Oops, I did it again....

[springmom]

We went to the High Caliber Gun Show down in Houston today, and a S&W 66-3 followed me home Pre-lock, with lovely wood grips that we traded out (we kept them, but won't put them on the gun) in lieu of rubber grips that enable us to hold it better. Pristine condition, nice trigger. We got it for $450 with the extra grips.

I am hoping that tomorrow is warm enough and dry enough to go over to Carter's and take it out to play. I'll shoot mostly .38's out of it, but Archerandshooter now has a nice .357 to use in the woods as a backup.

I've been wanting a nice .357 for awhile to round out the revolver collection, and this one looks like a keeper.

I wanted to get a little 4" Ruger New Bearcat that I saw there too. Given that I've developed a bit of a flinch with my .44 mag (can't IMAGINE why... ) I think one of those might be a nice antidote for range practice. But the dealer (different bunch) wouldn't unhook it from the security cables to let me even LOOK at it. So he lost the sale. I still want one, but I'll be checking Bud's and Gun Broker.

I really need to behave myself or my husband's not going to let me go along next time

Springmom

 

[LHB1]

Nice purchase. S&W revolvers are tops in my book. Try a mild handload in the new gun or in the .44 mag to avoid flinch. Full power mag loads can be a little more fun than we need most of the time. Bring the new gun and hubby to Carter's on Tues morning if it isn't raining. We can all have fun shooting our new pistols.

Good shooting and be safe.
LB

 

[Ala Dan]

Congrats on the purchase, I'm sure you will enjoy the new S&W wheel gun~!

 

[ugaarguy]

I really need to behave myself or my husband's not going to let me go along next time

Springmom I'm sure A&S is just heartbroken that you found another top notch revolver to bring home at a great price to boot.
Congrats on the new piece and enjoy it.

 

[tinygnat219]

Post pics and let us know how it shoots!

 

[springmom]

I will. I didn't get to the range today: it was awfully chilly and after chanting vespers last night, and matins today as well as singing in the choir during liturgy, well, I came home feeling like someone had pulled me through a knothole backward It's supposed to be only drizzly tomorrow until afternoon, though, so I may go mid-morning between rainshowers. No thunderstorms expected until mid-afternoon tomorrow.

I'm REALLY looking forward to this! Funny...when I started shooting handguns, I was all semiauto. The first time I got to shoot (my husband's buddy's arsenal) I shot a couple of his revolvers and HATED THEM. In retrospect, I don't remember the name, but I'm reasonably certain that it was the hard trigger pull that put me off. Obviously, shooting SA is one cure for that, as is just getting a gun with a nice action.

But the more I've shot my snubbie and even the Monster Magnum, the more I've come to...well, appreciate...revolvers. No, you don't get 15 rounds in one at a time. But they're simple, they're easy to clean, (as opposed to a certain 1911 that I love but is still a pain in that regard) and they've just grown on me.

So I'm looking forward to putting .38's through it and then I'll give it a go with the .357's.

And I'll post pix when I've got some target data (for better or worse)

Springmom

 

[springmom]

Oh, golly. I think I'm in love.

Finally, after a week of rain, then cold, Archerandshooter and I got out to the range this afternoon. Of course the wind was blowing so hard that several of us (including myself) lost our targets halfway through a session. That tends to make judgment of how you're shooting a new gun a little iffy, to say the least.

But oooooooooohhhhhhhhh, is that sweet to shoot.

Range temperature was about 60-65, wind going at least 20 mph. It was chilly, and as some of you know, I have arthritis pretty badly in my hands, and a problem called Reynaud's, which causes circulation to close down in the cold. That tends to make recoil felt pretty sharply I shot my .45 and my .38 snubbie, realizing that it didn't take long for my right hand to start to hurt with the .45. I wasn't hopeful about the .357 at this point.

So I started with the S&B .38 wadcutters I found at the gun show last week. They're one of my favorite just-go-plink rounds with my snubbie. Had fun with those, then loaded them into the .357. Nice accuracy; the DA trigger is not too terribly long IMO, although A&S thinks it is. In SA, the trigger is not as light as my snubbie's (this is a good thing!). The recoil reminded me of A&S's Sig Trailside .22

I went on to the Remington 158 gr. LHP .38 +P rounds that I keep in my snubbie for self-defense. Smooth, easy to control, recoil about the same as the wadcutters in the snubbie. It was almost impossible, unfortunately, to judge the accuracy of the gun itself, as the wind conditions and the flapping targets made for a less-than-stellar test setup.

And then to .357's. I'd picked Magtech 158 gr SJSP for our first run. Well, they're lively, no doubt about it; but A&S commented that they're no more recoil than the +P's out of the snubbie, and he's pretty close to right on that. A&S shot with it...15 out of 18 in the "head" of the silhouette target at 7 yards, 12 out of 12 with a 4" group in SA.

Bottom line: nice, smooth trigger, seems to have good accuracy, although I'll take it out on a calmer (and warmer) day soon. I'm giving some serious thought to having this as one option for my bedside gun; although I expect that shooting that thing inside would deafen me for quite some time.

My only regret is that we don't have two of them. Nice gun. No, great gun. I'm a happy camper. When A&S gets it cleaned, I'll take a pic and post it, with it's little sister the snubbie and it's big bubba brother the .44 mag

Springmom

 

[saltydog452]

And here I was, thinking that we had a free thinking Texas female amongst us willing to pick in tall cotton as well as thin, and now shes gotta have her man clean the revolver.

Dang, that hurts. Don't know if I'll be able to get over it. sniff... sniff


salty.

 

[springmom]

Snort. I look at it this way: it is a small step toward evening up all the times I've cleaned HIS....



Springmom

 

[saltydog452]

Poor man..puts in a hard day. Out digging post holes with a busted digger, stringing and stretching fence and chopping wood so you can lay around the house and watch the wash pot water boil.

Probabally don't even make fried apple pies either, much less scratch biscuits.

I have been severely disillusioned.

I can only attribute this sad state of affairs to the southerly wind that blows up from the coast and passes through Houston and contaminates the air around Spring.

I'm gonna take to my bed now. I think that I have severe case of the vapors.

Did I mention that I had a mess of turnip greens, butter beans, and salt water corn bread for supper?

salty.