"We don't really look at it like we're competing against anybody else," Baker said. "We're trying to provide, on a small scale, what they can't provide. We're kind of in a league of our own." Hunting with a handgun appeals to those who say they want more of a challenge than hunting with a rifle. They say using a handgun generally requires them to get closer to their prey, and they say using the smaller gun requires more skill.

Lynn C. Thompson, president of Cold Steel Knives in Ventura, Calif., said he owns more than 20 Freedom Arms revolvers.

"I don't think anybody has used them more extensively around the world than I have, or taken more stuff with them," Thompson said. He said he's killed what he called the "dangerous seven" of African game with a handgun: elephant, rhino, hippo, crocodile, lion, leopard and cape buffalo.

"Most of the stuff I've shot, probably 95 percent of it is with the Freedom Arms revolver," Thompson said. "The Freedom Arms revolver, in my opinion, is the best revolver in the world. In every way, it's absolutely the best. There's nothing else that can even compare."

The guns are not for the inexperienced.

Thompson said he commonly hunts with a revolver chambered for a powerful cartridge called the .454 Casull.The recoil from the .454 is so intense, he said, that you can see it send a shock wave through the body of a large man who fires one. He said he studies martial arts and spends hours every week in the gym to keep in form.

"You have to train yourself," Thompson said. "You have to get used to it. It's like taking a good stiff right cross and still staying in the game. God didn't make us to have explosions going off in our hands." Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal also owns a Freedom Arms .454 revolver — a Christmas gift from his wife and children. He said he often spares himself the revolver's bone-jarring recoil by shooting it with more mild loads.

"Clearly they're consistent with the fabric and who we are," Freudenthal said of Freedom Arms' place in Wyoming.

"When you take it apart to clean it, you're really reminded how incredibly close the tolerances are and the way they're put together," Freudenthal said. "They are a nice firearm. They're really a quality piece."