that.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
The thing is, those "niche" SF forces now make up a significant part of national combat capability for many countries.

Sure. They're not buying submachine guns. They're buying compact carbines, typically piston-driven AR-15 or AR-18 derivatives. See: UKSF adopting AR-15s with monolithic uppers, France replacing all their rifles with HK416s, most of the NATO countries settling on some flavor of AR-18 derivative (G36, Beretta ARX, SCAR, Type 89, etc, etc).

(Edit: And note that this is pretty much the story with all the countries that adopted bullpups, and why I was pressing you for an example of one that went back to submachine guns. The trend among the nations that were formerly bullpup enthusiasts has been replacing them with more modern, AR-based carbines on a one-for-one basis. The carbines do the same thing the bullpups did, which is provide a one-size-fits-all solution for riflemen, SF, and second-line combatants, but take advantage of modern developments in ballistics to do so with a shorter barrel and obviate the need for the bullpup layout.)

The market for submachine guns has dwindled almost entirely to competition shooters and range gimmicks. Very few of the new entrants to the military/police market- eg the Sig MPX, CZ Scorpion Evo, B&T family- have had much success.

Submachine guns are not 'one of the few weapons still getting heavy use'. Far from it. I'll share this article that does a good job of summing up the general zeitgeist as regards submachine guns; it tracks with my experience as a testing & eval .gov.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
As for SMGs, I think that the term PDW exists to entirely to obscure the fact that they are SMGs.

(...)

Seriously, what's the difference?

PDW and SMG are not mutually exclusive terms. One's a descriptive categorization of intended role, the other's a functional categorization based on caliber and select-fire capability. Or at least, that's how the DOD sees it.

The distinction is relevant because the P90 and MP7 were not designed to be issued to assault teams or squad leaders, they were meant and are overwhelmingly issued to clerks, cooks, and drivers. Functionally, they're submachine guns; tactically, they're intended as second-line weapons, not peers to rifles as subguns once were.

Note that we have seen SOF adopt these PDWs in small numbers for very specific roles- often as secondary weapons in lieu of pistols. By and large, it's carbines as primary weapons nowadays for infantrymen and rear-echelon personnel alike.

So why are there all these new contracts for them? If they're duds, on the way out, no real point, why did the US just make a huge new order? And why do the Spec Ops guys always get fancy ones? If they have no role other than to buy time, why are they even bothering with them?

This strikes me as akin to asking 'if parachutes aren't a great way to travel, why does the Air Force keep buying them?'.

I never said there's 'no real point'. I agreed with the notion that handguns are best characterized as the step above unarmed, and I stated that their use as PDWs has dramatically diminished over the last century as better alternatives have been developed. They still have a niche, but no country puts much stock in handguns as fighting weapons nowadays, and you don't see Deltas dual-wielding 1911s or SAS room-clearing with BHPs anymore. They're the last resort, the 'E' in your PACE plan, and if someone issued a pistol has to use it in combat then something has gone terribly wrong. And when this starts happening regularly, the analysts start looking for how they can better arm whoever keeps getting stuck with a handgun in a rifle fight.

For my $0.02, as an intelligence officer I was issued an M4 when on warzone deployment, and I carried that in lieu of my G17. Even for .govs in non-combat roles, since the mid-00s it's been the norm to be issued a carbine.

 catbarf wrote:
For my $0.02, as an intelligence officer I was issued an M4 when on warzone deployment, and I carried that in lieu of my G17. Even for .govs in non-combat roles, since the mid-00s it's been the norm to be issued a carbine.

OMG, you were an intelligence officer???

That explains everything.

I think we're largely arguing over semantics and my two cents is that handguns have uses for which they are uniquely suited and the best choice.

As a (former) certified war planner (tm), I think there's a huge disconnect between doctrine, procurement and any notion of how to win a war. We went 0-2 during my career, so I'm not optimistic.

I do enjoy handguns, though.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
OMG, you were an intelligence officer???

That explains everything.

Guilty as charged, though to be clear I was on the .gov side, not .mil. Nowadays I'm just a contractor to Army.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I think we're largely arguing over semantics and my two cents is that handguns have uses for which they are uniquely suited and the best choice.

I get that sense too, so lemme just try to coherently state my position.

My experience has been that a handgun is the weapon you get when you aren't likely to use it and anything more effective would be too bulky, and the development of less-bulky but effective long arms with which to equip the historical recipients of handguns has greatly lessened their use. If I have to clear a building, I don't want a handgun, I want a compact carbine. But when I had to work in a plainclothes environment where an M4 would spook the locals, that's when I carried a G17; not because it was my first choice, but because it was my only choice.

Anyways, I still enjoy pistol shooting. My most recent acquisition was a Mateba autorevolver and I've been having a blast with how the recoil operation tames the recoil of full-power .357.