what is the most powerful handgun?

yup the desert eagle is the right gun

off the street is correct......again.....on this ...If I may take the liberty of quoting him.

"You can also get single shot breech-loading pistols like the Thompson Contender which fire .223 and (IIRC) the Winchester .30-.30 rifle rounds. "

"In any case, these guns are absolutely worthless unless you want to (1)have continuing opportunities to visit your nephew the orthopaedic surgeon, (2) have bragging rights for the biggest handgun around, or (3) want to hunt grizzly bears with a handgun -- all of which are silly enterprises indeed."

I own one of these Thompson Contenders in two calibers. .223 and .35 Remington.

The .223 caliber is quite managable in this handgun and when fired leaves very little powder residue in the 14 inch barrel.
The .35 Remington however is another story. I bought this barrel because I had the Marlin Lever Action Rifle in .35 Remington. So logically why not buy a barrel for the Contender. Big mistake. The recoil is horrendous. The recoil is so violent that without a glove it causes the nerve in my wrist to pinch and numbe my hand for a few minutes. It is managable with a glove but alot of shooting ..which I will not do with this barrel...I am sure will have the same result with a glove.
I know people who have bought this pistol in .45-70,.444 Marlin, et al. Very viscious recoil even with handloads and gloves. Not for the weak spirited.

Moral of the story is ....bigger and more powerful is not necessarily better.
Just be good, profecient , and effecient with what you can afford.
Yes ...lets not leave out affordability. These big powerful handguns and rifles are very expensive to buy and feed. Dont get stupid and hurt yourself and your budget.

Thanks Orangetom

in continuing response to the first post on this thread. Accuracy.

I can vouche that the Thompson Contender pistols are pretty accurate and very nice trigger pulls on them too. Optics can be had to fit on them
Same with the Remmington XP 100 series pistols and the Strikers by Savage.

These pistols are mostly designed for hunting and metalic sillouette shooting at fairly long ranges..out to three hundred yards. It takes dicipline to be able to consistently hold one of these pistols on the mark.

Also the poster who posted about the Howa pistols on the first page..I agree these are probably some of the most powerful pistols ever made...not much for accuracy but definitely made for power ..close up...no doubt. The Europeans and Brits are known for Horse pistols...in the black powder days. The hunting they did in Africa and Asia demanded it..
Ive seen some of those pistols and rifles in magazine articles..they dont bother weighing the powder charges in grains ..it is in drams as I recall. 8 and 4 gauge rifles. Wow...elephant guns.

Thanks to all for some good posts.
Orangetom

A .357 Magnum is a damn powerful, high caliber gun. I had the privelege to fire one at my uncle's house last thanksgiving and it gives quite a kick, you have to hold it pretty firmly in your hands, I wasnt wearing ear plugs and I still think I have a ringing in my ears. Any kind of magnum/ smith & wesson is pretty damn powerful hand gun, and it seems everyone else has been agreeing with that as well. Thats all....

I have a question, since my pistol firing experience is a bit limited. Sometimes you see large caliber handguns fitted with scopes like this:



I was taught to always shoot from the usual two-handed firing position. So how can you use the scope then? Is the magnification low enough to actually use the scope with your eyes being 1 meter away from it?

While it was in production, the Bren Ten was one of the top contenders, and I believe can still come close today.

The 10mm Auto is/was roughly equal to the .357 Magnum. Powerful, but far from the most powerful.

The 19th century Howda pistols were indeed powerful, but only due to their huge projectiles mass. Driven at moderate blackpowder speeds, the 1oz to 4oz balls simply drove through their target by sheer momentum. Even the incredible 4-Bore was simply an answer to throwing a huge ball of lead at dangerous game. The burn rate of blackpowder itself was the limit in performance (if you can only throw something only so fast...make it a BIG something!).

Today's smokeless powders impart tremendous pressures and speeds to very high tech (compared to pure lead), high performance bullets. A .500 caliber, 400gr bullet traveling 1800+fps, transfers energy to a target that the old blackpowder guns could only dream of. In fact, this Winchester factory load will best a 180gr bullet fired from a .30-'06 in muzzle energy....kids, that's hot!

Size comparisons of the "most powerful":

No problems with your question on scoped pistols. No question is a dumb question..just the one never asked. This is one way we learn.
Most scoped pistols are designed to shoot from a rest or two handed.not one handed. Hunting pistols and metallic silloute pistols are shot from rests or stick or laying down off the side of the knee...anything to steady them out. The more magnification one has the more steady a rest is needed to take the shot.
I had a 4 power scope for my Thompson Contender pistol on the .35 Remington barrel. It only lasted a short time the recoil was so bad it broke the hermetic seal on the scope and it fogged up. If you buy a scope for a large recoil pistol ..get a rugged one...that can take it.
Also ..most scoped pistols are shot two handed or off a rest two handed...not one handed.
The most accurate diciplined pistol shooting is done two handed anyways. Two handed just makes for a more steady shooting platform.
Hope this helps Lonestar.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Is the magnification low enough to actually use the scope with your eyes being 1 meter away from it? = Lonestar24

Hello OT. From the above quote, I think Lonestar is referring to "eye relief". It takes some experimentation with how
you shoot to get a pistol scope that is right for you. The scopes I use have an eye relief zone of about 4 inches, where the
center of that zone is the best sight picture. Eye relief is the distance between your pupil and the lense element of the scope.
For me, with an extended two hand grip, I use a TC 14 inch eye relief, 4 power. Thats mounted on a Thompson center
30-30 barrell. I have a (16 inch eye relief) Bushnell 4 power on an XP-100 in 7 mm BR. The former is my brush hunter and the later for
open country. My 454 days are over. Not mentioned so far is that even if you like heavy recoil, which I do, many years
of shooting the big ones will do long term degradation to the wrists. Which brings this back to the primary topic.

"what is the most powerful handgun? Which one of them are the best in accuracy?"

Thats two different questions, with multiple answers and begs the question, for what ?
Serious hunters know the answers for hunting. Its Taylor KO Value, not muzzle energy.
And accuracy at what range ? If you can hit with a hunting pistol at extended ranges, you are using
a rifle bullet of some sort as pistol bullets lose energy too fast. A rifle cartridge can
be loaded with numerous bullet types. I prefer the grandslam boattail spitzers as they hold energy very well at
200 yards. Pushing a big pistol bullet supersonic is ok for 50-75 yards, but beyond that, they lost energy and bullet
drop tends to mean a clear miss. If you are missing the target, handgun power does not matter, accuracy does.
And the longer the range, the more likely you will have a pistol with rifle bullets and ballistics.
So for hunting, the most powerful cartridge is found by doing the math. Here is your calculator:

www.siskguns.com...

The most accurate depends on range and several variables not defined herein.

(Post script. It is no longer politically correct to explain what Taylor KO Values are, so
I will just say bigger is better.)

OK, we've talked about all your cap pistols, but now for the big boys.

The .600 Nitro Express

The .600 is the largest and most powerful of the elephant cartridges developed around the turn of the century, a family that also includes the .505 Gibbs, .500 Jeffrey, and the lesser Nitro Express rounds in .400 and .500 calibers. It was introduced in 1903 by the rifle manufacturer Jeffery, and at least three other companies built rifles to accommodate it; I can find catalog references for the Holland & Holland, Heym and Searcy rifles in .600 N.E., and rumors but no solid evidence of any others. Originally only double rifles were chambered for the .600, but Searcy later released a bolt-action version under their Express line.

The term "Nitro Express" indicates cartridges developed for smokeless or "nitro" powder that uses nitroglycerine-soaked fiber (AKA nitrocellulose) to produce explosive energy. Compared with black powder cartridges, the improvement in performance is startling. A typical big-game rifle loaded with black powder produces muzzle velocity between 1,500 and 1,800 feet per second. The same cartridge using nitrocellulose delivers more than double the velocity and has muzzle energy measured, literally, in tons. Anecdotal evidence indicates that even professional hunters of the time considered the .600 to be almost unusable in the field, but they also spoke highly of its effects on big game. One hunter wrote that any head shot, even one which merely winged the skull without penetrating the brain, would put a bull elephant down for at least half an hour purely from shock.


Bullet Weight; 900 grains

Muzzle Velocity; 1950 fps, Energy; 7591 ft/lbs

@50 yards: Velocity; 1794 fps, Energy; 6427 ft/lbs

@100 yards: Velocity; 1646 fps, Energy; 5413 ft/lbs


Anyone game to fire a few rounds with this -
rapidshare.de...

Originally posted by M6D
I was under the impression the magnum 50 AE is used in the desert eagle, which is the most powerful handgun, not the revolver.

yep..for me i think thats the most powerful handgun

but the con for it..its tooooooo big !!! and only have 7 bullets i think..

Originally posted by num1

yep..for me i think thats the most powerful handgun

but the con for it..its tooooooo big !!! and only have 7 bullets i think..

Nope. The .500 S&W has over 400lbs of energy, and runs well over 400fps faster than the .50AE. The .500 can also use bullets that are over 200grs heavier.

The Desert Eagle is limited in pressure maximums by its rotating bolt and gas operation.

Oops!

[edit on 27-7-2005 by Army]

The most powerful? that has been answered with satisfactory, so i'll say this: the most MANAGABLE round would probably the 10mm/.40cal, you can fire it just as easy as a 9mm, but with more power, so IMO that would be the ideal round.

The .50AE is pure brawn, if I get my hands on one for free, i'd probably take it to the range a few times before pawning it for a less expensive gun that's a little more affordable to shoot

anything over .44cal is IMO too much for anything but making up for something else

My personal favorites will remain the Hk pistols like the USP or Mk23 and the FN Five seveN, I don't need a big gun, definitly not to make up for something else :p

Lonestar,
My apologies for misreading your question. Scoped pistols tend to be not high on the magnification compared to rifles. At the time I bought it my .35 Remington caliber barrel for my Thompson Contender ...4 power was as high as was available. Compare that to the bench rest rifle I have with a 32 power scope.

Also nightwings position is correct and well thought out. Eye relief with scoped pistols means that the scope focuses further back than with a rifle. This keeps the scope tube from knocking your eye out. Focus distance or relief was about 14 inchs back from the scope. You would definitely want this relief with a .35 Remington cartridge in the barrel as the recoil is something to remember and respect. 30.30 in a pistol is no light weight either.

My thanks to both of you ,
Orangetom

Originally posted by Aviator
the most powerful handguns ever were probably the "howdah pistols" carried by big game hunters in the Victorian Era. Basically they were cut-down hunting rifles used mainly as close range defense against tigers and other predators.



I'd venture to say that a .75 caliber rifle round makes the .500 S&W look wimpy in comparision

The projectile may have been bigger, but it was propelled by BLACK POWDER which burns much more slowly than modern smokeless propellants. Also the bullet would not have time to develop maximum velocity in the pistol barrel due to the slow burning black powder.

Thanks for the honor OT, you are quite welcome. OK, time to revisit this as the argument cannot be resolved with
"opinions". To resolve the argument, the intended use of the pistol must be defined. Hunters know their target characteristics
and their ballistics. The math was done back in the 60's. I gave a hint above but nobody seems to want to do the math. So,
FOR HUNTING, this issue can easily be resolved with numbers.

OOps, didnt work, back in a few, gotta figure how to make a tabulation

OK Try again
For starters, lets compare the hunting performance of the 38 special (Non Plus P loads) to the 9 mm and S & W .40 auto.

Factory Round Data.............................Bullet weight in grains............... Test Velocity (fps)..........Muzzle Energy (Ft/lbs)...............Taylor KO Value (dimensionless number)

38 Special Winchester JHP...................110..........................................1089...............................290............................................6
38 Special Federal Hydrashok JHP.......147............................................892...............................260............................................7

9 mm Federal JHP................................125............................................945................................248.............................. .............6
Cor Bon JHP ( Plus P load)..................115...........................................1350...............................466........................................... .7

SW 40 auto Nosler JHP.......................135...........................................1325...............................526........................................ ..10
SW 40 auto Nosler JHP.......................180...........................................1030...............................424........................................ ..10

Now the big magnums

44 Magnum Cor Bon JHP......................320..........................................1273..............................1151.........................................2 5
50 AE CCI and IMI (Samson Ultra).......300..........................................1380..............................1269.........................................29

Now a real hunting revolver

Cor Bon 500 S & W JSP.......................400..........................................1675..............................2500......................................... 47
500 S & W HC Cast..............................440..........................................1625..............................2580................................. ........51

I know you will think I am crazy but for the sake of a math resolution, lets say you are going to hunt Grizzly with a handgun from the above list.
Given the politically incorrect meaning of the TKO Value, your guide says anything less than 30 has no safety margin at range. Thus, only the
bottom two cartridges for the S & W 500 are recommended for a successful hunt.

Propably the "desert eagels"... But I'am not sure...

I was thinking when reading some of the last posts ...that bush pilots in Alaska when going down ...if they survive they prefer to carry the .44 magnum. I think because of the price of the .500s and the availability of ammo the .44 magnum is prefered. I am sure that m any of them prefer a large caliber rifle like the .375 calibers and up but in pistols for close up firepower ..the .44 magnum and its available ammo seems to be it.

Thanks,
Orangetom