Category: The Gun Thing

Tami Keel talks about revisiting the 1911 as a carry piece:

I’ve had hardly any serious trigger time with 1911s for years now, so getting the opportunity to put several cases of ammo through a few over the space of a couple months was a chance to get a fresh look at the old object of my affections.
It reminded me how wonderful the trigger on a good 1911 is. The only way your trigger finger could have a more direct link to firing the pistol is if you reached inside it and pushed the sear off the hammer hooks yourself.
It reminded me of how slim the 1911 is. It may be a big-bore horse pistol at heart, but it’s skinny enough to carry inside the waistband with ease.
It reminded me of how it fits the hand.

All the above are good points, and I agree completely. However, Tami adds:

But, most importantly? It reminded me of all the things I don’t miss about carrying and training with 1911s, and that list is a lot longer than I would have guessed it would be.
For starters, I had forgotten how much of an annoyance low magazine capacity could be. There’s a saying about high-performance fighter jets: they’re almost out of fuel just sitting on the runway, and definitely out of fuel after takeoff. The 1911 is like that. I mean, you have to change magazines just to shoot a 10-round chronograph string! Horror! Nine-millimeter 1911s mitigate this somewhat, but 10 rounds still isn’t a lot of BB’s in the tank when you’re used to 15, 17 or more.
Speaking of magazines, how spoiled I’ve been for the last five years! When I was carrying a Smith & Wesson M&P, I bought M&P mags and they worked. Now I’m carrying a Glock and I buy Glock magazines and they work. When I was carrying a 1911, I practically had to have a degree in the arcane and eldritch science of 1911 magazine selection.

Mostly, I agree with her take on the latter issue — although I should point out that Chip McCormick makes the excellent 10-round PowerMag: I’ve used them in IDPA shoots and when I travel, I carry five of them in my bag. (I agree, though, that 1911 manufacturers — especially Colt and Springfield — did themselves no favors by issuing such crappy mags with their new guns. Once I discovered the aforementioned PowerMags, away went the silly and unreliable 7-round “issue” mags — literally: I hammered them flat and trashed them. I’ve fired PowerMags exclusively ever since, and in my Springfield they’re even more reliable than Wilson mags.)

I still don’t get the fascination for high-capacity mags in a non-military / -law enforcement scenario. I mean, seriously: if the average gunfight is pretty much over, one way or another after three rounds have been fired, the remaining dozen in your double-stack mag are superfluous.

More of a problem, though, is that the 15-round hi-cap mags make a handgun’s grips a lot thicker — and for most women, that could be problematic. (It isn’t for Tami because she’s a big woman — her hands are bigger than mine, I think.) When she talks about how the 1911 “fits” in the hand, it’s because the grip isn’t like holding a pineapple. Even Connie (another big woman) had a problem with hi-cap mags — her Browning High Power was at the absolute limit, size-wise, for gripping comfort, and she used to admit that my 1911 felt much better in her hand. (The recoil, of course, was another story.)

Tami’s right about one thing: the 1911’s trigger is without equal among serious carry pistols. When and if I do quit shooting my Springfield 1911, the biggest adjustment I’ll have to make is getting used to an inferior trigger, almost no matter what gun I end up shooting. The only non-competition pistol with a better trigger (out of the box) is perhaps the Browning Buck Mark, and it ain’t a carry piece.

There’s one more thing to add in the 1911’s favor. When you’re carrying that 3-lb chunk of steel loaded with some fine hollowpoints, you have the confidence of knowing that in any adverse circumstances, you have at your command the finest carry pistol ever made, and one of the greatest cartridges ditto. And you don’t really need more than a few rounds either, if you know what you’re doing — and you should.

And I agree: when you’re blasting hundreds of rounds away at the range, it is more convenient to have more rounds between reloads. But I don’t own a self-defense gun to plink at paper. My 1911 is for serious business, and its weight, low ammo capacity and all the other “faults” of the 1911 are completely irrelevant.

Let me share with y’all a little thought I’ve been mulling over recently: if I do ever retire the 1911 (because recoil), I might seriously consider carrying a .357 revolver as its replacement. Yeah… six rounds instead of fifteen. Don’t care. Right now, my 1911’s PowerMags are loaded with only eight rounds anyway, so the difference is negligible.

Which revolver would I carry, you may ask? Why, the S&W Model 66 Combat Magnum, of course (because they don’t make the “no-back-sight” Model 65 anymore):

How’s that for “low magazine capacity”? (And by the way, the K-frame Smith “fits” in my hand better than a Colt Python. I’ve owned both, and I’m not exaggerating.)

You may all start shouting at me in Comments, now.

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Egregious Mistake Department:  I mistakenly called Chip McCormick’s mags “ProMags” when in fact they’re “PowerMags”. Thanks to Reader DrewK for pointing that out, and the necessary edits have been made.

/1984

So the dotmil’s initiative to field a new handgun has encountered a few speed bumps in its introduction thereof:

The MHS [Modular Handgun System — K.] requirement calls for both pistols to use the XM1152 ball cartridge, which uses a 115-grain, full-metal-jacket projectile, and the XM1153 Special Purpose cartridge, which uses a 147-grain jacketed hollow point projectile — a bullet Army officials have labeled as the service’s new “go-to-war” ammunition.
While it’s not in the formal MHS requirement, “gun makers were encouraged to optimize their guns’ performance to the special-purpose round,” according to a source familiar with MHS requirements and testing but not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.
If a pistol is designed specifically for a 147-grain special-purpose round, it can affect its performance with a lighter 115-grain ball round, the source said.

What a load of crap. “You should build your piece so that it performs best with heavier bullets, but it also has to use the BB-sized 115gr FMJ pellet (because we have boatloads of it in our stores).” Typical procurement bollocks. No wonder the SIG piece failed dismally with the 115gr ammo.

The only good news is that it seems as though our kids are — finally! — going to use a cartridge which can actually, you know, stop an enemy (which the 115gr. FMJ bullet can’t, as any fule kno and as I can attest to personally).

I also like the way that a hollowpoint-tipped cartridge has been renamed as a “special-purpose” round — as though killing the enemy is a Special Purpose in today’s Army. But I suppose it’s to placate all the tools who are going to start whining about “dum-dum” bullets and how they’re prohibited by the Geneva Convention (actually, the Hague Convention), neither of which the U.S. ever signed anyway so it’s a moot point.

As I hinted earlier on these here pages, I may consider changing to a 9mm handgun myself sometime in the future [pause to let everyone pick themselves off the floor]; but you may rest assured that if I do, nary a 115gr FMJ will ever find a place in any of my carry magazines.

So: over three days and countless examples of gunny goodness on display, what were my favorites?

The first may come as a surprise to you: the Llama Micromax mini-pistol in .380 ACP from Eagle Imports, seen below in black and stainless:

Llama? Indeed. My very first pistol ever was a Llama, and it was a beauty. They’re no longer made in Spain, but in the Phillipines using the original Spanish machining and specs — only now they’re made with harder 4140 steel (always a knock on the older Llamas).

But that’s not why I like this new Micromax. Why I like it is that unlike the plethora of striker-fired plastic teenies, this bad lil’ guy is all-steel AND it’s a scaled-down 1911 action. I had Royce Honeycutt of Colorado Gunworks, Eagle’s warranty gunsmith — of whom more later — walk me through the manufacturing process. Then he field-stripped it, and in fact it’s more like a High Power action than a 1911 (i.e. easier to reassemble).

Now, why not go with something like the Kimber mini-pistols (as covered here)? After all, they come in larger calibers as well as the .380 ACP, and they too are scaled-down 1911 actions, miniatures of existing Kimber 1911s, as it happens.

My answer is simple. A pocket pistol in .380 ACP is not going to be your primary carry piece, it’s going to be your backup — and as such, the Micromax’s price tag of about $400 is going to be a better deal than Kimber’s $900, and a much better deal than a Walther PPK/S’s $1,100.

And the Llama Micromax isn’t a poxy DA striker-fired piece of plastic; it’s a steel 1911, fer gawdsakes. Here’s a review of the thing.

If I have a spare few dollars floating around in a couple-three months’ time, I’m going to get one. In stainless steel. Because when I held it, the Micromax felt as though I’d been holding it since… oh good grief, I bought my first Llama in 1975.

I think I’ll go back to bed.

Here’s the first of my impressions of 2018’s SHOT Show.

I was heartened to see that amidst all the new plastic (Kydex etc.) holster manufacturers at the show (Tami Keel did a good write-up here), there were still a goodly number of old-fashioned leather wranglers in evidence (Galco, Old El Paso and the like).

I was heartened because (and this may came as a huge shock to many) I am completely old-fashioned about this topic in that my preferences for gun materials are steel (the gun) and leather (holsters). For my carry pieces, therefore, I use the following:

That’s a Don Hume H715-M Clip model, which I wear inside the waistband in the small of my back (for extra concealment — even though I’m right-handed, I need a LH model because of where I carry it).

When I’m wearing a long coat or driving long distances, I carry the Springfield inside a Simply Rugged 1911 pancake style on my hip:

Then there’s the S&W 637, which rides in a Mitch Rosen Express Line pancake:

Please note that none of my holsters has a retaining strap, because straps slow down the draw. I’m unlikely ever to run after someone (or, for that matter, run away from someone), and I’m certainly not going to get into a scuffle with a goblin wherein he may take my gun off me. The whole purpose of my carrying a gun is that I can do my scuffling at arm’s length, so to speak, so I don’t need to restrain my gun in the holster. Your opinion and needs may vary, and that’s fine, but this is what suits me.

Going back to the plastic holsters: I have no problem with them at all. They work, cops and tactical operators use them, and they are pretty much indestructible. Unlike leather, they don’t wear out or loosen — but I should also point out that I’ve been using the above holsters for well over a decade, and they’re almost as tight as the day I first got them. I’ll also grant that it’s easier to re-holster a gun in a plastic holster, but I don’t care about that either — I’m not going to have to put my gun away quickly while I slap cuffs on a goblin because, quite frankly, cuffs are somewhat redundant on a dead person and under those circumstances re-holstering can take a little extra time. Anyway, with quality leather such as what I have, the re-holstering time differential is pretty small anyway — and when it comes to holsters, whether plastic or leather, this is not an area for pinching pennies: get the very best you can afford because long after you’ve forgotten (as I have) what you paid for your holsters, you’ll still be using them with confidence.

One’s choice of holster is a “horses for courses” matter.  I find leather to be perfectly adequate for my needs, and I prefer the feel of leather to plastic anyway (which is also why I wear veldskoens on my feet and not Crocs ugh).

Clearly, quite a few people think as I do, which is why leatherware was proudly on display at SHOT.

Rather than doing a day-by-day report on the show, I think I’ll wait till I get back to Texas, collect my thoughts and read off my notes (yes, I do that), then do a summary. Here are my first impressions.

The show is huge — far too large to take in all at once — so yesterday I started off in the hall containing the “small” guys, because in many cases, this is where innovation tends to come from, rather than from Ruger, Remington etc.

To my admittedly out-of-touch eye, it looks like 2,000 guys all making variations on the same 50 product lines. Example: if you can’t find an upper for your AR-15 that tailored exactly to your taste, it probably doesn’t exist by now, and won’t.

I am heartened to see how many small gunmakers there are, all creating versions of ARs, AKs, bolt-action rifles and shotguns. Ditto the specialists like barrel-makers — there are dozens upon dozens of them, some small operations, some very large, all making good, quality products.

The Gun Thing is in good shape, folks. And it’s We The People who are keeping it that way.

And one last thing: if there’s anything anyone wants me to look at in particular, email me (there’s wifi at the show, duh) and I’ll see what I can do. (Can’t promise anything because the show is so large I might not get round to where it is, but I’m here a couple of days yet and I’ll do my best.)

Finally: many, many thanks to Reader Drew Kelley of Goldfield Small Arms for sponsoring me and making all this possible. He is a good man with excellent taste in all things, and I look forward to spending more time with him as the show goes on.