J-frame: Enough?

Is a S&W .38 Special Snub Nose enough for concealed carry?

  • Yes

    Votes: 131 91.0%

  • No

    Votes: 13 9.0%
  • Total voters
    144
  • Poll closed .
"Again, I will ask - how many do the J frame is enough folks practice and train with it."

Why, I've never even shot mine, of course! I loaded it back in 2000 and haven't opened the cylinder since!

I can't see the bullets anymore, it's all green and fuzzy in there... is that a problem?



I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people armed with J frames are, on the whole, about as prone to practicing with them as people who carry semi-autos.

Some people in both camps routinely practice, while others never do. That's just the way it works out.
 
Mike, better shoot that PT-22 - mine was horrible. It would jam all the time. It ejected live rounds. It even slammed its side on a live round and bent it in half!

The issue is not whether you carry a J frame but if you blather than those who carry more are some kind of nut and one understands the contingencies.

I carried a J yesterday because circumstances warranted it.

As far as practice, to each his own.
 
"Mike, better shoot that PT-22 - mine was horrible. It would jam all the time. It ejected live rounds. It even slammed its side on a live round and bent it in half!"

You've never seen ANY of my posts about my PT-22?

Absolutely flawless in over 2,000 rounds of Winchester Wildcat.

0 failures to feed.

0 failures to fire.

0 failures to eject.


The only problems I ever had with it was with CCI ammo, which apparently has harder brass, as I had numerous failures to fire first strike.

The solution was simple... switch back to Wildcat.
 
Mine stunk on all kinds of ammo and with various mags. If you have one that works, great. It was a neat little attractive gun. Chromed with nice wood grips but ...

Taurus can be spotty. Just for the record, my Glock 42 was a horror. You have to test these little guns.
 
Absolutely flawless in over 2,000 rounds of Winchester Wildcat.
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If it was anyone but you, who I trust, I'd be throwing the flag of and a bag of dried chips. Instead, I've just got to hear some details that I can't reconcile. Even my ruger mk4 had the occasional failure to feed properly that I always attributed to slightly off kilter magazine lips.

Why did wild cat work? got an idea?
cci would definitely have a chance of failure to fire. CCI pioneered the high pressure loads with the stinger, they not only put in an internal belt, they added a few thousandths to the rim metal and used tougher brass. I still believe that the primers are harder, because of observation of dimples on pistol brass and failures to fire.

Do those things work more reliably with round nose or the crayon tips? I never had good luck with the crayon tips, they would even jam in my bolt rifle with a tube magazine. Most of them shot with poor accuracy as well, it seems that the bearing surface was smaller and that was bad for accuracy.

I've always believed that magazine problems cause most .22 failures. The rails have to aim that little bullet right into that little hole, and those holes are usually sharp and don't have ramps. The magazine has to guide it exactly, because there is nothing else that can be changed.

My brother in law brought one of the new smith compact 22s over a few years back. I was actually rather impressed.
 
Enough for some things, not enough for other things. Determining "enough" occurs after the fact. Carry what you want, and then wait and see if it was enough later. No way to tell in advance.
 
Just for the record, my Glock 42 was a horror. You have to test these little guns.
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I've considered picking one of these up. It's not my first choice for a number of reasons that don't really need to be discussed and argued about in this thread.

So yours stunk like a burning dungheap, was it overall, or what specific problems did it have? Do you think that it was maybe just a failure to fit together into a working unit, could others be useable, or do you think that the majority of these things are stinkers?

My bodyguard has several problems. Magazine spring will not hold open. Lighter powered ammo will stovepipe and eject wildly, a trip to the range involves at least a few brass in the face or even down the shirt. It takes some serious discipline to have one bounce off of your goggles without flinching. I'm not even sure how brass can be thrown backwards over my head to land several feet behind me, or how it can eject to either side with every other shot!

I feel that all of these issues could be addressed by replacing the springs. I just wonder if it would be better to replace the whole design.


This is why, personally, it seems like a good plan to adopt the revolver. You will trade size for an far more dangerous round, a far more reliable (in my experience with small semiautos) and a reasonable capacity and reload ability. It sure isn't going to jam with proper maintenance. Are two more rounds of a punk load a great trade off for five of a far stronger one? If you can use the gun, of course it is.
 
I can't see the bullets anymore, it's all green and fuzzy in there... is that a problem?
Click to expand...

that is, in a nutshell, what is wrong with probably a majority of people who own defensive handguns. Blissful unconcern, absolute faith that it won't fail when the time comes.

I've purchased plenty of coffee makers that wore out prematurely, and at least one was faulty out of the box. If a coffee maker can't be made right, how can we count on a pistol to be right and stay right?

My father stored his pistol in a sock at the back of his bottom dresser drawer. Green and fuzzy would be the very least of his problems. I think that his only .357 ammo was the remaining twenty of his original purchase. Seriously, I was a kid and asked him where the safety was, he hesitate. I'm not sure if he remembered that there wasn't a safety.
 
a guy showed me his grandfather's closet pistol. It was an old military K frame and loaded with +p rounds. It bothered me a lot that the barrel was split in two places between cylinder and frame and folded down. I think that it could have survived a number of those rounds, but I sure wouldn't test that belief.
 
It's enough, except when it isn't.

I don't know what kind of jeans some of you are wearing that a J-frame is easily carried in a pocket but for me it is a belt gun. I had a Beretta Tomcat for awhile that I adored. Accurate, reliable, "neat"... but it was just slightly too big (wide) for a pocket gun and once I bothered to put it on the belt there were better options.

So is a J frame enough? Most likely. But why take the chance. Once you are carrying a belt gun you can have a gun that is as easy to carry, at least in my opinion, with a far greater number of superior rounds.

I switched, originally, from a J frame when I realized a G26 carried more ammo on board and ready to use than my J frame and speed loader did together. Was the G26 a better gun? No. But I could not envision any scenario where it was not at least the equal to the J frame and having twice as many rounds (+1) could not be a bad thing.
 
99% of the time Wranglers. Jeans, Cargo Pants and Shorts. When I go to buy clothes I try the pockets with my J-Frame in its pocket holster. No fit no buy.
 
If it was anyone but you, who I trust, I'd be throwing the flag of and a bag of dried chips. Instead, I've just got to hear some details that I can't reconcile. Even my ruger mk4 had the occasional failure to feed properly that I always attributed to slightly off kilter magazine lips.

First off, thanks for the vote of confidence.

Why did wild cat work? got an idea?

Literally no clue. To be perfectly honest, I'm also rather surprised at how well it has run with the Wildcat. After the first 300 rounds without anything even resembling a bobble I put it into my regular carry rotation.

The only thing I've done over the years is to make sure that it's clean and that it's properly lubricated.

Do those things work more reliably with round nose or the crayon tips?

Wildcats have the standard round nose profile. I've never tried shooting the truncated cone bullets through it.
 
"If a coffee maker can't be made right, how can we count on a pistol to be right and stay right?"

Because handguns are, for the most part, simpler mechanisms. They're all mechanical.

Coffee makers are mechanical, electrical, and electronic. And when built to an engineered obsolescence price point, it's usually the electronics that fail first.

That said, I've been soldiering along with my $12 Target Black & Decker programmable coffee maker for over a decade now, and I wake up every morning to hot coffee, so I can't complain.
 
"I don't know what kind of jeans some of you are wearing that a J-frame is easily carried in a pocket but for me it is a belt gun."

Levis. I've worn Levi 560s for years, and my 042 Centennial in an Uncle Mike's pocket holster disappears into them.
 
Levi Strauss is rabidly anti-gun. I don't buy them.

I'm with Lohmann- I can't get a J frame in my Wrangler pockets, or if I can-it looks like I have a huge tumor on my thigh.

If you look closely, you can even make out the P 32 in my pocket.
 
Carried a J frame for years in an ankle holster.

It was a huge upgraded from the Sterling 22 I ankle carried before that.

Then I bought an airweight J frame. Still carry it now and then.

David



Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
 
"Levi Strauss is rabidly anti-gun. I don't buy them."

Yes they are. Which makes it deliciously ironic that they're the best choice for me for carrying a handgun.
 
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