TweetBy Trudy Tynan
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:26 p.m., February 13, 2003



Associated Press
Dirty Harry is now outgunned: Smith & Wesson has introduced its biggest handgun ever, a .50-caliber Magnum.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Dirty Harry is now outgunned: Smith & Wesson has introduced its biggest handgun ever, a .50-caliber Magnum.

The five-shot revolver with an 8½-inch barrel weighs about 4½ pounds – roughly a pound more than the big black .44 Magnum wielded by Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry movies. It fires a new .50-caliber cartridge that the company said produces nearly three times the muzzle energy of the .44 – or enough stopping power to bring down a charging bear.

"The primary market for it is hunting" big game, spokesman Ken Jorgensen said.

Steve Comus, publications director of the Safari Club International, said he expects Smith & Wesson to sell several thousand of the weapons to sportsmen interested in hunting with handguns.

Some questioned the wisdom of producing a more powerful handgun.

"It boggles the mind," said Tom Ortiz, executive director of the Violence Policy Center. He predicted the new Magnum would create "a new order of threat to law enforcement."

Smith & Wesson first brought out the .44 Magnum in the 1950s.

The new gun, which sells for $989, is one of nine models Smith & Wesson introduced this week at a trade show in Orlando, Fla. President Roy C. Cuny said it was the largest number of new introductions in recent years.

The introduction of the big gun marks a sharp departure for the 150-year-old company, which for the past five years has concentrated on the development of lightweight revolvers using alloys of rare metals.

Among the other new guns being introduced by Smith & Wesson is the industry's lightest ever: a .44 Magnum that has a 4-inch barrel, scandium frame and titanium cylinder, and weighs in at 1 pound, 10½ ounces.

"We see this as an opportunity for backpackers," Cuny said. "A light firearm of this caliber, in fact, provides protection against bears and other big things."

Despite a spike following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, handgun sales have long been on the decline in the United States, and Smith & Wesson has struggled along with other gunmakers.

But Smith & Wesson, long the industry leader, also lost business in recent years after striking a deal with the Clinton administration in 2000 to install safety locks on all its guns and change its marketing practices. Other gunmakers decided not to follow Smith & Wesson's lead, and gun advocates accused the company of selling out.

In 2001, the ailing gunmaker was sold by its British owner to an Arizona startup company that all but abandoned the agreement with the government and adopted an aggressive and unapologetic marketing stance.