Speed Six or S&W 66

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I have both (a 2 1/2" 66). Usually I carry the 66 with +P+. If I feel the need for magnums I carry the Ruger.
 
I also have both. A 3" speed six and a 3" 66-1. I rotate between them since they share the same holsters, though they do not use the same speed loader so I always have to check.
The S&W is a *little* lighter and a *little* thinner. It's not much but you can feel it when wearing it.
The S&W has a replaceable front sight, which I took advantage of and of course the adjustable rear, which I haven't found to really snag for me. That being said the Ruger shoots on point with my practice and carry loads with the fixed sight.
The S&W trigger is better, that's probably its main advantage over the Ruger though my speed six is well broken in and I think it has an acceptable trigger - just not like the M66.
The S&W has a considerably longer extractor than the Ruger, though both are 3". Definitely an advantage when carrying .357.
There are many more grip options for the S&W, though both of these are wearing Badgers because I like how they fit my hand.
I really like the way the Ruger comes apart for thorough cleaning. Really neat design, whole trigger assembly drops out the bottom.

In my usage, the Ruger gets the majority of my practice time to keep wear and tear off the more valuable gun. I don't hesitate to carry it at all, but the S&W has tangible advantages for carry which I've outlined. It's the better gun - but it's probably not twice as good and definitely not three times.

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A Model 66, especially with a 3" barrel, would be tough to walk away from! I also had a Ruger Speed Six and that was one very capable revolver as well. Really couldn't go wrong with either one of them.
 
Mavracer,

We have to agree to disagree.
Your argument only works if you shoot .357 ammo heavier than 125 grain sjhp. I do not. The heavy bullets are meant for hunting and I use my .357's primarily for self defense so all my shooting is done with 110 grain and 125 grain ammo. I also want it as a companion piece to a .357 magnum carbine.

Jim
 
TransAmConvert said:
I also have both. A 3" speed six and a 3" 66-1. I rotate between them since they share the same holsters, though they do not use the same speed loader so I always have to check.
The S&W is a *little* lighter and a *little* thinner. It's not much but you can feel it when wearing it.
The S&W has a replaceable front sight, which I took advantage of and of course the adjustable rear, which I haven't found to really snag for me. That being said the Ruger shoots on point with my practice and carry loads with the fixed sight.
The S&W trigger is better, that's probably its main advantage over the Ruger though my speed six is well broken in and I think it has an acceptable trigger - just not like the M66.
The S&W has a considerably longer extractor than the Ruger, though both are 3". Definitely an advantage when carrying .357.
There are many more grip options for the S&W, though both of these are wearing Badgers because I like how they fit my hand.
I really like the way the Ruger comes apart for thorough cleaning. Really neat design, whole trigger assembly drops out the bottom.

In my usage, the Ruger gets the majority of my practice time to keep wear and tear off the more valuable gun. I don't hesitate to carry it at all, but the S&W has tangible advantages for carry which I've outlined. It's the better gun - but it's probably not twice as good and definitely not three times.

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My Speedloaders (HKS and Safariland) work in my K frames and my Sixes.
 
golden said:
Mavracer,

We have to agree to disagree.
Your argument only works if you shoot .357 ammo heavier than 125 grain sjhp. I do not. The heavy bullets are meant for hunting and I use my .357's primarily for self defense so all my shooting is done with 110 grain and 125 grain ammo. I also want it as a companion piece to a .357 magnum carbine.

Jim
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What is the logic behind the "heavier for hunting"
A bullet effective for a 200# animal wearing deerskin wouldn't work on a 200# animal in a leather jacket and viscera?
There are plenty of 357 loads suitable for SD easily digested by a properly functioning K frame that are more powerful than 38+p if a person chooses to and my Marlin 357 shoots just fine with it so I'm not sure what the relevance of that would be.
 
TransAmConvert said:
Upon further review, the K-frame speed loader (K2C) works in both, but the Ruger speed loader (R4C) doesn't work in the K-frame. These are safariland comp IIs.
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i didn’t even know they made Ruger specific ones. I just always bought K frame ones. I can even use my K frame speedloaders in both L frames and my Ruger GP100
 
v8 stang,

When I last took it to the range, I started with 130 grain Air Force/fmj loads. They are very mild and fun to shoot, but useless for defense. Then I switched to 125 grain REMINGTON sjhp, which I enjoy shooting and can use as a defense load. Then I loaded my usual 110 grain jhp and the cylinder stopped rotating after 3 rounds and I could not open the cylinder. I put it down (it was really hot) and after about 10 minutes, shot some more +P out of it. No problem, but I wrote it off as a .357. Since I have several of the RUGER Security Six family, GP-100 family and S&W L-frame and never have any problems like this, I sold the S&W 19.

Mavracer,

The police and law enforcement agencies settled on the 125 grain .357 load because it IS NOT A DEEP PENETRATER and proved more effective in use than the 158 grain loads. A hunting load for deer will benefit from deep penetration and if the round overpenetrates, that increases the blood loss and gives a bigger blood trail.
Also, humans and deer are not built the same, it is an apples to oranges comparison.
The most effective self defense/ law enforcement rounds do not penetrate deeply. The +P+ 9m.m. and 110 and 125 grain .357 magnum loads, earned great reputations for stopping gun fights, the 158 grain did not.

As for my K-frame, the loads that I use for self defense DID NOT WORK IN MY K-frame.

The correct HKS speed loader for the RUGER Security Six family is the M3 loader that was meant for the COLT revolvers as well.


Jim
 
This is one of those "it depends" answers. First, I'm up to my armpits in Ruger "Six" revolvers so I'd choose the S&W 66. But if you were going to put me in a post-apocalyptic world with a couple of cases of hot magnum loads, I'd take the Ruger every time. If it was going to be a no-dash and I'm in my sunset years, the S&W 66 wins a little in the "classy" category. If it's a gun in going to carry, the Ruger 3-inch Speed-Six gets the nod.

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Speed-Six_5.jpg

What about the Ruger Security-Six 2.75-inch revolver? That's a hard one to pass up. The Ruger is far more durable, even when there's a cut-off section of the 6 o'clock part. Why that is mystifies me as both forcing cones appear to be about the same size. There's something about the Rugers that make them hard to kill.

Security-Six_HB.jpg

I've told this before, so if you've heard it, just go to the end.

I knew a guy who was a techie at the NRA back in the late 70s. He did an article on .357s and it featured an entire page of them. The originally bought a S&W 19 that he really enjoyed, but he liked shooting hot .357 125gr JHPs out of. After roughly 2,000 rounds of them through it (and a bunch of .38s), the gun went out of time. So he had it re-timed after which he fired another 2,000+ through it (and more .38s). When he attempted to repair it, he noticed the forcing cone erosion and not only was it out of time, the frame had warped. He was able to fix it well enough to shoot .38s through, but its days of firing any .357s through were gone. That's when he bought a stainless steel Ruger Security-Six. He ground off the grips to take rounded ones and he took an orange piece of plastic and made his own front sight. Then he proceeded to shoot tens of thousands of hot magnum rounds through the Ruger and when I left the organization, he was still pumping them out, and I mean by that the hot stuff.

At the time, the cop-killer bullets controversy was underway and a well known gun writer had contacted us to let us know that 125gr .357 ammo was poking holes in bullet-resistant vests worn by cops, and the last thing we needed was for the news media to find out about it. There was a huge push to ban armor-piercing ammo. The media wanted to ban it as a foot in the door to other types of ammo and they didn't care how many cops who died in the process. (The bad guys started shooting police in the head; they didn't shoot them with armor-piercing ammo.) We knew if the media found out about the .357 stuff, they'd try to ban it, and that's all we needed. Fortunately, modern armor stands up to the lighter .357 quite well, though it's not pleasant. The fact is, the NRA was trying to save the lives of cops and the media wasn't. But it was a closely guarded secret. My point is, the 125gr JHP/JSP rounds were rough on guns and armor. And the Rugers stood up to it far better than the S&Ws. The blast leeches the carbon out of steel, which causes damage to guns. But stainless steel contains chromium, which resists flame cutting and erosion.
 
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golden said:
The +P+ 9m.m. and 110 and 125 grain .357 magnum loads, earned great reputations for stopping gun fights, the 158 grain did not.
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You do realize that that trope is from Evan Marshall's made up one shot stop statistics and isn't based on factual data.
Not that light and fast don't work most of the time, but the problem is when it fails it tends to fail miserably.
LEO hasn't used revolvers since the mid 80s, the Miami shootout happened in 86 by then most LEO had gone away from full house 357. HWFE was published in 1989 so really even your misinformation is outdated.
 
Mavracer,

No, I do not know that and the data I am talking about is from my agency which went through the .38+P+ (which worked great sometimes), the .357 magnum, either 110 grain or 125 grain jhp (which worked very well) and the 9m.m. +P+ which I choose to carry. The +P+ 9m.m., worked great for my agency and also was the chosen load of other law enforcement agencies which had nothing bad to say about it.
We did not stop using .357 magnum or in my case, 9+P+, till we were issued .40 caliber BERETTA 96D Brigadier pistols in about 1996.

You are wildly misinformed about the use of revolvers by law enforcement.

My agency issued me a S&W model 13 with a 3 inch barrel in 1993. They were still issuing them two years later, before we went to the .40 caliber. They were supposedly from FBI buys (but the FBI now wanted an auto and bought the awful S&W 1076 pistols). After we switched, I was told we gave them to the U.S. Marshall's.

Jim
 
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golden said:
... The .357 magnum, either 110 grain or 125 grain jhp (which worked very well), and the 9mm +P+, which I choose to carry. The +P+ 9mm worked great for my agency and also was the chosen load of other law enforcement agencies which had nothing bad to say about it. We did not stop using .357 magnum or in my case, 9mm +P+, till we were issued .40 caliber BERETTA 96D Brigadier pistols in about 1996. ...
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The problem with the 110gr JHP .357 was that it tended to come apart in heavy clothing and, of course, it had issues with penetration. The thing the Highway Patrol just loved about the .357 back in the 1930s was penetration. They needed something that would punch through vehicles, and the 158gr round nose .38Spc, especially out of their off-duty 2-inch barrels, just didn't do the job. But the .357 did everything the .38 didn't. And even though the original factory loads have been tailored down a bit, the .357 factory loads of today (and the reloads) are phenomenal. But the 110gr JHP have proven just too underwhelming. In fact, I don't know why they're even manufactured. They are hard on guns with flame-cutting in blast areas and in the forcing cone erosion. If some bad guy is wearing light clothing, the 110gr is just ferocious as a manstopper, but then, so are factory and handloads using 125gr and handloads using Speer 140gr JHPs. People who want to have good defensive ammo can use 125-140gr JHP, and those who hunt can use 140-158gr bullets (JHP/JSP).

Massad Ayoob loves the 125gr JHP and has even used it to hunt deer, citing massive wounds to game. It seems to be the proverbial "magic bullet" in being able to do so many things well. He also cites numerous cases where people are hit in non-vital areas of their bodies and are taken out of the fights. The 125gr JHP also does a decent job in penetrating cars and other vehicles on the road. When I did a lot more traveling years ago, my 4-inch Security-Six was the gun I always carried in the glove compartment. Today I might (might) opt for a hi-cap 9mm, but a .357 magnum revolver would be a gun I certainly would consider.

My agency issued me a S&W model 13 with a 3 inch barrel in 1993. They were still issuing them two years later, before we went to the .40 caliber. They were supposedly from FBI buys (but the FBI now wanted an auto and bought the awful S&W 1076 pistols). After we switched, I was told we gave them to the U.S. Marshall's.
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The S&W 13 is a wonderful classic handgun. I used to recommend them to people who wanted a good drawer gun and didn't have a lot of experience with firearms. They had a classy look, the S&W logo stamped in the sideplate, and was dependable as you could get. The Ruger was just as good, though.

--
 
Confederate,

My experience with the model 13 was quite different. In my class at the academy, 46 model 13's were issued, about 10 to 12 of them had issues. Mine had the sideplate screws overtorqued. At least one of them went out of time and was spitting bullet fragments. Another just froze up and the officer could not fire a shot. Overall, I think the model 13 suffered from the same problems as the model 19. It was a great .38 Special revolver, easy to carry on and off duty, but not up to continued use of .357 ammo.

My agency had good luck with the 110 grain .357. No complaints from the field that I ever heard of. The great advantage of the 110 grain load was that it split the difference between .38 Special +P recoil and the 125 grain .357 recoil with it being closer to the .38 Special. I found little difference between the recoil of the +P 158 .38 Special load and the 110 grain jhp .357 magnum load, except for the greater effectiveness of the 110 grain load.
The 125 grain load was MUCH HARDER ON THE SHOOTER AND THE GUN. We had a model 13 split the forcing cone when shooting 125 grain ammo. We never had this problem with the 110 grain ammo. The 125 grain ammo is louder and has a stronger recoil. I was reminded of this when testing some .38 Special and .357 magnum ammo in a RUGER Security Six and a GP-100. I loaded 3 of each into a cylinder and spun it before closing the cylinder. It was obvious which was the 110 and which was the 125 grain ammo.
I have no problem with someone saying the 125 grain jhp is more powerful or effective. On the other hand, downgrading the 110 grain .357 magnum ammo is just incorrect.
The 110 grain jhp .357 magnum load and the 115 grain 9m.m. +P+ load have almost the same ballistics and the same performance in the field. Both are very good to excellent, depending on the load.

You mentioned the ORIGINAL .357 magnum loads. Yes, they were great for penetration. So what? If you are hunting, then penetration is a good thing. Not necessarily in a gun fight. The .357 magnum was popular, but did not gain the stellar reputation until REMINGTON introduced the 125 grain sjhp ammo. This took the energy of the .357 round and converted it into expansion, so it did not just drill holes in bad guys, it put them out of action.
Oh, the old 158 grain .38 Special lead round nose would usually out penetrate the 125 grain sjhp .357 magnum load, but it was the lower penetrating load that earned the reputation as a great manstopper. Most of us remember the 158 lrn was known as the "widowmaker".

Jim
 
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golden said:
My experience with the model 13 was quite different. In my class at the academy, 46 model 13's were issued, about 10 to 12 of them had issues. Mine had the sideplate screws overtorqued. At least one of them went out of time and was spitting bullet fragments. Another just froze up and the officer could not fire a shot. Overall, I think the model 13 suffered from the same problems as the model 19. It was a great .38 Special revolver, easy to carry on and off duty, but not up to continued use of .357 ammo.
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Ruger_Security-Six_4.jpg ​

Hi, Jim. I can't really dispute anything you said as it was very thought out. I had a friend in Western Kentucky who had a S&W 19, and it was a real workhorse, though most of the rounds he shot were .38s. When it came to .357s, though, he discreetly swapped to a Ruger Security-Six. He also had to teach when it was sprinkling, and for that his stainless Security-Six filled that need. He was partial to the 2.5-/2.75-inch for teaching; I liked the 4-inch. Two airport security officers with S&W 681s developed soft stainless steel issues on the barrels. Holster wear began to rub down the front sights and they suffered accuracy problems. I loved the Rugers, as they just kept right on chugging!

The .357 110gr JHPs had a great reputation for stopping power, but with winter clothing and with penetration of vehicles the 125gr JHP was preferred. The police used .38 Spc 110gr JHP +P, though at the time they wanted to go to the.357. The problem kind of died out when two officers were in the rec room fooling around when one moved into position to see what eye his partner was sighting out of. He thought he'd emptied his S&W 10, but left one in the chamber, when BANG!!, the gun went off. The bullet sailed past his partner's head and managed a one-shot stop of the Coke machine, killing it instantly!

The police chief left the mortally wounded machine there unplugged with a hole in it as an object lesson to the other officers for the next six months.

I took my mother out to my friend's range and put her through six lessons after someone almost broke into her home one day. It never occurred to her to get my dad's gun. So when she came out to Western Kentucky to see me, I decided enough was enough, and she ended up enjoying the lessons so much she got her own Security-Six!

As for penetration, you're absolutely right. Even a bear would be hard pressed to continue an attack if shot several times in the nose by someone with a .357!
 
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Some people report that firing full throttle 158gr JHPs in a S&W 66 also is okay. But I don't know. If I were hiking in wilderness, I would feel perfectly at ease carrying that 66/3-inch. I had a friend who was checking fence posts on his ranch in Utah, when a cougar dropped from a tree and rushed him. He had a Dan Wesson .357 in his holster with a 3-inch barrel, which he drew and fired, killing the big cat instantly. Upon the advice of ranch hands, he removed the cougar's head and sent it to the Center For Disease Control in Denver. A few days later the CDC contacted him and said the cougar was rabid.

He said killing it was tough on him because he loved cats, and because it was such a beautiful animal. Still, it was a good thing he was armed. States like Maryland prohibit anyone other than law enforcement from carrying guns (legally) in the wilderness.
 
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