CCW - carrying concealed firearms

I was a bit skeptical of this idea, but I actually bought a Smith & Wesson 632 UC. Now I think the author of this blog post and video is right.

I carry it loaded with 32 h&r mag. This has noticeably lighter recoil than a 38 special in such a small gun, but it's very manageable. More importantly, ballistics are comparable to a 38 special out of a snubby. At the range, the gun is actually fun to shoot when I load it with 32 Smith & Wesson longs. I also tried some 32 shorts in it, and recoil is like a 22: Virtually non-existent. 32 short is pretty hard to find, though, and the only brand that I found was Magtech. Unfortunately, Magtech has a reputation for having a high number of dud primers, which has been my experience.

The 32 longs have very light recoil in any case, so I've just been sticking with those at the range. I have also watched the price for all .32s drop noticeably in the past couple of months. It isn't cheap, but it's cheaper to shoot then a number of other calibers that were popular 25 years ago.

Finally, I picked up a couple of HKS speed loaders from Midway USA. They were less than 10 bucks each, and although it isn't nearly as fast as reloading a semi-auto, it is doable in two or three seconds. A speed strip takes more like 10 seconds for me. More to the point, a speed loader in this caliber doesn't make a ridiculously large bulge in my pocket.