Last Gun Pr0n of the Year

First Gun. In December, 1980, I bought the first gun of my adult life. I'd already been given a Remington Wingmaster when I was 16, but I wanted a pistol too, and at last I could afford one. Dad signed the paperwork, since I wasn't 21 yet, but I did all the shopping, finally picking out a Dan Wesson revolver at the Four Seasons Sporting Goods Store in Jim Thorpe PA. It was a perfect first gun, since it could fire inexpensive .38 Special ammo for practice, yet handle .357 Magnum defense loads. Another cool selling point was the easy-change feature for barrels/shrouds and grips. It came with an 8-inch ribbed barrel and over-sized target grips, which I've since added six- (shown) and four-inch barrels, and the comfy combat grip shown. The trigger felt more like a high-quality cap gun than a powerful firearm. It's super-accurate: I used to shoot the necks of bowling pins with it with positive results. The magnum rounds pictured are just for show; I shot so many .38 Special target rounds through it over the years that I need to do a heavy-duty cylinder scrubbing before it will chamber full-length magnum cartridges.

The smudge on the underlug is not an imperfection or wear spot; it's a reflection of the camera in the bright blue finish. I think I've got four or five boxes of .357 that must be close to 10 years old. I've shot thousands of rounds of 9-mm, 40 S&W, and .45 ACP in that time...I need to make time for a Beefy Revo range day.