Category: Gun/Ammo Tests

I love emails like this one.  As Longtime Readers know well, I’m always on the side of people with lengthy experience with specific guns, and Reader Mike L’s opinions fall well into this category.  Enjoy.

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I saw your posting today (2/22/20) regarding revolvers for everyday carry. I used to work for a major firearm manufacturer (though I do NOT speak for them, this is strictly MY opinion). When I worked there, firearms were 50% off MSRP.

627 – S&W makes 3 models of the 627. A 2.6 inch Performance Center, a 4 inch Pro series and a 5 inch Performance Center. ALL of these are built on the N frame, the same frame that the .44 Magnum revolvers are generally built on (there are a few .44 Magnums built on the K/L frames like the model 69 – those have the new fangled 2 piece sleeved barrels).

I have shot all of these model 627s. The 2.6 inch has slightly more recoil than the 4 and 5 inch, but not as much as you would think. That large frame soaks up recoil well. I personally like the 4 and 5 inch models. My father has a 4 inch 627. Great firearm. His is a Pro Series. Performance Center is built with decent care by a specialty department, the “Performance Center”. The Pro Series is Performance Center parts put together on the standard assembly line.

The 4 inch has a great balance overall, however this is a HEAVY firearm. Feels bulky. However even with full power .357 loads and HOT .38 +P loads this gun is a BEAST and handles them very well. Your hand won’t hurt after. There are a MULTITUDE of grips available (N frame) aftermarket so you can change them to your hearts content.

However, it might be worth you checking out the 686 PLUS models… There are 2.5 inch, 3 inch, and 4, 5 and 6 inch models as well. Standard barrels and heavy-weighted barrels, standard, Pro series and Performance Center. The one I might suggest to you is the 3 inch 686 PLUS model

The 3 or 4 inch 686 PLUS model will give you a smaller frame than the 627, but offer 7 rounds of .357 / .38. In addition, the 3 and 4 inch barrels are long enough for accuracy and great for carry and with 3 and 4 inch you get a great velocity even out of MOST 357 loads. The recoil is not awful even with hot loads, and there are a multitude of aftermarket grips for this gun available.

I myself prefer Ruger revolvers. I have a stainless GP100 4 inch. I put a fiber front sight on it and it wears hogue tamer rubber grips. But the 627 and 686 are great guns!

RELIABILITY – So let me tell you from my experience working at one of the ranges and doing a lot of shooting when I worked for this major manufacturer which models were the most reliable:

M&P – VERY RELIABLE. YES I KNOW, PLASTIC “FANTASTIC” – These RARELY broke. If they did it was a MIM part like the slide stop or the recoil spring. And let me clarify, the recoil springs were captured, so when I say the spring “broke”, at around 15,000 to 20,000 rounds I would see the spring tip pop out and the rod and spring became 2 piece. GUN STILL FIRED! And you could use it like that until you obtained a replacement spring. Slide stop breaking would just mean the slide didn’t lock back on these. They still worked. I personally saw a Shield 9 with over 50,000 rounds through it, an M&P 45 full size with over 100,000 rounds through it and I saw an M&P 40 with 50,000-plus rounds through it. You will spend more money in ammo many times over than this gun is worth.

K/L and N frame Revolvers – AWESOME! The VERY BEST! One gun was a stainless 686 built in the early 90’s. Burn rings that were baked on (front of cylinder was black). Grips that were worn smooth. It turned out this gun was from a rental counter. Smith gives a lifetime warranty to individuals, but 1 year to rental guns. Management decided to honor the warranty on this one if it was told how many rounds were through it. The owner said “at least 500,000”. Thing was worn, that was for sure! But it finally had the firing pin break and the leaf spring style mainspring was loose. All Mechanical things wear.

I also had a fleet of these at the range I was in charge of. These rarely broke. If they did it was the screw for the cylinder release or a sight coming loose (roll pin working loose). They had thousands and thousands of rounds through them. I have heard 3rd hand of the internal lock sticking when firing and had seen some examples of customer guns coming back, but I didn’t ever witness a lock up in person. Usually when that lock locked up, it was something else wrong, like someone doing home gun smithing, or a defect from the get go. If you shoot very hot loads, the forcing cones on the 686 wear a little faster than the Ruger’s, but not at some insane rate either though. I myself prefer the Ruger GP100, but it’s FORD VS CHEVY debate here… Both the 686 and the GP100 are solid guns, and they last a LONG TIME! If you like the 686 but want blue, check out the 586, which is a pretty sweet piece. If you do go with the 627, that holds up without issue. That frame can handle .44 Magnum. You are NOT going to wear that thing out with .357 rounds. Might put some wear on the forcing cone with hot loads, but any revolver, even Ruger can have that happen.

J frames – Mixed results. Majority of these were VERY reliable. The .357 models HURT LIKE HELL to shoot [yup — K.]  and the forcing cones would wear out. The 360 PD seemed like a good idea, but not the best to use. It is beefed up from the .38 J frames, but that thing doesn’t hold up with .357 loads non stop.

The .38 J frames are generally bullet proof. Of course, .38 +P loads hurt a little to shoot, but hey, it’s a backup gun. What do you want? You can even get a 442 (Black) or 642 (silver) without that damned internal lock if you like.

For the recoil shy or if your hands aren’t up to the .38, check out the 351 PD, which is a .22 Win Mag model, 7 rounds. Very light recoil. External hammer. GREAT backup piece. FUN to shoot.

.45 ACP revolvers – These held up well. Barely any wear on these. I saw one with over 10,000 rounds. Grips were a little smooth on it from handling but other than that functioned well. The .45 ACP doesn’t wear a revolver all that much. Recoil is not that bad. JUST MAKE SURE YOU ARE OK WITH MOON CLIPS. I do not mind moon clips, but some people hate them. Moon clips are generally much cheaper than magazines for semi-autos.

1911’s – Generally reliable. But as you saw, I saw the same thing. 3 pieces usually broke on 1911’s:
1 – the safety plunger and safety catch
2 – the magazine catch –
3 the slide stop catch and pin that held the slide on.
Usually when one of these parts broke, the gun went down hard. They shoot great, but they were the least reliable of all of the models. Not that they sucked, they just didn’t have the reliability of the revolvers or the plastic stuff is all. Overall revolvers held up better than 1911 models. Plastic stuff held up surprisingly well too.

Oh, and the 4 inch S&W model 19 is a VERY sweet piece. If you want a little lighter frame than the 686, but still something substantial. I saw recently there is a 3 inch ported version available too. I like the SP101, but the SP101 holds 5 rounds, Model 19 is 6 rounds and is blued, which is damn nice!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
If you go with a 627, 686 or 586 (cuz blue is just so classic and awesome!), you could use .38 +P in both your main and your backup 637. This way, you carry one type of ammo for both. So no matter what piece you are using to fend off the goblins, you don’t need to think about which ammo goes with which boomstick.

New Colt Python? Um, yeah, right lol! Read the many issues with these… Lemons. They are too new and too expensive.

Hope this long long long rant helped…

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Anytime, Mike… and that goes for the rest of you too.

I am often mocked because of my fondness (if not favoritism) of things of yore over their modern counterparts.  This is especially true of gun stuff, and cartridges especially.  (Executive summary:  not many cartridges developed since 1955 are that much better than their predecessors.)

One of my all-time favorites is the venerable .300 Holland & Holland Magnum, which was essentially put out of business by the .300 Winchester Magnum.  Why am I so enamored of this old warhorse (launched 1925)?

I once hunted with a borrowed rifle thus chambered many, many years ago in South Africa (I think it was either a Sako or a Sauer, can’t remember which) and in a single day’s shooting accounted for two or three impala, all of which were absolutely flattened by the heavy 180gr solid bullet.  I found the recoil far less punishing than other magnums (both the .300 WinMag and the monster .458 WinMag), and the effect on small- to medium-sized game was little different from either of the two others.

It’s not as hard-hitting as the other two, of course, when one looks at the raw numbers;  rather, the .300 H&H should be compared to the .30-06 Springfield.  Here’s a side-by-side of the Nosler offerings for each cartridge with the same bullet weight:

The Holland’s longer case holds more powder, I think, hence the slight velocity/energy difference.  Likewise, the rifle’s action needs to be a little longer than that of the .30-06 (which is already longer than, say the short-action .308 Win).

Of course, because so few rifles are made in the .300 H&H chambering nowadays, the ammo is filthy-expensive — usually over $50 / box for the cheap stuff, and it climbs into the stratosphere faster than the bullet it shoots.  By way of comparison, a box of the .300 H&H Noslers in the pic above costs just over $83/box, while the .300 Win Mag tops out at ~$70 (and the .30-06 pictured is $50).  Granted, these are all premium offerings from Nosler — but while one can find “cheap” .300 Win Mag and even cheaper .30-06, there is no cheap .300 H&H ammo.

And finally, here’s the .300 Win Mag which replaced the .300 H&H (sigh):

It’s not quite a like-for-like comparison because of the greater bullet weight, but where the difference becomes apparent is at ranges long than 200 yards (.300 H&H 2,490 vs the .300 Win Mag 2,520, and the differential widens at longer distances).

That said:  if I had to shoot twenty rounds rapid of each, I’d be okay after the .300 H&H, but would require some kind of medical attention with the .300 Win Mag.

And I’d sell a non-essential body part to be able to shoot them through one of these.  (“P.O.A.” stands for “piss off, arsehole” i.e. “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it, peasant”.)

This post is appearing early in the morning so that if any of you are off to the range later, you can make the necessary preparations.

A while back I was reading about the practice method known as “spot shooting”, something I’ve been doing forever, but didn’t know it had acquired a name.  Put simply, it’s a routine whereby you fill a blank target sheet with small circles, then shoot one (and only one) shot per circle in the shortest possible time.  Here’s how to do it.

The next time you go to the range for some .22 practice, get one of the cheap full-sized silhouette paper targets (or, if you’re one of the people who buys the things in bulk, then takes a few to each range visit, keep one aside after your regular practice session).  Then affix a hundred small circle targets onto the paper, spaced about two inches (2″) apart — rows are best so you can see where you are — then load up the necessary numbers of mags, and get going.  Here are two examples of the target spots, the Birchwood Casey orange dot and the Shoot-N-C type:

These are the two more expensive ways to practice this drill, by the way;  real  Cheap Bastards (e.g. Kim) will go to a discount store or online and buy rolls of the little price tags such as made by ChromaLabel, which have the advantage of being multicolored, available in 1″, 3/4″, 1/2″ or even smaller sizes, and they typically cost less than a penny per spot.

The advantage of this is that it’s a really cheap method of practice, and it is cruelly unforgiving:  there’s no “9-ring” or similar types of escape routes — just a small circle which either has a bullet-hole in it, or not.  It is also unbelievably tiring, mentally.  People often boast of how they blast off many hundreds of rounds at a single practice session, but a hundred in a single practice routine?  Be my guest:  if you’ve never done it before, it’s a whole lot tougher than it looks.

At the end of the routine, you score yourself out of 100, and anything less than 100% represents failure (there is no participation trophy in precision shooting).  When / if you do manage to get 100% consistently (good luck with that), then start timing yourself (or have a range buddy time you) and try to get that same 100% in less and less time.  (It doesn’t need to be stopwatch-perfect, especially the first few times you do it.)

And by the way:  if you’ve never done this before, start with larger dots (1″), and then gradually work your way down to the smaller ones when / if you master that size (uh huh).  For my .22 rifles, I shoot 1″ spots at 25 yards unscoped, and 3/4″ spots scoped;  for a handgun, it’s 1″ or 3/4″ spots at ten yards.

Here’s what this wonderful practice routine teaches you:

• Patience.  If you lose patience, you will start missing the target.  It’s that simple.
• Target re-acquisition.  How to move on and aim at the next dot, make sure your aim is true, then fire and move on… one hundred times.
• Making sure your sight picture is perfect.  No matter how well you think you know your gun, after about the tenth shot, you will know exactly — exactly — what sight picture will score a hit.  Now do it again, ninety times in a row.

About six months ago I got my first-ever 100, with a Browning Buck Mark borrowed from Daughter, shooting the 3/4″ dots at 10 yards.  I felt like doing a victory lap around the range, or at least a Happy Dance, but apparently jumping around like a lunatic while firing bullets into the ceiling is not Acceptable Range Behavior, for some reason.

By the way, this is also a great drill when practicing with your carry piece — only it gets a little expensive even if you’re reloading.  I normally end my session with just one or two mags’ worth of dots (say fifteen rounds of .45 ACP or twenty-five rounds of 9mm), also at ten yards.  I don’t take too much time either:  I shoot what I call “rapid deliberate”, which is about 1.5 seconds per shot.  And if you think this is too easy, toughen up your scoring criteria:  half a bullet circumference or more in the dot counts as a hit, less than half is a miss.  I’ve never yet hit every dot with my carry pieces, but I’ve come damn close.

All this shooting talk is making my finger itch.  If you’ll excuse me… I think I need to go load up my range bag.

Some guy has put together a video of the Best-Shooting Pistols.  Frankly, I’ll take his word for it, because I do not ever  want to get into a gunfight with him.  Watch the video to see why.

This, folks, is why one needs to practice a lot — although I will admit that having a little gun range in one’s backyard (as he does) without any discernible neighbors in the area doesn’t hurt.  If I had one of those, I’d be the world’s best .22 rifle shooter (and have the world’s largest collection of .22 rifles with burnt-out barrels).

Anyway, the pistols (from #5 to #1):

• CZ P10-F (full-size version of the P10-C)
• Walther PPQ Q5 Match (steel-frame)
• Archon Type B (I’d heard of this German gun, but never actually seen one before)
• CZ 75 Shadow 2 Black & Blue (finally, a decent and affordable DA/SA competition-ready pistol, and even the base 75B is hardly a slouch)
• STI 2011 (beloved by competitive shooters;  also:  available in .45 ACP or 9mm — apparently, any caliber — but its 9mm mags hold 27 rounds).

Honorable mentions:  Browning P35 High Power;  S&W M&P 2.0 5″, Glock 34.

After watching the video a couple-three times, I came to realize two things:  1) I have got  to shoot more often, and 2) I need to look at the CZ Shadow 2.  (Forget about the STI;  I can’t even afford the “base” model Staccato P.)

Hell, at least I have a High Power.  Now all I have to do is ahem  practice a bit more.

It’s not often a photo makes me go “WTF?” (unless it’s of the latest incarnation of a Kardashian’s ever-expanding ass), but this one made me choke on my breakfast gin:

Let’s list the atrocities:

• plastic stock
• red-dot sight
• suppressor

…on a lever rifle?

Great Vulcan’s bleeding hemorrhoids.  As any fule kno, a proper lever rifle should look like this:

or this:

and be fired by men who look like this:

…which is as God, Oliver Winchester and John Moses Browning intended.

THAT SAID: the article which accompanies that first (appalling) photograph is extremely interesting.  Hie thee thence and read it.

They’ll be putting scopes  on lever rifles next.  Oh wait, don’t tell me… aaaaargh:

I think I’ll have another gin, just to steady my nerves.  What the hell, it’s almost sunrise.