History channel is wrong !

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Ironworker

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I was just watching their special series Titled "Tales of the Gun today's show was on million dollar guns. There were talking about the Colt Walker" 44 caliber "Cap and ball" they said it was the most powerful hand gun ever! It even reviles the modern 44 Magnum ? Don't they have hand gun expert editor or some thing ?
 
I do love the History channel,,,

But sometimes their hyperbole does get a bit out of hand.

I wonder at what velocity a hot loaded Walker (modern repro) can throw a .44 ball?

Anyone ever chrony'd one?

Aarond
 
They don't just get gun history wrong. I was watching one of their shows on the Ottoman empire back when I was in college studying the same. They got a bunch wrong. I told the prof about it and he suggested I write and tell them of their mistakes. I cynical enough to believe correcting them would be a waste of a good stamp... Take all history shows with a grain of salt.

Tony
 
First of all, just because a bit of information may be wrong on a given network/channel does not mean the whole network/channel is wrong.

Second, I think you have misunderstood the comment. You said...
There were talking about the Colt Walker" 44 caliber "Cap and ball" they said it was the most powerful hand gun ever!
Click to expand...

They didn't say it IS the most powerful handgun ever, but that it WAS, that means, it superceded its predecessors in power, not that it did that and also continued to be the most powerful handgun from that point and into the future. Maybe at the time of production, it was and if that was the case, then the comment would be correct, but there were more powerful handguns made previously, but they were not production guns. So, maybe they meant it was the most powerful commercially produced model of handgun and that might have been correct, thereby disallowing some of the frighteningly large blundbuss handguns of centuries prior that were not production guns.

Third, why would you ask about the 44 magnum for comparison? You been getting your facts from Dirty Harry? At the time Dirty Harry was made, the 44 magnum wasn't even the most powerful handgun around and certainly isn't today.
 
Of the shows I have watched, most of them have wrong information in them. On one occasion, they were talking about a U.S. tank, but the pictures were of an English tank. In a show about the U.S. 1917 MG, they showed a Maxim.

At the least, the folks supplying the pictures go for the most interesting shot, not one to back up the point being made by the voice over.

And way to many of the shows pander to the WOW and CDI (Chicks Dig It) factors. They show machinguns firing long bursts as point targets, when they are designed for lots of short bursts at area targets.

In short, don't expect to learn history from the History channel.
 
This has been batted around the internet...using REAL black powder - not pyordex stuff...

Walker 60 Grains Swiss fffg 140 +or-1 grain ball
Velocity 1200 fps Energy 448 Foot pounds.
Click to expand...

Ooof...not bad for a pistol that was, in its day, the most "powerful handgun in the world" but everything I read compares it to the .357 mag...not 44 mag.

It would be cool to have one of the modern replicas...hmmm.....
 
There were talking about the Colt Walker" 44 caliber "Cap and ball" they said it was the most powerful hand gun ever!
Click to expand...
Maybe for its DAY... Isn't the 500 S&W the most powerful handgun to date? When did the 500 S&W come out?
 
The Colt Walker was the most powerful handgun until the .357 Magnum was invented by Daniel Wesson in the 1930's.

The S&W .500 is not the most powerful handgun.
No matter how powerful the gun is, there's always something else that tops it.
As example, there are handguns chambered in powerful rifle rounds like the .308, and some clown built a handgun chambered for the .50 M2 Browning cartridge.

Jeff Cooper answered this conclusively when he said that he'd seen a chopped down M72 40mm grenade launcher. He said that if you could classify that as a hand gun, the question of what's the most powerful pistol is a moot point.
 
It happens

Many networks air programs with incorrect or misleading "facts". I normally try to further research and validate when I hear a 'new to me' fact on telivesion. After all, many of the fact finders for these shows are normal joe's with a stringent time frame searching the internet to write their scripts.
 
iirc the Walker was the most powerful black powder handgun. Not sure what cartridge replaced it as most powerful.


The History Channel hasn't ever been a scholarly endeavor.
 
You mean like the computerized video of a bullet going down a barrel with the bullet spinning to the left and the rifling right handed ?? :rolleyes:
 
The History Channel does get stuff wrong. Generally, there stuff is decent, but details here and there get lost.

...except when they talk about religion or predictions about the future. Then, don't trust much of anything they say!
 
History Channel got it wrong again, really? I've been more than disgusted by some of their shows, more than I care to mention here. :mad:
 
Hey, SNOPES said an "event" never happened and it was all false....

I was there, so I wrote them about it, informed them I was there and details they could easily use to verify what I was saying.

They replied I was wrong... LMAO...

OK, I guess I must have dreamed it then ... the idiots.
 
i still have that episode on my DVR. that show gives out incorrect info pretty much every episode lol.

the history channel in general gives out a LOT of misinformation.

who cares? it's tv entertainment, what do you want? :confused: :)
 
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