Last night, they had a murder committed with a 256 Winchester Magnum. The female cop said that was an unusual gun for a murder and it is.
The round (a 357 Magnum case necked down to take a .256 bullet) was produced by Winchester in co-operation with Colt in the mid-1960's and a few experimental Pythons were chambered in it, but they ran into a lot of problems with the cases backing out of the chamber and binding the guns up, so Colt dropped the program.
Ruger then developed a gun called the Hawkeye that was chambered in the 256 cartridge but it was a single shot based on the Blackhawk frame, but in place of the cylinder, a solid swiveling breech block was used and I understand that the cartridges were fed into the barrel
Here's a picture of one.
Like I say, it was interesting to see a rare gun featured prominently in a network TV program. Ruger produced around 3100 of the guns and then stopped making it. It is a much sought after by Ruger collectors. Thompson/Center also made barrels for the Contender chambered in this round.
The round (a 357 Magnum case necked down to take a .256 bullet) was produced by Winchester in co-operation with Colt in the mid-1960's and a few experimental Pythons were chambered in it, but they ran into a lot of problems with the cases backing out of the chamber and binding the guns up, so Colt dropped the program.
Ruger then developed a gun called the Hawkeye that was chambered in the 256 cartridge but it was a single shot based on the Blackhawk frame, but in place of the cylinder, a solid swiveling breech block was used and I understand that the cartridges were fed into the barrel
Here's a picture of one.
Like I say, it was interesting to see a rare gun featured prominently in a network TV program. Ruger produced around 3100 of the guns and then stopped making it. It is a much sought after by Ruger collectors. Thompson/Center also made barrels for the Contender chambered in this round.
