So I went to the range. I took my 2.5" snubbie .357 and practiced on that a bit.
With .38 Specials, it is an easy gun to shoot. But when it is loaded with .357 125gr hollowpoints, the recoil is a bit stout and the muzzle flash is impressive. It must have had a decent pressure wave, too, for when I fired the first .357 round, the neighboring target flew off its hanger.I was at a range once when another shooter opened up with a .44 magnum snubbie. I could feel the pressure wave rippling my clothes and I was at least four stations away from the shooter.
I did OK, I guess. I also worked with my .45 on getting off two shots as rapidly as I could. I had a full-sized silhouette target at 25 feet and I missed once, all the rest were well inside the body area. Sometime I ought to try in Magoo Mode, without my spectacles and only with safety glasses, but that could be a bit scary.
Anyway, my continued thanks to Justin Buist, who told me about Slip 2000 gun cleaning stuff. If I still was using Hoppes, I would not have gone shooting again until the weather was warm enough for me to open the windows, because of the stink of the solvent.
A .357 stubbie is one handgun I refuse to subject myself to, at least with .357 ammo. Why put yourself through the discomfort of firing a lightweight short-barrel weapon with a heavy load when you don't need to?
ReplyDeleteAnd that's said as someone who in general quite likes .357 revolvers as a good compromise between stopping power and ease of use. But if I'm going to fire a .357 load, I'm going to do it in a revolver with a bit more heft and a bit more barrel to it, not a snubbie. If I need a smaller weapon for concealment purposes or whatever, I'll more likely look at .380 or 9mm automatics rather than .357's, or perhaps a smaller-frame .38 snubbie revolver.
I put one cylinder-full of .357s through it. I haven't fired a 13oz .38, but I suspect the recoil is as bad in one of those.
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