Durango Dave
Single-Sixer
Okay, I'm new to guns so I'm allowed to say stupid things. :lol: I have a couple of guns. Most recently I purchased a Ruger Blackhawk and I gota say I love this gun. It's so simple and old school.
Here are a couple of thoughts that came to me after buying this gun:
1. As you know, the way to load the single action revolver is to open the loading gate. This allows me to load one cartridge at a time as I rotate the cylinder. As far as I know this is how to load most (if not all) single action revolvers. Dual action revolvers, on the other hand, allow you to swing out the entire cylinder to the side so you can quickly load all six (or how ever many) chambers. Is there any reason a single action revolver can't have the cylinder swing out?
2. My Ruger is a .357 convertible. It's made for .357 magnum. I can also load it up with .38 special cartridges. Then I can also change out the cylinder and load 9 mm ammo. So then I started to wonder, what is the true meaning of "caliber"? Where else would I go but to Wikipedia. They say:
Of course the barrel and the bullet are not and can not be the same diameter or there would be a lot of friction. More importantly my barrel is one size and this revolver shoots 3 sizes of bullets.
How to make sense of all this? I decided to do a bit more researching. I googled the size of a 9 mm bullet. I find out they are 9.02 mm. Of course the barrel can't be exactly 9 mm or bullets simply wouldn't fit. Power may force the bullet out the barrel with a lot of wear. Why aren't 9 mm bullets 9 mm?
Next I looked up the .38 special. They must be .380 inches in diameter (or so you would think). But nooooo. According to Wikipedia.com these bullets are .375 inches in diameter. I think the .38 came before the .357 so why would they call them .38 caliber?
I don't know the answer to these questions but I'm beginning to think the gun manufacturers don't even know why they name the calibers. Nothing on a 9 mm gun is 9 mm. Nothing on a .38 special is .38 inches in diameter.
Here are a couple of thoughts that came to me after buying this gun:
1. As you know, the way to load the single action revolver is to open the loading gate. This allows me to load one cartridge at a time as I rotate the cylinder. As far as I know this is how to load most (if not all) single action revolvers. Dual action revolvers, on the other hand, allow you to swing out the entire cylinder to the side so you can quickly load all six (or how ever many) chambers. Is there any reason a single action revolver can't have the cylinder swing out?
2. My Ruger is a .357 convertible. It's made for .357 magnum. I can also load it up with .38 special cartridges. Then I can also change out the cylinder and load 9 mm ammo. So then I started to wonder, what is the true meaning of "caliber"? Where else would I go but to Wikipedia. They say:
That really struck me as odd! They say that caliber is either the diameter of the barrel OR the diameter of the bullet. They don't even know know what they are measuring but they sill insist on measuring to the thousands of an inch.caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel, or the diameter of the projectile it fires, in hundredths or sometimes thousandths of an inch
Of course the barrel and the bullet are not and can not be the same diameter or there would be a lot of friction. More importantly my barrel is one size and this revolver shoots 3 sizes of bullets.
How to make sense of all this? I decided to do a bit more researching. I googled the size of a 9 mm bullet. I find out they are 9.02 mm. Of course the barrel can't be exactly 9 mm or bullets simply wouldn't fit. Power may force the bullet out the barrel with a lot of wear. Why aren't 9 mm bullets 9 mm?
Next I looked up the .38 special. They must be .380 inches in diameter (or so you would think). But nooooo. According to Wikipedia.com these bullets are .375 inches in diameter. I think the .38 came before the .357 so why would they call them .38 caliber?
I don't know the answer to these questions but I'm beginning to think the gun manufacturers don't even know why they name the calibers. Nothing on a 9 mm gun is 9 mm. Nothing on a .38 special is .38 inches in diameter.