Hi all

I'm an immigrant from Britain living in small-town Iowa (how did you end up there, you ask? It's my wife's hometown... she was in England for several years).

Anyway, in the 7 years I've been over here I've been slowly trying to learn to shoot (shotgun, rifle and handgun) and very slowly building a basic gun collection (mostly for hunting) on a very limited budget.

For several years the only handgun I've owned has been my (occasional) carry gun, a Smith and Wesson Model 38. It's a great gun to carry, but not particularly easy or fun to shoot, and rather limited in its uses. So I decided last year that I wanted a .357. .357 because I have the equipment to reload for my 38, and can obviously shoot 38 in a 357 and reload with the same components.

So I was looking for a .357 with a 6 inch barrel for dual duty as a home defence gun and for hunting in the Iowa late muzzleloader season when you can also hunt with a handgun.

I pretty soon had my heart set on a Dan Wesson, partly because they seem like the best value for a truly high quality used gun (and my budget was the $300 -400 range...) and because the interchangeable barrels and grips mean that eventually I can get a shorter barrel to use it as a alternate carry gun or woods gun for less money buying another gun of equal quality. And just because I like being different

So, here it is: my first 357 and my first DW, Model 15-2 with 6-inch vent rib barrel. Looking forward to shooting it, seeing how accurate it is getting to know it  and working out what sights I want on it for deer hunting. (It came with a 2.5x scope on Burris mounts, but I'm not sure I want to keep it scoped, or to take a scope on and off for hunting season and I'm trying to work out if there's a way to put a red dot on it with the holes drilled in the rail for the Burris mount).

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