Max Prasac - Big-Bore Revolvers

BIG
BORE
REVOLVERS

BY MAX PRASAC

I would like to say a special thanks to the following people who assisted me while clawing my way through this book: Katica, Dick Casull, Ken Jorgensen, John Parker, Jack Huntington, Jason Menefee, Jim Miner, Bill Vaznis, the Lee Martins, Hamilton Bowen, John Linebaugh, Dustin Linebaugh, Jim Stroh, David Clements, Jim Tertin, Mike Rintoul, Tim Sundles, Mike McNett, Bob Baker, Alan Dickey, Vincent Ricardel, Alan Harton, Bill Fowler, Fermin Garza, Gary Reeder, Rod Huelter, Mag-Na-Port, Tom Roach, Ross Seyfried, Scott Olmsted, John Gallagher, Larry Welch, Lynn Thompson, Gary Smith, Milt Turnage, James Swidryk, Darrel Harper, Dr. Larry Rogers, Rob Millette, Ed Folmar, Mike Giboney, Greg Brush, Rene Anderson, Jim Schlender, Jennifer Pearsall, Buddy, Veral Smith, Brian Pearce, Bud Rummel, Otto Candies, Jr., Mike Leeds, Chad Stevenson, Alan Griffith, Mike Winnerstig, #9 Lake Outfitters - Don Burnett, Louise Merrill, and Mike Hogan, Stephen Webb, Todd Corder, Tim Marshall, Glenn Swaggart, Boge Quinn, Wes Daems, and Kraig Pendleton. If anyone was left out, it was unintentional!

I dedicate this book to the memory of my father who left this world too soon, and who taught us to reach high and accept no limits.

JOHN PARKER AND THE AUTHOR on a hog hunt in Florida. Parker is packing the very first revolver chambered in the .500 JRH, an FA 83.

Louisiana born and bred, John Parker is a master welder by trade and a hunter to the core, not to mention a freelance ballistician and a real live cowboy. John has raised, trained, and shown horses and cattle, and, during high school, had the Louisiana state champion quarter horse. John began handgun hunting in the early 1970s with a Ruger Blackhawk .357 convertible, eventually graduating to a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum. John also shot in IHMSA competitions for a number of years. He says that the writings of Ross Seyfried were truly what fueled his desire to hunt large and dangerous game with a big-bore revolver.

While living and working in Alaska in the mid-80s, John found the .44 Magnum to be a bit light in the loafers, for Alaskas oversized game, and so he commissioned Hamilton Bowen to build his very first custom revolver chambered for the .475 Linebaugh. John took delivery in 1988, just in time for the fall hunting season. John Parker has the distinction of having stopped an angry grizzly bear with a big-bore revolver, and living to tell about it (see account in the last chapter of this book), an encounter that cemented the mans faith in these guns.

Today, John Parker serves as a member of the editing committee for a major bullet manufacturers annual loading manual. He is a trusted friend, one I know has forgotten more about big-bore revolvers than most will ever know.

Jack Huntington was born and raised in the high desert of Southern California, and he decided early on that his life would revolve around guns. Chasing the dream led Jack through numerous high school courses, including some simple gun work, that culminated in an honor in industrial arts. The next stop took Jack through an undergraduate program in Small Arms Engineering and Ballistic Science. He completed that program with a Bachelor of Science degree, in 1983. Next, working at an entry-level engineering job in a small arms manufacturing firm, where he performed all facets of design, product testing, and planning, Jack was motivated to create.

MASTER GUNSMITH Jack Huntington, owner of JRH Advanced Gunsmithing, hard at work in his shop.

Having an exceptional working knowledge of revolvers, and motivated by the works of earlier master gunsmiths like Dick Casull, Jack made the decision to follow suit and build a five-shot big-bore mega revolver. In 1987, Jack purchased The Rifle Shop from noted African rifle builder Ryan Breeding. As a trained tool and die machinist, Jack performed warranty work for Smith & Wesson, Colt's, Winchester, Browning, Remington, Charter Arms, and Thompson Center Arms, to name but a few. It wasnt an immediate endeavor, thanks to his busy schedule, but, in 1988, the five-shot Jack Huntington revolver was born.

That first revolver was chambered in .500 Linebaugh. Jack followed that one immediately with a .475 Linebaugh built on a Ruger Bisley frame. Simultaneously, Jack was building big-bore bolt-action rifles for hunting in African, heavily influenced by good friend and mentor Gill Van Horn, a permanent fixture in his shop. To complement his rifle work, Jack then started producing all manner of five-shooters.

In 1991, Jack got the bright idea to monkey with the Freedom Arms Model 83 platform. While the Model 83 is a masterful hunk of steel, Jack wanted to shoehorn something bigger than the .454 Casull into the FAs cylinder. After some careful study, it was decided that, by making a smaller rim on a .475 Linebaugh case (at that point, it was still a wildcat using cut down .45-70 brass), the cartridge could and would fit in the limited confines of the Model 83s cylinder. It was time to contact Freedom Arms.

Jack spoke with production manager Randy Smith, who expressed his enthusiasm for the idea of a .475 Freedom Arms Model 83. The fly in the ointment for Randy was the fact that cases had to be modified on a lathe one at a time. In other words, there was no simple commercial solution. Still, Jack continued to convert FA 83s to the new specification .475 Linebaugh, but it wasnt until 1999 that Freedom Arms took real notice, when Tim Sundles of Buffalo Bore acquired the case dimensions needed to make the .475 Linebaugh work in the excellent Model 83. Sundles got Starline to produce properly headstamped brass that featured a smaller rim and a slightly shortened case length, and began commercially producing .475 Linebaugh ammunition. This became the impetus for Freedom Arms to finally offer production Model 83s in .475 Linebaugh, in the year 2000.

JRH Advanced Gunsmithing officially opened its doors in 1997, but Jack had began working on the .500 JRH as a concept all the way back in 1993, when hed made a dummy in his lathe. His desire was for a full-power .50-caliber round that would fit the limited space of an FA 83. While the .500 JRH didnt initially show any commercial viability, the tides of time brought the .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum case to life. Right on its heels came the .500 JRH case, bearing only a slight change in the rim diameter and case length. With the help of his friend Tim Sundles, and Bobby Hayden of Starline Brass, the .500 JRH was born and displayed for the first time at the Safari Club International show in Reno, Nevada, in 2005. It was at this show that a friendship began between Jack and production manager of Magnum Research, Jim Tertin, and in the months following the show, Jim built a prototype and began offering the .500 JRH in Magnum Researchs Precision Center revolvers.

With much time and money invested in the .500 JRH, Jack sought to test his creation on a number of large bovines and found it wanting for nothing. The slow stream of interest in this very useful big-bore cartridge continued to grow, and real life was breathed into the Magnum Research BFR in .500 JRH in 2011, due in large part to the editorial work of this books author, Max Prasac.