IMHO, one of the sweetest concealed carry handguns on earth is the
S&W 442, be it carried in a pocket holster, IWB holster, OWB holster, or a shoulder holster. It is ever so light and easy.
IMHO, the 442 loses all of its sweetness once the trigger is squeezed and a cartridge fires. Recoil is stout even when using mild loads. Using the +P (
SAAMI Plus P Loads) in this light alloy-frame revolver becomes very challenging. Further, the sights on this short barreled J frame S&W are rudimentary; distance multiplies errors in aiming.
For this venture, using +P 158 grain semi-wadcutter hollow-points, I decided to shoot the equivalent of what Illinois requires for obtaining a concealed carry license (15-feet, 21-feet, 30-feet, 10-rounds each distance; 21-rounds of the 30-rounds fired have to land inside the scoring zone).
Since the pseudo-qualification turned out okay, I decided to have some fun and I switched over to 130-grain standard pressure FMJ loads and then rolled a fresh target out to 70-feet.
Wow, that kinda sucked. At 70-feet my first shot was "on paper, in the pink," but just barely (it was not inside the scoring zone, so it counts as a miss). I decided to roll the target back out to 70-feet and try it again.
Double suck; same thing, I scored another miss. No doubt about it, 70-feet is far beyond my level of competence with this revolver. Don't get me wrong, in a quality machine-rest the S&W 442 is probably capable of putting all shots inside the 10-ring of the target at this distance, but my handgun skills are not anywhere near up to that task.
Sooooooo I ran the target to 50-feet and finished off the remaining ammo as fast as I could load and fire. Heh, a quarter century ago a target 10-feet downrange with holes sprayed all over like that was as good as I could score with the airweight. With practice, maybe by the time I am 200-years-old ...
Thank you
5 Star Firearms for having Monday as Senior Citizen Rangetime Discount Day! Your team is always polite, friendly, and professional; your facility is just downright outstanding. You are a treasure to Lake County, Illinois.