Monday, March 29, 2010

Test Drove the Snubbie

I took the new revolver to the range on the 25th.

Me likee.

Is good.

I was shooting off some bargain basement old mixed ammo. Pretty tarnished. Probably shouldn't have bought em, but this was a year ago. I was panicky over ammo. Three of them were duds, in fact. So I had to so that whole 'wait 30 seconds...' thing with the gun pointed downrange in case it went off late.

People say it's hard to shoot a .38 snubbie accurately. People are right. No harder than any other DA trigger.

Here are my first 15 shots, cold, with .38 special. 25 feet or so. Not bad. The miss over the shoulder was aiming for the head. I don't shoot that high when I miss unless I am aiming kinda high. You can see the 15th shot on the edge at the bottom. Almost....




Except where I was aiming for the head, this yellow man got all center mass hits. Not GOOD center mass hits, but not ones he'd ignore. My shot placement is bad but not woeful. I'm not going to win any contests, but I am not accidentally shooting the crystal chandelier above.


I then shot with +p and .357 and got all to the lower right in the second target. The .357 is circled and the +p triangled.



WOW that is a significant oomph with the magnum. Not as bad as I feared. It helps that this gun is steel, and that is why I chose steel. It will be hard to wear this gun out...

I shot better as I got warmed up. Usually, my accuracy drops off as I get tired or rushed late in the session. All those misses were earlier cylinders. The close in stuff was late. The shoot n see in the top left was added for a final 6 bullets, all +p or .357 to see if my accuracy wasn't just limited .38 or my misses related to a flinch. Not great, but better.

The speed strip worked ok. Much better than the .22 speed strip. The short ejector does indeed not eject spent casings. I often had to pluck them out of the cylinders. I expected that behavior, and it is good to see it in action. Fast reloads may be problematic, even with a proper speed loader.

Like I said, some of the rounds were ANCIENT, so when I got home I did the Windex trick in case they were so old they were made with corrosive primers. Extra Breakfree after that. Cleaned up purty.

Besides being a good pocket CCW gun, I am using this as my awake house gun. It'll stay with me while at home or answering the door. I need to figure out a stash hole for it for when I go to work. When I get home I can grab and as soon as I am in the door a ways. Suggestions?

Also, this Uncle Mikes pocket holster doesn't grip the pistol. All it does is sit in the pocket sorta breaking up the outline of the pistol. That's all it's supposed to do, right?

4 comments:

Jay G said...

That's darn good shootin' for a short-barreled DA revolver, my friend...

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Wait til you see the NEXT range target...

Bob said...

You ideally want the pocket holster to conceal the gun, and to stay in the pocket when the gun is drawn. If you want to try a step up from the Uncle Mike's, then Mika's Pocket Holster is well thought of in law enforcement circles, and not overly expensive.

Old NFO said...

Ye old picture frame... http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/cb.aspx?a=148194

Oh yeah, good shootin too!