Shoothouse Barbie just moved into some new digs. Consequently, decorating had to happen. She didn’t just throw up random nick-nacks… she made things were both decorative and functional.
Placement of mirrors and other reflective surfaces so you can see vital spots (e.g. front door) from secure and defensible locations is a good thing.
After obtaining my snub nose revolver, I got curious about the differences between the S&W 442 and 642. I touched on them briefly here, but I figured why not ask Smith & Wesson themselves and get the straight skinny.
I emailed and received a response.
Hello, the only differance is the cylinder, the main reason is some people do not like a silver firearm. Do not use any cleaner which contains chlorine or ammonia, the finish is a spray coat which is prone to show wear but the trade off is the light weight.
So if I’m reading his response correctly:
The only differences between the 642 and 442 are the finish and the cylinder. That is, despite what Tam says, the barrel is the same. The cylinder materials are different: the 642 with stainless steel and the 442 with carbon steel.
The finish of the 442 is a spray coat (that surprised me). Of course, I wasn’t told exactly what the coating was. I’m assuming Hoppes #9 is OK for cleaning.
Anyway, there you go.
Tam recounts some silliness at her local gun range. In short, there’s now some new rule at the range that basically is saying no loaded guns in holsters at the firing line. Of course, there’s not much logic to this:
Now the pistol of mine that was so safe that morning eating breakfast at Le Peep and that afternoon at the grocery store was unloaded so it would be safe at the pistol range, too. Raise your hand if that makes sense to you.
And wouldn’t you think gun folk would know better? Apparently not.
See, this is one Lowest Common Denominator “safety” policy that is only going to lead to unnecessary bullet holes. If rigidly adhered to, it means Cletus and Jasper have to fiddle-fart around with loaded guns twice; once on arrival and again on leaving, instead of leaving them safely in their holsters andnot touching them. Now, the po-po firearms training building at Iggle Crick is right off the parking lot and has a handy sand-filled clearing barrel, but how many people are going to look for that, much less use it religiously?
Remember: One handy rule for preventing negligent discharges is stop touching your damn gun so much! Think about every story of an ND you’ve heard: It was somebody holstering or unholstering or clearing or loading or otherwise somehow futzing with the gun, right? It’s almost never “The gun was sitting in the holster and went off.” Why then, in the name of safety, would you encourage the former rather than the latter?
The Rangemaster August 2009 newsletter is now available. Contains a lot of good data and information that dispels many of the common myths and hysterics about guns.
Got a call from my Mom this evening. Told her how I had just finished eating dinner. What was for dinner? Why pork ribs. But not just any pork ribs, but pork ribs I obtained myself! BTW, they were damn good… dry rub of my own creation, mopped in apple cider vinegar, let it sit for about a hour, then into the smoker at about 300-325º for 90 minutes or so, oak wood for smoke. Damn fine. But I digress.
I just said that I had ribs from the pig I shot on my hunt, and Mom didn’t flinch. You see, Mom isn’t exactly thrilled with my love of firearms… safety factor, guns in the home leads to kids being hurt, and all those other things that is understandable to think but data demonstrates otherwise. But Mom actually thought it was pretty cool. I was surprised, but welcomed her support.
After hanging up with Mom, I opted to call Dad just to say hello. Told him the same. Dad’s a little more on the gun-friendly side of things. Told him about the night hunt and the deer lease. He thought that was all pretty cool, and inquired if I was going to take the kids hunting. I said Oldest and Daughter, yes, but Youngest hasn’t shown much interest in guns period (no need to push it). Dad had to get going to dinner with some friends, but it was still a good chat.
It was welcoming to hear such support from my folks. Not that they’re unsupportive of me, but like in Mom’s case she wasn’t too hot on the guns so this was a surprise. And then for Dad to ensure I take the kids out was cool. See, Dad never took me hunting. I did have my first actual firearms experience with him (took me to shoot skeet once), but not a whole lot. So, all of these things were just welcome things to my ears. 🙂
Of course, what it means to me now is I need to have a lot of game in the freezer for when they come to visit. Gotta feed the folks well. 🙂
I needed to go to the gun range this morning to take care of some chores. This wasn’t a practice session, this was taking care of some business. So, I headed to the local indoor range and took care of my two tasks.
I will be needing a .22 rifle this coming weekend, so I wanted to make sure my Ruger 10/22 was in working order. The scope had come loose last time it was being used, so I had tightened things down and wanted to ensure it was zeroed. It wasn’t too far off, just needed a little tweaking, but it’s back to being zeroed at 25 yards and I’m happy. Should run just fine this coming weekend.
I haven’t shot the 10/22 in a while, and I forgot how nice it is to shoot. Not so much the gun itself, but just shooting a little .22 rimfire for accuracy. I could certainly see making myself a really customized up target rig with a Ruger 10/22 as the base, and just sitting out in the country somewhere on a nice day, drinking iced tea, and punching holes in paper. I’ve experienced this before when shooting this gun… there’s something somewhat Zen about the experience.
Also since I hadn’t shot it in a while, now shooting it I realized the truths about that trigger. It’s not a bad trigger, it’s just a lot heavier than I remember. I guess I’ve been spoiled by lighter triggers lately (the snub notwithstanding).
Anyway, this was a simple enough task, then I got down to what I really wanted to do….
Ever since I got my S&W 442 a little over a week ago I’ve been itching to break it in. Finally got that chance, but my time was cut short. Read on.
I started out just wanting to throw some lead. Just get some rounds through it to break it in under fire (I’ve already been doing a lot of dry fire to start the break-in process), get the feel for it in my hands. Went through a box of Magtech .38 Special 158 grain lead round nose to start.
I don’t like the small grip. I don’t like how my pinky hangs off the bottom. Feels weird, plus it takes away recoil control. I knew this going in. However, I don’t want to give up the smaller grip and thus concealability. Just grip harder with both hands. Having that “crush grip” worked fine and I was able to control the little gun just fine. I’m still going to look for grips that might be just a hair longer, but I’m not going to really sweat it too much.
Under actual fire, I realized that I was using the distal joint of my index finger…makes sense with the heavier trigger pull. Interestingly, everything worked just fine. My eyes were trained on the front sight, and even with all the grip and trigger differences, I was still being combat accurate enough. But again, I think the crush grip is what makes the difference here.
I’d like to put some red paint or something on the front sight to make it a bit more visible.
I then started to go through some defensive ammo. As I wrote about here, I don’t have the ability to do deeper testing of the rounds, like gel or wetpack, chronographs, and the like. But, most of that information is out there if you look for it. What I’m looking at is how well it works in my gun and how it performed for me. Today I was able to try out: the Federal Nyclad, the Buffalo Bore, and the Cor®Bon DPX.
The Federal Nyclad felt about the same as the Magtech, which stands to reason as they’re both standard pressure rounds. Accuracy was fine, and again since it was a standard pressure round was certainly the most controllable round to shoot. I was surprised at how much muzzle flash there was. It may just be the nature of the snub-nose beast, but I was still taken-aback by the amount of flash I saw. And note, this was at an indoor range… it’s not dark, but it’s not bright and sunny either.
The Buffalo Bore by contrast didn’t have as much noticeable muzzle flash, but did produce a lot of smoke. I will say that their claim of being “non+P” is a lie. 😉 I mean, this is Buffalo Bore, I expected it to be hot, but I figured if they were saying “non+P” that it might be in line with that. I can say that, at least in terms of the felt recoil, it kicked hard and was the hardest recoil of the bunch. At one point I looked at my right hand and noticed I was bleeding in the web of my hand between the thumb and index finger… where your hand wraps around the back of the gun. It wasn’t more than just the skin being broken, but it bled a lot and eventually is what caused me to cut my range time short.
The Cor®Bon recoiled more than the Nyclad, but less than the Buffalo Bore, and I’d say closer to the Buffalo Bore than the Nyclad, since 1. the DPX is a +P round, and 2. this is CorBon and they’re always hot loads. It too had some noticeable muzzle flash.
Anyway, that’s all I was able to manage, due to the aforementioned wound. I was there to break in the gun and instead it broke me. 😉 I did manage to put a few rounds of Remington UMC 130 grain FMJ downrange just for some additional comparison. I’ve always thought UMC had the most muzzle flash of any ammo I’ve seen (looks kinda cool at night), and I’d say that the other muzzle flashes I saw today were on par with that tho the UMC was likely the brightest of all.
They all shot well enough. All ran in the gun. All were accurate enough. I do think the Nyclads were the most controllable and the Buffalo Bore the least, but the spread wasn’t that wide. The key was shooting enough to get familiar with the load and the gun so you know what you’re up against and how your tool will behave. Crush grip is key.
So what will I pick for now? Well, for now I’ll probably go with the Buffalo Bore. I actually don’t like how hot it is and how much it bites, but these will be used in a defensive situation, not a normal range ammo. Furthermore, because they’re so hot I don’t know how the S&W 442 would appreciate a steady diet of them. But for now until I get the ammo I really want, when I take the 442 out I’ll load it with the Buffalo Bore, but only because of two things:
1. Lowest perceived muzzle flash
2. it’s the only semi-wadcutter that I have
#2 is the bigger reason. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m finding more and more support that the “lead semi-wadcutter hollow point” (LSWCHP) is really the load that I want to use for self-defense. It provides penetration above all, but has expanding capabilities which helps to maximize desired impact and minimize risks of undesired (collateral) damage. It’s got a proven track record, and I don’t really have to worry about potential issues such as if the bullet will expand or not, if say I was in a contact shot situation, going through clothing, or other such matters. Again, I am not providing any sort of true scientific review or study here… this is just me in my informal reading, researching, Googling, talking with folks whose knowledge and opinion I trust. I’d really like to get those Remington R38S12 and carry those. I looked on the shelves at the range, but alas they didn’t have any. I Google to find someone online selling them, nothing. 😦 So, I shall just keep looking.
The range was rather busy for an early Sunday morning. The guy in the bay next to me was shooting a muzzleloader. I was surprised how quiet it was in comparison to some of the other cannons going off around me. It was fun when he’d shoot tho… all this smoke would drift across my bay. Kinda neat.
Lots of kids there. That’s not something I usually see when I go there, but lots of parents had brought their kids out. A father-daughter took the bay next to me after Mr. Muzzleloader left. She was shooting a bunch of lever-action rifles. I saw some kids shooting a Buckmark with Mom. Various other things. It was nice to see families doing things together.
I do not like shooting indoors, but when there’s a chore to do and it needs to be done quickly, it’s about the only option I have as the outdoor ranges are a bit of a drive.
But hey, I got to go and take care of some business. Can’t complain. 🙂
I’ve been blogging a lot on the right ammo for snub nosed revolvers. I thought I’d try to pull things together here.
First, this isn’t about finding practice ammo, because any sort of .38 Special ammo will fill that bill (read: what’s cheapest and, especially these days, available). This is about finding the right ammo for carry. And not any .38 Special ammo will do because out of the short-barrel snub nose revolver, you can’t get much velocity and that can affect the ammo performance (e.g. ability for hollow-points to expand).
First, some back postings:
And now, we come to this.
Based on all that I’ve read, here’s the list of the snub nose carry ammo that I wish to try:
Are there more out there? Sure. But from what I’ve been reading, these tend to be the most popular.
Hey, just came across this very nice write-up from thehighroad.
A summary of what I’ve been coming up with. Note: the following is just based upon a lot of Google searching and reading:
In terms of my own testing, unfortunately I cannot do things like ballistics gel testing, or even just shooting through water jugs or wetpack newspaper. About all I can do is shoot them, report on accuracy, report on how they feel out of my S&W 442. And I can’t even do a lot of testing because I’m not made of money. But I can report what I do and can find.
Will I admit some initial bias? Yes. Nyclads I’m interested in because having a load that’s effective but not difficult to shoot has great appeal given the gun is already one that will be hard to shoot and control just due to its nature. Buffalo Bore and the Corbon I’m not looking forward to shooting because I expect they’re going to kick like hell. I regard Gold Dots favorably, they’re my choice of carry ammo in my 9mm Springfield XD. The semi-wadcutters are proven and old school, and I’ve a warm spot for that especially since it does have the long proven track record.
Furthermore, I’ll admit some initial favorable bias towards the LSWCHP because it does have the long track record, it’s apparently not too horrible to shoot, and supposedly is your best bet for contact shots. Whereas hollow points are designed to impact and expand, the intent of the contact shot is not to expand but to cut a hole… the wadcutter cuts the hole, but it’s the rapid expansion of gases into that hole that perform the tissue damage. Ugly, I know. But if the snub is to be used for contact shot purposes, the right ammo matters. Unfortunately I cannot find much data on this.
As well, 158 grain is considered the “standard” bullet weight for .38 Special. In theory, the fixed/integral sights on the snub would be set based on assumptions of shooting that sort of bullet. That puts a little bias against things like the Corbon DPX, but then the DPX is also loaded differently. YMMV.
We shall see.
Updated: Got to the range and was able to do some testing.
Updated 2: Since I got to shoot the above-mentioned Buffalo Bore, I was looking for some more data on the Buffalo Bore semi-wadcutter load. I found this at brassfetcher.com, that shows that very load fired from a S&W 642 and how it behaved in ballistics gel. Fairly consistent behavior. It’s got penetration and some expansion. It even had fragmentation, which can mean all sorts of things for defensive loads.
Same site also has some results of various .38 rounds into gel. Here’s one on the Gold Dot 135 grain. Here’s the Remington LSWCHP. The Cor®Bon DPX.
Check this: he did a contact shot test. I’d love to see more of this, comparing say hollow point loads like the Gold Dot 135 grain, DPX, even the Buffalo Bore SWCHP vs. the FBI load.
Looking at all of the brassfetcher .38 tests — and ballistics gel only tells us so much (it’s main advantage is controlability and consistency), it does seem many of the above-listed rounds are good. In fact, it makes me feel a little bit better about my current choice to use the Buffalo Bore (load 20C/20).
Commenter RevolverRob quotes Clint Smith from Thunder Ranch:
“Nobody has ever complained of having too much ammunition during a gunfight.”
Amen.
I make no bones about the fact that I like capacity. It’s one reason I like 9mm handguns over other calibers like .40 S&W and .45 ACP. Since all pistol rounds suck about the same, I think it’s useful to consider other aspects such as capacity. If .45 ACP and 9mm will both get the job done, and I can carry twice as many 9mm rounds well… hopefully I won’t need them, but gosh it’s nice to have them if you do. We’re back to one of those old adages for why you carry: better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. So, nice to have more ammo if you can, eh?
Put it this way. I opted to carry only a 5-shot snub-nose revolver a little while ago, and just when I opted to do that I had an incident that had potential to be ugly. Thankfully nothing came of it and that we did have rifles, but boy those 5 rounds just didn’t feel like enough. Maybe if it was just one guy it’d be OK, but again we like to say that “2 is 1, 1 is none”, to be aware of that which you can’t see, and all that stuff. So if it did wind up being 2 or more attackers, would those 5-6 rounds be enough?
Joe Merchant tells of his experiences in a urban rifle course.
Reminds me of KR Training’s Defensive Long Gun course.
It reads like Joe went through a similar thing as I did. That combat shooting and bullseye/accuracy shooting are two different things. We do so much shooting against paper targets and there’s so much ingrained in us for whatever reason, that when we shoot we want to shoot fast and try to put every bullet through the same hole on the paper. That we want these really tight and small groups. If we don’t shoot that, we’re a terrible shot. Well, this is true if what you’re shooting for us slow accuracy. But if what you’re trying to do is defensively shoot and stop the bad guy from attacking you, then you need to shoot faster and have combat accuracy.
That is, fast or accurate? Which do you want? You can’t have both. Sure you can and should have both to some extent, but ultimately the faster you go the harder it will be to be pin-point accurate, and the more accurate you strive to be the slower you will be. So say in a combat situation, to get them all in the A-Zone of an IPSC target is acceptable: that’s still getting it in vital areas… maybe not through all the same hole, but it’s also arguable that’s better because it’s spreading the trauma out over a larger area and ultimately doing more damage than if you put ’em all through the same hole.
Bottom line: this is a mental matter that you have to come to terms with. That when you’re shooting and evaluating your results, you have to consider what your goal is and if you’re meeting that goal. If you’re shooting for combat, don’t be upset if you’re not making a 1″ group… be upset if you’re not hitting the A-Zone, but if they’re all there and there fast enough, then you’re doing OK.
ToddG makes a good point about practice:
You want to be prepared for war, prepared for a mugging, or prepared for your next IDPA match … and that is why you practice so much. Right?
Wrong. You practice because you enjoy shooting and you enjoy the results of the practice. Practice, for most people, is fun. But therein lies a trap. Too many shooters choose to practice only the fun stuff. Shooting at longer distances, for most pistol students, is unfun. Shooting strong- and weak-hand only is unfun. Doing just about anything that is hard, or that we’re not good at already, is unfun.
There’s no question about that. All living things are pretty simple: we seek pleasure, we avoid pain. To work on fun drills brings pleasure so we work on those. To work on the things that we like, that give us great groups and results on the target, that’s pleasing to us. Things that won’t please us because it’s hard or because we know the results won’t be immediately gratifying, we don’t work on it. It’s just how we are.
But if we really want to be good, we must work the unfun stuff too. What we have to program our brains to think is that the fun will come in time. So maybe you’re not good at 25 yard shots with your pistol. It won’t be fun to work, but you have to focus on the long term outcome because you know that will be fun. I mean, won’t it be fun to be shooting with your buddies and have everyone shoot at 25 yards and there you go whipping out the fastest and smallest groups? You know that will be fun. 🙂
We must always work to find a way to turn the unfun into fun. That’s what will separate the good from the great, in shooting or anything in life.
Stuff From Hsoi 