Posted: 6/4/2014 10:39:36 AM EDT
|
Anybody have any experience with these? Apparently they've seen some real improvements in the past while- better triggers, new models, and more chamberings. They are also cut for moonclips for the 357 and can change cylinders to 9mm, and there is also one in .40. I don't care for .40 very much in general, but for some reason the idea of a .40 revolver with moon clips seems like a load of fun.
They definitely aren't conventional and I think they're too produced to ever be the collector's items Matebas became, but the white finished 6 inch with the top pic rail and a deltapoint seems like it would be a lot of fun. That said they might be a little overpriced, but if they're quality, the 750-900 range for a nice revolver isn't unusual. I can't find one locally to fondle, but they sure do look neat. If i could ever find a Mateba that didn't end up going for 3k I'd try and procure that, but they are so rare and the auctions for them are so intense that it seems unlikely. Inb4 a lot of 
|
|
Quoted:
I've looked at them at gun shows, and the grip feels odd and uncomfortable to me. Quoted:
I've looked at them at gun shows, and the grip feels odd and uncomfortable to me. I'd like to hold one and see what it was like. I always hear people love or hate the grip angle. Quoted:
There's something about the trigger, I don't know how to describe it but the trigger just feels a lot different than a conventional revolver's. And it looks like the prop gun from blade runner. In a bad or good way? I've heard a lot of people liken it to a DA/SA automatic pull. The prop gun look is part of the appeal, same with the Mateba I suppose. I was thinking more Trigun than Bladerunner, but hey, whatever. 
|
|
I own a 200DS .357 White Rhino. Got it as a blem for the same price as the black ones. I looked at other calibers but they are hard to find and nobody really talks about them. The moon clips are real tight but do work. There are speed loaders and after market holsters (a few) available now. Mine definitely is a lot of fun. Even with .357 the recoil is manageable. Using .38 defensive rounds (which is about the max foot pounds you are going to get with a 2 inch barrel anyway) it's a pleasure to shoot. WAY more manageable than my PF-9 and ballistically about the same. One thing to note mine does not like to cycle with snap caps in it. Works fine with live rounds. Yeah, they are complicated, but not THAT much more complicated than any other enclosed hammer revolver. If you like revolvers and want something a little different it's probably a good option. For me, it's probably only revolver I am ever going to purchase, so it was a great deal. This guy is a member here, and has done a bunch of videos on Rhinos. While I don't always agree with him, he gives some Rhinos a lot of screen time that helped me decide to get one. (Thanks Fitty%!)
|
|
I have quite a few revolvers, but my only 357s are a pair of GP100s. a 6" and 4". Fantastic guns of course but something different is always interesting too.
I personally am more interested in the long barrel lengths. I don't carry regularly but I like target and metal shooting. |
|
Quoted:
Now I want a Mateba. I'm a sucker for Blade Runner looking guns  You and me both. That's one of the few guns I could with no reservations drop pretty big (well, to me anyway) money on. Just the odds of finding one for sale are so low it seems... And honestly, functionally, the Rhino is probably the better gun- if only because it is actually a revolver instead of combining auto and revolver. |
|
I owned one for a little while, a 4" 357. I sold it shortly after getting it.
It is definitely a weird thing that draws attention, but as a revolver it is waaaaaay over engineered and kind of awkward to use. The hammer isn't actually a hammer, it is more or less a glorified cocker / decocker and it feels like it (light and flimsy like a lever). The trigger is, as has already been stated, strange. It feels more like an auto than a revolver. A finely tuned Smith ship trigger or even a drop in match trigger it is not. The grip is very odd as it tapers from the top to the bottom like a slab of cheese. This causes it to feel both a tad too large yet also too narrow, and that is compounded by it being at a strange bend angle. You feel like you want to grip it low but you have to grip it high to reach the controls which puts your wrist at an odd angle which in turn makes pointing and aiming the thing odd. Everything about it feels odd / wonky and completely counter-intuitive, or at least it did to me. The sights look like they should be very easy to use (with the fiber optic front) but I found them very hard to acquire fast. I'm sure with repeated training and effort you could get proficient with them but I thought they were slow to find and kind of hard to use. Another thing that is strange about the gun is that it is waaaaaay too light for my tastes due to the strange aircraft aluminum the shell is made out of. Compared to say a Smith 586 it feels like holding a matchbox car. The low bore axis helps offset the upward recoil but its featherweight definitely adds some of it right back. Lastly I found the fit and finish on mine to not be that of a thousand dollar MSRP handgun. More like a $500 gun. A lot of this is due to the seams that are all over the thing. It is designed to be modular, so there is a big seam where the barrel attaches and another back on the back near the grip that are very noticeable... plus the seams on mine were just slightly misaligned, which gave it a very slapdash look. The rest of it is from its building materials. The whole thing just looks like CNC cut hunks of anodized aluminum slammed together. One of my friends who was with me the first time I shot it said it looked like some kind of weird japanese anime model kit or toy and not a real handgun, and I kind of agreed with him. I really liked how they looked in photos but it took owning one to see how much I DIDN'T like them. YMMV. |
|
Quoted:
Don't know about the newer ones, but I know they've had issues since they came out. That being said, if I knew that the 40SW could take 10mm rounds, I'd be on that like white on rice on a paper plate in a snowstorm. Doubt it can, at least safely. Depending on how strong it is though it might be able to take some real hot .40s though. I wouldn't be the one to test it... That said, as appealing as the idea of a 10 or .40 in that revolver seems to me on the surface, I have to question why when the other alternative is functionally extremely similar or superior with the option of shooting 9mms or .38s.(.357) |
|
Quoted:
I owned one for a little while, a 4" 357. I sold it shortly after getting it. Just out of curiosity, was it pretty easy to resell and did you get much of your initial price from it? I used to think I could never sell a gun, but now I have no problems buying and selling guns as long as I think I can nearly break even on them if I decide I don't like them. |
|
Quoted:
Just out of curiosity, was it pretty easy to resell and did you get much of your initial price from it? I used to think I could never sell a gun, but now I have no problems buying and selling guns as long as I think I can nearly break even on them if I decide I don't like them. I'm a wheeler dealer when it comes to firearms, I turn them over like mad... mostly because I have very specific and exotic tastes and I can never tell if I'll like something just holding it in a store. And around here the ranges only rent the common stuff. My Rhino was a bitch to resell and I sold it at about a 30% loss from the price I paid. I walked two local gun shows with it with zero serious bites. I finally sold it on Gunbroker to someone out of state. The main thing that scared everyone off from it was the price. As I said it does NOT look or feel like an eight or nine hundred dollar gun. It looks and feels like a four hundred dollar gun. |
|
A local range had one available for rental. I wanted to give it a try but when I asked the Manager, he told me that they took it out of the line-up after less than two months because it was constantly breaking and needed constant tweaking and repairs.
Chiappa is NOT known for dependable trouble-free products. |
| We had a rhino as part of our gun range program. We probably had less than 300 rounds through it, and it would not fire. We sent that gun back and didn't reorder another. Its non reliability meant I would never own one. Ergonomics are odd, and I would imagine holster selection is still very limited. |
|
dayuuummm.... 
|
|
Looks cheap as hell to me. I'll stick with the 25-2  |