Jonnin

Not sure about those calibers but I do not see why not, they have been converted to all sorts of things over the years.  You may be able to find one already converted -- and those have little value, probably under or around 200.  

Going to go with the gear for my kel tec plr16.  The gun is awesome.  In a fit of not knowing what I was doing at the time, I bought the forend which added a significant amount of weight, and a pistol scope.  The forend I took back off once I realized that putting a grip/bipod on it was not legal, making that purchase useless.   The pistol scope is nice but not what I expected, and it will likely be canned for a red dot someday.   I would have been better off just keeping it as-is from the factory, after all was said and done.

  Or, you might ask why so many "modern" pistol rounds are so weak compared to their potential if they all were shot at 9mm pressure levels...? 

What always amazes me are replacement parts.   If you built a car from scratch using replacement parts, the average car would cost you a solid 250K or more.    One thing to be aware of is that  the book price is for the basic models ONLY.  If the thing has leather seats and a pimp stereo system or built in gps / tv / ipad / etc gizmos,  and 1000 other add ons, the price will be and should be somewhat higher.     There are other factors that should affect price (mileage, of course, condition in general, etc).  If its low mileage and nearly new, 4500 for what was 10k+ a few miles ago is a great deal.  If it has 150k miles on it,  that is a bit pricy.....    Remember too, like guns, the guy selling has jacked it up because people want to make lower offers on it.  If he starts low, they still come in with lower offers.  And he wants as much as he can get too... that is how it works...

Ah!  A custom 380 IS the way to go.  The top 380 PSI is much higher than most load data and most american 380 ammo is super weak.   You can make some that is much better than off the shelf 380 and it is still safe to shoot.  You can even exceed that a little bit safely, as the saami pressure is "safe" which means there is a margin of error over and above that before things start to go wrong.   You cant go all 9mm+P on it but you can get it "pretty close" to standard pressure 9mm, probably 85% of the way or more.   380 pressure is safe to AT LEAST 23k (top end of the tested ammo saami pdf)   My load data sheets for 380 have 21k as the max pressure on their top loads.    25-26 seems to be toward the top best I can tell but you should read their pdf yourself to be sure, I just did a quick look.    Its not easy to measure pressure though....     I am not recommending blowing the thing up here.  Be very careful if you go this route.  The reason the load data and off the shelf ammo are weak is to avoid damage to pot metal pocket rockets of yesterday, but even so,  yours was designed to some maximum and beyond that lies danger.

not easy to answer without exact materials used and thickness.  And the process used to make it could even have an effect.   It would take some doing to determine a comparison. 

they were testing this a couple of years ago Here is the earlier model :) http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DVXJZVZFRFJc&ei=nTiSUvvzAY7qkAeYp4C4BA&usg=AFQjCNF_OGZpPC0DSOngU8-KTCuChOB_2A

I think you are looking at a barrel replacement instead, I would not trust this.  Which probably would cost the price of the gun.  They make stouter derringers --- buying one would be the answer IMHO.   Another issue is the closing mechanism may not be sturdy enough for the 9mm.     If its a try it once, load it, and hope you never use it again,  MAYBE you could get away with it.   It would probably take a *few* standard pressure 9mms without blowing up after modification.   But even shooting one box might be enough to cause a failure and certainly +P is out.  You could have him bore the chamber extra deep so it does not engage the rifling right off, that jump would help a little with the pressure, or heck, even make it a smoothbore, that would probably do it.

If ruger says it is OK, and it fires without shaving off chunks of bullets due to misalignment, and it seems to be working, perhaps it is just a quirk to the design.   While MOST revolvers do not allow the cylinder to spin without the user doing something to allow it,  some DO.   /shrug??   If it were me, I would poke at it until I understood why it was able to spin and then try to figure out what, if anything, should prevent it.  Then I would know if there is a problem.   My wife had a taurus that had a similar issue, and so did 2 more that we looked at in stores, but she sent hers back anyway and when it came back the gun was correct (could no longer free spin the cylinder).  So, another thought.... maybe ruger did a poor repair and its a common problem caused by either defective parts or a bad design somewhere???    I was amazed that we found THREE taurus pistols NIB at stores with the same issue, but it makes sense, if something is broken in the assembly line and bad parts are being made in bulk....  entire runs of the gun could be bad....

the crack pipe / nasty one is on shallowford but just barely off lee, near the hotels and interstate, in with another strip mall that includes both a beer and a tobacco shop + the gas station and some other stuff.   Its across from the wendys.   Everything in that little pocket is kinda seedy. 

Oh ok not the one I was thinking.   There are like 10 subways in a 2 mile radius of the lee/shallowford intersection lol. 

I may need to get one, the other night they were all over gunbarrel, all but blocked the road.     If that is the subway by the tobacco mart, its a rough area.  the gas station there sells crack pipes, or did not long ago.

this stuff is important.  What is being said without being said is that your gun is your last line of defense, always.   When the gun comes out, things already went very, very wrong.   Out and about, carrying,  you try to stay alert and safe by having good awareness, not going to dangerous places if you can avoid them,  and such.  At home you have an alarm, animals, lights, tech and all sorts of toys that can be used to warn you of an intruder or scare one away.   You can do a lot for just a little money, and the stuff not only helps when you are there, it helps when you are away from home too.    The one break in I have had, guy ran away after setting off the alarm, which saved me who knows how much aggravation.  All I had to deal with was a broken window,  not too bad considering.

yea its the opposite of what I do best too, though I could probably do the performance tweaking stuff since I do a lot of real time systems, databases are my weakest skill set.

After this passes, they need to hire me to make a website to help track all the guns in the country ....  it will work about as well as other well known govt web sites and I could use a few million bucks for doing nothing.

I see the winter clothing thing a lot when ppl talk 380, but this is TN.  3/4 or more the people do not wear 4 layers in the winter, they throw on a thin jacket on a "cold" day and apart from the 10 days a year that get close to zero, that is about it.    The penetration worry for winter clothing is for people that live in areas that actually get cold, where you have gloves and face protection and a big jacket over a smaller one over clothes over underwear, not a windbreaker over a tshirt like here :P

  Right.  While I was not impressed with the compensation,  the gun was fine.  If I had to pick between regular or C, I would go regular, but if the C is on sale, I would get the C.    Bright lights of any sort mess with me, and I did notice, but likely, as said, a normal person would not be too offended by it.  If you are shooting at night in a situation, you probably have no flash ammo anyway.   When it was bothering me, I was shooting cheap "big orange flame" stuff and I could see the after-images of the flash in daylight.

I am against trophy hunting, eat it or leave it alone is my take on it.  That said, a *few* rogue, hostile trophy animals have to be eliminated due to posing a threat to people.    In the grand scheme, the few killed by hunters pale beside the what, 40k elephants poached last year?   The hunters do it legit, at least.    So while I am personally against it, I won't yell too loudly about it as there are FAR worse things going on that need to be dealt with.

I had a 17C and was not impressed with it.  The recoil felt identical to the standard version, and cuts reduce your velocity a little, make the slide etc dirty (soot comes out the holes),  and it flashes over the slide right in the sight picture with the more flashy ammo.   It was as if the cuts were wrong -- I have shot some compensated guns that had a drastic recoil reduction, but not the glocks. 

Hmm, could be.  The PA-63 type which is very, very similar you can swap the barrels on, I think.   As well as some of the walther PPs.   Basically you have to knock out a very difficult to remove pin and then force it out....   but its possible, even likely, that some models do not have this feature.

Lol go big or go home, I like the optimism.   Hmm ... I would prefer you have the right to be shot and killed if you attack a gun owner.    Don't need all them extra words or whatnots, keep it simple.

Shotguns have a lot of merits.   You can use all kinds of ammo, they pack a major amount of stopping power, its EXTREMELY difficult for a 3 year old to shoot themself with one (gun is taller than they are, probably).   They have all kinds of problems too (big, difficult to manuver in some homes,  massive recoil that some shooters cannot handle,  some ammo types will go thru an exterior wall let alone interior stuff) and more.   Its a choice and a good one, but its not "better" its "different".

The problem with ammo that is suitable for killing people is that it is going to go through things.  Look up frangible ammo, and you will see ONE solution to your issue.   But even then, if you miss, it WILL probably go thru a paper thin interior door (mostly hollow) with enough energy to be of concern.    You can train yourself to shoot up or down, maybe --- that is, angle your gun so that 10 feet behind the bad guy, it is hitting at shoe level, but such shooting is awkward.  Or you can do the reverse, if you are in good health and crouch down, shooting at a high angle so at 10 feet past the bad guy, the round is too high to be a threat.  While this sort of thing works, it is an extra burden for a new shooter AND it is frowned upon to be shooting the ceiling or floor at the range.... so you may not be able to practice it with live ammo depending on your access to good shooting places.    A light 38 JHP, IFF it expands properly, will dump a LOT of its energy into a bad guy, but missing, its deadly if it hits someone behind.  Basically its a weakish round to begin with, and if you had a light load, and it expands, it will slow down (bigger things take more energy to punch through, surface area etc) so that has merits.   If your kids are old enough, you can try to make a drill for them (get under the bed, run to their attached bathroom, or closet, or something).   You could reinforce their room, put in a steel security door and reinforce the walls to stop a bullet.   But the cheapest, easiest, and safest thing to do would be to get the kids OUT of the line of fire.  Period.  Everything else is a bandaid that MAY work (bulletproof walls will work for sure, at some expense).     Ammo available that won't travel through a person.  --- possible, but see above, if you miss, it still hurts the kids...   Recoil limited to allow me to shoot for practice with enjoyment and again if needed.   --- OK, you should buy practice ammo for practice and defense ammo for defense.   It will stop a crackhead/meth head/heroine etc.  --- to stop a person who feels NO pain, you must stop their heart or brain from working.  This can be done with a .22 if you can hit your target.   A golf ball sized hole in their kidneys will kill them if the medic does not arrive swiftly but he can still kill YOU in the meantime.   I can fire it accurately with practice.  --- practice ammo solves this too.     Concealable, I am not that small framed but my clothes fit well, I run, the J frame conceals almost completely but *I* can see it.  --- there are tons of small pistols.  If yours works for you, use it.     May or may not add to this list a laser --- most guns support a laser, if not, a GOOD gunsmith can attach one anyway.   . I have rheumatoid arthritis. I cannot rack my husbands Glock 17, 9mm(well mine, idk, he bought it for me, I disliked it), I couldn't even load the magazine with the helper piece fully.  My hands are not incapacitated during a flare, but they are very stiff and do not move in certain ways on occasion. I wanted a revolver for this reason. It has to meet all of these criteria at the same time.   ---- Again, let me strongly recommend a spring job to make the gun easy to use, it will greatly reduce the trigger pull force.   ALL that can be done.  However, choose your practice ammo off 2 things: easy to shoot/light load and the price tag (cheap ammo means more practice).  If you have a lot of spare time, consider reloading your own if you want to shoot a LOT.   Or, alternatively, consider a similar J frame .22 pistol for practice with cheap ammo: it will pay for itself in about a year of heavy use or a few years of light use.    Choose your self defense ammo more carefully, and buy enough to SHOOT some of it as well as have enough for a loaded gun and a couple of reloads.  Usually, that means about 2 boxes of it.  

I am not sure the barrel actually IS part of the frame (?).  Most likely, it can be removed by a gunsmith and replaced if needed.... but its not a "loose" barrel like a modern semi auto.    

I have a shotgun kinda like that.  Its hard to get specifics on them.    What I learned and which may or may not be true of yours but is an in-general type info spew: - the barrel is wire wound, and dangerous to fire without a qualified inspection.  Unfortunate, as these guns are not valuable but often beautiful, so they would be great to shoot if not for the dangerous construction....   this is why most are wall hangers.  - most were made in england, a few in other euro countries, and shipped here - take the barrel off and you may find additional markings on the barrel underside.  It should just be 3 or 4 push pins to remove, very simple.   - it is probably from the "neighborhood" of say 1850.  However I think yours is a later model, closer to 1900 than 1850, since it looks to break open rather than muzzle load. - the proof marks from some time periods and some regions can be used to date the work, as the marks were official but changed now and then. - it may have some shallow markings on the barrel, import marks, heavily worn text, or the like.  Look again? - if you do not have many markings, you may never know much more than this....   The rifle, I can't see enough of the key parts to say much.