I want .357 magnum power in a cartridge that's half an inch shorter. You could build a J-frame shorter than a Keltec PF-9 that way.

Smith and Wesson revolvers used to have cylinders that long, let's do it again.

They keep making magnum rounds for revolvers longer and longer, even though with modern powders and metallurgy, there's no real reason to do so. They need to figure out some other way to make it so the new round won't go in the old pistols. Maybe a thicker rim?

And then the J-frame could get shorter. Right now, a 640 is 6 5/8 inches. Lets say we take .6 inches off the round. .357 Magnum is 1.59, so that would be .99 inches long. Still a bit longer than a .380.

And we should take the barrel back down to 1 7/8 inches like it used to be, like God intended it to be . So that's another .25 inches.

So we've taken .85 inches off of the length of the pistol. 6 5/8 = 6.625 inches, so it is now 5.775 inches long, a reduction of almost 13%. It's now a touch shorter than a Keltec PF-9 (5.85 inches)

And the weight would drop some too, because the cylinder length would shrink by over 30%. That would help concealability, since the cylinder is the fattest part of the pistol.

It might even reduce the manufacturing cost for the pistol a bit. As well as the ammo. And you could store more ammo in a smaller space.

Revolver reliability, flexibility and power in a Keltec length.

I want one. Anybody else?

I know the tooling costs would be prohibitive and blah, blah, blah. I still want one.

Sounds like a clever idea to me. Anybody want one or would you just as soon have the PF-9? How about the same concept applied to the .41 Short or the .44 Short?

357 power out of somthing as minamal as a sub-compact auto. i can see that. sign me up.

I like it applied to the .41 short or the .44 short. That would be a stubby snubby for sure. Although the concealment would be a bit less, since the frame would have to be taller, even if not longer.

How about the .356TSW cartridge?

case length = 0.848"
total length = 1.154"




(Photos by SmithNut)

9x23 Winchester with moon clips would probably work real nice.


Ez

"The .357 super short magnum"

quote:

Originally posted by jeremyws1:
How about the .356TSW cartridge?

case length = 0.848"
total length = 1.154"

quote:

Originally posted by Ezra:
9x23 Winchester with moon clips would probably work real nice.
Ez

Close, but obviously from market results, no dice.

The whole essence is less than 1 inch overall length, and shorten the window, the barrel, and the gun.

The Model 940 TSW is a footnote. why? Because you can get a 640-3 that is only a teeny big bigger that fires .357 magnums that you can buy at Wallyworld.

Even my proposal is marginal. It may not shrink things quite enough. And making the cylinder as short as I propose, the trigger finger is getting awfully close to the barrel cylinder gap.

Everybody posts how accurate the snubbies are. Can we take another .15" off the barrel? About 1 3/4" long? Then we would have a whole inch shorter.

What the heck, while we're at it, let's rework the action to make it shorter, keep the grip angle the same but move the grips closer to the trigger and make the grip fatter to compensate for the shorter distance.

I'm sure we could get the tooling and design resources for all that from the beancounters, right?

When did Smith actually change the dimensions of the action significantly? Not post WWII, I don't think? They just put on a bandaid, right?

It's been about 100 years, right? How about a redesign? Maybe I need a new thread.

Just hot load some .44 Russians, or .41 Colts.


You realize I am joking.

quote:

Close, but obviously from market results, no dice.

I respectfully disagree. The 9x23 was never significantly supported by gun manufacturers, and the 1911 was not the correct platform for the cartridge. It is a great cartridge.


Ez

I couldn't find the overall length of the 9X23, but if the case is 23 millimeters, then the overall length must be pretty close to the .38 special, say?

The whole idea behind my proposal is to work really hard on the ballistics to cram lots of power into a small package, and then invest in the shorter window to realize the benefits.

I just think that the less than an inch OAL is a magic number that will get people's attention. And maybe shrinking the length of the pistol by a whole inch is necessary to have it make an impression.

It is a question of how much quantitative change makes for a qualitative change.

This is really driven by my search for a 640. I saw a fair number of scandium and alloy J frames, but there was a positive plague of Keltechs and Kahrs and Bersa 380s and on and on.

So I'm trying to revive the revolver by keeping the revolver's strengths of high power and reliability and squeezing it down into a Keltech sized package.

If I have to, I'd be willing to sacrifice some power to keep the size down. If the 9X23 overall length is less than an inch, I'm interested.

So you want ten pounds of taters in a 5 pound sack?

http://www.burnscustom.com/9x23.html

OAL for 9x23 is 1.25". Close to your desired length. If memory serves (I am getting old) pressure levels are in the 50,000+ psi range.
If you sacrifice power, you probably won't have your ".357 Magnum"...

Ez

quote:

Originally posted by glypnir:
Close, but obviously from market results, no dice.

The .356TSW failed due to marketing.

"I want .357 magnum power in a cartridge that's half an inch shorter."

With a total length of 1.154" (1.59" for a .357 Magnum) and power approaching a .357 Magnum, you are saying "no dice" to what you asking for. I guess I don't understand.

The 9x23 and the 357 Sig are the right length and offer the power of the 357, but I doubt that we'll ever see either one in a revolver. A J-frame would have to be a 4 shot to work with the 357 Sig. A 940 could be rechambered to take the 9x23, whether it would work or not remains to be seen. The 940's didn't work very well with different kinds of 9mm ammo. An overall length shortened J frame in 9x23 that worked would be nice in scandium and SS. Bob

Well maybe I should go with the .357 TSW. If I shrink the window to 1", there might be a problem with getting the trigger finger too close to the barrel cylinder gap. Or at least if you were wearing an insulated glove.

Here is the photoshop special:



Goofy lookin, ain't it?

And for comparison, a regular 640: