Gun Owning Smokers

[Kenyth]

They all have hammers. Some are internal, some exposed.

I don't go out too often with my Model 36, but I can hit a target 10-15 yards pretty easily. Mine is also a 1 7/8" barrel. Some of my friends go to police shoots & compete. They use range guns probably similar to the one you described you have. I'm told there are a couple guys who show up with "snubbies" that out shoot them. They are accurate with the right load.

"It takes practice" is right.

Edited. I meant exposed hammer. Exposed hammers can be fixed if you prefer a DAO pistol, but like the price of an old used police revolver with an exposed hammer. My mother still has her old original used SW snubbie with the thumb lever ground off the external hammer. The thing probably has more use than an old military weapon, and is kept at the bottom of a purse filled with dust, but it never fails to fire every time. IF there's one thing you can say about .38 revolvers is that they are unfailing.

The worst pistol I ever owned was a Para-Ordnance P-10 (compact 1911 clone) chambered in .45 ACP. A powerful pistol in a small package for sure, but it jammed, a lot. It would stick when chambering a round due to the steep ramp from the magazine, and it would also occasionally catch spent brass in the ejection port due to the tenuous two finger pistol grip and heavy recoil snapping the pistol back with a lot of speed. A really hard grip on the pistol would prevent this, but it produced a lot of fatigue and affected accuracy. It looked cool but performed horribly. It should be noted that their larger frame pistols don't suffer these problems.