Saturday will be .22 Pistol Day with 3 Sigs, 1 S&W and 1 DW

The .22LR slide kit for my Sig P229 .357 Sig pistols that I ordered at the gun shop where I work hath arrived and I got a pleasant surprise.

Sig says you gotta order the .22 slide kit for either a P229 or the P229R, with the "R" for rail. I've got both, so I just told the sales rep to send me whichever one they had in stock.

They sent the P229R kit, but lo and behold, it also fits my P229 SAS Gen2, which ain't got no rail, as well as the P229R. I tried it on both. Ain't took no photos yet, but that's the no-R 229 at right top.

Only way to see if the slide kit works on both P229s is to go shoot it, so I will on Saturday. Praise the Lord and pass the ammo, weather report for Saturday here in the soon-to-be-again Sunny South is 59 degrees and sunny!

I'll also be shooting my Sig P220 Rimfire Classic, which remains sans the .45 ACP Caliber X-Change Kit, which is still on order from Sig.

And not last and certainly not least, I will also be shooting my S&W 22A-1, which I fully expect to remain the most accurate and best shooting .22 pistol I've got.

It's got a trigger-pull weight of 1 lb. 12.4 oz. which makes it just about impossible to shoot badly. With the green-fiber-optic front sight plus the handsome and comfortable monkey-wood grip I added, it's got to be the easiest-to-shoot .22 pistol I will ever own, unless I spend a ton of money on some Olympic-quality target pistol.

And lastly, I'm also looking forward to zeroing the sights on my recently purchased Dan Wesson .22 revolver, which I have thus far only shot at the local clay bank with a bit of plinking to determine what brand of ammo it does and does not like.

It's partial to Federal, so I will be testing it and zeroing it with at least a couple of different Federal and American Eagle .22 varieties.

But mostly I'm planning to really enjoy shooting my pair of Sig P229s with .22 ammo instead of .357 Sig.

I love .357 Sig, but shooting up hundreds of rounds of ammo is just a bit expensive. I usually limit myself to about 50 rounds max, if that, when I shoot the .357 Sig pistols.

But with this new P229 .22 slide kit, I can shoot both my P229s to my heart's content and only blow a few bucks at a session. Good training with two carry pistols and lots of fun in the bargain.

Two Wessons and a stainless Taurus 65 go shooting on a chilly day

My sympathies to all my fellow gun nuts who live in the snow belt, which this particular Saturday seems to stretch from coast to coast but mostly north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Here in the almost-sunny South it was mid-40s and with a bit of wind felt like 30s, but most certainly not too cold to go shooting for the first time in more than a month. I did wear gloves, but other than that, it was fun as usual.

The wimp who runs the outdoor firing range I usually go to didn't open up today, but here in the gun-friendly South, there's a place beside the road nearby that locals call "the clay bank" which never closes and is also free.

At right are three new-to-me pistols which I shot for the first time, starting bottom left, S&W 469 Mini 9mm, bottom right, Dan Wesson 722 .22LR revolver and top, Taurus Model 65 stainless .357 Magnum with concealed hammer, 2.5" ported barrel and custom wood grips. All three did fine.

The Dan Wesson was the only hiccup of the day. I discovered it to be the first .22 handgun I've ever shot that does not like CCI ammo. I've got a pair of .22 pistols, S&W 22A-1 and Sig P220 Rimfire, both of which are quite picky but love CCI and have never failed with either standard or high velocity loads. Both are not fond of Remington or Winchester .22 ammo.

But the DW didn't like any of the above. I tried two Remington loads, Golden Bullets and high-velocity, Winchester Super-X high velocity and CCI Mini Max, all of which had one dud per chamber load of six. Not acceptable.

But thank God I bought a brick of American Eagle high velocity just because it was cheap. Because the DW loves AE. I shot a whole box of 50 and it never misfired once. Henceforth, it will be fed only AE, though I will try some Federal Gameshock loads too.

As you probably know, AE is the budget brand of Federal ammo.

Musta been a day for duds, I had one JHP fail to fire in the S&W 469, which wouldn't go boom even after I gave it a second chance. In all I ran six magazines through the 469, three 12s and three 15s, including one mixed magazine of four different JHPs. It fed them all perfectly and shot dead on with the sights, so I pronounce it ready for carry duty.

I'll be carrying it as backup in a Galco small-of-back holster with one of my revolvers as main carry, .327 Magnum or .44 Special Charters, S&W 65-3 .357 Magnum or the Taurus, once I get it paid off from layaway.

I've turned into a revolver guy of late both because I like to shoot 'em but also because you can't beat a revolver for reliability. It's gonna go boom almost all the time and when it don't, pull the trigger again until it does.

The last of the pistols I shot today is a quadruple new-to-me. It's another used pistol from the shop I got to try out before purchase and I love it. Its other three new-to-me counts are:

1) It's a Taurus. I am not a big Taurus fan for their virtually nonexistent customer service. But this one seems quite solid, plus it was customized by an apparently talented gunsmith with a bobbed hammer and a very slick trigger, also with a nice set of wood grips with no sign of Taurus logos.

2) It's a double-action-only revolver, which I have never owned before. But the slick trigger makes DOA shooting a breeze, easy to hold the sights on during the very smooth trigger pull.

3) It's also my first ported handgun with three big holes on top of the barrel, which I presume is more of the unknown gunsmith's talented work. I shot four different loads in it, CCI .38 Special +P 158-gr. and three .357 Magnum loads, CCI 158-gr., Winchester JHP 110-gr. and Cor-Bon JHP 140 gr. With the exception of the Cor-Bon, all shot every comfortably. The Cor-Bon was definitely more manageable than it is shooting in my S&W 65-3, but it is still noticeably hotter and harder shooting. I'll stick to the Winchester 110-gr. for a carry load, which shot to point of aim with the fixed sights, just as it does with the S&W 65-3.

It's no coincidence that the Taurus 65 is quite similar to the Smith 65 with the same model number, both are stainless .357 Magnum six-shot double-action revolvers. The Taurus is an obvious copy of the Smith but I have to say the DAO, slick trigger and ported barrel makes it a very good alternative to the Smith. The Taurus trigger ain't as slick as the S&W Performance Center trigger job on the S&W 65-3, but it's close, which makes it very, very smooth and slick.

According to Bluebook, the Taurus Model 65 blue or stainless was never offered in DAO concealed-hammer with wood grips and a ported barrel, hence my presumption of custom work.

Both Model 65s fit my new Bianchi shoulder harness rig like they were made for it, which will be my preferred method of carry for both these as well as the two Charter revolvers, which also fit the Bianchi rig very well. As Hannibal Smith used to say, I love it when a plan comes together.

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.

A Smith pistol and a Wesson revolver: A pair to draw to any day

I went off in search of a compact 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol today and lo and behold, not only did I find the Smith I wanted, I found a Wesson I wasn't even looking for, a Dan Wesson .22LR revolver that is.

Sometimes a guy falls into the outhouse and come out smelling like a rose.

One of my co-workers at the gun shop told me Carolina Pawn Shop in Charlotte was selling all their used guns to make room for new ones and had some nice Smiths and Colts they had sold at the Hickory gun show.

So I googled the directions, headed off to Charlotte and found the shop. "Guns? We don't sell guns," the pretty little lady at the pawn and jewelry store said. And since there was only one Carolina Pawn Shop in Charlotte, what else could I do but head back home? Shoulda called first. Two hours drive for nada.

I drove up and down the street a couple of miles thinking lightning might strike in the form of a gun shop. No lightning. So I headed home.

Saw a sign for Dick's Sporting Goods in Matthews, so I stopped. Dick don't sell no handguns, the man sez. I bought a couple of boxes of ammo at about the same price as I can get at the shop, but you gotta buy something on the trip.

Then as I'm ready to go home, guy in the parking lot who came out of Dick's when I did asked me if I was looking for handguns? Yep. He pointed me to a small pawn shop just up the road a mile or less.

I found Beltway Pawn Shop right on U.S. 74 and lo and behold, right there in the counter is a nifty blue S&W 469 (first two photos), twin to the S&W 669 stainless (3rd photo) I had and sold to my everlasting regret.

Once upon a time, I got it in my head to upsize from small, carry pistols to large, tactical pistols. The S&W 669 was sold despite the fact that I shot it better than any of my other pistols.

Anyway, here was its replacement at a great price, even less than I paid for the 669 two or three years ago. Then before I could get out the door, this Dan Wesson .22LR revolver just leaped right out of the counter into my hand. Amazing!

It had a nick of two in its deep blue finish but it locks up tight as a tick. Then I pulled the trigger. That was a big mistake. So smooth my pants almost fell down. Again. (See Smith & Wesson 14-3 and 65-4 revolvers with extra-slick triggers in my earlier musings.)

And then the gun shop guy gives me a great price on it, too. What could I do?

So here I sit with the compact Smith I've been wanting, which just happens to fit perfectly in the small-of-back Galco holster I wear at work for a backup gun.

And I've been needing a good .22 revolver to practice my wheel gun shooting with and this Dan Wesson is way yonder more than double-action revolver than I figured I could afford.

Ain't it amazing how the Good Lord looks out for fools and drunks?

P.S. I didn't realize why I had such a hard time trying to find another S&W 669 or the above 469 until I looked it up in BlueBook:

MODEL 469 "MINI"- 9mm Para. cal., double action, alloy frame, 12 shot finger extension mag., short frame, bobbed hammer, 3 1/2 in. barrel, sandblast blue or satin nickel finish, ambidextrous safety standard (1986), molded Delrin black Grips, 26 oz. Disc. 1988.

MODEL 669 STAINLESS- 9mm Para. cal., smaller version of Model 659 with 12 shot finger extension mag., 3 1/2 in. barrel, fixed sights, molded Delrin grips, ambidextrous safety standard, 26 oz. Mfg. 1986-88 only.

Jeez, they only made this great pistol design for two years? What was Smith thinking when they discontinued it? Perhaps the same thing Colt was thinking when they discontinued all their great double-action revolvers.