Now They Do Make a .46

Plenty of obnoxious clichés get thrown around in the gun culture, but the most annoying is, “I carry a .45 because they don’t make a .46!” I’m mildly surprised when the simpletons chanting that one manage not to drool on themselves in public.

In fact, I am so weary of it that I’m going to rectify the situation. I’m going to make a .46 caliber handgun cartridge.

Now, you might say that’s a bad idea. Let me tell you something. When George Washington wanted to cross the Potomac and drive the British out of New Jersey, I’m pretty sure some folks told him that was a bad idea. But he proved them wrong, didn’t he? He sent them packing all the way back to California. Smelly hippies. Without him, we’d be spelling words like “color” and “flavor” with a “u.” I’m telling you, that man was a great American.

What was I saying? Oh, yeah. I plan on calling the cartridge the .46 Ginormous Action Tactical. A serious load demands a serious name, and that means using the word “tactical” to the point that it loses all meaning. It also prevents confusion, since “.46 GAT” couldn’t possibly be confused with any current commercial loading.

How’s it going to work? Simple. The operative phrase is “inverse bottleneck.” I’m going to take a .44 Henry case and neck it up to accept a .46 caliber bullet, backed by 26 grains or so of H110. OAL will be about 0.09″ longer than a .460 Rowland (which everyone knows isn’t a real .46 anyway).

You might ask, “how am I going to reload that?” Short answer: you’re not. Stop asking. This is a tactical cartridge, and real operators don’t have time for reloading. Too busy dancing tangos and killing flamingos. Real operators want real tactical knockdown power, and that only comes from a 250gr bullet doing ~1500ft/s.

Yeah, the ammunition’s going to be expensive. So what? Do you want to be “elite” or not? Quit your whining and put on your big boy pants. Elite operators have expensive tastes. Let the proletariat cling to their wimpy century-old cartridges: ours is the path to the future, and the future involves robot concubines and firearms in obscure loadings.

The gun will be built on the 1911 platform, because nothing’s more tactical than a 1911. What’s more tactical than a 1911 is  a heavily modified, proprietary 1911 that doesn’t have parts compatibility with anything else.  It’s going to be rare. It’s going to cost a year’s pay. And you’re going to love me for it.

You don’t want to know how much extra magazines will cost.  If you have to ask, this isn’t the gun for you.  I’ll make them when I feel like it. Which isn’t often.

If you actually get one and it doesn’t feed right, it’s somehow your fault. Real operators don’t limp-wrist their guns. They read the manual and use the lubricant I specify, even if it’s only attainable through highly restricted government channels. They follow the 1000-round break-in, which also happens to be the life expectancy of the recoil spring and locking lugs. They don’t cry like Ethiopian famine children when the grip panels shatter. We’ve got ten fingers for a reason: redundancy. If the extractor rips the case head off and flings it into your eyeball, cherish the scar as a memento of how cutting edge you are. Besides, chicks dig scars. I’ll even send you a conciliatory eyepatch with the company logo, which you can wear as a badge of honor and total disregard of frugality.

I might send one to my buddy at one of the gun magazines for review. I might not. If I really like you, I might let you touch one at SHOT Show. Probably not. The future also involves mystery and artificial scarcity. I will, however, take out full-page advertisements in every gun magazine, just so you can be reminded of what you lack on a constant basis.

.46 GAT. It’ll stop flash mobs. It’ll stop bears, secular humanists, and that big hairy thing that whacked Luke Skywalker and hung him from the ceiling in Empire.  It’ll be in Flat Dark Earth with flames engraved on the side.

You want it.  You need it.  You might stand a chance of getting on the waiting list.