New to the Forums and New Handgun Owner

M

Moogs

New member
I used to shoot when I was a kid growing up in Wisconsin. 38, 9mm, 357, 22, 12gauge pretty much. Just a few years ago I got into trap more seriously as an early 30s adult and today just purchased my first handgun. It's a SW 357 686p with 4" barrel. I am excited to enter into the hobby and home defense with a pistol that can use a couple different calibers.

Anyway I am happy to be here. It was mainly a lot of reading and research and this forum which brought me to getting my first handgun and I'm happy to learn and read more from all of you.

After a year or so I'm thinking a Sig p220r to enter the semi auto world but right now I want to focus on confidence, control, comfort and care.

Any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated. I've recently fired a 357 round and a 9mm about 50 rounds each but am still not 100 percent comfortable with the 357. It's meaty.
 
The number one thing I would say is give yourself time to get used to that 686 and the 357 magnum again.

I'm talking several hundred rounds and at least a couple of months or more.

It just takes some time to get in synch with the gun.

And that's one of the best 357/38's you can buy.

Congrats on getting it and welcome to the forum.
 
A lot of people shoot .38 specials for practice from .357s. The lighter recoil will help you focus on trigger control. Just remember to use a bronze brush and solvent to clean out each cylinder chamber before shooting .357s from it. Otherwise, a ring can form inside the chambers and cause problems when shooting a .357.
 
Congrats on your new gun. I have a model686 plus with a 4" barrel too. It's just about my favorite gun to shoot. I shoot mostly homemade 148gr wadcutters in her. They are cheap to make so I can shoot more often. If you do not reload look at Mastercast. they have good and cheap target ammunition.
 
Thank you for the warm welcome. I'll definitely take a look at Mastercast but I also have a show in my area this weekend so I am going to stock up on 357 and 38/P rounds.

I think it's a good idea to start with a 38 then move onto the magnum round after I get comfortable being an owner and handling the gun.

Thank you for the advice.

Can I ask what wadcutters are?
 
Can I ask what wadcutters are?
Click to expand...

Wadcutters are a type of flat-nosed bullet in which the meplat (the nose of the bullet) is the full diameter of the bullet. Such bullets are typically seated flush with the case mouth. Here's a pic that may be more helpful than my explanation.

RTEmagicC_Group_32SW_LWC_jpg.jpg


This bullet style was so named because it was developed for Bulls-Eye competition. In these competitions, new targets were simply placed over the tops of old ones and because round-nosed bullets don't always cut a perfectly clean hole, identifying hits could often become difficult. Wadcutters would cleanly cut a 'wad' of paper and make an easily identifiable hole. Often, they are reffered to as HBWC (Hollow-Base Wadcutter) because the base is made hollow so that it will expand and seal tightly with the bore when fired in order to ensure the highest possible level of accuracy.
 
While the advice to clean your cylinders well after shooting .38 Special in a .357 Mag is fine advice, don't let anyone scare you in to thinking that it's problematic to do so. This is, IMO, one of the gun set's greatest myths. I've shot so many thousands of .38 Special of all flavors through my 686 that it's got a higher round count than any other center fire gun that I own. I took delivery of it in 1989. And .357's fit in the cylinder now just as well as they did in 1989 when it was new.

When looking for wad cutters, also note the existence of DEWC and DBBWC. DEWC stands for "double ended wad cutter" which is typically a cast bullet that was designed for high-volume reloading so you didn't need to have the bullet right side up and it was the same from both ends, making the bullet feeder in the reloading machine quicker and easier. And DBBWC is simply "double bevel base wad cutter" which is basically the same thing.

HBWC are swaged lead bullets... they are typically darker in appearance and softer than cast bullets. They tend to be more precise, and CAN be more accurate. DEWC and DBBWC are cast lead, less precise, cheaper, but still a great target bullet.

Seating an HBWC upside down is a very old trick that isn't a really great idea. It's not a good defense round because it's being sent at a very slow velocity. Using reloads for defense is a hot-button issue that some folks won't touch, use the search engine on this site if you are curious but DON'T ask why in this thread! ;) No factory sells upside down HBWC as loaded ammo, none, ever, and if you had the bright idea to load them upside down and "hotter" at the load bench, you'd simply lead the hell out of your barrel given the extremely soft nature of the swaged bullet.
 
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