Category: The Gun Thing

Not just the guns, but all the stuff that goes with them

Not Really

The Gun Thing

Some guy over at National Interest (never heard of them) opines on the 5 best pistols (and I assume all generations thereafter) ever to shoot the 9mm Europellet.  His list is as follows (and I don’t know if the order is important):

  • Glock 19
  • SIG P226
  • H&K VP9
  • S&W M&P
  • Springfield XD

…and by the omissions is his ignorance revealed.  Here’s my  top 5 list, in order of preference:

  • SIG P210 — The forerunner of the P226.  While the 226 is good, the 210 is astonishing.  Ask any precision 9mm shooter which is the most accurate pistol of them all, and the only reason he won’t say the P210 is if he’s an employee of, or spokesman for one of the other gun companies. 
  • Browning P35 High Power — John Moses Browning and Dieudonné Saive designs.  Remember that the Brit Paras and SAS have used them until only recently, basically because they wore them out after decades and FN/Browning announced they wouldn’t support them anymore.
  • CZ 75 — Granted, it’s a derivation of the Walther P38 (see below), and we could argue for days about their relative merits.  But the “75” refined the P38’s design and improved the German gun’s already-good reliability.  Proof of the gun’s esteem is that the 75 is the most-copied design of any pistol ever made.
  • HS2000 — The Croatian forerunner of the Springfield XD;  both are outstanding pistols, and like the P38/CZ 75 argument, I’d settle for either without any qualms whatsoever, if  I wanted a striker-fired DA pistol.  
  • (tie) Beretta 92F — I’ve always liked this pistol, and the only reason I was against the U.S. Dotmil’s adoption of the thing was because of its chambering, and that only because of the FMJ bullet restriction.  With a proper hollowpoint, I’d happily carry one anywhere.
  • (tie) Glock 19 — Enough water has passed under the bridge for me to (grudgingly) acknowledge this foul thing’s worth.  Rugged, reliable, accurate and almost universally popular (except on these pages), it probably has to be considered one of the best Europellet-poppers.  And by including another plastic striker-fired pistol on the list, I can exclude the H&K VP9 because I don’t like the Heckler & Koch company.
  • Honorable mention:  the Walther P38 (as above).  I don’t know anyone who’s fired one of these not to want one for himself afterwards. 

Feel free to argue with me in Comments.

Ass, Corporate Head Up

The Gun Thing

Colt is re-releasing the King Cobra, a .357 Mag version of its Cobra revolver.

I remember trying one of their earlier Cobra .38 Specials, and being rather underwhelmed by the feel of the thing.  It puzzled me, because the Cobra was (still is?) based on the venerable Trooper, which I’ve always had a soft spot for.   Here’s a MkV, with a 4″ barrel.

As I recall, Colt Troopers and Pythons alike shared the 4″ barrel as the most popular version of either brand.  Here’s a Python, similarly equipped:

(I myself always preferred the 6″ barrel, but that’s just me.)

So here’s my question for Colt:  why are you bringing out a .357 Magnum revolver with only a 3″ barrel?

I know, I know:  under the heading of “Bullshit-Stupid Marketing” in the dictionary, you’ll find the Colt logo.  But seriously:  how difficult would it be to have released the King Cobra with (okay) a 3″ barrel, but also with, say, 4″ and 6″ options?  They might even have offered  the longer barrels at a [gasp!]  premium price… or is that kind of thinking too dangerous to contemplate?

When Smith & Wesson re-released their excellent Model 19 Combat Magnum, they released it with two variants:  the “Classic”, featuring a blued 4″ barrel (strengthened so that you can shoot lots of .357 Mag ammo through the gun without the medium-sized frame buckling):

…and the bead-blasted “Carry Comp” with 2 1/2″ barrel — with an integral 1/2″ compensator to reduce the .357’s recoil:

In the past I’ve had lots to say about S&W (not all of it complimentary), but they did this one right.

Colt, on the other hand…

Old Friends Are Not Forgotten

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

My abbreviated honeymoon last weekend had one additional benefit:  it brought three old friends back into my life.

During the Great Poverty Gun Sell-Off (when I was forced to sell guns to pay medical bills), several kind and generous buddies came to my aid, buying several of my guns from me — with the caveat that should they ever decide to sell them, I would get right of first refusal.  (There was a hidden danger, of course:  that they would fall in love with the damn guns and refuse to sell them back  to me, which actually came close to happening with one.)  Recently I had a small windfall which made their buyback possible, so…

Anyway, here’s one of them, which I managed to persuade Longtime Friend Mark C. to sell back to me.  This is my prized Browning High Power 9mm, which had been on permanent loan to Connie.  Sadly, as her health deteriorated, she was no longer able to operate it and, well, there were doctors which needed paying, so onto the block it went.  But now it’s home again.  This was how it first arrived in the house:

…and this is how it looked when Reader Mark took possession:

I will soon (very soon) be reacquainting myself with this beauty at the range, maybe even this afternoon or tomorrow.  If I love it as much as I remember doing, it may well replace my 1911 as a primary carry piece.  (I know, I know, 9mm Europellet!  Say it ain’t so, Kim!!!  But as Loyal Readers will recall, the 1911’s .45ACP ammo has been beating up my old wrists badly… and anyway, pistol cartridges have come a long  way since 2004.  Right now it’s loaded with this new offering from SIG, which seems to be all the rage with the 9mm Smart Set.)

…and my bulk ammo order from the ammo dealers on my sidebar will follow shortly.  One problem:  I only have one mag for it, the original issue.  But a visit to the next Evil Loophole Gun Show (ELGS™) should provide me with some of those doubleplusungood 13-rounder magazines — you know, the ones which give the gun-controllers fits.  Five or six should do the trick, yes?

Welcome home, old buddy.  Range report to follow.

Balls, Great Big Brass Ones

Gummint, The Gun Thing

Someone just became a criminal.

My only hope is if I’m ever faced with a situation like the one he finds himself in, that I will have the courage he does.

Quote Of The Day:

“I respect the police, greatly.  The cops I know hate the idea of enforcing this intolerance.  I ask them when they come to arrest me and confiscate my guns, they give me enough warning, so my kids aren’t around when they do it.”

And it would appear that he’s not alone.

Let’s see what the Boulder government does.  A pox on them.

Quick Question

Behind Enemy Lines, Crime, Gummint, The Gun Thing

This one’s for the BritGov.

So, about that law you have which prevents law-abiding Brits from buying or owning handguns… how’s it doing to reduce handgun ownership and usage Over There?

Not too well?  You mean, only criminals  are getting their hands on the things?  And wait… don’t tell me… they’re shooting people and committing crimes and such?

Well, paint me  pink and call me Rosie.  Who could have foreseen such a thing?

Gratuitous Gun Pic: When Speed Doesn’t Matter

Gratuitous Gun Pics

There is something (okay, several things) about shooting an old-fashioned single-action .22 revolver that I like.  Take Ruger’s excellent Single-Six (and its modern -Nine and -Ten variants), for example:

The most common complaint about this kind of revolver is that it’s a royal pain in the ass to load and reload, in that you can only load one round at a time through the loading gate, and then, when the cylinder has been emptied, you have to push the spent casings one at a time back out of the gate with the ejector rod.

That’s not counting the PITA of only being able to fire the thing by re-cocking the piece manually after every squeeze of the trigger, of course.

To me, this slowness of operation is a feature, not a bug.  I like the slow, deliberate aspect of shooting as much as — or maybe even more than — the rush of sending as much lead downrange as quickly as possible.

It also satisfies the ingrained “make every bullet count” aspect of my shooting philosophy.

I can understand why shooting larger calibers like .357 Mag, .30 Carbine or .44 Mag ammo slowly through a bigger Ruger single action is defensible;  those big boys are expensive compared to .22 LR, after all.

But let’s be honest here, and compare shooting to fishing for a moment.  Is not one of the best parts of fishing the quiet relaxation of it, and would not the experience be a little spoiled if you hooked a fish every 30 seconds for the entire day?

I think that shooting single-action revolvers has a similar attraction.

Maybe it’s just part of getting older, but I’m starting to prefer an activity taken more slowly over something done in a frantic rush.  And I no longer own a Single-Six, mine having disappeared in the Great Gun Sell-Off Of 2015.

Which leads me to my final point.  I’m prepared to trade my new Ruger Mk IV 22/45 semi-auto (plus four magazines) for a Ruger Single-Six (and preferably a “convertible” with interchangeable .22 LR / .22 WMR cylinders).  I’m agnostic about blue- or stainless steel finishes and indifferent as to barrel length, just as long as the gun shoots accurately and the trigger is decent.

So if any of my Texas Readers is interested in getting a Mk IV and has a Single-Six gathering dust in the safe, let me know via email and let’s get together.

Update:  A Kind & Generous Reader has come forward.  We’ll be doing the swap sometime in the near future.