Yom Hashoah 2025

Without arms, "Never Again" is a mere plea. It should be a warning. See my PDF: Guns for Jews.

High Standard Sentinel R-108

This week I picked up another snub, this time a High Standard Sentinel R-108 in .22LR with a 2.4" barrel. It was made sometime between 1967 and the mid-1970s. I'd been watching it for awhile on Gunbroker. It had failed to garner any bids through a couple auction cycles so I was able to win it for the minimum bid of $329. (Yeah, they used to be a lot cheaper. Like everything else, prices went through the roof during COVID and never came back down.)

This is my second Sentinel. I've written about my first one previously. A few years ago I bought a nickeled R-101 with a 3" barrel. It sold me on the basic design, which is a lightweight, aluminum-framed DA revolver that holds 9 rounds in the cylinder, which is just a hair larger in diameter than that of a S&W J-Frame.

Unlike the R-101 which has a one piece grip, the R-108 has a more conventional two piece grip. Also, it has a spring loaded ejector. The R-101's ejector was not spring loaded as a cost saving measure, but due to customer demand HS introduced that feature with the R-102.

The R-108 was definitely used but well cared for. It had a bit of crud on it but it cleaned up quickly. It even came with the original box and papers.

Overall, the HS feels a bit closer in size to a Colt D-Frame than a J-Frame. Here it is with a 1974 Colt Detective Special.

And next to my 1990s-vintage S&W Model 632 Airweight:

The SA trigger is good while the DA is heavy, but smooth. The trigger itself is grooved which is not ideal for DA shooting. I took the edge off the top of the serrations on my R-101 and plan to do the same to the R-108.

The sights on these are much better than most snubs. The front blade is wide and easy to pick up while the rear is drift adjustable, not just a groove in the topstrap.

My primary snubs for carry will remain my old S&W Model 632 Airweight and a Colt Detective Special, but the R-108 will make a fun plinker and a light recoiling gun for if/when I need that, as I have in the past due to thumb surgery. In that case it will be stoked with either CCI Stingers or Federal Punch.

Lee TL314-90-SWC Mold

After having good luck with the Lee TL358-158 mold in casting bullets for .38 Special, I recently picked up a TL314-90-SWC mold to use for my .32 caliber revolvers. The weather was nice today so I decided to break it in.

Waiting for the lead to melt:

I used dead soft lead. I won't be pushing these very fast in .32 S&W Long, .32 H&R Mag, or .32-20.

Here's one of the bullets from the new mold along with one cast in my TL358-158 mold, which is already lubed with Lee Liquid Alox:

This bullet is a little pointer than I'd like. I'd rather it have a wider meplat like the .38 caliber bullet but for plinking or paper punching it'll be fine.

The new mold was especially easy to cast with. The bullets dropped freely from the cavities with at most one rap with a mallet on the bolt holding the handles together.

8-Round Tuff Strips

Bianchi Speed Strips and their near-clones, the Tuff Products Quickstrips are a popular option for people who CCW a revolver to carry reloads. Being flat, they are easier to carry concealed than a speed loader.

Quickstrips are available for a variety of calibers and also in versions that carry 8 rounds. These have an advantage even if you're carrying a 6 shot revolver. This is my S&W 632 Airweight in .32 H&R Magnum.

As you can see, this allows you to space out the rounds in the strip to make loading 2 rounds at a time easier.

Incidentally, I don't carry a reload with the expectation I'd ever need it during a fight. Rather, it means that if I do have to defend myself with the gun and survive, I can remain armed afterwards.

The ammo is .32 H&R Magnum 98 grain powder coated wadcutters loaded by High Desert Cartridge. HDC says it's specced for the new S&W Ultra Carry revolvers in .32 H&R with a 1-7/8" barrel, which is the same as my older gun. I put just shy of a 50 round box through the gun yesterday and while I didn't chronograph it, I found it very clean shooting and accurate. It's my new carry load for this piece.

Roscoes at the Range

Yesterday I got out to do some shooting with a friend.

Top to bottom:

• 1974 Colt Detective Special in .38 Special I picked up about a week and a half ago.
• Early/mid-1990s S&W 632 Airweight in .32 H&R Magnum that was a gift from my dad several years ago.
• My friend's Charter Arms Professional in .32 H&R Mag.

I ran a couple different handloads through the Colt. Both were loaded with Lee TL358-158 cast semiwadcutters in mixed brass. The first batch were over 3.8 grains of HP-38 while the second batch were over 3.5 grains of Titegroup. In a medium frame gun like a S&W Model 10 these are very mild. They jump a bit more in a compact snub but remained controllable, especially the Titegroup loads.

First 18 shots with the Colt, with the HP-38 ammo, fired 2 hands, double action, from about 10 yards:

This is a great little gun. Colt should reintroduce it now that they've got back into wheelguns.

Next up was the Airweight. The last time I had it out I had several light strikes due to a reduced power hammer spring I'd installed. Before trying it again I put a 9.5 lb. Wolff hammer spring in it, which is actually a pound heavier than stock. This time it ran flawlessly

18 rounds from 10 yards, shooting .32 H&R Magnum 98 grain wadcutter rounds from High Desert Cartridge, which will be my new carry load. HDC uses powder coated bullets in this load and it burned very cleanly.

The Charter Arms Professional was bought by my friend around 2019. It was an inexpensive revolver but we've been impressed with it for the cost (about $300 at the time). It's a 7 shooter comparable in size to a Colt D-Frame (e.g., the Detective Special). He spent a lot of time working on the action and it's extremely smooth.

Another gun I brought out was my S&W Model 28-2 Highway Patrolman. This is an N-Frame .357 Magnum. I've owned it since the late 90s, when I traded an Astra A-75 towards it. If I remember correctly, the big Smith was priced at $250.

It's been ages since I've fired full house .357s from a revolver so we put 20 rounds of Federal American Eagle .357 158 grain JSPs through it. This is a screen cap from a video showing the gun in full recoil. In contrast, shooting the .38 Specials I had with me was a very mild experience due to the gun's 41 oz. weight.

The Model 28 is fitted with Thai Magnas and a grip adapter from BK Grips.

Aside from the wheelguns I also ran some rounds through my 2nd generation Keltec P32. I found that it dislikes the Fiocchi and Aguila FMJ I had on hand, giving me at least one failure to eject per magazine. My friend gave me some PPU .32 ACP FMJ with which it functioned 100% through two mags. The PPU also functions 100% in his Gen 1 P32, so we're going to split a case.

Prickly Jews

As an early Gen Xer closing in on 60 and a Jew, I've heard, "Never Again" my entire life. Jews in the West have invoked Never Again as a spell against persecution. Speaking as an American what I've seen is that most of my fellow Jewish Americans have thought as long as they remembered the horrors of the Holocaust and chanted Never Again, we'd be protected.

As we saw on October 7, 2023 that was a lie. Words are impotent unless you are willing to back them up with a willingness to fight.

Jews in the US are fortunate in that we have the right to keep and bear arms enshrined in the Constitution. Some states infringe upon that right, but even on those it exists and Jews there are not as helpless as those in most of the rest of the world.

The late gun writer Walt Rauch, who I was privileged to know, classed people into three basic groups:

• Sheep
• Wolves
• Prickly People

The sheep and wolves should be self-explanatory. By "Prickly People," Walt meant people who did not seek to hurt others but at the same time maintained the skill and arms necessary to defend themselves against the wolves. Think of a porcupine.

More recently Jordan Peterson has noted that,  "A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very, very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control."

Walt's Prickly People fall into the same category as Peterson's Dangerous Man.

Jews need to be Prickly People. We'll leave you alone, but mess around with us and you will find out to your detriment that doing so was a bad idea.

Becoming a Prickly Jew doesn't happen overnight and may require something of an attitude adjustment.

First, be proud of being a Jew. If someone tries to slur you as a Jew or Zionist, embrace it, don't shrink from that.

Develop skills that allow you to be dangerous to modern day Nazis and to take care of yourself and loved ones:

• Physical fitness.
• First aid and trauma care.
• Hand-to-hand fighting.
• Situational awareness.
• Marksmanship and firearms safety. (If you haven't already, check out my PDF ebook Guns for Jews.)

A political comment:

Elections have consequences. If you vote for candidates who restrict your right to self defense and bear arms, and who safeguard the people who attack Jews, you are perpetuating the problem.

Never Again is now. Become a Prickly Jew.

Quick Strips for .410 Shells

Most revolver shooters are familiar with Bianchi Speed Strips and the similar Tuff Products Quick Strip for carrying spare ammunition. Well, the .44/.45 size Quick Strips also work for .410 shells:

While this takes up more room than the 5-round box, it's easier to handle as a unit especially if you're wearing gloves.

Rossi .410 Single Shot

A few weeks ago I got to shoot an old H&R folding .410 shotgun that belongs to a friend, and instantly got a bad case of the wants. I offered to buy it from him but he's not selling, and I can't blame him. He owns some property and it would be a perfect piece for taking care of varmints in his garden or to tote while he's walking his land.

So, I got to looking for a .410 break barrel on Gunbroker. I lost an auction for a nearly mint condition Stevens 94 but found a gently used Rossi SS4112811. I picked it up from my FFL a couple days ago and it's in even better shape than described in the listing. It's basically new old stock. The only thing that was missing was the OEM cable lock, which is no loss IMHO. This model is no longer listed on Rossi's website.

The barrel is 28" long with a modified choke, which is preferable for my needs to the full choke most .410s have. I think, anyway. I need to pattern it.

The gun weighs about 3.8 lbs. It feels like a toy but it means that you can carry it all day.

Rossi's method of takedown is good. The forearm is held on by the same screw which the front sling swivel is attached to. It's captured so it can't be lost.

Like the H&R single shots made in the past several decades the Rossi has a transfer bar, allowing it to be safely carried loaded with the hammer down. It also has a manual hammer blocking safety mounted on the left side of the receiver. At first my reaction was to regard this as superflous but it will allow me to hunt with the gun cocked, much as one would with a hammerless double or a pump gun. I'm left handed so the safety is easy to push off with my trigger finger. A righty could use his thumb, but for once this is a gun feature that's actually more southpaw-friendly.

The plastic furniture is hollow, which got me thinking about using it to store emergency supplies. There's plenty of room in the stock to hold a bore snake or maybe a collapsible cleaning rod, and a bottle of oil, or a ziplock bag with some shells. The forearm is hollow with reinforcing ribs. If I cut one out it could hold shells. I may just stash some fire starting gear in it.

Since the 2020 pandemic, .410 ammo has been scarce on gun shop shelves, and most of that seems to oriented for defensive use in Taurus Judge or S&W Governor revolvers. My FFL only had shells loaded with No.9 shot. However, I've been able to find a variety of .410 ammo online in both 2.5" and 3" length, and have acquired several boxes to experiment with, ranging from No.9s to No.4s to buck and slugs.

UPS should be bringing a stock cuff for ammo and a repro M1 Carbine sling today.

I'm also planning to fireform some .303 British empties into all-brass shells, using instructions posted elsewhere by @Outpost75. The gun closes on the .303 cases but it's a little tight so first I'll sand a thou or so off the case heads. I also have a box of Magtech 2.4" brass shells on the way from Ballistic Products along with suitable cards and wads. Next weekend there's a gun show and I'll try to pick up some Lil-Gun and/or H-110/W-296 to reload with. Apparently, 2400 is also good for reloading .410 but lately it's pretty much unobtanium. And I can always use the Holy Black.

I have several 12 and 20 gauge shotguns so this acquisition wasn't a need, but it should be fun to experiment with.