Don’t see these in the used case very often. A S&W 351C J-frame revolver. It’s a 7-shot, 22 magnum. And frankly I never seen one used until now.
Have a funny, personal story about 2-inch J-Frames I will share from back in the day. My quote to people was,
“Why don’t I own a J-frame snubby? Because I would be tempted to F’ing carry it! That’s why!”
The motivation back in the day for that comment was quite sound. The chances I would be involved in some major firearm centric, altercation used to be sky high. Astronomically high even. And if that happened, I had decided I was going to be solving that problem with a full-sized gun was wasn’t trying to fight me on recoil and capacity. So I eschewed pocket rockets of all stripe.
J-frames, baby Glocks, 3” 1911’s, I hated them all. And for good reason. And still…kinda do.
But my disdain for these guns has wained somewhat. I live the life of a business man these days. The chances of me “seeing the elephant” are probably much lower than many of you reading this right now. The primary drivers of that are my 50’s age, the parts of town and neighborhoods I run in, and the time of day I am in these places.
You won’t catch me in the hood at 3am on a Wednesday. As a matter of fact, you won’t catch me in any hood, any time of day. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, and wore it out. I only go to nice places, associate with nice people, and engage in nice activities. 99.999% of the time, I am the most dangerous person the room, and nobody knows it.
So a J-frame is more than probably fine. But…to quote an old co-worker of mine who commanded the SWAT team, “I’ll authorize pocket rockets for BUG & off-duty carry, but they must be able to shoot head shots at 25 yards with them”. Some did, some didn’t. Most didn’t even try.
Now that we run a reference collection, the 22-mag J-frame has been low-key on my radar for a number of years. Primarily because of some ground fight training I did with another former co-worker, and nationally known trainer, but that is a story for another time.
Hmmmmm…
Sincerely,
Marky
www.John1911.com
“Shooting Guns & Having Fun”
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