October 2007

A wadcutter is a bullet specially designed for shooting paper targets, usually at close range and with significantly subsonic velocities under 800 ft/s (244 m/s) such as are found in handgun and airgun competitions. A wadcutter has a flat or nearly flat front, which acts to cut a very clean hole through the target, making it easier to score and ideally reducing errors in scoring to the favor of the shooter. Because the flat nosed bullet is not well suited for feeding out of a firearm’s magazine, wadcutters are normally used in revolvers or specially designed semi-automatic pistols. Wadcutters are also sometimes known as the Devil’s Suppository.

Text and title stolen from WikiPedia. Click the image for big.

I know what you’re thinking. “Did he fire six shots or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

When I saw this picture that Verna took today while cleaning our guns, it reminded me of the famous line from Dirty Harry.

Of course, some of that description of the gun would be inaccurate. First this is only a .357 magnum, and far from the most powerful handgun in the world. Next, this Smith and Wesson 686 has a seven-round capacity, not six as in the .44 magnum version Harry used.

As far as feeling lucky? We do. We had a very good day at the range today and are glad that we have the opportunity to shoot at least once a week. This week, we will have an extra session at the range when we finally get our new pistols after the unnecessary California 10 day waiting period.

I left some red.