Category: All About Guns
A new handgun shooter with small hands may be best suited with a J-Frame
S&W revolver, originally known as the Kit Gun. This model 34 is the standard .22 rimfire version.
In the ’60s and ’70s, S&W had an ad for their K22 revolver with the headline “The Beginner’s Gun the Experts Can’t Put Down.” The K22 is a lot more than a beginner’s gun, but the novice handgunner who starts with a K22 is fortunate indeed. A K22 wasn’t the first handgun I owned — it was the third, as I recall — but it taught me more about shooting a handgun than any other before or since.
It seems the concept of learning the basics with a .22 has become old school. I get it. Many buyers want a handgun for defense and don’t like the idea of buying more than one. They buy a centerfire and they’re satisfied if they can hit a silhouette target at five yards.
I know of no better tool for learning handgun skills than a quality double-action revolver. For me, the K22 is about perfect. The first one I owned was a Model 17 made in the early 1970s. This was the model number assigned to the K22 when S&W introduced model numbers in 1957. The original K22/Model 17 revolvers weighed about 38 1/2 oz. The current Classic Model 17 weighs just under 40 oz., while the stainless 617 with a 6″ barrel is a bit over 44 oz.
Good options for shooters finding these a bit heavy are the model 63 with a 4″ barrel at just under 25 oz. and a personal favorite, the Ruger SP-101 .22 at 30 oz.
Here’s why I like the K22 and similar revolvers as training tools:
This Prewar S&W K22 with adjustable rear and post front sight was a gem
when first introduced and is still a pleasure to shoot 85 years later.
Dave’s favorite K22s are this pair from the early 1950s before
S&W model numbers were introduced.
Trigger Quality
A cocked double-action revolver has about the best out-of-the-box trigger break available. With the K22, there is virtually no perceptible take-up, creep, or over-travel and the pull is consistent. Just index the sights on target and smoothly increase pressure until the shot breaks. If the only handgun you’ve shot is a service-style 9mm semiauto, experiencing a really good trigger pull is a revelation.
Adjustable Sights
I have nothing against fixed sights; in fact, I prefer them for applications such as concealed carry, provided they are correctly sighted. The novice shooter is much better served with easily adjustable sights, especially considering point of impact can change as the shooter learns a more consistent sight picture, hand position and grip strength, and trigger control.
Ammunition Versatility
For target shooting, plinking and training, I use and recommend standard velocity .22 LR cartridges. A revolver provides the option of using .22 Shorts or even CB caps if reduced noise is desired. It used to save money back when .22 Shorts were cheaper than Long Rifles. These days one can hardly find Shorts for sale, and if you do, they often cost as much or more. For small game hunting and pest control, high-speed Long Rifles are an option.
Grip Size And Shape
If the revolver has a fault, it is the grips used on older models, which left a big ditch behind the trigger guard. On my older guns, I often add a grip adapter. Current production revolvers have much-improved grip styles and there are many aftermarket styles. Most revolvers permit the shooter to easily fit grips to suit their hand size or add features such as finger grooves. Synthetic grips offer an alternative to wood.
Safety
I hesitate to say revolvers are safer than semiauto pistols. Strictly speaking, the shooter, not the gun, is safe or unsafe. Still, when a novice is shooting a handgun, I feel more comfortable if it’s a revolver. After firing a shot from a cocked revolver, the next shot can only be fired by a long, heavy pull or by cocking the hammer. After a shot is fired from a semiautomatic, the pistol is loaded, cocked, off-safe and ready to fire again with a short, light trigger pull.
One way around this is to load one cartridge at a time, which is a good idea for a novice with any handgun. This does get old in a hurry. I won’t make a huge issue of safety and the DA revolver — I can only point out my personal preference.
Fans of SA revolvers may feel I’m slighting their choice. Not at all; I would as soon teach with a single action. In some ways, it’s even safer since the hammer must be manually cocked for every shot. I prefer the DA since the SA pull is usually excellent, plus the shooter may someday want to acquire skill at DA shooting.
By Larry Keane. May 23, 2023
‘Gun control’ groups are foisting ‘gun control’ on the American public by taking to university campuses to convince law students to pledge to never represent the firearm industry, or its interests, in court.
‘Gun control’ groups are big Shakespeare fans, apparently. They’re taking a page from the famed Elizabethan-era bard’s Henry VI as the next play on foisting ‘gun control’ on the American public.
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,” Shakespeare wrote in the play.
Two ‘gun control’ groups are putting a 21st Century twist on the line and taking to university campuses to convince law students to pledge to never represent the firearm industry, or its interests, in court.
Call it the long game. ‘gun control’ isn’t satisfied with attacking Second Amendment rights, or even First Amendment rights. Now, they’re targeting Sixth Amendment rights too. That’s the amendment that guarantees the right to be represented by legal counsel.
Giffords Courage to Fight Gun Violence and March for Our Lives, ‘gun control’ groups headed by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords and antigun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, respectively, are canvassing campuses to convince law students to sign a pledge they won’t represent the firearm industry or firearm owners when it comes to protecting and preserving Second Amendment rights. The ‘gun control’ groups’ pledge peddles verifiably false claims to convince the aspiring lawyers that the firearm industry is responsible for violent crime in America.
Not criminals. Not gang violence. Not the illicit drug trade. They’re blaming the industry for crimes committed by violent offenders and ignoring basic legal foundations to sway law students to deny legal services to companies and individuals that follow the law.
Do You Swear?
David Pucino, Giffords’ deputy chief counsel, makes some dubious claims to convince law students that after they earn their juris doctorate, they should sign the ‘gun control’ group’s nonbinding pledge to never represent the legal interests of a Constitutionally-protected industry. First among these misleading claims is that firearms are the leading cause of death for American children.
This is a favorite false talking point among ‘gun control’ groups and antigun politicians, including President Joe Biden. The problem is that it is demonstrably false. The University of Michigan manipulated data sets to include 18 and 19-year-old adults as “children” to boost the figure of childhood deaths to surpass those caused by motor vehicle accidents. When 18 and 19-year-olds are backed out because they’re not children, but in fact adults, that claim falls apart. NSSF demonstrated that here.
Giffords’ pledge website also claims the firearm industry actively opposes “any effort to pass gun safety laws.” Again, this is demonstrably false. NSSF backed the FIX NICS Act, named for the firearm industry’s FixNICS® initiative to get all states to submit disqualifying records into the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). NSSF changed the laws in 16 states and in Congress to get the background check system to work as intended. In fact, NSSF helped create the instant point-of-sale background check system that would instantly inform a firearm retailer if a customer is prohibited from purchasing a firearm.
Pucino urges law student to never work for firms that represent the firearm industry because, in his estimation, the firearm industry “represent some really reprehensible companies that have done some horrible things.”
Never mind that the firearm industry administers the Real Solutions. Safer Communities® campaign that includes FixNICS and Project ChildSafe®, which partners with over 15,000 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states and five U.S. territories to distribute over 40 million free firearm safety kits including locking devices. Real Solutions also includes the partner programs with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to prevent illegal “straw” purchases of firearms through Don’t Lie for the Other Guy™ and Operation Secure Store® to help firearm retailers voluntarily increase security to deter and prevent firearm burglaries and robberies. The firearm industry also partnered with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) to provide firearm retailers and ranges kits to encourage a “brave conversation” to prevent suicide tragedies.
Persona Non Grata
Giffords and March for Our Lives think these programs are “reprehensible” enough to demand the ATF not work with the firearm industry on these campaigns that have been proven to save lives. Giffords was among 43 other ‘gun control’ groups that demanded the ATF stop working with the industry it regulates.
“Stop funding, partnering, or co-branding programs with the National Sports Shooting Foundation via the Department of Justice and other Federal Agencies,” the letter said, according to The Reload. “No longer should the ATF hold private briefing and training sessions at NSSF’s annual SHOT SHOW without making their remarks available to the public online.”
NSSF pointed out how “unserious” ‘gun control’ groups are with their demands then. They continue to prove that unseriousness now. These ‘gun control’ groups put special-interest political agendas ahead of real answers to keep the public safe. Their answer isn’t to “do something” as they demand. It is to “do something” to ban guns. And now, apparently, it is also to ban legal representation.
Giffords and March for Our Lives rolled out their “pledge” drive at the University of California – Berkeley School of Law, Cardozo School of Law, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, Vanderbilt Law School and Yale Law School. Pucino said the drive isn’t limited to those schools. Plans are to make it “broad and national.”
The goal is to encourage the aspiring lawyers to flex their legal muscle, putting pressure on law firms that they’ll miss out on talent because these law school graduates will refuse to assist in any cases defending the firearm industry or Second Amendment rights. It’s a tall order.
“There’s certainly the case that the legal system allows for and encourages for everyone to have representation, of course,” Pucino conceded in an interview with The American Independent.
These ‘gun control’ groups might want to read Shakespeare’s Hamlet and flip forward to the line that reads, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”