{"id":414427,"date":"2024-01-05T13:00:19","date_gmt":"2024-01-05T19:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/?p=414427"},"modified":"2024-12-27T11:41:50","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T17:41:50","slug":"snub-nose-revolvers-which-is-right-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/snub-nose-revolvers-which-is-right-for-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Snub-Nose Revolvers: Which is Right for You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The small-frame \u201csnub-nose,\u201d known colloquially as a \u201csnubby,\u201d remains the last and strongest bastion of the revolver in the defensive handgun world. The reasons for the snubby’s popularity are its concealability, reliability, and simplicity of operation, not to mention the fact that it won\u2019t go out of battery and fail to fire when you need it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking about a small-frame revolver with a plus\/minus two-inch barrel that can fit into a pocket. There are four formats from which you can choose.<\/p>\n

The Formats<\/strong><\/h2>\n

You can get the spur hammer<\/em> model, which goes back to the very dawn of revolvers. You can also get spurless hammer <\/em>revolvers, which harken to when double-action revolvers first became available and were modified by users who carried them concealed. There is the wrongly named hammerless <\/em>style that goes back to the Smith & Wesson Safety Hammerless top-break revolver that was introduced in 1887 whose hammer is actually completely contained inside the frame and unavailable to the operator\u2019s hand. And, finally, the shrouded hammer <\/em>configuration that was introduced by Colt with their screw-on hammer shroud for their D-frame Detective Special and Cobra in 1950.<\/p>\n

\"three
From left — S&W makes spur hammer Chief Special, sometimes sold with hammer bobbed; shrouded hammer Bodyguard, and \u201chammerless\u201d Centennial series.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Spur Hammer Snubs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

These are conventional DA\/SA (double action\/single action) revolvers which can be fired with either a long pull of the trigger or by a short pull if the hammer is manually cocked.<\/p>\n

Good news: if a precision shot is needed and the owner feels a light trigger pull is necessary for that, this configuration makes it easy. Because it\u2019s useful to know that you don\u2019t have a high primer in a cartridge that could bind cylinder rotation and jam the gun, when you load one of these you can safely keep your finger off the trigger and ease the hammer back just enough to drop the cylinder bolt and allow a cylinder rotation check to confirm that your wheel-gun is ready to go.<\/p>\n

Bad news: If the hammer is cocked in a high-stress situation, it\u2019s pretty scary to have to press the trigger to lower the hammer back down with shaky, adrenalized hands. Moreover, there have been numerous cases where a hammer was cocked, creating a \u201chair trigger\u201d effect, and then an unintentional shot was fired with one of those shaky hands.<\/p>\n

Still more bad news: if the gun is capable of being cocked, it can be falsely alleged that you did so and then negligently discharged a \u201chair trigger\u201d gun when you shouldn\u2019t have. This is why so many police departments rendered their wheel-guns double action only back in the \u201cservice revolver\u201d days.<\/p>\n

\"S&W
Cocked hammer, as on this S&W .22 Kit Gun, has dangers explained in text.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is also the problem of the hammer spur catching on clothing and snagging the draw. The great mid-20th<\/sup> Century gun expert Paul Weston of NYPD described hammer spurs as \u201cfish hooks.\u201d The good news is that if you place your thumb on the hammer when you draw such a revolver from a pocket, your thumb will act as a hammer shroud to keep that from happening.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Drawing
The thumb on the hammer spur of this nickel Colt Cobra acts as a \u201chuman hammer shroud\u201d during pocket draw (left); the author prefers hammerless S&W 340 M&P (right) for a snag-free pocket draw.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bobbed Hammer Snubs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With the hammer spur ground off or not there in the first place \u2013 S&W, Colt, Ruger, and others have offered this configuration \u2013 there is no longer a \u201cfish hook\u201d to snag the draw. However, it doesn\u2019t mean the hammer can\u2019t be cocked. I\u2019ve seen expert witnesses demonstrate that a bobbed hammer can be cocked by starting it back with a partial trigger pull, which gives a less-than-scrupulous lawyer a hook for a negligence case, because you can see how hard it would be to lower a bobbed hammer after it was <\/em>cocked. If you have a bobbed hammer, you want that hammer to be without a single-action cocking notch.<\/p>\n

With a bobbed hammer you can hold your thumb on the hammer while you bring the trigger back for a cylinder rotation check, but you\u2019re still pressing the trigger on a loaded gun, and that gets dicey\u2026<\/p>\n

Shrouded Hammer Snubs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

That 1950 Colt hammer shroud attached to a D-frame snubby, and left a tip of the hammer exposed just in case a precision single action shot was deemed necessary by the user. However, with just the tip of the hammer for the thumb to grasp, lowering <\/em>the hammer under stress if a shot wasn\u2019t fired became more difficult with a trembling thumb. The Colt shroud also tended to catch the web of the shooter\u2019s hand and accentuate recoil. A few years after Colt introduced the hammer shroud, their arch-competitor, Smith & Wesson, came up with an integral one on the revolver they called the Bodyguard, which didn\u2019t hurt the web of the hand.<\/p>\n

Good news with this design: it didn\u2019t snag on the draw from any sort of concealed carry, and the hump of the shroud prevented sharp recoil from rolling the gun back in the hand enough that the web of the hand blocked the hammer spur and prevented a shot in rapid fire. It also allowed a cylinder rotation check by drawing the hammer back and permitting \u201cthe wheel to turn.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bad news: With only a \u201ccocking button\u201d for the thumb to grasp, it wasn\u2019t as easy to thumb-cock for a single-action shot (or to safely lower the hammer) as a conventional DA\/SA revolver.<\/p>\n

\"
Integral hammer shroud of S&W Model 38 Bodyguard Airweight keeps gun from rolling up in hand on recoil.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHammerless\u201d Snubs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Beginning with the 19th-century\u00a0Safety Hammerless, that word is in quotes above because the hammer was still there, but internally, just not accessible to the shooter. It was \u201cdouble action only\u201d (DAO). Good news: slick draw. Never a \u201chair trigger negligence\u201d accusation.<\/p>\n

More good news, little recognized: Because the \u201chigh horn\u201d of the backstrap gets the gun hand higher on the gun, there is more leverage working for the shooter and the muzzle doesn\u2019t rise as much upon recoil, enhancing rapid-fire capability!<\/p>\n

\"S&W
Note how high the web of the hand gets on \u201chammerless\u201d 2.5\u201d ported Centennial from S&W Pro Shop, greatly reducing muzzle rise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The bad news with the \u201chammerless\u201d: not only is the easy single-action trigger pull off the table, but so is the cylinder rotation check: you\u2019d have to pull the trigger of a loaded revolver to get the cylinder to rotate. With a \u201chammerless,\u201d you have to examine each cartridge before you load the gun to make sure there are no high primers.<\/p>\n

Finding the Balance<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Having shot snub-nose revolvers since the early 1960s and extensively carried all four formats, I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that the best approach is for the individual user to try all four types. For rapid fire, in which hot loads can make a small grip-frame want to roll up in the hand, I found that the spur hammer type was the worst, the spurless hammer was better, the shrouded hammer better yet (because no hammer spur could hit the web of the hand and prevent the next shot), and the hammerless best of all.\u00a0 Combat accuracy? Cocking the hammer is slow, and I found the spur hammer Chief Special fired single-action would still give me all head shots at 25 yards, but so would double-action, with only a slightly larger group dispersal. A long time ago, having carried DA\/SA Colts, Rugers, and S&Ws extensively, I locked in on the hammerless S&W for my preferred backup revolver and remained there.<\/p>\n

The choice is yours\u2026but the choice will only be truly valid after you\u2019ve checked out each option and found out which works best for you, <\/em>and for your <\/em>needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The small-frame \u201csnub-nose,\u201d known colloquially as a \u201csnubby,\u201d remains the last and strongest bastion of the revolver in the defensive handgun world. The reasons for the snubby’s popularity are its concealability, reliability, and simplicity of operation, not to mention the fact that it won\u2019t go out of battery and fail to fire when you need it. We\u2019re talking about a small-frame revolver with a plus\/minus two-inch barrel that can fit into a pocket. There are four formats from which you can choose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":390175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2333],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-414427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-firearm-reviews"],"small_media_thumbnail":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/smith-and-wesson-442-1-300x227.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414427"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417769,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414427\/revisions\/417769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}