The R9 has quickly taken over as my EDC.
But, somedays a man just needs to take a walk with his wheelguns. The special occasion today was the need for a new wheelgun to have some sighting in. A Circuit Judge carbine and a few boxes of .45 Colt had arrived at casa de Relic.
Todays carries were an original series S&W Model 66 (no dash) with tritium sights and Hogue monogrips riding in a Ross natural leather paddle. The BUG was another Smith (of course), a J-framed Model 438, with CT lasergrips riding in my offhand pocket in a Nemesis.
We ran a few errands and picked up some food, drinks and ammo for the Rossi then headed off to the farm. To sight in, I places a few "shoot and see" target at 25 yards and setup rested on an old wodden bench. I checked to ensure the thread protector choke was installed then took aim. The first round hit about 2" high and centered, putting a nice big hole in the target. Well, ok then, I can live with that...no adjustments needed. Round two went down range and slightly enlarged the first hole. Hmmm, lucky shooting I guess. Round three just nipped the holes of the first two. Really? I wasn't expecting that.
Four and five left the little carbine and met the others, leaving a single ragged hole a little over 1" across. 25 yards isn't much of a challenge for the tiny little Rossi/Taurus carbine, apparently. So I decided to switch chokes to the straight rifled one and try some .410. I fired a couple of patterns with #6 shot and was very satisfied with the coverage although I could see there was definately more spread that my full choked .410. The shot pattern was a couple inches lower than the .45 Colt hit, but that was an easy Kentucky windage adjustment, I didn't bother to adjust the factory sighting as we set up the clay thrower to see how the sub-five-pound carbine swings.
Rather than bore you with a clay-by-clay.
I'll say that between the four of us shooting we missed 4 clays out of 46. The carbine handled well as a shotty.
But what would one use it for? To be honest it needs more choke to reach out past 25-30 yards with shot, but that's plenty of range for squirrel or rabbit where we hunt here in SW Ohio. A few 45 LC shells in your pocket could take out a 'yote, groundhog, or even a small hog (haven't seen one here yet, but they're in the counties around us), if one popped up. But you'd have to change out the choke, which takes a minute.
I'll take it over to our 100yard range and let you know how it shoots at that range with the .45 ammo. Drop is going to be severe, I'd expect 5-6" or so. But that's based on hangun charts, the longer barrel should help a bit.
I'm going to give it a try this season on small game. It's shorter and about the same weight as my well-used antique single shot .410, but the full choke on that old gun is an advantage. We'll see how the Rossi(Taurus) compares.
Fun day with the wheelguns, for sure.
