Keith
Trail Gun 10mm Magnum?
Sunday, December 06, 2020, 16:44

I know that the Trail Gun is available in 10mm and 40 S&W. Could the Trail Gun be chambered in 10mm Magnum?

From my 7.5" Single Seven, the cylinder measured 1.456" and the rim on .327 Federal Magnum is 0.055". This implies that a lower bound for the maximum OAL of a cartridge that may fit is 1.511". I took five-cartridge samples of three 10mm Magnum loads from Double Tap (the only factory loads that I am aware of), measured their OAL, and I got the following results:

. . . . . . . 230gr Hardcast
. . . Max: 1.5125"
. . . Min: 1.507"
. . . Avg: 1.5107"

. . . . . . . 200gr Hardcast
. . . Max: 1.4915"
. . . Min: 1.489"
. . . Avg: 1.4899"

. . . . . . . 135gr JHP "Controlled Expansion"
. . . Max: 1.5105"
. . . Min: 1.508"
. . . Avg: 1.5092"

It looks like the 200gr and 135gr would fit, and a few of the longest loaded 230gr may not. To be sure, the 230gr would certainly fit if: (1) the headspace allowed an amount of the cartridge equal to the thickness of the rim plus a couple thou (i.e., a fraction of the thickness of any moonclip) to hang out the backside of the cylinder; or (2) the cylinder were a couple thou longer and the barrel extension a couple thou shorter. Of course, since this is mostly a handload cartridge, proper bullet seating depth makes this academic.

Putting aside fitment, the more important question may be, what happens when you fire such a cartridge in one of these little guns? There are some factory 10mm Auto loads (e.g., Buffalo Bore Heavy Outdoorsman 220gr @ 703 ft-lb and Heavy 180gr @ 728 ft-lb) that come close to the bottom of these Doubletap 10mm Magnum loads (230gr @ 798 ft-lb) but the other 10mm Magnum loads are ~1000 ft-lb. My Single Seven weighs only 38.4 oz. I imagine recoil would be stout.

(1) Would this gun be able to handle 10mm Magnum?
(2) Would the average shooter be able to handle it?