Final part of what was
going to be a single post: although I love the Bulldog, all has not bee peaches and cream. In fact I recently got it back from the factory after it locked up: trigger would not retract, cylinder wouldn't turn unless the gun was turned upside down. To Charter's credit, total time from sending it to them to receiving it back was one week. The note said that they replaced the transfer bar.
The other issue has been leading. I've had to really scrub the barrel, and I mean back and forth, back and forth, enough to wear out a bore brush. I thought the bore looked a little bit like there might be some tool chatter in the rifling, so I tried to take a picture of that:
View attachment 238496
I asked them about it when I sent in the gun for the transfer bar issue, but they didn't address that concern. I wonder if there's anything I can do about it, or if I need to use copper plated or jacketed loads.
I'm also wondering about bullet weights. 200 grain bullets definitely shoot low, and I'm prepared to file the top of my front sight down if that weight is really the sweet spot for these revolvers, but would rather not permanently modify it if I might end up shooting a heavier weight bullet later. Xtreme is the only place I know of that has 200 grain copper plated bullets. RMR has only 240 grainers. Missouri sells both 200 and 240 grain coated bullets (I've been using the 200 gr.) What do most other people use? Besides what this revolver is going to do the most, plinking, part of the appeal of the Bulldog is emergency defense against black bears. I almost hesitate to mention this as I don't want to open up a big debate on what the best bear round is. Suffice it to say this: I'm not going to be strapping on a honking .44 Magnum that I don't even own just to go for a casual walk in the woods, but there have been some bear issues around here and something with a bit more penetration and larger wound channel than the .380 that I usually slip into my pocket might be comforting to have sometimes. Most bears are in the 200 pound range, but they can get up to 500 pounds here.
(Hope I didn't jinx the thread)
. But tried it SA and grouped shots in the center of the target well enough. I don't know what is causing me to shoot right in DA mode, though. So far, my most accurate load out of the Mag-Pug is an RCBS 38-148-WC fueled by 3.5 grains of E-3. I've yet to try the Lyman 358432 and Lyman 358430, however. I'm hoping the heavier bullets (a 160 gr WC and 200 gr RN respectively) will prove to be winners. I like heavy for caliber bullets in .38 and .357.
