Here’s the part II of my dance with the Dragon. I built a second prototype and continued my testing. As you can see, there’s one important change in the design, it now has two gas ports instead of four – more on that later.

My first test was with my standard 200gr Brazos bullet over 3.7gr BE. The accuracy was excellent, my first five shots were two Xs, two 10s and one 9 (it all went down the drain after that, but it was definitely my shooting, not the gun), every shot was 100% on call. I believe in capable hands this gun will clean the long line all day long.

However, the recoil wasn’t fun at all, it was very snappy and stout, pretty much like shooting full .357 Magnum loads out of a snub nose revolver (kids, don’t you ever try this!), and my hand was hurting badly for some time. So I decided to load some of the 200gr bullets (because that’s all I have at the moment) with just 3.3gr Bullseye, and that resulted in a very pleasant soft shooting, similar to .38 Special wadcutters load, still very snappy but mild, and the accuracy didn’t suffer. I think I can even go down to 3.0gr for the short line load, and I’m planning to do some experimenting with lighter bullets and different twist rates.

The pre-orders for the Dragon are now open. Please visit this page and fill out the form, and I will get back to you with the details. The first shipment is still two to three months out.

Those of you who are planning to compete at the Desert Midwinter Championship next February, will be able to shoot this gun, I will bring it to the practice range with some of my ammo, and feel free to bring your loads too.