Hand Cannons Get Left Behind
An American Rifleman article changed my perception of compact revolvers. It was entitled “Sporting Uses of the Snubby” and written by retired Arizona game ranger, Harley Shaw. I met Harley in 1974. He is the only Arizona Game & Fish employee ever shot on duty, even though his working title was Research Biologist for his entire career. The culprit wasn't a game law violator, but an escaped convict who killed an officer, wounded Harley and a companion and was finally killed by a young highway patrolman on his first duty day in his new district. His experience proves that ”any gun is better than no gun,” when you don’t think you need one, but the fickle finger of fate isn’t in your favor and all of a sudden life goes sour.
The common image “trail guns” requires a 4-inch or longer barrel and adjustable sights able to take the head off a grouse at 25 yards with rifle-like accuracy, and be powerful enough for combat. When I accompanied Harley on a horseback trip in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest near Prescott, the game & fish department was monitoring telemetry from collared mountain lions. Harley carried either a 2-3/4-inch Ruger .357 Speed Six or a 2-inch S&W Model 34 .22 Kit Gun, depending upon the season and mission.
A trail a gun is “carried a lot, but seldom shot.” A holstered gun on the hip snags brush and may poke you inconveniently when sitting. When the task at hand doesn’t require a firearm, carrying one anyway can be a damned nuisance. Harley’s ideal trail handgun was a compact, reliable revolver, tucked into his chaps pocket with no more thought than pulling on his pants in the morning. Tuck it and forget it. Snake and furry varmint ranges in the scrub are short. There is no need to shoot beyond 50 feet.
Simplicity, comfort, constant availability and compact convenience are the name of the game. His reasoning was that a “camp gun” was used more for protection from small 4-legged and slithery varmints up close, and as a deterent for the two-legged type, than for shooting camp meat at distance.
I’ve dabbled over the years in comparing the .22 handguns vs. center-fires, both small revolvers and pocket autopistols. Revolvers enable greater versatility in ammo, while auto pistols are flatter to carry and carry more rounds. Both types of guns have their advantages.
Utility with shot loads is important in snake country. The choice of a pocket gun for such use favors either a .38 Special snubby revolver or compact .45 Automatic with Speer loads. The utility of .22 shot loads is extremely limited. They require that you get within 5 to 6 ft. of the snake, which may be interesting if it’s a “big” one like Burmese pythons they have around South Florida these days. Most .22 auto pistols don’t extract or eject shot-loads reliably, so follow-ups are slow and you will need to carry a knock-out rod along.
Harry Archer taught me that practical "evasion and wilderness survival range" http://www.naderlibrary.com/cia.secret.war.markham.htm is the longest distance at which YOU can do 2 second head shots under stress or shoot small game, say a 2-inch group from an improvised field rest using your handgun of choice. Most pocket pistols or revolvers do so at ten yards. But few do at twenty. Very few can do so at 25 yards.
Standard service pistols and revolvers never intended for target work group about “one inch per ten yards" and always have. This has been satisfactory for over 100 years. The very best pocket pistols and small revolvers group two inches out to only 50 feet or so. For the great majority of most handgun use this is quite “good enough.” Frontiersmen and soldiers shot tons of game for camp meat, and killed bad guys with handguns no more accurate than this. If you don’t believe it, just try any 4-inch barrel fixed sight .38 Special “cop gun” or cowboy revolver sometime.
The .38 Special +P represents about the limit of recoil which the average non-expert can handle with reasonable accuracy. While a .22 may not be your first choice as a combat gun, its lower weight and cube of ammunition makes sense when the trip is long and there is to aerial resupply coming. You pay your money and make your choice.