This city is as cold and dark as the deep-blued finish on my Roscoe. It’s a couple of pounds of steel and wood loaded with five rounds of .38 Special. It sits heavy in a pocket, but heavy is good. Heavy is reliable. Heavy ensures you know it’s there and sitting, ready when needed.
Maybe you’re a Private Investigator on a case. Maybe you’re a dame on the run with a need for a piece. Perhaps you’re just another mook on the street, but you’re smarter and more prepared than the other mooks cause you have a Roscoe in your pocket. Or maybe, just maybe, you’re a guy or gal who likes classic revolvers but just can’t afford a real classic.
Even if you could afford a real classic, shooting it more than occasionally might make you feel like you’re damaging history. What’s a guy or gal to do? That’s why guns like the Heritage Manufacturing Roscoe exist. It’s a retro reissue of a classic snub-nose revolver.
The Roscoe At Its Core
This city is rotten, but the Roscoe isn’t. The Roscoe is a remake of the Taurus Model 85. Taurus owns Heritage Manufacturing, which allows them to share designs, guns, and facilities. A few years ago, Taurus stopped producing the Model 85 and replaced it with the six-shot Taurus 856. The Roscoe represents the first Model 85 produced in a long time.
The Roscoe isn’t your typical Model 85. In fact, even looking at the earliest Model 85s imported to the United States, we see that the Roscoe is new. It’s at least new in the sense that Taurus never made Model 85s in this configuration. The Roscoe and its design date back to the 1940s and 50s.
It inhibits the same spirit as the Colt Detective Special and early snub-nose revolvers. In particular, it looks more like the earliest S&W Model 36, which was released in 1950. We have things like the small, downright tiny wood grips. The grips are checkered and look fantastic.
The ejector rod is exposed and lacks a shroud. It’s just sitting there, exposed to the world around it. The finish appears to be blued but is listed as a high-gloss black finish. The frame’s finish is broken up by a large white H and marking stating the gun’s built in Brazil.
The Roscoe comes in two- and three-inch variants. I have the true two-inch snub-nose revolver. At the end of that barrel sits an all-black ramping front sight. The hammer sits exposed, ready to be thumbed back for those single-action shots. The cylinder holds five rounds of .38 Special.
Overall, it’s a solid little gun that inhibits the hard-boiled spirit.
Blasting Away With the Roscoe
The Heritage Roscoe isn’t much different than any other snub nose. In heading to the range, I knew today would be an ego killer. I suck with small revolvers. I’m barely competent with large revolvers. However, I take these challenges as learning opportunities. Me and Roscoe hit the range with a bit of optimism and an ammo can full of .38 Special.
I started with some basic slow-fire practice at ten yards. I worked the double-action trigger and resisted the urge to pull the hammer backward to get that lighter trigger pull. The double-action trigger proved to be surprisingly smooth and quite nice for a budget-worthy revolver. My group was hand-sized and sat about an inch above my point of aim.
It’s not terrible by any means, and my own skills hold me back. When I started hitting the rapid-fire strings of two to three rounds, the groups began to open up. They remained with an A-zone of an IPSC target, but only just barely. I focused hard on pulling trigger evenly and smoothly, and that smooth and nice trigger certainly helped with the accuracy I could achieve.
Just for fun, I tried single-action shots from 10, 15, and 20 yards. At 10 and 15 yards, I was able to hit gongs from four to eight inches easily enough. At 20 yards, things fell apart. I had a tougher time hitting anything but the eight-inch gong. The short sight radius and lack of a real rear sight means every small mistake is amplified.
Riding the Recoil
Small, lightweight guns with tiny grips don’t do much for recoil control. The Roscoe certainly doesn’t offer you much grip to grab. A standard pressure load of .38 Special will still rock your hands. You get that snappy, hand-slapping fun of a small revolver. The thin, small grips don’t do much to mitigate recoil and have the same effect a chisel does on rock.
While the recoil will tire your hand, it won’t cause any serious pain. The checkered grips do their best to keep the gun in hand. The recoil of two or three fast-fired shots will significantly alter where your sights sit if you let it. You’ll need a tight grip on the gun to keep control over it. If you apply that good tight grip, you can keep the gun on target.
On the Draw
The Roscoe is basically a J-frame. It fits most J-frame holsters, but not all. The trigger guard seems a bit thicker than a modern J-frame. In most holsters, this won’t matter, but it did with the MFT appendix holster. I stuck to using a pocket holster and practicing from a pocket carry position. The round nature of a revolver’s cylinder makes it an excellent pocket gun.
The small grip also helps prevent printing, and they sit away from your body, making them easy to grab and draw from a pocket carry position. I practiced some basic pocket draw drills and got quite quick. My ability to put a round in the chest of an IPSC target in less than a second became a reality. Of course, to get less than a second, I started with my hands in my pocket.
Outside the pocket, we got closer to three seconds, but I think more practice can trim that down. The Roscoe provides an excellent pocket gun, and when Fitz created the modern snub nose, he advocated pocket carry—not much changed from then until now with small revolvers.
Saving Lives and Cash
The Roscoe is a modern retro reissue of the snub noses from the period that made them famous. Still, it’s not all that different from a modern revolver. It might lack some features, but it still works as a very competent defensive revolver. Its street is under $300, and it is a solid little gun. If defensive use is your purpose, I’d swap the grips for something a bit bigger and easier to hold and paint the front sight white.
That’s all you need to have a competent pocket pistol for concealed carry. Heritage, by means of Taurus, has released a very nice little revolver for very little money. As a hard-boiled detective fan, I can’t help but think of the stories about Phillip Marlowe, Sam Spade, and Mike Hammer. It’s the perfect gun with the perfect name for bringing back a classic of concealed carry.
For more information, please visit HeritageMfg.com.
