Wife's new sp101

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E.D.P

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Wanted to get my wife a carry gun. She's a stay at home mom and travels the city a lot with our kids, so we decided it was time to pull the trigger, Las Vegas is a beautiful and secure city, but things happen everyday. She picked out a sp101 in 9mm. I'm happy that she can defend herself if need be. Next up CCW class . Does anyone else have this gun? Any advice? We are going to have the hammer shaved a bit to keep it from snagging on her clothes. Is there a certain ammo that is really good with this Revolver?


(Sorry ment to post this in the revolvers forum)
 

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Nice revolver. :thumbup:

When you say, "going to have the hammer shaved a bit", you mean taking the hammer spur all the way off? I'm all for it on a close range self defense handgun. I'd make sure your wife is good with pulling the trigger from double action first, though.
 
I have an older SP101 in 9mm, good shooting revolver. Mine has a little heavier trigger than my 357 SP. Probably need to spend more time dry firing it.....
 
Yeah our gun guy has the same gun and he shaved his down about half way, really just rounded it off, we are going to go out with him so she can try using his to gauge how much to take off. But I agree, this will be a close range gun.
 
I'm not really a snub wheelgun type of guy, but you chose a good one. A bit of caution on shaving the hammer- my understanding is that since doing this causes a weight reduction in the hammer, that there is a CHANCE that a loss of kinetic energy may result in light strikes. Maybe the wheel gun guys can explain this better, or if its a myth.
 
Why 9mm?

Was it just what they happened to have in stock?

Did she shoot the 38 Special (+P) SP101 with the 2.25" barrel? Did she just like the 9mm better?
 
E.D.P said:
Yeah she liked 9mm better
Click to expand...

You're a smart man. Comfort and familiarity are better than theoretical advantages on a sheet of paper. When push comes to shove a gun that works and that the shooter likes beats any alternative.

I have an sp101 and it's great. Mine is in .357 and it's a hoot. Great gun, great weight for actually shooting, and it's just a dang solid piece. I love it.

Regarding the hammer, you should practice concealing and drawing before you do so. I considered getting a bobbed hammer, but I never did after I tried it out. It's extremely easy to use the spurred hammer and it never really snagged for me due to my grip hand masking the hammer on the draw anyways.
 
If she can learn to shoot it DA only (in close) all the time - then bob the hammer - otherwise just lightly break all of the edges on the hammer's spur with a stone. They will be sharp and snag on stuff out of the box. But she needs to run it for a while until she is confident with her DA skills. My wife carried and shot a S&W M 36 for about 7 years and then she got one of the first SP 101s on the market. And if she decides that somebody needs to be shot - it's going to be DA - and she's going to hit them where it counts.
 
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The gun will work with the "bobbed" hammer. Ruger offers (or use to) a fully bobbed DAO hammer. When the weight is reduced the speed of the lightened hammer more than makes up for less weight. Apex Tactical, for instance, offers very light hammers for S&W revolvers.
 
E.D.P, I have a 3" 9MM SP101, and a 2" S&W 940. Don't know if you and she have prior experience with the little 9MM revolvers, so I'll just mention that the 9MM cartridge is a bit more boisterous than many might imagine. Even standard pressure 9MM exceeds the ballistics of any 38 +P I have choreographed in 2" barrels. My SP101 handles 9MM +P and +P+ without issue, but recoil starts to get more like .357 in these little guns with this ammo. Might want to consider standard pressure practice and carry ammo, at least at first. The chunky/relatively heavy little SP101s handle recoil well, but with the more energetic 9MM ammo, recoil and muzzle blast get to be noticeable.......ymmv

Little 9mm Revolvers (3) (1).JPG
 
E.D.P, glad to hear that the Mrs. is being proactive in defense of the kids and herself. The SP101 should serve her well.
 
Very nice gun your wife chose. I like the idea of the 9mm in the 25 oz. SP-101 since it's powerful enough, cheap to practice with and won't beat you up like the 357mags might in a light gun. I love my 2 GP-100 357mags but they're a little bulky to CC. I would think they could have built it with a higher capacity but I guess one more round doesn't make much difference anyway. It might be a good one to buy for my wife and if she doesn't like it I'll just take it off her hands for her.;)
 
I would try different grains in 9mm to see which one works best, I assume a HP+P would be a good defense round
 
I don't think there is a particular ammo tailored to the SP101 revolver. I think any ammo that tests well out of a 3" semi-auto will perform about the same out of the SP101. Part of the chamber in the cylinder acts like a free-bore. There are some guys on this forum who have the free bore versus cylinder gap plus barrel length figured out exactly, I don't but I am confident that ammo that does well in a 3" semi-auto would do well out of the SP101 revolver as well.

Federal HST in 124gr and 147gr always performs well in standard and +P pressures, out of short-barreled guns and duty pistols also.

If recoil is really a problem, there is Hornady Critical Defense Lite. Hornady states that this round produces 27% less felt recoil than "standard loads." The downside though is that the 100gr Hornady Critical Lite bullet performs about as well as your average 380 ACP. It produced about 10 inches of penetration in the FBI Heavy Clothing test.
 
C0untZer0 said:
I don't think there is a particular ammo tailored to the SP101 revolver. I think any ammo that tests well out of a 3" semi-auto will perform about the same out of the SP101. Part of the chamber in the cylinder acts like a free-bore. There are some guys on this forum who have the free bore versus cylinder gap plus barrel length figured out exactly, I don't but I am confident that ammo that does well in a 3" semi-auto would do well out of the SP101 revolver as well.

Federal HST in 124gr and 147gr always performs well in standard and +P pressures, out of short-barreled guns and duty pistols also.

If recoil is really a problem, there is Hornady Critical Defense Lite. Hornady states that this round produces 27% less felt recoil than "standard loads." The downside though is that the 100gr Hornady Critical Lite bullet performs about as well as your average 380 ACP. It produced about 10 inches of penetration in the FBI Heavy Clothing test.
Click to expand...

The 150gr Federal HST Micro has less recoil and muzzle flash. This maybe of benefit.
 
Dunno about the 9mm but my wife has a 4" SP101.357 for a bedside piece. She runs 158 gr .38s in it. She has grip strength issues so I installed a Wolff spring kit, did some gentle rubbing on it, and got it down to around 8 lbs DA. She absolutely loves that gun now, the trigger is butter smooth and the heft soaks up .38s easy. It made the piece a lot more accurate for her. Between the two of us there has to be over 1000 rounds thru it with never a light strike. She likes it so much it's hard to find a light carry size revolver (or bottom feeder) for her now as she compares everything to the hefty doctored.357.
 
It may help if person is able to pull the trigger when situation warranting it arises. If there is hesitation and opponent has a gun it turns i to big liability ie death or severe bodily injury.
 
C0untZer0, I agree that ammo that performs well in a 3" semi-auto will likely perform well in a revolver with similar barrel length. I admit that I don't have free bore vs. cylinder gap,etc, figured out, but the chronograph routinely educates me.

For instance, chronographed velocities with the Federal 124 HST +P mentioned were 1166 FPS in my 3.5" semi-auto, 1291 FPS in the 3" Ruger revolver. And "only" 1195 FPS in a 2" revolver......
 
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