Handgunning started early in my life...I guess I was fortunate. But the road wasn’t all roses and no curves. I lost some of the finest guns I ever owned to a car fire when I was in Texas...they were in the trunk. That was in my early twenties....in my late forties a collection of over 150 rifles and handguns were taken from us....a Tredway Safe six feet long, three feet high, and three feet across, filled with the treasure of a lifetime...gone(much of it to take care of retirement and to leave to my children).

But there are plenty of good solid memories also....some time later I will write about the rifles....but this time it’s the handguns.

Folks are always curious about the first time for anything in a person’s life. The first handgun I held was after I spent some time with small 22 LR rifles. So I knew how to shoot. Rifles in those days only had iron sights or peep sights...scopes were pretty much unseen. Especially on 22 LR single shots like I had. I had a grandfather that lived in the northern part of New York State. I would live with him and my grandmother during the summers....they had a small farm in the middle of nowhere so shooting was a natural event. And in those years game meat was an important part of the yearly groceries, and boys were expected to hunt small game, rabbits and squirrels were in profusion.

I remember it better than yesterday. I was around nine, the Ol’Man (grandfather) and I were in one of his fields. He had handed me a 1911 45acp. It was heavy, it was pure military and it was loaded with hard ball...he had taken it home with him when he left the military in the early teens of the century. He gave me instructions on how to hold, and aim, and fire. I was too excited and held it too close, locked wrists but loose elbows...with the first shot the gun came back and whacked me in the face. The Ol’Man laughed. I got hot, and thru tears and heat I emptied the rest of the clip into a water barrel 20 or 30 yards away. It was used for the livestock....water poured out of holes everywhere....he stopped laughing.....but never said a word about the old wooden barrel.

Instead he slipped the most beautiful revolver a boy ever saw out of his pocket. It was a small four inch barreled S&W in 32-20...a hand ejector model. It was silver plated and had real ivory stocks. I remember it was smooth and cool to the touch. I learned that you could actually hit things at long range, using handguns...with that S&W. Remember in the forties handguns were not used to hunt with or shoot at long distances.  

The Ol’Man let me carry the little gun around the farm, and taught me to reload the shells with black powder. I loved the reloading, but the black powder I disposed of quickly...I smuggled a pound of Bullseye into the barn’s tack room, and used a 22 LR shell soldered to a nail as a scoop. Actually as I remember, it was a fairly stout load in those days...a little over 4 grains, under a 100 grains or so of flat nose bullets. I made the cast bullets from a little bronze mold that heated up so fast you had to keep dipping the handles in water to cool them. I remember squirrels with that load came right off branches, where it wasn’t always that way with 22LRs.

Hardware stores in those days would sell a kid ammo , and powder, and other needs...not like our undiscipline society today, that has to pass laws to protect us, from children. Children who have parents that know little of discipline themselves, let alone passing it on to them.

I guess I was getting around 800 fps with the load. I sat in a field one day and shot at an old porcelain pot out about 80 yards...knowing that it was impossible to hit anything at that range with a handgun..everybody said so. Handguns were for close protection and small game. I’ll never forget when the sound of that first strike came back, I was amazed...and the long range handgunner was born. The odyssey now going on over half a century in years........................

There was a Colt 45 SA that went to Africa with me when I was a young man...it also had a 44 special barrel and cylinder, I used both calibers over there. And then there is the Keith gun. I was to be shipped from Africa to a strange sounding place in South East Asia....because we did much of our work in plain clothes, the military in their wisdom figured the 45 acp 1911 we carried spelled military. So they took them back and issued 38 specials...I don’t know if you know anything about military 38 special ammo, but to be kind I’ll just say I’d rather carry a big stick. A letter to Elmer Keith...and a cry for help...brought a S&W mod.28 in 357 magnum. How that gun got to me is a story in itself....some day I’ll share it with you. I used the powder from 45 acp ammo, and had a Keith 173 grain mold...

I did two TDY tours in Southeast Asia...and had occasion to use the magnum several times. Once firing thru a boiler plated idiot with a sword that came screaming into our A-Camp one night. The 173 grain hard cast bullets...punched right thru the old iron plate, leaving some good sized holes exiting his body. Which amazed all the Viet Namese G.I.s when they gathered around to gawk at the dead V.C. I remember one youngster asking..."Gowd Lt. what you got in that gun...?"

My smartassed answer was something along the lines of..."I load it with Big Momma ammo...." Big Momma was the slang for the Browning Machine gun...50 caliber BMG ammo. My remark relieved a lot of the stress of the attack. And the moment. I still have that old gun, and it is one of the prize possessions, I have been able to hold on to....It was Eisenhower’s war in those late days of the 1950s...

In the early 60's I returned to New York City, civilian life, school and Law Enforcement. For the next 33 years handguns would be tools of my career...they would save my life and the lives of others, there also would great amounts of experimentation, they would be used to hunt with....long before that became popular. Also competition shooting, woods loafing, handling, using and shooting handguns of all types and kinds....hundreds and hundreds of handguns. Being a training officer in small arms in the military, my interest was more than just fun, hunting, work, etc.....I was always fascinated with design, strength or the lack of it, function and usefulness of gun and caliber.

One of my ancillary duties as a Federal Agent was Chief Firearms Officer in the Southwest for our agency. We would seize guns handguns used in the commission of a crime. Fed/regulations stated I had to destroy them...but did not say how......so I have tested guns to destruction, to find out just how strong they are, when and how they let go, what kind of damage occurs when they do.....I have also had a few scatter when I didn’t plan it....it certainly gets your attention. But I have learned a lot about handgun strength...how the pressures from fast powders will blow a gun with less pressure than slow powder...the erosion of ball powders...what expansion ratio means in the real world....and so much more. Read Linebaugh’s articles on pressure, he knows what he’s taking about.

I bought a 32-20 Colt single action in the 1960s. My gunny friends thought I was an idiot for paying so much for ‘An Old Sixgun’. But I took a lot of game with that old gun. I handloaded it warm...the Colt was designed for the 45 Colt cartridge...the skinny little 32-20s took little steel out of the chambers, allowing much higher pressures....it was flat shooting and deadly on small, medium game and the small Texas deer I took with it. When I realized the damage turtles do to ducks, I became a terror to the turtle populations. The 32-20 would do them right, fast and deadly.

It was in Virginia in 1970 that I became the owner of my first look-a-like Colt SA. It was chambered for the 45 Colt round. We lived at the time in the back country, in the wilds and wooded paradise of the state. On the way home from the gun store with my prize, I spied a vulture on a tree branch looking down into some heavy brush. I had no idea where the gun sights were set, but figured with the few rounds of factory ammo the store clerk gave me with my purchase (price by the way was $87.50), I hoped the gun was set for standard ammo.

I lined up on the big ugly bird and fired. He spread his wings and hopped down into the brush. Then suddenly he was back on the branch. I held a little steadier and fired again. Again he jumped into the brush below him but didn’t come back up. Imagine my surprise when I went over there and found not one...but two dead vultures. The first falling into the brush pushed the second up to the same branch and into the same dose the first got. They had been eating a rabbit.

And if you believe vultures only eat animals after they are dead, I have a small bridge in Kosova I would like to sell you..

The 44 magnum has been in and out of my life. A model 29 S&W that was custom rebuilt by Larry Kelly of Mag-Na-Port fame in the late 1970s save my life one dark and deadly night on a bayou bridge in Louisiana. Kelly had cut the barrel to three plus inches, round butted the grips to the K-Frame round butt size and fitted it with neoprene grips of the times...slicked and tuned and timed and of course mag-na-ported. When it was fired at night it was like the electric company lighting the night. I’ve used the big 44 hunting, and shooting and in Law Enforcement. But I have never been in love with it.....I’ve always tended to the 45 Colt. And when Ruger put it’s single action out in 45 Colt...that became my main hunting gun. And with many Rugers in this caliber later, I still have not changed my mind. Of course it’s just personal choice on my part. Many find the big 44 perfect for them, and that’s great. One Ruger 45 Colt was special, I had it rebuilt here in Tucson....I had a piece of orginal 1 in 18 twist H.Pope barrel and had about five and ½ inches put on the Ruger, also put a steel Super Bhawk grip frame on it...and a whole reworking of the action etc....it was the finest 45 SA, I have ever had....IRS got that one.

For years my main load in the Colt look-a-likes for the 45, was 18 to 19 grains of Herc 2400 under a Keith 255/260 grain cast bullet. I took wild boar, feral pigs, black bear, deer, feral dogs, and much, much more, with that load. I ran into the darndest situation in Richmond Virginia while packing that first 45 Colt clone in the early 1970s. Three idiots decided to hold up the bank I was in one day. Three shots from my 45 single action later, hold up was over, surrender was at the top of their list...and I had killed their car. Thinking back I never felt under gunned...and I never worried about reloading speed and all that stuff you read about. I knew the powder of that load, and my ability and accuracy.

When I started using Ruger 45 SAs...I stayed with the Keith bullet but went to 22 to 23 grains of Herc 2400 under it. That is a heavy load, and I know it’s safe only in my guns. But it hasn’t been all single actions and revolvers...I’ve been addicted to the 45 acp auto like forever....

My grandfather's 1911 may have been the first one I fired, but it certainly wasn't the last. All thru the military, even after they took the 45acp/1911a1 series off the line, there were plenty of them around to work with. Then in law enforcement my first senior partner, when I became a detective on the streets of New York City, told me to turn in the issue 38 S&W mod. 10 and buy myself a 45 auto. Which I quickly did. Today no matter where I am, or what I'm packing, there is a 45 acp close by. The latest is a John Daly 1911a1 with all the bells and whistles. For the price they are hard to beat. I am not enamored with the safeties on both sides of this model...I think it fattens the profile unnecessarily. It’s an ingenious solution to a problem that doesn't exist for me.

I feel the same way about double/single action autos. I can see double action only autos, for law enforcement...but I can't get used to the trigger shift in the double/single designs. I like the 1911 format as it was originally designed. When a person is trained correctly, having the gun in a constantly cocked condition is as safe as a so called hammerless autos. Just because you can't see the hammer on many of those, doesn't mean there is no hammer, or that they are not cocked, there is and they are...

I guess I'm just a traditionalist...I don't need de-cockers, double action only, and all the other so called solutions to accidental discharges. The truth is...it is all just a way to get around the lawyers that try to sue law enforcement agencies and gun companies. Training is always best. Departments that cut costs, by cutting back on qualification time and ammo amounts allotted to their officers, are asking for law suits and officers that are going to get hurt....

I had a little .380 Walther...neat gun...terrible cartridge. It was the model the 1968 Gun Control Act stopped from coming into the country. Shot a very large white Shepard mix feral dog into the top of his shoulder at almost point blank range...88 grain Super-Vel hollow point spread out on the shoulder knuckle and stopped. He ran away. That was in 1971. Two weeks or so later I caught him on a country road eating a friend’s little lap dog. This time I hit him in the head with a 173 grain Keith 357 slug over 15 grains of 2400 out of a custom five inch Python. The bullet went completely thru taking the off side skull off...I had traded the Walther in on the Python, one of my better trades. It was a custom Python, a six inch that had been cut back to five inches so it was easy to carry in a car. The orginal owner had bulged the last inch of the barrel so I had it circumsized, got it cheap made a better gun out of it. It had a two lb trigger pull in single action and down around six lbs in double action. It was a treat to shoot. You can do magic on Python actions...and a five inch barrel is just nice.

Sheriff Jim Wilson, a fine friend whose opinion I respect when it comes to things in Law Enforcement and guns.....he and I both don't have much regard for the 9 mms. I have had some really accurate guns in the caliber, but power wise I gave up on the 38s, no matter what they are called. The only exception is in home defense...with the right bullet, to stop it's propensity for over penetration the 9mm is a good cartridge.

Personally, I like the little 32 H&R magnum cartridge loaded warm in the small frame 38 special size handguns for home defense for people who have problems handling handguns. I have two Ruger 101s in 32 mag...one has been rechambered to 32-20 and the other is still 32 Magnum. My wife has the magnum...I keep the 32-20 and both have three inch barrels. Both easily get 1200 fps with a special Keith 125 grain cast bullet. Good solid home protection. Though I still think a 12 gage is the best of all worlds. It's just that older or infirmed people have special needs and the 32 mag meets them very well. With low noise and little recoil, it’s like a 38 wadcutter with more power.

I have had so many 22 L.R. autos and revolvers I could never keep count. But the best by far was a 22 Colt Match Woodsman with a five inch barrel. It was the most accurate 22 auto I ever owned....I actually got very lucky and killed a crow on the wing at about 30 yards in front of the Governor of Virginia in the 1970s with that gun. I never told him of course I was aiming at the bird in front of the one I hit. He was a hunter and like to hunt crows with a shotgun. Todays Ruger 22 L.R. series is tops. I have had many and have never found an inaccurate one....I have always had to work at finding the right ammo for each gun...but once found they were and are excellent.

The 22 mag rimfire in an autoloader or revolver has always facinated me. From the day I wound up cleaning up a barn yard full of wild dogs with a S&W mod. 48 in the early 1970s till now...I just love the little round. I have a four and a half inch barreled AUTOMAG 22 RF mag that is accurate, deadly and powerful for it’s size. Some turkey pulled a knife on me during an off duty arrest one day, I fired a warning shot into his knee cap with it and CCI High Vel RF Mag ammo. Big bad gang member laid on the ground and called for his mommy....My under cover agents in the late 1960s and early 1970s used to carry the H&R two shot 22 mag...it was excellent.

Of all calibers the 45 is my first choice...45 acp/45 colt/454, they are all under my skin.

The 357 loaded correctly comes next. Charles 'Skeeter' Skelton said it best, when he wrote that it wasn't his first choice in calibers...but if he could only have one gun, it would be chambered in 357.

It is the most versatile of calibers, plenty powerful, fairly flat shooting, with the right bullet and load, it is very deadly for law enforcement and personal protection. In cool hands it will take medium game in a pinch. I have one of the first Ruger 357 SAs in stainless steel to hit the market. Members of my staff in Virginia back in the early 1970s gave it to me. I lengthened the chambers an eighth of an inch and use cut down 357 maxi brass in it. I get close to 1750 fps with 173 cast Keith bullet. And yes it is loud!

I now have a Ruger Bisley in 357 with an unflutted cylinder that is roll scrolled. Some tell me that it is hard to find model. Don't know about that, but I do know it is one fine piece of machinery. Accurate to a fault, stronger then it appears, comfortable to shoot long runs of test ammo in it...