Last night (8/21/02) while flipping channels I caught most of the program mentioned in the title, part of the "Modern Marvels" series on the History Channel.
Kudos to The History Channel for producing this type of program, but it seemed riddled with mistakes . . . I'm wondering if anybody else saw others.
1. While showing an S&W .44 Magnum, they said it got its name from the bore diameter of 0.44 inches. Problem is, the groove diameter of a .44 Magnum is 0.429 inches.
2. I believe John Milius misquoted Dirty Harry in the first movie - IIRC the famous line was "Do ya feel lucky, punk?" not "Are you lucky?" (BTW, his gun handling was atrocious - the muzzle pointed everywhere, including at the cameraman.)
3. They stated that the blackpowder Walker revolver shooting a .44 caliber ball had both more velocity and more energy than a modern 44 Magnum. No question this huge handgun was quite formidable, but can a reader of this forum confirm that Walker ballistics exceeded modern .44 Mag ballistics, and by how much?
4. When talking about the introduction of the .357 Magnum, they showed what looked to be an N-frame S&W with a straight barrel. (Unless the person holding it had small hands, it wasn't a K-frame.) The original "357" Magnum, later to become the Model 27, had a barrel that tapered just in front of the frame. While the voice-over said ".357" they actually showed a .44 or .41.
5. When talking about how big game hunters liked the new Magnum cartridges, they twice showed a picture of Sasha Siemel with a big jaguar he'd killed. Sasha Siemel was a Latvian noted for killing a great many jaguars with a SPEAR, which I believe was visible in the photo.
Still, I enjoyed the program. I noted that the apparent minimal recoil shown by the rifles used by the military target shooters shooting .300 Win Mag ammo with 220 grain bullets seemed modest, indicating a heavy rifle . . . and I also found Jan Libourel's voice to be very annoying, showing why he's a writer, not a radio announcer.
Kudos to The History Channel for producing this type of program, but it seemed riddled with mistakes . . . I'm wondering if anybody else saw others.
1. While showing an S&W .44 Magnum, they said it got its name from the bore diameter of 0.44 inches. Problem is, the groove diameter of a .44 Magnum is 0.429 inches.
2. I believe John Milius misquoted Dirty Harry in the first movie - IIRC the famous line was "Do ya feel lucky, punk?" not "Are you lucky?" (BTW, his gun handling was atrocious - the muzzle pointed everywhere, including at the cameraman.)
3. They stated that the blackpowder Walker revolver shooting a .44 caliber ball had both more velocity and more energy than a modern 44 Magnum. No question this huge handgun was quite formidable, but can a reader of this forum confirm that Walker ballistics exceeded modern .44 Mag ballistics, and by how much?
4. When talking about the introduction of the .357 Magnum, they showed what looked to be an N-frame S&W with a straight barrel. (Unless the person holding it had small hands, it wasn't a K-frame.) The original "357" Magnum, later to become the Model 27, had a barrel that tapered just in front of the frame. While the voice-over said ".357" they actually showed a .44 or .41.
5. When talking about how big game hunters liked the new Magnum cartridges, they twice showed a picture of Sasha Siemel with a big jaguar he'd killed. Sasha Siemel was a Latvian noted for killing a great many jaguars with a SPEAR, which I believe was visible in the photo.
Still, I enjoyed the program. I noted that the apparent minimal recoil shown by the rifles used by the military target shooters shooting .300 Win Mag ammo with 220 grain bullets seemed modest, indicating a heavy rifle . . . and I also found Jan Libourel's voice to be very annoying, showing why he's a writer, not a radio announcer.
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