Disappointed with my S&W 586 after shooting a 44 Magnum today!

[sckelly]

Ha ha! I used to love shooting handguns and it's always a little sad that I can now only shoot the co2. I still have a lot of fun with them, but it just lacks something and the quality of the co2 pistols really feels poor after shooting the real steel.

I never found the .44 to be much of a problem, though I never shot it in less than a 6" barrel; .357 on the other hand, always hurt, slapping hard into the palm of the hand, whereas the .44 was just a big push. The biggest, baddest revolver I ever shot was a .45-70 BFR. Again, the recoil was a lot more manageable than you'd think, the shape of the revolver causing the barrel to rotate upwards in the hand and taking a lot of the jarring out of each shot.

The Glocks I always found to be very accurate, the best of the lot for me was the 36, a compact, single-stack .45 with which I could shoot some remarkable groups, even at range. Very solid and reliable, the grip angle did feel a little odd after the usual semi-autos. The nastiest semi-auto I ever shot was a Kel-Tec in .380. Please, never shoot one, it is just nasty!

[Starblood]

I prefer .357 mag any day of the week over .44.

Tend to agree with the OP, .44 mag is fierce, plus with a nice .357 such as the beloved 686 you can always use .38 special for practice. Let's face it magnum rounds ain't for punching paper!!

And the Glock 17, what a trigger! Especially on the Gen 4 - that thing resets so quickly you can almost double it. There's a semi undocumented feature on the trigger, I was taught at a range in the US, to achieve an even shorter/quicker reset time.

As far as the 454 & 500 rounds go, nah - not for me, way too much of a handful. I suspect you would need a very specific application for that type of weapon. 9mm is just so sweet, especially in something heavy like the 92FS or the updated 92A1 the recoil is very manageable indeed.

Co2 is fun, don't get me wrong - but they're a very long way away from the experience of a cartridge pistol. Sure you can learn the fundamentals, but you can't teach yourself recoil management, proper grip and reset time.

Just under a month to go for me - get reacquainted with a Glock 17.

[pablowatercolor]

Was there any reason why you were shooting such expensive ammo? When shooting at a range on paper targets I would have thought that standard jacketed ammo would be just as good?

It's just what my mate's mate bought - he's a NY police officer so I didn't argue, anyway, couldn't wait to get going! I'll check out the cheaper stuff next time...