G. Gordon Liddy & the 3 1/2" Model 27

W

Wyatt Burp

Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2008
Messages
6,788
Reaction score
17,741
Location
Northern California
Liddy, of Watergate fame carried a Model 27 because two old time gunfighters in the FBI mentored him in shooting. They also gave him blunt, harsh, and life saving advice when it came to shooting people. You can see his gun in that picture under my gun along with his others. Read what these guys told him and why they carried 5" .357s (starts bottom of page 65 of his book here)...
https://books.google.com/books?id=Y...&q=g. gordon liddy will branter jeter&f=false


 
Last edited:
Register to hide this ad
Good read -- thank you. Why do we think Brantner's .357 Magnum was loaded with five rounds instead of six, and why did he only hand five rounds to Liddy? Pre hammer block instincts, or is Liddy mis-remembering?
 
Liddy was the District Attorney and then County Court Judge for Dutchess County NY back in the day. He was always packing a hogleg under those black robes. I was a young State Trooper back then - he served the county well in my opinion.
 
Last edited:
I know someone who used to work for Liddy when he was with the Treasury Dept in the 1970's. He said Liddy used to F' with his bosses all the time, and he had a very close relationship with the Firearms Tech people at BATF, which had become a new agency. He was also involved with a lot of agencies that were doing classified weapons work as the Vietnam war wound down, so that is probably where the prototype, sterile CIA DEER Pistol came from - they (DEER Pistol) were designed and made right down the road in Alexandria, VA by American Machine and Foundry (AMF), the people who used to own Harley Davidson.

I used to play CYO Baseball with one of his neighbors' kids - but I never met him until the mid 1980's. The way he describes the neighborhood he lived in was very accurate.

There was a time when he needed money for some reason, and he let some of his handguns on consignment in a Maryland high end gun shop named Crawford International - for those of you who know Silver Springs, MD. I saw his Colt Detective Special and his Browning High Power pistol, but they were not in the showcase for long as I guess Liddy got funds from some other source and grabbed his weapons back. The owner of that store, Ken Crawford, did a lot of International Sales being so close to the Washington, DC embassies - and he had a huge stock of registered and legal Ingram M10 subguns with silencers in his store room. Image the scene from McQ when John Wayne test fired the Ingram - that was Crawfords! Well Crawfords had a B&W glossy picture of Liddy with a Ingram with silencer with his standing with some of the sales people. I am sure Liddy was glad no one saw that pic since he coule have been thrown back in prison for it. Crawfords closed in the early 1980's.

His .357 was supposed to have been handed down to his oldest son, who is a retired Navy SEAL. The other weapons were probably split up with the other kids since Liddy's wife passed awhile ago.

Definitely an interesting personality of that time frame. DC area was full of them - Walter Walsh with the FBI, Rex Davis with the BATF (former OSS), Col John Wood of Heckler & Koch (former OSS), and on and on.

Nice Smith Model 27 BTW!
 
Last edited:
Hapworth said:
Good read -- thank you. Why do we think Brantner's .357 Magnum was loaded with five rounds instead of six, and why did he only hand five rounds to Liddy? Pre hammer block instincts, or is Liddy mis-remembering?
Click to expand...
As I posted on the other thread, I don't really know, but I reckon it was a holdover from bullseye paper shooting. I never even HEARD of someone loading six rounds to shoot at paper until the late sixties.
progress.gif
 
Man that brings back memories. I used to hit Crawford and Atlantic Guns about once a month. Never bought anything from Crawford but bought a few from Atlantic. Went in to Crawford one day and a Nigerian Embassy Guard was buying a briefcase mac 10 , They let me look it over , I was amazed.
 
Great post. Thanks for reminding me about this book. I read it many many years ago and enjoyed it. Thankfully, I kept it and just found it in my closet. Going to start on it tomorrow...

3.5" 27

 
Last edited:
A neighbor was a retired FBI SA. When Liddy was in the news a lot, he talked of him and his favorite story of Liddy was a "negligent discharge" of said .357 when on a stake out in the darkness of a middle of the night on Pendleton Pike (a major Indy thoroughfare), an owl in a tree overhanging the FBI car hooted, startling the young FBI SA.
 
I read Will when I was in my 30's. I thought it was great. I wish I had read it when I was younger.
 
Gordon went to middle school and high school with my mom. I think he held his hand over a lit candle to show how tough he was...
 
He said "county" not "country" only he knows what he meant, maybe he'll clarify.

I think he meant "county" since he mentioned he was a Dutchess COUNTY judge.
 
Last edited:
To be fair, Watchdog is not completely incorrect - Mr. Liddy did spoil a successful law enforcement career due to Watergate. OTOH, he did serve his country well in various capacities up to that point and does deserve credit for those activities.

As for the 5 rounds thing, we discussed that in a different thread the other day. Apparently, it was a holdover from the old Colt SAA days when you carried a gun loaded with 5 to prevent an AD, PLUS someone mentioned that some of the early S&W Hand Ejectors were not quite as safe loaded with 6 as they subsequently became. So that would be the two prime reasons I imagine.
 
It's a shooter's thread -- let's keep it that way and not get locked for political yap. ;)

In reading the section linked, I was struck by two things:

1) How nice it would be to visit the FBI armorer with my revolver and say "[living legend] sent me; he says do to my gun what you did for his."

2) Wonder what those guys would think of advancements in bullet design yielding service caliber loads from .38 to .45 that are comparably effective defense rounds; would they still lean toward big N-frames and hot .357? (Probably so. ;))
 
With respect to the 5 rounds in a six-round revolver, I can only postulate that (with the modern hammer block S&W) the empty chamber was the one to the right of the barrel, next in line to the firing position. Why? If a perp should somehow gain possession of the gun and pull the trigger, it would go "click" instead of "bang." This instant of confusion could be vital in regaining the initiative in a struggle. The cop would know to cycle the gun twice to get the first shot off. Revolvers don't have safeties, so that could be the next best thing.

Just a guess.

John
 
Last edited:
Here is some Quantico love from back in the day, 1970's - since they still had most of the Thompsons. Keepin it on spec. Photo credits are to the son of the late Larry Horner, gunsmith and M1 carbine specialist from Texas. First photo is from a vintage FBI Gun Vault post card, which has two greats pictured - Special Agent Hank Sloan and a Colt Monitor machinegun!

Enjoy:



 
A completely different historical question about a detail in that book excerpt that was linked in the OP:
I admit to not knowing too much about adjustable-sight K-frames; Liddy talks about his K-38 Combat Masterpiece "the same one I had worn in the army". When and for what purpose did the Army issue the K-38? I was only aware of the Air Force.
 
Absalom said:
A completely different historical question about a detail in that book excerpt that was linked in the OP:
I admit to not knowing too much about adjustable-sight K-frames; Liddy talks about his K-38 Combat Masterpiece "the same one I had worn in the army". When and for what purpose did the Army issue the K-38? I was only aware of the Air Force.
Click to expand...
He was an artillery officer in the Korean War and an M.P. comes to mind, but not sure about that. But maybe he was able to pack the K-38 in that position as artillery officer.
 
Hapworth said:
It's a shooter's thread -- let's keep it that way and not get locked for political yap. ;)

In reading the section linked, I was struck by two things:

1) How nice it would be to visit the FBI armorer with my revolver and say "[living legend] sent me; he says do to my gun what you did for his."

2) Wonder what those guys would think of advancements in bullet design yielding service caliber loads from .38 to .45 that are comparably effective defense rounds; would they still lean toward big N-frames and hot .357? (Probably so. ;))
Click to expand...

I imagine that it would be pretty hard to convince them otherwise, considering it had gotten them that far.
 
So, according to these old salty killing machines, a .357 Magnum is a "big bore" but a .38 Special isn't? Color me confused...
 
19ontheslide said:
So, according to these old salty killing machines, a .357 Magnum is a "big bore" but a .38 Special isn't? Color me confused...
Click to expand...


..velocity.... Back then the .38s of the time were 158 grain RNL bullets that on a good day made 850 fps from a 4" barrel. The .357 Magnum was also a 158 grain lead bullet but was traveling 1300-1400 fps from a 5" barrel and was a semi-wadcutter design...

Liddy's instructors knew what they were talking about through observation and experience....not from some lab...

Bob
 
SuperMan said:
..velocity.... Back then the .38s of the time were 158 grain RNL bullets that on a good day made 850 fps from a 4" barrel. The .357 Magnum was also a 158 grain lead bullet but was traveling 1300-1400 fps from a 5" barrel and was a semi-wadcutter design...

Liddy's instructors knew what they were talking about through observation and experience....not from some lab...

Bob
Click to expand...

-- Yes, I'm well aware that the .357 Magnum cartridge is a higher velocity round than the .38 Special. You can add all the extra velocity you want; it's not going to change a gun's bore diameter. At least it doesn't work that way in the lab. Maybe the rules of physics don't apply out there in the Real World of Observation and Experience...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

W
I Wonder If Jelly Brice Knew These Gunmen
Replies
7
Views
1K
okiegtrider
okiegtrider
W
G. Gordon Liddy And The S&W Model 27
Replies
16
Views
4K
Wyatt Burp
W
W
  • Locked
G. Gordon Liddy's Model 27
2
Replies
30
Views
10K
ArchAngelCD
ArchAngelCD

Latest posts

Back
Top