Revolvers are just that much fun.

There is an important question from my early youth that I am unable to answer, kind of a “Chicken and Egg” puzzle; which came first “shooting” or “hunting”?  One thing is sure; somewhere I discovered that shooting was fun.  I have further classified things in my life by deciding “shooting handguns is fun”.  It isn’t that rifles and shotguns aren’t fun, in their own way but shotgun sports just never warmed me up and, while I love rifle shooting, doing it for fun, making it challenging and useful, requires a lot of room. I have room on my property to set up a bit of pistol shooting up to about 30 yards with little difficulty. There is a gravel pit a couple of miles away if I want to go to 75 yds. or so. If I want to make things go “bang” frequently, a handgun is the way to go.  Also, around my place, a handgun is useful as well.
I started my life handgunning with semi autos. In .22 caliber I grudgingly admit they can be fun.  Centerfire autos just never reached above “amusing” for me for a number of reasons. When I got my first centerfire revolver the “big bang” handguns became FUN.
I suppose, starting small, in caliber, and working up would be the way to bring organization to my thoughts. I will therefore start with the .22s. My first gun on the list is a .22 short. This revolver was thrown in on a deal for another gun, a unique rifle, of the same era. If only .22 shorts were as cheap, compared to long rifles, today as they were in my youth.  This little pistol takes me back to the days when gentlemen would put a bullet trap in the fireplace and have a bit of practice on a rainy day. My wife does not share my enthusiasm for historical recreation so the pellet stove remains in place and my shooting restricted to underneath open skies. In fair weather
 

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 I have a set of metal swinging targets in the front yard range (Our house is next to a large hill on our property. It had no small part in our choice of homes to buy) stepping out the door with this little “seven shooter” also have an old Remington takedown .22 short on the Browning patent that was designed as a gun for the glorious days of shooting galleries. Mine was saved from that by being purchased by a local farmer for pest control. I take it out to ring the steel as well.  I admit I look a bit amusing in the classic one handed duelist stance” plinking away but it is FUN.
Moving up the power continuum is the Iver Johnson “.22 Sureshot Sealed Eight”. This little beggar is quite accurate if you can see the miniscule imperfections that pass as sights. It has the benefit of an eight round capacity and is a marvelous “pest control” gun due to its ability to go from short, to shotshells, or long rifles and do so quickly. Now if they would just make a speedloader.

It has been my “rat in the woodpile” gun for some time now. Some may not be impressed about it, but taking a “patrol” around the property looking for a nest of what we call  “bush rats” to kick open and assail with the “eight shooter” is FUN.
The position of the IJ may be in some danger of late. My Ruger “Vaquero” single six is moving up on the fun scale. Recently my step-daughter and her boyfriend were visiting and I had to check the feed bin. If you live where I do you have rats around, if you have horses and feed, probably lots of rats.

 The couple was witness as I “hipshot” a big furry as he made a break for it from a few yards away. In the scheme of things not a really amazing shot at all, but in front of a couple of fairly inexperienced shooters, who got wide-eyed at the shot, it was FUN.
I jump quickly to .38 and larger, I may someday take a fancy to one of the .32 variants, if the right used gun shows up with lotsa brass a bullet mold and loading dies, but I am not searching real hard. There are only two .38 special chambered guns in my “battery.collection.accumulation” The .357 magnum occupies enough space on its own. The S&W model 10 here is probably the gun I should be hipshooting at rats with.

 Probably a full 25% of my shooting with this gun has not involved sights.  I found, that after a good cleaning, it had one of the slickest actions and I gave it a bit of help in that department.  As an incentive my wife is enamored with .357 six-guns and does like to plink with .38s as a result I have plenty of .38 brass here abouts. With my Lee,”358-158 SW(HP), Lyman Ideal “356-242” and Lyman Ideal “358-439” molds I have plenty of “plinking fuel”. To that end I have spent a good amount of time with the Smith in the vain pursuit of hipshooting mediocrity and on a good day, with sufficient practice I can almost touch the bottom rung of the mediocre ladder, but it’s FUN.
 
I would be remiss if I were to infer that all of the fun guns in this bore size are so typical. Sometimes there is a pleasure in stepping back in history and doing things the way “they used to be done” Nothing, for me, fills that role better than my .36 cal “1851 Sheriff’s model” replica. I hadn’t done much black powder shooting when I was approached by someone I knew who had decided that cash at the moment was more important than pursuing that hobby any further. He had his eye one a cartridge gun he had to have and needed the money for a down payment to hold the new gun until payday. Being an obliging sort of guy I helped him out, besides I felt sorry for the gun.

  I don’t know how many times I have polished it up, and,  I am very careful about cleaning it, but our coastal climate just refuses to leave it alone for more than a month. I am glad that it didn’t have the longer barrel. In my hands at least, with its “Colt Grip” the gun handles more like my preferred short-barrel single actions. It is rather relaxing in its own right to not worry about brass, shoot cheaper simple bullets, get real dirty in the process, and have FUN.
In the .357 category I am finally forced to confess to a horrible habit, according to some, and one that has led to the ruination of many a man and is a display of a flawed moral character (again according to the same folks). If I am at a range, these are often confused with gravel pits by the unknowing heathens, and there happens to be someone of the “know it all” species, I will drag out a very ugly piece of machinery and attempt to steer any conversation in to the direction of a “wager”. This to some is an evil form of gambling. I was taught, for right or wrong, that gambling was the betting on an event of which one has no control, betting on what one themselves can or will do, is wagering on ones skill, totally different concept and can be educational if conducted in good spirits. My wife, for reasons hidden in the depth of the female psyche, drug home this S&W 28.

 I admit she got it for pocket change as prices go, but at first sight I thought I should endeavor to sew her pockets shut. The “story” was that it was a police officer’s gun, and I would surmise a motorcycle officer who took a bad spill on his gun side. It however, rises above its cosmetic imperfections in a most delightful way. It is a bit loose in the cylinder lock up but with a SWC and the right load, in the .38 special +P range, it performs like a champ. Aiding in its deceptive appearance is the missing front sight insert. This gives an impression of total neglect and hopelessness. If however, you get the chance to shoot with a revolver sans its sight insert, you will find that it give a sight picture similar to the undercut, target, front sights that scrape holsters so badly but used to win matches.

 A bit of sight adjustment and it works fine.  Woe be it to somebody touting their 9mm “multi-blaster” and disparaging revolvers, and especially “old Ugly” ones when this one is at the range. Nothing is better than buying more casting lead with someone else’s money, and it’s FUN.
I have a couple of S&W revolvers and a Ruger in .41 magnum and shooting them is fun and the can be sinfully accurate but I have been using up a batch of unidentified cast bullets I bought on a hunch at an out of the way gunshop the owner of the shop knew less about them than I did. I think they came from a Lyman mold which is no longer made or at least no longer in the Lyman website. When I get my hands on such a mold the fun will begin with this caliber.
 
The .44 family is my bread and butter for big bore fun.  My penchant for wagering on the ability of a handgun, with my help, to hit both for group and at a distance, was birthed with a friends first generation Charter Bulldog .44 special. I had fooled with 100 yd. shooting using my 1911 and with similar ballistics it wasn’t that difficult to make the change over. I surprised a few people (but I will never admit to surprising myself) when I won a bet by whacking a rock about the size of a five-gallon bucket with three out of five shots at 100 yards. Oh I wish I had the eyes of my youth again. In typical fashion for me I decided to give up on a three inch version of the new incarnation and bought a pug: one month before they announced the manufacture of a limited edition “retro” three-inch.

 Oh well, I am working on some loads to stretch the range of the gun at acceptable pressure and it’s FUN.
My other .44 Special is the Ruger flattop 4 5/8 model. I simply had to have one, “nuff  said” about justifying. I have had fun with it but I am patiently waiting for the weather to break. I wasn’t quite happy enough with the handloads or the factory ammo so I firelapped the bore as per the instructions with the “Beartooth  Bullets” kit I bought. Then the rains came. It has been close to a monsoon around these parts since I finished the lapping. With a Lyman 429-421mold and an RCBS 250 K  I have what I need to develop what I want.

  It is a wonderful thing to reload and see the results but, to me at least, it is even more rewarding to make loads that you can’t go and buy at your local ammo store. Something that does exactly what you want. You are able to live the “Goldie locks” dream of this one’s too fast; this one is too slow, this one is just right.” So far, it’s been FUN.
Next on the power scale, if not bore diameter, is the .45 Colt round. At least in my Blackhawk, but I confess it has been so long since I fired it I don’t remember. It sits as a bag of parts in my den.  It was disassembled when it broke the transfer bar. I took it apart and ordered a new bar. While I was at it I decided, with great anticipation, to order from the same supplier, the full kit to convert it to a “Bisely” frame configuration, I figured on making the grips myself from local myrtlewood burl. I am glad a saved the money. The transfer bar arrived with a note indicating the rest of my wish list was on backorder. I left the gun as is while I waited out the backorder. It out waited me. The cancelled and sent me a check. I was, two or more years later, drawn into another attempt with the same results. I am about to give it another swing before giving up. All is not lost on the .45 with me however. In a moment of flushness I decided to but one of the Beretta/Uberti  “Stampedes” and have a belt rig of the “Duke” pattern fit to my liking by Dan Blocker holsters.

 I have logged hours on horseback in the tall timber with that gun and rig. I have yet to get a mold and have been using “store bought”  250gn SWCs and at about 900 fps that gun is more accurate than I could ever have expected, so far everything I have done with that gun has been FUN.
 
The .44 Magnum took hold of me at a young age. Elmer Keith had a big hand in that, but I was never too consumed by “magnumitis” It just never occurred to me that I needed a bullet to go through a critter at a distance further away than I could hit the critter. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the .44 mag extensively. But in terms of the topic I have gotten a lot of fun out of my 4” 629.
 

 It was not in great mechanical shape when I bought it, it had been used quite a bit and I suspect, dry-fired a heck of a lot. What live fire it had been subject to was full house in my guess. It would skip over chambers like a politician skips over the truth. I summoned up all my experience and put it back in shooting shape and scrounged up a pair of Pachmeyer grips that fit my hand better than the ones on it and proceeded to put it to work. With its stainless composition it has been very useful in the rainforest I inhabit.
 After I have seen how the firelapping has worked on the .44 special I am going to drag out my basically untested little gem, the Ruger Flattop .44 Magnum “Anniversary” model.

 
 If the firelapping proves to do as well as the reports indicate it should this pistol is going to be a serious contender for any carbine I own as far as influencing my environment out to 100 yards is concerned, and developing loads is going to be FUN.
While I have a number of the “tactical/service” etc handguns I am reasonably sure that when I lay down for the last time I am not going to be thinking “Gee, I wish I’d had more “tactical pistols”.