Charter Arms .38 undercover

[christian1663]

I recently became the owner of one of these little snubbies.  I took it to the range today and I shot horrible with it.  What type of accuracy should I expect out of a pistol like this.  This pistol was made in the late 60's, do you think it may be to old?  What should i look for on the gun itself to tell if its worn out?

[Graybeard]

What other brands of .38 Snubnose revolvers have you shot? How well did you do with them? How badly did you do with this one? How do they compare?

What distance were you shooting? One hand or two? Rapid fire or slow fire? Single action or double?

All these things play into the answer. But true is darn few of us can hit much with any of them at 25 yards and beyond don't even think about it. I once had a S&W442 I think was the model number that did really well. With S&W 60 3" I can shoot far better with the laser sight than with the factory irons.

Truth is if you can keep pretty much all of your shots on an 8.5"x11" target sheet at 25 yards I consider that pretty good for a snubby. Shooting at 10-15 yards is more realistic. At that range you should be able to hit a 12 oz. beverage can with fair regularity at least single action taking your time. Not always mind you but with fair regularity.

Just like all guns you still have to find what ti likes to shoot. The intrinsic accuracy is likely there. From a machine rest at 100 yards it likely would do better by far than in your hands at 25 or less. That short barrel and rudimentary sights just don't cut it tho.

[Tom W.]

I had one of those revolvers in a former life,  (well , my ex did,) and we shot a lot   of handloads from it. it wasn't a target piece by any stretch, but could hold it's own at 25 yards, if fired single action, and slowly. If fired double action with any speed, it was more of a point, pull and pray type situation.