Last week, more or less on a whim, I bought a 36 no-dash (1973-74 manufacture date) with a 3" barrel. Although I own many handguns I've never owned a J-frame previously.

Today, I took it to the range for the first time. Wow, is that front sight tiny! I was able to put my shots into a 2 1/2" circle at 7 yards. At ten yards, things began to spread out and I tended to shoot high. Beyond ten, well, I didn't try it.

I fired 148gr. wadcutters. I'd replaced the grips that came with the gun (it's a round butt) with a set of Smith & Wesson rubbers. I had no problems with recoil, the perceived recoil wasn't all that much heavier than what I experience from my K-frames.

At first I experienced some light strikes in double action. About one in every five rounds. I have a tendency to "stage" my trigger in double action and I was getting the light strikes when I attempted to do that with this gun. When I pulled straight through without staging, the light strikes disappeared. There were no light strikes in single action.

I really like this gun. I intend to shoot it a lot because it's just so much fun, and because practice makes perfect. Shooting it accurately beyond ten yards will be a challenge for me but, I didn't expect it to be otherwise.

Congratulations on your new Mod. 36. If it is a
older gun you might take the side plate off and give
it a good gleaning. Oil will gum up after a long period
of time causing the hammer to slow down. This happened
to my 36 and a good cleaning fixed it. Don

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"Don't worry be happy"

Sounds like a good idea. I'll do that.

I was issued the same model gun as a young OSI agent in the Air Force in 1974. My previous issue had been a 4" Model 15. We shot the PPC for qualification with that little M36 to include at least 10 rounds on at 50 yards. It is a joy to shoot and it is capable of amazing accuracy in the right hands but its light weight makes it a real challenge at distances beyond 10 yards and I never really mastered it. Be careful with over pressure loads in it as it really is not engineered for the hot stuff. Ours started failing after about 5000 rounds of duty ammo and had to be replaced but that is a far higher round count than most folks will shoot in these little guns in a lifetime.

Sounds like your first time out with a J went pretty well! These little beastie's are hard to shoot, and with some more work you will get the hang of it. Oh by the way, if you buy one J stand by for more, at least they dont take up much space in the safe.

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Stay safe people!

An update. We went back to the range today, my 36 and I. Things went MUCH better. I switched from 148gr. wadcutters to 130gr. FMJs. That took care of the light strike problem instantly. I was a lot less tentative with my trigger stroke and my accuracy improved considerably. I was easily able to put nearly all of my shots within a 2 1/2 inch circle at 10 yards, shooting double action.

This is a great gun! Light, compact, with a reasonably nice trigger, and yet accurate, too. Enormous fun to shoot. I've always said that my favorite gun is my N-Frame 27-3. I'm beginning to rethink that . . . . .