Dan Wesson draws blood in Texas

Status
Not open for further replies.

CraigC

Sixgun Nut
Joined
Jan 27, 2006
Messages
23,705
Location
West Tennessee
This year's "Bovine Bash" was a little different. The extensive testing/preparation I planned this past spring never happened. I picked up a Dan Wesson .44 two barrel set (4" and 6") in April and started shooting it immediately. In short order, I accumulated additional 8" and 10" barrels and a few scope mounts and found the Pachmayr grips to be a more comfortable shape than the chunky factory wood grips. However, what I really wanted to be the star of the "show" was a Dan Wesson .445SuperMag. I figured it would be a good platform to test the effect of velocity on penetration with the solid copper Lehigh bullets. I acquired a NIB 10" in May and started with it. It did not behave at all. Every chamber stuck terribly and this really took the wind out of my sails. Due to that, along with concentrating on other projects, over a month spent moving my shop, a freak storm at the end of October that left us without power for a week and the following two weeks spent cleaning up toppled trees, I was only able to spend a few days testing a handful of loads out of the .44Mag topped with a Leupold 2x in a Burris mount. I had a 265gr Lehigh WFN load for buffalo and wanted to try the Federal Fusion 240gr load on smaller stuff. The big Dan Wesson has obviously been monkeyed with as I get the occasional light strike and one chamber sticks every time. I had no time to work with another gun and also wanted to drop my SRH off with the gripmaker on the way down. With all that in mind, I played it by ear and decided to take a couple smaller but no less spectacular critters. I'd been wanting a blackbuck for several years and there were some beautiful examples at the ranch. Several times we got to see them do their spring hop as they escaped from view. They're cagey and it took some doing but I managed to take this gorgeous buck with one well-placed shot. It looked closer to me but Jack's friend Wayne paced it at 70yds.

Now both guns have gone home with Jack Huntington to see what's going on with them. He is also going to reshape a set of the factory grips and probably install a scope mount on the .445. May switch the .44 to a Beuhler mount.

52335A5F-569D-4DEA-A3A8-A82230733175.jpg

I also wanted a nice Corsican ram to do a shoulder mount and picked out this one, which is actually a Corsican/mouflon cross. The 240gr Fusion did a good job on both animals but no bullets were recovered and they didn't seem to expand much. I look forward to testing them in SIMTEST.

D6642D47-ECCB-46F1-AA0C-96B0A08A2D1E.jpg
 
I’ve got a .41 Dan that has weird chambers, too... it puts swirl marks on the brass.
I'm not sure if they're just rough or if something else is going on. I was looking at the .445 brass yesterday and I wonder if it doesn't have really tight throats. Doesn't look like the crimp is fully opening. If the cylinder can't be saved, Jack will have to make a new oversized cylinder to take its place. Which will yield a better, stronger result but it won't be what most would consider "affordable".
 
Wow, that is one beautiful blackbuck! Congrats. If only I had a few more acres and some game fencing! Exotics is the dream. You should have a couple nice mounts when you are all done.
 
An interesting note is just how heavy these guns are. Just the .44 frame and grip is 40oz. Wearing the 4" heavy barrel it came with, it is 51oz, or about the same as the 7.5" .480 Super Redhawk. With the 8" barrel I hunted with, it's 61oz. Same weight as the .480 Super Redhawk WITH the red dot. With the 10" full lug barrel, it is a whopping 72oz. About the same as an X-frame. The .445 with the 10" barrel is 67oz but balances surprisngly well.
 
An interesting note is just how heavy these guns are. Just the .44 frame and grip is 40oz. Wearing the 4" heavy barrel it came with, it is 51oz, or about the same as the 7.5" .480 Super Redhawk. With the 8" barrel I hunted with, it's 61oz. Same weight as the .480 Super Redhawk WITH the red dot. With the 10" full lug barrel, it is a whopping 72oz. About the same as an X-frame. The .445 with the 10" barrel is 67oz but balances surprisngly well.

What kind of holster are you sporting in those pictures? Looks about right for carrying a heavy piece like that in the bush. Hip carrying that brick would probably make you shorter on one side, lol
 
Got a M15 .357 6" that is 40 years old.
Still the most accurate handgun I've ever owned. Used it for everything from plinking empty shotgun hulls at 40 yards to 200 lb Whitetail. It has never disappointed.
 
What kind of holster are you sporting in those pictures? Looks about right for carrying a heavy piece like that in the bush. Hip carrying that brick would probably make you shorter on one side, lol
It's a chest rig made by 7X Leather. Wes Daems is a member here, "freedom475". It was made for the SRH but I'm probably going to make one for the big Dans.
 
There is no reason why you couldn’t have the chambers and/or throats reamed. I’ve had the throats on a few of my Ruger revolvers reamed by CylinderHone, it helped quite a bit.

He also cleared out the buildup in front of the chamber...moon rock, he called it... which helped with chambering the cartridges.
 
I talked to him yesterday, he thinks he has the .44 fixed. I have to send him some ammo for the .445 before we know what's going on with it.

I agree that they are very pleasant shooting guns.
 
When you said Texas I thought you might have shot one of those suitcase deer they grow there.

Friend, everything is bigger in Texas, it's true. Except the size of the deer. About the size of malnourished golden retrievers.
 
Suitcase deer, you should see them in Florida if you think Texas deer are small - LOL!
No kidding! You could run Florida deer with dachshunds! Spent the first 32yrs of my life there. Biggest Florida deer I ever saw was a 10pt. You couldn't fit both your fists between the antlers. Probably the only place where a 10pt is "cute". :p
 
No kidding! You could run Florida deer with dachshunds! Spent the first 32yrs of my life there. Biggest Florida deer I ever saw was a 10pt. You couldn't fit both your fists between the antlers. Probably the only place where a 10pt is "cute". :p

I remember a few years back I drove down to spend a week and drive a buddy back up from Florida to Ohio and we spotted a lab sized doe next to the highway and I made a comment about it being cute and he informed me people down there would get something like that mounted and would brag about it.

Everytime after that I made it a point to bring down our trail cam pics of our monsters in the southern Ohio hills to show off.
 
Actually Texas has some big deer in the western part of the state. That's along the caprock and on west. Mule deer, not teeny weeny whitetails. A friend that lived down in the middle of Texas once told me the reason Texas gave out so many tags was so you could have a mess to cook up as as one wasn't worth bothering with. He's where I got the suitcase name from.
 
It's hard to say what deer size will run if you don't know the history in the area.

South Alabama Deer are mostly native and Florida Genetics and it's a big deer that field dresses over 100 lb.

North Alabama Deer are mostly Wisconsin Genetics and and the Yearling Buck that my buddy arrowed as his first archery deer field dressed 148 lb.
 
Up here in Maine if I ever shot a 100 LB deer I would be laughed out of the family for something so small.
Craig C good looking besties you tagged there. Love that ram!:thumbup:
Years ago I traded into a DW 357 snub. It had been bubbaized so badly I traded it off for a Uberty 45 colt and know I got the best end of that deal.
 
Last edited:
This year's "Bovine Bash" was a little different. The extensive testing/preparation I planned this past spring never happened. I picked up a Dan Wesson .44 two barrel set (4" and 6") in April and started shooting it immediately. In short order, I accumulated additional 8" and 10" barrels and a few scope mounts and found the Pachmayr grips to be a more comfortable shape than the chunky factory wood grips. However, what I really wanted to be the star of the "show" was a Dan Wesson .445SuperMag. I figured it would be a good platform to test the effect of velocity on penetration with the solid copper Lehigh bullets. I acquired a NIB 10" in May and started with it. It did not behave at all. Every chamber stuck terribly and this really took the wind out of my sails. Due to that, along with concentrating on other projects, over a month spent moving my shop, a freak storm at the end of October that left us without power for a week and the following two weeks spent cleaning up toppled trees, I was only able to spend a few days testing a handful of loads out of the .44Mag topped with a Leupold 2x in a Burris mount. I had a 265gr Lehigh WFN load for buffalo and wanted to try the Federal Fusion 240gr load on smaller stuff. The big Dan Wesson has obviously been monkeyed with as I get the occasional light strike and one chamber sticks every time. I had no time to work with another gun and also wanted to drop my SRH off with the gripmaker on the way down. With all that in mind, I played it by ear and decided to take a couple smaller but no less spectacular critters. I'd been wanting a blackbuck for several years and there were some beautiful examples at the ranch. Several times we got to see them do their spring hop as they escaped from view. They're cagey and it took some doing but I managed to take this gorgeous buck with one well-placed shot. It looked closer to me but Jack's friend Wayne paced it at 70yds.

Now both guns have gone home with Jack Huntington to see what's going on with them. He is also going to reshape a set of the factory grips and probably install a scope mount on the .445. May switch the .44 to a Beuhler mount.

View attachment 875213

I also wanted a nice Corsican ram to do a shoulder mount and picked out this one, which is actually a Corsican/mouflon cross. The 240gr Fusion did a good job on both animals but no bullets were recovered and they didn't seem to expand much. I look forward to testing them in SIMTEST.

View attachment 875214

Good job, buddy for making good use of that revolver!. Very proud for you.

When you said Texas I thought you might have shot one of those suitcase deer they grow there.

The size of the deer in Texas vary wildly. In the area of the Edward's Plateau, they are, or last time I hunted there, were small. 30+ years ago I hunted the Mason/Coleman area and the largest deer killed dressed at 72 lbs., while most were 60-65 lbs. Conversely, in the river bottoms along the Texas/Oklahoma border, they're larger, sometimes MUCH larger. A lifelong friend several years ago killed a basket-rack 8-point that dressed at 175 lbs. In '04 I killed one behind the house that the processor said weighed around 150 dressed. What we lack in size of deer, we make up for in sheer volume with the 2019 estimate being 5.4 million whitetail and 200,000 Mulies.

This buck resides over the bar of an establishment in which I perform throughout the year.

Craigs%20buck%20reduced_zpsisgbd9tc.jpg

Crappy picture, but it is a dimly lit bar. 18 points and I'm sure it scores well north of 200. I asked the owner of the bar where it came from and he said: "Aw....me and a buddy was riding around drinkin' beer on a ranch he worked on out around Big Sprang (Spring)." "We seen this buck standin' under a mesquite with his rack all up in the limbs." "So my buddy offered to let me shoot him." "I did, we drove over there and my buddy looked out the window at him and says "Oh ****...." ".
I asked him what it scored and he didn't know what I was talking about. I said, "You know, Boone and Crockett?" He thought that was some new brand of bourbon. :D

35W
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top