You know what I never understood?
The snubnosed J-frame Smith & Wesson .22LR pistols. They just never made any sense to me at all. I mean, WTF? You can't target shoot with them (well, some people can but the vast majority of shooters aren't going to be nailing X-rings at 25 yards with a 1 7/8" barrel). It's not powerful enough to carry. It just didn't make sense to me for the gun to even exist.
And then...
I found a Colt Official Police revolver at the local gun shop/range. In .22LR. Came across it this weekend as I cleared out the pistol safe. Took one look at it, with the fixed sight (basically a groove in the top strap, common to working revolvers), and everything clicked into place. This revolver was intended as a training tool - it's identical to the .38 special-chambered model that was issued to police agencies through the country (and the world) with the single exception of the chambering.
Hence the .22LR snubbie. It's a training tool. You can shoot it all day long for literally pennies.
Needless to say, I want one. I want a S&W model 317 so bad I can taste it. With a Sig P226 conversion in .22LR, a .22LR conversion for the Colt Gold Cup, and a model 317, I'd have cheap shootin' for nearly every firearm I could conceivable use for defense. I could literally spend hours shooting from a $13 box of 550 rounds.
It's so simple, I cannot believe I didn't realize it before...
That is all.
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9 comments:
Welcome to the "DUH, I didn't think of that" club. There's a reason for it, though. Up until about two years ago, .38 target ammo was cheap. You could shoot 100 rounds for under $15.00. 9mm was even less expensive. Thus you didn't need to use a firearm that shot cheap ammo for practice.
There's a lot more I have to say about this, but it's long enough that I'm going to make it a blog post of my own.
Thanks for the inspiration.
It's also a great gun loaded with rat shot for snakes and other small pests when fishing or camping.
Yep "trainers" like that are great, you can hand somebody an easy-to-shoot .22 Revolver, then hand them the same gun in a more powerful chambering and everything but the recoil will feel the same.
My 617 is Identical to the 686 except in the chambers and bore.
Also, while I disagree with it, there are likely enugh people who carry .22 LR pocket guns for protection to warrent a market.
totwtyr,
The only fault I can find with your logic, though, is that when .38 special target ammo was ~ $15/100 rounds, .22LR was selling for ~ $8/550 rounds.
That's still a lot cheaper.
Lookin' forward to the post...
georgeh,
I'm just guessing, but I would think you'd want at least the 3" barrel to get ANY sort of penetration with .22LR shot. Otherwise the shot'd just bounce off and make 'em mad... ;)
weer'd,
I'm thinking of getting the 317 for my own personal training. I just wish that .22 Magnum were interchangeable with .22LR (like .44 Magnum/.44 Special) so that I could use the snubbie for CCW in a pinch (the Airweight .22 Mag revolver weighs something like 10 ounces...)
True JayG, but at $15.00 for 100, I could afford to shoot a decent amount of .38. At $12.00 or more for 50, it gets pricey and the extra cost of a fine firearm like the Model 18 I recently bought is offset by the relatively inexpensive ammunition it uses.
And you're in luck with the 226 - SIG released the kit in April, and Top Gun Supply has 'em in stock, last I checked.
I like the conversion idea, since it's your frame, stocks, and trigger. The mechanics of shooting should be identical, except for the sights and recoil, so the take-away is a lot more than shooting a different gun in the same genre. One minor gripe: it seems that all .22 conversion kits use target sights; I would be tempted to swap in whatever sights are on the standard gun, if the dovetail was the same. Stock SIG sights are super cheap.
Anyway, the gun business is chock-full of Guns That Have No Reason To Exist Other Than Someone Thought It Was Cool. "It's cool" is a perfectly acceptable reason to own a firearm.
If I have ever given the impression that "because it's cool" is not a valid reason for a firearm to exist, I humbly apologize.
Hell, I think the term I used was "because I want one" when asked why someone would ever do "X" with a firearm (I think the X in question was SayUncle's SBR 9mm AR-15, FWIW...)
When I was in boot camp we shot a 22/45.
Heh, just pokin' ya. I think I had my internet straight face turned up a few too many notches that day.
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