February 5, 1999
The Derringers Are to Die For,
Proving Bigger Isn't Always Better
By JAMES P. STERBA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
ATLANTA -- Rarely in the annals of firearms awesome-osity has anything
come along for the handgun-consuming public like Taurus International's
"Raging Bull." It's a five-shot revolver that ended the .44 magnum's
43-year reign as the world's most powerful handgun cartridge by shooting
one that's bigger.
Weighing nearly 4 pounds, with an 8
3/8-inch-long barrel, the Raging Bull
was named 1998 Handgun of the
Year partly for its ability to fire the
454 Casull, the new most powerful
cartridge (as in .454 caliber), a good
150 yards. This year's Guns and
Ammo magazine's top handgun, it
now comes in antique-looking
hardened steel with a suggested retail price of $845 (scope mounts
optional). "It's just pretty," says Keeva Segal, a Taurus representative with
a grin that seems to say, "Dirty Harry, eat your heart out." Actually, it's for
hunters, and folks at Taurus, based in Miami, brought along a stuffed
540-lb. wild Russian boar as testament to what the Raging Bull can do. It
stopped the boar with a single shot. Russian guides' jaws dropped. "Other
handgun hunters empty their .44 magnums while the pigs keep on coming,"
a poster quoting the Russians proclaims.
* * *
At the world's biggest gun trade show, held here over four days, the
Raging Bull draws awed oglers. But big isn't everything. At booth 5450,
the "Lady Derringer" .38 special, the "world's most powerful pocket pistol"
is stopping traffic, too. American Derringer Corp., of Waco, Texas, sells
up to 10,000 "units" a year, plus Lady Derringer perfume, earrings, playing
cards and a pin-up poster of a scantily clad part-owner of the firm. For the
guns-as-jewelry set, Model 145, which fires two .410-gauge shotgun
shells, sports a mother-of-pearl handle and gold engravings. Starting price
is $1,300 but "this is real gold, honey, not that electroplating stuff," says
American Derringer's Pam Jordon, caressing its petite barrel.
* * *
"Responsible" seems to be the whistling-in-the-dark word around the
Georgia World Congress Center here, as in: "30,000 responsible
businesspeople working to support America's shooting-sports traditions."
That's the official slogan of this year's Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor
Trade (SHOT) Show, the annual coming-out party for an industry that this
year -- owing to a spate of city-sponsored liability suits against it -- would
just as soon stay out of the limelight.
After reading show rules that require personal firearms to be checked at
the door, about 17,000 wholesale buyers from 86 countries turn up to
touch, handle and aim the goods of 1,400 companies, including 235 gun
makers and distributors, 133 ammunition purveyors and hundreds of
makers of shooting accessories from grips, laser sights and holsters to
computer games and hunting simulators.
The Germans are here in force. Ulrich Ockenfub would dearly love to
interest U.S. military snipers in his new "Shorty (Bull-Pup) Marksman
Rifle," which German antiterrorist forces have already embraced. The
Shorty, made by Sommer & Ockenfub GmbH, is as compact as a
sawed-off shotgun but with a full-length 25-inch rifle barrel. Its secret is
that the barrel extends back through the stock, which makes it look
strange. The Shorty has won all sorts of innovation awards back home.
But can the stubby rifle win American eyes in a market where "looks"
count?
* * *
"There's pretty and then there's functional," says Ralph Stoevener, a
38-year-old gunsmith with Rocky Mountain Arms Inc., of Longmont,
Colo., showing off his latest creation: an ultra-functional, made-to-order
bolt-action "Pro Guide" rifle that blends all the features professional guides
look for in a backup gun that has to work when the klutzy rich hunter
draws a bead on an angry buffalo -- and misses.
"Wealthy hunters like a pretty wood stock, but a wood stock is inferior in
a hostile environment," he says, "and our game is reliability and
repeatability. For example, our Teflon coating lubricates so these guns
won't gum up in the cold. And accuracy is not a question."
What put his company on the map, he says, was "a neat little toy" called
"The Patriot." A fully automatic AR-15, .223-caliber pistol -- in other
words, a handgun that shoots rifle bullets -- it made it into several movies,
including Kevin Costner's "Waterworld." Sorrowfully, in Mr. Stoevener's
view, the 1994 Brady bill killed it off.
* * *
Luca Salvinelli, of Investarm SpA, likes pretty shotguns. He just doesn't
think they should cost as much as his competitor, Armi Perazzi SpA,
charges, which is from $5,500 to $84,300 (or a matched set of four for
$316,130). He dumps all over Perazzi, which like most Italian gunmakers,
is in Brescia, between Milan and Venice.
"It's crazy," he says, "Americans, they pay $20,000 for the name, but it's
the same gun as mine. Look." He shows off his "Sydney: Born to Win"
models. He introduces Franco Bertella, who defected from Perazzi and
can vouch that a $20,000 Perazzi can be made by Investarm to wholesale
for $7,400 and retail for $9,970. That's still more than 90% of the guns at
the show cost, he is told. All of a sudden Mr. Salvinelli's nationalism
surfaces.
"But these are Italian," he says. "Workmanship. Craftsmen. Engineering.
Americans can't do this."
Americans, despite their reputation as straight shooters, don't make the
straightest-shooting guns, either. At booth 4822, Jochen and Dieter
Anschutz, of J.G. Anschutz GmbH, Ulm, Germany, gunmakers, modestly
show off the most accurate competition rifles in the world. They retail for
from $250 to $1,850. Most Olympic shooting teams wouldn't think of
using anything else. In last year's World Cup and various world
championships, 34 of 39 gold medals went to marksmen using Anschutz
rifles.
* * *
Americans have their niches, too. The smallest 9mm handgun available is
American-made, by Standard Arms of Reno. Called the "User Friendly
Pocket Rocket," it will set "a new world standard in compact firepower"
when it arrives at selected wholesalers next month, says Standard.
October Country Muzzleloading Inc., of Hayden, Idaho, custom makes an
.8-gauge double-barrel shotgun that sells for $4,995 and comes with an
ode:
"And so it was, that on the first minute of the first day of the last year
of the 20th century, the earth shook, the heavens roared. There was a
blinding flash of light. Timid men quivered. The noble beasts of the
land ran and hid. And a dark cloud of sulfurous smoke enveloped the
area."
Linda Shorb, who runs the company, says the shotgun's marble-size lead
ball will bring down an elk easily. "It'll drop an elephant," she says. "But it
would have to be a small elephant."
Surveying the vast sea of gun booths around him, David Small says: "You
got your biggies, your Smith & Wesson, Winchester, Remington. Then you
got what I call the junk-gun guys -- high volume, low price. Then you got
people like me: quality products but small volumes."
Mr. Small's latest project is to re-create for the real world what the movies
made famous. Back when the .44 magnum was still king, a legendary
gunsmith named Harry Sanford built the stainless steel .44 AMP Automag,
which had big bore power and target-pistol accuracy. About 8,500 were
made from 1971 to 1982, then immortalized in the 1983 Clint Eastwood
movie "Sudden Impact" as Dirty Harry's favorite piece.
Mr. Small's company, Galena Industries Inc., of Irwindale, Calif., bought
leftover parts and productions rights from Mr. Sanford's widow, Nadine,
and is producing 1,000 Harry Sanford commemorative Automags. At
$2,750 each, they will have Mr. Sanford's autograph etched into the
barrel.
Bill York and Scott H. Stava, retired California Highway Patrol officers,
formed a company called Strictly Anything Inc., to market "The
Concealment Ensemble," including a $99.95 (retail) "Planner Plus" that
looks and works like one of those big leather Filofax organizers, with
calendar, pad and pen, Palm Pilot or calculator. But in the rear is a handy
compartment for a handgun, bullets, an extra clip or a can of pepper spray.
"There are other bags out there that just shout gun case," says Mr. York.
"We wanted this to say executive planner."
The Derringers Are to Die For,
Proving Bigger Isn't Always Better
By JAMES P. STERBA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
ATLANTA -- Rarely in the annals of firearms awesome-osity has anything
come along for the handgun-consuming public like Taurus International's
"Raging Bull." It's a five-shot revolver that ended the .44 magnum's
43-year reign as the world's most powerful handgun cartridge by shooting
one that's bigger.
Weighing nearly 4 pounds, with an 8
3/8-inch-long barrel, the Raging Bull
was named 1998 Handgun of the
Year partly for its ability to fire the
454 Casull, the new most powerful
cartridge (as in .454 caliber), a good
150 yards. This year's Guns and
Ammo magazine's top handgun, it
now comes in antique-looking
hardened steel with a suggested retail price of $845 (scope mounts
optional). "It's just pretty," says Keeva Segal, a Taurus representative with
a grin that seems to say, "Dirty Harry, eat your heart out." Actually, it's for
hunters, and folks at Taurus, based in Miami, brought along a stuffed
540-lb. wild Russian boar as testament to what the Raging Bull can do. It
stopped the boar with a single shot. Russian guides' jaws dropped. "Other
handgun hunters empty their .44 magnums while the pigs keep on coming,"
a poster quoting the Russians proclaims.
* * *
At the world's biggest gun trade show, held here over four days, the
Raging Bull draws awed oglers. But big isn't everything. At booth 5450,
the "Lady Derringer" .38 special, the "world's most powerful pocket pistol"
is stopping traffic, too. American Derringer Corp., of Waco, Texas, sells
up to 10,000 "units" a year, plus Lady Derringer perfume, earrings, playing
cards and a pin-up poster of a scantily clad part-owner of the firm. For the
guns-as-jewelry set, Model 145, which fires two .410-gauge shotgun
shells, sports a mother-of-pearl handle and gold engravings. Starting price
is $1,300 but "this is real gold, honey, not that electroplating stuff," says
American Derringer's Pam Jordon, caressing its petite barrel.
* * *
"Responsible" seems to be the whistling-in-the-dark word around the
Georgia World Congress Center here, as in: "30,000 responsible
businesspeople working to support America's shooting-sports traditions."
That's the official slogan of this year's Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor
Trade (SHOT) Show, the annual coming-out party for an industry that this
year -- owing to a spate of city-sponsored liability suits against it -- would
just as soon stay out of the limelight.
After reading show rules that require personal firearms to be checked at
the door, about 17,000 wholesale buyers from 86 countries turn up to
touch, handle and aim the goods of 1,400 companies, including 235 gun
makers and distributors, 133 ammunition purveyors and hundreds of
makers of shooting accessories from grips, laser sights and holsters to
computer games and hunting simulators.
The Germans are here in force. Ulrich Ockenfub would dearly love to
interest U.S. military snipers in his new "Shorty (Bull-Pup) Marksman
Rifle," which German antiterrorist forces have already embraced. The
Shorty, made by Sommer & Ockenfub GmbH, is as compact as a
sawed-off shotgun but with a full-length 25-inch rifle barrel. Its secret is
that the barrel extends back through the stock, which makes it look
strange. The Shorty has won all sorts of innovation awards back home.
But can the stubby rifle win American eyes in a market where "looks"
count?
* * *
"There's pretty and then there's functional," says Ralph Stoevener, a
38-year-old gunsmith with Rocky Mountain Arms Inc., of Longmont,
Colo., showing off his latest creation: an ultra-functional, made-to-order
bolt-action "Pro Guide" rifle that blends all the features professional guides
look for in a backup gun that has to work when the klutzy rich hunter
draws a bead on an angry buffalo -- and misses.
"Wealthy hunters like a pretty wood stock, but a wood stock is inferior in
a hostile environment," he says, "and our game is reliability and
repeatability. For example, our Teflon coating lubricates so these guns
won't gum up in the cold. And accuracy is not a question."
What put his company on the map, he says, was "a neat little toy" called
"The Patriot." A fully automatic AR-15, .223-caliber pistol -- in other
words, a handgun that shoots rifle bullets -- it made it into several movies,
including Kevin Costner's "Waterworld." Sorrowfully, in Mr. Stoevener's
view, the 1994 Brady bill killed it off.
* * *
Luca Salvinelli, of Investarm SpA, likes pretty shotguns. He just doesn't
think they should cost as much as his competitor, Armi Perazzi SpA,
charges, which is from $5,500 to $84,300 (or a matched set of four for
$316,130). He dumps all over Perazzi, which like most Italian gunmakers,
is in Brescia, between Milan and Venice.
"It's crazy," he says, "Americans, they pay $20,000 for the name, but it's
the same gun as mine. Look." He shows off his "Sydney: Born to Win"
models. He introduces Franco Bertella, who defected from Perazzi and
can vouch that a $20,000 Perazzi can be made by Investarm to wholesale
for $7,400 and retail for $9,970. That's still more than 90% of the guns at
the show cost, he is told. All of a sudden Mr. Salvinelli's nationalism
surfaces.
"But these are Italian," he says. "Workmanship. Craftsmen. Engineering.
Americans can't do this."
Americans, despite their reputation as straight shooters, don't make the
straightest-shooting guns, either. At booth 4822, Jochen and Dieter
Anschutz, of J.G. Anschutz GmbH, Ulm, Germany, gunmakers, modestly
show off the most accurate competition rifles in the world. They retail for
from $250 to $1,850. Most Olympic shooting teams wouldn't think of
using anything else. In last year's World Cup and various world
championships, 34 of 39 gold medals went to marksmen using Anschutz
rifles.
* * *
Americans have their niches, too. The smallest 9mm handgun available is
American-made, by Standard Arms of Reno. Called the "User Friendly
Pocket Rocket," it will set "a new world standard in compact firepower"
when it arrives at selected wholesalers next month, says Standard.
October Country Muzzleloading Inc., of Hayden, Idaho, custom makes an
.8-gauge double-barrel shotgun that sells for $4,995 and comes with an
ode:
"And so it was, that on the first minute of the first day of the last year
of the 20th century, the earth shook, the heavens roared. There was a
blinding flash of light. Timid men quivered. The noble beasts of the
land ran and hid. And a dark cloud of sulfurous smoke enveloped the
area."
Linda Shorb, who runs the company, says the shotgun's marble-size lead
ball will bring down an elk easily. "It'll drop an elephant," she says. "But it
would have to be a small elephant."
Surveying the vast sea of gun booths around him, David Small says: "You
got your biggies, your Smith & Wesson, Winchester, Remington. Then you
got what I call the junk-gun guys -- high volume, low price. Then you got
people like me: quality products but small volumes."
Mr. Small's latest project is to re-create for the real world what the movies
made famous. Back when the .44 magnum was still king, a legendary
gunsmith named Harry Sanford built the stainless steel .44 AMP Automag,
which had big bore power and target-pistol accuracy. About 8,500 were
made from 1971 to 1982, then immortalized in the 1983 Clint Eastwood
movie "Sudden Impact" as Dirty Harry's favorite piece.
Mr. Small's company, Galena Industries Inc., of Irwindale, Calif., bought
leftover parts and productions rights from Mr. Sanford's widow, Nadine,
and is producing 1,000 Harry Sanford commemorative Automags. At
$2,750 each, they will have Mr. Sanford's autograph etched into the
barrel.
Bill York and Scott H. Stava, retired California Highway Patrol officers,
formed a company called Strictly Anything Inc., to market "The
Concealment Ensemble," including a $99.95 (retail) "Planner Plus" that
looks and works like one of those big leather Filofax organizers, with
calendar, pad and pen, Palm Pilot or calculator. But in the rear is a handy
compartment for a handgun, bullets, an extra clip or a can of pepper spray.
"There are other bags out there that just shout gun case," says Mr. York.
"We wanted this to say executive planner."