Chiappa Rhino Review

[Vex]

Question, and I apologize if it's been answered already: After you cock the hammer and the cocking lever returns to normal position, how do you decock the gun safely?

Ya know, I THINK there are "decocking" instructions in the manual, but off the top of my head I don't know.

I found out. You just use the cocking lever like a hammer. Pull the cocking lever back, pull the trigger, and lower the cocking lever slowly.

[Morne]

Stage 1: While maintaining reliability for a “Service Revolver”, Stage 1 Fire Control reduces both double action trigger pull and SA release from the standard model bringing the DA pull to approximately 8-10 Lb, with a very smooth DA cycle.

I think this would be a big improvement.

[captmud]

4 - The ejector rod is long enough to completely extract the rounds, unlike some wheelguns. That said, the star's pattern SUCKS. You cannot cup your weakhand to both cycle the rod and try to catch the brass without getting a casing stuck under the ejector. I must have done it 6 times, and I am quite adept at wheelgun manipulations.

IMHO why try to catch the brass. Wouldnt this be a bad habit to get into. Under stress you revert to training and tryying to catch the brass could delay reloading. Just a thought i had.

[Bruenor]

what was the interview I listened to lately, they said practicing catching the brass is bad, in a stressful situation you revert to how you have trained. they found a lot of police officers dead with a hand full of brass back in the day. Dump the brass and get the reload completed.. worry about spent casings later.

[Mr. Glock]

And you think a Glock is ugly?

[Javelin Man]

Mr. Glock defended:

And you think a Glock is ugly?

Yup.

[Morne]

what was the interview I listened to lately, they said practicing catching the brass is bad, in a stressful situation you revert to how you have trained. they found a lot of police officers dead with a hand full of brass back in the day. Dump the brass and get the reload completed.. worry about spent casings later.

That was from picking up brass off of the ground IIRC.

Still, point well made.

Regardless, a sucky extractor is a sucky extractor.

[Morne]

Comparing the Rhino to the S&W J-frame (642):






Here it is with my other snubbies (clockwise from top-right: S&W 325, Taurus 617, Chiappa Rhino, S&W 642, Taurus 905):


And no, I am not a photographer.

[Gaspode]

what was the interview I listened to lately, they said practicing catching the brass is bad, in a stressful situation you revert to how you have trained. they found a lot of police officers dead with a hand full of brass back in the day. Dump the brass and get the reload completed.. worry about spent casings later.

The wife and I took our ccw class from one of the officers she works with at a local agency. He relayed this story to us when talking about practicing shooting and reloading. IIRC, back when the FBI was still using wheel guns, they were trained to collect their brass while reloading and put it in their pockets during initial training as well as qualifying. After a particularly bad operation, shootout, whatever you want to call it, a few agents had died and a couple others wounded. A study was done and it was found that each agents weapon was in various states of being reloaded (I.e. Open wheel, partially ejected shells, etc) or they had spent brass in their hands. All had casings in their off hand pocket.

Keep in mind however, with such stories they can grow in the telling, and Im only relaying what was told to me. True or not, it's still something to think about. Muscle memory and habit are two things very hard to change in the middle of an encounter.

[Sevens]

I've heard and read that story more times than I can count. The last time I heard it? Yesterday, at Black Wing... some guy was telling it to his crew.

I'm not saying it's never happened... but I wouldn't be shocked if the curtain were pulled back and it turned out to be one isolated incident from 50 years ago.

[cmhbob]

I think a lot of those stories stem from the 1970 Newhall Incident where 4 CHP officers were killed. One of them (James E. Pence) was killed trying to reload, due in part to CHP not issuing speedloaders in line with most major police agencies. One of the changes that came from that massacre was CHP issuing speedloaders.

[Morne]

***BUMP***

I think I am going to bring this gun to the 2011 Fun-N-Gun at Rochester. I like using an event like this as a "getting to know you" time with a new gun. Anybody who wants to shoot a stage with it, just ask! Mostly, I'll be using .38s, of course. I'll also bring a couple boxes of .357s for anyone who wants to see how the lower bore axis helps tame the muzzle flip.

See y'all there!!!

[Morne]

***UPDATE***

So I used this gun at the 2011 OFCC Fun-N-Gun. At events such as this I tend to shoot "more true to form" than when just messing around on my own. After 200-ish rounds it had only one malfunction, and it was a detriment I noted in my initial review:

THAT DANG EXTRACTOR STAR

Yup, on one extraction (which I performed correctly, no trying to "catch brass" this time) it jumped over the rim of a stubborn casing. Net result was that it took prying the casing out with a knife. This is why I almost always carry two revolvers, because there is no substitute for a second fully functional gun when the first one stops working (for whatever reason).

Thus, this gun remains OFF of my "normal carry list". I sent Chiappa an e-mail inquiring about plans to improve the extractor star. We'll see what they say.

[ATGglobal]

yea don't try calling Chiappa for Customer Service. They refer you to their website to fill out the online form then email a response back. Just purchased one of their 1911-22's took it apart and cleaned it then after reassembly and a few function tests of the slide I noticed that when I would rack the slide with the empty magazine in it would lock back as it should but when you push the slide release it would go forward but the hammer would drop as well. The gun would not stay cocked. I also noticed that the hammer could easily be flipped to uncocked with a slight pressure with the thumb. I have not shot the firearm as I did not want to take the chance of am AD or ND. I emailed them and they responded with a RMA number and instructed me that I would have to send it back to them overnight since I was an individual and would have to pay to have it shipped to them. They don't have a way to contact someone in Customer Service via the telephone and I don't feel that I should have to be responsible for shipping charges to send their faulty product back to them. I took it back to the gun shop I purchased it from and they're sending it back for me for free. We'll see how it works when I get it back and I may do a review on it as well. I bought it on a good recommendation of a friend.

[shootsome]

Interesting concept but I'd test the trigger pull before buying.

They had some available to handle at the NRA annual meetings. First one I tried wasn't bad, no S&W, but not terrible. The second one all but needed two hands to complete the DA pull. That was on Sunday, so the triggers had been thoroughly broken in by then.