Bugkiller99, it's been a while and I don't have the numbers handy here at work - you could google them just as easily. Let me show you a pic, though, that demonstrates how the flats cut into the Chiappa's L-frame-sized cylinder make it
carry like a Detective Special.
That's the Rhino between a Detective Special and a K-frame 65-5.
Here's the Rhino compared in overall size with some familiar guns.
Now, to answer Jerry/j38's question about how I still like the thing after 4 years . . . .
First off, deadin is correct that it's . . . interesting inside. Grant Cunningham has a whole lot of detail up on his site about that:
How the Rhino works, part V: double action lockwork. | Gunsmithing, Revolvers | GrantCunningham.com
And that's a little intimidating, frankly. I'll be honest, the Rhino doesn't feel as robust as do the Ruger GP/SP lines - and it's sure not as brutally simple inside. On the other hand, I can recall no
real problems with the Rhino's function. Unlatching the cylinder can get periodically difficult as the ejector rod appears to unscrew - screwing it back in fixes it for a while. I could certainly call Chiappa for a return tag (because there's no way I'm getting up in there myself with Loc-Tite
) but I've not bothered because it's not a big deal. Ultimately I keep coming back to thinking that, hey, I carried S&W revolvers for almost 20 years before learning to work on them, I
still don't know how to work on DA Colts (and the number of people who do keeps dropping) but I carry them, and Chiappa has people standing by to fix my gun should it ever go Tango Uniform. Which it hasn't - despite greater-than-usual range use (because the gun is so interesting and people like to try it out) - and that's mostly with magnum handloads.
So, the complexity of the innards doesn't keep me from using it - it's not like it's a Jaguar from the 1970s, for Heaven's sake.
If Chiappa were to close its US doors, though, I'd be more concerned.
As to how I like it - hmm. My gun has a "slow" barrel - I get less velocity with a given load with the Rhino's full 2" tube than I have gotten from any 1 7/8" gun I have ever chrono'd. It's not weirdly slow - but it's slow. Manual of arms is different but was easy to internalize. The trigger is fine but not great - I honestly don't like it from an aesthetic standpoint ("Kuh-LUNK!"). Oddly, I find the gun to be no easier to shoot SA than DA - frankly, I think the SA capability of this snub variant of the Rhino is totally unnecessary. Anyway, despite the trigger, the gun is capable of one-hole accuracy at 10 yards with loads it likes.
From a defensive "get rounds on target
now" standpoint, I love that you can shoot the little Rhino
fast. It's undeniably easier to control full-power magnum rounds with the aluminum-framed Rhino snub than even with the much larger and heavier 4" GP-100. (It's not so much an absence of recoil as a redirection of it - the gun simply does not pivot upward in my hand in recoil . . . it whacks
back instead. The rubber stocks are a whole lot more comfortable for extended shooting than are the prettier wood stocks.) A side-by-side shooting comparison between the GP and the Rhino has sent away many a range neighbor with a rueful grin on his face. I think the benefits of this feature of the Rhino's engineering are difficult to overstate.
A downside is that the shooter has to remember to keep his/her hands away from the (down at the bottom of the frame) barrel/cylinder gap. A couple shooters didn't despite my just-issued instructions, and they came away with ugly cut/burns. Bad news. I don't think it's a mistake you'd make more than once, but people new to the gun sure seem to want to put their hands in the wrong place - even after I explain things to them. You know how some people are just mechanical idiots? The folks who just can't seem to keep their fingers off triggers when holding a gun - those folks? My advice is to keep them away from the Rhino.
The Rhino's weird frame shape makes it a bit of a PITA for me to carry - hard to find a holster for it. I've got a Remora reinforced top IWB that works for it (the Ghost Holster pancake that came with the gun would probably work fine, but I don't carry OWB or behind the hip these days) as well as anything. I've got a SmartCarry set up for it that works. As mentioned above, it carries small and flat.
The thing is so ugly that it's kind of appalling. And it cost a
lot, all things considered (then again, with what some of you fellas are paying for Model 28s these days, maybe it's a bargain
), so I'm a little reluctant to recommend it.
What I use it for these days is one of the house guns hidden for my wife's use if necessary - and the reason for that is purely the fact that it's a point-and-click double action revolver that has remarkably little recoil. Gina would have six .357 Magnum rounds into a home invader before he was sure that the ugly thing was actually a gun. Were it not being used for this purpose (with occasional range outings), it would probably be in my carry rotation - as it stands, it stays ready for Gina should she need it.
I'm glad to have it, but I don't like it nearly as much as my snub Speed Six . . . just a question of pride-of-ownership aesthetics. The Rhino is a
terrific gun for my wife's use.
Would I buy it again? Hmm. Most of the time, a person has a sense of escalating danger before the guns are going to need to come out, but think of "jerk and shoot" defensive situations: a hulk bursts out of the dark alongside your garage and swings a pipe at you as you help your grandmother out of the car, a tawny flash from a boulder on a mountain trail resolves into a cougar on your back. For situations like these, I don't know that you can buy a better gun than a Chiappa Rhino snub.
Chiappa Rhino 357
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