graycrait

The things that interest me in the 9mm LCR are: 1) can I make fast effective follow up shots with either hand one-handed 2) will the moonclips keep their cartridges secure for fast extraction and reloading?  If the answers are "Yes" for both 1 and 2, then it is a viable and marketable option to other snubbies and snubbie calibers.

I'm with Dolomite on the MKIII/MKII/22/45.   Boy I have owned, worked on, shot, borrowed, etc. a lot of .22 pistols. If you want a good to pretty darn excellent shooter if you put a good trigger in it, hard to beat the Ruger MK series in any measure, especially value coupled with reliability and accuracy.   I think the lightweight look alike .22s like Glock coversions or M&P 22s, etc., are fun, but are simple soda can popping guns at best and found little overlap with shooting them and owning shooting their center fire counterparts. But, hey!  I have had the M&P .22, 5 Glock conversions, 1911 style .22s, etc.  So go for it.  Now if someone like NAA would just make a tiny .22LR semi auto like the Jimenez/Jennings JA22.

I've owned two Taurus 905 "j" frame 9mm revolvers and a Ruger Speed Six in 9mm.  Never had an issue with shooting them  The Taurus had an issue with crappy moonclips that if you tossed one in your jacket pocket you were sure to find a pocket full of loose cartridges later.  The Speed Six moon clips did not have this issue but the Speed Six weighed more than a Glock 19 with 9 fewer shots with no better reliability. Having owned 3 LCRs, two in .38 and one in .22LR I can attest to the short stroke issue vs never having seen it in a S&W J frame, of which I have owned several.  However, if the LCR moonclips will hold a cylinder full of rounds bouncing around in a jacket without releasing the cartridges loose into the pocket  I'll get one.  Why? So I can have an easy loading light revolver to carry in my jacket pocket and maybe get my wife to consider carrying a firearm.   

Which resellers, upon rebagging, are required to use the TWRA ammo stamp and are they using them? Or doesn't TWRA have the will or budget to enforce the ammo stamp requirement?   

I've owned and shot them all quiet a bit.     IMHO Taurus quality control in their revolvers has gone downhill since the early 90's.  I have seen so many with poor cylinder lock cuts that many will turn backwards.  Taurus 85's I had from the early 90's were not like this.     IMHO Charters today are gritty marginal revolvers.   Smiths are fine as are the Rugers. Although out of the box the Ruger LCR trigger is hard to beat in terms of smoothness I think a slicked up S&W is the way to go for carry.  The S&W carries "smaller" than the LCR.   Given the choices you listed I would go in order:  Smith, Ruger, Charter, Taurus    

Having owned, shot and probably did an action job on S&W N, K and J Frames, Taurus "K" and "J" frames, Rugers in Speed Six, GP and SP series as well as LCRs I would recemmend the versatile Dan Wesson 15-2 made in Monson, MA.  They are discontinued but you run across decent ones from time to time.  The key feature of these is that you can change the barrels at your kitchen table or out in the field.  The lock time of the action may be a little faster than than the others and that may be another reason that silhouette shooters like the DWs.  Eric Kovahic makes some great parts for the DWs and he makes up kits to tune up or keep the internals in order.  I traded mine off to a TGOr a couple of years ago along with some fine accessories made by Eric K's EWK Arms.  http://www.ewkarms.com/zen8/  I am waiting to see what the new 9mm LCR might be like, having had 3 9mm revolvers previously.

I disagree on the use of hollow points in mouse guns.  Me and a friend have shot hundreds of rounds in various media comparing penetration of .32 and .380.  We are of a mind that .32 FMJ will do what one wants out of a mouse gun, probably better than a JHP and probably as well as any .380.  If I was going to war or serve a federal warrant to drug dealers I would not use it as a presentation weapon.  It is the gun I always have and I can shoot it fast, close with either hand, one handed. TNWGR, are you calling my Glock ugly? I'll agree.  That has been the frame and slide I have tried everything on, and it still works. Out of the many Glocks I have owned or shot it has the best Glock trigger I have ever felt. Besides the Fulcrum trigger I forget what I have done to it.  I've been distracted for a few years by 10/22s and now reloading .22 Hornet and .357 magnums.

My vote is Keltec 32 at 6.6oz unloaded. I inherited a bucketful of vintage 1982 made in Belgium FN ammo that someone told me was made for the Skorpion machine gun. CDNN or some other online outfit was selling this a few years ago. One of my younger gun buddies gave me his stash in a moment of weakness. In a .32 JHP are seemingly meaningless, so FMJ Fiocchi is normally the self defense load of choice among .32 acolytes. However, without any science I think the old FN FMJs (maybe Skorpion ammo?) is sigficantly hotter than Fiocchi, which I keep on hand. In the world of mouse guns, follow ups, penetration and speed is king. In .32 Keltec is king. I had the NAA Guardian, in effect a rough Seacamp, but you can't use the NAA Guardian as fast or accurately at speed as the Keltec. And in Keltec hardchrome is king. Beretta has the wonderful but chubby Tomcat. Keltec is still king of the mouseguns in .32.

The line of inbred gougers and their kin would make a telling photo op.  We should all take our cameras to every Walmart in TN on Oct 4 and take a pic of the first 10 or 20 people in line.  I wonder how many actually shnoot .22.  There are a lot of people making serious profits off of panic buyers, while perpetuating an  artificial scarcity.

Go Rock Island.  I have owned 3 in .45, .38 Super and 9mm.  All workded 100% out of the box.  Also did a trigger job on an early one and when I took it to the range to test fire it I could not believe the accuracy and had 2 other 1911 "experts" shoot it and they were impressed.  Get the Rock as your first one, learn about how the gun is constructed and change everything in it over to aftermarket if that suits you.  Whether you keep it stock or use it for a "build" they are worth the money. THere are other 1911s I have had that cost quite a bit more that I have no use for.  But every day I go to my part time job selling guns I eyeball that Armscor made Legacy Citadel 1911 in 9mm for somedays as little as 349.00 I say to myself, "I should get another one." Then I think, "What practical use do I have for a 9 shot 40oz 9mm when I have a pair of finely tuned Glocks I rarely shoot or carry any longer.  Give me my 6.7oz Keltec .32 with Skorpian ammo and I feel pretty good - maybe delusional. 

The best handgunner I have ever seen anywhere in my 23 yrs of military service including with some odd folks like the FFL, SAS, SF, and others, killed a murderer a couple of months ago while off duty with his agency approved G19.  He hated his issue 23, yet grew to admire the two SA 1911's Pro's he carries as an issue on duty weapon. I used to  hit the timer for him when he was speed shooting with his G19 while still in the Army.  The handgun caliber wars are just plain stupid. They are handguns, not shotguns or rifles.   Whenever I hear the phrase, "If it doesn't start with a 4....."  Frigging maroons, stuck back in the day when all anyone shot was ball ammo.   Why two 1911 SA Pros?  Cause one is always in the shop he says. He says they just don't hold up to the amount of training fire required to be competent combat handgun shooter. 

The issue with this revolver will be its moon clips.  If they are sturdy and hold rounds well like my long gone Ruger Speed Six 9mm then it will be great.  However, if the moon clips are flimsy and lose bullets when they are in your jacket pocket then it will a no go.  Flimsy moon clips that will not hold cartridges securely will make this a range toy.  I went to the Ruger store and saw the the moon clips will cost 14.95, I think per 3?, but are out of stock.     If you want to see what a flimsy moon clip is like take a Taurus 905 for a spin.  I wanted to like the 905 and owned two over the years but could not get over the moon clips.   Why did I trade the 9mm Speed Six? That was a very fun range gun and I had 18 moon clips for it and the moon clip tool, but in the end it was heavy and impractical in my mind when compared to a Glock 19.      I am guessing that the LCR 9mm will be "right snappy" too.  For less money and higher capacity I think the new LC9S might be easier to shoot and possible more practical unless you carry a revolver in your jacket pocket or have issues with racking a slide. 

With regards to Hammers in snubbies: I believe both God and Ed McGivern decreed that "double action revolvers should be only shot double action." So, why would a light weight snubbie need an exposed hammer?

I have one on layaway in the Clarksville Rural King. After getting the H&R Handi Rifle in .357 I couldn't pass up the 77/.357. Had a levrr .357 years agp, but didn't like it much.

Anyone have any first hand experiences with this little rifle?

I like it and would want to buy one if it weren't so expensive.  That rig looks like a 350-400.00 gun to me. Pistol grips are good in some specific applications but I like standard rifle stock for variety of applications and maybe these folk are on to something.  Sort of like a Mini 14 but with more aftermarket. 

I got the two Handis in those calibers just to satisfy my curiosity in reloading rounds that can replace .22LR if need be.  Dolomite is giving me some advice and he tells me at some point I probably need to talk to Caster.  I've accumulated some bits and pieces of reloading gear, about 6 different types of powder and enough bullets to keep me going for awhile.  I need to get cases in .22 Hornet, .38 and .357.  I'll need to get some basic casting gear too.  I found a guy who has buckets of very old wheel weights.    I found a pair of 17HMR Ruger American Rimfires near Dover, TN, one compact the other standard.  After my experience with the Ruger American Rimfire in .22LR I think at some point I will get a RAR in .17HMR.  I haven't had a .17HMR yet.  I would rather just get a heavy barrel Savage B-Mag in .17WSM over the .17HMR or even a .22WMR, but .17WSM is rarer than .22LR CCI Mini Mags.   In the meantime the .22 Hornet/.22 K-Hornet will do everything I would need out of any .17 rimfire.  

I traded into this today up at the Davidson County Sportsman Club range. The guy I traded has been reloading .22 Hornet & .22 K Hornet since 1977. He tossed in several hundred bullets, several pounds of powder, dies, etc., to get me started reloading this round. He knows I am most interested in shooting "bunny" rounds rather than 150 yard coyote rounds. The scope is a neat little Burris 3-9 Mini. I don't know when Burris made those little gems but I wish I had one or two more for some rimfires I have. Oh yeah, it had a youth stock on it and I replaced it with a Choate adult sized stock. Also shot my .357 Handi with the C-More with some 125 grain Privi Partizan .357. I could hit whatever I put the dot on from 25-200 yards with that round. A fella gave me about 10lbs of cast boolits for the .357 for my "bunny" loads for that caliber.

Ruger came out with the LC9S and it has a nice trigger.  S&W has the Shield with its OK weight x ergonomics. Most that know me on this forum also know I have tried many 9mm pistols and several 9mm revolvers for self defense.  The last nice 9mm SD pistol I had was a Beretta PX4, but it was "thick."  My baseline is the H&K P7 as a carry gun.  The problem is that after an injury I have sympathetic trigger finger pull when I squeeze the P7 "safety."  So, I made a Glock to point and have a trigger as close to a custom P7 as possible.  However, that was 8 or 9 years ago.   I can't believe that there hasn't been a quantum leap in 9mm self defense pistols.   

Damn,  I had wanted a Ruger American Rimfire in .17HMR as my first .17HMR after my positive experiences with the .22LR Ruger American Rimifire. Now I may just have to look for a .17HMR Handi Rifle. In case you don't know the Ruger American Rimfire bolt action in .22LR is a shooter!  With half decent standard velocity lead round nose that rifle will give a CZ 452 a run for its money.   Plus the RAR in .22LR uses any 10/22 mag - how cool is that?  But with the scarcity of rimfire ammo and the fact that there isn't that many different .17HMR ammo offerings maybe a nice slow firing single shot .17HMR would be a good choice to play around with that caliber. Now if H&R would come out with a Handi in .17WSM!?  

After talking to Dolomite I won't be sending the .357 to be reamed to .357 Maximum. I'll leave well enough alone. Tomorrow I get the Hornet and it will get sent to Birmingham for reaming to K Hornet. A friend of mine has been reloading .22 Hornet and K Hornet since 1977 and he is going to give me a hand. Dolomite and another fella locally are going to give me advice on the .357. My primary interest is "bunny" loads, cast bullets and utilizing shot balls, etc. The Handi Hornet I am trading for comes with a nice Burris scope. I'm thinking this C-More has found a permanent home on the .357 Handi.

I picked up a .357 Handi Rifle today and will be trading for a .22 Hornet Handi Rifle this week. I am sending both barrels off to an old friend who is a gunsmith and can quickly ream the .22 Hornet to K Hornet and the .357 to .357 Maximum. My ultimate goal is to make small game plinkers out of these but I suspect I will run these up and down velocity/energy scale just for grins. Pictured is my new .357 Handi.

the barrel is a 28" Green Mountain barrel.  And yes, I am just shy of 60 yrs old and am probably forgetting some things, but it might be also my love of cheap red wine!

got the stock in a trade in really rough out shape.  deep tool marks and more or less just roughed out.  I sanded my a.. off on this. Learned a lot and made mistakes.  But I think it looks OK mnow.  I found some stuff that wood bowl makers use that would help me to touch this stock up, which I will do eventually. This looks like it may have been a Wenig stock but clearly not a first rate one.  How it got onto ebay I have no idea.  but one of our TGO'rs, Plinker4life, got his hands on it and I traded him for it.  

Pardon me if I did but I like this stock I finally got together.