Bags packed and ready for 'Show and Tell' at concealed-carry class

All loaded up and ready for concealed-carry class tomorrow. Range bag, check. Holster bag, check. Pistol bag, check. Revolver bag, check. I love show and tell time during the first two hours when I teach about various types of handguns and how to handle and shoot them safely. Then after two hours of teaching concealed-carry law, we all go shooting. Talk about guns and then go shooting, and get paid to do it. No job on earth is any better than this!

And tomorrow is better than usual. I have a couple of ladies signed up. Generally speaking they make better students than the men because they don't assume they already know all they need to know about guns, even when they're already experienced shooters. Plus generally the women shoot as well or better than the men.

And I particularly love it when a novice shooter, man or woman, "gets" what I'm teaching about how to safely and effectively shoot a handgun. Sometimes it's almost like seeing the light bulb start glowing in their head.

My .44 Special Obsession is getting worse daily with no cure in sight

My .44 Special Obsession (look it up, it's in the medical books), is getting worse.

When I need relief, I usually go shooting with my Charter Arms Bulldog .44 Special snubby double-action 5-shooter.

If the obsession gets really bad, I'll break out the big gun, literally, my S&W 29-3 .44 Magnum 4" barrel double-action six-shooter. I hardly ever shoot .44 Magnums in it, by far the more frequent load is .44 Specials.

I have some full-house .44 Special loads with 240-grain flat-noses and plated rounds that shoot like a dream in the big Smith.

I also have a Hy Hunter .44 Magnum single-action 6-shooter which just loves those 240-grain .44 Special loads.

It is not wise to shoot anything over 200 grains in the Charter Bulldog. Tam advised me in a post comment she shoot one to pieces with a few hundred of the over-200-grain rounds.

And as soon as I get it paid off from the layaway safe, I'll have another .44 Special to aid my obsession.

It's my first Night Guard revolver, a S&W 296NG, third from top, which is also a 5-shooter. And being a lightweight Scandium-alloy revolver, it is probably wise to limit loads in the 396NG to 200 grains, though S&W does not specifically advise that with this model, as they do on some other S&W lightweight .44 Special snubbies.

But this week, my .44 Special Obession has gotten measurably worse by some of the guns I've been posting on gunbroker for the gun shop where I work.



First and foremost is a S&W 24 Classic Bright Nickel. That big old N-frame with the "Big 4 T's", target sights, target grips, target trigger and target hammer, is just the prettiest piece of iron I've seen lately.

I need a 6.5" barrel Model 24 like I need another hole in my head, but this ain't about need, it's about my .44 Special Obsession.

I had a S&W 21 Thunder Ranch .44 Special and like a fool I traded it away. Oh well, live and learn.

Then I also posted a Ruger Vaquero Sheriff's Model .44 Special Single-Action 6-shooter with a 3.75" barrel. Ain't that the sexiest little cowboy pistol you ever saw?

I guess I'll just have to shoot my Hy Hunter more often because I can't afford that sexy little Vaquero.

And the last temptation I managed to overcome, on account of I'm broke, not because I wanted to, was resisting a S&W 296 double-action-only lightweight .44 Special 5-shooter.

Tam has one of these that lives in her purse, but I convinced myself it's just too light to enjoy shooting it often,which is one thing I absolutely demand of all my handguns.

And as the fox said after he found out the grapes were just out of his reach, them grapes is probably sour anyway.

There is a cure for my .44 Special Obsession, but the cure is what I don't have. Money. Lots of money. I really have no idea how many .44 Specials I would have to own to get this obsession under control. As I heard John Taffin said, I'd buy a broomstick if it had .44 Special wrote in it.

Smiths of the Week: .44 Special revolvers, 624, 696, 296 and 2-396s.

It's time once again for my favorite feature, the Smith of the Week. And since I'm a few weeks behind, we'll make it plural, some Smiths of the Week in my favorite caliber, .44 Special.

As I have heard John Taffin quoted, I'd buy a broomstick if it had .44 Special wrote on it.

First up is the venerable N-frame, what used to be the largest Smith & Wesson frame size before the X-frame super-duper magnums were introduced, S&W .460 and .500 Magnum monster revolvers.

At top right is a S&W 624, the Smith nomenclature "6" meaning stainless-steel and "24" for the model, the original .44 Special harkening back to the famed triple-lock revolvers before Smith took away their names, like .44 Special Target Model.

This particular S&W 624 is a Lew Horton special with 3" barrel and round-butt frame with wood finger-groove combat grips my gun shop has for sale on gunbroker.

Next is the other end of the S&W .44
Special timeline, a new S&W 396NG Night Guard, an L-frame 5-shot .44 Special revolver, which I currently have on layaway at the gun shop as my next acquisition. The 396NG has a front night sight, a Scandium-alloy frame and rubber grips to help soak up the recoil of the powerful .44 Special loads. The cylinder is black stainless-steel which also aids in taming the recoil of the powerful .44 rounds.

Next we have a S&W 296 AirLite Titanium, similar to the 396 but double-action-only with a fully-enclosed hammer. It looks more like the Bodyguard style of hammer-shrouded frame than the Centennial style of enclosed hammer, but there ain't no hammer "nub" to cock it like the Bodyguard S&W 38 and 638 models. It has an alloy frame and Titanium cylinder which makes it very light. But you can't repeal the laws of physics. That also means it will kick like a mule with all but the lightest .44 Special cowboy loads. Smith & Wesson prints on the barrel that no loads are recommended above 200 grains. But 200-grain loads will still kick with AirLite revolvers. I had a chance to buy this one but passed it up for that reason. It's light, but it's too light to be fun shooting, which is one of my must-have features for a gun.

Tam has a S&W 296 that lives in her purse, but all I gotta say is she's more of a man than I am if her 296 shoots anything like the next one up today, the 396 Mountain Lite.

Next up is the S&W .44 Special I allowed to get away with no regrets as it taught me the aforementioned lesson about being too light to shoot and enjoy. It's a Model 396 AirLite Scandium-Titanium Mountain Lite.

I got the chance to test-fire one of these at another gun shop and I'm glad I did. The allure of Scandium-Titanium lightweight revolvers completely dissipated in 15 rounds of full-house .44 Special ammo, all in the 200-grain weight which Smith printed right on the barrel as the max allowed for the 396 Mountain Lite.

I found out why one gunwriter referred to it as the Mountain Bite. Ouch! Back to the gun shop it went and I bought a Thunder Ranch S&W 24 instead.

I have not been able to test-fire the S&W 396NG as it is a new gun and not even employees of the gun shop are allowed to shoot new guns until they're paid for. But my fond hope and expectation is that it will not replicate the "Mountain Bite" experience. The steel cylinder and rubber grips supposedly make it "shootable" according to all gun reviews I have read thus far.

Then last but certainly not least is another S&W beauty in stainless steel we just got in at the gun shop. It's a S&W 696, an L-frame all-stainless 5-shot DA/SA revolver with 3" barrel, round-butt frame and wood combat grips. It's most likely a Lew Horton special like the S&W 624, but Bluebook doesn't say so therefore I can't be sure about that.

This is the first S&W 696 I ever saw as they are fairly rare and I was sorely tempted to not let it go when I first handled it. I even went so far as getting the shop owner's approval for laying it away for payment, but then had a moment of sanity and instead chose the 396 Night Guard. It's lighter to carry than the all-stainless 696 and the same 5-round size. I really won't know I made the right decision until I can shoot the 396NG.