He’s got a chronograph
Myth: .357 is useless in snubbies, low velocities, blah blah.
6 Responses to “He’s got a chronograph”
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February 19th, 2010 at 10:44 am
The reason I think it’s useless in bitty snubbies is because of blast and recoil and nobody who carries those things practices with their damn carry gun and carry load anyway and so they carry their 10 ounce unobtainium Smith the same way they carry a lucky rabbit’s foot, and with only marginally more effect.
February 19th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
So what’s the myth? What I see is that .357 magnum out of a snubby is no better than 9mm. Which is obvious, given the identical pressures and sectional densities. The value of .357 is case capacity — and for that to matter you need barrel length.
Why would you carry a gun that recoils more but has no ballistic advantage?
February 19th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
One of my friends was killed with a .357 snubby. His own, taken away from him and used at almost contact range. The bullet achieved 100% penetration but did not do much damage. The blast destroyed everything below his stomach.
John lived a couple of days, with pain that even morphine could not control. The perp? Just wanted to see what it was like to kill a cop.
As a practical matter, short guns are not battlefield weapons. They are up close and personal weapons. And the two important items are how quick you can fire the first shot – and how much damage that shot will do. A big slow bullet trumps a small fast one every time.
Stranger
February 19th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
God, what an awful story, Stranger, my heart goes out to you, and to John’s loved ones.
February 20th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
See also http://www.ballisticsbytheinch.com
Good stuff.
February 20th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Now that we’re compiling snubbie mythology here, how about the myth that you can’t hit jack with a snubbie?
The first handgun I ever qualified Police Master with (Tactical Revolver Course, minimum score, 96, three times in a row) was a .38 Ruger SP101. I’ve shot lots of Possibles with it since.
Snubbies come back on target faster than a heavier, longer revolver, and once you learn to stage the trigger on a snubbie, there is no excuse for shooting poorly with one.
Snubbies are easier to keep control of (very important in a close-in gun enounter as illustrated above).
With new wrap-grips like Hogues, snubbies are easy to control, too.
Hypno is also correct. With .38 +P or +P+, there is no need to carry a pocket boomer in .357, although I have both calibers in SP101s.
The perfect handgun/carbine combo might very well be a Ruger SP101 (in .357) and a Marlin 1894C in .38/.357.
That’s become my usual road-tripping combo.