Proof Positive This Gun Is Rock Solid

Proof Positive This Gun Is Rock Solid by Lyndon Combs
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From the time I was thirteen and shot my first .44 magnum a Ruger Red hawk with a 5″ barrel, I have been an avid Ruger enthusiast. So when I decided I needed a smaller gun than my Beretta 92 to pack, I naturally turned my attention to the Ruger SP101 and started shopping around for one in .357 Magnum. The first time I saw one of these pistols on the cover of a gun magazine I knew I would eventually own one. The search was slow and took me several months to find one in my hometown. I couldn’t just ask them to order one for me because I knew I would have to put it in layaway. Finally a local gun shop got one in stock. It was over priced, but having looked for so long I decided to slap my money down, and it went into layaway.

At the time I was working at the local water plant, and I wasn’t making much money so it took me a month to finally get to take the gun home. It has always been one of my most memorable gun purchases. You see at the time, the work I was doing was very hard, and I was constantly handling chemicals, so using my hard earned money to treat myself to a new gun was a very big event. It had been a couple of years since I had been able to buy a gun. The last one being my Beretta, I had bought when money was flowing a little more.

I took my new Ruger home, and put it in my nightstand. I had to wait for my next paycheck to be able to afford some shells, but in two weeks I had the money. Remember I was on a budget so I picked up two boxes of Winchester 110 grain hollow points at Wally World. They were cheap, and 50 to a box. I couldn’t wait to get to the range to try my gun out. It was a Saturday, so I headed straight to the range to blast. It felt like it took me minutes to load the gun once I got to the firing line, but I got it done, and took aim at a target 20 yards down range, and squeezed the trigger. Bam, and OUCH!!!!!!!!

The first shot from the gun told me one thing, I would need to change the grips, they just didn’t cut the mustard. So I stopped after firing only 5 rounds through the gun, packed up my stuff and headed to the house to start researching grips for the SP 101. I quickly came to the conclusion that there was only one good choice for replacement grips, Hogue Grippers. I had to wait another month until I had to be in Lexington Kentucky (an hour and half from my hometown) for a doctor appointment to get a set, but I got my grips. I slapped them on in the gun shop parking lot. They fit my hand perfectly. I could tell a big difference in the feel of the gun. Now to see if the ouch was gone.

I got back to my hometown at about 5:30 in the evening, and headed straight to a spot to try the gun out. I had the boxes of shells, and all I needed was an old can or something of that nature as a target. I found a bunch of old beer cans on the old dirt road going the strip job where I was going to shoot. Once I was at the spot I was going to shoot. I took aim, squeezed the trigger, and bam!!!!!! No ouch. I then finished off the box of shells, all forty-five rounds. It shot great, no problems. The gun from then on was my main side arm. I carried the gun in the woods, in the car, on the street; everywhere I went I packed this gun.

When my father became Constable in the late 90′s I let him pack it as his service revolver. When that time was over it went back to being my main source of protection. It never failed me, a great gun, but the next step on this guns journey would prove it was tougher than I had ever thought possible.

In the summer of 2003 my family and I opened a Tobacco shop in a part of town known as Christopher Road. The area we soon found was full of thieves and drug addicts so I kept the gun in my pocket, or under the counter as protection from the drug taking thieves that would fall through the door. After doing this for about five months the gun was stolen from under that counter and I was crazy with worry. I called the State Police first thing, and they got the serial number into the system, and I went home to get my old Beretta to pack. I soon started packing two more guns to work.

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