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Anybody have and carry (sometimes) just a plain old 38sp

2244 Views 18 Replies 13 Participants Last post by  Garand
With all the exotic modern handguns that we talk about, I wonder if any of us owns and sometimes carrys one of the plain old cop guns from long ago. I have two. One is the Colt Cobra 2in that I bought from an elderly friend. The other is a 4in barrel S&W Victory model 38sp (US property marked). They are loaded with Federal HydroShoks and I carry them both (not at the same time) from time to time. Don't really know why, maybe just for nostalgia and a feeling of kinship to the people who owned and carried the guns in times long gone.

RIKA
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Yes. Mainly 5 shot revolvers. Just to handy to give up on them. HydraShok and Corbon 125s. Smith & Wesson bodyguard airweight stainless. I have wood smith grips and a Tyler-T grip adapter. Very compact and very light.

I realize it's not quite 'old', but bodyguard .38s have been around a while. I just perfer the newer stainless.

I do have a Smith M15, combat masterpiece, 38, that was a Dallas Police Department tradein. Shoots like a ultra match .45! It's real bad looking on the outside, perfect on the inside.
Yes, I have an old Smith&Wesson .38 Special Outdoorsman, the revolver from which the .357 Magnum was developed, It remarkably accurate and a real pleasure to shoot.
Heck, the gun I have on me most times when I go out is a S&W Airweight in .38 Special. It won't stop an elephant, but I think it would hurt someone if they got shot by it. I'd rather have a gun that is light enough that I am likely to have it with me at all times, rather than something that weighs me down, and I hope for an excuse not to have to carry it.
My girlfriend carries and is extremely competent with/ confident in her j-frame 38
S&W airweight, blacktalons are the carry load. I like my snubbie 445 Taurus 44spl.
SatCong
Hell, no. Gave up on full sized revolvers in the early

70s, and the snubbies in the early 80's. if you load a locked breech 380 properly, it has more poop, more contol, and is both lighter and smaller, much 'flatter" than a .38 snub, holds 7, and reloads 3x as fast, and the spare mag is a lot easier to ccw.
The only one was the Llama. A Spanish mini-1911. Small safety, small grips, VERY SMALL grip safety. No firingpin lock (so if you drop it on the muzzle the spanish pos would fire.) Plus it's a handload proposition. No factory ammo. And autos back in the 70s were no where as realiable as todays.

No gunkid, another losers gun. Keep trying though. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The .38 snubbie is common as dirt, cheap, works every time, and you can load it with snake shot in at least the first couple of cylinders for when you are hiking, or, in Arizona, for when you step out onto the back porch.
this is my feminem side showing!

as i had to elbow breasted woesman's out of the way[and she worked at the gun shop] when i bought my model 36 [ lady smith] less than $300


i bought it as a ass pocket 'fitz' jobber, [never had the heart , to bob hammer/trigger guard]

i had an old set of grips that hand fitted perfectly, and it snaps shoots, in my hand quite well .


go ahead and laugh, she is little miss deadly in my LEFT hand!



THANKS.
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No feminine side to you, Brass Hammer. Any gun that snap shoots that well is a keeper.

RIKA
Well Thank You Little Lady!

[[IN MY best JOHN WAYNE voice]]


thanks.
YES! I still do NOT like the idea of an autoloader as a carry gun. (I DO use them as a house gun, though.) My wheelguns are what I find are most likely to savemybutt in the worst possible conditions. My wife carries her Taurus Ultr-light 38SPL +P with her are all times. With a ~70% one-shot drop on NON-plusP ammo, we are pretty satisfied it will do the job almost as well as anything else - especially with the +P she carries. I carry the Taurus .357 Snubbie, BUT I load it with the 38SPL +P rounds when I'm in the car and it is the only gun I've got. I think I'd rather shoot a smaller powder charge in the confines of a vehicle and save my hearing at least a little bit!

New York cops could only carry a 38SPL for a long dang time and they had an 11-to-1 kill ratio. Not too bad odds. I haven't seen anything significantly better with ANY caliber out there in civilian carry arms. Has anyone else?

KJ
J-frame 3" loaded usually with wadcutters never could hold it right till I put some pachmeyers rubber grips on it great little gun w those!
I don't carry guns specifically chambered for .38 Spl., however with Mrostov's mention of the snake shot, I do carry shake shot in my .357s when I'm out in the yard.
going back a few years;a few (armed )jobs.I never felt naked in the presence of myine enemies when I was carrying an"outdated"model10 S&W heavy barrel.The only mods were an old Tyler grip adapter and a dot of luminous paint on the front sight.My carry load went back&forth between 158grSWCHP's and the old Cor Bon110's.WTH,it was a shooter....the "heavy"4 inch tube made it point naturally for me.Made a pretty good club on occasion :twohammer
why bother? M21 .22 can handle anything a .38 can,&

it has other uses, as well. The .38 aint worth owning,much less carrying. At least the M21 CAN be suppressed, and it conceals in a shirtpocket, unlike the .38. Why settle for a feeble load, and a fragile gun when it has no other features to make it worth considering?
223 fan said:
Why settle for a feeble load, and a fragile gun when it has no other features to make it worth considering?
Like the M21? the cobbled Star?
Weakest argument I ever heard for the M21. A quality 38 revolver is light years ahead of a cobbled up pos M21.

RIKA
There are millions of .38 Special S&W revolvers on the face of this earth. Very simply, if an opponent is armed with one, he/she has 6 opportunities to end your life.
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