While slumming around Instagram on Thursday, I found a story on Rossi's page where they have a new version of the Brawler. This time they are offering a 300 Blackout and a 5.56 chambering for the Brawler. When I saw the story, I popped over to the Rossi website and was even more surprised. The R95 lever action rifles now have a pistol version.
They are currently only offering the R95 pistol in the Triple Black flavor but they are starting off with 4 calibers. The .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum and .454 Casull make sense but what threw me off was the fourth caliber is .45-70. Each caliber comes with a 13 3/4 inch barrel that's threaded. They aren't fitting iron sights but are giving it a picatinny rail section for optics.
This announcement is pretty much hot off the press so they haven't fleshed out all the details on the website just yet.
While this idea of having a lever action pistol isn't new, what makes this offering special is the threaded barrel. This will be the first Mare's Leg category to feature a threaded barrel from the factory.
At this point, you are probably asking why these need to exist.
While I don't care for the aesthetics of the Triple Black personally, I'm sure there are a plethora of folks who are going to love this new offering. In fact, I'm seriously mulling over the idea of purchasing the .357 Magnum version as an SBR host.
I have talked about the utility of the .357 Magnum cartridge from a longer barrel and I suspect that the 13 inch barrel will be able to drive a 158 grain bullet to around the mid 1600 fps range. At those velocities, I expect that my favorite Remington HTP 158 grain SJHP would still perform well on deer sized game out to 125 yards. That would be around 10 yard reduction compared to the 16 barrel Marlin 1894. Jacketed soft points may fair better.
The R95 in .357 Mag is allegedly around 5 1/2 pounds which is lighter than my current 1894. Everything combined puts the R95 pistol into the running for the basis of my Light Carbine idea. The current Marlin 1894 Trapper is around 6 1/3 pounds so the pistol version is saving you almost 1 full pound. Once you put a real stock on it, that will be reduced. I figure the difference is around 1/2 a pound. The biggest difference will be the length of the rifle once fully built. By adding an aftermarket stock from Boyds and slimming and trimming the length of pull down of the stock, we can reduce the over all length to approximately 29 inches instead of the Trapper's 33 inches. Instead of a full size suppressor like the Primal, an AB Suppressors F-4 reduces the total length even more down by about 3 inches compared to my current built out. Basically, the new offering gives me the same basic capabilities while being shorter and lighter.
The Brawler fits similarly into this idea, the .300 BLK version is a 9 inch barrel. I believe the pistol grip uses the same interface as their single shot rifles. By paying registering a Brawler pistol, you can install a new Rossi folding stock on the pistol. This makes for an incredibly small packing rifle capable of taking whitetail at shorter distances. I don't have a use-case for the 5.56 variant other than fun.
Part of me wants to hold out for a Brawler in .357 Magnum to see what a person can do with that setup.
I haven't talked about games in a long while. I did have an article about Far Cry 5 that I started and never finished regarding a specific topic. If you look at my Steam account, The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim and Far Cry 5 represent two of the longest played games I have on that platform. Too bad, the N64 and Xbox 1 didn't have timers for Goldeneye 007 and Halo 1 because I would have a ridiculous amount of time for both of those games. Anyway, there is much buzz around the InterTubes of a leak of renders of a rumored Elder Scrolls release. Kotaku has an article you can read an see the images.
What's so special is that the game is a remaster of the well loved TES4: Oblivion. The rumors have it that the remaster is a full-blown improvement over all things that matter. The leaked images are very good looking. I never played Oblivion but I remember back when I was building PC's for a local repair shop, a guy about the same age I was then came into the shop to have a new card installed so he could play this new game. I didn't know anything about The Elder Scrolls back then since I was just a console gamer. I couldn't afford a proper PC.
Fast forward many years and I finally had a decent PC and TES5: Skyrim came out. I have played that so much that it's toward the top of my Play Time list. While it's not as much as some, 106 hours of play time isn't anything to scoff at. Only Far Cry 5, Ghost Recon Wildlands and Fallout 4 beat Skyrim in play time. What those games don't beat Skyrim in is how much I have watched YouTubers play their version of the game. I probably have as much time watching other people play Bethesda games as I do myself.
I had hear rumors of a remake but seeing the images got me very excited. While I haven't had any time to really sit down and play anything for over a year, I would happily purchase a copy of TES4:OR if Bethesda releases it on Steam. I have no idea when I will have time to play it.
Thompson Center is finally fully back and selling guns. They have started with the Encore platform specifically and are offering three versions. First up is a muzzleloader with a .50 caliber barrel featuring a 209 priming system. Second are the centerfire options. The shotgun version is specifically a rifled barrel in 12 gauge and 20 gauge intended for saboted slugs. Finally, they have the traditional rifle setup. The cartridge list isn't available on the website that I can see but I remember seeing it on their Instagram page. The starting list was pretty large for the rifles and the shotgun list pretty complete including a 45 Colt / .410 option which I find very interesting.
Focusing on the rifle cartridges, they have a large number a typical bottlenecked options with all the usual straight-walls but they do have some new stuff like 22 ARC and 400 Legend. I'm sad to see they don't have .30-30 on the list but I do see they have 360 BuckHammer. The coolest options are the .460 and .500 Magnum cartridges. While I have no interest in the 500 I do have an interest in the 460 for use with 45 Colt handloads.
I'm very glad to see that Gregg Ritz and his team took the chance to bring T/C back. I'm holding out for when they bring the Contender back so I can start experimenting with different cartridges. I've been day dreaming for a few years about buying a .357 Mag Contender with a 10 inch barrel. I want to use a 10 inch .357 Mag for testing handloads and jacketed soft points to build a more complete picture of my on-going saga of the .357 Magnum for General Purpose. The Contender is the best choice for that testing I want to do.
Smith and Wesson is now offering the 1854 level action in .45-70. This marks the first offering in a rifle caliber for the model. I don't know why but it seems that .45-70 is a very popular caliber for lever actions. I had heard that Marlin's best seller is the 1895. Anyway, I like this S&W option as its wood stocked, blued steel and with a 20 inch threaded barrel. I'm interested in seeing a .30-30 in that same setup but I think there is now a place for something amazing.
.45-70's overall length is around 2.5 inches and has a rim diameter of .608 inch. 500 S&W Magnum is 2.3 inches long and has a rim diameter of .556 inch. Simply put, 500 Mag is just a bit shorter than .45-70 which means that 500 Mag fits in the action of the rifle caliber versions of the 1854. The only downside is that 500 Mag has a massively higher chamber pressure and probably a higher bolt thrust compared to .45-70. The 1854 action might just not be robust enough to handle the mighty magnum.
I have no idea if S&W is moving toward either of the 500 and 460 magnums but it's starting to look like my dream of a Marlin 336 Classic with a threaded barrel will be made by Smith and Wesson.
Regarding a topic that I've gone over quite a few times, I attempted to go back in my writings and find where I laid out my complete execution of deploying the .357 Magnum cartridge along with selected factory loading in what I call the General Purpose concept. Other people have called this the Universal Cartridge. The idea is simple, a cartridge where your sidearm and rifle use the same ammunition. I know under "357 Magnum - My New Love Affair and a Cartridge for Many Guns" I give some coverage to the idea and that in other articles I discus the utility, but I don't remember where I truly sat down and provided the full details as to why I have come to regard, at least currently, the .357 Magnum cartridge as the ultimate, practical expression of the idea.
Over the years, I have seen people refer to this idea with different names; Perfect Pairs by IraqVeteran8888, The Universal Cartridge by both Duelist1954 and InRangeTV. I've read it as "The Two-Gun Man Comes Back" in the 1956 January edition of Guns Magazine. If you search the internet enough, you'll find numerous discussions on the topic. In any case, the idea tends to be attributed to frontiersman and cowboys wielding repeating rifles such as a Winchester 1873 while packing a revolver in a belt. Both rifle and pistol are chambered for something such as 44-40 though the idea has been seen as far back as the .44 Henry. The intent is to keep logistics to a minimum. Today, with our improved powders and engineered bullets, this idea becomes more and more useful.
Originally, I had planned on the .45 Colt cartridge being that for me, however, it morphed into the .357 Magnum after several years of buying and selling off select firearms. The .357 Magnums stayed and the .45 Colts went. Personally, I think that was simply because I bought the wrong .45 Colts. I know many people would argue that the .44 Magnum and .41 Magnum cartridges will do all these things and I accept that as true. Ultimately, what has sold me on the .357 Magnum as the king of the Universal Cartridges is concealed carry. The larger cartridges just don't have small guns chambered for them. Even the Smith and Wesson 69 isn't all that small being an L-frame. I don't know how big the Taurus 415 is but I suspect it's about the same size as an K/L frame.
Historically, concealed carry has played an important roll in my life. That's probably an understatement. The ability to properly conceal a firearm for self defense is a major factor in today's society. Open carry of a large revolver doesn't play nicely in the urban sprawls that are dominating regions. There is a reason the name Charlanta has become a thing. The rural spaces between Atlanta and Charlotte are disappearing and are being filled by suburban neighborhoods. It's partly why we moved to South of Atlanta. Even our little section of rural America is being threatened with expansion. The tracts of land are getting smaller and smaller. Thankfully, there is still lots of great space outside of the megaregion here on the East Coast.
Before I go too far, I want to cover what led me down the .357 Magnum path. Back in 2020 and the start of COVID, things had started getting very interesting. Ammunition prices had gone through the roof. I remember seeing a box of Winchester white box 9mm NATO for $45. I usually bought it for $9.99 at most. By 2022, I got very concerned that the world wouldn't hold together and that having a revolver in .357 Magnum was a good idea for logistics reasons. Something I could pair up with my Marlin 1894 CST which I had taken too nicely and a Taurus 66 I had had for many years. Not long before we committed to buying our 19 acre property, what we call the Little Farm, I had found the Taurus 605 Defender. It was an inexpensive stainless steel revolver to match nicely with the stainless steel 1894. I also settled on the Remington HTP 158 grain semi-jacketed hollow point for use in both of those. I think I did a decent job loosely covering the idea the that above article but I think it's time to go over the finer points of what makes this setup just about perfect. More specifically, I want to over over the chosen load and the deployment of that load for general purpose.
I think my favorite aspect of this has been the round count. It wasn't planned like this but a single box of 20 rounds makes the Two-Gun setup ready to go. First up is the Taurus 605. The 605 Defender is a 5 shot, 3 inch stainless steel Brazilian made tool with fixed sights, a radioluminescent front sight and a full underlug for the barrel. The Marlin rifle only holds 8 rounds in the tubular magazine but with the addition of a Mason Leather cartridge cuff, I can hold an additional 7 rounds on the stock. Without a round in the chamber, the rifle has a total of 15 rounds on board in what we will call Cruiser Ready. It's an older police term to describe the carry condition of a long gun. With a single 20 round Remington box, I can load 5 rounds into my revolver and holster it. Next I can load 7 into the cuff and 8 into the rifle's magazine for a grand total of 20 rounds. It's perfect and I very much appreciate it. Sadly, the perfection stops there as once you start loading up speed strips and speed loaders, the numbers fall apart. You could carry two 5-round speed loaders and a 8-round speed strip from TUFF leaving 2 rounds in a second box. It's not unusual for me to have that speed strip in a pocket with that rifle.
What made the Remington load so interesting was a video a came across on YouTube.
What made me like this is at how short of a range the bullet did a good job holding together at the higher velocities. While some of the bullet's weight was shed, the bullet's expanded diameter stayed large at .5 inch and continued to penetrate into the 18 inch range. I was impressed then. I later referenced the companion revolver video finding that the bullet did even better from a 4 inch barrel. Simply put, from a common revolver length barrel, the velocities around 1300 fps net around 19 inches worth of penetration while expanding to half an inch or so. Eventually, I found the Lucky Gunner also tested this load in their ammo test series and got similar results from the 4 inch test gun they used. Ultimately, the 1300 fps velocity with 19 inches of penetration and great expansion is confirmed with with corroborating data to support this load as being a good choice for what I have in mind. Additionally, Lucky Gunner tested a 2 inch barrel with great expansion results and around 14 inches of penetration at 1117 fps. There are other people who have done similar testing with similar results.
Going over all the available data, my rifle pushes these 158 grain bullets to 1796 fps per my Caldwell chronograph. With a BC reported by Remington of 0.145, 1300 fps lands at the 116 yard mark. In another test I found, the 1241 fps mark shows that we would still have great penetration at around 135 yards which is about 3.45 inches below point of aim when zeroed at 100 yards. For hunting, I think this stacks up very well but for self-defense, the lower velocity of 1117 fps is achieved at 181 yards and may not have enough penetration to be effective on whitetail. That indicates that the rifle could function for defensive purposes at much longer distances if needed. If I stick with focusing on the penetration depths, the 1241 fps still achieves +18 inches worth of penetration in gel. If we split the difference between 1241 and 1117 for 1179 fps and split the difference between 14 inches of penetration and 20 inches from that test at 1241 fps, we end up with 1179 fps achieving around 17 inches of penetration. This is extrapolated and therefore unproven but I figure that's fine for whitetail with broadside shots with what I think should be a hard minimum being around 16 inches. That's a top I want to research more. Getting back to the numbers, the calculator puts 1179 fps around 155 yards. In my 30-30 vs .357 article, I had similar numbers, close, but they weren't as precise. I may have forgotten to include some of the thought processing to get you the reader to where I got.
As it were, if my numbers are correct, 155 yards is still quite the feat for a small pistol caliber rifle but I maintain that someone could have a setup with a Marlin 1894 Classic and a good scope with the correct zero and take full advantage of this Remington HTP load for most of their hunting. Interestingly, while writing this, I found a study done by the South Carolina DNR that concluded that 132 yards was the average distance a shot was taken. Our rifle setup coves that and more. That said, I'm not convinced the Remington load is great for hunting with a typical revolver. If we accept my 1179 fps as the minimum acceptable velocity for expansion and penetration on a whitetail deer, a 4 inch barrel will achieve that velocity around 38 yards if we get 1300 fps. If you are hunting in shorter distances from a stand or a blind, you might find this works just well enough for your purposes. Maybe it would be fine. Ultimately, I wish I could find more 2 inch barrel tests using the HTP load to find out if I am correct. I would test it myself but I only have the 3 inch 605.
While I could use the HTP for handgun hunting, I would feel better using another bullet, the Hornady XTP. Using the same methodology for assessing performance, the XTP seems to expand just a little less but penetrates much more. Additionally, it does so with a lower velocity envelope. I am currently in the process of developing my own handload using the 158 grain XTP and H110 specifically for handgun hunting and I suspect the rifle performance will do very well. Personally, I don't know that once I have a suitable load for the XTP, that I will make the complete switch from the Remington factory load over to the XTP based handload for daily use. I have a rather ample supply of the Remington HTP load and the distances observed in my deer hunting are met with the HTP. At the current rate of consumption that I am successfully taking deer, a sizable percentage of my stock could result in around 200 deer taken. I suspect that's a life time of deer. I should go shoot more.
Getting back to the topic of generalization, instead of specialization, the HTP does a great job. We see in the gel testing that the 158 gr SJHP achieves between 14 inches and 20 inches in common concealed carry type revolvers. For some people, the 18 inch maximum for self defense loads is a hard stop. If that's you, you may want to stick with the 2 inch barrel. I still think the 3 inch is just about perfect. It gives me a little higher performance for outdoors defense but it's still small enough to conceal. Interestingly, the over all size of the 605 Defender 3 inch is about the exact same as my P365XL with just a little barrel length poking out. I find that to be a practical size for everyday carry.
So far, in everything I have covered, I have solely relied on the Remington HTP to do everything from self defense to putting food on the table. What I don't want people to think is that there is only one way. Clearly that's just not true and in practice, it's not necessary. The firearms capable of running .357 mag can also handle .38 Special. Instead of using full power .357 Mag for self-defense and only sticking with one thing, it's reasonable for someone to use a great .38 Special load in their carry revolver and have a fantastic magnum load for the rifle. I would still recommend that whatever revolver you purchase be chambered for the same as your rifle but your choice of ammunition is your own.
Outside of the Remington SJHP and the Hornady XTP, there are a few rounds that could do well that I haven't verified through cross-referencing. Target Suite on YouTube tested a variety of loads in 2024 and found that three JSP loads work very well from a rifle. Since I am unable to find pistol velocities for these loads that confirm expansion and penetration. The Barnes 180 grain Pioneer load is interesting in that if the advertised pistol velocity still expands and drives deep, the Pioneer load could be a better choice as it could still function out to the 165 yard range. I can't find enough information to make an educated guess on the Federal HammerDown load. The Federal American Eagle JSP has been tested by some folks from revolvers but I have not seen where a barrel length long enough from a handgun actually got good expansion and should be limited to longer barrels, though I can't say for sure what that minimum length would be. It's possible they would still work in a Mare's Leg at shorter distance.
What I am trying to highlight here is that you could have a good load for the rifle and a different load for the revolver that could still be interchangeable but may not function optimally beyond putting a 36 caliber hole into something.
Beyond self defense and sporting applications, the .357 Magnum and by proxy the .38 Special, has proven to be a good platform for target sports. By rolling a third pistol into the mix would allow for Bullseye or a similar sport. Alternatively, Cowboy Action with a pair of single action .357's and your lever action, plus a shotgun, allows for a fun ecosystem inline with my current configuration.
In summary, my basis for the .357 Magnum cartridge being such a good choice for the candidate of General Purpose relies heavily on the ballistic gelatin testing parameters and a ballistic calculator to prove it on paper. In the real world, the results are turning out to be pretty good. My first attempt at taking a whitetail back in 2023 was successful and so far, the subsequent years, I haven't hunted with anything else. While I have aspirations of hunting with other projects, I keep going for my Marlin rifle.
I've toyed with the idea of purchasing a new Ruger made Marlin 1894 Classic with the 18 inch barrel to see if any velocity is picked up compared to my 16 inch but I don't have much room at the moment to justify spending the $1000 needed to buy such a rifle. This is especially true when my 16 inch CST does what I need it to from a general purpose perspective. Maybe I can justify it for Cowboy Action with a pair of Vaqueros or Taurus Deputies. I already have the side by side.
As it sits right now, I have not been able to realize a better cartridge that matches the .357 Magnum's practical applications like I have highlights above. I suspect the 10mm Auto could be configured to achieve similar results but for the semi-auto firearms available. As of now, I haven't confirmed it yet. I'm currently leaning to a CMMG Banshee rifle with a Glock 29 combination and some unverified load for 10mm will be just the ticket to achieve this goal. Even if I am successful with the 10mm, the .357 Magnum looks poised to just do the job better over all. There is, however, a curveball. Something for you to think about. I have one parting piece I want to throw out. Just as in Star Wars, as Master Yoda said "there is another." The .327 Federal Magnum. What happens when we stuff that into a Henry Big Boy 327?
