The bible & a vintage CA Pathfinder 22LR

​1989, Long Island, New York. As I approached the legal age for owning my first handgun, I browsed my bible (that being the Gun Digest annual catalogue) each morning on the throne and weighed the pro’s and con’s of every available pistol and revolver. I read the specs over and over, recalled the movies some of them had appeared in and ruminated for a solid 30min a day about what to buy. The licensing system was protracted to say the least, nine months for a limited carry license that’d allow me to travel back and forth to a range only, but I didn’t care, I was smitten by the plethora of steel guns in a mostly pre-polymer age. One gun I kept returning to was the Charter Arms Pathfinder with the 3” barrel and tiny adjustable sights. It was just too pretty with it’s diminutive proportions and tapered barrel and wee wooden grip. But in the end I stupidly went with cache and bought a S&W 617 which shot fine but was the antithesis of refined and concealable. I really disliked it’s inelegance and promptly traded it in. It would be 28 years before I finally decided to search out and buy my darling little Pathfinder, blued and just cute as a button in unfired condition. It is everything I dreamed it would be and more. As owner of many revolvers I have to say it’s as glassy smooth and tight as a Python: I can trip-up all my other wheelguns during decock but not the Pathfinder, Douglas McClenahan sufficiently reconfigured the standard revolver trigger and sear to eradicate snag and it’s a shame it’s not made identically today because I think the market is there for old school aesthetics.  The moral of this little tale is…always grab that gun you yearn for, because two and half decades is too long to wait and god forbid you kick the bucket before you find one at a price you can afford. AS

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