Ode to Horace and Daniel

Ode to Horace and Daniel - and Rusty, Brad, and Reggie

Reunion with an old and valued friend.

by Buster Moldenhauer - Apr 19, 2022

A poet I ain’t. I do have a fairly decent vocabulary, though, and I've been told that I have a way with words. Let’s see if I can do justice to this important (in my humble opinion) subject.

Several years ago I stumbled into what once was a mere acquaintanceship with some guys but has since become a deep friendship and a very important part of my life. Our relationship is based on several factors we have in common, one of which is an affinity for firearms. It’s the most common of the threads that run through our varied psyches and each of us pursues this hobby with vigor. It’s no surprise, then, that a handgun is at the center of this story even though it is not its most important facet.

About seven years ago I was invited to join these guys at their regular Thursday morning session of shooting, laughing, and prevarication. There was lots of gunsmoke, laughter, and good-natured banter. I felt right at home even though my skill level was considerably lower than theirs.

I came with plenty of preconceived notions about how to handle guns and which ones were “the best.”  I quickly found that not much of my knowledge was valid and, moreover, that I didn’t have nearly as much of it as I thought I did. They were patient and generous in sharing their expertise. I was willing to learn. That combination became the icing on my cake. Their first boon was to disabuse me of the snobbish and ill-conceived disdain I had for revolvers. 

Before long my newfound appreciation for revolvers resulted in my acquisition of one and then another of Smith & Wesson’s classic old competition pieces - K-22 and K-38. As the months and years wore on, my skills improved, as did my respect for revolvers in general and the two old “Smiths” in particular. As one of my friends who is a recognized expert gunsmith will tell you, not all S&W revolvers are perfect but mine were. The action was smooth and the bullet went where the gun was pointed - every time. Each had just a little bit of wear on the finish and a slight streak on the cylinder but these were signs of use, not abuse, and did nothing to degrade from the faithful execution of its intended purpose.

As more time passed, and my appreciation for wheelguns expanded, I fell into the common trap of: “if a few are good, a lot’s got to be better” and I picked up several more S&W models and branched out into the Sturm, Ruger & Co. lineup. I had good luck with my first couple of Rugers also, which encouraged the collection of a diverse group of these fine pieces in various sizes and calibers. Ruger revolvers have a reputation - well deserved in my experience - for durability and indestructibility. If I had to throw one of my revolvers under a moving tank tread it would be my GP100. I’d expect to get it back a little scratched but perfectly serviceable.

More time passed by and I came to spend more and more time with one of the guys in our shooting group. He was a top-level competitor in his younger days and excelled early on at ammunition reloading and gunsmithing as well. This guy’s forgotten more about ballistics and firearms engineering than 99% of the serious “gun guys” will ever know. There’s no telling how many guns he’s owned over the years nor how many have passed through his skilled hands on the workbench. I’ve watched him perform miracles on beat-up old guns, truly turning the proverbial “sow’s ear into a silk purse.” As we call him, the Monsignor will quickly tell you that both Smith and Ruger revolvers in general are magnificent guns. They and other manufacturers have made some over the years that aspire to The Monsignor’s “Excellent” category but there’s not a plethora of those and not every gun made by any of the recognized companies is a good one. The legendary Colt, for instance, had a streak of bad quality control a few years back that got so bad it lost a big military contract and got a reputation among serious gun folks for poor quality.

And now to the point of this story. Okay, I know, “quit building the watch and tell me what time it is,” but you had to know the background for the following drivel to make any sense. Now you know that I like my revolvers, not just the Smiths, and how I got there. The meaningful part of the story is how two of them got lost and then found their way home.

The K-22 and K-38 (mine is really a 14-3 - and the Smith faithful are picky about this - but I’ll take a little literary license on that point) are also known as “K-Frames and were the backbone of my wheelgun arsenal as I became more of a shooter and less of a plinker. While I was perfecting my skill set I began to enjoy the Ruger platform and began to wonder if it could equal the ergonomic perfection of the K-Frame for my purposes. I got thusly distracted and liquidated my K-22 and K-38 to fund the Ruger experiment. For a while, I believed my predictions about Ruger superiority were correct and partially lost interest in my Smiths. A nice pair of Smiths (14 & 19) came, stayed a little while, and went to someone who wanted them more during that period of time. They never would have replaced the K-22 and 14-3 in my heart anyway.

As more time went by I enjoyed my Rugers and actually performed fairly well with them but I always enjoyed an occasional thrashing of one of my other Smiths and watched affectionately while my friends exercised their K-Frames. One day at the range I just kind of blurted out my desire to get my old K-22 back. I’d sold it to the guy that was there shooting it. He said he’d trade it back to me for one of my Rugers that I wasn’t particularly in love with at the time. WooHoo! I’m on my way back to Heaven!  K-22 In The House! Look out steel targets; you’re dead meat!  DRT

Half a range session and 25 rounds were all it took to make me realize I’d made a terrible mistake and how lucky I was to be able to at least partially rectify the situation. There’s something to be said for selling a gun to a friend, but more later on the subject of friends. Having fallen back in love with the long-lost K-22, I yearned for its big brother. Not the “stay awake nights, crying my eyes out” kind of yearning, but the belief that another modicum of nirvana could be bestowed on my old psyche with its homecoming nudged me into asking my friend - who also had my original K-38 - if he was “married” to it or would there be a chance for a trade. Fortunately for me, he has so many other great guns he was able to “tear himself away” from the old Smith and we worked out a deal I’m pretty sure he was glad to get. Exponential WooHoo!. K-Frame ecstasy! 

Now; for Horace and Daniel. In 1852 Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson formed a partnership to produce a firearm that could fire a fully self-contained cartridge. In 1899 the company produced the first of what would become the venerable K-Frame. S&W has continued the line for well over 100 years, with various improvements along the way - and a few changes the “true believers” would call “blasphemy.” Be that as it may, my two are, simply put, perfectly suited for what I ask them to do. A very light and utterly predictable movement of the trigger will cause the hammer to fall without hesitation. A primer will ignite. Depending solely on the quality of the ammunition, a bullet will move through the barrel and fly to wherever the muzzle is pointed. A miss can only be attributed to bad ammo, poor sight regulation, or shooter error.

So, thank you, Horace and Daniel, for the ancestry of something that has stood the test of time and continues to warm the cockles of this old heart. But there’s more.

Several years ago Rusty, Reggie, and Brad took a crusty, old, fat, curmudgeon under their wing and, with a bit of gentle persuasion, let him think he had come up with the idea that this “old-fashioned” brand of shooting was actually fun. They let him make minor mistakes as a method of enhanced training but held him back overtly from major blunders. “Shoot more often in DA mode, they said; “it’ll improve your SA trigger feel.” They were right. I got better. “Train with your SAO revolvers more,” they said; “and you’ll shoot the DA revolvers better.” They were right. I got better. A hundred really helpful tips like that would have been hard for me to discover, much less implement on my own but were given freely and coached lovingly by the experience and skillful shooters I’m privileged to call my friends. 

Yeah, we meet as equals in other venues under different circumstances and a few of those times I have a tidbit of expertise in some subject I can share with them. When it comes to guns and shooting, however, I keep my mouth shut and ears open - as much as my bombastic personality allows, anyway. So, here’s to Horace, Daniel, Rusty, Brad, and Reggie. There’s at least one small niche of humanity you’ve made a better place.