Shield v. 642

The other day, when I first posted about my new Smith and Wesson Shield .45, Bob asked my what happened to my Smith and Wesson Model 642. My reply was that I still have the 642 (because I love that little .38 Special snubbie) but I wanted something else too. The 642 is fantastic, especially with it's Crimson Trace laser and Apex spring kit installed, but it still only holds five shots and bad guys come in packs around here. A little extra ammunition sounded like a good thing, and the Shield, with it's flush-fit mag inserted, holds six in the mag plus one in the chamber, giving me two more rounds. The Shield also has better sights and is arguably capable of consistent hits at greater distances, and in a gunfight, distance is your friend, right?

But how do they stack up size-wise? See for yourself.

The Shield is a bit heavier but just a touch slimmer than the 642, although not enough to matter either way.

Profile-wise, there's really not much difference either. But 7 rounds of .45 vs 5 rounds of .38. And seven more in the spare "extended" mag in my pocket compared to just five more in the spare revolver speedloader.

Either way, I think I'm suitably covered in the sub-compact firearms department.

And of course come cooler weather, I'm back to heavier clothing and full-size or compact pistols.

Gun test day

So yesterday I took a couple of pistols out to the range for some testing. The main one was my old Model 642 with it's new Crimson Trace laser grip; I had to see what it could do.

It was bitingly cold and there was a sharp wind in addition to bright sunlight that made the dot difficult but not impossible to see at 15 yards.

The night before, I'd passed this pistol and it's new sighting tool around at my church group, only to have three different people state without a doubt that it wasn't even close to being lined up with it's sights.

Well I'm happy to announce that the steel dueling tree with the 4" discs says otherwise. If I did my part and kept the dot on the discs through the trigger pull, I was rewarded with a loud, satisfying "CLINK!" nearly every time.

It's going to take some practice and getting used to, and I still want to bench it and fine-tune it, but I came away impressed. It's got real potential and I like it. A lot.

I also took the new (to me) Uberti .45 Long Colt SAA out to test, using factory loads, some smokeless loads I put together with Unique powder and some fffg black powder loads because...well just because, dammit.

It's sights are pretty much point of aim at 25 yards and it knocks over 6" steel plates like nobody's business...five times out of six. This pistol has a problem.

Almost every time I run a cylinder through it, five rounds get nice, heavy primer hits dead center, but one chamber almost always lines up so as to give me an off-center hit right on the edge of the primer that's usually insufficient to fire the cartridge. I tracked it for the session and it's definitely the same chamber every time. So a repair request has been submitted to Uberti and now we'll see how their customer service rates. Are they going to be excellent, like Henry, Glock or Surefire, or are they going to be piss-poor like Colt? Time will tell, and rest assured, so will I.

Other than that though, I'm please to report that my Unique loads hit almost identically to the factory Federal loads--point of aim at 25 yards--and my black powder loads were a bit off but still close enough to ring the bigger steel targets. Sadly I couldn't see if they were impacting the berm over or under because the massive smoke clouds that the rounds were making were being blown right back in my face by the wind so I saw nothing for a couple of seconds after every shot. But those rounds were still a boatload of fun and I'm sure that with a little work at the loading bench and some better test weather I can dial them right in.

It's a dot!

A red dot.

Courtesy of a Crimson Trace LG-405 laser, newly mounted to my trusty Smith and Wesson Model 642.

Those of you who know me know that I'm a proud Luddite, slow to adopt new technology, so this is a quantum leap for me. But honestly. I can't wait to see how it works on the range.

And those of you who got on the laser bandwagon before I did, I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions.

Thanks, Keads.

Took the little ones out to shoot.

THESE little ones--(from top to bottom) The Ruger LCP, Walther PPK, and Smith and Wesson Model 642.The first two are .380 ACP and they hold seven shots each, the S&W is .38 Special and it holds five.

Given my druthers, the .38 is still my favorite carry pistol because it's the most powerful of the three, and I consider five .38's worth seven .380's any day, especially in a quality pistol like this little Smith. But all three of these pistols have their applications. The LCP has the worst sights and trigger but it practically disappears into my pocket. And that horrible trigger acts as a reliable safety to keep negligent discharges in said pocket from occurring.

In between, the PPK...well it's got style going for it. James Bond and all... (Yes, I know that his was .32ACP and not .380, but I didn't need yet another anemic caliber in my ammo closet.) But this PPK probably has the best trigger and sights of the three of them. It's got a serious Double-Action/Single-Action trigger and small but prominent front and rear sights, whereas the other two only have front sights and a channel instead of a real rear sight.
The PPK came broken from a Gunbroker sale although it was represented as being fully functional and I just fixed it after finding the necessary part and schematic at Numerich Arms.

None of these are match pistols, nor do they have the stopping power and magazine capacity of a modern combat pistol, but they all have one thing in common that makes them handier than larger, better fighting pistols--they're small. They're easier to conceal than a full-size 1911 or K-frame revolver, and they can often just be slipped into a pocket, making them more convenient to carry into more places than a full-sized pistol. That means that sometimes they wind up with me where one of my regular carry sidearms might not be. And Rule #1 of a gunfight is: "Have a gun".

These three also have the one prerequisite for any gun that I'll ever own or carry: They're reliable. They shoot when I squeeze the trigger and the round goes where I aim it. They may be small, but in a crunch they'll still put rounds on target every time, and that's not something that you can take for granted when buying a gun. If your pistol won't fire your chosen self-defense rough a hundred times out of a hundred, it's not reliable enough to trust you life to no matter how small or light or "cute" it is.

Smith and Wesson Model 642 joins the family.

OK, it's time for another gun post, mainly because I got another gun.

This one is a Smith and Wesson Model 642, a five-shot .38 Special. Made of aluminum alloy with a stainless steel cylinder and barrel, it's designed for concealed carry and is one of Smith and Wesson's best sellers.
I like the size of my little Ruger LCP, but I'm not a fan of it's sight picture and/or trigger pull and I'm less than impressed with the .380 round in general. It's still a nice pistol to have in one's pocket as a back-up, but by sacrificing just a bit of it's concealability, I can have five rounds of Corbon or Winchester Ranger .38 Special on tap in a pistol that's more accurate and more comfortable to shoot.

I used to have a Smith and Wesson J-frame revolver that I bought on Massad Ayoob's recommendation when we were in a gun shop together. That pistol was not rated for +P rounds, and it has a small butt and wood grips that made it very uncomfortable to shoot, even with standard rounds. I eventually needed money so I sold it but I've always regretted that. Now I have another one, and while it came used, I got it for the same price that I sold that old one for years ago, so I'm not complaining about a few scratches.

Here it is, side-by-side with my Model 66. As you can see, it's much smaller and more concealable, and the shrouded hammer means that it can be drawn from a pocket--or fired through a pocket--without snagging.


So how does it work, you ask?



Wonderfully. The soft grips absorb a lot of the recoil, and it's much less painful to fire than my old Bodyguard with it's tiny butt and wood grips. Once I got the feel for it's heavy but crisp trigger, I was able to put 32 out of 35 rounds in the black from seven and ten yards, and the flyers were the result of me doing a rapid-fire string from the supine position, lying on the ground as if knocked down. I need to work on that one a bit more. But then who doesn't? My only complaint is that the small ejector rod needs to be hit forcefully to ensure reliable extraction and ejection, but that's common to these J-frames with 1&7/8" barrels and can be dealt with as a training issue.