SP 101

[Kates]

Im looking into a .32 H & R Mag.  Ruger makes a Sp101 and The New Single Six.  Aside from the action, what would be the advantages/disadvantages of each.  I have never held the Sp 101.

[slink]

The sp1o1 is, I believe a 5 shot snubby revolver. It is certainly a DA Ruger revolver, in 357, .38, I believe a few .22lr's were made, and now you say it's available in .32 mag.   The Single action revolver is longer, probably heavier, and in no way a defensive or concealed carry gun.

I think you'd be making a mistake with the .32, because it does nothing that a .22lr or .38 doesn't do better, with more availability of used guns, as well as ammo and ammo reloading components.  The .32 is pretty feeble for use on anything that a .22lr couldn't handle (ie, rabbits and smaller), so why pay 40c a shot, instead of 2c a shot?  The .38 has more or less power than the .32, depending upon what sort of ammo you put into it.

The mid range, 148 gr full wadcutter .38 ammo is very accurate, having been a staple at the bullseye matches for decades now, and can be found as "remanufactured" ammo for 15c a shot.  It's got about 150-170 ft lbs of energy, depending upon the barrel length-velocity.  The .38 can develope as much as 400 ft lbs of energy, if it's got at least a 4" barrel and is loaded properly.  That is considerably beyond the 200 or so ft lbs of the .32 mag.

To keep things in perspective, a Stinger, from a .22lr rifle barrel, has 160 ft lbs of energy. So a pathetic  250 ft lbs, from some pistol, is not really even a noticable increase in power. It takes big jumps in power to have really noticable increases in effectiveness, on men or animals.  50 or 100 ft lbs of diff mean basically nothing in the real world of flesh and blood shootings. Sorry, but that's the facts of the matter.

Even the .38, loaded to max pressures and velocities, is pretty feeble as a manstopper. The 357 snub is marginal for such work, and is not even close to being adequately-controlable in rapidfire, given full charge magnum ammo.  Repeat hit speed with a 357 snub runs about .40 second, instead of the sub .20 second times possible with a good 9mm auto, especially an SA auto.

[sui generis]

I have an SP101 DAO snubby in .357. It's pretty heavy as, I suppose, the .32 would be. I have a single-six .22lr/mag.

I have run some water tests thru denim/terrycloth with the .32mag. Yes, I know that is very unscientific and has no real-world significance, but the performances of several different bullets were less than impressive. Penetration was OK, but expansion was poor.

One problem, I think, is that the .32 has not had the bullet development work done with it that has been done with more popular SD rounds.

Having said that, I think the .32mag loaded with flat-point lead bullets would make a pretty good small-game cartridge.

However, I would assign it the the 2nd tier of self-defense cartridges as something you could use if you didn't have access to a real gun.

Other's mileage may vary.

[slink]

(ie, 500+ ft lbs per shot, mean expansion of the bullet, etc) than one has to go with lots of truly swift tries at the head.  This is not as difficult as many think, since the distance is rarely more than 3-4 ft beyond the muzzle of a pistol in outstretched hands.

The brain is a 4" circle, and any hit to the head tends to rock a guy's world. Yes, a pocket .22lr only has 60-70 ft lbs, but a jab to the nose has less, and it still messes up the guy who gets hit with it. With practice and a good SA auto, one can easily get 6 hits per second on a 4" circle, at 6 ft from your feet, 3 ft from the muzzle of a gun held out in both hands.  That is to say, .20 seocnd split intervals between hits, with the first shot not being part of the timed-event. That's a lot of "jabs" to the head, in very little time, and one of them is pretty damned likely to "find" an eye socket, temple, or sinus cavity, and thus, be able to penetrate to the brain.

Such ability takes a lot of "coldness" in the mind of the defender, as well as a lot of practice. It's a lot more likely to be done with the 2c per shot .22lr than with  30-40c a shot centerfires, (that nobody reloads for, like .25, .32, .32 mag, etc).

If you can't hit a 4" brain circle at 6 ft from the muzzle (ie, 9 ft toe to toe) then geometry PROVES that you also can't hit the 12" circle of the chest, at more than 6 yds from the muzzle.  Since everyone here is SURE that they can reliably hit the chest of an attacker at  25 yds, then they should be quite confident in their ability to hit the head at 9 yds.  9 yds covers over  99% of the justifiable use of lethal force, by civilians.

Indeed, 90+ % of the time, you wont have to fire. 70+% of the time, the attacker has no gun, so you can't justify firing at him at more than 10 ft or so.  I've known Dennis Tueller since 1978, where were you? The point is, by the time you DRAW and fire in the Tueller Drill, the guy IS closer to you than 10 ft.  Most guys are so slow on the ccw draw that a knife man who charges them from 7 yds away will be all OVER them before they can "clear" the concealing garment and get a good chest hit.

The Dept Of Justice does an Annual Crime Survey. Check it out on their website. On the same site, check out the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. It says that over half of the GUN fights occur at less than 10 ft.  Things in a fight happen very fast, and you can easily end up grappling with the attacker for control of YOUR gun, if you are not fast enough in getting the sort of hits that will stop him instantly.

Stopping him 5 seconds after hitting him is very close to being worthless. It's quite easy for him to stab, shoot, or club you 4x per second, with either hand, and he can easily have a friend helping him attack you. Therefore, even a .50 second delay between your hit and him stopping is too slow, in many cases.

[Sir Knight]

A .32mag is signficantly superior to a .22lr and even a .22mag and is just below a .380ACP on the stoppng scale. As a matter of fact, six rounds of .32mag will send, on average, 10% more energy out of the barrel than five rounds of .38special.

That said ...

• New Single Six in .32mag is a fun gun to shoot all day long. The weight of the gun makes the recoil almost non-existent but being a single action, it isn't a good first choice for a defensive weapon nor a concealed carry weapon.
• SP101 is really too much gun for a .32mag. The gun is designed to handle .357mags. Recoil with that caliber takes some getting use to but can be handled with practice. .38 +P's is even milder and that's what I regularily shoot out of my SP101. Again, no reason to go down to a .32mag when the more powerful .38special will do.[/list:u] The .32mag is best at home in S&W's airweight snubbies -- specifically the 332. The 342 (same gun as the 332 except in .38) can be a handful because of the light weight of the gun but shooting a .32mag out of the same package but in .32cal (i.e., the 332) is more pleasant.

[slink]

The .32 and nearly all .38 loads (especially in snubbies) require head shots for reliable, swift, one shot stops.  You aint likely to GET more than one good hit, so nearly all this baloney about 6 shots is just that, baloney.  The cops get 1 good hit in 6 shots, IF they are lucky.

the Diallo shoot, in NYC, had 4 cops fire 41 times at a guy who had NO weapon, from 5-15 feet away, and they got ONE good hit. They MISSED him  completely 19 times.

[Sir Knight]

Before you start calling things "baloney", please READ what is being said. I said that six rounds of .32mag actually have 10% more energy than five rounds of .38special which means that a six-round snubbie in .32mag has 10% more stopping power than a five-round snubbie in .38special even though round per round, a .38special is superior to a .32mag.

slink, you seem to have something against small and medium size calibers. While a larger caliber is more effective, please keep in mind two important facts: (1) a small caliber gun in the hand is going to do more damage than a larger caliber gun left at home because it was too big to conceal; (2) more people are killed with .22's & .25's each year than with any of the larger calibers.

[slink]

That's not the same thing as stopping them instantly, which is what's required of a defensive arm.  I repeat, a little bit better than poor is still poor.  Marshall just MAKES UP  his "data", did you know that? every time he's dared to release one of his "sources", a check has proven him to be either mistaken or lying about what really happened.

I test on flesh and blood, and even fairly "hot" .38's dont amount to a hill of beans, on even a 50 lb feral dog.  There are 9mm's that are smaller and lighter than the .32, offer twice as much power per shot, nearly twice the hit rate, and more rds on tap, flatter in a pants pocket rig, much cheaper practice ammo, etc. So why settle for a ..32 revolver? It's quite inferior. When your life is at stake, why do you want less than the very best?

[Sir Knight]

1) Maybe a little bit better than poor is still poor but poor is still better than nothing and the first rule is to have a gun.

2) Please support your claim. What 9mm autoloader is smaller and lighter than the S&W 332? It comes in at just under 11 oz. Even Kel-Tec's newest PF-9, which is the lightest 9mm autoloader in production, comes in at over twelve and a half ounces and that's without the magazine. With an empty magazine, it weighs in excess of 13 ounces.

[slink]

the j frame revolver is still a lot bulkier, feeble, harder to control in rapidfire, etc, etc, as I said. So it's still very inferior. The keltec aint much, but it's way ahead of any revolver of a similar size.

[Sir Knight]

the j frame revolver is still a lot bulkier, feeble, harder to control in rapidfire, etc, etc, as I said. So it's still very inferior.

According to who and in comparison to what? According to you there are 9mm autoloaders that are smaller & lighter than a .32mag revolver and you have yet to provide evidence of that.

The keltec aint much, but it's way ahead of any revolver of a similar size.

That is also debatable.

[slink]

considerably longer than the Keltec.  There is no denying that the keltec and Kahr single stacks are flatter in the pocket than the revolvers, and hold 40% more rds ready to fire, have 3x as fast a reload, hold the reload a lot flatter in the pocket than a speedloader, and are faster for the repeat hit and have 2x the power of a .32 revolver, about 50% more power than a (similiarly controlable) .38 load.  I base this upon the 90 gr plus P Corbon load, which is right at  400 ft lbs out of a pocket 9mm.

Furthermore, the new keltec will be available all over the place, very soon, for $250, while the Smith jframes are $500. 9mm ammo is cheaper than .38 ammo, too. Then, if you want to spend  the big bucks, there's the Rorbaugh R9.

[Old Griz]

:cb2: We all agree that some calibers are better stoppers than others. However, a good gun for one person might not be a good gun for someone else. When selling guns, I have seen some women who simply could not work the slide on an automatic. They didn't have the arm strength or the technique. For them, the best gun was a revolver. Usually the grip is smaller and easier for them to hold and shoot. No magazines, no jams, simple operation, much shorter learning curve. Some couldn't handle, or hit anything, with something more powerful than a .38 Special.

So the argument can go on forever about which rounds are better. But if the person doesn't feel confident that they can even hit their assailant with the gun they have, it's a moot issue. It will always be shot placement, shot placement, shot placement.

I'd still rather have a M10 than a pocketful of rocks.

[gs50401]

For general use I have replaced my .32 Ruger SRM, 22lr/22wmr single six and S&W 686 with a Ruger p-95.
15 shots,accurate,cheap practice ammo and 100% reliable.

[R.W.Dale]

 A pic of my .32 H&R sp101 with a 4" barrel. I believe you can only get a .32 single six in a Vaquero model. So if you want adjustable sights <windage anyway> The SP is the gun for you. I especally adore mine after installing a set if Crimsion Trace lasergrips