This past Saturday, after leaving work, I stopped off at a local gunshow to scope for ammo components. I was still in my Sheriff's Dept. uniform when I went into the gun show. Normally I like to get out of my uniform before  leaving the house to miss the attention that the uniform brings when out in the public but that would have interferred with my boss ladies supper ambition later with the time delay. I have been to gun shows before in uniform and I don't like to dicker with someone over the price of a gun, in uniform. Since I was just in for ammo acquirement I thought I could slip in and out with my purchase without too much attention, I thought wrong! I didn't take into consideration how there are so precious few cops left who carry the revolver across the country. The black, polymer-made, self-loader abounds and now only older people can remember when the revolver was king and seen in all cops holsters. As I entered into the building I didn't get six-feet when one of the gun vendors hollered at me, "throw-back huh"? I looked over in the direction of the voice and saw the gentleman pointing at my duty holster. I nodded my head and kept moving, hoping that would be the last gun-recognition before I could leave. Inside my duty holster was my blue steel Dan Wesson Model 11 with the DW Michigan Target Grips on and in full display from the top of my duty holster. Those beautiful wood DW Grips were exposed and since guns of this nature (revolvers) have been absent on cops for years now, my Model 11, with its original walnut DW Grips, was like a 'lighthouse' to a ship at sea. I walked on a little further in my quest for ammo components when I was hailed again about my Model 11. "Old School, huh?" Like they couldn't tell from my youngish-looking 61-year plus frame and face ! I smiled politely, nodded, and moved on and like a car-alarm going off, I get hailed, yet again! Something like , "I ain't seen one of them on a cop in years!" I smiled, nodded again, and moved on again and was about mid-way through the show when I located what I came for. I made my purchase and started for the door, by-passing all the shooting toys I love, and had the exit in sight and got the recognition-salute for the last time before I made the exit. As I was headed home it became apparent to me that the sixgun I was carrying is a tool-of-the-past! That a very senior lawman who still packs a sixgun is, in fact, a dinosaur whether he wants to be or not. My Model 11, with its walnut Target Grips, attracted the attention that I was hoping to avoid. I can remember when sixguns, like mine, were in every cops holster and not just mine. Its ironic that I got introduced late in my career to the Dan Wesson Revolver. Mr. Dan's first sixgun model at that! I have have grown fond of it's so-called 'odd' looking profile, with the exposed barrel nut and the swann-neck-shaped barrel shroud. Not leaving out the 'high-post' front sight that lets an older officer acquire a target picture better than any other fixed sight revolver he uses for duty purposes. These three features combined, does make my Model 11 out-of-the-norm, as far as what other double-action revolvers look like. This does make 'some' shooters not care for the first Model Dan Wesson Model 11, but not myself! What captured me about my Model 11 is the teeny-tiny six-shot groups that my odd-looking Model 11 prints on a B-27 Target. Shot groups like I can't make with "any" of my other sixguns! Shot groups that paved the way for an old cop to have bragging rights at service pistol matches when he managed to place! Just small stuff like that and the feeling that Mr. Dan Wessons 'presence' is with me, out on that range, as 'his' sixgun out-guns the polymer-made competition! A Model 11, nothing special or extra added, just the excellence of the design that has given an old cop a new sense of pride! Thanks, Mr. Wesson as I can feel you with me sometimes!

David

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