A Snub-nose and a Snake

For a good back up nothing beats a small snub-nosed revolver. I know that small semi-autos are very popular right now but I prefer the reliability of a revolver. Too often small equates to cheap when it comes to semi-autos. A lot of guys will spend a princely sum on their main gun but go cheap on a back-up. Well if your back-up fails to feed or stove-pipes a round what good is it? This early Smith and Wesson Model 36 only holds five rounds of 38 special but that is a lot more wallop than a .380 or a .25 ACP automatic. Having only a 1.5 inch barrel and small fixed sights does not prevent this handgun from being sufficiently accurate out to 10 yards, even in my hands. If you are down to your back-up, things are happening at close range, or your primary weapon is down for some reason. For commonality of ammo, this gun can be paired with any of my 357 magnums since they can shoot .38 special in place of .357 magnum rounds. If you pack any of the popular 9mm, then your primary weapon does not have a lot more muzzle energy than your back up, and maybe less than this snub nose.

The knife would be a good one to take to a gun fight. It is an early Blackjack Mamba modified by Wayne Goddard in an attempt to streamline the original Mike Stewart design. I rather like this version, it being sleeker and more sinuous than the hard lines found on the original recipe. I thought these two looked good together, sharing similar textures. The S&W is wearing its new Hogue grips, that I wrote about a few blogs ago. The Mamba is decked out in its original kraton with snake scale texture. The handle scales are held in place by six screws. The original versions had glued on scales that quickly fell off. This caused no end of grief for Blackjack knives and the terrible publicity nearly destroyed the company. The simple addition of the screws quickly fixed the problem but the design was so maligned as to never recover its popularity. I always felt Blackjack was dealt with unfairly by the staff of Fighting Knives magazine. So enjoy this Chief’s Special and Mamba. Like the old song about John Henry the coal miner; “One fist of iron, the other of steel, If the right one don’t get you then the left one will.”