280PLUS
Member
A post to tell you all about my fairly recent trips to the S&W range to try the new lightweight revolvers. Well, naturally, i had to go for the model 360 .357 first. On the J frame and weighing in at 12 oz. loaded, the recoil of this weapon forced me to retrieve both my hands from off the floor behind me and reattach them to the bloody stumps of my arms. OK, I exaggerate but not by a whole lot. The closest thing I can compare it to is hitting a really fast hardball and the resulting bat sting. It's actually painful to shoot the thing. It snaps your wrists back farther than they're supposed to go. Another interesting drawback is that the recoil is so snappy it can actually cause the heads of the remaining rounds to work loose and slide out of the cylinder. In my case a loose projectile stopped the cylinder from rotating and effectively jammed the gun. So for those of you that insist on purchasing this weapon use nothing but PREMIUM ammo in it. Now me, on the other hand, I decide this is not what I want, the gun is small and light and very unobtrusive but the recoil... so after some thought, I return to the Range a few weeks later and explain all this to the counter folks and gee, its a great gun but it would be nice if it came in a lighter caliber. Out he comes with the model 331 .32 H&R Mag. Same set up but not so much of a cannon. I try this one and find it wholly manageable, comparable maybe to a regular weight .38. plus it has the added feature of holding 6 rounds as opposed to the 5 of the .357. So after that I chose the model 332, which is hammerless and goes in and out of my pants pocket with ease. The only drawbacks I find with this model are 1. the light color stains easily from firing and requires a little soaking and elbow grease to clean it up, 2. the finish can be rubbed off if you're not careful with your brushes, 3. I'm not crazy about the sights and would have prefered the HI-Vis sights. and 4. The ammo ain't cheap and can be hard to locate. Federal Hy-Shocks claim to leave the muzzle at 1100 fps which make it one of the faster rounds from them, so it packs a pretty good wallop. Additionally, the S&W rep tells me that the .32 won't smash through bone like the bigger rounds which lessens the chance of injuring innocents with a through and through shot. So check this weapon out. I hear S&W wants to discontinue it due to lack of interest but its still on the web site. If enough of us choose to fire this very adequate personal defense round, maybe the price will drop on it. I just love mine! Thanx!
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. The Texas Ammo solution is probably *better* than that by a little bit, as they "tuned it" for 2" carry guns...I saw some at last year's NRA convention and talked to them about it.
