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  • Gun Digest

    BELT ARTILLERY

    Apr 30, 2020 5 minutes
    BY PATRICK SWEENEY

    The title, “Most Powerful Handgun Cartridge in the World,” was fought over for some time, but it finally got settled: S&W owns it, regardless of which cartridge you favor. Yeah, there are some with a bigger bore, but there’s a case to be made for the .460 S&W Magnum.

    The Smith & Wesson .460 XVR is one big example of belt artillery. Starting with the company’s X frame—the one it developed for the .500 S&W magnum—the S&W engineers took the .454 Casull case and lengthened it. They also upped the chamber pressure to the highest of any cartridge out there (at the time, anyway)—65,000 psi.

    The result was a cartridge that could deliver a .45-caliber, 200-grain bullet at 2,300 fps. There are century-old, classic and well-respected deer hunting cartridges that can’t

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