"So do you feel lucky, punk?"
Glad I sold my model 27 a while back. Now I can git me a real hand-cannon.
-WW
Making Smith & Wesson's Day
.50-Caliber Magnum Outguns Revolver Packed By Dirty Harry
February 14, 2003
By TRUDY TYNAN, Associated Press
SPRINGFIELD -- Dirty Harry is now outgunned: Smith & Wesson has introduced its biggest handgun ever, a .50-caliber Magnum.
The five-shot revolver with an 8½-inch barrel weighs about 4½ pounds - roughly a pound more than the big black .44 Magnum packed by Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry movies.
It fires a new .50-caliber cartridge that the company said produces nearly three times the muzzle energy of the .44 - or enough stopping power to bring down a charging bear. In fact, company spokesman Ken Jorgensen maintained it is primarily intended for big game hunters.
Smith & Wesson would not give production or sales estimates.
Steve Comus, publications director of the Safari Club International, said he expects that Smith & Wesson would sell several thousand of them to sportsmen interested in handgun hunting - and create a buzz for the company.
"It's not a plinking [target-shooting] gun, and it's not for beginners," said Comus, who tested a prototype.
Comus described the recoil as "substantial" even when compared with that of other big-caliber guns. Still, he called it a "very manageable weapon" with the stopping power of a powerful rifle.
The gun would not run afoul of state and federal laws, the company said.
Advocates of gun control said it would crank up firepower on the streets and create new dangers for police.
"It boggles the mind," said Tom Ortiz, an author and executive director of the Violence Policy Center. He predicted that the new Magnum would create "a new order of threat to law enforcement."
Jorgensen said Smith & Wesson has long promoted handguns as hunting weapons. The .357 Magnum was introduced in the 1930s by Douglas B. Wesson, a grandson of one of the company's founders, to promote the sport of hunting big game with a handgun, he said.
The company followed that up with the .44 Magnum in the 1950s.
"Those were the building blocks," Jorgensen said. "Now, we've stepped it up to a new level."
The .50-caliber gun, which sells for $989, is one of nine new models Smith & Wesson introduced this week at a trade show in Orlando, Fla. President Roy C. Cuny said it was the largest number of new introductions in recent years.
The introduction of the big gun marks a sharp departure for the 150-year-old company, which for the past five years has concentrated on the development of lightweight revolvers using alloys of rare metals.
Among the other new guns being introduced by Smith & Wesson is the industry's lightest-ever .44 Magnum, which has a 4-inch barrel, scandium frame, titanium cylinder and weighs in at 1 pound, 10½ ounces.
"We see this as an opportunity for backpackers," Cuny said. "A light firearm of this caliber, in fact, provides protection against bears and other big things."
Despite a spike after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, handgun sales have long been on the decline in the United States, and Smith & Wesson has struggled, along with other gunmakers.
But Smith & Wesson, long the industry leader, also lost business in recent years after striking a deal with the Clinton administration in 2000 to install safety locks on all of its guns and change its marketing practices.
Other gunmakers decided not to follow Smith & Wesson's lead, and gun advocates accused the company of selling out.
In 2001, the ailing gunmaker was sold by its British owner to an Arizona start-up company that all but abandoned the agreement with the government and adopted an aggressive marketing stance.
Whoa...S&W Come Out With a .50 Cal Revolver
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