During a conversation at a recent gun show one guy suggested if former GUNS columnist Elmer Keith were still alive he’d be ecstatic about the recent revolver rounds far exceeding the power of Keith’s most famous accomplishment, the .44 Magnum. Maybe, maybe not. Students of Elmer Keith’s writings know he carefully cultivated his “big bore” image—but mostly with rifles. He’s often quoted as claiming the .270 Winchester is “a fine pest rifle,” and his preferred minimum for North American big game was a 33-caliber rifle with a bullet weighing at least 250 grains.

Keith recognized handguns are sidearms. He’d never draw a revolver if a rifle was handy, and though he once guessed he’d taken 60-odd big game animals with a handgun all were “targets of opportunity.” Elmer Keith was a Montana and Idaho cowboy, raised back when game laws were often bent by circumstances such as hunger. His idea of a good revolver round was something powerful enough to make do when a rifle wasn’t around, rather than as a substitute for a .338 Winchester Magnum.

>> Click Here << To Read More Handloading