It wasn't the recoil that ended the fun for me, it was the blood pouring into my eye and my two idiot "friends" falling over laughing and making a spectacle of me in front of the whole range.

Nah, I would love to shoot a Sharp's rifle with a mild loading. Those old thumper calibers definitely have my interest, but they're a ways down the road, budget-wise. Some day, I plan to do some "Quigly" type shooting at long range. Just the idea of a boom and a long delay and then a "clang" when it hits steel is something on my bucket list for sure. I'd love to shoot what they used to hunt buffalo with, just to see what it's like.

I have a 6 1/2" Ruger Super Single Six convertible I bought new in the late 1960's. That's the .22LR/.22Mag with adjustable sights. Intentionally never had it "upgraded" to the transfer bar abomination.

The high fallutin term for the subliminal enjoyment derived from loading an old/original style SA would be "aesthetically pleasing".

It's an accurate gun also. My best shot was a 50 yard head shot (.22WMR) on a woodchuck. That was back in the days when I was young, handsome, had a full head of hair and was poor as a church mouse.

It is my understanding that an original style SA was present somewhere in the Garden of Eden. It was absolutely heavenly to hear the sounds of it being loaded. Unfortunately, after the apple episode, it was lost to antiquity. It then took several millennia before it reappeared on earth and was available to mere mortals. Quite a history...

Not me man! Single action revolvers are about one step above muzzle loaders and both not much past a bow and arrow.

About as far back into the antique arena as I can muster are Registered Magnums, Pythons, Browning Hi-Powers and the 1911. Sure, I love me some old Clint Eastwood westerns, but when I watch them I can't help thinking how cool it would be to step out of a worm hole and hand Clint a Glock and a dozen magazines and watch how fast he'd dump his Peace Keepers and Dragoons. Seriously, when he's getting shot at by Romon Rojo, he'd drop 'em and never look back.

Never owned one, all of my revolvers are double action ones. But when I used to visit a buddy of mine several times a year in Oregon, one of things I almost demanded to shoot were his single action Rugers and a Colt SAA, all in .45LC. IMO, a lot of fun and pleasure.

Other than USPSA and the like, I could get by with just my single actions if I really had to.

Never under-estimate old timey skills in an apocalytic world:

I'm down to 1 SA revolver after owning a number of Ruger SA's over the years and it's a Virginia Dragoon in .45 LC. I love it for aesthetic reasons mainly because it's as accurate as a hand grenade.



Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Belgian Blue:
Not me man! Single action revolvers are about one step above muzzle loaders and both not much past a bow and arrow.

About as far back into the antique arena as I can muster are Registered Magnums, Pythons, Browning Hi-Powers and the 1911.

I enjoy shooting all of those, and there's more Glocks in my safe than anything else. What's your point? Because you clearly didn't get mine.

Hell, I even enjoy shooting a pellet rifle in the back yard and it's many steps below anything you listed. It's called "marksmanship" and "love of the sport," my good man.

You know, hit object "A" with projectile "B?" Take your time, have fun with it. Some even call it plinking. It doesn't all have to be high-speed, low-drag angry black plastic loaded to the gills and breathing fire. Sometimes it really can be truly satisfying to slow it waaaaay the hell down and just... have fun.

If you haven't done yourself the favor of taking an afternoon at a quiet, private place where you can shoot a bow that's properly set up for you, and just take your time and shoot, you are missing out on one of life's fine joys. It's a fine comparison to shooting a single action revolver. Sure, Glock and Sig and whatever, but if you enjoy shooting, shoot a bow, a muzzle loader, and a single action at least once when you can take your time and enjoy.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
You know, hit object "A" with projectile "B?" Take your time, have fun with it. Some even call it plinking. It doesn't all have to be high-speed, low-drag angry black plastic loaded to the gills and breathing fire. Sometimes it really can be truly satisfying to slow it waaaaay the hell down and just... have fun.

I agree, and that's pretty much the way many of us grew up shooting. I don't recall many guys discussing burning through hundreds(or thousands) of centerfire pistol rounds in a single session when I was a kid. BTW: My first handgun was a Ruger Super Single Six back in the mid-70s

I've only ever owned 3 Single actions. I have shot another in .44 Magnum. My 1st was a New Model stainless 4 5/8" in .357 Magnum. It was highly enjoyable and became my back of hip brush gun for deer season. Shortly after I graduated to a Super with 10 1/2" straight barrel in .44 Magnum. It gave me my first experience with the .44 round. Imagine my surprise at the big recoil.. . She made a big thunder. Started out with 180 grain hollow points. Followed by Winchester 240 grain jacketed soft nose. Cranked up the excitement pretty good. Even the powder smelled different. It was my 1st blaster.

I've only owned a few single actions but really like them. I agree about the good feeling of loading them. I'll be getting another in the next few weeks.

My stupidest move was selling my Texas Longhorn Arms in 45LC! I had Bill Grover fully customize it, was beautiful and shot great. Also, was built for righthanders, loading gate on the right side.

quote:

Originally posted by David Lee:
Shortly after I graduated to a Super with 10 1/2" straight barrel in .44 Magnum. It gave me my first experience with the .44 round. Imagine my surprise at the big recoil.. . She made a big thunder.

That's what I had. Inherited a 10.5" Super Blackhawk in .44 Mag from the old man years ago. It had been worked over by some renowned smith in New Mexico I can't remember now. Very nice trigger, an overtravel stop, oversized custom walnut grips, probably other stuff I wasn't told about or can remember now.

I ran some .44 special through it once, like you talked about prior. That was kinda fun, but expensive. He had worked up some 240gr loads for it that were pretty stout. With that long barrel, it wasn't so much that it recoiled, but you could feel the concussion from the blast in your chest when you shot them. As you say, a big thunder.

Quite honestly, I never shot it again in the years that I owned it and sold it this last year. There's things I wanted to buy and it's the one thing that never fit well, shoved in the back of the safe. I don't reload, and .44mag isn't cheap, .44 special is pricier, and it's why I got rid of the Marlin 1894C that I really enjoyed shooting much more anyway. So, I walked it on down the road. .357/.38 for me, though a .45 Colt does really tempt me, and for the right price, I would get into that caliber.

I had a stainless 5.5" Ruger Vaquero in .45LC at one point years ago and while it was fun, was expensive to shoot so I ended up selling it. I was without a single action for some time. Then, a few years ago, I ended up buying a 5.5" Ruger Single Ten .22LR and a 6.5" Single Nine in .22 Magnum since I had neither caliber in a revolver and they have both turned out to be incredibly fun and extremely accurate revolvers. The Single Ten is without a doubt one of the most accurate .22LR pistols, semi-auto or revolver, that I have ever fired, is consistent across all the chambers, and it likes a wide variety of ammunition. With Winchester 42gr MAX HP ammo you can cut a tiny ragged hole with a full cylinder of ammo doing your part. The Single Nine is equally as pleasing and is a laser beam with 30gr Hornady VMAX cartridges. Both are great fun to load, shoot, and unload and whole-heartedly agree that it slows down time and extends the enjoyment of the deliberate range time spent. Going to have to get these to the range again soon!

quote:

Quite honestly, I never shot it again in the years that I owned it and sold it this last year. There's things I wanted to buy and it's the one thing that never fit well, shoved in the back of the safe. I don't reload, and .44mag isn't cheap, .44 special is pricier, and it's why I got rid of the Marlin 1894C that I really enjoyed shooting much more anyway. So, I walked it on down the road. .357/.38 for me, though a .45 Colt does really tempt me, and for the right price, I would get into that caliber.

Just to warn ya....45 Colt ain't any cheaper than .44! But don't let that discourage you from getting one...rather just let it be added incentive to start reloading .

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:

quote:

Quite honestly, I never shot it again in the years that I owned it and sold it this last year. There's things I wanted to buy and it's the one thing that never fit well, shoved in the back of the safe. I don't reload, and .44mag isn't cheap, .44 special is pricier, and it's why I got rid of the Marlin 1894C that I really enjoyed shooting much more anyway. So, I walked it on down the road. .357/.38 for me, though a .45 Colt does really tempt me, and for the right price, I would get into that caliber.

Just to warn ya....45 Colt ain't any cheaper than .44! But don't let that discourage you from getting one...rather just let it be added incentive to start reloading .

Yeah, after re-reading it, I felt a bit silly. I basically made all the arguments against it and then said "but I'll do it again!"

I also assuaged myself with "but if you get into that caliber in a Ruger you like, it can be loaded up and down nine ways to Sunday." But it felt like I was lying to myself. Sometimes it works, but mostly I'm trying to cut that nonsense out.

Still, there's few forum members I really respect who tout the .45 Colt as an extremely versatile round if you're reloading. I guess either way, I need to get off my duff and start getting some reloading stuff together and start teaching myself.

Apparently my neighbor across the street made friends with a neighbor around the corner who's a retired Marine whose hobbies include working on his Dodge Challenger and reloading shotgun shells for his sporting clay habit. Might be a good fella to get introduced to, and maybe learn some stuff from.

I wonder if it a similar feeling to that of loading a side gate lever action carbine rifle?

It’s kind of similar, yes. But that, to me, is more akin to feeding shells into a pump shotgun.

I've never enjoyed loading lever actions. Quite the opposite of loading a single action. Lots of forcing, scraping, finger pinching.

I’ve only done it with the Marlin 1894C in .44 MAG that I picked up new, but unused, and my father’s Winchester pre-‘64 1894 in .30-30 that he picked up in unfired condition. I just figured that it sucked loading them because they weren’t broken in at all.

If that’s just a standard feature of such rifles, then, no, it’s nowhere near the same satisfying feeling and more like loading a double stack mag with your bare hands. It’s something that needs to be done that nobody should cry about, but it’s definitely not what I’m getting at.

FWIW, that pre-‘64 Winchester was shooting about nine inches left off the sandbags at 25 yards with a green box of “Kleenbore” ammo. That, after not being able to hit the target at 50. After five rounds at 25 yards, we decided to just stop there after cycling through a few other rifles at the same distance and busted out the bullseye to make sure it wasn’t me.

There is something very satisfying about opening a Schofield and having all the empty brass pop out.