Self loaders. 1911's in particular. Reliabilty, terminal performance with ball type ammo, ergonimics. All of these things in comparison to Smith DA and Ruger SA revolvers in 357 mag, 44 mag, and 45 Colt cals.
I've been fortunate with my 1911. It is reliable with all loads I've run through except for 230 grain CCI Blazers and one particular home brew I tried.
But like you, I still prefer S&W and Ruger wheel guns.
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My biggest dissappointment was a Taurus Model 94, 22LR, 4" stainless steel.
First off, a lot of people have nice Taurus 94s, so please don't take the following the wrong way; mine was simply a
Turd (note the capital "
T"
)
I traded in a perfectly good blued 6.5" Heritage Rough Rider Combo in 22LR/22Mag (stupid :banghead
for the 94 because I wanted an inexpensive DA revolver on which to work on trigger control.
The 94 I ended up with had such a heavy, extra crunchy DA pull that it didn't make a good training aid for my other DA revolvers. Actually, the pull on mine was so bad that it was not useable. There was a huge rough spot on the trigger about 1/3 of the way into the pull that usually made me throw my shots trying to compensate for it. The SA pull, in fairness, was useable. So often, that's how I shot the gun, obviously defeating the purpose of buying it in the first place.
Worse, the gun would bind every 100 rounds or so at first. Note that I always eject the empties straight down to avoid lead build up under the ejector star. I tried cleaner shooting CCI Stingers. I even attempted cleaning the gun every 50 rounds. It would still bind up. The cylinder gap appeared to be in spec, so it wasn't that. Maybe the hand wasn't fitted properly.
So I sent it back to Taurus, specifically stating that I cleaned it every 50 rounds or so. After 6 weeks I got it back in the exact same condition with a note to clean it more often. Huh? You mean like, after every cylinder full? So I had the same problems, except I noticed that Taurus somehow managed to turn the gun into a lead spitter. I always wear safety glasses, ajnd ths gun reminded me why. When I heard chunks of lead bouncing off my glasses, I put the gun down and never fired it again. I sold it for a substantial loss, disclosing my troubles to the buyer.
I then bought a 1959 S&W K-22 / Model 17 and have never looked back. And I recently added a Heritage RR to my collection again, and it is every bit as fun as my first.
