At the gun range, other shooters occasionally ogle the Python, ask politely to pick it up or maybe just drool. On the rare occasion somebody asks what I might take for it, a simple shake of the head is all the reply they get.

This Python is the gun I posed with for a photo appearing in the newest edition of the Nosler Reloading Guide, where I was honored to write about the .357 Magnum.

I carried it on a few hunting treks, once posing with it and an unlucky cottontail rabbit for publication in an outdoor newspaper where I worked at the time. By then, I had discovered the Python really liked a .38 Special load I had worked up using a 158-grain lead SWC launched by a moderate charge of Hodgdon’s HP-38, the same load I occasionally used in matches at the time.

A couple of years earlier, I’d purchased a 6” Model 57 Smith & Wesson in .41 Magnum. It too proved to be accurate with the right load — in my case a 210-grain Nosler JHP ahead of 20.0 grains of H110 ignited by a magnum CCI primer — and it’s the gun that has gone with me to several annual Elmer Keith Memorial long range handgun shoots southwest of Spokane. It’s an invitational event, at which some of the finest unknown long-range sixgunners I’ve ever met gather for a Saturday of camaraderie, potluck food, a silent auction and awards. Proceeds from this event go to support the National Rifle Association Foundation and Second Amendment Foundation.