Guns: S&W K-22 Masterpiece review

Introduction

There are some guns that you hope to pass on to your heirs, and Smith & Wesson's K-22 Masterpiece is certainly one of them.  This fine .22 LR revolver was first introduced during the Great Depression as a target and hunting piece (S&W called it the "Outdoorsman").  Both demand and production ramped up after WWII, and my example came from the early post-war era, around 1947.  How can you tell? Well, the gun doesn't have the old pencil barrel or blended rear sight, but it does have a "five-screw" frame (with screws in the top of the sideplate and the front of the trigger guard).  

At the time it came out, the K-22 Masterpiece was considered the best production .22 revolver in the world. But how does the 80-year-old K-22 stack up against modern guns? Let's find out.

Sights, Action, and Grips

As with most firearms back then, the K-22 Masterpiece came with simple black patridge sights, with a square pinned front sight and an adjustable rear sight.  They're pretty small (again, very common for a gun from the 1940s), but they are precise, and it's easy to get a clean sight picture.

After several previous owners and probably thousands of rounds, the blued finish on my gun is worn but the serrated double-action trigger is smooth, with a crisp and light single-action pull - maybe around 2 or 3 pounds.

My K-22 looks like it wears the original Circassian diamond magna grips with a target style square butt.  The grips provide a surprising amount of traction given how old and worn they are, and the gun remained very stable in hand in both double and single action fire.

Range Report

The K-22 is probably the best handgun around for training people who have never held a gun before. It's very easy to load and unload, and when shot in single-action, the light trigger makes getting good hits easy.  The full-size steel frame is a little heavy for smaller people, but it also makes .22 cartridges recoil like an air gun. Overall, the gun is so pleasant that I taught Mom to shoot with it about ten years ago:

Is the K-22 quite as accurate as modern semiautomatic handguns? Perhaps not, but it's accurate enough for my purposes.

12 rounds of Federal AutoMatch (the cheap stuff) at 20 yards:

18 rounds of Federal HV Match at 20 yards:

24 rounds of Winchester 222 bulk pack (40 gr.) at 20 yards: 

12 rounds of Remington Golden Bullet at 15 yards:

Functionally, the gun worked great, except for a few failures to fire (light strikes) when shooting in double action.  I attribute these occasional malfunctions to the 80-year old lockwork (I have no idea if the springs have ever been replaced).  Since I don't plan on using this gun for self-defense anytime soon, it's not that big a deal.

Conclusion

If you're tired of the quality control issues with the revolvers put out by Smith & Wesson (and every other manufacturer) nowadays, the K-22 Masterpiece is for you.  It hails from a time when it was commercially feasible to sell a full-size all-steel .22 revolver that required large amounts of hand fitting and polishing.  Those days may be gone now, but at least the guns remain...

Miscellany: TRUE Fitness Rō indoor rowing machine review

Our HOA finally renovated the community gym (just took them a few decades), so we've got a whole new set of equipment from TRUE Fitness: treadmills, stationary bikes, weights, elliptical machines, a stair climber, and, most critically, a rowing machine:

The gold standard of indoor rowers is the Concept2 RowErg, to the point where "erg" has become a generic shorthand for rowing machines. But the TRUE Fitness model one-ups Concept2 with some innovative features, including a magnetic brake/flywheel combo for wider variations in resistance levels, a convenient central pedal switch to change resistance levels on the fly, and a multipurpose handle that can be used like a traditional indoor rower, or swiveled hand-over-hand for a kayaking or canoeing motion.

Downsides? Well, there are still some question marks as to long-term durability (the TRUE Fitness rower uses a nylon belt instead of a chain drive like on the RowErg), and the foot pedal position doesn't seem as natural as other rowing machines.  Still, the machine is plenty good enough to allow me to row as a cross-training workout - maybe I can finally beat that half-marathon PR this winter.

Movies Leo Woodall Double Feature

We recently watched a couple of films starring English actor Leo Woodall, and we were quite impressed with the "rizz" he displayed onscreen.  Based on the strong performances in these movies, my guess is Woodall's career will break out like that of a fellow Londoner, Tom Hardy:

Tuner

This one has a lot of similarities to Edgar Wright's Baby Driver: a soft-spoken young man with hearing problems, a love of music, and a unique talent gets sucked into the criminal underworld by a semi-malevolent kingpin, with his civilian love interest caught in the crossfire.  Woodall shines here as the titular piano tuner-turned-safecracker, and he more than holds his own with the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Jean Reno.

Rating: 8/10

Tony

A biopic of Anthony Bourdain's formative teen years might seem like a bad idea, but Tony, directed by Matt Johnson (BlackBerry), is better than expected, thanks to the luminous Cape Cod setting, some slightly self-aware nods (there is a discussion of the proper pronunciation of bildungsroman), and Antonio Banderas's best performance in years.  The title role is played by a game Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers), but Woodall steals every scene he's in with his turn as a charming, roguish line cook.

Rating: 7/10