Some of you may have noticed my name over here in the revolver section as of late. Maybe you haven't. Oh well, here goes:
A little background about me: I'm not that old (mid/late 20's) but have been studying firearms since I was about age 12. Of course, at that time most of my "studying" was in the form of magazine article, books, and the occassional shooting outing with my father. However, in the past few years since graduating college I have attained the financial ability to expand my hobby into more hands-on terms. Mind you, I am not "new" to shooting; I put more rounds through centerfire bolt action varmint guns by age 20 than most "average" shooters will in a lifetime. But, as of late I have been able to experiment and buy a larger variety of firearms.
The first handgun I ever shot was a stainless S&W Combat Masterpiece of my father's. Unfortunately, in my rashness of youth I convinced him to trade it for a Ruger MKII .22, which was later traded for a Ruger M77 .250 Savage, later traded for a... well, you know the story. When I became old enough to own my own centerfire handguns, I chose a Taurus PT-99. Big mistake, in my humble opinion. Since then I have gone through other 9mm autos and now have a Browning Hi-Power I like. While the Browning is a great gun, its trigger and accuracy still do not hold a candle (once again in my humble opinion) to my 686 .357. Seems to me that most out of the box revolvers have trigger pulls that double action autos dream of being when they grow up. Also, there is almost never a question of whether or not a revolver will be reliable if needed. It also seems to me that more and more autos are mimicking revolvers these days: fewer bells, no manual safetys, and stiffer/longer trigger pulls. Basically, pull the trigger and the gun shoots! Hmmm... K-Frame Smiths have been doing this for over 100 years. The only thing the autos have on the revolvers is capacity and speed of reload (for the average shooter, not the Jerry Miculicks of the world; sorry if I misspelled his name). And, lets face it: if I ever was in a home defense situation (concealed carry isn't allowed in my state, so a firearm's use in that capacity isn't an issue for me) and 6 rounds of .357 from a speedloader can't handle the situation, I've got SERIOUS problems!
I guess the whole point of this post is that I kind of feel like I'm "maturing" a little more in my thinking (that's not to say that I think auto-only buffs are "immature" in any way; I'm just referring to my own personality). I'm getting out of the phase where I want decocking/self-loading/chamber indicating/safe action trigger/includes every bell and whistle firearms. Sure, I love my autos and will never stop shooting them, but I think I might find myself a nice 4" S&W 66 next, fit it with Hogue grips and night sight inserts, and think of it as coming "full circle" from that first time I shot my dad's Combat Masterpiece 14 years ago.
Note: the only thing I HATE about revolvers is how damn long it takes to clean them.
A little background about me: I'm not that old (mid/late 20's) but have been studying firearms since I was about age 12. Of course, at that time most of my "studying" was in the form of magazine article, books, and the occassional shooting outing with my father. However, in the past few years since graduating college I have attained the financial ability to expand my hobby into more hands-on terms. Mind you, I am not "new" to shooting; I put more rounds through centerfire bolt action varmint guns by age 20 than most "average" shooters will in a lifetime. But, as of late I have been able to experiment and buy a larger variety of firearms.
The first handgun I ever shot was a stainless S&W Combat Masterpiece of my father's. Unfortunately, in my rashness of youth I convinced him to trade it for a Ruger MKII .22, which was later traded for a Ruger M77 .250 Savage, later traded for a... well, you know the story. When I became old enough to own my own centerfire handguns, I chose a Taurus PT-99. Big mistake, in my humble opinion. Since then I have gone through other 9mm autos and now have a Browning Hi-Power I like. While the Browning is a great gun, its trigger and accuracy still do not hold a candle (once again in my humble opinion) to my 686 .357. Seems to me that most out of the box revolvers have trigger pulls that double action autos dream of being when they grow up. Also, there is almost never a question of whether or not a revolver will be reliable if needed. It also seems to me that more and more autos are mimicking revolvers these days: fewer bells, no manual safetys, and stiffer/longer trigger pulls. Basically, pull the trigger and the gun shoots! Hmmm... K-Frame Smiths have been doing this for over 100 years. The only thing the autos have on the revolvers is capacity and speed of reload (for the average shooter, not the Jerry Miculicks of the world; sorry if I misspelled his name). And, lets face it: if I ever was in a home defense situation (concealed carry isn't allowed in my state, so a firearm's use in that capacity isn't an issue for me) and 6 rounds of .357 from a speedloader can't handle the situation, I've got SERIOUS problems!
I guess the whole point of this post is that I kind of feel like I'm "maturing" a little more in my thinking (that's not to say that I think auto-only buffs are "immature" in any way; I'm just referring to my own personality). I'm getting out of the phase where I want decocking/self-loading/chamber indicating/safe action trigger/includes every bell and whistle firearms. Sure, I love my autos and will never stop shooting them, but I think I might find myself a nice 4" S&W 66 next, fit it with Hogue grips and night sight inserts, and think of it as coming "full circle" from that first time I shot my dad's Combat Masterpiece 14 years ago.
Note: the only thing I HATE about revolvers is how damn long it takes to clean them.
