Big-Bore Revolvers

317 Pages·2012·14.93 MB·English

by  Max Prasac

BIG–
BORE
REVOLVERS
BY MAX PRASAC
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to say a special thanks to the following people who
assisted me while clawing my way through this book: Katica, Dick
Casull, Ken Jorgensen, John Parker, Jack Huntington, Jason Menefee,
Jim Miner, Bill Vaznis, the Lee Martins, Hamilton Bowen, John
Linebaugh, Dustin Linebaugh, Jim Stroh, David Clements, Jim Tertin,
Mike Rintoul, Tim Sundles, Mike McNett, Bob Baker, Alan Dickey,
Vincent Ricardel, Alan Harton, Bill Fowler, Fermin Garza, Gary Reeder,
Rod Huelter, Mag-Na-Port, Tom Roach, Ross Seyfried, Scott Olmsted,
John Gallagher, Larry Welch, Lynn Thompson, Gary Smith, Milt
Turnage, James Swidryk, Darrel Harper, Dr. Larry Rogers, Rob Millette,
Ed Folmar, Mike Giboney, Greg Brush, Rene Anderson, Jim Schlender,
Jennifer Pearsall, Buddy, Veral Smith, Brian Pearce, Bud Rummel, Otto
Candies, Jr., Mike Leeds, Chad Stevenson, Alan Griffith, Mike
Winnerstig, #9 Lake Outfitters - Don Burnett, Louise Merrill, and Mike
Hogan, Stephen Webb, Todd Corder, Tim Marshall, Glenn Swaggart,
Boge Quinn, Wes Daems, and Kraig Pendleton. If anyone was left out, it
was unintentional!
DEDICATION
I dedicate this book to the memory of my father who left this world too soon,
and who taught us to reach high and accept no limits.
ABOUT THE COLLABORATORS
JOHN PARKER AND THE AUTHOR on a hog hunt in Florida. Parker is
packing the very first revolver chambered in the .500 JRH, an FA 83.
Louisiana born and bred, John Parker is a master welder by trade and
a hunter to the core, not to mention a freelance ballistician and a real
live cowboy. John has raised, trained, and shown horses and cattle, and,
during high school, had the Louisiana state champion quarter horse.
John began handgun hunting in the early 1970s with a Ruger Blackhawk
.357 convertible, eventually graduating to a Smith & Wesson Model 29
.44 Magnum. John also shot in IHMSA competitions for a number of
years. He says that the writings of Ross Seyfried were truly what fueled
his desire to hunt large and dangerous game with a big-bore revolver.
While living and working in Alaska in the mid-’80s, John found the
.44 Magnum to be a bit light in the loafers, for Alaska’s oversized game,
and so he commissioned Hamilton Bowen to build his very first custom
revolver chambered for the .475 Linebaugh. John took delivery in 1988,
just in time for the fall hunting season. John Parker has the distinction of
having stopped an angry grizzly bear with a big-bore revolver, and living
to tell about it (see account in the last chapter of this book), an
encounter that cemented the man’s faith in these guns.
Today, John Parker serves as a member of the editing committee for a
major bullet manufacturer’s annual loading manual. He is a trusted
friend, one I know has forgotten more about big-bore revolvers than
most will ever know.
Jack Huntington was born and raised in the high desert of Southern
California, and he decided early on that his life would revolve around
guns. Chasing the dream led Jack through numerous high school
courses, including some simple gun work, that culminated in an honor in
industrial arts. The next stop took Jack through an undergraduate
program in Small Arms Engineering and Ballistic Science. He completed
that program with a Bachelor of Science degree, in 1983. Next, working
at an entry-level engineering job in a small arms manufacturing firm,
where he performed all facets of design, product testing, and planning,
Jack was motivated to create.
MASTER GUNSMITH Jack Huntington, owner of JRH Advanced
Gunsmithing, hard at work in his shop.
Having an exceptional working knowledge of revolvers, and motivated
by the works of earlier master gunsmiths like Dick Casull, Jack made the
decision to follow suit and build a five-shot big-bore mega revolver. In
1987, Jack purchased The Rifle Shop from noted African rifle builder
Ryan Breeding. As a trained tool and die machinist, Jack performed
warranty work for Smith & Wesson, Colt's, Winchester, Browning,
Remington, Charter Arms, and Thompson Center Arms, to name but a
few. It wasn’t an immediate endeavor, thanks to his busy schedule, but,
in 1988, the five-shot Jack Huntington revolver was born.
That first revolver was chambered in .500 Linebaugh. Jack followed
that one immediately with a .475 Linebaugh built on a Ruger Bisley
frame. Simultaneously, Jack was building big-bore bolt-action rifles for
hunting in African, heavily influenced by good friend and mentor Gill
Van Horn, a permanent fixture in his shop. To complement his rifle
work, Jack then started producing all manner of five-shooters.
In 1991, Jack got the bright idea to monkey with the Freedom Arms
Model 83 platform. While the Model 83 is a masterful hunk of steel, Jack
wanted to shoehorn something bigger than the .454 Casull into the FA’s
cylinder. After some careful study, it was decided that, by making a
smaller rim on a .475 Linebaugh case (at that point, it was still a wildcat
using cut down .45-70 brass), the cartridge could and would fit in the
limited confines of the Model 83’s cylinder. It was time to contact
Freedom Arms.
Jack spoke with production manager Randy Smith, who expressed his
enthusiasm for the idea of a .475 Freedom Arms Model 83. The fly in the
ointment for Randy was the fact that cases had to be modified on a lathe
one at a time. In other words, there was no simple commercial solution.
Still, Jack continued to convert FA 83s to the new specification .475
Linebaugh, but it wasn’t until 1999 that Freedom Arms took real notice,
when Tim Sundles of Buffalo Bore acquired the case dimensions needed
to make the .475 Linebaugh work in the excellent Model 83. Sundles got
Starline to produce properly headstamped brass that featured a smaller
rim and a slightly shortened case length, and began commercially
producing .475 Linebaugh ammunition. This became the impetus for
Freedom Arms to finally offer production Model 83s in .475 Linebaugh,
in the year 2000.
JRH Advanced Gunsmithing officially opened its doors in 1997, but
Jack had began working on the .500 JRH as a concept all the way back
in 1993, when he’d made a dummy in his lathe. His desire was for a full-
power .50-caliber round that would fit the limited space of an FA 83.
While the .500 JRH didn’t initially show any commercial viability, the
tides of time brought the .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum case to life.
Right on its heels came the .500 JRH case, bearing only a slight change
in the rim diameter and case length. With the help of his friend Tim
Sundles, and Bobby Hayden of Starline Brass, the .500 JRH was born
and displayed for the first time at the Safari Club International show in
Reno, Nevada, in 2005. It was at this show that a friendship began
between Jack and production manager of Magnum Research, Jim Tertin,
and in the months following the show, Jim built a prototype and began
offering the .500 JRH in Magnum Research’s Precision Center revolvers.
With much time and money invested in the .500 JRH, Jack sought to
test his creation on a number of large bovines and found it wanting for
nothing. The slow stream of interest in this very useful big-bore cartridge
continued to grow, and real life was breathed into the Magnum Research
BFR in .500 JRH in 2011, due in large part to the editorial work of this
book’s author, Max Prasac.
Today, Jack continues to innovate and build exotic pistols, revolvers,
and rifles in his northern California shop. When time permits, Jack
enjoys hunting large game with a big-bore revolver of his making,
preferring the .500 JRH above the others.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 — The Cartridges
CHAPTER 2 — The Platforms
CHAPTER 3 — The Case For Customs
CHAPTER 4 — Care and Feeding of Your Big Bore Revolver
CHAPTER 5 — Bullet Types, Energy, & Other Myths Exposed
CHAPTER 6 — Sighting Systems
CHAPTER 7 — Holsters – Carrying Your Revolver in the Field
CHAPTER 8 — Shooting Your Big Bore Revolver
CHAPTER 9 — The Pioneers
CHAPTER 10 — Tales From the Field: Hunting with a Big-Bore Revolver
FOREWORD
The first firearm I ever built was a single shot “cap-’n’-ball” pistol
made from the broken axle off an old Ford. While the diameter of the
bore was approximately ⅜-inch, it was by no means a big-bore handgun,
but, rather, a product of the largest drill bit I could get my hands on at
the time. I was about 11 years old, then, and my objective was to build a
pistol that would serve me reliably during my daily excursions hunting
small game in the hills behind my parents’ home in Salt Lake City.
The philosopher Plato is credited with the statement, “Necessity is the
mother of all invention.” During those depressed times that were the
years of my childhood, it seemed nearly everything we did was out of
necessity. Necessity had me working in my father’s garage at a very
early age, learning skills and applying principles that would forge the
foundation of my life’s work. That period of my life also exposed me to
some early pioneers of the firearms trade who were instrumental in
perpetuating my interests and promoting my passions. All were legends
within a proud industry, and each had something to offer that built upon
the designs of those who preceded them. Despite my youth, I was a
lucky recipient of their friendships and knowledge and, in return,
privileged to their challenges.
One of those challenges involved the Colt .45 Single Action revolver. It
was a firearm of choice, for me and many of my acquaintances, due to
its availability and affordability. Definitely a big-bore, its accuracy was
often inconsistent and, from my standpoint, power was anemic. Ever
thankful of the skills learned early in life, I often set upon the task of
“perfecting” those old Colts. One thing led to another, and pretty soon I
was pushing the structural limits in pursuit of “just a little more power.”
If necessity is the mother of all invention, then passion must be the
father of innovation. It is the culmination of necessity and passion that
has guided me through the years designing the .454 revolver and
cartridge that bears my name.
The unknowing often ask, “Why the need for so much power in a
handgun?” Simplistically speaking, it is because it was what I wanted,
and I would not be denied! I would bet those same individuals would
have asked a similar question when seeing the first wheel. Realistically,