{"id":10863,"date":"2013-09-22T13:56:21","date_gmt":"2013-09-22T18:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=10863"},"modified":"2026-06-19T15:58:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T20:58:29","slug":"answers-to-tam-gratuitous-gun-porn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=10863","title":{"rendered":"Answers to Tam (Gratuitous Gun Porn)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tam posted hers<\/a>, so I figured I’d respond by posting mine. Though mine’s not quite as pretty, and she’s a better photographer.<\/p>\n

\"model57\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My records show I bought this on my birthday in 2006. (I know I was working at The Other Place when I did buy it. I also know Tam was still working at Coal Creek Armory, because I emailed them looking for Safariland .41 Magnum speedloaders, and she responded.)<\/p>\n

It was picked up used at McBrides for $417 (including tax). I figured it would make a nice home defense gun; if you can’t stop a rampaging home with six rounds of .41 Magnum, you should at least be able to fight your way to your elephant gun and put a couple of rounds of .460 Weatherby through the bay windows.<\/p>\n

(Yes, I will be here all week. Try the veal, and remember to tip your waitress.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, I got the gun home, picked up a box of remanufactured .41 Mag at the next gun show, and took it to the range. Can’t have a home defense gun you haven’t shot, can you?<\/p>\n

I set up at the bay, took aim, and…<\/p>\n

(click)
\n(click)
\n(click click click)
\n(click click click click click click)
\n(click)<\/p>\n

Capstick mode.[1] Sigh. My friend Karl<\/a> recommended a good gunsmith, and $125 later, I had a gun that would go “Bang!” instead of “Click!”. As I recall, the cylinder timing was a bit off, and my smith said the previous owner had apparently trimmed a spring to make the trigger pull lighter. It probably would have gone “Bang!” with factory .41 Mag ammo, but the remanufactured stuff had harder primers…<\/p>\n

Even at $500+ all in, I’m still pretty fond of this gun. If I had to hike in bear country, this would be the sidearm I’d take. It doesn’t have a lot of collector value, thanks to the refinish (the barrel was also cut down from 6″). But, though I can’t prove it, it has the same feeling my pre-Model 10<\/a> does: that this was a gun carried and used daily by someone who relied on it, knew exactly what he wanted and why (like Earl Swagger<\/a>), and made the changes he wanted without worrying about future collectors.<\/p>\n

[1] “The most terrifying sound in the world is not the scream of a descending bomb nor the roar of a charging lion, but rather a click when you expected to hear a bang.” –Peter Hathaway Capstick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tam posted hers, so I figured I’d respond by posting mine. Though mine’s not quite as pretty, and she’s a better photographer. My records show I bought this on my birthday in 2006. (I know I was working at The Other Place when I did buy it. I also know Tam was still working at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guns","category-photography","category-smith-and-wesson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10863"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10870,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863\/revisions\/10870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}