.327 Magnum gets 2 new Ruger models, but where's the ammo?

One of my favorite revolvers is my Charter Patriot stainless snubby in .327 Federal Magnum. In a J-sized frame you get six rounds of 357-Magnum power instead of five rounds of .38 Special and that's a deal I couldn't pass up.

My daddy always said my life philosophy is if a little bit is good, a whole lot is more good and he's right. Why settle for a .38 when you can have a .327 Magnum?

To date, other manufacturers besides Charter offering .327 Magnum pistols since its introduction include Ruger with their SP101 stainless, Taurus with blue and stainless snubbies and Smith & Wesson with its compensated-barrel Model 632 in black stainless or matte stainless.

The .327 Magnum is such a high-pressure load at 45,000 psi that it requires an all-steel revolver to hold it in, no alloy frames can stand up to that abuse.

I'm not particularly recoil-shy but I do have my limits and the hottest .327 Magnum load, Federal American Eagle 100-gr. JSP, is right there close to my mine. It's loud enough to wake the dead and after about a half dozen, I'm saying that's enough of that for a while.

I tried all the available loads when I first got my Charter and chose the Speer Gold Dot 115-gr. JHP for my carry load and zeroed the Crimson Trace Lasergrips on the Charter for it. The easiest-shooting load among the three I tried is Federal Hydra-Shok 85-gr. JHP, which is rightly labeled a low-recoil load. But the foot-pounds of energy is the telling difference between the Gold Dots and the Hydra-Shoks, 530 vs. 398. IMHO, ft./lbs. of energy is more important than velocity (feet per second) when determining defensive effectiveness of a caliber load.

What I'd really like to have to pair up with my Charter is a Marlin stainless lever-action carbine in .327 Magnum, but that hasn't happened yet. When it does, I'll be all over it.

But meanwhile, Ruger has upped the ante in .327 Magnum revolvers with two new models, a 7-shot GP100 double-action and an 8-shot Blackhawk single-action, both all-stainless revolvers.

I got the chance to handle both at the gun shop where I work when they came in and I listed them for sale on gunbroker. My first choice between the two is the 7-shot GP100, but I'm slowly becoming a fan of single-action revolvers, so that 8-shot Blackhawk is tempting. We also just got in our first Ruger Blackhawk .44 Special, so that's a great temptation in single-action for me also. I do love .44 Special revolvers.

American Rifleman's current issue has a write-up on the two new Rugers in .327 Magnum and they like them a lot. I'm sure I'd love either one of them because a little more stainless-steel weight in hand would make shooting the .327 Magnum a lot more fun than shooting my Charter.

One of the best things I like about .327 in general and my Charter in particular is the ability to shoot other shorter less-powerful and cheaper .32 ammo, including .32 H&R Magnum, .32 S&W Long and .32 S&W, also called .32 Short. My Charter doesn't like .32 ACP, but I've read that some .32 revolvers will fire .32 ACP because it's a semi-rimmed round that will fit the cylinders. The .32 ACP cartridges apparently sit too deep in the Charter cylinder as only one out of six fired when I tried it.

And more ammo choices for .327 Magnum are in the pipeline, though we haven't seen any of them at the shop yet.

Federal is making a lower weight and power American Eagle load in 85-grain to match up with the Hydra-Shok JHP for practice. And there's supposed to be a new Speer Gold Dot load also.

Ammo availability is the biggest stumbling block for .327 Magnum that I've seen so far. I recommend the caliber to customers at the shop, but we only have two of the three current loads in stock. I haven't seen any new boxes of Speer Gold Dots in months and we only recently got more American Eagle and Hydra-Shok ammo in. The .327 ammo shortage is even worse than the .380 ACP ammo shortage because we can manage to keep .380 in stock at the shop now.

Slowly morphing from Pistol Pete into Willie Wheelgun Guy

If you had told me a year ago I'd own eight revolvers from .22 to .44, I'd have told you your crystal ball was cracked. But during the past year working at a gun shop, I've slowly morphed into a wheelgun lover. I've still got a lot more semi-auto pistols than revolvers, but some days I do wear two revolvers to work instead of a pistol and a wheelgun.

Dave Campbell has an article in the current American Rifleman that sort of expresses this evolution I've gone through, titled Wheelguns Still Work.

It took more than a century, but the semi-automatic pistol is now the go-to handgun for self-defense. The revolver, which preceded the self-loader, had a pretty good run—about 150 years. Evolving tactics and modern manufacturing capabilities, along with popular culture, have brought semi-auto pistols to the forefront. Now the question is: Should the revolver be put out to pasture as a self-defense handgun?

The Simpler Choice
A self-defense handgun is an extremely personal choice. Choosing a particular handgun should be based upon reliability, ease of use, power, concealability and cost—in roughly that order.

Semi-auto pistols are great instruments, but they require more training than revolvers to be used effectively. Make no mistake, I am fully aware that all firearms require training and practice to be of any real worth, but the semi-auto is, by its nature, more complicated.

Family members who may not be enthusiastic about guns and shooting but still want to be able to defend themselves will often find that a double-action revolver is more to their liking. Tactics and prior contingency planning come in to play, of course, but all potentially life-threatening events induce a great deal of trepidation. In these types of situations would it not be better to have a loved one using a simpler tool?

Power, Baby
Another reason I often prefer revolvers is that they continue to win the power race, at least in terms of handguns that can be easily carried. There are numerous compact snub-nosed revolvers that can do the job including some in power-punching calibers. While most people only need a .38 Spl. for typical use, a .357 Mag. snubby provides the versatility to choose between .38s and more powerful .357 rounds if there is a need.

And in the same issue, a left-handed revolver, the Charter Arms Southpaw is featured. Being a lefty shooter I've entertained thoughts of adding the Charter Southpaw to my modest arsenal.

Like the S&W Airweight .38 Special revolvers, the Charter Southpaw is only 12 ounces empty. And it just so happens we have one in stock at the gun shop. Somebody stop me before I buy my ninth revolver.

Newtonian physics rules vs. lightweight snubby revolvers

Sooner or later, I'm gonna get around to buying a lightweight .38 Special snubby, but every time I've made a move toward one since I started thinking about .38 snubbies back the spring of 2008, something sexier has popped up.

First snubby that caught my eye was a Smith & Wesson 396 SC .44 Special called the Mountain Lite. Then I shot it and learned you can't repeal Newtonian physics that says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

If a handgun is light as a feather, unless it's shooting a projectile that's both underpowered and also very light, it's gonna kick like a Missouri mule, like the "Mountain Bite" .44 Smith snubby. And underpowered light projectiles sucketh when it comes to actually doing what bullets are supposed to do, deter bad actions.

Then I bought a pair of stainless-steel Charter snubbies, .327 Magnum and .44 Special. While neither has what anybody would call low recoil, they're both manageable enough to enjoy shooting and to control for accuracy. And both are more than adequate in the deterrence department, ballistically speaking.

Then I fell in love with another stainless sorta snubby, a S&W 65-3 .357 Magnum with 3" barrel, which is also pleasant to shoot unless you load it up with CorBon 180-grain loads, which I found out the hard way are just too hot for a K-Frame, even an all-steel one.

In between the two Charter snubbies, I almost bought my first Colt, a .38 Special Cobra, the alloy-frame version of the famous all-steel Detective Special. With the factory grips, it beat the hell outa my ring finger, so I bought some gap-filling grips that made it more comfortable to shoot.

But when I had the Cobra almost paid off at the gun store where I work, in came my second Charter snubby, the Bulldog .44 Special. It has a better trigger than the Colt, plus it's a .44, not a .38. So the Colt went back in the counter and the Bulldog came home.

But I have shot one lightweight .38 that both has a good trigger and won't beat you up too bad with +P loads, the new Ruger LCR polymer-frame .38 snubby.

A customer bought one that didn't have the Crimson Trace Lasergrips properly zeroed at the factory so I volunteered for the job of fixing that.

It took me a whole box of Hornady Critical Defense .38 Special +P jacketed hollow points to get those laser grips properly zeroed. It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it.

And now Smith is finally stepping up with its first polymer frame .38 snubby, the new Bodyguard model soon to be delivered.

I'll pass on the new Bodyguard .380, 9mm is as small as I go with pistols, but the .38 Bodyguard got my attention with an ambi cylinder release as well as ambi controls for the integrated laser. That's a real feature for lefty shooters like me.

Maybe I'll get a chance to shoot one of the new Bodyguards before I finally buy my first .38 snubby. But until then, I'll just get by with my .44, .327 Magnum and .357 Magnum snubbies.

Here's a S&W video commercial on the two new Bodyguard models.

Search for a .38 snubby leads to 6 revolvers (and no .38 snubby)

Since who flung the chunk, I've always loved pistols. Blame my daddy for letting me shoot his 1911 .45 way back when I was about 10.

Daddy also had a little .32 ACP lemon-squeezer revolver I shot when I was a little fella, but that's another story.

Anyway, I started buying pistols pretty late in life in 2001 with my first being a Smith & Wesson Model 1076, a full-size 10mm that was the FBI's duty handgun from 1990-95.

Credit reading Jeff Cooper about 10mm pistols for that purchase.

Then in 2006 when I applied for my concealed-carry permit, I started looking for carry pistols and have acquired a few since then.

I had no revolvers until March 2008 when I decided to go shopping for a .38 snubby for a backup. But on the way to a .38, I ended up buying a .44 Special. Long story, read it all here.

I tried out a S&W 396 AirLite Scandium Mountain Lite .44 Special which is indeed light, but you can't avoid physics. What goes out one end of a handgun comes back the other way in recoil. I found out why one writer called it the "Mountain Bite." Ouch. So instead I came home with a S&W Model 21-4 .44 Special, a 4" barrel N-frame steel revolver.

And then shortly thereafter I discovered a "Dirty Harry" .44 Magnum S&W 29 in a pawn shop when I was just browsing. The price was so low I just had to buy it.

I love that 4" barrel of the two S&Ws 21 and 29. It's just the right size for handy carry and shooting, or as John Taffin would say, the perfect packin' pistol. Perfect if you don't mind packin' 3+ lbs. of iron.

But like a fool I decided I didn't need two .44 Smiths, so I traded the 21 and kept the 29. But I still kept thinking about a .38 snubby.

And then the gun shop where I work got in the new Charter Arms Patriot .327 Magnum 6-shot stainless revolver model last year. I studied up on .327 Magnum and decided that ballistics nearly matching .357 Magnum with the recoil of .38 Special +P is a pretty good deal, not to mention 6 shots vs. 5 in a typical .38 Snubby. So I got the Charter .327.

Then along came a S&W 14-3 K-38 Target Masterpiece at the shop. It became my first .38 Special, but with a 6" barrel, BoMar Sight Rib and target grips, it's hardly a snubby.

I said it had the best trigger I'd ever pulled, which is why I bought it. And then along came a S&W 65-3 .357 Magnum stainless with a 3" barrel and a trigger job from the S&W Performance Center. It was even slicker than the S&W 14-3 so I just had to buy it. It's sorta kinda a .38 snubby, but not really as an all-stainless K-frame 6-shot. It's most definitely not an Airweight J-frame Smith snubby.

And then along came my second Charter, a stainless Bulldog .44 Special. How could I resist when a .44 is mucho better than a .38? And then I went shopping for a compact S&W 9mm, found a S&W 469 and bought it, but before I could get out of the shop, I bought a Dan Wesson Model 22-6 6" barrel .22LR revolver. That Dan Wesson trigger is just too slick to resist.

So now I got six revolvers and another one in the layaway safe at the shop. (Shhh! Don't tell my wife.) I told her just the other day I probably had enough pistols now. Big mistake.

I have decided to follow the wisdom of Bob Lee Swagger, one of my favorite fictional characters, who told a nice lady, "Pardon me ma'am, but there ain't no such thing as enough guns."

And I realized something sorta shocking about myself today when I headed off to work at the gun shop wearing two revolvers and no pistol. I'm turning into a revolver guy.

Amazing but true discoverery: I'm a .45 and .44 kinda guy

A funny/strange not funny ha-ha thing happened while I was in Pittsburgh for Christmas.

I went to an indoor range with some shooting buddies up there and the range rules forbid shooting at targets any closer than 25 yards, which meant running the targets all the way to the backstop.

I normally vary my distances, but mostly shoot from 7 to about 15 yards, only occasionally shooting longer distances with handguns.

So anyway, I took the Para Ord P12-45 along to show off to my Pittsburgh buddies and after they tried it out, I shot a magazine of 12 at a full-size-man silhouette target at 25 yards. All were in the black, but a few strayed out of center mass. Even though I was trying to slow down and shoot a good group to show off to my buddies, I still hurried a few shots.

That P12 trigger is so sweet it's hard to shoot slow.

Then I loaded up my Charter Bulldog Pug with 5 .44 Special Cowboy loads and shot them double-action at the same target.

You couldn't tell the .45 holes from the .44 holes, but lo and behold, there were no new holes out of center mass. Obviously, I shot all five in the "kill zone" even shooting double-action.

It certainly increased my confidence in carrying the Bulldog .44, which I did in a shoulder harness for the trip up and back, as well as my usual Kel-Tec PF-9 in my pants pocket.

And though I still love my other carry handguns, 9mm, .357 Sig and 10mm pistols and .327 Magnum, .357 Magnum/.38 Special and .44 Magnum revolvers, I got a sneaking suspicion I'm gonna be carrying the P12-45 and the Bulldog .44 as the two leaders of the pack.

I guess I knew all along I'm a .45 and .44 kinda guy, but to find I shoot those two favorite calibers as well and perhaps even better than the others certainly supports my preferences.

Charter Bulldog .44 blows away Colt Cobra .38 at the range

Does a Bulldog beat a Cobra? A funny thing happened to my plans to buy a new-to-me Colt Cobra .38 Special snubby at the gun shop.

I almost had the Cobra paid off when what should come from the last gun show? A stainless Charter Bulldog Pug 2.5" barrel .44 Special snubby.

The first snubby I ever bought is a Charter Patriot .327 Magnum, shown at right at bottom with Crimson Trace Laser Grips, so adding a Bulldog, at right top, is pretty much a no-brainer.

They're built on the same stainless-steel frame, the only difference being caliber and round count, six .327 Magnums vs. five .44 Specials in the cylinder.

I can even swap the CT grips to either of the two Charters should I want to.

But after shooting the Bulldog on Saturday at the range, I doubt it will ever wear CT grips, unless I buy a second set for it.

I started out shooting 240-gr. Cowboy Loads, rated at 761 feet per second at the muzzle. You can call that a Cowboy Load, but it sure ain't light ballistically speaking.

Those numbers are classic 230-gr. .45 ACP ballistics, which is generally about the same speed and nobody ever calls .45 ACP a "Cowboy Load."
Anything hit with a 240-grain chunk of .44 lead moving at 761 FPS is going to be in a serious load of hurt.

The Cowboy Loads were mild recoil and easy to shoot, but patterned about 3" low of the bullseye. After putting three in the same hole, I pretty well established the point-of-impact for that load.

Then I switched to some 240-gr. Semi Wad Cutter full-house loads, not marked for velocity but I'll assume about 100 fps faster, say 861. And those patterned right on the bull for the iron sights.

So that's what this Bulldog likes best, 240-gr. full-house loads. I've got both SWCs and Plated Flat-Nose 240-gr. loads so either should work just fine for carry.

I've also got some 200-gr. Gold Dot Jacketed Hollow Points but I haven't tried those yet to see where they hit. We've also got some Winchester Silvertip JHPs at the shop, so I'll probably pick up a box of those to see what the Bulldog does with them too.

But it's definitely a keeper, so I'll keep the Bulldog and let the shop have the Colt Cobra back to sell.

When it comes to whether I want a .38 or a .44 for a backup, my math skills ain't too good but not only is .44 bigger than .38, 240 grains is also heavier than 158 grains.

And I don't have to go look up the ballistic tables to know that comparing the two in foot-pounds of energy delivered is no comparison whatsoever. And IMHO, ft./lbs. is the real payoff when it comes to ballistic matchups, the closest statistic we have to the fabled "knockdown power."

If you've got speed but low grain weight, you gotta have a lotta speed to make up for that handicap to build up ft./lbs. That's how .327 Magnum is such an impressive revolver round, not much weight, 100 grains for the American Eagle load we shot Saturday, but a smoking hot speed of 1500 fps. That delivers ft./lbs. just shy of classic .357 Magnum stats.

And if you've got good weight but low speed, you come up short again. With classic .38 Special ballistics, you've got 158 grains but slow speed, so you don't get much in the way of ft./lbs. or penetration either.

But like 230-gr. .45 ACP loads, a big ol' hunk of 240-gr. .44 lead at slow speed, 761 fps, adds up to impressive ft./lbs. of energy and penetration.

So it don't take a rocket surgeon to figure out a Bulldog .44 beats a Cobra .38 every time.

I spent the rest of the day at the range playing with my Para Ordnance P12-45 with my friend Jerry and his son Austin. Nothing's more fun that shooting with friends.

I'm the old guy who needs a haircut. Jerry's the younger guy who don't need a haircut. And Austin is the kid who had enough sense to wear a knit cap on a cold, rainy day.

The rain stopped long enough to let us shoot in relative comfort, but with a high in the low 40s, it was a bit brisk, as least for this thin-blooded ol' Southern redneck.
Austin also has a cool phone with a multi-exposure photo function and he took a series of photos of me working on my shoulder-holster draw and double-tap shooting. Thanks Austin.

So long EAA Witness P-Carry, hello Para Ord P12-45

Tomorrow is my first Para Ordnance carry day! The Good Lord sent me a buyer for my EAA Witness P-Compact .38 Super/.45 ACP at the gun show in Hickory over the weekend, attended by the other folks at the gun shop where I work. So far I've been able to get away with not spending my weekends at gun shows with the rest of the crew.

That enabled me to get my new-to-me Para Ordnance P12-45 out of hock at the gun shop today and bring her home for good. So tomorrow I'll be carrying the Para and 12+1 rds. of Winchester PDX1 230-gr. JHP Bonded Personal Protection loads, plus a couple of spare magazines of 12 and a backup piece.

I shot the Para P12-45 again this past Saturday at the range and she just loves those 230-grain loads with the sights dead-on at 15 yards. She has a Cylinder & Slide trigger job and some other custom touches, including ambi safeties which makes her perfect for a lefty like me.

I also got my Charter Arms Patriot .327 Magnum back from a gunsmith at the Hickory show, so that will be my backup tomorrow. The gunsmith tried unsuccessfully to install a lighter weight hammer/trigger spring, but said he couldn't find one that would also fire cartridges of any type. That's sorta essential for a firearm, that it actually fires, certainly more important than a lighter trigger pull.

Speaking of lighter trigger pull, I've been carrying my new-to-me Smith & Wesson Model 65-3 stainless .357 Magnum revolver lately, second photo. This little 3" barrel darling has a trigger job from the S&W Performance Center that has to be felt to be believed. Everybody who has tried that trigger has had a shocked expression and a mouth that falls open. It's that good. I guess one great trigger job is enough for the moment.

I got enough from the EAA sale to pay off the Para Ord and also make a down payment on my next acquisition, a Colt Cobra .38 Special 6-shot snubby, third photo.

The Cobra is the same frame size as the Smith 65-3, K-Frame for S&W and D-Frame for Colt. It's a dead ringer for the famed Colt Detective Special, the only difference being an alloy frame vs. the all-steel Dick Tracy snubby. I've got nothing against light carry pieces if they shoot good.

And the Colt Cobra shot just fine when I took her for a test run this past Saturday. She has a good trigger and she's a 6-shot vs. the usual 5-shot J-Frame Smith snubbies, plus the grip is also a bit bigger which works well for my large, long-fingered hands.

And the Colt Cobra trigger is pretty slick too, not as slick as the Smith 65-3 but definitely better than the Charter Patriot .327 Magnum. It's destined to be my everyday backup carry piece.

My only caveat at the range was the discovery that hot .38 Special loads banged the back of the trigger guard on the knuckle of my middle finger no matter how I tried to adjust my grip. I'm gonna find some of those grip fillers for the front of the grip frame that will fit a D-Frame Colt.

Revolver Day: S&W K-38, Ruger LCR and 2 Charter .327 Magnums

Something new vs. something old. Which one wins? Usually it's the new and improved and supposedly better. But sometimes it ain't.

Case in point is the latest and greatest .38 Special revolver, the Ruger LCR with Crimson Trace Laser Grips, which went to the range with me today along with a pair of Charter Arms .327 Magnums, both equipped with CT Laser Grips. All needed zeroing and it's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it. That would be me.

The pair of Charter .327 Magnums is one owned by me that just got back from some work at the factory and I needed to verify zero hadn't changed. It had not. The other is one owned by a friend of mine who has not zeroed the laser grips yet, so I volunteered to handle that chore.

I really like the .327 Federal Magnum cartridge, the NRA Ammo of the Year. It has ballistics that are almost identical to .357 Magnum, but without the punishing recoil in a lightweight revolver. The Charter .327 is one of the new breed that IMHO is better than a standard .38 snubby. Six shots vs. 5, better ballistics than .38 Special or even .38 +P. What's not to like?

And then there's a new wrinkle in .38 snubbies. The friend with the other Charter also bought a new Ruger LCR, which stands for Lightweight Compact Revolver. The friend, let's call her Annie Oakley, is a great natural shooter who just took my first NRA Basic Pistol Class. She was previously untrained with handguns, but you'd never know it.

So I also volunteered to zero her new Ruger LCR, which she purchased last week at the gun store where I work.

The LCR is the world's first polymer-grip revolver, with an aluminum frame, steel 5-shot cylinder and steel-lined 1.875" barrel. It came from the factory with the Crimson Trace Laser Grips installed, unlike the two Charter magnums, which had their CT grips installed at the gun shop where I work.

So I expected the Ruger lasergrips to be at least close to zero. Wrong.

The first two shots I fired with the LCR laser were almost in the same hole, but several inches and high and a bit left. (First yellow target, two holes high and left.) So I checked the iron sights. Bam, bam, two holes on each side of the bull. (Same yellow target, holes at bull)

Nothing wrong with those iron sights. So I did the zero the easy way, aligning the zero with the iron sights, then firing a group of five. (Orange target.) Not bad. I'm not all that great at firing a double-action trigger, but this one is pretty good. Better than the average Smith & Wesson double-action .38 snubby, which heretofore has been the standard by which other .38 snubbies are measured.

There's a new snubby in town and it has a pretty good trigger, maybe a great one for somebody who actually knows how to shoot a DA snubby, and that ain't me.

I proved that by setting up a 11x17" little redman target at 21 feet and standing on my hind legs the way you're supposed to shoot a snubby. The five holes in the 8 and 9 rings are .38s from the DA snubby Ruger LCR.

That kinda ticked me off, shooting so lousy at Tueller Drill distance.

So I loaded up my S&W 14-3, which back before Smith got stupid and used model numbers to identify their pistols was known as the K-38 Target Masterpiece. Now which says excellence to you, Model 14-3 or K-38 Target Masterpiece? I rest my case.

Anyway, I loaded up the K-38 and fired a dozen double-action rounds or so at the little redman's head. That lovely Target Masterpiece has such a sweet, smooth double-action trigger that even I can shoot it well. Just because something's "new" don't necessarily mean it's improved.

Now I gotta find me an old Smith snubby that ain't "new and improved" and has a great trigger like my K-38.

I also spent a good part of my range time today zeroing the Bomar sight on my K-38. The last set of targets is the K-38 zeroed up at 50 feet, at left, and then a pair of cylinder loads shot at 100 feet, in the target at right.

Lordy, they really don't make 'em like this K-38 Target Masterpiece anymore. It makes an old fart like me look like I can really shoot, double-action or single-action.

Beware Taurus handguns: Where customer service goes to die

I learned one lesson about handguns shortly after I went to work in a gunshop in January. Leave Taurus handguns alone. I heard the owner getting irate on the telephone with somebody, which is totally unlike him. He's the most polite person with customers I ever saw, even when it's some idiot asking "duh!" questions. My gun shop is a family-owned business and we all work very hard at customer service, trying our utmost to please customers even when they are unreasonable.

So I asked Billy, the father of the family, who he was hollering at on the phone? He said it was his weekly call to Taurus customer service, demanding they fix or replace a defective revolver we had received broke in the box in September '08. The distributor refused to take it back, causing Billy to cease doing business with that outlet, and he was forced to send the gun back to Taurus, knowing their customer service is pretty much nonexistent.

Which proved to be true. He called once a week to raise hell with Taurus, always receiving promises that a new revolver was on the way. Finally a replacement showed up in May '09.

If that's customer service, you can call me Pope John. And how many customers are going to be persistent enough to call and raise hell every week for nine long months? Few to none.

So I was interested when I saw that at least one other gun nut agrees with us on Taurus pistols.

Here's an exchange I stole from Tamara's View From The Porch with her gun-nut buddy Caleb.

On Taurus semiautos:

Caleb: I also predict that in the comments, someone will accuse me of having a soft spot for Taurus…they would be correct, I do have an affinity for Taurus’ semi-automatic pistols.

Me: I have a soft spot for mentally-disturbed homeless alcoholic vets on the side of the road, but I wouldn’t bring one home.

I've seen PT-111 Millennium 9mm's with more frequent-flier miles to Miami than a Colombian cocaine mule.

I'm with Tamara. I won't buy a Taurus handgun myself and I won't recommend them to a customer. If they want to buy a Taurus I won't try to talk them out of it, but I will show them the Smiths and tell them they're worth the extra coin. And if that fails, I'll show them the Charter revolvers, which are comparably priced with Taurus and provide actual customer service.

I bought a Charter .327 Magnum that was one of the first 1,000 made and it developed a minor problem I decided not to ignore. I sent it back to Charter and they fixed it, free. Great service.

So if you're looking at handguns, buy a Smith. Or a Charter. Or a Ruger. Anything but a Taurus.

Sig P229 shines at the range, ready for prime-time

What's the most fun you can have with your clothes on? Shooting .357 Sig pistols is right there at or near the top of my list. So in addition to taking my brand-spanking-new Sig P229 SAS Gen2 .357 Sig pistol to the range for its debut, I also packed my two S&W M&P .357 Sig pistols, compact and full-size (or in most other pistol makers formulations, compact and subcompact).

And I took my Charter Patriot .327 Fed. Magnum along for more fun with a couple of boxes of .32 S&W Long wadcutters to take a break between shooting hot .357 Sig loads.

I started off with the P229 naturally as the new kid on the block. First shot with the P229 was smack dab in the center of a full-size blueman target at 10 yards offhand. Precisely the same experience I had with the first round out of my Sig P226 full-size pistol, so I wasn't really surprised. Pleased, delighted, happy as a pig in deep doo-doo, but not really surprised.

It shoots like a dream with the Short Reset Trigger system, the SigLite Tritium Night Sights are easy to see in the daylight too and overall I just couldn't ask for an easier-shooting, perfectly balanced pistol in my favorite caliber.

I only had the one magazine supplied by Sig (you buy a pistol that costs just shy of $1K and they give you one mag. Go figure. But so does Kimber and several other pistol makers, so you just gotta get your own mags). So I reloaded a lot with my UpLula mag loader and kept shooting. Holes in the center of the blueman are from the P229. Then I fired a few mags from my two M&Ps at the head of the blueman. No jams, no slams, no errors, nothing but perfection from all three pistols.

Only problem is operator error. You'll notice that the holes tend to stray a bit right of center, where I was aiming. I'm a lefty and when I pull the trigger off-center just a bit, it pulls the rounds to the right. I gotta work on that. Pulling the trigger straight back without pulling it right or left is the essence of good pistol shooting.

Then I took a break from .357 Sig and shot a few loads of .32 wadcutters with my Charter Patriot. I hadn't tried the .32s with my Crimson Trace grips and was delighted to find the zero was only off a couple of inches low from where I set it with the Speer Gold Dot .327 Magnum carry loads I use.

After shooting hot .357 Sig loads, the .32 wadcutters were like shooting .22s. I've found it's good to lighten up with easier shooting in between rounds of higher recoil loads. Seems to keep me from developing flinches.

The .357 Sig loads I fed the Sig P229 ran a wide range but all were hot. I used hollow-points by Speer, Winchester and Cor-Bon and for range ammo, Georgia Arms Canned Heat FMJs, Speer CF Frangible and Winchester White Box FMJs.

The Sig chewed 'em all up and spit 'em all out without ever missing a beat. It's true what Sig says about their pistols, "To hell and back reliability." I've never had a Sig pistol jam in my limited experience shooting them. I plan to widen that experience as early and often as possible.

After the .32 wadcutter break, I loaded up the last of the range ammo for the P229 and launched it at an orange 8" bull on top of the blueman at the same 10 yards.

The Sig's Short Reset Trigger just begs you to shoot quickly and even though I tried to slow down at first and be deliberate to check the sights, after the first few rounds of the day, I found myself shooting faster and faster, as quickly as I could realign the sights and launch another round downrange.

As the French cop said to Bogey, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful relationship, me and my Sig P229 SAS Gen2. I shall be carrying her when I go back to work on Monday at the gun shop.

Now for a name. How about Sexy Sally? She's slick and smooth, quick and dangerous. And unlike some women I've known with those qualities, I think this one can be relied upon when needed.

The short (.327 Fed. Mag.) and the long (1894 Marlin .44)

Went to the range again today and shot the shortest gun I have, Charter .327 Federal Magnum 2.5" snubby revolver, and the longest gun I have, Marlin 1984SS .44 Magnum lever-action rifle.

Top photo is the Charter with its new Crimson Trace Lasergrips. First handgun I've owned with CT Lasergrips, and I like it. I see more in my future. The Charter is vastly improved since I had to apply Kentucky elevation for its fixed sights, which aimed about 4" high from the point of impact of most loads. Now I can put the red dot where I want to hit and let 'er fly.

It's also an improvement because my 61-year-old eyes have a hard time seeing short snubby sights in the first place, so now I can forget about the sights and keep my eyes on the target. I'm a bit fuzzy up close without glasses, but I can see crystal clear once I get beyond the length of my arms. So my pistol shooting will improve with the Lasergrips.

First I zeroed it with American Eagle JSP 100-grain loads, then had to zero it again with my carry loads, Speer Gold Dot JHP 110-grain loads. The second photo is the results of my zero work, sitting at bench rest at 21 feet, a reasonable distance for shooting a snubnose revolver.

Third photo is a closeup of the CT Lasergrips beaming brightly from my Charter Patriot .327.

I gotta say it's a real handful sitting at a bench rest. It's a totally different experience than standing offhand with a two-hand grip and sitting down you really appreciate what a nasty round the 327 Federal Magnum really is. I don't wanna get shot with nothing, .22 included, but I'd really hate to get hit with 110-grains of .327 sizzling at 1400 fps. That's .357 Sig or 9mm +P kinda speed, two of my favorite auto pistol rounds. And I read an article this week that FBI-standard gelatin tests are showing 13-14" of penetration and very impressive expansion with either .327 Fed. Mag. load.

I do believe a S&W 632 Carry Comp Pro Series is waiting out there for me in my near future.

When I got the Charter suitably zeroed for carry, I moved on to my new Marlin 1894SS Stainless Steel .44 Magnum lever-action rifle. I brought my sight-tapper to the range and a couple of boxes of .44s, .44 Magnum and .44 Special, both 240-grain. The rifle and ammo is the next photo, followed by a small redman 11x17" target at 20 yards.

The first couple of holes in the redman were shot at 50 yards which confirmed what I found the first time I shot the Marlin, off to the right. So I decided to take the work out of it and move the target in to 20 yards to finish the zero. One little love tap on the dovetailed sight is all it took.

I love this Marlin rifle. It's a tangent from my current plans for carry pistols, but a very nice one.

Charter Patriot .327 Mag gets an upgrade with Lasergrips

My Charter .327 Federal Magnum got an upgrade today. The gun shop where I work got in a set of Crimson Trace Lasergrips for Charter pistols and it just so happened I had a little surplus built up in the pistol fund.

So the Patriot is now laser-powered. Can't wait for Saturday to take her to the range and zero the fierce little bugger. My only complaint with the Patriot is that she shoots about 3-4" low from point of aim, forcing me to use Kentucky elevation with the fixed sights to hit what I'm aiming at.

The Lasergrips will solve that problem pronto. But with every solution comes another problem. For lo these 61 years I've been using these eyeballs, since the day I first fired a thunderstick, I've been taught to focus on the front sight, not the target. Lasergrips change that to focusing on the target, not the sights.

I've played around with my daughter's .38 Special S&W with CT Lasergrips, but was never serious about learning to shoot it well. Now I gotta get serious and teach an old dog new tricks.

It's a skill that has real-life application. I've never shot anybody in a real face-to-face fight, with the sorta exception of shooting 5-inch naval shells from a destroyer off the coast of Vietnam. But in a real gunfight, I strongly suspect all your focus will be on whoever the threat is, particularly if the threat is shooting at you or threatening your life. So I probably wouldn't see the sights anyway. And if someone isn't threatening your life, you don't want to shoot them anyway.

Three .44s plus .45, 327 Mag and .357 Sig Compact

What's better than shooting holes in stuff? Shooting holes in stuff with friends. I couldn't find anybody to go to the range with on Saturday, so I called up an old buddy from way back and went out to his farm to shoot my new .44 rifle and other assorted pistols. At top is my new Marlin 1984SS, a stainless-steel .44 Magnum/.44 Special lever gun.

And I took two other .44 pistols, a Hy Hunter .44 Magnum single-action I borrowed from the gun shop where I work for a test run and my S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum. Also in that pistol pile is my S&W M&P Compact .357 Sig and my Llama IX-C .45 ACP. Not shown is my Charter Arms .327 Federal Magnum, which I was wearing at the time.

I don't have a single-action pistol and was considering whether the Hy Hunter was going to be my first.

The first target, the fullsize Blueman, was shot with the lever gun at 25 yards and the Cowboy pistol at 15 yards. Lever gun was shooting high, which I corrected, but a tad to the right, which I didn't try to correct. Of course I didn't read the manual first, so I found out afterward the rear sight is drift adjustable. I've got a sight pusher, so I'll fiddle with that next time out with the Marlin.

The Hy Hunter didn't need any sight correction, thank God, as I didn't want to even think about what adjusting it would require with its fixed sights. It shoots dead on, as a couple of holes in the center will attest.

With .44 Magnum loads, it's a hand cannon but shoots dead on. With .44 Special loads, it's a pussycat.

It was a lot of fun to shoot, but after slowwwwwwly reloading it a few times, I figured out why all the old cowboys are dead. They got shot while reloading.

I think I've cured my itch for a single-action pistol. This one is beautiful, black steel finish throughout and beautiful pearl grips. Handles well with its 6.5" barrel, great trigger that couldn't be more than about 2 lbs. It's even a good buy at only $350 which is a steal for a well-made carbon-steel pistol. This one was made by J.P. Sauer & Sohn back in the '80s in what was then West Germany. That's the Sauer that has since merged with Sig to create Sig Sauer. Those Germans make fine pistols.

But it's a range toy and I've got enough of those already. Back to the shop it will go. I've finally found a pistol I don't want to buy. Unbelievable I know, but true.

The second target is shot with my S&W 29. Lordy is that one fine-shooting pistol. It makes the single-action .44 seem a century out of date, which it is. I love shooting .44 Specials and I can see with this new lever gun and my Smith 29, I'm gonna have to buy more .44 ammo. A lot more.

My buddy, his wife and I went through more than 100 rds. of .44 Special and about 25 rds. of .44 Magnum. My gun shop is one of the few I've seen that stocks .44 Special ammo so that will be my next objective, stocking up while it's available. We've got several different brands of range ammo and hollow-points to choose from.

Next up after the .44s was a few magazines of .45 ACP for my favorite full-size pistol, my Llama IX-C 1911. I bought some Canadian-made 15-rd. magazines for it and had shot them once and had a jam or two, so I needed more work with them.

Target is a 11x17" Redman shot at 15 yards with four 15-rd. mags shot at center mass and at the head.

The first time I shot the Canadian-made mags, I found they will hold 16 rds. instead of the 15 marked, so I had to try that. One jammed a time or two, the other didn't. So this time I loaded both to only 15 and both of them worked perfectly. Lesson learned. Fifteen rounds is enough, specially when it's .45 ACP.

Next up was my fairly new S&W M&P Compact .357 Sig. I'm now up to about 250 or 300 rounds and have yet to have a bobble. Performance-wise, it's just as reliable as my S&W M&P full-size .357 Sig, which has yet to jam at about 1K round-count. S&W's so-called full-size M&P has a .4.25" barrel, which is compact in every other maker's book, and the M&P "Compact" with it's 3.5" barrel is subcompact size for all other pistol makers.

The small Redman target with the M&P Compact is shot with two 10-rd. mags and two 15-rd. mags. It's nice to have a compact pistol that takes full-size mags.

I've been carrying the compact but the more I shoot it, the higher my confidence grows that it will perform in the clutch when it really counts. And if your self-defense pistol isn't reliable, why carry it?

I'm in the process of down-sizing my pistols from full-size to carry size and so far have sold my full-size .357 Sig, a P226 Sig Sauer, and have my full-size 9mm CZ SP01 Custom and my full-size .45 ACP FEG Browning Hi-Power clone up for sale.

The Llama has earned a permanent job as my car gun, riding on the seat beside me, and I'll let my S&W 29 go right after I auction off one of my grandkids, so both of those are definite keepers.

I've only got one other candidate I'm considering for sale, my Steyr M357-A1. I never thought I'd let it go, but frankly, it's my least-reliable .357 Sig.

That's not to say it's unreliable. But I never had a jam with my P226 and I've never had a jam with either of my two S&W M&P .357 Sigs. I have one every now and then with the M357-A1, maybe one ever 100-200 rds., so that's makes it the least reliable of the four. It's a fine compact carry pistol with 4" barrel, almost identical in size to my so-called full-size M&P .357 Sig. They even share the same holsters. But as good as my Steyr is, and I love it, the M&Ps are more reliable.

And when I compare my M357-A1 to my Steyr M9-A1, it comes in second again. So far I have yet to have any jams with my M9-A1 with somewhere near 1K in its round count. Maybe the lower-powered 9mm rounds just don't create as much stress as .357 Sig and are less jam prone.

I really haven't made a decision on whether the M357-A1 stays or goes, but I'm considering it. I'll wait until after the CZ and the FEG are sold and then make a reassessment once I've added another carry pistol or two as their replacements to see where I'm standing.