Before investing money in customizing any sixgun, it is a good idea to thoroughly check it for worthiness. Diamond Dot had offered to pay for the engraving on a sixgun of choice, so even though it was for my 45th birthday I chose a .44. Not just any .44 mind you, but perhaps the most beautiful looking double action .44 Magnum in existence, the 4" Smith & Wesson. A suitable example was found, in fact I traded (something I rarely do) a 10-1/2" S&W Silhouette Model straight across for a 4" version.

Even though the wind is almost always blowing, I have a great place to shoot. From the shooting bench to the hillside measures approximately 250 yards and like most Idaho hillsides, it is covered with rocks of every size and shape. On this particular day I found two fellows trying to hit the rocks with their .223 rifles. They were not having very much luck. “Guys if you will sight for me I’ll try to hit that rock.” “Where’s your rifle?” “No rifle, I will just use this,” said I as I pulled out the 4" Smith .44 Magnum. They wanted to laugh but were not sure if they should. Of course, there was the real possibility they would really be laughing before I was through shooting!

Loading the .44 Magnum with the Keith bullet over the Keith load, I settled down into a good solid shooting position. “Just tell me where the first shot hits.” I held what I thought to be the proper amount of front sight and slowly squeezed the trigger. “Right underneath it.” Holding up just a little more front sight, I repeated the process and heard one of them say someone incredulously, “You hit it!” They never said another word. They picked up their stuff, loaded it into their pick-up truck and left. The .44 was definitely proved worthy and went off to Jim Riggs for engraving.

“Bet you a milkshake you can’t hit that soap bottle.” My friend Merv and I were at an abandoned dumpsite, one of the world’s great places to find suitable long-range targets of different sizes and shapes and at various distances. The target in question seemed to be a plastic dish soap bottle at about 125 yards out and at least 25 yards above us. I had just acquired the .44 Special 7-1/2" Colt New Frontier and really did not know where it would be shooting with my load of the Keith bullet over 7.5 grains of Unique, but it was only for a milkshake.

Now a soap bottle at that distance shot from the one-handed standing position is certainly not a given. But win or lose I was going to wind up with a milkshake with the shot only determining who was going to pay for it. I extended my arm, took a good sight picture, held up a little front sight, perched the bottle on top of it, and squeezed the trigger. Not having to pay for the milkshake made it doubly enjoyable.

Seeing Is Believing

Writer Clair Rees, handgun stockmaker Rod Herrett, and I were all attending the Winchester ammunition seminar and hunting varmints outside of Jarbidge, Nevada. Shooting the little ground squirrels with scope-sighted rifles and single-shot pistols did not prove to be very challenging, so they were packed away and we hauled out the iron sighted .22 pistols. Rod had a K-22, Clair a semi-automatic which my memory tells me may have been a Colt, while I had my 3-1/2" Custom Ruger Single-Six beautifully transformed by Andy Horvath.

The shooting had settled down and things were kind of quiet so we decided to pop some rocks. At the end of the field was a berm about 3' high with plenty of small rocks to shoot at with a range finder telling us the distance was 181 yards. I asked them to sight for me as I squeezed off a shot using Winchester’s hollowpoint ammunition.

I hit just under the squirrel-sized rock on the first shot, and connected with the second shot. “If one of those little squeakies comes out on that berm, I will take him.” It wasn’t more than a few minutes when one of the little furry targets obliged and I nailed him on the first shot. Without reliable witnesses I would not dare relate this story!

We were shooting on top of a plateau outside of Cody, Wyoming, at the 3rd Annual Shootists Holiday. The plateauproceeded to turn uphill. Deciding to really stretch our long-range sixgun shooting skills, we placed a 2' x 2' square metal target painted bright orange at 700 yards slightly uphill from us. We were all shooting two-handed from a standing position with my sixgun being a 4-3/4" Freedom Arms .454. However, I was not using .454 loads but rather going with the .45 Colt.

My longtime favorite heavy load for the .45 Colt when used in proper sixguns such as the Ruger Blackhawk or the Freedom Arms .454 has been a 300- or 325-grain cast bullet over 21.5 grains of H110 or WW296. This time the bullet I used was one designed by Dick Casull for the .454 Casull, a 30-grain flatnose gas check. I’ve found this bullet to be great anywhere from 1,000 fps in the .45 Colt up to 1,800 fps in the .454, and this load clocked 1,100 fps in the short-barreled Freedom Arms .454.

The front sight on most sixguns covers 3" at 25 yards. This interpolates out to 1' at 100 yards and 7' at 700 yards, making a 2' square target appear awfully small at 700 yards. Shifting my feet slightly so the right foot was to the rear and I was at a very slight angle to the target, I fired at the tiny pinpoint of orange. I hit it not once, but twice with the heavy .45 Colt load from a very short, 4-3/4", barreled sixgun.

Now those were all good shots, but the best is yet to come. When I need photos taken of myself shooting, I call upon my friend Joe Penner. I usually wait until I have several articles to take pictures for, and in this particular case, we loaded the old Ford Bronco and headed for the foothills. When taking pictures of me shooting revolvers into the camera I keep dummy cartridges always on hand. Joe is too valuable a photographer for me to chance using live ammunition for pictures.

Unlucky Rockchuck

On this particular outing one of the guns being photographed was the then new Ruger bolt action .22. I had not taken any .22 ammunition along and we were simply taking pictures of me with the rifle. As we proceeded Joe pointed out a rockchuck, it may be called a groundhog in your part of the country, sunning himself on a very large rock about 300 yards out. “Why don’t you take a shot at him?” I told him I could not hit the chuck at that distance, and it really did not make any difference as I did not bring any .22 ammunition. He countered with the fact I always had my Freedom Arms .22 Mini-Gun with me in a pocket somewhere so I, in reality, did have a few rounds. I also said even if I could hit him I didn’t think the .22 would be very effective at that distance.

I retrieved all the .22s I had in the cylinder of the Mini-Gun transferring them to the rifle. Joe watched through the binoculars as I fired. The first shot hit about 3' on the rock below the chuck and he paid absolutely no attention to it. I held up the crosshairs, fired the second shot figuring I would scare him off the rock, and instead this time he tumbled from his sun porch. Joe hurried over to see the results and found one dead rockchuck shot through the head. It was definitely his time.

Could I duplicate all these shots on command? Absolutely not! I was most pleased the .223 rifle shooters left before I had to shoot the .44 Magnum the third time. The .44 Special was put away so we could go down the road about five miles and get a chocolate shake. After shooting the 181-yard squeaky I did not fire the .22 Single-Six during the rest of the hunt and, fortunately, there was only one rockchuck to shoot. All of these shots consisted of a small dose of experience mixed with a very large dose of luck. Of course, the more we shoot the luckier we become.

I haven’t mentioned the 700-yard shots. I really did hit the 2x2 target twice at 700 yards, however, that was twice from a full box of cartridges, actually a 100-round hinged lid plastic box. I hit it twice but only kept it pinned down the other 98 times. To sight I had to use all of the front sight and hold on a bush several feet above the target and to the right. Yes, I’d say there was a lot of luck involved. Long-range shooting at inanimate targets is great fun. It can be surprising the number of times you can actually connect and there are no rules saying we must count the misses. It is not, however, for big game shooting. The best shots when handgun hunting are the closest shots.