Looking for some carry revolver advice

[Speederlander]

So, looking for a little feedback.

I'm carrying a S&W 327 PC 8-shot snub revolver. It's a heavier ultralight, coming in at 23 oz loaded, 20.5 oz empty. It's a bigger frame revolver but with my Nill combat grips it really conceals nicely.
I have a TK Custom bobbed speed hammer, full action job by TK (w/extended firing pin) and a silky smooth pull at about 8.5 lbs (from an original 11 lbs or so). With this action job, the gun still lights off everything.
Due to the mass of the gun, I can comfortably shoot 38 wadcutters all day long with no issues. Most 357 loads with good ballistics out of a 2 inch barrel are slightly painful with this gun (and not practiced much) and/or demonstrate poor expansion characteristics. Wadcutters are obviously a compromise. I shoot the gun a lot and I prefer to carry what I practice with.

I prefer revolvers to semi-autos because I'm not in gang areas and I consider a surprise up-close-and-personal encounter much more likely than ending up in a shooting. Revolver allows contact shooting, pocket carry in a coat, etc. The usual arguments.

On to my question.
For this N-frame revolver, the heavily bobbed competition speed hammer increases the velocity of the striking surface and combined with the extended firing pin allows you to achieve lighter trigger pull weights while maintaining reliability than you can achieve with only springs and/or a basic action job. One of the benefits of a larger frame S&W with its leaf spring vs a J-frame is the ability to tune the trigger to a much better weight while keeping it reliable, as long as you do a complete action job, reduce the hammer mass, etc. I can pretty easily get the trigger pull to an even better approximate 6 to 6.5 lbs while maintaining a good rebound, but that limits me to factory federal ammunition (should be no need for handloaded well-seated federal primers) for guaranteed ignition reliability.

I would only carry the federal gold medal match wadcutters at that point.....but I would have 8 of them. Does that seem sufficient? Obviously the gun would still be extensively tested with the chosen federal carry ammunition just to be safe.

Should I leave well enough alone and keep the 8.5lb trigger with hotter non-federal ammo (basically Buffalo Bore hard cast wadcutter) or standardize on the federal match wadcutters ONLY with the lighter trigger. I know it is personal preference as much as anything, but I figured I would gather some group wisdom on this.

[Totem Polar]

Die-hard wheelie guy here. 8.5 is plenty light. I would not go lighter for two reasons: one, as you note, you start to self-select away from the ability to use a wide variety of ammunition (including cheap, foreign practice fodder) thus negating one big strength of wheelguns. Second, you open yourself up to courtroom accusations of going rogue by lightening the trigger to a point well below factory specs/factory recommendations, should you actually be involved in an incident. Probably not the end of the world, but why add the price of a reliable used car to your defense for a few pounds? Smoothness over weight, and it sounds like you’re there already. JMO.

[Speederlander]

Die-hard wheelie guy here. 8.5 is plenty light. I would not go lighter for two reasons: one, as you note, you start to self-select away from the ability to use a wide variety of ammunition (including cheap, foreign practice fodder) thus negating one big strength of wheelguns. Second, you open yourself up to courtroom accusations of going rogue by lightening the trigger to a point well below factory specs/factory recommendations, should you actually be involved in an incident. Probably not the end of the world, but why add the price of a reliable used car to your defense for a few pounds? Smoothness over weight, and it sounds like you’re there already. JMO.

I hear you on the trigger. What do think about carry ammo? Right now I have 8 rounds of the BB wadcutters. I practice pretty extensively with the federal match WCs though (range, classes, etc.). Regardless of the trigger, do you think the federal WC is a "good enough" round for carry?

[BehindBlueI's]

Personally, I would not lower the trigger weight outside of factory specs for a carry gun. It's very unlikely to be an issue in criminal court. It might be an issue in civil court. If you carry a revolver because you anticipate your hypothetical shooting being up close, what's the lighter pull get you? Are you not making good hits in your hypothetical encounter distance now?

[TGS]

I would evaluate it by using metrics.

Is the trigger somehow limiting you? What does the timer and scoring rings say?

If not, don't fuck with it.

ETA:

As for ammo, this works well out of snubs while not being as harsh as 357s. It meets DocGKRs stringency and is one of his recommended loads: http://www.winchesterle.com/Products...ges/RA38B.aspx

See Doc's post here for further info/recommendations: https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....0-ACP-vs-38-Sp

[L-2]

My opinion is Post 1 is academic and is over-analyzing a scenario.

I think there were three questions from Post 1:

-Is Buffalo Bore wadcutter ammo "sufficient"?

-Is Federal Gold Medal Match ammo "sufficient"?

For both ammo types/brands/models I don't know the ballistics regarding any tests compared to the standard FBI ammo tests. Other considerations might be if there is another commercially-produced JHP round available, perhaps with the same or better ballistics. A JHP round may allow an easier/faster reload, if necessary, due the rounds' bullet shape when trying to reload a revolver.

I believe this forum's DocGKR has generally ok'd .38 Special wadcutters as being acceptable, but I thought it was concerning non+P loadings. I'd have to go back and study his posts & opinions again, however.

Another thing regarding ballistics, which I don't have knowledge, is any kind of barrier penetration ability/effectiveness of a wadcutter.

The threat/shooting scenario is rather fixed. I suspect the scenario is too fixed and should encompass more possibilities such as shooting through some barriers, whether wood or automobile glass or doors, whatever might be found in one's area of operation (walking from car to office; walking the dog; etc.).

The way I interpret the scenario is a short undefined distance between two people, with no barriers other than, perhaps, clothing.


-Is an 8.5 pound trigger pull ok or is 6.5 pounds better?

Trigger pull weight is personal and subject to ammo and firearm reliability, along with the shooter's abilities. My Glocks' nominal trigger pulls are at 5.5 pounds, yet I don't believe either a 8.5 or 6.5 pound pull is somehow better. With any gun and shooter, there will likely be a trade-off on split-speed and accuracy.

Overall, the existing ammo and firearm appear adequate for the user/poster. Slight modifications of the trigger pull and ammo are ok, but should be tested to one's satisfaction. I wouldn't know if a given ammo is going to or not going to go bang because the trigger pull was dropped to 6.5 pounds from 8.5 pounds and how long this reliability will last. There is also no control over any unknown changes from a given factory's ammo.

Just my thoughts.

[Alpha Sierra]

You have a 357 Magnum handgun. Feed it 357 Magnum ammunition.

[03RN]

My wife and I use the 130 grain +p Winchester bonded Rangers in her 2" and 4" .38s. Its my favorite followed by the 125 + p golden sabers.

That's for .38s though. I see no reason not to use .357s in full sized guns.

Silvertip a, golden sabers, Barnes bullets etc all work.

Go here

https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/rev...llistics-test/

There's 10 loads I'd have no problem using in a 2" gun. Plus 6 or 7 .38s. They all penatrate and expand.

[FrankB]

My wife and I use the 130 grain +p Winchester bonded Rangers in her 2" and 4" .38s. Its my favorite followed by the 125 + p golden sabers.
That's for .38s though. I see no reason not to use .357s in full sized guns.
Silvertip a, golden sabers, Barnes bullets etc all work.
Go here
https://www.luckygunner.com/labs/rev...llistics-test/
There's 10 loads I'd have no problem using in a 2" gun. Plus 6 or 7 .38s. They all penatrate and expand.

I was using Remington Golden Saber 125 +p before seeing Chris’s tests, and I’m sticking with them. Chris did a great service to the carry community with his testing, and really deserves a pat on the back.

8-.8.5# on a silky trigger for is fine by me.

[OlongJohnson]

The literature has conflicts on trigger pull weight. The general recommendation is to not go below factory specifications, but some factories don't have specifications for trigger pull weight. They may use other metrics, such as primer indentation depth.

It is possible to find recommendations for trigger pull weight ranges that suggest about 8.5 lb for a DA pull is an appropriate and defensible weight, but the same expert will generally say to stay within factory specs. If a DA gun was delivered with an 11+ lb pull weight, that's a conflict. Especially if that same expert is on record saying that NY Glock-style pull weights are unnecessary and in fact create additional risk due to the difficulty of shooting them accurately.

One well-respected expert recommends against lightening the trigger, but is on record saying he's never seen a trigger alleged to be a problem due to it being too smooth. However, reducing friction by smoothing, but not changing the springs at all, will still reduce the force required to move the trigger.

My personal approach has so far been to maximize smoothness, minimize friction and leave factory springs as they come. There may be unreasonably heavy springs in the world, but I generally feel that installing lighter springs before reducing friction is a backward approach.

I also think it's wise for a firearm that may be used for serious purposes to be able to reliably light any ammo that could happen to be loaded in it given the nearly infinite variability of circumstances the world offers, which is any ammo that fits.

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Specific to your 327 with its Ti cylinder, sticking with lighter loads or heavy for caliber bullets with magnum loads is advisable to minimize risk of flame cutting. 125gr Magnums are not your friend. I have a thread in the reloading forum about exactly that.