Category: The Gun Thing

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

Gentle Reminder

The Gun Thing

Just in case anyone has forgotten (and shame on you if you did), this coming Monday November 19th will be National Ammo Day — which, given the upcoming transfer of Congressional power to the Socialist Party, makes Ammo Day’s rationale all the more meaningful.

For those who’ve been living on the Planet Manhattan and didn’t get the word, the principle is simple:

Buy one hundred (100) rounds of ammunition or more on November 19th.  Corollary:  if you eschew factory ammo and roll your own, then buy sufficient powder, primers, casings and bullets to create more ammo — the quantity is up to you — OR buy a brick (500 rounds) or more of .22LR.

That’s it.

The goal of Ammo Day is quite simple:  to put a billion additional rounds of ammunition into civilian ownership on a single day.

Make your plans accordingly.

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Colt Combat Commander (.45 ACP)

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

Here’s the gun with which I learned to shoot the .45 ACP cartridge:  the Colt Combat Commander Model 70:

Now I’ve said a lot of bad things about Colt (the company) before, but I have to tell you, my Commander was an absolute joy to shoot, and I never had to do anything to improve it.  What’s more, it loaded, fired and ejected every possible type of .45 ACP I ever put into it, and within the confines of the shorter 4” barrel, it was as accurate as I could shoot it — which, I have to tell you, wasn’t saying much.  In those days, I had no patience, and every handgun shooting session seemed to involve shooting a box of ammo as quickly as possible, then heading off to the rifle range lanes to do the serious stuff, i.e. trying to get five rounds of .308 through a single hole with my Israeli Mauser.

It seemed pointless to me to spend a lot of time at the range trying to coax tiny groups out of a 4” barrel, when most self-defense situations involve distances of less than seven yards and shooting fewer than five rounds — when pin-point accuracy is largely irrelevant, really, as long as all the holes are in a sideplate-sized hole in the center of the target.

But to return to the old days:  after shooting off my first thousand rounds of .45 ACP, I could handle the Commander in my sleep, and saw no reason to spend more time than I needed “to keep my eye in”.  Ah, the silliness of youth…

To a certain degree, I still have some of that cavalier attitude towards large-caliber handgun shooting, and most especially with a carry gun.  Now, though, that’s confined to my backup S&W 637;  the 1911, however, always gets a thorough workout.

And here’s the scoop:  the smaller 1911 frames like the Combat Commander are a perfect compromise between stopping-power and concealability — for a man.  I think that women need something which either tames recoil better (i.e. a larger-frame pistol) or else should shoot a cartridge which has less recoil to start off with.  Or both.  Like this shiny Combat Commander in 9mm:

And yes, I know there are women who compete in IPSC and all that jive, using full-frame 1911s to shoot .45 ACP.  (David also killed Goliath — but that’s not the way to bet.)  The stainless Commander fits every bill for the ladies, I think.

As for me:  would I use a Commander for my carry piece nowadays?  In a heartbeat.

Fixing The Civil Service

Military, The Gun Thing

The title isn’t what you think.

The “civil service” is the nickname British Army soldiers gave to the hapless SA-80 bullpup rifle — it doesn’t work and you can’t fire it — during Gulf War One.  So bad was the thing that a booming black market for captured Iraqi AK-47s was created because so many of the SA-80s were “lost” during that campaign.

However, after many failed attempts to fix the poxy rifle, it appears that the Brits have finally got the thing right (other than the fact that they had to get the Germans to do the job for them, of course:  that whirring sound you hear is of British WWI and WWII field marshals spinning in their graves).

Apparently the SA (now called the SA-80A3) really has been fixed this time, and the Brits plan on fielding it for at least a half-dozen more years.  Of course, it still shoots the silly poodleshooter 5.56mm NATO (.223 Rem) cartridge, which the U.S. Army will soon be phasing out because it’s ineffective in any scenario outside an urban one [links to about 5,000 earlier Kim Rants on the topic omitted for reasons of brevity].

Which means the Brits will have to play catch-up, again.

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Beretta BM62 (7.62x51mm NATO)

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

After WWII came to an end, the Italians needed a locally-made self-loading rifle for their Army, and rather than reinvent the wheel, Beretta simply took the excellent Garand design, modified it to take a removable 20-round magazine (as opposed to the top-loading 8-round en bloc clip of the Garand), gave it a select-fire (full auto) switch, and called it the Beretta BM59. The BM59 was Italy’s battle rifle until 1986, when it was replaced with a poodleshooter-type “assault rifle”, the AR-70 in 5.56mm NATO.

Shortly afterwards, the semi-auto-only civilian version (BM62) was released, with a 19” barrel, and would still be an excellent choice as a citizen’s battle rifle.

Here’s a close-up of the action:


Unfortunately, not many of these beautiful rifles were made, so their prices are typically in the nosebleed range, generally well over $2,500. As with so many rifles of the post-WWII era, it’s just a case of there being more buyers than rifles, so if you find one and really want it, you just have to grin and bear it grimace and sacrifice the kids’ college fund.

Speaking personally, I would rather have one of these than an M14 of the same era—in fact, I would rather have one of these than an M1 Garand, come to think of it. The design is robust and reliable, the caliber excellent (and recoil more manageable than that of the .30-06), and the mag capacity quite acceptable.