Friday Gun Porn on Saturday!

I meant to post this pix of my overhauled S&W M-21 .44 Special yesterday, but I got tied up putting snowtires on the trusty Honda Element in anticipation of last night's snowstorm. Sigh..it's not even Halloween and we got another foot of white stuff!

Anyway, I've had this M-21, a de-blinged version of the Thunder Ranch Special of a few years back, since they first became available. I liked it a lot, but found that when I had my druthers, I'd end up shoot my 1917 snubbie (built by who knows who) .45 ACP or my custom Hamilton Bowen .44 Special L-Frame "Mountain Gun."

Here's the original blog post of my gun tests and some of my conclusions:

I ran 100 rounds of the 240-gr Cowboy through the gun double action on IDPA targets at 10 and 12 yards. The Cowboy loads were printing maybe 2 inches high, centered, at 12 yards. I could definitely feel the 240 grain bullet; the DA is still (12-14 pounds) but very smooth, and it kept smoothing up the more I shot.

Interestingly enough, I've been shooting my 1917 Fitz Special .45 ACP N-frame snubbie, which has a world-class action job and really nice Bear Hug grips, so initially the M21 felt a little rocky to me. The factory M-21 grips were almost there, but not quite the equivalent of the custom grips on the Fitz. In drills, I didn't feel like the M-21 was handling as well as the Fitz, but the groups were right on par with the .45.

I decided to get the M-21 to where I really liked shooting it. First it went to Jim Stroh at Alpha Precision for one of his excellent action jobs and thinning the front sight. Jim's done the action work on a lot of my big frame revolvers...he just does super work! Right now, he's got my S&W 329 ultra-lite .44 Magnum hand-buster for a little TLC, and I'm going to let him massage my ancient and much-shot M-29 .44 Magnum 6-inch, which I did a half-assed action job on back in the 1970s.

The action came back silky smooth in both SA and DA — I do most of my revolver shooting DA only. I had the front sight thinned...as a legacy of my competition days (and my Aging Guy eyes) I prefer a narrower front blade...it's quicker and easier to pick up.

Still, I wasn't totally happy. One of the things I really love on the 1917 snubbie is the set of signed Bear Hug Grips, custom fitted to the reworked frame of the old S&W. As you know, the maker of these great grips passed on years ago, and while the factory Ahrends are nice and skinny, they felt like to much of a less-than-hand-filling compromise on a non-CCW big fat revolver.

Amazingly, a set of N-Frame round butt Bear Hugs came up for sale in the S&W Forum Classifieds a couple of weeks ago for the FINE price of $75. I snapped 'em up (thanks, Lou!), and they made all the difference in the world. The gun went from a B+ to and A+. I think it's because the Bear Hugs mimic a set of regular S&W Magnas smoothed out and fitted with a Tyler grip adapter, which is actually a pretty comfortable grip for someone with less-than-ham-sized mitts.

I'm going to query Brother John Taffin, the world's greatest expert on sixguns, to see if he knows any grip-makers who are copying the Bear Hugs, because I'd like a set for my square-butt N-frames. I delegated the factory Ahrends to my current revolver project, a currently disfunctional 3-inch .41 Magnum I'm thinking of turning into a titanium-cylindered .44 Magnum (second pix).

Isn't it amazing that old Bear Hugs and new Ahrends can fit any N-frame no problem, but equally expensive Eagle Grips don't even come close to fitting????