Dr. Zin
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It seems in the last few months I have become enamored with pistol shooting. I have had a Ruger Mk3 Deluxe .22 since early June, and today picked up a Smith and Wesson Model 28 in .357 Magnum, which can shoot both magnum cartridges and the lighter .38 Special ammunition.
S&W on left, Ruger on Right.
This is a special edition with wood grips, fiber optic front sight, and slab-sided barrel. Its a hell of a deal.
The Ruger Mk3 is a descendant of the the Ruger Standard Auto, the pistol on which the Ruger company was founded in 1949. The Ruger .22's have pretty much set the standard for .22 pistols since then. It is fun as hell and cheap to shoot.
The Model 28, six inch barrel.
The Smith and Wesson 28 is a descendant of the original .357 Magnum revolver (which was later named the Model 27). It is an N-Frame (originally designed for .44 caliber cartridges). Smith and Wesson built their early .357's on the N-Frame due to durability issues with the smaller K-Frame (designed for the .38 Special). K-Frames have a section cut out of the bottom of their barrels to clear the crane that the cylinder is mounted on. This section is prone to cracking with hot magnum loads.
Yes, those little chambers are for .357s.
As you can see, the N-Frame has no need for a cutout in the forcing cone area. These guns will withstand extensive use of full house magnum ammunition. Unfortunately, these loads (158gr at 1400fps) are difficult to find; most domestic manufacturers stopped producing them after S&W released K-Frame magnum models that could be damaged by their use. Such ammo is still available from Fiocchi and Sellier and Belloit, however.
I'm hoping the S&W shoots as well as the Ruger tomorrow.- Show previous comments 17 more
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Dr. Zin said:Eh, it turns out the problem was easily fixed by buying a 20 dollar pack of endshake bushings, taking apart the cylinder, and installing two of them. Now the gun has negligible endshake and is looking to be fairly accurate (it shoots better than I can). The real problem now is how damn expensive ammunition is. I am saving my brass and trying to scrounge the range for cases people dispose of (which few revolver shooters do) so I can send it off to a commercial reloader. Cast bullet reloads are a third of the cost of factory new ammo.
Anyway, I am suprised at how mild the .357 magnum is. I was expecting an intense recoil impulse, but instead the gun snaps back a bit more and makes an admittedly impressive boom. It certainly is not like shooting a shotgun slug.
Why not reload yourself? The initial costs are kind of sucky, but you'll save the cost in ammo within a year if you shoot a lot. -
Naked Snake said:
Why not reload yourself? The initial costs are kind of sucky, but you'll save the cost in ammo within a year if you shoot a lot.
I don't want to drop a few hundred dollars on a basic single stage reloading kit and accoutrements. Plus reloading is time consuming unless you have a progressive setup, which itself will costs hundreds of dollars more and is prone to breakdowns. I am perfectly fine paying less than $5.50 a box for light .38 wadcutter reloads.
