Virtue Is Knowledge . com

More than a year ago I found, what I thought, to be the perfect revolver for concealed carry and defense. It was a S&W 686+ with a 3 inch barrel. It was handier and a tad lighter than my 4 inch 686 and gave me 7 rounds of .38/.357 ammunition. I used it in IDPA matches and did just as well with the shorter sight radius. I got a Galco Summer Comfort for it and all was right with the world. My only wish would be some kind of night sight and maybe something a little lighter.

The 386NG Night Guard

Well S&W can read minds, or there are quite a few of us who expressed the same idea, and has recently introduced the Night Guard series of revolvers. These are all Scandium lightweight frames with stainless cylinders, 2.5 inch barrels and a big tritium front sight. You can have a 6,7, or 8 shot .38/.357 in K,L, or N frames and there’s a 6 shot .45ACP as well as a 5 shot .44 special. There’s 10mm/.40S&W, .41 and.44 magnum models now too. (These weigh less than 30oz. Ouch!) Since I had a 3 inch 686+ already, the 386NG seemed ideal. My HKS speedloaders would work in both and the Summer Special fit it too. The 386NG weighs around 24,5 ounces, a good 12 ounces less than the all steel 3 inch 686. In comparison the scandium frame guns feel like toys. This weight reduction means a more comfortable carry and more comfort means more carry. (I’m partial to full size 1911’s and have regularly carried one for years. My Wilson Combat CQB has a factory trigger pull of 3.25lbs. Mas Ayoob said it was a bit light for a carry piece and I grudgingly decided he was right. I might justify it by my years of experience, schools and competition with it, but why give someone ammunition that could be used against me? So, I’ve been wheelgunning for defense and use my 1911 for IPSC/USPSA competition.)

The guns are a matte black all over. The blackened stainless cylinder is virtually indistinguishable from the frame. They come with big cushy Pachmayr grips that cover the backstrap. This added to the bulk and seemed a bit odd to me. I’m sure the big grips would help in reducing felt recoil, but I have small hands to begin with and they just had to go. I put on a set of Hogue compact monobloc grips. They fit flush and expose the backstrap. They give me the best reach to the trigger and are perfect for the concealed carry role of this revolver.

The double action out of the case was somewhat stiff and a bit ‘gritty’. The single action was S&W sweet. I don’t know the poundage (2-4lbs?), but there’s no creep or movement at all and the release is like the proverbial glass rod. There is a slight bit of over travel and no stop on these factory guns. A few thousand dry fires and treating some of the interior points with a good grease has smoothed the double action considerably. A wolf spring swap is looking imminent too.

Cylinder and Slide sights

The sights come from Cylinder and Slide. The front is a big white circle with a green tritium insert. Bright and very easy to pick up. The rear is their new heavy duty replacement for any S&W adjustable. It is a big U notch. The front sight fills the rear notch almost perfectly. You won’t see much of anything on either side of that big dot. This set up is pretty good. I would like to see a tritium insert in the rear personally. A straight 8 dot on dot, or a bar dot would make low light alignment quicker. I noticed I lost the front sight frequently in very dark scenarios where a slight off center alignment hid the front sight. At ranges this weapon would likely be used, putting the tritium dot on the target and squeezing the trigger will probably produce good hits.

I did a little testing at my state game lands range. It was a cold morning with temps in the teens. I brought a selection of .38 loads. I’ve shot small all steel guns with full power .357 rounds and I can say it was none too pleasant. In this Scandium frame piece I am not even contemplating firing .357’s of any kind. So, I had Federal 129gr Hydrashoks, Speer Gold Dot 125gr, Remington classic 158gr LSWCHP all in +P and some S&B 158gr FMJ standard pressure loads to test. I see this gun as a defensive weapon to be used at contact to across the room ranges. I don’t have a Ransom Rest and since it was below freezing, I decided to run a simple drill to test the combat accuracy of the test loads. I would fire a cylinder of each load. The first two rounds would be to assess felt recoil. Then I would fire 5 as fast as I could hit my aiming point at 10 yards. You could call it a modified ‘Bill drill’. I wouldn’t fire as fast as I could pull the trigger, but as fast as I could reacquire my aim point and fire again. I averaged about a round per second which gave me a good compromise between speed and accuracy. Looking at the target and groups, I can say this gun will do anything I can ask of it at reasonable ranges. All the loads fired shot pretty much to point of aim at 10 yards and they all shot around 3-4 inches for 5 rounds and best 3 groups were mostly around 2 inches. Like my mentor Ayoob I think best 3 groups fired offhand like this gives a good average of what the gun can do from a rest. The Cylinder and Slide sights are not precision optics. The big dot and round U rear are meant for fast pick up and combat accuracy. Taking head shots at squirrels off hand at 50 yards is asking a bit much of them.

Test Groups: Top-158gr LSWCHP, Right-125gr Speer Gold Dot, Bottom-129gr Hydrashok

As for the felt recoil, I can tell you it wasn’t too bad. The big Pachmayr’s would have softened it quite a bit no doubt. But the bare backstrap and thinner grips were not bad either. Recoil was brisk, but with a good ‘crush’ grip and strong stance the recoil was very manageable and shot to shot recovery very close to that of my all steel 686’s. I couldn’t tell any difference between the +P loadings, but the standard pressure S&B load felt like the difference between a .45 and 9mm to me. Like I said, I feel no need to fire .357’s through this gun. The +P’s are very manageable, but I wouldn’t want to take a class and shoot hundreds of them a day. I’m sure my hand would give in long before the gun would. With standard pressure rounds I might shoot an IDPA match with it this spring to see if I do any worse than with the all steel 3 inch. I think with match nerves and andrenaline, I won’t notice much of a difference.

Overall, I really like this gun and it will no doubt spend a lot of time inside my pants.

386NG & Galco Summer Comfort IWB holster