The gun world seems to have a love/hate relationship with the Charter Arms Bulldog. But I wanted to know, how does it serve as a personal defense firearm? Before we get into that, though, let’s cover a little background on the revolver.
It is a five-shot conventional revolver, with both SA and DA modes. The gun had excellent DA and SA pulls, which was something of a surprise to our test crew. It had rubber grips and external hammers and shrouded ejector rods. The frame on the Charter was blackened stainless. In light of our recent experiments with firelapping, we measured the gun inside and out and found some surprises and mistakes that were borne out on the targets.
I’ve been fascinated by the big-bore snub nose revolver ever since the early 80’s when I read about a woman who rotated the tables on a would-be rapist. When he grabbed her, she grabbed a .44 out of her purse and ensured he would never harm anyone ever again.