A blustery early-April day here at the Gulch…
I dressed far too thinly for the morning walkie, the wind at the top of the ridge had me shivering halfway through. So I started looking for indoor activities.
Perusing Gunbloggers, I came on an article shilling a company that sells kydex holsters for red-dot-equipped S&W revolvers. Happens I have one of those and it needs a new holster. Unfortunately the holster this company sells is only for the snubby version and I’m not paying $90 for that. Got me thinking, though…
I have this…
A Fobus holster I’ve had for a really long time. I cut it down for my old Taurus 431.
Then it turned out to fit the (frame of) the Taurus Tracker…
…and it got used thus until I acquired a better leather holster. Which also happened to (mostly) fit the Model 69.
But that was going on eight years ago and leather holsters wear out. This one was well on the way before I cut it last summer to accommodate the red dot. It’s getting pretty decrepit: Won’t stay still on my belt and the thumb break is so floppy it gets in the way of reholstering.
I dug around in my box’o’holsters and found that old Fobus gathering dust. If it fit the Tracker it should fit the S&W. But would it get in the way of the red dot?
Not really! A tiny bit of excision with a Dremel, and it fit just fine.
Of course I’m no happier with this than I would have been with that $90 snubby holster – or let’s say I’m $90 happier but not especially happy. Not nearly enough protection for my beloved Model 69. Someday I’m going to find somebody who makes custom kydex – that wouldn’t involve me sending my beloved Model 69 out in the mail – and maybe then I’ll get a proper new holster.
In the meantime I’ve been wondering if carrying the .44 is even appropriate anymore. The Gulch is – I say with a bit of sadness – quite a lot tamer than it used to be. The feral dog problem is long in the past. I barely remember the last time I saw a mountain lion. The coyotes are very polite. I kind of lamented to myself just the other day, “I haven’t killed anything in years.” The rare occasions when I actually fire a gun for serious these days, I’m just making noise to get a rude but not threatening animal moving out of my way. Hell, I could do that with the Makarov, which weighs a lot less than the .44. Truth is I’ve been carrying the Mak a lot more often these days, just because it’s less hassle overall.
Don’t let your guard down.
If you do something will likelu happen to make you regret it….
Haven’t heard anything about the goats lately.
Is that a good sign?
Or a bad sign?
And of course, once you retire the 44 you’ll run into something that requires, shall we say ” a little more persuasion” than the Makarov provides
The goats haven’t been a problem lately. Maybe the goat people got tired of losing social credit or something.
Word gets around. In time all those varmints have learned to watch their step around The Man Called Joel.
Or maybe they starved to death, based on Joel’s previous report.
Nobody complains about having too much gun when its needed
It’s one thing, Joel, for we the readers to tell you this or that is the best course of action regarding carrying a gun. The reality is that you are the one who has to do a risk assessment because it’s your ass on the line, not ours.
The questions you need to answer are what threats are you carrying a gun to protect yourself against and how often do those threats happen. And, when you ask these questions, shun wishful thinking and avoid hear-say answers.
Remember, your personal security is two different things: it’s a feeling, and it’s a reality. And they’re different. The object is to base your decision on reality, not fantasy.
One nice thing about revolvers is that they give you a great deal of flexibility. You can feed them inexpensive, cast reloads. You can shoot mid-range or thumper loads.
Semi-autos…well, not so much. They can be fussy. Some of them refuse to feed anything except hard-ball.
From what you have written, you carry different ammo in different chambers of your wheel-gun. If you want noise, you just pull the trigger. If you want BANG-FLOP you index the cylinder three, maybe four clicks and let it rip. Can’t do that with a semi-auto.
And a pussy-cat .44 is far more persuasive than a maximum, FMJ, 9.3mm Mak round.
Ultimately, it comes down to flexibility vs. weight