For well over ten years I carried a .44 revolver, eventually upgrading to the pistol of my dreams, a S&W Model 69 .44 Magnum.
The M69 is, in my opinion, the (almost) perfect trail gun: Light enough to carry all the time without too much hassle but capable of chambering and safely firing the heaviest magnum loads (if necessary: You won’t like it but you can do it.) The one thing I didn’t like about it, and this always perplexed me because it otherwise seemed designed for trail use, was the tiny trigger guard that forbade use with even unlined gloves.
A couple of years ago I began rather sadly questioning the need to walk around all the time with 3 pounds of iron and an assortment of .44 loads. This place has gotten kind of boring, to be honest: All the interesting animals have gone away. I wasn’t going to go unarmed, that doesn’t suit me, but I got to thinking maybe it was time to downgrade to a general-purpose 9mm. A good pound lighter, 17-round mag, no need for speedloaders, good for anything but maybe bears – and nobody’s seen a bear around here since 2011. In April of this year, courtesy of my friend Ian, I finally acquired one. Arex Delta Gen II. Took some breaking-in but we finally became friends.
Then winter started sneaking up on me and the question arose: How does this thing work with gloves? And the answer was…
Well, it works better than the S&W. Not quite what I would have designed but it does work. The trigger safety is a bit of a bother.
And this morning, standing on the porch just prior to the first pee, I got my chance to try it for real. Tobie was bothered by this cottontail in the yard which wasn’t the least bit bothered by him. Tobie, bless his heart, didn’t just charge off after the rabbit. He wanted to, but obeyed his training and didn’t do it. But this stupid rabbit just stood there, unaware and/or uncaring about the disruption in procedure it was causing. I keep the magazine loaded with tragically expensive super ammo but the chamber has one round of cheap FMJ just for situations like this. Not even thinking about the glove situation until I’d done it, I drew and fired from the porch. And even though I was wearing a lightly-lined glove it didn’t cause any problem at all.
So that’s a problem that’s gone away. Couldn’t do it with a heavy glove, but the most common sort don’t get in my way.
Went out and cleaned up the mess after breakfast, carrying it out to the wash to make some coyote’s day. One of the things I always held against Elmer Keith, whose work on pistols I’ve read fairly extensively over the decades, is how casual he seemed about using live animals for target practice. I get it, we’re from different cultures but I don’t like killing things for sport. This rabbit had moved into my yard, though, and had to go or he’d always be upsetting my dog. Had the same problem with Little Bear, who never learned not to chase them when we were supposed to be doing other things, and sometimes I had to go around and clean them out of the yard with a .22. Maybe it’s time to do that, they seem to be getting common again.