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Springer Mods

The Gun Thing

In an email from Reader Ranger:

“You mentioned your ‘modified’ Mil-Spec Springfield 1911A1. Are you referring to the stock changes Springfield makes, such as the lowered and flared ejection port, etc or did you have aftermarket work done? It does look like you have custom grips.
“BTW, I find Springfield 1911A1’s great unless you’re willing to pay nose bleed prices for a Les Bauer or equivalent. I’ve used the Springfield lifetime warranty twice with my 1911A1’s (visualize the low brow pickup truck bumper sticker of Calvin but instead of some NASCAR idiot think Kimber). Springfield’s don’t have the ridiculous firing pin safeties and instead uses a stronger firing pin spring coupled with a lighter titanium firing pin.
“Also it looks like you’re using Wilson Combat magazines. Kudo’s on that!
IMHO, from the side view, you have the GI sights and I would suggest at some point swapping them out for Novak style tritium night sights. Just saying more than 50% of shooting occur after dark, and as I get older a bright green front sight dot is comforting.”

Here are the pre- and post-modified pics:

My modifications to the stock Springfield G.I. 1911 were as follows:

  • lowered ejection port (the G.I. ejection port is too small to accommodate the many different types of .45 ACP ammo I use)
  • beavertail grip safety and bobbed hammer (because I had become heartily sick of the standard 1911 “hammer-bite”)
  • the wood grips are made from some endangered tree found in Hawaii (no idea what species;  I bought them at a gun show on looks alone)

…and that’s about it.  I use Chip McCormick PowerMags exclusively, not the Wilson Combat type because the tolerances of the Wilson are a little tight for my Springfield’s mag well.

I’ve toyed with putting Novak sights (or similar) on the thing, but frankly, the gunsmithing cost is prohibitive.  I’d rather just keep anointing the little white dots on the existing sights with florescent paint as it wears off.

When I bought my 1911, Springfield hadn’t yet made the “Loaded” model, which is basically what mine is (except for the sights).

Other considerations:

I don’t care for the rough feel of stippled or ribbed grips and frontstraps because after I’ve shot more than a hundred rounds, my skin gets chafed and irritated.  My hands don’t perspire — never have — so smooth grips never feel slippery in my hands when I’m shooting.  I also don’t care for the “extruded” grip safeties that seem to be all the rage nowadays because if you grip the gun firmly — as God and John Moses Browning decreed — the grip safety will always disengage.  The extrusion, when practicing quick draws, can catch on the web of my thumb and forefinger and once again, that gets irritating after a few hundred rounds’ practice.

The G.I.’s issue trigger is outstanding — it wasn’t at first, but after a few hundred rounds it settled into its current state of perfection.  Nobody, after firing my 1911, has ever had anything other than praise for the trigger, so I feel no need to change it.

There it is:  Kim’s 1911.  My idea of a perfect self-defense pistol.

Heresy

Food & Drink

Having read about my love for sausage rolls and the Greggs chain before, Loyal Readers will no doubt be waiting for my comment on the furious public reaction when Greggs recently decided to open a store in Cornwall:

The bakery chain Greggs has sparked fury after it opened its first branch in Cornwall – but it won’t be selling its own version of the famous Cornish pasty.
Workers have said the store feared its crimped on top ‘the Devon way’ pasty would upset locals and wouldn’t be welcome.
Instead the outlet at a service station just off the A38 in Saltash features a range of slices and other baked goods including sausage rolls, sandwiches and cakes.
One outraged local even asked: ‘Why in the name of Satan does our county need a Greggs?’
It is understood that Greggs, which has had several stores in neighbouring Devon for many years, has never sold pasties in the West Country as it did not want to create a pasty war. [it’s pronounced “pass-ti” not “pay-sti” — Kim]

I find myself unmoved by the brouhaha because — and let it be shouted from the rooftops — Cornish pasties are shit.

Here’s why.  The problem with adding vegetables to a meat pie is twofold:  firstly, the carrots, beans and such are generally overcooked, which makes them taste bland and horrible;  and secondly, if I buy a meat pie, I want meat — and for too long, unscrupulous bakers have overloaded pasties with veggies because vegetables are cheaper than meat.  (I’m even a little iffy about steak ‘n potato pies, for the same reason.)

So my proud boast is that I haven’t eaten a Cornish pasty in (probably) thirty-five years, not even when I was in Boscastle last year.

And when (not if) I venture into a Greggs in Cornwall in the future, it’ll be sausage rolls or steak bakes, not that pasty rubbish.

Kicking Back

Two-Minute Hate

As usual, His Excellency John Bolton has the right stuff, this time about the horrible International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague:

“If the court comes after us, Israel or other U.S. allies, we will not sit quietly.  We will negotiate even more binding, bilateral agreements to prohibit nations from surrendering U.S. persons to the ICC.  And we will ensure that those we have already entered are honored by our counterpart governments.  We will respond against the ICC and its personnel to the extent permitted by U.S. law.  We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States.  We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and, we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system.  We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.  We will take note if any countries cooperate with ICC investigations of the United States and its allies, and we will remember that cooperation when setting U.S. foreign assistance, military assistance, and intelligence sharing levels.  We will consider taking steps in the UN Security Council to constrain the Court’s sweeping powers, including ensuring that the ICC does not exercise jurisdiction over Americans and the nationals of our allies that have not ratified the Rome Statute.”

I’m gonna give y’all just 20 minutes to stop applauding.

Some liberal asswipes created this pic to whine about God-Emperor Trump’s appointment of The Mustache (“The Warmonger”) as his National Security Advisor:

Me, I wanna make a fucking tee-shirt of it.

Much Better

Grooming

After my rant last week about men who shame their wives by dressing like slobs, I’m glad to report that at least some men have got the memo.  Here’s someone apparently named Alyson Hannigan at a recent awards show, with her hubby:

Now that’s how a man should look.  Absolutely faultless appearance.  And she’s combined sexy with demure, with excellent results.  Well done, both of you.

And these guys get kudos as well, all dressed like grownups:

Maybe there’s a glimmer of hope…

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

From NeverTrumper Jonas Goldberg (proving that a stopped clock can be correct at least once):

“But [Trump] isn’t Hitler, for any number of reasons, the most important of which is that Americans aren’t Nazis.  We’re not even Germans.  Hitler’s rule was possible because there was a market demand for a Hitler and a wider tolerance for a Hitler.”

And Trump’s election came about because there was a market demand for a Trump and a wider tolerance for a Trump.  There, however, the similarity ends (to the anguish of the Left).

Homosexuals, other sexual deviants, Jews and gypsies haven’t been rounded up and put in concentration camps [no comment];  there have been no public book burnings (except, paradoxically, by the Left, both literally and figuratively);  Trump hasn’t advocated a policy of Mexikanerrein (only a wall to end invasion of same);  and no matter how appealing the action may seem to some of us, Trump hasn’t made plans to annex the Sudetenland Alberta or invade Poland Baja California.

In fact, the only outcomes of Trump’s administration that are remotely Hitler-like are the soaring growth of the economy and the virtual elimination of unemployment — and those outcomes, I think we can all agree, are not malevolent (except to the Left, who like a seething mass of the unemployed to whom they can offer free stuff).

Not that it matters.  To the American Left, all Republicans are Nazis and all Republican leaders (whether moderates like the Bushes or conservatives like Pence and Goldwater) are Literally Hitler.  The accuracy of their labeling is irrelevant, as long as they can create a bogeyman that will fire up their base of rabid Commie crapweasels.

Bastards.