Читать книгу The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery онлайн

31 страница из 158

The baby S&W, meanwhile, had been in stainless and Airweight, and even lighter AirLite Ti (titanium) and SC (scandium) models. Calibers included .22, .32 Magnum, .38 Special, 9mm, and .357 Magnum. A “LadySmith” version had also been marketed successfully. The firm had made larger versions in .44 Special.

During that period Taurus had come up from a cheap alternative to a genuinely respected player in the quality handgun market. Their Model 85, resembling a Chief Special, was particularly accurate and smooth, dramatically underselling the S&W and becoming the firm’s best seller. The new millennium saw the CIA (Carry It Anywhere) hammerless clone of the S&W Centennial. The first to produce a “Total Titanium” snubby, Taurus made their small revolvers primarily in .38 Special and .357, with larger snubbies available in .44 Special, .45 Colt, and even .41 Magnum.

Rossi also sold a lot of snub-nose revolvers. So did Charter Arms in its various incarnations from the 1960s to the 21st Century. Charter’s most memorable revolver was the Bulldog, a five-shot .44 Special comparable in frame size to a Detective Special.