Stop The Supernatural: Walking Dead Colt Python

Let's talk about creatures that might come slapping and drooling at your front door some day by discussing the Walking Dead television series.  Now I am well aware there is a graphic novel series that the show was based on but for today I’m looking to make broader strokes so that more people can grasp where I am going with this and let’s face it a LOT of people are familiar with the Walking Dead series on AMC. Since the series is long and there are plenty of weapons to review I’ll break it down to a couple weapons at a time.  The most important thing to address is what you’re dealing with. The Walking Dead centers on zombies. Where they come from, how they came to be and what are their motives short of eating living flesh? That’s yet to be discovered. What we do know however is how to kill them.  The simplest rules apply in the series. SHOOT EM’ IN THE HEAD.

They once and a while try to get more scientific and start bringing up severing brain stems and such but in the end mess up their head situation and pretty much you’re golden. One of the first seen weapons in the series is the Colt .357 magnum Python revolver used by the character Rick Grimes. Now at first you may look at this and think…”that’s practically bringing a knife to a gun fight!” but after researching the weapon a bit more its actually not a bad side arm.

This is a double action firing revolver. For those who don’t know this means that every trigger pull cocks the hammer and finally releases it returning it to the decocked position after every round is fired. This is good in that it only takes one hand to fire. The 6” barrel used for the series is revered for being very accurate without the added weight of the 8” barrel. The cartridge or ammunition used in this weapon as stated above is the .357 magnum. This bullet would probably have enough power to slam through the skull of a zombie rhino much less person with great ease. With all good things there must be some bad. The gun was one of the best revolvers ever to be made according to some hand gun forums however it isn’t intended for extended use. The gun has a known problem for falling out of time. This is when the double action trigger doesn’t turn the chamber over far enough and the bullet doesn’t align properly before firing. Limited amount of loaded ammunition count might have you worried about using this in a zombie apocalypse situation like the one found in the Walking Dead. An average magazine fed handgun will hold 15 9x19mm rounds out numbering the colt by 9 more dead zombies. However if you have ever loaded a magazine gun you know that the spring resistance can be a pain at times and slow you way down.

Let’s take another look at this. 7 zombies come charging at the colt. You put the first six down, open the chambers load in one last round, insert cool catch phrase and blow the head of the last zombie. Now in the case of the slide operated magazine fed handgun. You have 16 zombies, you put down the first 15 and the 16^th is still coming you have to drop the mag out, hope u don’t drop it, force the last round in, hope you don’t drop that, line up the slide with the grip, while of course hoping you don’t miss causing you to epic fail and DROP IT, chamber the round and turn and shoot… not so easy.

In conclusion I give the Colt Python .357 magnum a 6 out of 10 for this series zombie apocalypse. It is accurate and very powerful but the ammo would be harder to come by than a typical 9mm and the ammo count is low. However if that last zombie comes at you, you can always manually load that last round to put him down. Happy hunting next week I will go over one of my personal favorites the Beretta 92fs and how it was useful in AMC’s The Walking Dead.