Thursday, March 03, 2016

In The Mail

If there's one thing that is real common around PawPaw's crew, it's revolvers that shoot the .38 Special.  Many of them will also take the .357 magnum, but the .38 Special is a common caliber in our clan.  J-Frames, K-Frames, N-Frames, Colts, Rugers and Smiths, the .38 Special is owned by every family in my clan.  I'm sure that a lot of you have the same problem. (Not much of a problem, really.)

As all of you know, PawPaw and Milady are big fanatics in the CFDA, and we use single-action revolvers in .45 Long Colt.  It's perfectly safe to shoot wax in the back yard and we've been doing this for a year with absolutely no problem. But, we've still got our .38s.

Shooting the .45 Colt in the backyard with wax bullets is a lot of fun, but it limits us to that one caliber.  If someone wants to train with the .38 Special, it's a problem.  Understand, we're not trying to do CFDA shooting with the .38s, but there are a lot of simple drills that can be run with reduced power ammo.

As it turns out, CFDA makes .38 Special brass, specially cut so that a large pistol primer drops in the primer pocket.  They also sell .38 caliber wax bullets.  PawPaw ordered some.


That's fifty pieces of .38 special brass, cut or large pistol primers (drop-in) and 500 wax bullets.  It's kind of a starter pack for training in the backyard.

For those who might wonder, the description of these things is under the link.  The brass is cut so that a large pistol primer simply drops in to the primer pocket, not unlike our .45 LC brass accepts a shotgun primer. When the cylinder is closed, the primers are held in place by the recoil shield.  When you run through the cylinder, you simply eject the cartridges, the primer falls out, and you reload the brass with your thumb.

PawPaw is psyched.  This is going to be a lot of fun, and we'll be able to let the folks train on things like drawing from cover, double-taps, simple revolver manipulation that they might not get to do unless they're at a range that allows such things.  This won't take the place of live-fire training, but it will certainly complement live-fire training in a safe, backyard-friendly environment.

Hey, Termite.  A dozen of these things have your name on them.

7 comments:

The Displaced Louisiana Guy said...

Excelllleeeennnnttttt!


Can't wait!

Termite said...

Thank you, D. Got your money in my pocket.

I'm really looking forward to this.

I'm passing this on to my wife. I'll tell her that the "entry fee" to one of your Sunday afternoon shoots is to bring a gallon of iced tea and a platter of homemade cookies.

Sport Pilot said...

I'd be interested in learning the performance (distance/accuracy) difference between the modified drop in large pistol primer modified shells vs. standard small pistol primer shells. For backyard shooting it might prove handier to just run pre set up cartridges with small primers. Thanks for the tip though, I'll be running some tests here at my casa.

Miss Chelle said...

I happen to have a 38 special! Woop woop!

Miss Chelle said...

I happen to have a 38 special! Woop woop!

Rivrdog said...

CDFA "borrowed" an old idea. My dad had the plastic 38 rounds which took a small primer and their own plastic bullet. We'd take turns in the basement firing at tissue paper targets my mom made which dad pinned to a GI wool blanket hung from the overhead. He had a Detective Special, which, regrettably, I sold when he passed because it was not designed for hot defense loads.

Melissa said...

I'm pretty excited about this too! Can't wait til I don't have a gazillion exams! Great idea :)