Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns "Kit Guns"

I like the CW9, but don't love it. Mainly just the way the trigger rocks is kind of odd to me. It's as if the trigger hinge pin is too low.

With today's choices, I would go Sig P365XL for something in a similar size.

Smith model 34 is my kit gun.

I have studied "kits" for a few decades. Something that always fascinated me. From mountain man kits, aka possible bags, to hobo bags, to snowshoe mounted rural mail carriers. Your kit was everything you needed to get by. The mountain mans kit most often included 2 types of fire starter, a fishing line and hooks, some piggins, short pieces of string or rope, a clay pipe, and tobacco and a sharpening stone and a fixed blade knife. Hobo' bags often carried a large tin cup, spoon, camp pocket knife, comb, straight razor, soap, fire makings, and assorted necessities. The woods wanderer had a kit gun, knife, fire making, most often a tiny hatchet, a small frying pan and some fishing gear. All of these had one thing in common, they carried on their shoulder everything they needed. No fancy backpack, no atv, no pickup truck. Since every ounce counted the smaller handgun was king and a 22 caliber was great since ammo was cheap and light weight. Now days we don't wander for days or weeks or months alone in the outdoors. Nor do we carry daily everything we will need to stay afield for extended periods, on our person, so weight and size do not matter as much. Protection was not of greater importance that food acquisition and the little 22 handguns were great for that. The Marbles Game Getters were supposedly quite popular as well as the little Stevens single shot 22's. Their pocket rifle variant was especially useful. But I now seldom wander more than a few miles from my truck, never for more than the day, and weight and size are of far less importance so the larger, more powerful handguns are more often my kit guns.

huntsman22: Its obvious you have a burr up your ass today - I wonder why?
Seems you only are here to attack others opinions and do so in an immature and unproductive way.
Maybe YOU could reconsider your immature attacks and definitively answer the original posters question and leave the 12 year old punk attitude to the 12 year olds?
Naw, you are not mature enough to do that.
Sad.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

My newest setup for a kit gun is a S&W 34-1 with a Bushnell TRS-25 red dot and it fugly and amazing in how well it lets me shoot.

Just being able to aim in low light with glasses on is where I am these days.

When you have a gun in the whole kit and kabutal you have a kit gun

VG, +1, and to this I would add the S&W 632 in 327 Federal, the 696 in 44 Spcl (also a 3" barrel) and the Ruger GP100 3" 44 Spcl.

The term Kit Gun originally meant a small handgun that would pack in a smallish kit bag for easy travel.

I guess I've got a couple, an SR-22 and an M&P Compact .22. Neither of them will win a match, but they'll kill stuff real dead, and both weigh in at 17 ounces, empty. I really like their light weight, it's easy to forget you've got them on. If I get bored with them, I've got a Ruger Wrangler and a Single Six, and a 4" 617, those are a bit heavier, but still compact to carry and shoot a fuzz better than the other two.

When someone says "kit gun" I always think of two things. First, the ubiquitous S&W Kit Gun and second, Hemingway's Big Two Hearted River where Nick Adams packed a Woodsman in his kit along with a fly rod and a skillet.

😁 I agree with you gnoahhh. Forgot the Hemingway reference, good one. Kit gun, in my opinion, is a term from a simpler time when people didn’t feel the need to go on a walkabout heavily armed. Maybe to pot a grouse or rabbit while doing something else, not really hunting.

Do not carry your kit gun, whatever it may be, in your kit...carry it where you can get to it quick. If you are ever attacked by a tender young grouse, you will thank me.

Another m34 “kit gun” aficionado because that is what S&W called it in their literature. As a kid that name did throw me off for a time because “kit gun” made it sound like some assembly was required. I traded off my heavier K frame m17 for that m34 because around here it makes a perfect rambling around handgun where the wildest thing that I’m likely to encounter is a red squirrel. Not so down south though. Snake shot and some .38 Special +P through a J frame m337PD seems like a better kit gun choice, but it sure isn’t in my kit because that makes it sound like I’d be keeping it in with my shaving kit stuff.

I've got a Scandium/Titanium S&W, three inch barrel, J-Frame .38 Special with adjustable sights (fiber optic front) that fits the bill pretty good. Pre-key-lock, too.

Gnoahh,

The reference to the Colt .22 in "Big Two Hearted River" is Adams reminiscing about a fishing trip with his friend Hopkins before the war (WWI). There is nothing to indicate he has it along with him at the time of the story. And, of course, it would have to be a "Pre-Woodsman" since it was a pre-WWI gun.

I have a 1917 S&W with 2.25" barrel. Works for me and reloads are a moon clip away. But right now it is a SIG P220 in one pocket and a 45 Colt Bond Arms in the other. Be Well, RZ.

My most recent kit...

Heres mine may sell it

I guess this one could be considered a kit gun. Works for me on TX pig hunts. Either pocket-carried (no holster) or in my little day pack.
Bob

Like.