Not their best, I’ll admit, but nevertheless it got its hooks into my cerebellum.
Author: Kim du Toit
Difficult Choices
Old Hickock45 lays out his collection of .357 Mag revolvers, and asks the question: “Which is the very last .357 I’d sell?” (As always, he rambles on and on, but he’s a man who loves guns and loves shooting them — like me — so just sit back, relax and enjoy his dilemma.)
Now it may come as a surprise to you all, but VERY Longtime Readers may recall that the .357 Remington Magnum is not one of my favorite handgun cartridges to shoot, simply because the recoil gets a little tough on my wrists after a while and I develop a profound flinch in consequence. In fact, I’ve always though that the .357 is best fired out of a revolver with at least a 6″ barrel — certainly no less — and preferably, one with a bull barrel or at least a barrel underlug (NRA definition: “A term that relates most commonly to DA/SA revolvers, underlug refers to an integral extension of metal that runs along the bottom side of the barrel.”)
Now where Hitch and I part company are his criteria for his final choice: something that is fun to shoot at the range, and can also be pressed into service as a self-defense gun. (His eventual choice leans heavily towards the “self-defense” part.) I am certainly not going to argue with his final choice, and especially not with his top three, because mine would be pretty much the same.
My criteria for “the last .357 I’d ever sell” would be (in no specific order): fun at the range, Governor’s BBQ, and in-home (not carry) self-defense.
I don’t have fun shooting a .357 Mag revolver with anything less than a 6″ barrel, and preferably one with a 6″ barrel AND an underlug. It has to be beautiful, and of course it could see duty on my nightstand. (For carry, I’m going to stick with a semi-auto, most probably a 1911.)
Here are my Top 3 (in no specific order):
Ruger Redhawk:
I had one of these (before the Great Poverty Catastrophe of 2012), and it was good right out of the box. A little work on the trigger, and it was fantastic. I know, this Ruger’s barrel is 7.5″, but it also doesn’t have an underlug; and anyway, I happen to like Rugers with 7″ barrels.
Colt Python:
No trigger work required on this baby, of course. In Colt’s Royal Blue, the Python is arguably one of the most beautiful guns ever made. That it has inarguably the best revolver trigger action ever made, and its hairsplitting accuracy all just add to its desirability.
S&W 686:
Nothing wrong with the 686; I’ve owned two before, but this one is lovely.
I won’t spoil the ending of the video and reveal Hitchcock’s choice, but I think you all know which one you’d have to pry from my cold dead fingers…
Afterthought: a couple of pics of some from my onetime collection of .357 Mag revolvers:
(sigh) And there’s not a single one I wouldn’t take back in a heartbeat.
At least I’ve now got a replacement Model 65, so there’s that.
A Man’s Man
I was truly saddened to read of the death of Ted Dexter at the age of 86. Very few Americans would know who he is, but allow me to make the introduction.
Over ten years, “Lord Ted” Dexter played cricket for England for 62 international Test matches, of which he was captain of the team for 30. He scored thousands of runs, took dozens of wickets as a bowler, and after retiring from cricket went on as a team selector and chairman of the Marylebone Cricket Club (Lord’s). Throughout his life, he was unfailingly helpful to young cricketers, always polite and ready with some good advice.
For most men, that would be enough.
He was also a scratch golfer, a pilot (who flew from the UK to Australia, and back), rode a motorcycle and once ran for Parliament.
He failed at the last — one of his few failures — but that leads me to tell a personal story about the man.
By running for Parliament in 1964, Ted missed the start of the England tour of South Africa, but he was back in the side in time for the Test at at the Wanderers cricket ground in Johannesburg, where an excited young boy of eight (that would be me) happened to be sitting in the stands with his dad one row back from the field, right at the point where Ted was fielding.
Of course, “Lord Ted” didn’t just stand there in the field; he turned and bantered with the crowd, who responded delightedly. He had a bright red stain on his white cricket trousers where he’d been polishing the cricket ball, and one wag in the crowd yelled, “What happened to your pants?” Ted laughed and said, “It’s hot out here.”
Whereupon the same guy said, “Would you like a cold one, Uncle Ted?” and Dexter laughed and said, “Next over.”
When he came back to field in his earlier position, he walked right over to the boundary fence and said, “Where’s that cold one?” Of course, someone popped a can of Castle Lager and handed it to him — whereupon Ted put his head back and drained the thing in one giant swallow, to tumultuous applause. Needless to say, every time he came back to the boundary he was offered a fresh beer, but after one more he said, “Thanks, but I still have to bat later,” to much good-natured ribbing. (“Maybe tomorrow, Ted; you’re not going to get us all out today!”)
Oh, and to finish Ted Dexter’s story: he was married to the same woman for over sixty years. Nowadays, that’s considered quite a feat; to a man like him, it would be quite unremarkable.
He was one of my boyhood heroes, and still is today.
R.I.P. Ted Dexter, OBE.
That’s Not The Point
At Breitbart News, Paul Bois talks about whether the foul Taliban will be able to use all the weaponry and materiel left behind by our incompetent military.
Frankly, that’s not the point. Nobody cares if the Turbans can use the stuff, what’s really worth discussing is why the military didn’t destroy all of it before they left?
I mean, we’re all chuckling ho ho ho as we watch videos of the Taliban trying to fly a chopper and not being able to get it off the ground; what’s not so funny is that the Iranians, Chinese and all the other assholes of the world are probably lining up to buy it all so that they can hack into the high-tech stuff, where that knowledge can be used against us in the future.
It is a monumental fuck-up, and every senior officer who allowed the equipment to be just left behind without destroying it should be court-martialed. Ditto their superiors who made no provision for doing so in their evacuation orders. But they were probably too busy making plans for Covid vaccinations of the troops and scheduling CRT lectures to bother, is my guess.
I have to quit now because blood pressure.
Gratuitous Gun Pic – Rossi Circuit Judge (.45 LC / .410ga)
Okay, I did not know of this gun’s existence.
Rossi says it was inspired by the Taurus Judge revolver, and I have to say, having what is essentially a large-caliber revolver with a stock attachment and 18″ barrel piques my interest. It has a 5-shot cylinder, and comes in either stainless steel or what they call “polished black”.
“But Kim,” you may ask, “what would you use it for?”
Offhand, I can think of three, whether as a pest control bush gun, a trunk/truck gun, and even a home defense piece. If I spent a little more time, I could probably come up with another four or five reasons. Best reason I can think of, though, is that the Circuit Judge looks extremely badass. So yes, I’d like one.
…preferably the stainless model, but the black would do, too.
MSRP is about $850, and probably a hundred less “street”.
Adding Words
I think that other than when talking about new technology (for which no word) exists, the English language can do without any wholesale addition of new words, especially the conversion of nouns to verbs (“verbing”) and using industry-specific terminology (e.g. cops “surveilling” a suspect, don’t even get me started on lawyers), and so on.
Yes, I am fully aware that one of English’s greatest strengths is its ability to borrow, purloin or outright steal words from other languages, but that’s not the point of this discussion.
Two new words have come to my notice, both have to do with political elimination of either rivals or embarrassments, and I love them.
The first (and most obvious) word is the new noun/verb to “Epstein” someone, i.e. to kill or have someone killed in such a manner as to make it appear like suicide, even though it’s manifestly impossible for that to have happened without some kind of conspiracy. Other than the eponymous source, one could easily apply the term to the erstwhile Clinton associate Vince Foster, Republican operative Pete Smith or reporter Chris Sign. (That all the above were involved with the Clintons is purely coincidental [eyecross]. )
The second new word is the verbing of the word “pillow”, i.e. to murder someone more discreetly than by the usual shooting or stabbing, for example. The Z-Man provides an example in his fine analysis of the two (Biden vs. Clinton) wings in the Democrat Party, which concludes thus:
The Biden people are not without their options. The one important card they have is that Harris is a weird blend of stupidity and offensiveness. She had all the resources one could want in the primary and managed to drive her own popularity down to zero by simply being herself. Having a dementia patient in the White House is manageable but a bitter ingrate with a chip on her shoulder is a problem. Putting Angry DMV Lady in the Oval Office could turn out to be a bigger disaster than Afghanistan.
Of course, the other option is to find a way to remove Harris first and replace her with someone the party can trust. Then they can pillow Biden before the midterm and run the sympathy script they have ready.
That pillowing is likewise related to the Clintons is purely coincidental. Of course.