A whole bunch of fans wrote to us, mostly in disbelief, about our .500 Smith & Wesson revolver. Yes, it is our backup gun.
Why is such a powerful beast a backup, and not a primary gun? Well, there are a few simple reasons:
- It doesn’t hold enough cartridges. We often need to fire a lot more than once, so having a gun that can only fire five is a bit of a turnoff.
- It is far too powerful to shoot repeatedly as a primary sidearm. If we miss, we’ve got to be able to fire again and again, and the gun is too powerful for accurate fast-repeat shots at a distance. This alone means it absolutely can’t be used as our primary sidearm. But, seeing as how a bug is probably going to be crawling on you by the time you need your backup gun, the .500 is perfect in a backup role.
- Your backup gun absolutely, positively has to fire when you pull the trigger. That means your backup gun has to be a revolver, which the .500 is.
We commonly refer to our .500 Smith as “The Staplegun,” because when its been used we’ve held it directly up to the bug’s head and pulled the trigger, like using a staplegun. Only our gun is custom made by Smith & Wesson with a 1″ barrel (and we’re not telling if they made us buy 500 or not).
Also, some people couldn’t tell by the previously-posted photo how big the bullets for the .500 are, so here’s a bigger one below that hopefully demonstrates the sheer size and power of this cartridge!