The Gunsite Tactical Revolver

Guns Magazine, Annual, 2001 by Massad Ayoob

Worked over by the Gunsite Custom Shop, this Smith & Wesson Model 442 Airweight is ready for business!

When you think "Gunsite," you think "Jeff Cooper." When you think "Jeff Cooper," you think "1911 .45 pistol." This, it seems, casts a dim view on anything not .45. Not so.

The fact is, the little J-frame Smith & Wesson .38 Special snubby has always held an honored place at "the school that Jeff built."

In his classic book Cooper on Handguns, Col. Cooper observed that the Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special was a useful little gun. Indeed, he noted that it was part of his recommended handgun wardrobe, the gun to be worn with a tailored business suit.

In addition, the little J-frame .38 was the choice of his wife, Janelle. Also, during the second generation of command at Gunsite, an Airweight S&W Centennial "backup gun" reposed in the jacket pocket of then-owner Richard Jee. Indeed, the five-shot S&W .38 Special snubby has been the backup handgun or otherwise part of the "working battery" for countless Gunsite instructors including Manny Kapelsohn and Ken Hackathorn. I don't see this changing in the third generation of Gunsite management under new owner Buz Mills.

Jeff Cooper built Gunsite to be not just a college, but a university. One of his proudest accomplishments was the establishment of the Gunsite Gunsmithy. The work that came out of the shop may not have always been up to the Colonel's standards -- some of it certainly wasn't up to mine -- but the shop has been host to some superb craftsmen. One of them was the first to hold the shop's title of chief gunsmith, Robbie Barrkman, who went on to well-deserved fame as head of his own company, Robar. Another is Ted Yost.

In the mid-1990s, I was at Gunsite for the National Tactical Invitationals and met Yost. I was impressed. He was young, sharp and above all, he was responsible and highly competent. I handled a number of guns he had either built himself or had supervised as they were built by his competent staff. I was particularly taken with the work done on the J-frame. I sent Yost a Model 442 S&W (blue Airweight Centennial) to put through the process.

It took a while to get the gun back but it was worth the wait. The action was smooth and light. The sights were properly registered to shoot to point of aim/point of impact with 158 gr. P lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoints. In addition, it had a new, handsome Birdsong Black-T finish. I liked the look. It said, "ready for business."

Yost hadn't liked the grips on the gun and replaced them with Hogues with finger grooves. These fit my hand well, but were longer than the grip frame. They would have been great if I was carrying the gun in a hip holster, but for me, the J-frame is an ankle or pocket gun. For that, I want the shortest possible grip frame. The Hogues went onto a longer-barreled J-model and I replaced them with Spegel Boot Grips. (Hogue didn't begin offering "boot" style grips until late 1999.)

Enter Crimson Trace

Then Crimson Trace came out with their Lasergrips for the J-frame. I've never been a big fan of laser sights for tactical purposes but they make a lot of sense for my work as a full-time firearm instructor. They're excellent for detecting trigger jerk, sight tremble and other movement in a positive, starkly visual way. If a student is told he's jerking the trigger, yet doubts the instructor, a quick dry-fire session with the Lasergrips quickly reveals the problem. I put my test pair of Lasergrips on my Gunsite 442. They've been on there ever since.

When I teach, the Gunsite/Crimson Trace 442 is usually the backup gun in my pocket or ankle holster. As a teaching aid, it's often used for "Shoot/Don't Shoot" interactive video training. Students can easily see whether the red laser dot is on the hostage or the hostage-taker when the trigger is pulled. It adds a powerful dollop of pressure to the training recipe.

I had the Lasergrips on the Gunsite/Crimson Trace 442 for two years still working fine with the same battery -- when the switch started giving me trouble. I sent the Lasergrips back to Crimson Trace and they replaced them at no charge.

Since I carry the gun for backup, I like the point made by Crimson Trace's Clyde Caceres concerning the Lasergrips' usefulness during a crisis. If you're down with both arms broken and can't bring the gun to line-of-sight, the red laser dot provides a way to bring the gun to bear on your opponent. I shot the Gunsite/Crimson Trace 442 for part of a point-shooting course and found the laser dot useful when I couldn't bring the gun to line-of-sight. If you aren't planning to use your sights in a close-range situation, you definitely want a laser sight as a fallback!

Nothing's Perfect

Disappointments? There have been few. At the time Yost worked my gun, he preferred to install lighter aftermarket springs. The .38 worked fine this way when I used Federal ammunition. How-ever, some rounds with tougher primers would occasionally fail to discharge. I replaced the aftermarket mainspring with a standard one from Smith & Wesson. The little revolver has been 100 percent reliable with everything we, my students and I, pumped through it, including "range reloads" with the toughest of primers.