For those National Rifle Association members out there, two of my favorite sections in the NRA monthly Shooting Illustrated magazine include the Armed Citizen that never fails to detail 5-8 examples of “Armed Citizens” protecting themselves or others from harm and debunking the stupidity popular with the left about the “myth” of the “good guy with a gun.” I also like the finish or closure articles which often detail lost or forgotten or different tales of gun ownership and some questionable ideas over the years.
Recently frequent contributor Wiley Clapp wrote an article in the July 2022 issue entitled “The Nine Known to None” and there in all its splendiferous uselessness was a pistol my wife and I are very familiar with-and having shot it thousands of times-pretty deadly with! But it inspired the following article that I sent to the NRA, but it apparently did not merit publication. The nine known to none may have been a “shot” or flash in the dark, but I credit the Pit Bull with sparking my interest in reloading-out of necessity! But also making me think through how to work through the issue and prevent such a thing from happening in the future.
I spent my first 15 years in the military shooting just about every weapon in the Army inventory. Officer Candidate School was a bit of a treat in that you did fam training on all active weaponry (M-16 w/203mm grenade launcher, riot shotgun, 50 and 60 caliber machine gun, Flash 203/66MM quad launcher, claymores, 38-45cal (prior to 9 MM,) stinger, ATGM, Recoilless Rifle, various sniper rifles, just about everything.))
Interestingly enough I fired so much over the years that I never thought to own a personal firearm.
That changed in 1990. I was testing an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle concept at Fort Sill, Oklahoma when my wife called-very upset-to tell me some nearby neighbors had been murdered. Seems illegal aliens crossed the border by the Coronado Monument south of Sierra Vista, Arizona-Ft. Huachuca-came up the San Pedro River Basin-broke into their house-tortured them for several days-did other stuff-killed them and were caught with credit cards trying to cross back into Mexico via Douglas. The murder was no more than a mile from our house-and we had an arroyo that wound from the San Pedro passing right by the end of our property that was like a natural path the Javelinas used to transit between two intermittent water courses.
When I returned home, we bought what would turn out to be a great German Shepherd and we also visited the local gun store so she could pick out a handgun (she had been in the Army as well.) By an unfortunate twist of fate, the gun she took a liking to-that fit her hand perfectly-was a 9MM 5 shot Charter Arms Pit Bull revolver. The first item we heard that should have been a big old red flag was that it took a special “rimmed” 9MM Federal nickel cartridge-but could not fire regular 9MM, as no moon clips worked. The second thing was subtle, but also somewhat alarming in that the box of ammunition looked like it had been opened at least 1000 times or more. But you know-it fit my wife’s hand, she liked the look and the feel, it was a great price, so we bought the pistol and two very used looking boxes of ammunition.
We shot most of the ammunition over the course of a few weekends and I returned to the store to buy more. To my surprise and astonishment, a different clerk told me they were out of Federal, and also-it wasn’t being made anymore. Now I don’t know about you, but when he told me the story about the danger of the 115 grain JHP 1280 FPS bullet fitting other weapons like 38 and 32 Cal, I was a little irate that this obvious known information had not been shared with us mere weeks ago when we bought the pistol-particularly since they didn’t stop making the ammo since we bought it. I spoke with the manager to explain to him that it was a very small town and a silly thing to do to a potential customer-who will never set foot in that store again-and will talk to every soldier I know about what a rip-off artist he was.
Two good news points came out of this experience. A friend of mine shot an old 357 S&W and reloaded his cartridges on a Dillon 500 series machine. After we went shooting a few times and I was unable to find ammunition in the local area-Tucson-the land of the big PX-we looked up the specs on the cartridge and it turns out it took a mix of a 38 and 9mm die kit-most of which he already had. Secondarily-being in the test business and learning never to take no for an answer-I started calling stores in Phoenix, Las Cruces-somebody had to have that ammunition. Also-since I traveled quite a bit doing Army testing, I started visiting local gun stores every chance I could to find ammo.
At some point I decided to share this pain and problem with Federal, so I called the headquarters, who connected me with the production manager, who was a nice, sympathetic gentleman who told me that the last batch had been run some time ago. But there was a shooting competition down in San Antonio and they had just shipped them the last bit of Federal 9MM they had at the plant-a gross-and he gave me the point of contact’s number. I contacted him and to make a long story short, after the competition he called to tell me he had 10 boxes left-and I bought them on the spot for $12 a box with shipping.
Many have told me over the years that moon clips should work in the pistol-to which I say-“send me the video.” I gave away every set I tried-you might fire one, but the action is tight enough that it just doesn’t cycle properly-even when loosening the action. The nickel cartridges are good but tend to wear a bit in the mouth, although I have some cartridges I’ve reloaded numerous times-and have also culled many that didn’t pass muster or were chipped.
That was 1990. We later bought a Ruger 22 for training the kids (different store,) my favorite Super Blackhawk 44 magnum to have a “thunderstick,” Glock 9mm and a few others. I later became a fan of convertible pistols, Wessons and Rugers, particularly the stout 9/357 variant. After learning the lesson on the Pit Bull, I knew it was only a matter of time before I bought a reloader-so we saved every piece of brass we shot.
With retirement from the Army, relocation back east and time going by, we continued shooting but I delayed buying that reloader until 2010, precipitated by the increasing burden the Obama administration was putting on ammunition and reloading supplies, having added a hazard tax to shipping and sparking a seemingly unexplainable “run” on certain ammunition types that had many areas experiencing the first shortages of ammunition in recent memory. Also, the ammunition that was available had gone up precipitously.
My family chipped in and bought me a Dillion 600 series for Christmas, and I dug out from deep storage the brass I had saved over the many years of shooting that had followed us around the country for ~20 years. Since most of our friends did not reload, I was always “Johnny on the brass.” I knew I had a bunch of different cartridges, but I was astounded to find out how much I had.
My father-in-law (RIP) was retired Army as well and between he and his friend in the mid-west-who has a collection that would make the NRA jealous-we discussed the best way to go about it and the sage advice was to start out with enough material-including reloading dies for each caliber, as well as sufficient powder, projectiles and primers to load the cartridges I had, and to reload them at least once after firing. Fortunately, the Dulles Gun Show was close by, and we decided that if a load and a reload was right, then 2 reloads were better and-well, you get the point.
I’m thankful I learned some valuable lessons with the experience of the Charter Arms Pit Bull. The most valuable was learning-by necessity-to reload. The other valuable lesson was to always have sufficient material on hand for the cartridges you have-which has come in handy of late. Just to provide a number to my comments above-my friend had a Super Redhawk 44 magnum (with Leopold Scope) but with the ammunition going for ~$20 bucks, he always gave me his brass. I had my Blackhawk, while another friend had a “Dirty Harry” version-with the bottom line being when I opened up my duffle bag full of brass, I had several thousand 44 magnum and special cartridges.
Now that is a lot of Dirty Harry movies! Despite reloading inventories being somewhat spotty over the last dozen years or so, by the time we left Virginia I had a good stock of supplies. As recently as mid- 2020 you could still buy reasonably priced reloading material, for instance, CCI primers at Sportsman’s Warehouse for ~$24 per thousand. Powder was similarly reasonable, and I usually found sale projectiles to replace the stock as we went through it. It is a lot easier to be patient with prices and bargains when you have a stock you are replenishing, rather than buying things you are out of all the time.
So the bottom line down the bottom is I had a really valuable learning experience with the Charter Arms Pit Bull. My wife likes the reloaded version of the ammo much better, as a step down to about 800-900FPS is a good comfortable load. I do still see the ammo periodically. In fact, just a few years ago-2015-I was visiting my brother and went out to get breakfast. Not two blocks from his house was one of the only McDonald’s I had ever heard of that shut down. In its place was a gun store. I went in and-lo and behold-there were 2 well-worn boxes of Federal 9mm on the shelf-$21.99 apiece. The owner said he’d had them forever-did not know much about them. I offered him $36 for both-and told him the story. I’ve seen the ammo going for a buck a bullet in online auctions.
I still have several new boxes and about as many reloads. When we train friends and family, I walk them through the rote in terms of increasing velocity and nastiness from the 22 on up to the 45 Colt. But the Pit Bull is still a favorite because that little pistol seriously barks over a range of 800-1280FPS “stouties.”
As you would expect from a Pit Bull!
28 September 2022
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Interesting that your wife liked that particular revolver. My wife just said she wanted to try a revolver. I remember so well, the day that my son and I took my wife to the range, with every pistol we had, just to see which she felt the most comfortable shooting. It turned out that she was a natural with the Sig P226, an older, well used pistol. She had no real reason for wanting the revolver, but I’m going to give it a go with the Smith Model 19, with some lighter loads, first. I know she won’t like the other, the Model 29.
I, too, reload. Been doing that for years. I forced myself into reloading when I looked at component prices, years ago. There is a prominent sporting goods online supplier online just down the road from me. They called me one day, saying that my order for primers came in. I had already picked it up. The order was huge, probably fifty boxes of primers. I said I would be right there. Looking back, I couldn’t have been luckier. Some of those primers might just be put in my will. Their price for small rifle primers(CCI 41) is over a hundred per box, now, when I paid 23 bucks back then. I haven’t seen the new prices for large pistol and large rifle primers, yet, but I’m sure they will be just as expensive. I have saved brass for several decades. If only I bought more Golden Saber bullets, back then. Times have certainly changed things concerning shooting and reloading, haven’t they?
Hey Mark! I was fortunate that one of the civilian engineers at our test directorate who I routinely worked with was a die hard reloader-so the minute we discovered the issue with the Federal-he noodled around and found that his 38/357 die/shellplate fit the shell perfectly-so all I needed was the seating/crimp 9mm kit-so I learned reloading near immediately-and then reloaded to save the factory ammo for “bidness.”
I think it was a hand size thing at the time but my wife does very well with the AR-but most of us former Army can dial that “platform” in with no issues and of course tricked out with whatever tickles your fancy-scope, lights, etc. Our family-Me, wife, son-have all shot way more than our share with the M16….
The service weapons are all imminently serviceable (e.g., AR15, M-1, SKS, AK) and useful for the critters out here-mainly coyote but one of the biggest dangers is from wild domestic dogs…..Her current carry is the Glock G42 380ACP which has a very small bullet (~95Grn) but good ballistics that are helped with the right load combination-sweet little pistol. I’m a big fan of Golden Sabers but I have practice and business loads and am not that fussy as long as target performance is within spec-but if push came to shove I use factory loads exclusively-not that I’ve ever had a problem with my reloads-but you know what they say (Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel) and part of the strategy for reloading is to save the good stuff-manufactured ammo-for business-time. I haven’t bought any factory loads for about a decade-except a few auctions I won where I was buying SIG, SKS and M-1 military grade ammo-and inadvertently won more than I planned at ridiculously low bids that I never thought would win-which worked out well since it was a Colorado based auction-I think I saved nearly 70 bucks on the shipping by winning and picking it up local–but it is somewhat of a pain reloading bottlenecks unless you do it all the time—even the SIG is just somewhat of a yuge pain.
Its interesting-I too had a handful of oopsies where I ordered or bought X amount and I was sent Y by mistake-for instance, with 45 colt brass I ordered 300 and was sent 3K–the firm gave me a great deal to keep them-brand new Starline…and when idle times are on us-why not load them???? One of the main criteria when we moved out here was being able to shoot on our land. It wasn’t inconvenient or difficult to shoot in Virginia-it was only about 15 minutes to Clarke’s Range-but the libs started messing with the covenants and HOAs before we moved-with some trying to force the issue of homeowners insurance for registered gun owners, warnings for things like Halloween, publishing maps with gun owners identified for the “safety” of the neighborhood, etc. Course these idjiots in Colorado have restricted magazines, talked about serial numbers on bullets, etc. It is a great hobby and good information to pass on to the grandkids when they come of age. It is shocking how many folks I worked with over the years (even some in the military) who are totally ignorant (as in lacking knowledge) when it comes to weapons and self-defense. But that was not surprising in Va and around DC where you have people who never owned a car and don’t even bother getting drivers licenses….Security and safety are other peoples problem….check out this place
https://www.coloradooncefiredbrass.com/
I’ve met so many good people who reload and immersed themselves in other ways in the gun culture. I don’t get out to the range as I used to, and my friend, a gunsmith, has passed away, but if my wife wants a revolver, there’s an excuse to get back in.
Thanks for that link. Prices look good. I need to load some 10mm.
I have bought some factory loads, lately, at a gun show. Some Hornady .44 mag for my Henry.