Following on from Saturday’s post about my revolver range session, I went off to the local Merchants Of Death Collective (Mesquite Gun Show) to see if I could rectify two problems identified at that session: getting some decent (fuller) wooden grips for the Model 10, and replenishing my depleted .38 Special ammo supply. I thought that the first might be difficult, the second easy. Au contraire, mes amis.
The grips took me about 15 minutes to find (among about 700 tables):
Old:
New:
Much better, innit? Can’t wait to get back to the range now, except that I don’t have any cheap ammo to shoot. So I looked around for ammo vendors.
And here’s where the problems began.
Five big ammo dealers were at the show, so one would think…. but no. If you were looking for 5.56 Poodleshooter or 7.62 Commie, you’d have had no problem. Good grief: it looked like the Army was having a clearance sale. Ditto 9mm Europellet and all manner of similar teeny handgun ammo (e.g. .380, .327 etc.) were proudly displayed in bulk.
.38 Special? Hardly any. (And what was there wasn’t what I was looking for anyway.) As I mentioned, I have plenty of defensive loads in .38 Spec and .38 +P — the goblin antidote — but I’m out of range ammo. What I’m looking for, in fact, is something like this:
The cowboy stuff is what’s known as a “bunny-fart” load, and it’s both inexpensive (~ 45c/round) and pleasant to shoot because of the lighter bullets. (Yeah, it’s lead flat nose and not copper-clad, but I clean my guns quite frequently so not a problem.) The Winchester is ubiquitous, and a little cheaper.
And both are readily available online, except that shipping (for only 200 rounds) adds about $50 to the total, making it… [errr carry the three] 82c/round (?????!!!!). The hell with that.
SGA Ammo sells the Winchester for a decent price, but you have to buy the jillion-round box to get free shipping. Philosophically, I don’t have a problem with a bulk purchase (because duh), but financially… ugh.
Let’s see what they sell for locally.
One final note: it seems as though revolvers are heading for a shrinking market (that would be Olde Pharttes like me)
…because all the new shooters seem to be enthralled by the gangsta/operator Glocks and SIGs and what have you, and not by wheelguns. And so once-ubiquitous calibers like .45 Colt and .38 Spec are, it seems, being pushed to the sidelines and rapidly becoming unavailable. Which means that we members of the Ancient Revolver Shooting Club need to buy MOAR .38 Spec.
Duly noted.