.36 Colt Navy that powerful??????

[NotDanielBoone]

Farmer John. Wild Bill actually did shoot a bear between the eyes with a.36 Navy. Didn't work out so well for him. Google it. Good story.

I'm pretty sure based on all the books I've read about Willd Bill that the bear story is a myth.

 

[earlwb]

There's no doubt about it, shot placement is more important than bullet weight or size. I mean no disrespect when using this analogy but the little 32acp cartridge was used widely by nazi Germany and accounted for the majority of jews murdered.
As an aside, statistically speaking in the US the 22lr accounts for more firearm deaths than any other cartridge.

And one of Stalin’s Russian KGB assassins used two or three .25acp handguns to murder more than 7,000 Polish officers and elites in WWII too. Granted he was shooting them all at point blank in the back of the head. This was the Katyn massacre in WWII when the Russians systematically murdered more than 22,000 Polish officers and elites. They used German weapons so they could claim the Nazis did it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Blokhin#:~:text=Blokhin is recorded as having,executioner in recorded world history.

https://www.oldgunsguy.com/home/katyn-massacre-revealed-to-the-world-tt-33

 

[Bad Karma]

It's all about shot placement. Jim Cirillo dropped 9 perps with that lousy 38sp LRN . He also won the Bianci cup. Most cops are not proficient with their service gun. And yes grizzly bears absolutely follow hunters knowing they will get a gut pile. Sometimes they get greedy and want the whole kill.

“That guy dropped so fast, he probably still thinks he got away with it.” Jim Cirillo.

WRT bears, a friend of mine, after he hunted and killed a mountain grizzly in Alaska, told me the most exciting words he’s ever heard were, “Here he comes!”

I thought Colen Younger was shot in the cartridge era?

Sounds like he was shot almost everywhere but the fatal places.

 

[Bad Karma]

Dont you have mangrove swamps and flat Dawgs in your neck of the woods ?
Theyre great garbage disposable environments..........

Nope, just the largest wilderness areas in the lower 48, and about a million acres of BLM land untracked by almost anyone except a few cowboys and Basque shepherds. (They know how to shut up…) but this lady was a Texan, from old oil money and thought the law was surely on her side. Her first mistake…

 

[Greenjoytj]

I recall reading that the Colt Factory received a lot of letters from British Military officers that wrote to Colt complaining about the lack of power from the 36 cal revolvers they purchased to use on Russian troops during the Crimean War.
Lack of adequate bullet penetration through layers of heavy winter apparel was the complaint.
I suspect these type of complaint's possibly helped push the 44 cal revolver into production.

 

[Ruble Noone]

I knew a man who took a roundball from a bp revolver to the sternum at about 10'.
He didn't make it.
Dr said if he had been shot in the ER with the best trauma team in the nation at the ready, they could not have saved him.
Damn DA let the killer skate with manslaughter and a 10 year sentence, he was out in 5. That is another story....

Never doubt when you hold one of these guns that they are lethal.

.36 or .44 RB? Sure would like to hear the backstory on that confrontation!

 

[B P Arn]

I'm a fan of most of Keith's writing. But let's do some math.
Keith was born in 1900. If he was talking to these fine veterans at the tender age of 15, the veterans would be in the 70-80 year old range and a 50-55 year gap between the combat and reliving the past. And how many years went by before he recalled their stories on paper?
No disrespect intended, but my brother says "we all ran faster as a teen".
Let's put it in context.
Your warrior buddy was shot by a Cavalry Trooper's 36 Colt. He fell to the ground, you got away and survived. Your friend was taken to hospital, where he died 6 days later.
So was he killed by a 36, the infection, or both.
An old friend near 90 told me of old men telling him how lethal the S&W 22 tip-up revolvers were during the ACW. But they didn't say how long those shot lingered before dying.
Again.. most ACW soldiers were farmers or factory workers before enlisting. Most had little experience with revolvers. CNB revolvers must have seemed like Thor's Hammer to a row-crop farmer's son.

I am so tired of re-reading that old story about Elmer BS'ing with the old farts when he was a kid! Thank you for giving it some realistic perspective.

 

[Whitworth]

I recall reading that the Colt Factory received a lot of letters from British Military officers that wrote to Colt complaining about the lack of power from the 36 cal revolvers they purchased to use on Russian troops during the Crimean War.
Lack of adequate bullet penetration through layers of heavy winter apparel was the complaint.
I suspect these type of complaint's possibly helped push the 44 cal revolver into production.

I got these two incidents from an article about British handguns published in the 1984 Guns and Ammo Annual. A Colonel Fosbery reported during the Sepoy Mutiny 5 well placed rounds of .36 conicals (60 to the pound as the Brits say) passed thru the chest of a sword bearing Sepoy at close range. The British officer firing was killed by having his skull split by the dead on his feet Sepoy, apparently he waited a bit to long to move believing the Sepoy would drop . The double action Adams revolver received praise from Russia by a Lt. Cross of the 88th regiment of Foot. In a letter to Adams he wrote their double action feature saved him as he shot down 4 surrounding Russians charging at him from only yards away. The 4th Russian shot was close enough to bayonet Lt. Cross in the thigh as he fell. He stated had he been armed with one of Colonel Colt's pistols he would have been killed as he didn't have time to **** before each shot.

 

[Coinneach]

I recall reading that the Colt Factory received a lot of letters from British Military officers that wrote to Colt complaining about the lack of power from the 36 cal revolvers they purchased to use on Russian troops during the Crimean War.
Lack of adequate bullet penetration through layers of heavy winter apparel was the complaint.
I suspect these type of complaint's possibly helped push the 44 cal revolver into production.

Then factor in that Russian winter Greatcoats were made of thick Felt and when wet unimaginably heavy, it all adds up to quite a protective layering.

 

[Coinneach]

I have no doubt that the .36 was adequate and did the job - I do want to point out that during the fighting in the Philippines after the S.A.W. - the Army found that the 38s that they had issued lacked the umph to do the job quickly and reissued 45 colts which did the job much better

Moro madmen souped up on Dacah (Hashish) and islamic hate fervour would have been tough to put down.

 

[cynthialee]

.36 or .44 RB? Sure would like to hear the backstory on that confrontation!

It was a cap and ball revolver is all I know for sure. I suspect a .44 but the shooter owned .36's also.
and it was murder
1 man thought another man did something that turns out didn't happen, he got high on meth or coke to screw up the courage then walked up and shot the man in misplaced vengeance
how the DA let him walk with manslaughter I will never fathom

 

[Bad Karma]

It was a cap and ball revolver is all I know for sure. I suspect a .44 but the shooter owned .36's also.
and it was murder
1 man thought another man did something that turns out didn't happen, he got high on meth or coke to screw up the courage then walked up and shot the man in misplaced vengeance
how the DA let him walk with manslaughter I will never fathom

They’re about as likely to overcharge as undercharging. The good ones don’t.

 

[M. De Land]

“That guy dropped so fast, he probably still thinks he got away with it.” Jim Cirillo.

WRT bears, a friend of mine, after he hunted and killed a mountain grizzly in Alaska, told me the most exciting words he’s ever heard were, “Here he comes!”


Sounds like he was shot almost everywhere but the fatal places.

Wow, he had time to do all that talking? The bear that came for my hunting pard covered 21 yards from the time I dropped the hammer on him, recovered in recoil and got another double action snap shot into his spine as he blew by! It was all a blur and happened so fast in unthinking reaction I could not duplicate it in a 100 tries. I call it my God shot but the Kieth load and bullet saved both us old farts by cutting his wiring ! We were out of camp and so far out in the sticks that had he closed into a fur ball we would have bled out before any one would have floated by.
Some day I need to write out for my family some of the close squeaks I've had in the 52 years of hunting, hiking and rafting trips I've experienced living here in AK.
I did add up all the days of camping under the stars a couple of years ago and it totaled over 1.5 years which was amazing to me !

 

[Bad Karma]

Wow, he had time to do all that talking? The bear that came for my hunting pard covered 21 yards from the time I dropped the hammer on him, recovered in recoil and got another double action snap shot into his spine as he blew by! It was all a blur and happened so fast in unthinking reaction I could not duplicate it in a 100 tries. I call it my God shot but the Kieth load and bullet saved both us old farts by cutting his wiring ! We were out of camp and so far out in the sticks that had he closed into a fur ball we would have bled out before any one would have floated by.
Some day I need to write out for my family some of the close squeaks I've had in the 52 years of hunting, hiking and rafting trips I've experienced living here in AK.
I did add up all the days of camping under the stars a couple of years ago and it totaled over 1.5 years which was amazing to me !

Yes, his first shot was taken over two hundred yards. He says that bear dropped, spun and he shot it again, (Pat runs a good bolt rifle like a semiautomatic almost) after the second hit the bear charged although to be fair it probably wasn’t really charging,,just picking a direction and running. Or maybe he saw Pat and his guide and figured they were the cause of his troubles. Quien sabes? At any rate, he soaked up four rounds from Pats .340 Weatherby and a couple more from the guides 45-70 before he dropped. An 8’ mountain grizzly. Beautiful bear.

I would encourage you to write some of these experiences down. For the kids and anyone else who wants to know what it was like. I’ve been doing this for about a year now. Never gave it much thought before but mortality looms large.

 

[tenngun]

Without doubt they are all lethal.
In self defense scenarios lethality is not as important as immediate incapacitation.
Lethality and stopping power are two entirely different things. ( I am not inferring that YOU don’t understand the difference, but most people don’t )

Yes
As hunters we want one shot one quick kill. That’s nice for a deer.
But let’s talk a moment about shot.
Buck shot at close range will kill a man, or disable him too much to fight.
At reasonable rangers buck shot will kill a buck, that’s what it was made for.
But how about # 4
That won’t kill a turkey with a body hit. You need a shot pattern that will mangle the head and neck.
But how about #4 for home defense. A hail of shot into the face or lower body probably won’t kill, but bad guy will loose a lot of fight.
While .36 ain’t going to rip bad guy apart it if not disabling him will decrease his offensive capabilities
During the gold rush of 49 pepper boxes and a little later the ‘51 (49ers were the same gold rush up to about 56) Multi small shot was preferred to one big horse pistol.
When the steam boat Arabia went down it had a big cargo of .45 boot pistols. There were not devastating shots. However they would make a bad guy pause, or if he kept coming slow him down.
Hunting requires a dead body. Self defense only requires a stoped bad guy
Even low power derringers and pocket and muff pistols were very effective as a deterrent or disablier.
Even today most bad guys flee a pistol in the hands of the victim

 

[smoothshooter]

Yes
As hunters we want one shot one quick kill. That’s nice for a deer.
But let’s talk a moment about shot.
Buck shot at close range will kill a man, or disable him too much to fight.
At reasonable rangers buck shot will kill a buck, that’s what it was made for.
But how about # 4
That won’t kill a turkey with a body hit. You need a shot pattern that will mangle the head and neck.
But how about #4 for home defense. A hail of shot into the face or lower body probably won’t kill, but bad guy will loose a lot of fight.
While .36 ain’t going to rip bad guy apart it if not disabling him will decrease his offensive capabilities
During the gold rush of 49 pepper boxes and a little later the ‘51 (49ers were the same gold rush up to about 56) Multi small shot was preferred to one big horse pistol.
When the steam boat Arabia went down it had a big cargo of .45 boot pistols. There were not devastating shots. However they would make a bad guy pause, or if he kept coming slow him down.
Hunting requires a dead body. Self defense only requires a stoped bad guy
Even low power derringers and pocket and muff pistols were very effective as a deterrent or disablier.
Even today most bad guys flee a pistol in the hands of the victim

Also consider that almost everyone knew that a mid to lower torso hit with even a very small projectile was almost certainly fatal after long, miserable days or weeks of suffering due to sepsis and infection. I don’t think anyone was stitching up perforated intestines, and penicillin was not discovered yet.
Just pointing a gun at an attacker was probably even more of a deterrent then than it is now for the above mentioned reasons.

 

[nick_1]

I have read in Bruce caton books (real history books , Try a stillness at Appomattox ) that civil war soldiers were very much afraid of being hit and would tear their clothing off immediately to inspect the wound and that they pretty much knew by looking at it if they were a goner. I also suspect if you were laying down wounded without your rifle and not a black union soldier that no one would bother wasting time on you. those factors greatly increase the stopping power of a .36 cal revolver. Of course a .58 cal minnie ball doesn't need any help with stopping power... quite a different story today where in many of our modern conflicts we know that capture is going to be far worse than death .

 

[Winterhawk]

I need comparisons. I have heard they are equal to a .38 special??

I think that the comparison is with the .38 S&W, not the .38 Special. The U.S. Army found that the former was not enough to stop crazed Filipinos and so went to the .45. The .38 Special (also known as the .38 S&W Special and .38 Colt Special) is an entirely different beast. That said, i wouldn't want to get hit with either one myself, thank you!

https://www.targetbarn.com/broad-side/38-sw-vs-38-special/

 

[Rifleman1776]

a mid to lower torso hit with even a very small projectile was almost certainly fatal after long, miserable days or weeks of suffering due to sepsis and infection.

Exactly. That is why it is so hard to compare effectiveness of small calibers of back then with big boomers of today. The fear of being shot was just as great. Even the .44 cal. ball used to kill Abraham Lincoln did not completely penetrate the skull from a range of only inches. But, he died later.

 

[RB POWELL]

Watched an episode of 'Hollywood Guns, Fact or Fiction' last night. One of their tests 'proved' a .36 cal. Colt Navy c&b revolver was a lot (a real lot) more powerful than I personally would have thought. They fired a lead round ball, with real bp, from a distance of about 30 feet at a ballistic gel torso, with bone structure, and another torso behind it. The round hit about one inch below the sternum bone, penetrated the torso completely and lodged about halfway into the backing torso. That is some powerful penetration. It is what happened on their TV test. But, personally, I would not depend on that little .36 cal. pill to be that effective from a pistol with it's small charge.

Always underestimated by the smokeless only crowd. Little respect for times past, and how things got done.