THE SNUBNOSE: HOME ON THE RANGE

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Billy Ray and El Fisho Jr. and I went to the indoor range the other night. You never know what kind of folks are going to be at the shooting range, and that night was no different. Sometimes it is a very serious female crowd who take their practice with zenlike concentration. Sometimes, it's hunters sighting in some obscenely loud .300 magnum bolt action rifle at 100 yards. Sometimes its just normal folk, either shooting for fun or practicing for self defense.

I recently saw the Zombieland movie with Woody Harrelson. Excellent flick. I'm sure I'll buy it soon, because it's gonna be another classic like Escape from New York. Like they say in the movie, *always double tap*.

This was a Friday night, and it seemed, post college dude night. It was a well behaved bunch of twenty and thirty somethings, each with their Glock or Sig or HK. It seemed like most of them were shooting guns in .40 and .357 Sig calibers. The .357 Sig's were LOUD compared to Billy Ray's 9mm, my various .45 ACPs and .38 Specials and the .40s.

At one point, I put a fresh target on and put it out about 10 feet. I got my Colt Cobra Snubnose, fitted currently with HUGE Pachmayr Presentation Grips, which are a bit oversize for this smaller gun but really have a great grip angle and make shooting the Cobra fun fun fun. It's harder to conceal with these grips on the Cobra rather than the Pachmayr Compac rounded butt grips or the factory wood grips, which conceal the easiest.

With the factory wood grips, I need to use a Tyler or Pachmayr T-Grip adapter, although I have a set of Diamondback grips that are considerably larger than the Cobra stock grips. But the Diamondback grips are the same size roughly as the Presentation grips, and the Pachmayrs take all the sting out of shooting a 15 oz. snubnose.

I started doing double taps, and it's a very accurate gun, for what it is anyway, and I've been shooting it an awful long time, nearly 30 years. I'm *somewhat comfortable with it*.

The younger folks all began to gather round to look at the pistol as I was reloading. "That's not a Smith", one of them said, "it holds six bullets". "And look at the cylinder release...IT GOES BACKWARD!".

After we finished shooting, the youngsters approached and asked about the Cobra. I told them about it and it's history. I showed it to them. We talked about my job and they asked what I carried when not working. I told them usually a Glock Model 36, which I had on me and fired a few rounds with at the range.

I told them that I often carried revolvers, either the Cobra or a J frame during hot weather. The most concealable. They asked me how I felt about having just five or six shots, since their guns hold more than two times what the revolvers hold.

I asked them if any of them had any misfires or jams in their autos. Several sheepishly nodded yes. I told them that the Cobra was good for "just" six shots, but that they were *generally* "for sure" six shots in a row. Pull trigger. Gun goes bang. Six times.

They wanted to know where they could get a Colt. I told them a gun show or a used gun dealer or online. Several of them said they had various J frames which are their carry guns, since even the compact semi-autos require some work to actually conceal in the summer weather of Texas. But all agreed that the trigger and ergonomics of the Cobra was a pretty nice change from a J frame. They especially liked the larger Presentation grips.

I looked at their guns. Various USP HK Compacts and Glock 32/22's and some Sig 226 and 229's. One guy in their group had an HK USP but also had a nice little .45 ACP Kimber 3" Ultra CDP II 1911 models, and no one in their outfit seemed much interested in his shooting of that gun. He was a good shot, and was pulling in some very small groups during some close range draw and fire shooting with double taps.

These were kids that were not raised, for the most part, with revolvers. By the time they could tell about guns, the armed forces and pretty much all law enforcement (except for that park ranger chick in Broken Arrow who carries a .357 magnum revolver, although the pilots have Berettas) carried semi-automatic high capacity pistols.

Back in my day, there were two hi-cap 9's: The Browning Hi-Power and the Smith and Wesson Model 59. The Browning is essentially a 1911 without a grip safety but with a magazine safety, and the Smith and Wesson was a DA/SA external hammer early version of the now everywhere Sigs and HK's.

These were nice folks. You could tell they were working folks, with college degrees. They were dressed very casually in jeans and tennis shoes, not in corporate casual, but you could tell from their haircuts and their demeanor that's where they come from. They had manners and they were serious about their shooting.