In the gun world ‘EDC” is common parlance for a gun you carry almost all of the time. Some take this very literally, and insist that this is the only gun you should carry. Ever.

There’s a certain logic to this; if you always carry the same gun it will be the one you are most familiar with, the most experienced with and it’s manual of arms will quickly become ‘hard wired’ skills. In any situation you will use the gun you will be familiar with reloads, clearing jams etc. Taking this logic a step further, it would be advisable to always carry the gun in the same holster, with reloads in the same place on your person. This is not the worst idea in the world.

There’s a slight problem… for many of us it simply won’t work. Not unless we are willing to completely re-engineer all aspects of our life around carrying that gun. What we wear, where we go, what we do, who we see and under what circumstances.

Most of us have lives that are largely the same from day to day. Most of the time we can select a gun that we can carry all of the time on an average day… but if that gun is your only option circumstances could easily arise that mean you will need to choose between being unarmed or not going.

The thing is we don’t all live the same life. If you are, for example, a Guide living in an area where open carry raises no eyebrows, your Ruger Super Blackhawk might fill your needs just fine. But even then… what about when you go to church? Visit family members? Go to a parent-teacher conference? Awkward.

Firearms have advanced to the point where is is easy to buy a very capable firearm that you can carry almost all of the time. The Sig P365 ticks all of the boxes for a lot of people, not surprising since it was specifically designed to fit the ‘one gun EDC’ paradigm by some very experienced, very clever people. Similarly the Glock 43, an air-weight S&W J-frame and many other guns fit the EDC role pretty well, depending on your abilities and your perception of your needs.

I have a single gun that works for me most of the time, and I carry it most of the time. I am intimately familiar with all aspects of it’s operation and manual of arms, I shoot it very well, and it is adequate for the sorts of threats I feel I am likely to encounter. I seldom go places where I cannot dress to conceal it without arousing comment… but it does happen. If circumstances dictated that I needed to wear a suit, lightweight casual clothing or be in protracted, close contact with a group there is a high likelihood that someone would notice that I am wearing it. Depending on the circumstances, this could cause issues that I would rather avoid. In those instances I have the choice of being unarmed or carrying something more discrete.

Being a long-time firearms hobbyist suffice it to say I have a lot of options compared to many people. Not all are suitable for concealed carry; some are in sub-optimal calibers, hold too few shots, are too slow to reload or are just too damn big. But I have a fairly encyclopedic familiarity with handguns, and with any suitable handgun I own I am confident that I could employ it effectively in the sorts of self-defense situations I feel I am most likely to encounter. But let’s face it, I am not most people, or even representative of firearms enthusiasts.

So, what’s a person to do? Of course if you only have one firearm you really haven’t got a choice. But if you are able to have more than one, your life conditions may make it prudent to do so. Say, a standard carry gun that fulfills most of your needs, and others to serve the rest of the time. It’s axiomatic that in a self-defense situation any gun is better than no gun, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put some thought, and more importantly some training, into your ‘situational’ weapon or weapons.

If possible I would recommend that you employ guns with a similar or identical manual of arms. If you rode a dinosaur to school and EDC a 1911 .45, you might look at a Sig P238 as your more discreet option. It is not mechanically identical to your 1911, but operation, loading, unloading, clearing jams etc. require identical actions. Similarly if you carry a S&W K-frame revolver the smaller J-frame is an obvious choice for a more discreet weapon. Chances are whatever you carry most days, there is a smaller gun that has the same, or very similar, methods of operating it.

Whatever you carry, whether it is you ‘almost every day’ gun or a situational alternative, you need to practice with it. If it does not operate identically this is even more important. Practice does not just mean being able to hit a target or clear a jam, either. You need to practice how you carry it, how to access your reloads etc. and be aware of the limitations of those methods. If you just drop it in a pocket holster you need to understand that it will be slower to get into action, so you can work around that if you need to. The same applies to how you carry your reloads.

Experts are great. You should definitely consider their advice… but they don’t live your life, and their circumstances may be very different than your own. Their advice may not apply to every aspect of your life, and you need to bear in mind the specific needs, circumstances of your life and the threats that you feel you are most likely to need to deal with. Educate yourself, train with your weapons…. and most of all think.

Michael Tinker Pearce, 11 April 2020

Developed in 1846-47, the Colt Pocket Model was a .31 caliber percussion pistol based on (and financed by) the Colt Walker. It incorporated various improvements over the Walker, and these were carried over to the famous 1851 Navy, which was basically a scaled-up Pocket model.

The Pocket Model was available with or without a loading lever in a variety of barrel lengths. Despite the modest power of the .31 they were very popular, and helped set the stage for Colt’s future success. In the modern era these guns have been reproduced by most companies manufacturing percussion revolvers, and examples made by Pietta and Uberti are still available.

My gun, recently picked up as part of a trade, was made by Armi San Marco. It’s a well made gun in good condition. Of course, being me, I got it with the intention to convert it to fire metallic cartridges. But which cartridge? I’ve already done a conversion in .22, and another in .251 TCR. This time I decided I would do the classic, ‘easy’ conversion for these guns, to .32 S&W. I’ve seen modern conversion cylinders offered for this purpose, but they seem to be out of production at present.

As it happened I had a spare cylinder, so I used that for the conversion. I figured if I screwed it up I could always go back to the original. First thing was to remove the nipples from each chamber. That done I chucked it up in the vice and turned down to back of the cylinder to .650″. I then carefully bored through each chamber. each chamber needed clearance for the rim of the cartridge, so I chucked it up in the milling vice on the drill press, then used an end-mill to create room for the rim. I don’t have a .32 S&W chamber-reamer, so I used a slightly undersized drill bit, marked with tape to produce the correct depth. From there I finished the chambers with sanding drums, going up to 600 grit. Once a dropped cartridge would full seat itself in the chamber I was done with the cylinder for the moment.

Next was the breech plate. I used a piece of .262″5160 spring steel. I started by boring a 1/2″ in the piece, then using a flex-shaft tool with a carbide bur and sanding drums I enlarged the hole to fit over the .650 extension at the back of the cylinder. Next I place the cylinder on the steel and traced the outline, expanding it at the bottom to rest against the frame to prevent rotation. Using the flex-shaft with a cut-off wheel and some files I removed material to make a space for the hammer-nose. I’ll leave off the time I spent doing it over after I screwed it up the first time, and the time I spent fussing to allow the cylinder to rotate freely, but still have the bottom of the breech ring bear on the frame to prevent rotation… Then I had to relieve the rear face of the ring to accommodate the ring that stands out from the face of the breech.

After this I had to cut a loading port in the blast-shield on the frame, which I did with a large round-file and sanding drums. Once this was established I marked the breech-ring and cut a loading port in it.

The final part of the conversion was to drill the hammer-face for a fixed firing pin. I used a 3/32 drill and a piece of 3/32 music wire for the pin itself. The pin is basically a force-fit, and is glued in with Red Loctite. We will draw the curtains of charity over the extensive fussing around to get the firing pin the right length and shape to pass cleanly through the hole in the breech-plate. Similarly we will gloss over me breaking the lock/trigger return spring, and my three attempts to fabricate a functional replacement.

Without the loading-lever in place thought the lug under the barrel was inelegant, and decided to do something about it. Using the belt-grinder and sanding drums I re-shaped it to be similar to so-called ‘Avenging Angel’ conversion done on 1851 revolvers, except I didn’t cut the barrel shorter. It came to me with a 5-3/4″ barrel and every inch is still there.

I tested the gun with primed brass to insure everything was functioning, which worked fine.

With the gun fully functional I turned to the finish. I sanded it thoroughly with 240 grit emery cloth, removing all traces of the original finish. Sadly this included the color case-hardening on the frame. A tool had slipped and marked up the surface. I rust-blued the gun with Mark Lee Instant rust blue, which produced excellent results. The hardened surface of the frame colored slightly different than the frame, barrel and breech-ring, but I think that actually adds to the overall look of the gun.

Here’s the finished gun-

Usually when I’ve finished a new project gun the first thing I want to do is test-fire it. Unfortunately the ranges are closed right now, and we’re all supposed to stick to home. How very annoying. OK, less annoying than getting horribly sick and maybe dying, or spreading a virus that might kill someone, but still… OK, I am a resourceful fellow, and the answer was as close as the loading bench.

I had been experimenting with swaging .32 caliber bullets, and had come up with a pretty neat 55gr. Hollow-Base Wadcutter. The very thing, I reckoned. Loaded on top of 1.0gr. of Red Dot with a Federal #100 primer it ought to be about right… and it was. The bullets had just enough power to fully embed themselves in a 1-3/4″ think kiln-dried Douglas Fir board, and as an added bonus they were remarkably quiet. Not silent, mind you, but not loud or sharp like a typical gun shot.

So, pretty much a perfect Gallery Load for indoor shooting. I’ll break out the chronograph later and see what’s what. Of course I’ll be loading these much hotter for normal use (which will still not be impressive.) Load one of these hollow-base wadcutters backwards over a reasonable powder charge and this could be a very effective small-game load!

Michael Tinker Pearce, 5 April 2020

Also known as the Model 2, not to be confused with the Number 2 Army, this was the gun that introduced the .38 S&W cartridge. Which is, of course, .36 caliber… but we’re not going to worry about that. The 1st model was produced from 1876-1877. These became known as the ‘Baby Russian’ because the long ejector housing gave it a similar profile.

The 2nd Model was produced from 1878-1891, and had a shorter ejector housing and other improvements. This model seems to be the one most commonly found these days, and it was the last model with a spur-trigger. The 3rd Model dispensed with this in favor of a conventional trigger and trigger guard, though a small batch of 3rd Models was made for the Mexican government with a spur trigger.

Between all models around 223,000 of these handy little guns were made, so they were successful and quite popular. It’s not hard too see why; the auto-ejector made for fast reloads, and the svelte little gun is quite easy to hide. Operation is simple as well, and thanks to it’s safety notch on the hammer the gun could safely be carried with all five chambers loaded. It’s worth noting if you happen across one of these guns and the cylinder free-rotates when the hammer is down it’s not necessarily broken; it might simply be that the hammer is in the safety notch. The cylinder does fully lock when the hammer is in the fired position.

A few years back I came to fancy S&W’s small top-breaks, but wasn’t much attracted to the single actions until I saw one an internet pal had put together. It had the barrel shortened to two inches, a nice, deep blue refinish and Mother of Pearl grips.

Now, having a thing for snubbies and S&W top breaks this little gun ticked all the buttons for me, and I decided if opportunity presented I would do one up for myself. Well opportunity presented itself last year; a friend spotted a 2nd Model in his local gun store at an excellent price, and I was able to pick it up.

Not in excellent cosmetic shape, but the bore and chambers were good, and the cylinder exhibits no endplay and locks up dead tight. The trigger is a bit stiff, but nicely crisp. The barrel slugged dead-on at .361″, and the chamber throats were likewise an exact .361″. Having acquired a suitable gun I was ready to get started.

Now at this point some might question my decision to modify an antique like this. Fair enough, but bear in mind these are not currently much sought after by the collector market, and even then they are mainly interested in pristine examples. There are plenty of guns like this one in circulation, and Smith & Wesson themselves frequently modified these guns at a customers request.

First things first- I shortened the barrel to 1-5/8″, the same as on my .38 Safety Hammerless. The looks of this length just work for me, and besides I am already familiar with the ballistics of this barrel-length. I crowned the barrel, then made a new front sight and silver-soldered it in place. I made the sight from bronze because in most lighting conditions it’s quite visible.

Once the barrel was shortened I made a new set of grips to replace the original Gutta Percha grips (which I kept.) I had some moose antler on-hand thanks to a buddy of mine from Alaska, and it made a nice set. I took the gun to the range to try out, and it shot very well, and right to the point of aim.

The next order of business was to dispose of the nasty old nickel. I’ve always done this , slowly and painstakingly, with abrasives, and was determined to never do so again. I was advised that Hoppe’s #9 is a copper solvent, and got a large bottle. I disassembled the gun, then put the barrel, cylinder frame and sideplate in to soak… and soak… and soak.

In the end I gave up. The reason this often works on nickel guns is that it is common practice to plate the gun with copper, then plate over the copper with nickel. S&W apparently didn’t have an under-layer of copper for the Hoppe’s to attack, so it had no effect. Bugger. On the bright side I have a life-time supply of Hoppe’s #9.

I set the project aside for a time, thinking at some point I would order some nickel stripper from Brownell’s, but somehow that never happened. Then the other week, with plenty of time on my hands, I caved. I detail-stripped the gun, then carefully sanded all the nickel off, taking special care to preserve the original lines of the gun. I sanded with the sideplate in place to avoid rolling it’s edges, which looks horrible when the gun is refinished. Finally I carefully sanded the gun to 280-grit, then rust blued it using mark Lee’s Instant Rust Blue.

Reassembling the gun involved holding the trigger and trigger-plate against spring tension, and naturally as I was trying to secure the plate the springs sprung and the lock-spring vanished into the nether realm, probably the same ones that socks go to out of the dryer… Bugger. Rather than searching the internet for another spring I simply flattened some music-wire and made a replacement. This time I got the gun reassembled without mishap.

I’ll let you judge the results for yourself, but I am excessively pleased with how it has come out!

By it’s serial number this gun was made in the early to mid 1880s, and nearly 140 years later it’s still going to be used for it’s original purpose. I don’t plan on EDCing this gun, but it is admirably suited to situations where extra-discreet carry is appropriate, and it may be employed as a back-up if I feel the need.

Michael Tinker Pearce, 27 march 2020