The gun used in todays testing- my 1911 .45 ACP. It’s a Frankengun with a Systema Colt frame and a post-war surplus slide. It’s a great shooter nonetheless.
A lovely brand new FBI 10% Clear Ballistics ordinance gel block arrived, and I wasted no time putting it to use. I had several loads I wanted to test, including Speer’s venerable 200gr ‘Flying Ashtray’ jacketed hollow-point and the Magsafe .45 ACP +P Super Swat load.
.45 ACP Magsafe Super SWAT
Magsafe Super SWAT was designed for use by SWAT officers that might need to make a ‘hostage shot’ or to shoot where they didn’t want to risk overpenetration.
Magsafe was formed in the 1980s, and specialized in light-weight, high-velocity pre-fragmented projectiles. These were ideally not supposed to over-penetrate standard house walls or ricochet from hard surfaces with lethal force. Typically these consisted of a copper jacket filled with lead pellets in an epoxy matrix rather than a solid lead core. Being lighter than a conventional bullet they were fired at much higher velocities and greater muzzle energy than was typical for the given caliber.
There’s been a lot of discussion over this sort of round, and some controversy. I’ve discussed these at length in a previous post (https://tinkertalksguns.com/2016/06/06/glasers-and-other-pre-fragmented-projectiles/) so we won’t go into it here. But I have never seen an FBI-style gel-test of this specific bullet I decided it needed to be tried. I set up the gel block and draped it with four layers of denim; my work is messy and I go through a lot of jeans, so obtaining appropriate fabric is not a problem. The results were interesting.
Unlike Magsafe’s more typical offerings that are filled with lead shot in an epoxy matrix, the Super SWAT is filled with a yellow epoxy resin. As a consequence they weigh but 68 grains in the .45 ACP load, and as a result Magsafe claims a velocity of 2200fps. from a 5″ barrel. This gives it a spectacular 771ft./lbs of energy at the muzzle, deep in .357 Magnum territory in terms of power.
I didn’t chronograph this load, but as loud and sharp as the muzzle blast was I don’t doubt it at least approaches the velocity claim. I fired it through four layers of denim into the block, and the results were very interesting indeed.
Top view: Penetration was not good at approximately 7″, and the jacket bounced back in the massive permanent wound cavity to about two inches into the block. Expansion was instant and at about two inches into the block the permanent wound cavity expanded abruptly to a full two inches across.Side view: The permanent wound cavity is enormous, but relatively shallow.
This wound would be absolutely devastating, and at this velocity would likely produce significant hydrostatic shock and hydraulic damage. Hydrostatic shock is an unreliable ‘stopper’ in handgun calibers, but this one just might be the exception. The denim actually hit the roof of the shop and landed ten feet from the block!
The recovered bullet is a mess, but still had a small amount of epoxy in the base.
The recovered bullet weighed 42.7gr and retained some epoxy in the base.
So, the ultimate stopper? Probably not. It certainly doesn’t meet anything like the established FBI standard of 12-19″ of penetration through four layers of denim. Still, the permanent wound cavity is spectacular. I think it accomplishes it’s mission, which is for use in hostage and/or crowd situations, to not over-penetrate or ricochet. But as a general-purpose self-defense round? I’d not like to rely on it.
.45 ACP Speer 200gr. Jacketed Hollow-Point
In the 1970s the conventional wisdom was that hollow-points were only useful in lighter high-velocity bullets. Larger, slower bullets simply did not have the velocity to expand. Then Speer changed the game with the introduction of their cavernous 200gr. JHP round, which was the first commercial hollow point that would expand reliably at velocities as low as 800-900 fps.
The bullets huge hollow cavity quickly inspired nicknames like ‘The Flying Ashtray’ or ‘The Ballistic Soup-Can.’
The bullet quickly became a legend, and was my bullet of choice for carry in my .45s. I was quite curious to see how they would perform in a standard FBI-style test. The load I used was 6.5gr. Unique with a Federal Large Pistol primer, which yields 920 fps. and 376 ft./lbs with an extreme spread of 45fps. from my gun’s 5″ barrel.
Once again I fired into the gel through four layers of denim. I have to say, this test vindicated the faith I have long placed in this bullet.
From Above: 16 inches of penetration and a pretty decent permanent wound track.Side View: Expansion began about one inch of penetration. Some serious damage there. The bullet barely broke the surface at the end of the block, then bounced back approximately 1/4″
The bullet carried a significant wad of denim into the block, and expansion was impressive. Maximum expansion was .776″, minimum was .665″, yielding an average of .715″ Yikes!
The bullet carried a surprisingly large wad of denim with it.
Weight retention wasn’t bad, with the recovered bullet weighing 181.3gr.
So, mixed results. I’m a bit dubious about the Super SWAT for my uses, but I am very pleased with the performance of the 200gr. load.
I’ll have further tests coming up in the next few days, two .32-20 loads fired from my Colt Police Positive Special and a new ‘home-spun’ 115gr. JHP load from my Sig Sauer P6 9mm.
Michael Tinker Pearce, 14 December 2020
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The test guns- on top my home-made rolling-block carbine, a Western Field Model 37 .22 Rifle, my home-made .22 Target Pistol and an Iver Johnson .32 S&W Hammerless
I re-cast my block of Clear Ballistics 10% ordinance gel last night. I’d over-heated it slightly the first time I re-cast it, which caused it to yellow and become murky. I’ve got another FBI block arriving any day now, and I have plans for that block. I decided to use the current murky block to assuage my curiosity.
.22 CB Short Test
I’ve been having fun during confinement shooting CCI .22 CB Short Low-Noise ammunition for some backyard plinking, and I was curious about it’s performance. I set up to test it.
CCI makes this special low-velocity low-noise .22 Short ammunition for indoor shooting and shooting through suppressed weapons. Fired from a 24″ rifle it’s very quiet indeed; comparable to a low-powered pellet rifle. The label claims a velocity of 710 fps.
From my 24″ Western Field Model 37 it’s really quiet and doesn’t disturb the neighbors. Setting up the gel block and chronograph in my workshop I started testing with that rifle. Since these are not expanding bullets I didn’t bother firing through denim. I carefully fired five shots through the chronograph and into the gel. The results were interesting…
The five shots (at the top of the block) landed quite close together, but not so close they interfered with each other.
From the rifle’s 24″ barrel the chronograph showed an average of 624 fps. and 25 ft./lbs of energy with an extreme spread of 81 fps. Penetration into the gel averaged 8.25 inches for the five shots. The energy of these rounds is comparable to a powerful .22 air-rifle, and it’s very quiet. OK, there’s the baseline; time to move on to the pistol.
My single-shot .22 Target Pistol. It has a 5″ barrel and is a simple single-action mechanism. It’s quite accurate at 25 yards.
Once again I fired a five-shot group, being careful to spread the bullets enough that they would not hit each other and mess up the results.
You can see some of the bullets ‘bounced’ back in the gel, so I measured from the point of deepest penetration rather than the resting place of the bullet. Against all expectation the pistol actually showed higher velocities and deeper penetration than the rifle. Interesting…
The results were unexpected. Shots from the pistol’s 5″ barrel were much louder than from the rifle’s 24″ barrel (which was expected) and it yielded an average velocity of 707 fps. and 32 ft./lbs of energy with an extreme spread of only 27 fps. Penetration averaged 9 inches. OK, that’s kinda’ weird…
Having tried a 5″ barrel and a 24″ barrel I decided to split the difference and grabbed my little rolling-block carbine with a 16-1/4″ barrel. I fired five shots into the gel. I’m not sure what happened but I could not get a good read from the chronograph, so I don’t know exactly what velocity I was getting. I also could not get a good photograph of the bullets in the gel, but the average penetration was 9-1/4″.
My little rolling-block carbine. It has a 16-1/4″ barrel and Quilted Maple stocks.
As I’d hoped this made things a bit clearer; in terms of barrel length there is a ‘sweet spot’ for these cartridges, and the Model 37’s 24″ barrel is well past that length. There’s so little powder in these shells that the bullet simply runs out of power before it reaches the end of the barrel. It hits the point of diminishing returns, which is why it’s so quiet from the long barrel. The 16-1/4″ barrel of the carbine is more to its liking; we don’t know the exact velocity but since it exhibited the highest average penetration we can guess it’s somewhat higher than the pistol’s, but not so much as to indicate that this is the ideal length either. The pistol was far and away the loudest of the three, so it’s a bit shorter than ideal.
Given that it this ammo yields the same sort of power levels as a high-powered .22 air rifles which are deemed suitable for small game, these cartridges would serve that purpose admirably with careful shot placement. A shorter barrel yields fractionally more power, but under some circumstances this may be outweighed by the quiet of the longer barrel. For suburban plinking or pest control this is pretty ideal, and in some survival situations it could be very useful.
Make no mistake though; this does not make your .22 a toy! Penetration is deep enough to cause serious and possibly even lethal injuries, especially if the bullet struck a person’s throat or head. Even with these low-powered rounds all the normal strictures of firearms safety must be observed.
.32 S&W Test
This was a bit of an afterthought, but when I finished with the .22 I thought hey, why not? The test gun is an Iver Johnson Model 1 Safety Hammerless with the barrel shortened (by a previous owner) to 2″. The load is a 90gr HBWC over 1.2gr of Red Dot with a Federal Magnum Small Pistol primer.
The test load uses a 90gr Hollow-base wadcutter. The bullet stands well proud of the casing; the cartridge is so short there is simply no room for it to be seated full-length as one does for .32 S&W Long. A bit heavy for caliber, but this has been a very accurate load for me and is not too heavy for some of my top-break revolvers.
From the 2″ gun this yielded and average of 681 fps. and 93 ft./lbs of energy with an extreme spread of 23 fps. Penetration in gel was rather impressive. Taking into account the ‘bounce-back’ this load penetrated 13″. Not at all shabby!
Of the four shots fired two exited the block, and only this one showed well in a photograph, but penetration on both shots that remained in the block was virtually identical.
This is an improvement over factory ammunition, which is purposefully anemic. I think it also might not suffer from the standard round-nose bullet’s tendency to deflect off bone if it doesn’t hit squarely, but that’s just a suspicion. I would not feed any old top-break a steady diet of this load, though my little S&W hasn’t suffered from it. Still, best to err on the side of caution; I formulated this load for use in my 1849 cartridge conversion after all.
As always one should approach any load data with caution; it is prudent to start 10% under a listed load and work up to it. The author is not responsible for any use or misuse of the load data presented; use it at your own risk. Any antique firearm should be carefully inspected prior to being fired, and your guiding principle should be ‘when in doubt don’t.’
Michael Tinker Pearce, 11 December 2020
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OK, the time for denial has passed, and it’s all Iver Johnson’s fault. See, I have been maintaining that my accumulation of top-break revolvers was a sort of ‘reference library’ of late 19th- early 20 Century concealed carry guns. But last week when Chris at McAllen Defense offered me a sweet deal on a couple I took it… because they were variations of models I already had. That was the final straw and there’s no further point in denying it. I’m a… it’s OK, I can write the words. Really. I am a collector. It’s a collection. There, I said it!
Right, moving on. One of the things I have a very modest collection of are Iver Johnson top-break revolvers, all dating from the late 19th Century to about WW1. Three of them are chambered in .32 S&W (the short one) and two are in .38 S&W.
Iver Johnson was the company that introduced the Transfer-Bar Safety, meaning that the hammer cannot contact the firing pin unless the trigger is fully to the rear. This allowed the guns to be carried fully loaded with no concern that dropping the gun might cause it to fire.
New Models and Iver Johnsons That Aren’t
The Iver Johnson Arms and Cycle Company was nothing if not prolific. In the first three years after opening their doors they made hundreds of thousands of modestly priced, decent quality revolvers. Not the best, mind you; for American top-break revolvers S&W was the king. But IJ’s revolvers were better quality than most of their direct competitors.
In 1909 they introduced upgraded versions of their top-breaks that used a stronger locking mechanism and were generally a little ‘beefier.’ This made them more expensive of course, and the upgrades were subtle enough that the gun-buying public might miss them or not understand their importance. They needed something to convince people to buy these new guns, something obvious… At some point the lightbulb lit and they had it. The new guns were safe for smokeless powder.
OK, never mind that people had been shooting smokeless loads in these guns for years. Ammunition manufacturers weren’t idiots; when they transitioned to smokeless powder all guns were ‘made for Black Powder.’ Not being any more fond of being sued than the next fellow, they formulated smokeless loads that were safe in existing guns, and people did it all the time.
There was just enough validity to this idea of ‘smokeless guns’ to make it plausible, but it didn’t come from people firing smokeless in ‘black powder’ guns; it came from people hand-loading cartridges at home, specifically people that weren’t clear on the difference between the types of powder. They loaded the new-fangled powder just like the old and blew up their guns. The difference wasn’t the type of powder, it was that you use much less smokeless to achieve the same effect.
So they marketed the new guns as ‘safe for smokeless powder’ and the idea that smokeless wasn’t safe for old guns became cemented in gun-lore. The new models were successful, but IJ still had literally tons of barrels, cylinders and frames for the old models. What to do, what to do…
What they did was to simplify the guns slightly, mainly omitting the Transfer Bar Safety, to make them less expensive. They registered the US Revolver Company to sell these old-style guns to mail-order companies like Sears Roebuck to sell through their catalogues. These were advertised as ‘safe for all modern ammunition,’ meaning smokeless. Of course these were the exact same parts used to make the old guns that they at least implied were not safe for then-modern ammunition, but hey, marketing. I’ve included a US Revolver .38 in this round-up.
All the guns in this test originally came standard with a 3-1/4″ barrel and a nickel finish. For an additional cost they could be had with a blue finish and/or barrels ranging from 2-6″ in length.
Iver Johnson .32s.
From top to bottom: Model 1 (1894,) Model 1 First Model 2nd change (1896) and a Model 3 (1909)
All three of these guns hold five rounds of .32 S&W, and the Model 1s both include a ‘Safety Trigger,’ an innovation later used on Glock pistols many decades later. The .32 S&W cartridge is not very powerful, but it’s a step up in both reliability and power from a .22 LR in the same size gun.
Model 1: These are characterized buy the single side-latch. You just pivot the lever up and the gun opens. Cartridges are ejected automatically, then the ejector snaps back into place for reloading when the gun is fully-opened. It’s best to tilt the gun upside down when doing this to insure none of the empties slip under the ejector and jam the gun up. The cylinder can free-rotate when the gun is at rest, but there is a flat-spring in the cylinder-pin that resists this. When the trigger is pulled the cylinder rotates until it hits the stop, and is ‘pinned’ between the hand and the lock. This system was pioneered by early European revolvers and works well enough, but it is not as robust as the Colt system which uses a locking bolt that engages a slot cut into the cylinder. Wear on the hand can cause these guns to loosen up, eventually to the point where safety is compromised by the bullet striking the edge of the forcing cone as it leaves the cylinder. These guns use a transfer-bar safety that prevents the hammer from striking the firing pin until the trigger is pulled far enough to fire, making the guns safe to carry fully loaded.
The Model 1 (first model) with a 3-1/4″ barrel shoots well, though I was hitting a bit high with it at seven yards. The trigger pull is pretty good; reasonably smooth, and the ‘safety lever’ doesn’t interfere.The Model 1 (First Model, 2nd change) with a 2″ barrel that may have been customized by the factory shot very well indeed at seven yards. The trigger on this gun is even better; very smooth. I still had a tendency to group high with this gun. This was far and away my favorite. The excellent trigger and short barrel make it a very handy, very pleasant little gun to shoot.This rapid-fire group was shot at seven yards. Not too shabby, and would probably improve with practice.
Model 3 .32: These guns are an improved version of the earlier Models. They retain the transfer-bar safety and auto-ejection of the earlier guns, but have an actual bolt that engages a slot in the cylinder both at rest and when the trigger is pulled. This system is much less likely to go out of time as the gun is used. These guns also lack the safety-lever trigger. They replace the flat mainspring of earlier guns with a coiled spring which, while theoretically more robust, sometimes results in a less smooth trigger-pull. They are most easily distinguished from the earlier models by the slots in the cylinder. Though they are more robust than the earlier guns I find them a bit squarer in the frame and less elegant.
The model 3’s trigger was slightly heavier than the older guns, but still decently smooth. The ‘flier’ in this group is my fault, not the gun’s.
Iver Johnson .38s
From top to bottom: Model 2 made in 1895, Model 3 (1909 0r later, modified,) US Revolver, serial number indicates production prior to WW1, but I haven’t been able to pin it down any closer than that.
The Model 2 is characterized by the T-shaped lock. This isn’t as strong as the lever-type, but it’s the most common type on American top-breaks and I imagine it’s a lot less expensive to manufacture. Early Model 2s had the safety lever in the trigger, later guns did not. Early guns, like the one on top in the photo above, had a separate cover over the hammer like the Model 1s. Later variations had a one-piece frame that covered the hammer but mimicked the shape of the earlier models.
The Model 3 had a thicker lower frame, and shared all of the improvements from the .32 caliber guns described above. I borrowed this Model 3 from Chris at McCallen Defense. A previous owner had shortened the barrel to about 1-1/2″ and installed a new front sight.
The final gun of this round-up is a US Revolver gun. Visually speaking aside from the markings on the barrel and frame it’s a late production Model 2, and the cylinders and barrels interchange flawlessly between this and the Model 2 shown above. This is only to be expected, since the USR gun was made from Model 2 parts. It lacks the transfer-bar safety or the Model 2, relying on a rebounding firing pin instead. Honestly this is probably pretty safe; the firing pin is so light and has such short travel that I’m not sure you could jar the gun hard enough for it to detonate a primer. This particular gun dates from prior to WW1 according to it’s serial number, but I was unable to refine its date of production further than that in time for this article. Given that, it’s in an astonishing state of preservation; it might be only a few years old instead of over a hundred! Yet there are none of the tell-tales of refinishing; everything is just as new. I haven’t come across a lot of guns that have survived this well, but I have seen a few and this appears to be another.
There’s a reason these guns look virtually identical…
All three of the .38s shared one problem- the ejector doesn’t have enough travel to reliably kick the brass all the way out of the cylinder. It’s a mixed blessing; it makes reloads slower as you have to knock the brass off, but on the other hand the expended cartridges never get stuck under the ejector star, which takes a lot more time than just knocking the empties loose! With the .32s it took care to avoid having empty shells fail to clear and get stuck.
The Model 2, with a 3-1/4″ barrel, shot quite reasonably at seven yards. The antler grips, by the way, are not stock and no, I don’t know where you can buy a se;. I had to make these. This gun originally had a very tatty nickel finish; I stripped it and rust blued it.The Model 3 snubby has a very smooth, very nice trigger… but whoever installed the new front sight got it wrong; it shoots very high. I had to aim for the bottom edge of the target to shoot this group. Note the flyer on the upper left that keyholed. Rapid-fire at seven yards- again, the flier was all me. Oops.I’m not sure what distracted me, but I forgot to put the USR gun in the photo with this target. Sorry ’bout that. Anyway you cans see two of the bullets on the right are key-holed. I haven’t slugged the barrels on any of these guns so I don’t know their actual bore diameter, but this is typically a result of an oversized bore does not allow the bullet enough ‘bite’ in the rifling well enough to fully stabilize. I’ll have to check this later to see what’s up.
The Loads Used
The ammunition I used was hand-loaded to be ‘antique-friendly,’ using lighter bullets than factory loads and modest charges of powder.
As always approach new loads with caution; it is prudent to start 10% below the listed load and work up to it. The author assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of the data presented. Always insure that any antique gun is in safe condition before firing.
.32 S&W
73gr. TCL, 1.2gr Red Dot, Federal #100 Primer
3? Barrel 557 fps. 50ft./lbs ES: 51
This load is very similar in performance to Remington factory ammunition, and ought to be usable in any gun that is safe to fire.
This load is actually less powerful than Remington factory ammunition, which is already underpowered.
All rounded Up!
Iver Johnson revolvers are not particularly collectible and were produced in very large numbers; for example from 1894-1908 something over 700,000 Model 1s were produced in .32 Caliber. Consequently they can be had for very little money, starting at a bit under $100 for examples that are in good enough condition to be fired and seldom exceeding $200 for the best examples. Shop carefully and you can find something quite nice for little cash. With their decent triggers and mild recoil these can be very pleasant and fun guns to shoot.
There are some caveats to that, of course; most of these guns depend on ‘pinching’ the cylinder between the hand and the lock, and as such are liable to loosen under excessive firing as the hand wears. Also let’s face it; the majority of these guns are over a century old. Things are going to break, and while the sheer number of guns produced means there is a relatively good supply of spare parts, even a simple repair by a gunsmith can cost more than you paid for the gun. Then there’s the ammunition, which is not always easy to come by and usually expensive when you do.
The expense of repairs and ammunition costs make these guns best-suited to a do-it-yourself-er.’ Ammunition can be reloaded quite cheaply, and with the sort of low-pressure loads used your brass might outlive the gun. Likewise while they can be a bit fussy there are few parts that cannot be replaced by someone who is reasonably handy and has some basic tools.
My opinion is that if you intend to shoot a top-break revolver a lot invest the extra money to buy a Smith & Wesson. In my experience they are more durable and better made; I’ve put something over 3,000 rounds of hotter-than-factory ammo through my favorite S&W top-break, and it’s still going strong.
That being said, if you just want a cheap, fun piece of history that’s fun to shoot occasionally you could do worse than an Iver Johnson.
Michael Tinker Pearce, 24 November 2020
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