Some years back I got a Timberwolf frame for my Glock 17 from Lone Wolf Distributors. It was shortly after they were introduced, and I liked the idea of the 1911-style ergonomics. I was very happy with it, and only wished that they had one for the larger caliber Glocks.
But as such things go, I never got around to following up and getting one when I heard that they had developed a larger frame to accommodate 10mm and .45 caliber Glocks. But I had recently introduced a shooting buddy to the 9mm Timberwolf, and that reminded me to look into getting one for my G21 I have set up to handle .45 Super. This one:
Here it is with the .460 Rowland barrel and compensator. I seldom shoot it in this configuration now, and the pics below show it with the .45 Super barrel and compensator.
And I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that one option when ordering the Timberwolf frame is to get it without any texture. The idea is that Lone Wolf offers some different laser-texture designs as upgrades. But since I have my own laser …
… I decided to do my own custom design. Not just for the Grip, but as something of a theme for the gun. I could have completely personalized it, but decided that I wanted to stick with something which might be of interest to someone else, should I ever decide to sell the gun. So I came up with a geometric motif I liked which I thought would give sufficient grip texture to handle the fairly powerful .45 Super loadings. So what follows are pics of the process:
Bare frame. First, I did the grip sides with this “3-D Cube” motif.Then I added diamonds along the side of the front of the grip. This was slightly problematic, since my laser has limited focal range, and I couldn’t just stand the frame up to work on the front of the grip directly.The backstrap was easy to do with isolated 3-D Cubes, since it is a detachable piece. I like having some tape on the front of the slide, so came up with this simple design based on the 3-D Cubes.Finished product, view 1.Finished product, view 2.Finished product, view 3.Finished product, view 4.
I have already had a chance to shoot it with this configuration, and was really happy with the way it felt in my hand. The texture was fine, and I felt like it wouldn’t slip around even if my hands were wet with sweat, etc.
And I’m very happy with the new Timberwolf frame’s ergonomics and how it points more naturally for me. Glocks are good guns, but they have always felt a little awkward in my hands, requiring more attention for me to shoot consistently well. This has solved that issue.
Jim Downey
PS: No, I’m not available to do custom laser work. But you’re welcome to see the full range of designs I do have available here: http://enlightened-art.com/index.html
When you see this tag on a pistol, you know things may get interesting:
Can’t read it? Here’s the text:
CAUTION
This gun is unique in many
ways. Do not handle and/or
fire it without having read
the instruction manual.
If there is anything you don’t
understand, seek advice
from someone qualified in
safe handling of firearms.
Of course, we didn’t have the instruction manual. Details, details.
Here’s the tag in context:
Yeah, that’s a new production Wildey Survivor with a 10″ barrel, in .45 Winchester Magnum. Bit of a brute. Here are some other pics of the one we shot:
The Wildey is one of those interesting experimental guns dating back to the 1970s. It uses a gas-operated system at fairly high pressures to fling a substantial slug at high velocity: the .45 WinMag version we shot is supposed to move a 230gr bullet at about 1,600fps, for about 1,300 ft/labs of energy. Now, that’s about 40% more power than the .45 Super or .460 Rowland cartridges out of a similar length barrel, so it is definitely nothing to sneeze at.
Even more interesting, the Wildey has a collar behind the barrel which allows you to adjust the gas pressure for different loads or to manage recoil while minimizing malfunctions. Well, at least in theory.
Why do I say “in theory”? Well, because in practice the thing was very finicky. Which certainly could have just been a matter of it being a brand-new gun in the hands of inexperienced shooters (well, inexperienced in shooting a Wildey … the three of us shooting it were the BBTI team, and I think it’s fair to say we have more than the typical amount of handgun shooting experience). But check out this video of Ian from Forgotten Weapons putting a Wildey Survivor through its paces and you’ll see what I mean:
He has all kinds of problems with it, rarely getting off two or three shots before experiencing a malfunction. That was exactly our experience with the gun.
Now, I don’t want to give the impression that I hated the gun. I don’t have enough experience with it to have that much of an opinion, having only run a couple of mags through it myself. But all three of us had major problems with the gun, even after we consulted online resources to get tips on managing the malfunctions and tweaking the gas adjustment.
It is a cool, innovative design. It’s very well made. You pick it up, and you know you are holding something high quality. And hey, it was even a movie star. How can you not like that?
But at 4 pounds+ weight, and a substantial grip size, it is, as I said, a bit of a brute. And interestingly, as Ian notes at the end of the video above, the thing is all sharp edges just asking for a blood sacrifice. In fact, the BBTI member who took it home to clean it sliced up his hands while doing so.
An interesting gun. I’m glad I got the chance to shoot it. But I wouldn’t want to own one.
Prompted by my friends over at the Liberal Gun Club, this is another in an occasional series of revisiting some of my old articles which had been published elsewhere over the years, perhaps lightly edited or updated with my current thoughts on the topic discussed. This is an article I wrote for Guns.com, and it originally ran 9/18/2012. Images used are from that original article. Some additional observations at the end.
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At the risk of seeming to be obsessed with the .460 Rowland cartridge, given that I have written about it three times this year, allow me to give a report on what it is actually like to convert a Generation 3 Glock 21 over to .460 Rowland using a conversion kit from 460Rowland.com.
One of my Ballistics By The Inch buddies had a Glock 21 9/11 Commemorative model, and was anxious to try the conversion kit. He ordered it in, got it in good time, and we got together to give it a try.
The process
First thing we did was field strip the Glock and check everything over. The gun has been shot, but not a lot. Everything with it looked fine.
We went ahead and set up a single chrono, just so we could get some numbers for comparison. This wasn’t the usual more formal BBTI set-up, but we figured it would suffice.
Using the original .45 ACP hardware in the Glock, we shot some standard 230-grain ball ammo. It gave us readings in the expected range: about 780 fps. Then we ran some premium self-defense ammo, Cor-Bon 230 grain +P JHPs, and again got performance in the range expected: about 980 fps. Satisfied that the Glock was performing normally, we turned to the conversion kit.
The kit used came with just three items:
A new five-inch barrel chambered for the .460 Rowland and with about a half inch of threading on the end
A new captured recoil spring assembly
A threaded compensator
The current kit shown on the site now also has a small packet of what looks like blue loc-tite and runs for $319 (now $387, more for a Gen 4).
The instructions indicate that you’re supposed to secure the compensator with loc-tite, so my buddy brought some along. This is probably why they now include a small packet of it with the kit.
If you’re familiar with Glocks, you know that field-stripping the gun is simplicity itself. We did so, and removed the original spring assembly and barrel.
Then we checked to make sure the new parts looked like they would fit. Everything seemed fine in comparison to the original parts. We installed the new barrel, then the new recoil spring assembly. Close examination seemed to indicate everything was where it needed to be.
We re-assembled the slide to the frame. Again, everything seemed to be fine. Manually cycling the gun, there was little or no noticeable difference.
We decided to go ahead and try the gun at that point, before mounting the compensator, just to get a feel for it. This is not recommended, but we wanted to be thorough in our test, as informal as it was.
The test
The .460 Rowland ammo we had was the same as we had tested previously for BBTI, and what started me on this kick: Cor-Bon 230 grain ‘Hunter’ JHP.
Initial shots were about 1170 fps. Just about what I expected. The recoil was stout, and there was some muzzle flip, but neither was particularly bad. We proceeded to mount the compensator that came with the kit. The compensator just screws onto the threaded portion of the extended barrel. You screw it down until it is almost to the front of the slide, with the compensation holes facing straight up. Then back it off a couple of turns, add some loc-tite, and reposition the compensator. Allow it to dry sufficiently.
Once it was ready (not completely cured, but sufficient for our needs), we loaded the gun again and ran it through its paces.
And we gained about 50 fps. Yeah, all the subsequent chronograph readings were 1220 to 1230. Nice.
Also nice was the way the compensator changed the character of the recoil: it was still stout, but there was significantly less muzzle flip. We all shot the gun through at least a full magazine (13 rounds) and agreed – it was faster and easier to re-acquire your target with the compensator, and the gun took less man-handling to control. The recoil was, as noted, still stout, and felt different than the slow push of shooting a .45 ACP out of the Glock. It was probably closer to shooting a 10mm.
The 460Rowland.com site touts a Nosler 185 grain JHP “carry ammo” and claims that it achieves 1550 fps. I haven’t tested it, but I’d believe it. And if so, you’re talking a whopping 987 foot-pounds of energy out of the thing. That puts it beyond the 10mm. Beyond the .41 Magnum. That puts you pretty solidly into .44 Magnum territory. Even the 230 grain round we tested has a respectable 766 foot-pounds of energy – compared to 526 for the same weight bullet out of a .45 ACP +P.
A little suggestion…
I said it before and I’ll repeat it here: if you carry a .45, you should instead be carrying a .460 Rowland.
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Oh, boy.
Time for a serving of Crow: I now seldom recommend that people make the full switch to .460 Rowland.
As I have previously noted, I have now changed over to using the .45 Super cartridge rather than the .460 Rowland because the .45 Super offers most of the benefits of the .460 Rowland without some of the disadvantages. But I have kept the conversion kit in place because it gives me more flexibility in ammo selection and more control of the gun. And since I don’t carry the G21, the extra mass/length of the compensator doesn’t make a difference in day-to-day use.
So, yeah.
“Disadvantages” to the .460 Rowland? Well, I could never get my G21 to stop chewing up mags when shooting full-power .460 Rowland out of it. And the recoil could be … daunting, even for me (I’m not particularly recoil sensitive). I couldn’t ever share ammo with someone who had ‘just’ a .45 (the .460 case is slightly longer, and won’t chamber) — which is good (and intentional), because a lot of guns can’t handle the extra power of the .460 Rowland.
Now, the .460 Rowland definitely IS more powerful than the .45 Super out of handgun-length barrels. By a couple hundred foot-pounds of Muzzle Energy. That’s about the power difference of the .45 Super over the .45 ACP +P. But the .45 Super beats pretty much every other common handgun cartridge except the .460 Rowland and .44 Magnum.
You have to decide for yourself what trade-offs to make. But do so in an informed way. Look at the numbers. Try guns set up to shoot the different cartridges if at all possible — I often will stage my G21 to shoot three rounds each of .45 ACP, then .45 Super, then .460 Rowland so people can try the three rounds head-to-head. And usually they decide that .45 Super is more than sufficient.
Prompted by my friends over at the Liberal Gun Club, this is another in an occasional series of revisiting some of my old articles which had been published elsewhere over the years, perhaps lightly edited or updated with my current thoughts on the topic discussed. This is an article I wrote for Guns.com, and it originally ran 3/6/2012. Images used are from that original article. Some additional observations at the end.
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Glocks are like King Arthur’s Excalibur in reverse: where Excalibur could only be drawn by the true King, Glocks are intended to be handguns that fit just about everyone. The reasons to own a Glock far outweigh reasons not to own one. However, as the company introduces more models under the Glock Gen 4 moniker, this year it’s coming out with three (Glock 21, 32 and 34), it may pull in the stragglers…
Glocks aren’t for Everyone
“Did you see that? He picked up the Glock. He secretly wants to shoot it.” Jim said, pointing and smiling at me. “It’s OK. We know you really want to give it a try.”
“One of us! One of us!” chanted Keith, who stood beside him.
“Yeah, OK, I’m curious,” I said, turning the new Glock over in my hand, examining it.
Keith laughed. “Just giving you some crap.”
The truth is, I was curious. I knew that Glock had changed a number of things about the gun with the introduction of the fourth Generation model (or Gen 4 as they call it), as with the rest of their line. I hadn’t gotten around to trying any of the new guns yet. But my friends knew my bias against Glocks.
To clarify, I don’t like shooting them. I’m just one of those people for whom the ergonomics of the Glock design doesn’t really work. It always feels like I’m holding a brick and trying to shoot it. They don’t point naturally, they don’t feel right in my hands, and I have a hard time hitting the broad side of a barn with one. A shame, really, since I do think that they’re good guns, incredibly reliable, and they’re reasonably priced with plenty of accessories available.
My friends knew this. But one of them had just gotten the new Glock 21 Gen 4, and wanted to give it a try. I wanted to see whether the modular back-strap system would change the feel of the gun at all in my hands.
Glock 21 Gen 4
The Glock 21 is a full-sized .45 ACP pistol, generally considered to be a ‘duty’ gun. It holds 13 rounds, has a 4.6-inch barrel, a full-sized grip, and weighs 26 ounces. All around, it is a quality gun, though the emphasis is on function rather than looks. The sights are good, the trigger decent, and the fit and finish up to par. You know what you’re going to get from a Glock.
Keith (who is a Glock-certified armorer for his police department) took the gun from me, quickly disassembled it while giving me a run-down on the changes of the Gen 4 model: a more aggressive grip texturing, larger (and reversible) magazine release, and the aforementioned back-strap system.
But the biggie was the redesigned recoil spring assembly, which has an inner and an outer spring (captured together). He held it up, said “this makes it the softest shooting .45 I’ve ever tried.”
Quickly reassembling it, we loaded up magazines and gave it a try.
Shooting
How was it? Well, keep in mind that, as I said, I don’t care for Glocks generally.
I have large hands, bigger than either of my friends’. But counter-intuitively, the smallest profile back-strap was the one that felt the best to me. The ergonomics were much the same as the older Glocks I had tried, but for whatever reason it was easier for me to accommodate the shape of the grip with the lower profile back-strap.
And yeah, the recoil was mild. Very mild. Even though we shot first target ball ammo, and then full +P self-defense rounds, it felt like my mild practice reloads out of a full-sized 1911. Between the different grip and the recoil, it was easy for me to hit the target with my first shot and with subsequent follow-up shots.
Final Thoughts: In Glock We Trust?
After I went through a couple of magazines, I could tell that the ergonomics were still not quite right for my hand – the recoil did tend to focus on an odd place at the base of my thumb. But for the first time I could actually see myself owning one of these guns.
I’m going to have to give some of the other Gen 4 models a try, see if they offer the same (or similar) shooting experience. I don’t mind having to change my mind about me and Glocks. Don’t mind at all.
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Well, I *did* get a G21 Gen4, and did a .460 Rowland conversion on it (more on that next time). And since then I’ve also added a G30S (which is also a .45) to my collection. So clearly I’ve decided that the Gen 4 Glocks are indeed suitable for me.
As I said above: they’re good guns. I don’t consider myself to be a ‘Glock Fanboy’, but I don’t hesitate to recommend them to people … with the caveat that you should *always* try shooting a gun (on multiple occasions, if possible) before buying. Even with a Gen 4 Glock.
Look particularly at the backstrap: it’s now almost complete straight. My buddy took off most of the swell towards the bottom of the strap using a rasp and then sandpaper. He has little, meaty hands, and this change allows him to get much better purchase on the gun, with much better trigger position. He’s also planning on increasing the undercut on the trigger guard to accommodate his finger better.
Personally, the straight backstrap made it more difficult for me to get a good grip on the gun, and shooting the +P+ ammo out of it was downright painful for me, while the same ammo out of the unaltered G43 was just mildly annoying. The owner of the standard G43 didn’t have a problem with either ammo, and it was clear that my friend with the altered G43 was *much* more comfortable shooting it than the standard version.
So if you’ve ever thought about adjusting the grip of a Glock to better suit you, know that there are options out there which might be worth exploring.
After those tentative explorations in altering his G43, my friend decided to see what changes he could make to a couple of his other Glocks.
Now, before I go any further, some caveats: these changes probably ruin any warranty on the guns; they probably shorten the expected lifespan of the gun; and they may very well increase the chance that the gun would fail in normal use and injure the shooter. And they may give Glock purists reason to faint dead away, just looking at them. So DON’T DO THIS; if you do insist on doing this you do it at YOUR OWN RISK; and DON’T EVEN READ FURTHER if you are a Glock purist with a weak stomach.
Still with me? Then read on …
As I said, my friend has little, meaty hands, and even the small G43 presented a problem for him in gaining a good secure grip. So both his G36 and his G21 presented an even greater challenge.
Or, putting it a different way, they presented an even greater opportunity for some experimental alteration, thanks to the polymer construction of the Glock frame. Take a look:
G36 top, G21 bottom.
See how straight the backstraps are? The G21 has been taken all the way back to the box of the mag well. The G36 still has some of the backstrap, but it has been removed enough that the normal ‘void’ had to be filled in. The same is true of the G43, which he continued to alter from the initial experiment back in August. If you look at the back of the guns, you can see the grey filler material (PC7) he used:
G36 on top, left. G43 on right. G21 on bottom, left.
Also note that on each of the guns he had to trim out a bit of the bottom of the mag well on the back, because there was part of the mag well which extended down and would bite into the palm of his hand. You can see this part of the mag well in the very first image above.
To get a sense of just how much of a change he has made to the G21, compare it to my G21 on the right. It still has the original backstrap configuration, but with an added slip-grip to better fit my hand and tame the recoil of .45 Super and .460 Rowland loads:
Big difference, eh?
And it felt like it. I shot each of his guns, at least a full mag each, to see how the altered guns would fit my much larger (and less muscular) hands. Both the G43 and the G36 felt a little cramped in my hand, but were comfortable enough for a single mag of ammo. The much more altered G21 has a fairly sharp ridge where the back of the mag well dug into my palm. My friend also feels this, and is planning on trying to add a slip-grip to deal with it. If that doesn’t work, he can sculpt some PC7 along that edge to soften it.
Now, this kind of alteration isn’t something I recommend. It won’t work for everyone, and as noted it has some real downsides. But for my friend, it has finally allowed him to really get a proper fitting Glock in these three different models. It’s made a big difference in his comfort and accuracy shooting, and he is at peace with the possible downsides.
So if you have an unusual hand size or shape, it might be something to consider. All you really need is a file/rasp and some sandpaper … and nerves of steel.
I recently came across a really good sale on a Trijicon RMRreflex sight, and decided to take the plunge and add it to my Glock 21. I had handled and shot some other competition handguns with a reflex set-up, but I hadn’t yet tried one on a more-or-less stock gun intended for routine use, and wasn’t sure how well it would work or how I would like it.
My G21 had been set up to handle the .460 Rowland cartridge, complete with compensator, so it wasn’t exactly stock. You can see it here:
Converted G21 on left, G30S on right.
As I have previously noted, I have now changed over to using the .45 Super cartridge rather than the .460 Rowland because the .45 Super offers most of the benefits of the .460 Rowland without some of the disadvantages. But I have kept the conversion kit in place because it gives me more flexibility in ammo selection and more control of the gun. And since I don’t carry the G21, the extra mass/length of the compensator doesn’t make a difference in day-to-day use. Thinking along those lines, I figured that adding a reflex sight to the G21 wouldn’t cause a problem, and might make it an even better home defense firearm.
So along with the RMR I got an adapter plate which just slides into position where the rear sight of the Glock mounts. Mounting the optic just took a few minutes and no special tools other than a light hammer and brass punch. Here’s the result:
And this morning I had a chance to take it out to the range for testing, to see what I thought of it.
I like it. A lot.
It took a little getting used to, since I have about 50 years of shooting experience which has conditioned me to always look for the front sight on a gun, and place that on the target. The RMR sticks up too much for that to work well, and if you can see the front sight through the RMR you probably won’t see the red dot. Rather, you have to tilt the front of the gun down for the red dot to appear. This actually puts the gun back to the normal position you shoot it in, but you’re just looking above the front sight — parallel to the slide, as it were.
The RMR I got was the one with the 6.5 MOA dot, which I figured would be easier and quicker to get on target even if I wasn’t wearing my glasses, and would give me adequate accuracy at any distance I was likely to use the gun (say 25 yards or less). At 10 yards distance at the range, the dot appeared to be about half-an-inch across, perhaps a bit more. For my purposes this was more than accurate enough to knock down steel plates consistently. As I get more used to the RMR, moving out to 25 yards should give similar results.
Now that I’ve tried it on this gun, I can understand why others have decided to have a mount for the RMR milled into the slide of their gun. That would bring down the location of the dot and make everything more consistent with previous shooting experience. It would also make the gun more compact and more suitable for either duty or concealed carry. I doubt that I will go to the trouble or expense to have this done on the G21, but it is something I would consider for the G30S shown above, particularly if the next generation of reflex sights are even more compact and suitable for a handgun. It’s something to think about, anyway.
Prompted by my friends over at the Liberal Gun Club, this is another in an occasional series of revisiting some of my old articles which had been published elsewhere over the years, perhaps lightly edited or updated with my current thoughts on the topic discussed. This is an article I wrote for Guns.com, and it originally ran 3/8/2012. Some additional observations at the end.
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OK, we’re all adults here. I think that the time has come to talk about something a little filthy, something that has plagued shooters for decades and something we need to put a stop to, for the good of all of us gun owners. The time has come to clean up our act and get rid of all of our dirty magazines.
No, not *that* kind of dirty magazine (jeez – get your mind out of the gutter!). I’m talking about the kind of magazine that goes into your firearm. Sheesh.
Now, be honest: when was the last time you inspected and cleaned out your magazines? I mean took them apart and cleaned them thoroughly inside and out? Examined the parts for unusual wear? And then lubed ‘em properly with gun lube before putting them back together?
Seriously, this is one of those details that a lot of people just never think about: that to function properly, a semi-auto firearm (or a select-fire one, for that matter) needs a working magazine and while the magazine is usually a pretty simple component of a pistol, it too needs to be cleaned and maintained regularly (just like any other mechanical component of your gun). Otherwise it can impede smooth functioning of your firearm, and that can lead to very bad things called “weapons malfunctions” and “failures to feed”. Which can lead to the dreaded “oops, I’m dead” problem in a self-defense situation.
Happily, almost all modern handguns magazines have been designed so that the average person can disassemble and then easily reassemble them, though over the years I have known plenty of people who either didn’t know this or didn’t care (or really just forget to check/clean their magazines regularly).
Magazine Components
Some terminology before we go any further. Your typical magazine has four main parts:
Body – this is the overall housing.
Spring – the internal part that pushes cartridges up into the pistol.
Follower – a small metal or plastic plate on top of the spring which guides cartridges.
Floor plate – the bit at the bottom of the body that holds the spring and follower in place.
One other part I want to mention, though it is not a ‘component’ is the (feed) lips. This is the upper part of the magazine body that helps to position cartridges properly within the pistol so that they can be transferred from the magazine into the chamber of the gun. Sometimes these can become pinched, which could lead to failure to feed.
Taking apart Your Magazine
The good news is you should be able to disassemble most if not all pistol magazine designs out there. The bad news is that methods for this vary according to the style of magazine (i.e. Glock versus Colt 1911 magazines), so you should definitely consult your manufacturer’s instructions before attempting to take one of your handgun magazines apart. In general though, here’s how you do it:
Remove all the cartridges from your magazine.
Examine the magazine, looking for obvious wearing or breakage (rare, but it happens).
Look at the floor plate. There should be some variety of clip or clasp that keeps it in place and it might need a small part to be moved, or a little spring latch tripped (usually with a small rod or nail).
Slide off the bottom of the body once you remove the floor plate. Be careful when doing this, since the spring inside the magazine will be under some pressure and may want to shoot out (finding this smaller piece once its been lost can be a challenge too).
Take out the spring and follower from the bottom of the magazine. The follower may be mounted to the top of the spring, or it may be free and just held in place by spring tension. Try to pay attention to this as you remove the spring.
Cleaning
Now that your magazine is completely disassembled, you should be able to look up inside the body and see out the top where the lips are located. The interior sides of the body are where dirt can accumulate. This can interfere with the smooth movement of the follower. It can also retain moisture, and that can cause rusting. Here’s how you should proceed:
Clean the inside of the body thoroughly, using your usual gun cleaners and tools.
Look at the top of the body, where the lips are. Make sure that these are cleaned inside and out as well.
Examine the spring, checking for built-up dirt or rust. Wipe down with a rag & some cleaner, then lubricate lightly.
Do the same for the follower and floor plate.
Lightly lubricate all surfaces.
Now you’re ready to reassemble the magazine. Just reverse the steps for taking it apart, being careful that the follower and spring go in correctly (this matters on many, but not all, magazines). Hold the spring in place and snap the floor plate back into position.
Check the magazine to make sure that the follower moves freely when under pressure, and that the empty magazine fits back into the gun properly, and locks into place. Now you’re ready to use it again.
Words of Wisdom
There are two additional items I want to mention. One, and this is a discussion that comes up frequently in firearms forums, is whether you will hurt the springs in a magazine by leaving the magazine full of ammunition. Everything I know about springs, and every engineer I’ve ever talked with about this, both say “no.” It should be perfectly safe to load a magazine fully, put it into proper storage, and then leave it for years without causing a problem.
And two, I no longer “top off” my magazines. “Topping off” is where you fill a magazine, place it into a pistol, then chamber a round, and then remove the magazine and place another cartridge into the magazine before replacing it. You’ll see a lot of people refer to a given gun as “10 + 1″ or “14 + 1″. This is what they mean, and it is tempting to do in order to have an extra cartridge.
I used to do this regularly and usually I didn’t have any problems with my various pistols when I did. But every once in a while I’d get a failure of a gun to cycle properly after the first shot. I discussed it with friends, and one buddy who is an armorer for a SWAT team said that he’d stopped “topping off” for his department, and that it eliminated these rare but occasional problems. His theory was that the additional pressure of a completely full magazine on the underside of the bolt/slide operating mechanism slowed it down just enough to mess up the timing of the gun when it was fired, and so presented a problem.
Since I’ve adopted the practice of regularly cleaning my gun and filling my magazine only to capacity, I haven’t had any feeding problems and, if only for my own peace of mind, I’ve just made it my routine. Personally, I’d much rather have a gun which will reliably shoot the second round than have ‘one extra’ round in the mag. Your preference, like your mileage, may vary.
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About eighteen months after I wrote the above, I ran into some unexpected problems with mags for my Glock 21, which I had upgraded to handle the .460 Rowland cartridge. The whole thing is discussed here, but basically what was happening was that the additional power/speed of the .460 Rowland was causing damage to the front of the body of the magazines I was using. To the best of my memory, this is the first time I had actually had this kind of problem with a firearm. Had I not had this article still kicking ar0und in my head, it might have taken me even longer to sort out what was going on. (Now that I have shifted over to using .45 Super instead of .460 Rowland, I haven’t had any subsequent problems with this.)
I don’t take apart and clean my magazines after every trip to the range. But I try to remember to do it after a couple of trips, and that seems sufficient.
I have also learned the wisdom of cleaning *new* mags when I first get them (or when I buy a new firearm) — they’re often surprisingly dirty, and on a couple of occasions I have found mild corrosion on either the spring or inside the body of the magazine, because they had been stored in improper conditions or there was a minor problem with their manufacturing process. So, it doesn’t hurt to check.
My friends over at the Liberal Gun Club asked if they could have my BBTI blog entries cross-posted on their site. This is another in an occasional series of revisiting some of my old articles which had been published elsewhere over the years, perhaps lightly edited or updated with my current thoughts on the topic discussed. This is an article I wrote for Guns.com, and it originally ran 3/7/2011. Some additional observations at the end.
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“What is the best barrel length?”
It’s a question I get a lot, thanks to my involvement in Ballistics By The Inch. And invariably, I say in response: “it depends.” As in, it depends on what you’re going to use it for.
OK, first thing: I’m talking about pistol cartridges, not rifle cartridges. Got that? Pistol cartridges.
That’s what we studied with our BBTI project (actually, continue to study, since we’ve done several expansions of the cartridges and ammunition tested already, and have another big expansion coming up the beginning of May.) Now that we’ve cleared that up . . .
Different barrel lengths are good for different purposes. The longer the barrel, the longer the sight radius, and so the easier it is to be accurate with the gun. The shorter the barrel, the easier it is to conceal.
And barrel length has an effect on the velocity of a bullet (and hence the power of that bullet.) How much of an effect? Well, it depends.
No, seriously, it depends. Do not believe it when someone tells you “oh, the rule of thumb is about 75 (or 25 or 100 or any other number) feet per second for each inch of barrel.” That number may be right for one given ammunition in one given gun for one given inch of barrel length – but it will not hold true as a general case. Don’t just take my word on this – look at the actual numbers from tests we conducted, using almost 10,000 rounds of ammunition. You can go to the BBTI site and see the data for yourself (it’s all free, with no advertising or anything), but here are two examples:
Cor Bon 165gr JHP +P .45 ACP ammo was tested at 1001 fps with a 2″ barrel. That jumps to 1050 fps with a 3″ barrel, or an increase of about 50 fps. Going to a 4″ barrel you get 1163 fps, or an increase of 113 fps. But when you go from an 10″ barrel to a 11″ barrel, you only get an increase of 23 fps.
Let’s look at Federal Hydra-Shok 230gr JHP .45 ACP. It starts at 754 fps with a 2″ barrel, and jumps to 787 fps out of a 3″ barrel – an increase of 33 fps. Go to the 4″ barrel and it tested at 865 fps – an increase of 78 fps. And when you go from an 10″ barrel to a 11″ barrel, you only get an increase of 4 fps.
Do you see my point? It not only varies by ammunition, it also varies by which inch of the barrel you are talking about – the inch between 3 and 4 sees a lot more increase than the inch between 10 and 11.
Almost all handgun cartridges show this effect, and it makes sense: pistol cartridges use a fast burning powder, but it still needs a little bit of time to completely combust. The highest acceleration comes at first, and then usually handgun bullets plateau out somewhere between 6″ and 10″, with little additional velocity with longer barrels past that point. The graph of our first example shows this very well:
Some cartridges even show velocity starting to drop off with longer barrels, as the friction of the bullet passing through the barrel overcomes any additional boost from the gunpowder. Notably, the “magnum” cartridges (.327, .357, .41, and .44) all show a continued climb in velocity/power all the way out to 18″ of barrel length (the maximum we test), though the amount of increase tends to get smaller and smaller the longer the barrel.
So, back to “it depends”: if you want a lever-gun or carbine, which uses a pistol cartridge, you’re best off using one of the magnums if you want maximum power. If, however, you want to use a carbine for an additional power boost and better aiming, one with a barrel length somewhere in the “plateau” for a given cartridge makes sense (and this is why subguns typically have barrels in the 8 – 10″ range).
For a hunting pistol, you probably want to have a barrel of 6″ to 8″ to get a lot of the additional power and still have it manageable. This barrel length will also give you a nice big sight radius for accuracy, making it good for hunting or target shooting.
How about for concealed carry? The shorter the barrel, the better, right? Well, if you look through all our data, you’ll see that usually, most cartridges see the greatest jump in velocity (and hence power) from 2″ to 4″. Now, the smaller the caliber and the lighter the bullet, the more the big jump tends to come right up front – from 2″ to 3″. The larger the caliber and the heavier the bullet, the more it tends to come a little later, from 3″ to 4″. Still, you can decide for yourself whether the trade-off in less power for ease of carry is worth it.
And good news for the revolver fans: because the cylinder basically functions to extend the barrel, your 2″ snubby actually functions more like a gun with a 3.5″ – 4″ barrel. Though there is some velocity/power loss due to the cylinder gap. How much loss? That is actually the next thing we’ll be testing, but I’d bet that . . . it depends.
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Since I wrote that six years ago, we’ve done a LOT more testing at BBTI, and have now shot more than 25,000 rounds and greatly expanded our data. The cylinder gap tests mentioned above did indeed show that the amount of loss did vary according to a number of factors, but for the most part established that the effect wasn’t as large as many people thought. And we found an interesting exception to the “magnum” rule in one of our most recent tests: it turns out that the .45 Super cartridge behaves like a true magnum, by continuing to gain more power the longer the barrel, until at carbine lengths it is on a par with (or even exceeds) the .460 Rowland cartridge. Since the .45 Super is based on the .45 ACP cartridge, we expected it to perform like that cartridge and level off at about 10″, but it clearly continues to gain out to at least 18″.
I also want to add a couple of quick comments about how concealed-carry guns have changed, though this is more just personal observation than any kind of rigorous research. I think that as concealed-carry has continued to expand, more gear is on the market to make it easier to do, and I think for that reason some people are able to carry slightly larger guns and there are more guns available with barrel length in the 4″ – 5″ range. In addition, sight/optics/laser options have continued to improve, making simple sight radius less of a factor — meaning that for those who do want to carry a smaller gun, it is easier to use it well (though having better sights/optics/lasers is NOT a substitute for practice!) I expect that both these trends will continue.
See what I see? Yeah, at 3″ and 4″ all the .45 Super loads are superior in terms of ME over all the other cartridges in the top graph. At 5″ the .357 Mag catches up with some of the .45 Super loads, and at 6″ it is in the center of the pack.
To really do the comparison right, I’d need to average all the .45 Super loads, then add them directly to the first graph, but that’s more time and trouble than I want to take. But my point is that of all the ‘conventional’ CCW-caliber/size guns, it looks like the .45 Super is at the top of the pile. We did formal testing of just one .460 Rowland, and it is comparable to the .45 Super at those barrel lengths (though I know from informal testing that some other loads are more powerful). You have to step up to full .44 Mag to beat either the .357 Mag or .45 Super.
All along, we’ve said that if someone wanted to take the time, trouble, and expense to do some additional research along the lines of our protocols, that we’d be happy to include their data on our site. This is particularly true if it helped expand the selection of “real world guns” associated with the data for a given caliber/cartridge. Well, for the first time someone has expressed an interest in doing just that, prompting us to come up with an outline of what standards we feel are required for making sure it relates to our previous tests.
The biggest problem is that ammo manufacturers may, and do, change the performance of their products from time to time. This is why we have on occasion revisited certain cartridges, doing full formal chop tests in order to check how specific lines of ammo have changed. That gives us a benchmark to compare other ammo after a period of several years have passed, and shows how new tests relate to the old data.
But without going to such an extent, how can we be reasonably sure that new data collected by others using their own firearms is useful in comparison to our published data?
After some discussion, we feel that so long as any new testing includes three or more of the specific types of ammo (same manufacturer, same bullet weight & design) we had tested previously, then that will give enough of a benchmark for fair comparison. (Obviously, in instances where we didn’t test that many different types of ammo in a given cartridge, adjustments would need to be made). With that in mind, here are the protocols we would require in order to include new data on our site (with full credit to the persons conducting the tests, of course):
Full description and images of the test platform (firearm) used in the tests. This must specify the make, model number, barrel length, and condition of the firearm. Ideally, it will also include the age of the firearm.
That a good commercial chronograph be used. Brand isn’t critical — there seems to be sufficient consistency between different models that this isn’t a concern. However, the brand and model should be noted.
Chronographs must be positioned approximately 15 feet in front of the muzzle of the firearm used to test the ammo. This is what we started with in our tests, and have maintained as our standard through all the tests.
That five or six data points be collected for each type of ammo tested. This can be done the way we did it, shooting three shots through two different chronographs, or by shooting six shots through one chronograph.
All data must be documented with images of the raw data sheets. Feel free to use the same template we used in our tests, or come up with your own.
Images of each actual box of ammo used in the test must be provided, which show the brand, caliber/cartridge, and bullet weight. Also including manufacturer’s lot number would be preferred, but isn’t always possible.
A note about weather conditions at the time of the test and approximate elevation of the test site above sea level should be included.
We hope that this will allow others to help contribute to our published data, while still maintaining confidence in the *value* of that data. Please, if you are interested in conducting your own tests, contact us in advance just so we can go over any questions.
About 40 years ago, when I was an idiot teenager (yeah, I know — redundant, particularly in my case), we got this ’48 Willys Jeep. Since the engine was shot, we dropped an Olds V-6 in it. This was, essentially, like strapping a rocket to a skateboard. And it was too much power for idiot teenage me to handle. Twice I snapped the driveshaft on the thing, just dumping the clutch too damned quickly. Twice. My uncle (who I lived with) was certain that I had been racing or something similar. The truth was, I didn’t even have that much of an excuse; I had simply goosed the engine too much and popped it into gear too fast. The original driveshaft just couldn’t handle that much of a power spike.
This is kinda what happens to your poor .45 ACP firearm when you decide to run some .45 Super through it.
With the Jeep, we wound up putting a more robust driveshaft in it. And I learned that if I wanted to keep driving it, I needed to be less of an idiot.
This analogy holds to how you should approach handling .45 Super power out of your .45 ACP gun. Chances are, very occasional use of these much more powerful loads won’t cause any problem in a quality, modern-made firearm. But if you’re smart, you’ll either greatly limit how many times you subject your gun (and your body) to that amount of power, or you will take steps to help manage it better and extend the life of your gun.
Typical ‘standard’ (non +P) .45 ACP loads tend to have a maximum pressure of between say 15,000 PSI and about 18,000 PSI. When you get past that, you get into ‘over-pressure’, or +P territory, up to about 23,000 PSI. This is the range most common modern firearms are built to handle safely.
But .45 Super generates more chamber pressure than that. How much more? Well, it’s a bit difficult to say, since there is a surprising dearth of data readily available. Neither my 49th Edition of Lyman’s Reloading Handbook nor my 13th Edition of Cartridges of the World have data for the .45 Super. Real Guns has some reloading formulas for .45 Super which give results consistent with our tests, but there are no pressure specs listed. Hodgdon Reloading has some pressure specs (in C.U.P.), but all their listed results for .45 Super are well below what our tests results were. Wikipedia lists .45 Super as having a maximum pressure of 28,000 PSI, and given that .460 Rowland is usually considered to run 35,000 – 40,000 PSI, that is probably in the correct ballpark.
I have written previously about converting a standard Glock 21 from .45 ACP over to .460 Rowland, and what is involved with that. Specifically, a new longer barrel with a fully-supported chamber which accommodates the longer case of the .460 Rowland, a 23 pound recoil spring, and a nice compensator to help tame the recoil. I also changed out the magazine springs, using an aftermarket product which increases the spring power by about 10%. This is because even with the other changes, the slide still moves much faster than with .45 ACP loads, and the increased mag spring power helps with reliability in feeding ammo. But even with all of that, shooting full-power .460 Rowland loads tends to cause damage to my magazines (as seen in the linked post).
Do you need to do all that in order for your firearm to handle frequent use of .45 Super loads? Well, I think that if you want to use a .460 Rowland conversion kit, it *will* tame the amount of recoil more than enough, but I don’t think that it is necessary to go quite that far. I should note that I have now run several hundred .45 Super loads through my Glock 21, and the gun has operated flawlessly — WITHOUT any damage to the magazines.
Converted G21 on left, G30S on right.
Rather, I think that the smart thing to do is to start off with going to a heavier recoil spring, perhaps swapping out a metal guide rod for a plastic one (if your gun comes with a plastic guide rod). Stronger magazine springs are probably still a good idea, to aid with reliable feeding. If suitable for your gun, add in a recoil buffer. These are the steps I have taken with my Glock 30S, and am planning for my Beretta Cx4 Storm. So far I have put a couple hundred .45 Super loads through the G30S with this configuration, and it has operated without a problem — again without any damage to the magazines.
As I said in my previous blog post, I still think that the .460 Rowland is a hell of a cartridge. But I think that the .45 Super offers almost as many advantages to the average shooter, with less hassle. I would still recommend that anyone who intends on shooting more than the very occasional .45 Super loads out of their gun consider making some simple changes to handle the additional power and extend the life of their gun. Don’t be like the idiot teenage me; deal with the power intelligently.
At long last, we’ve now put up the page with the results of our .45 Super/.450 SMC tests earlier this year! We’ve also published the additional .45 ACP rounds tested at the same time, which doubles the amount of data for that cartridge available on our site.
As noted on the new .45 Super page:
.45 Super and .450 SMC (Short Magnum Cartridge) are two relatively recent variations on the classic .45 ACP cartridge. They were designed to gain more power from the cartridge than it was originally designed to produce, using modern smokeless powder and more robust case specifications. And these rounds achieve this goal, producing about 100% greater muzzle energy for a given bullet weight over standard pressure .45 ACP rounds, and about a 50% increase over .45 ACP +P (over-pressure) rounds.
One thing I notice right away is that in general, the energy curve for this cartridge is much more pronounced and consistent than the energy curve for .45 ACP loads (whether standard pressure or +P). In other words, this is a round which continues to see impressive gains in energy over a longer barrel length, rather than flattening out starting at 8 – 10″. That’s more like the behavior you see from a magnum revolver round. Even the .460 Rowland tends to not see much gain after about 10″ — with the result that while the .460 Rowland is clearly a superior round for shorter barrels over the .45 Super, most loadings of the .45 Super meet or exceed the energy of the .460 Rowland by the time you get to carbine-length barrels. And you don’t need to rechamber your gun to shoot it.
Seeing this performance out of the Cx4 Storm actually prompted me to act on something I had just been thinking about: to go out and buy one of the remaining new Cx4 Storms out there (Beretta decided to discontinue the gun in that caliber earlier this year). In a future blog post I’ll talk about the alterations I am making to that gun, and that I have made to a Glock G30S, to handle the additional power of the .45 Super cartridge.
For now, enjoy playing with the data. And please be sure to share it with others! Because while I have long been an advocate for the .460 Rowland — a cartridge I still like very much — I now think that the .45 Super is a better choice for most people. Further discussion of that next time.
Following the success of our .45 Super/.450 SMC tests this summer, I sat down to work up some reloads which would mimic the factory ammo we had tested.
Since both of these cartridges are fairly unknown, there isn’t a whole lot of good information out there to draw upon. But thereis some, at least for the .45 Super, and late last year/earlier this year I had worked up some preliminary loads, starting with .45 ACP +P (overpressure) published load data. But that was done using .460 Rowland cases and shot through my converted Glock G21, which I knew could handle the extra power. When reloading, it pays to be careful and conservative.
After I had seen the results from the extensive .45 Super/.450 SMC tests (some of whichhas alreadybeen published), I had a pretty good idea of where the power band for these loads was, and how different guns could handle it. Since I had previously worked up loads for .460 Rowland as well as done a lot of .45 ACP reloading over the years, I figured that I could come up with some pretty reasonable load levels to match what we had seen in the factory ammo.
So I sat down, looked through all my results and what was available elsewhere, and came up with loads* for three different bullet weights I had on hand: 185gr XTP, and 200gr & 230gr FP. I chose to use Longshot powder, which I have used successfully for both .45 ACP and .460 Rowland loads. (This is not an endorsement of any of these products, and I have not been compensated from these manufacturers in any way. This is just stuff I have on hand and know has worked previously.) I loaded 50 rounds each in .45 Super cases, using standard Large Pistol Primers.
But as I was doing so, I also realized that I had a bunch of .450 SMC cases left from the tests. And I figured that it might be an interesting experiment to load those cases to the exact same specs, other than the difference in primer size. To give the cartridge the benefit of better ignition, I used Small Magnum Pistol primers. Again, I loaded 50 rounds of each bullet weight.
Again, other than the difference in primers, the reloads I worked up were identical.
OK, before I go any further, I want to toss in some caveats and explanations:
This was an informal test, using only one chronograph and under less rigorous conditions than the formal BBTI tests. It was just me shooting a string of five shots, keeping mental track of what the numbers were for each, and then writing down a ballpark figure which seemed to best represent the overall performance. Also, I wasn’t using the BBTI light-frame which gives us more consistent chrono results.
I was using my personal firearms, two of which (the Cx4 and Glock G30S) were brand new — this was their very first trip to the range. Yeah, I got them after seeing how similar guns performed in the .45 Super/.450 SMC tests earlier.
Now, about the guns used:
Glock G30S with a Lone Wolf 23lb recoil spring and steel guide rod package. 3.77″ barrel
Interesting, eh? What seems to be happening is that full ignition of the powder takes longer with the .450 SMC loads. That would explain why there’s more of a discrepancy with the lighter bullets and shorter barrels, so the bullet clears the barrel faster — some of the powder hasn’t yet ignited with the Small Magnum Primer. But with the heavier bullets and longer barrel of the Cx4, there more time for more of the powder to ignite, reducing or eliminating the difference in performance.
That’s my take on it. If you have another one, please comment.
Also, I want to note just how well I managed to emulate the performance of the factory ammo. Compare the numbers above with what I have already published for the Glock 21 and Cx4 used in the tests earlier. And it isn’t published yet, but the G30S numbers are also right on-the-money for how the G36 used in the tests earlier performed (the two guns have the same barrel length). In all instances, my reloads* performed within 10-15 fps of the factory loads.
Jim Downey
*So, what exactly were those loads specs? OK, here’s the data, but provided with the understanding that you should WORK UP YOUR OWN LOADS starting below these amounts, and accepting that you do so on your own responsibility. Also note that any changes in bullet weight, bullet brand, or powder type may/will alter the results you can expect. AGAIN: you use this data on your own responsibility. Be safe.
Got a question I haven’t seen for a while. Here it is, with my answer (and a little bit of additional explanation) to follow:
Thanks for the site! You do not post the altitude and temperature of your results (unless I missed that). Can you let us know what your reference points are? Also, what effect would altitude and temperature variation have on your results?
Here’s the answer I gave:
Well, it’s been a while since anyone asked about that … thanks!
We did discuss this early on, and decided pretty quickly that while both of those would indeed have an effect (as would the changes in barometric pressure), that it would be so small as to not matter for the degree of accuracy of our testing equipment and the limited number of rounds tested. If you were trying to get really good data, everything would have to be much more rigorous and controlled … and we would never ever have gotten the data that we did. So as I remind people: consider the results to be *indicative*, not definitive. In other words, don’t try to read too much into variances of a few feet-per-second, or convince yourself that such minor differences really matter.
Hope that helps to give a little perspective.
Oh, and I can answer one of your questions: almost all the testing was done at an elevation of approximately 744′ above sea level, according to commercial GPS systems.
I think that’s pretty clear, but I want to emphasize one part of it: that if we had set out to provide really rigorous and statistically-significant data, the chances are that we would never have even gotten past the first test sequence. And that means there would be NO BBTI.
As it is, we have tested something in excess of 25,000 rounds over the last 7 years. At a personal cost of more than $50,000. And that doesn’t begin to include the amount of labor which has gone into the project. To get really solid data which was statistically significant, we probably would have needed to do at LEAST three or four times as many rounds fired. With three or four times the amount of time testing. And crunching the data. And cost out of pocket.
Which would have meant that we probably would never have gotten through a single test sequence.
So it’s a matter of perspective. Do you want some data which is reasonably solid, and gives a pretty good idea of what is going on with different cartridges over different barrel lengths? Or do you want very accurate, high rigorous data which would never have been produced?
Hmm … let me think about that … 😉
Jim Downey
PS: We haven’t forgotten about the .45 Super/.450 SMC tests — it’s just been a busy summer. Look for it soon.
This is the second in a series of informal blog posts about the .45 ACP/Super/.450 SMC testing sequence we conducted over the Memorial Day weekend. You can find the previous post here.
Today we’re going to see what the results are for a couple of different high-end 1911 platform guns. The first is an Ed Brown Kobra Carry (reviewed here), a Commander-sized (4.25″ barrel) single stack designed as a concealed-carry gun. We made no modifications of it for the more powerful loads. Here it is during our testing:
The second is a Wilson Combat Hunter set up for the .460 Rowland cartridge with a 5.5″ barrel. Here’s my review of it, and here it is on the day of testing:
As I said with the other two posts about these tests, it’ll be a while before we have all the data crunched and the website updated, but I thought I would share some preliminary thoughts and information through a series of informal posts.
Quick note about the data below: All the ammo used, with the exception of the four * items, were part of our overall test sequence and had three shots made over the Oehler chronograph (which is a double-unit, and automatically records and then averages the two readings), representing a total of 6 data points. I’m just giving the overall averages here; the full data will be available on the website later. The four * ammunition types only include two shots/four data points through the Ed Brown Kobra Carry, since it is a typical length for a self-defense gun. That’s because we only had one box of each of this ammo, and were wanting to get data which would be of the greatest use to the largest number of people.
As with the other guns I’ve posted about, the general trends are pretty clear with the power rising as you go from standard pressure to +P to Super/.450 SMC, and topping out at about 750 foot-pounds of energy in a couple of loads. And it is interesting to note that the 185gr loads seem to be the “sweet spot” in terms of power across the board.
Of course, pure power is just one component for what makes a good ammunition choice. Bullet design & penetration is extremely important when considering a self-defense load. Shootability in your gun is also critical — because if you can’t recover quickly from shot to shot, then you may limit your ability in a stressful situation. Likewise, if the ammo doesn’t function reliably, or damages your gun, that is also a huge factor.
Most of the ammo we tested functioned very well in both 1911 platforms. Interestingly, while we had experienced FTFs (failure-to-fire) with a number of the different Double-Tap rounds in both the Bobergs and the Glocks, we didn’t experience any such problems with either 1911.
The larger platform of the Wilson Combat Hunter handled the recoil very well, even from the hottest loads. Recoil was a little more noticeable with the Ed Brown, but only by a slight amount. As I noted with the Glock 21 converted for the .460 Rowland, I was impressed that The Wilson Combat Hunter didn’t have any problems cycling even the lightest loads reliably.
Another note: we were unable to detect any damage or unusual wear to either gun, though it is possible a steady diet of loads of that power could cause some over the long term.
Lastly, I ran some .460 Rowland Buffalo Bore 230gr JHP cartridges through the Wilson Combat Hunter, since we had only had one type of ammo for that gun when we did the .460 Rowland tests. That had been Cor-Bon Hunter 230gr JHP. The Cor-Bon tested at 1213 fps / 751 ft-lbs, and the Buffalo Bore tested at 1349 fps / 929 ft-lbs of energy.
Look for more results, images, and thoughts in the days to come.
Here’s a pic of getting set the first day of shooting:
It’ll be a while before we have all the data crunched and the website updated, but I thought I would share some preliminary thoughts and information through a series of informal posts. In this post, we’ll see how two different versions of a Gen 4 Glock 21 performed with the ammo. The first version was with the Glock in the standard .45 ACP configuration, the second was with my .460 Rowland conversion kit in place.
The standard configuration has a 4.61″ octagonal polygonal rifling, while the conversion barrel is 5.2″ overall with conventional rifling, threaded, and with a compensator. The .460 conversion also has a heavier recoil spring.
Quick note about the data below: All the ammo used, with the exception of the four * items, were part of our overall test sequence and had three shots made over the Oehler chronograph (which is a double-unit, and automatically records and then averages the two readings), representing a total of 6 data points. I’m just giving the overall averages here; the full data will be available on the website later. The four * ammunition types only include two shots/four data points through the standard Glock 21 configuration — we only had one box of each of this ammo, and were wanting to get data from a range of guns.
The general trends are pretty clear with the power rising as you go from standard pressure to +P to Super/.450 SMC, and topping out at about 750 foot-pounds of energy in a couple of loads. And it is interesting to note that the 185gr loads seem to be the “sweet spot” in terms of power across the board.
Of course, pure power is just one component for what makes a good ammunition choice. Bullet design & penetration is extremely important when considering a self-defense load. Shootability in your gun is also critical — because if you can’t recover quickly from shot to shot, then you may limit your ability in a stressful situation. Likewise, if the ammo doesn’t function reliably, or damages your gun, that is also a huge factor.
Most of the ammo we tested functioned very well in the Glock in either configuration. This isn’t surprising to anyone who has much familiarity with Glocks which typically will handle just about any ammo under all conditions. We did experience FTFs (failure-to-fire) with a number of the different Double-Tap rounds. Those seemed to have been due to light strikes on the primer, which could have been due to improper primer seating, ‘hard’ primers, or some other factor.
The larger platform of the Glock 21 handled the recoil very well, even from the hottest loads. I was impressed that even with the .460 Rowland conversion in place, with the additional weight of the compensator and the heavy recoil spring, the Glock didn’t have any problems cycling even the lightest loads reliably.
One other note: as discussed in my blog post about the .460 Rowland conversion, full-power .460 Rowland loads tend to cause damage to the magazines. As far as we could tell, the same isn’t true of the full-power .45 Super/.450 SMC loads. Just one magazine (a new one) was used for all these tests, and there was no detectable damage. Nor was there any other damage detected to the gun otherwise, though it is possible a steady diet of loads of that power could cause some over the long term.
Look for more results, images, and thoughts in the days to come.
Well, well, well, BBTI made it to six years of shooting fun and research!
Yup, six years ago today we posted the first iteration of Ballistics By The Inch, and included data for 13 different handgun cartridges. Since then we’ve continued to expand on that original research, including some extensive testing on how much of an effect the cylinder gap on revolvers has, what performance differences you can expect from polygonal over traditional land & groove rifling, and added another 9 cartridges, as well as going back and including a very large selection of real world guns in all the different cartridges. This blog has had 100,000+ visitors and the BBTI site itself has had something like 25 – 30 million visits (the number is vague because of changes in hosting and record-keeping over time).
We’ve had an impact. I’ve seen incoming links from all around the world, in languages I didn’t even recognize. There’s probably not a single firearms discussion group/blog/site out there which hasn’t mentioned us at some point, and our data is regularly cited in discussions about the trade-offs you make in selecting one cartridge or barrel length over another. I’ve answered countless emails asking about specific points in our data, and have been warmly thanked in return for the work we’ve done. And on more than a few occasions people have pointed out corrections which need to be made, or offered suggestions on how we could improve the site, sometimes providing the results from their own crunching of our data.
When we started, it was fairly unusual to see much solid information on ammo boxes about how the ammunition performed in actual testing. Now that information is common, and expected. Manufacturer websites regularly specify real performance data along with what kind of gun was used for that testing. And the data provided has gotten a lot more … reliable, let’s say. We’ve been contacted by both ammo and firearms manufacturers, who have asked if they can link to our data to support their claims of performance — the answer is always “yes” so long as they make it clear that our data is public and not an endorsement of their product. And we’ve never taken a dime from any of those companies, so we can keep our data unbiased.
And we’re not done. We have specific plans in the works to test at least one more new cartridge (and possibly revisit an old favorite) in 2015. I try to regularly post to the blog additionalinformalresearch, as well as sharing some funshooting and firearmstrials/reviews. There’s already been one firearms-related patent issued to a member of the BBTI team, and we’ll likely see several more to come. Because we’re curious guys, and want to share our discoveries and ideas with the world.
So, onward and upward, as the saying goes. Thanks to all who have cited us, written about us, told their friends about us. Thanks to all who have taken the time to write with questions and suggestions. And thanks to all who have donated to help offset the ongoing costs of hosting and testing — it makes a difference, and is appreciated.
John Ervin at Brass Fetcher Ballistic Testing has just put up a new page about his testing of the .460 Rowland cartridge. As I have explained in the past, our work at BBTI is intended to be an overview of how ballistic performance varies over barrel length — it is just a quick survey to get an idea of the general trends, not meant to be an in-depth examination of a specific cartridge.
But in-depth testing is exactly what Ervin does, using a larger sample size, ballistic gelatin, and high-speed videography. And as a result, his much more detailed analysis is more useful for getting into the details of a given cartridge out of a specific barrel length. And it is really good to see that his results confirm what I have been saying all along: that if you carry a .45, you should instead be carrying a .460 Rowland.
What specifics? Take a look at the performance of Speer 230gr Gold Dot HP .45ACP in terms of foot-pounds of kinetic energy transfer into 20% ballistic gel:
Pretty good, eh? It’s what we expect from the .45ACP: a solid energy dump and reasonable penetration.
Now let’s take a look at the same chart, but with the Speer 230gr Gold Dot HP in .460Rowland:
The curves don’t look that different on first glance, but pay close attention to the scale there on the left axis of each one: where the .45ACP tops out at about 72 ft/lbs about 2″ into the gel, the .460Rowland tops out at about 335 ft/lbs just before 2″. That’s more than 4x the energy transfer.
In fact, at 5″ of penetration, the .460Rowland is still dumping about as much energy as the .45ACP does at the maximum.
But there’s more than simple energy transfer involved in terminal ballistic performance. There’s also how well the bullet is designed, and whether it expands properly. This can be a big concern in “over-driving” a bullet, so that it breaks apart. Well, Ervin’s data also covers these comparisons quite well. For the two specific rounds cited above, the .45ACP expanded to 0.344 square inches of frontal surface, and was still 229.5gr of weight. And the .460Rowland expanded to 0.526 square inches of frontal surface, and was still 221.3gr of weight.
There’s a *LOT* more information at Brass Fetcher Ballistic Testing. Ervin has an extensive 17 page Ammunition Performance Data report in .pdf format which contains a ton of images, video, and data — more than enough to keep even a data-junkie like me busy for a long time. I urge you to take a good look at it, and to consider the thoughts which Ervin shares about this cartridge. But I will leave you with his opening sentence which sums it up very nicely:
The 460 Rowland represents the pinnacle of handgun calibers for self-defense.
A friend dropped me a note, after looking over my previous experiments with putting .460 Rowland load power into .45 ACP cases, and asked a fairly simple question: Do you think that the case walls are actually thicker in the .460 Rowland?
Now, I have read several articles over the years which mentioned that the .460 Rowland cases were “stronger” with others saying that the cases were “thicker”. In fact, in the blog post cited above, I myself said:
Even shooting them in a gun designed to handle .460 Rowland power was risky, since the .45 ACP cases do not have the same strength as the .460 Rowland cases.
But is that actually true?
Good question. My Lyman 49th Edition Reloading Handbook doesn’t give case wall thickness for the .45ACP, and doesn’t list .460 Rowland at all. A quick check online also didn’t turn up any case wall thickness specs for either cartridge. As noted above, there are some gun writers out there who claim that the .460 Rowland case has thicker walls “for strength” but this claim isn’t made on the 460Rowland.com site that I could find.
So, being the data-curious guy that I am, I decided to just take some measurements and see what I found.
The only .460 cases I have are all Starline brass (I ordered 500 from them, and supplemented with other brass from factory Buffalo Bore ammunition – again, all of it marked as Starline), and I went through and checked a bunch with my simple calipers. Now, those calipers aren’t the pincer type, just the standard parallel-jaws type, so I only trust the measurements to about halfway down the case. And they all fell into a range of wall thickness from 0.012″ to 0.014″.
Doing the same measurement with ten different ‘marked’ sets of .45 ACP brass I also have readily to hand, the results were almost identical, with the vast majority of cases being 0.012″ or a thousandth of an inch on either side of that. It didn’t matter whether the cases were nickle-plated or marked “+P”. The ‘marked’ brass was as follows:
Cor Bon +P
ELD
Federal Brass
Federal Nickle
R-P
S&B
Speer Brass
Speer Nickle
Starline
Winchester
And when you stop to think about it, there would be no reason or way for the case walls to be significantly thicker in the .460 Rowland cartridge, and still allow you to use standard .45 ACP reloading components and dies. If the case walls were substantially thicker, then you’d have to have slightly smaller bullets, if nothing else, and would probably need a different resizing die and/or neck expanding die.
Also, when I was conducting those experiments last summer, I didn’t note any differences in how the .45 ACP cases looked or functioned (when being reloaded) after being shot with .460 Rowland power loads.
My conclusion? That the .460 Rowland cases are no thicker walled than .45 ACP cases. They may still be “stronger”, if there is some metallurgical difference, but I doubt it. The real difference is in whether or not the chamber of the gun in which the ammo is being used is strong enough to handle the much-greater pressure of the .460 Rowland loads. Because remember, the maximum pressure for standard .45 ACP is just 21,000 PSI, and 23,000 PSI for .45 ACP +P — while the .460 Rowland cartridge reaches pressures of 40,000 PSI.
Of course, there are additional factors to consider (like recoil and timing) with the .460 Rowland cartridge, so you can’t just make the chamber of the gun stronger and then start putting those kinds of loads into .45 ACP cases. And you really wouldn’t want to accidentally put such power into a ‘normal’ .45 ACP gun — that could lead to catastrophic failure of the gun, and result in serious injury or death. So it still makes ALL KINDS OF SENSE to only load the longer .460 Rowland cases with that much power.
And we couldn’t have done it without help. Of several types. To see the list of those donors who have helped offset some of our operating costs, pop over to the BBTI site. And here’s a list of the top-10 referring sites (excluding search engines and Wikipedia):
Altogether, we had 243,230 visitors to the BBTI website, and some 12,000+ views of this blog. Since we’ve gone through several iterations of the site over the last five years, it’s hard to say exactly how many visitors or pageviews or hits we’ve had in total — but it’s more than we ever really expected. Thanks, everyone.
And particular thanks to my Good Lady Wife, who has done all the webwork and most of the number crunching over the years.
We don’t currently have any concrete plans for new tests in 2014. But who knows? Keep an eye here and on our Facebook page for news.
This blog serves as a discussion forum for the website Ballistics by the Inch. It is a narrow-focus blog, only concerned with topics pertinent to the ballistics testing we did, not a general-interest gun blog (of which there are already many). We ask that you confine your questions and responses to these topics.
James Downey
James Kasper
Ballistics by the inch 