by Jim Dickson
The US Firearms Double Eagle .45 Colt Single Action and the S&W J Frame Hammerless .357 Magnum are two powerful pocket pistols capable of much more than the smaller .32s and .380s normally thought of as pocket pistols.
When we think of pocket pistols we think of small caliber guns chosen for their ease of concealment, but that is not necessarily so. In this article we will look at two splendid pocket pistols in caliber .45 Colt and .357 Magnum.
They are the US Firearms Double Eagle .45 Colt and the S&W Hammerless J Frame .357 Magnum.
There are compelling reasons to carry a big bore gun. Oversize drugged-up criminals are the first thing that comes to mind, but vicious dogs come in extra large economy size like the Rottweiler. Rural areas and even some suburbs are hosts to herds of wild hogs. You don’t want a small bore for any of these and even the .357 Magnum has failed to penetrate adequately for German hunters because the expanding bullets couldn’t get through all the gristle and fat on a big boar.
The FMJ .45 ACP worked fine in those situations. The standard .45 Colt loads are not known for their expansion and they also work well here. The .45 Colt has a long history of successful bear stopping and the bear population is certainly increasing. Get between mama and her cubs and you can have a real problem on your hands. The worst part is that you can walk between them before you know they are there. An old grizzly is not very understanding if you stumble onto his kill that he has camouflaged by burying. Trappers often carry a .22 to dispatch animals in the trap but what about also carrying something more potent that doesn’t take up much room for defense against man or beast? Carrying a big bore makes sense, but why carry a huge magnum that you are tempted to leave behind when there is something smaller that works just as well? Enter the US Firearms Double Eagle—a copy of a 2nd generation Colt SAA with a low hammer and a birdshead grip sporting a 3½” barrel.
The birdshead grip was developed by the British so that a pistol wouldn’t imprint as a gun in the pocket. It was very successful there. The Double Eagle looks like a wadded up rag or something is in your pocket but it doesn’t look like a gun. The best thing about the Double Eagle is that it is as easy to hit with at long range as the full size SAA revolvers. These guns had the reputation of being as good as a .44-40 Winchester for as far as that cartridge would shoot in the old West and I am here to tell you that they earned it.
Using North West Custom Projectile’s .45 Colt 300-grain boat-tailed bullets at 700 fps, I once shot a five shot 2” group at 75 yards with the Double Eagle.
Stopping power is never an issue with the .45 Colt cartridge. It was designed to stop a 1,500-pound Morgan horse with a cavalryman on its back and it proved its worth as a horse stopper over and over. Cowboys often chose this caliber because if their high heeled boots got stuck in a bucking bronco’s stirrup, after they were thrown they had to have a gun to put down the horse quickly before they were dragged to death. Over the years it earned a beautiful reputation for saving unfortunate cowboy’s lives in this situation. Bears are normally much smaller than this but the .45 Colt worked perfectly on all sizes of bears. Only the hype surrounding the modern magnums discouraged its use for its performance was sterling.
The pistols in the Sticky Holsters. The single action is in a holster made for a Taurus Judge .45/410 snubnose, but it doesn’t move in it and works perfectly.
The velocity of the modern magnum handgun calibers is a close range affair because the poor ballistic shape of the bullet causes it to slow down to subsonic velocities after 50-75 yards.
Their fierce muzzle blast and increased recoil is not necessarily worth that short range sprint in velocity especially when the .45 Colt will perform as well or better in actual practice.
There are a few things to learn about pocket carry and shooting the Double Eagle. First when withdrawing it from the pocket put the thumb behind the hammer spur so it doesn’t snag the lining of the pocket.
Second always use the gunfighter’s secret grip when shooting any M1873 SAA or variant of it. Cock the gun with the thumb laid crossways across the hammer so that you automatically have a high grip on the pistol. The hammer spur should be digging into the top of your hand and the thumb and the hand at the point the trigger finger branches out should be squeezing the flat logo panels at the top of the grip. It is important that the palm of your hand should be against the back strap instead of beside it. The trigger is engaged by the crook of the trigger finger while the tip of the trigger finger touches the tip of the thumb. Squeezing the two flat logo panels and the trigger simultaneously will align the sights on whatever you are pointing at and convert the normally disruptive force of squeezing the trigger to a steadying force.
This is the great secret to hitting with the SAA. The birds-head grip does not change anything here because the part of the grip that is missing from the normal grip is not the part that contacts your hand. If you hold the gun like this you will not notice any recoil and the gun will not roll back in your hand like people say the single actions do in recoil.
Like all M1873 SAA pistols the Double Eagle is really a five-shooter because the lack of a hammer bar safety means that a blow to the hammer can discharge the gun. The solution has always been to keep the hammer down over an empty chamber.
Always cock a SAA with the thumb crossways on the hammer. This positions the gun high in the grip as is necessary for accurate pointing with this gun.
To do this just load one chamber, skip one, load 4, cock the gun and lower the hammer down on the empty chamber.
Pocket carry is hard on a gun because of the lint, dirt, and other objects that are in a pocket. For these reasons and also to comply with certain state laws regarding concealed carry you should have a holster.
Holsters also break up the outline of the gun making it harder to tell what’s in the pocket.
There is a new pocket holster out now called the Sticky Holster. Made in Florida, it has a Cordura nylon lining and a rubber outer surface that holds its position without moving as long as it is under pressure. That means that if it is loose in the pocket you will pull the gun out still in its holster and use your other hand to jerk the holster off the gun like every other pocket holster I have seen. Everything changes if there is pressure on it. Stick this inside your pants with your belt over it and it stays just where you put it no matter what. There are no clips or snaps to show and you can position it where it is most comfortable for you as an individual. That means a lot. As a weightlifter I am somewhat angular and there is only one angle that the gun will fit comfortably. With the Sticky Holster I don’t have to have something custom made. I consider it indispensable for pocket carry guns.
For those who need an ankle rig, the company also has a padded wraparound adapter that turns it into an ankle holster.
The gunfighter’s secret grip. The hammer spur is digging into the top of the hand. The center of the palm is against the back strap of the gun with the thumb and the ball of the hand at the base of the trigger finger angling down and squeezing the flat logo panels at the top of the grip. The trigger finger has the first joint curled around the trigger while the tip of the trigger finger is touching the tip of the thumb. Squeezing the flat logo panels while squeezing the trigger aligns the sights with whatever you are pointing at and converts the normally disruptive force of pulling the trigger into a steadying force. You can hit with this pistol as good as you can with a ’73 or ’92 Winchester at all ranges this way.
I have carried both guns extensively in the Sticky Holsters and they are the most comfortable and concealable holsters of their type I have ever used.
No matter how much walking, running, jumping, or contortions I do they never change position and they are very fast to draw from. Because they can be adjusted so exactly they take concealability to new heights. The guns are completely invisible to even a trained eye. It’s nice to be able to conceal a .45 single-action as comfortably and easily as a .32. They didn’t have one stitched for the Double Eagle but they sent one for the new snub nose Judge .45Colt/.410 which worked perfectly despite the stitching being for something else. The gun has never moved in the holster and you would think it was originally made for the Double Eagle. One thing to remember is that you need to remove the holster from its place of carrying to reinsert the gun as it is not designed to maintain its position during that operation. These holsters are very reasonably priced and you should consider getting one for every gun you carry with the exception of the long barreled ones. I don’t fancy a 7½” barrel thrust inside my pants when I want to sit down or bend over.
These holsters are made by Sticky Holsters, 470 Commercial Blvd #2, Dept. TGM, Naples, FL 34104; online: stickyholsters.com.
The other powerful pistol is a classic pocket pistol that has recently been upgraded to .357 Magnum. This is the hammerless 5-shot S&W built on their small J frame. Its 5-shot .357 Magnum cylinder makes it a bit thinner than the Double Eagle but in practice this doesn’t seem to be important. It is very light and without the Hogue rubber grips that S&W puts on, it would have a rather sharp recoil. But the rubber grips make it pleasant to shoot. If you want rapid fire you will need to load it with .38 Specials because this one bucks a bit too much in .357 Magnum for real rapid fire. That is more of a technicality than a big issue though.
This is a gun that evolved from the old S&W Safety Hammerless of the 19th century and all these guns of this type have a long history of good service and popularity with their owners. The Sticky Holster makes carrying this one easier than ever.
Since it comes in stainless steel you have less to worry about in hard service but I should point out that a lot of the stainless steels used in guns are more stain resistant than truly stainless and, since the corrosion resistance of some of the alloys used is on the low end of the stainless steel spectrum, you are not excused from proper maintenance. I haven’t heard of complaints about S&W stainless steels but I have on other makes so unless you know the exact alloy and heat treatment on your gun it is best to not take liberties with stainless steel.
A hammerless revolver like this is the only pistol that can be safely fired from inside the pocket. Exposed hammers get pocket linings caught between the firing pin and the cartridge. Automatics have no room for the slide to cycle.
The .357 Magnum J frame S&W Hammerless takes a totally different grip than the single action.
When firing from inside a pocket you do not want a holster under any condition. The gun must be in a coat pocket that can be pushed in front of you and well away from your body. That’s because the blast from the barrel/ cylinder gap will cut a hole on each side of the pocket as big as the hole the .357 magnum blows out at the muzzle. Lining the pocket with leather doesn’t change anything so you can imagine what it would do to your body. Heavy canvas sailcloth is the only thing I have found that it won’t cut through. The force of the blast then blows the outside of the pocket completely off leaving the gun free and clear in the open as opposed to being in the bundle of mangled rags that the first shot creates on a normal pocket.
Forget the movies where only a tiny hole appears in the coat. You just touched off a formidable explosion inside that pocket and the sorry rags remaining are a testament to its power. While I have heard of firing a pistol in a pocket setting the coat on fire I have never been able to duplicate that. That doesn’t mean it never happened though.
Firing a pistol while it is still in the pocket is a bit faster than drawing it but there are few situations where that translates into a meaningful advantage capable of offsetting the carnage to your clothes that is going to ensue. Still if you are facing attack at close quarters, such as in an elevator, having your hand in your pocket with the gun in hand may prove desirable.
Be prepared to use the other arm to keep your attacker away long enough for you to push the pistol past your body and fire. That option makes the hammerless S&W a valuable addition to your collection.
Whether you are just going to the store or a walk around the farm or a hike in the woods, it makes good sense to have a traveling companion that can handle any trouble that can arise. If you knew you were going to be attacked, you wouldn’t go there—but you don’t know when, where or if, so preparedness is your best defense.
These powerful pocket pistols make that job a little easier.
