Posted on 06/19/2010 6:12:48 AM PDT by marktwain
One of my favorite stops on my teaching tour every year is the Sand Burr Gun Ranch in Rochester, Indiana. The facility is a shooting park with rustic classroom, five ranges, and a gun shop that makes you feel as if you’ve taken a time machine back to the 1950s. Founder Denny Reichard does his gunsmithing there, doing action smoothing work that’s as good as you’ll find anywhere in the world.
The resident teaching crew, for the most part, are gun geezers, and they carry classic Smith & Wesson large caliber revolvers. Well, “when in Rome…” For the first of the two classes I taught in June, I alternated between two Model 625 S&W revolvers, chambered for the .45 Auto cartridge and quickly reloadable with six-shot moon clips. Denny’s trademark gun is a 6” barrel S&W .44 Magnum that he has carried for most of his 36 years of police work that will soon end in honorable retirement. (He’s kinda slowing down, and only carries the one. For much of his career, he carried two at a time. He won the Indiana State Action Shooting Championship several times with one or another of those Dirty Harry guns. The difference was, “Dirty Harry” shot blanks. Denny carries 180 grain Magnum hollow points that leave the long barrels at 1600 feet per second).
Also on the crew were Dave LaRue and George Voltz. George was carrying a Reichard-tuned Model 629 S&W Mountain Gun in .44 Magnum, lightened for concealed carry with a Reichard-installed Scandium cylinder. (George jokes that since he’s old and all, he needs to carry less weight or he might break a hip.) Dave is content with a .45 caliber S&W with moon clips similar to mine, a Thunder Ranch Special tuned by Denny with classic-style wooden stocks cut to
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I shoot a S&W M1955 which is about the same gun as the 625.With the full moon clips the rate of fire is close to a 1911.
My 77 year old father carries the 625 daily in a shoulder holster behind a vest. He lives in Reno NV where weather will permit it. I’m in Central CA, where it is too hot to dress in a manner that will allow me to tote the big guns. I do carry a full sized 1911 a good part of the year and a G26 during the summer.
I have a soft spot for revolvers and often carry an old pinned and recessed 2 1/2” mod.19, and I carry a 6” 686 working around the farm.
BUMP
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