Anyone catch "The Magnum" on the History Channel.  It was pretty good, had a great exert on Army snipers and the .300 win mag.

Yeah, just got done watching it. It was pretty good. Now I'm going to bed, I'm tired.

i t was O.K>.... i like the tales of the gun ones better, atleast it seems like they know what they're talking about, i got the feeling that everyone involved with the show still thinks that "magnum" is a caliber.

I also thought that when they premised the portion of the show that showed Army Snipers with "a truly awesome cartridge."  As if its the biggest shootable caliber.  I thought they were going to show a .50cal.  I was also amused by the guy that shot the .454 Casull and almost hit himself in the head from the recoil.  I also agree "Tales Of The Gun" was far better, but at least they featured something on guns.

Quoted: I was also amused by the guy that shot the .454 Casull and almost hit himself in the head from the recoil.

I thought this was pretty funny too. The second guy looked normal, but the first guy looked like he was barely holding on to the gun and just let it "fly" back from the recoil.

It was getting damn close to hitting him in the face.

I thought the show was so-so.  They couldn't seem to make up their mind as to what exactly a "magnum" really was.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the tradition definition that "magnum" is typically used to differentiate a new caliber that has the same bullet diameter as an existing caliber, but a larger case?   They sort of made one reference to this, but then kept refering to the .44 mag as "the magnum", somehow tied the .44 walker colt in there - it seems they tried to link it to the .44 mag, but the segments weren't consecutive and I'm not sure that you can really effectively relate a cap and ball to a metallic cartridge.  

They seemed to keep referring to "magnum" as some super-cartridge, rather than the sort of generic term it really is.  I.E., the reference to seeing the air disturbance when shooting the .300 winmag - they said something along the lines that it can only be seen when using magnum calibers, when it really only has to do with velocity, not whether or not the round has the word "magnum" tacked onto the end of it.  

Then they talked about the hunters pulling bullets to add more powder.  I would think at that time period, reloading in the field would be very common, even to the point of casting your own bullets in the field.  While I'm sure that some of the hunters loaded ammo hotter than factory specs, I'm not sure they did this in the way to program described... It was almost as if they were inferring that reloading was, in general, and uncommon or unsafe practice.  Either way, I don't think loading hotter ammo makes it a "magnum" caliber.

I also sort of thought it was odd that in the beginning, they stated that the .44 mag was the most powerful handgun in the world, then one of the guys they interviewed said the .44 walker held that title until the 80's (which means the .44 mag didn't eclipse it), and then later in the program one of the guys pronounced the .454 casul as being the most powerful.  Sure, I know that this is a very subjective thing - stopping power is always argued, but I just thought it was strange that each time they presented it as fact, rather than opinion (the narrator stated the .44 mag as the most powerful in the beginning, for example).

I think I get what they were trying to do - show the desire of gun manufacturers and enthusiasts to keep pushing the limits of a given projectile, but they did it in a poor way, IMHO.   I'm sure this is something that firearms manufacturers have always did - it has nothing to do with calling something a "magnum".  If I were to do a program along these lines, I would have approached it in a way that showed the original cartridge vs. the "magnum".   I guess they tried to do this with the .44 by bringing up the colt cap and ball (and as I said, comparing a cap and ball vs. a metallic cartidge is a bit of a strech), but there was no mention of any of the other .308 cartridges when doing the piece on the .300 win mag, for example.  They had segments on both the .38spl and the .357 mag, but then failed to mention their real relationship - that they both are the same bore diameter, which is not obvious to a non-guns person based on the names.

I dunno, I thought it was pretty poor compared to the Tales of the Gun shows in the past.

Rocko

I agree with what "rocko" and others have said. While I enjoy guns and TV and any combination thereof I found this show almost too painful to watch. There were so many just plain incorrect and dumb things said that it was obvious the producers didn't understand the "Magnum" concept which didn't lead me to believe that this was good "education" for the shooting novice. I was particularly annoyed by the endless flip-flop between S&W centerfire revolvers, Colt Cap & ball revolvers, dangerous game "Express" (and later "Nitro Express") calibers, wildcating, hunting, and military & police ops. In the end, I wasn't even sure what the show was really about. They REALLY liked to say the word "Magnum" though.

On another rant, how about the Army shooter who stated that the 300 Win Mag "has about 3 times the (felt) recoil of the M-16" as if that would make the gun almost uncontrolable. Now there's something for Sarah, Chucky, Hitlery and Rosie to ponder!

(Sorry for my spelling, I can't get the checker to load)

It impressed me as about five minutes of information compressed into an hour.  How many times did they show that same shot of the rifle rack at Holland & Holland?  Or the same Dirty Harry poster.  And then those close-up shots of a guy's hands shooting & wriggling his fingers in between every shot.  Guuhh.

the guy that almost got smacked in the face was jan libourel from guns & ammo. i never heard him talk though, his voice just doesn't seem to match what i've read from him  most of my life.  also kinda seemed like he and garry james (also of G&A, the other guy) didn't get along, could be wrong though.