My favorite toy
Someone (JQ?) asked me about gun practice posts, so let me just do a quick recap of some of the ones I’ve posted in the past:
By the way, if ever you want to read about a topic (i.e. my rants thereon, and/or my often-flawed analysis likewise), just type it into the box which appears under the masthead:
And ye shall find. Or not.
Via Insty, I see this little story:
Hundreds of California cops are fleeing to Texas to escape ‘soft-on-crime’ policies they say have made their jobs ‘pointless’, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Rank-and-file officers up to department chiefs have hit out at state legislators, claiming a succession of ‘anti-law enforcement’ policies have made their work impossible.
Overworked and unsupported, they have instead taken up jobs in Texas and other states that are seen as tough on crime.
Well, if we’re going to have ANY Californians come over here, it might as well be cops…
…as long as they leave their California-law-enforcement attitudes towards guns behind them and act like, say, a country Texas cop from Bastrop, Mineral Wells or somewhere like that, where things like this aren’t eeeeevil.
Otherwise, they can just carry on through Texas and head up north to Illinois. Oh wait, that’s what they’re trying to get away from.
So come on over, folks, and have some Texas BBQ. Just behave yourselves, and we’ll get on just fine.
Update: I see that TxGov Abbott has also got into the spirit of the thing.
As Longtime Readers (and even a few casuals) will know, my primary carry piece is a Springfield 1911 in, of course, .45 ACP:
…and my backup piece a S&W 637 in .38 Special:
However, I recently acquired (through inheritance, don’t ask) a very battered Colt 1911, not anywhere near in the condition as pictured, but which puts all my 175gr .45 ACP boolets into a half-palm-sized group at 25 feet:
…and I had an evil thought.
Imagine being asked:
“What’s your primary carry piece?”
“A 1911.”
“And your backup piece?”
“Also a 1911.”
Hey, as the saying goes, “Two is one and one is none”… right?
And because the four spare CMC mags can do duty for both guns, I wouldn’t have to carry those bulky lil’ .38 speedloaders either.
Yeah, I know: “But but but… two 1911s are heavy, Kim!”
I just lost over 40 lbs, so another 1lb or so of gun weight isn’t going to hurt me at all. And besides, if that skinny old fart Clint Smith can carry two 1911s, then so can I.
I remember once attending a board meeting of a company I worked at, and one of the agenda items was replacing a deceased board member. One of the nominations for the replacement was some woman I’d never heard of, but as the nominator stated, “It’s time we had a little diversity on this board.” And that’s all he said; no mention of her qualifications, experience, nothing.
As the most junior executive in the room, I wasn’t going to say anything, but I couldn’t help wondering why nobody else had either.
Anyway, a vote was held and the nomination passed unanimously, albeit with one abstention (guess who).
This was back in the mid-1990s.
Anyway, it appears that one company has recently followed the same route — one assumes for the same reasons, only it backfired horribly on them.
Here’s the story:
On December 5, 2023, Breitbart News noted that shareholders disgruntled over Smith & Wesson’s continued manufacture of AR-15 platform rifles had filed a lawsuit. The suit claims that the defendants, who are Smith & Wesson board members and the company’s senior management team, “knowingly allowed the Company to become exposed to significant liability for intentionally violating federal, state, and local laws through its manufacturing, marketing, and sales of AR-15 style rifles and similar semiautomatic firearms.” .
And who were these “disgruntled shareholders”?
Plaintiffs in the case included the Adrian Dominican Sisters, Sisters of Bon Secours USA, Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, and Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus & Mary.
…making me wonder: what the fuck were Our Ladies Of The Blessed Disarmament doing anywhere near S&W’s management?
Anyway, they failed, the rotten rosary-swingers, and a jolly good thing it was too.
On March 13, 2024, Breitbart News reported that Nevada’s Clark County District Court signaled no “substantial likelihood” Smith & Wesson would be found liable, saying the activist shareholders appear not to be aligned with the company’s best interest and requiring them to post a half-million-dollar bond to continue their suit.
The plaintiffs were instructed to post the bond by April 23, 2024, but they did not.
On May 6, 2024, Judge Joe Hardy pointed to their failure to post the bond as ordered and dismissed the lawsuit against Smith & Wesson.
Errrrr “the activist shareholders appear not to be aligned with the company’s best interest” — I’ll say they aren’t. They tried to get into the company to subvert its business — kinda like the Commies do in our school system — but it didn’t work.
If I were on the S&W board, I would file suit against these BoCs for compensatory damages for the legal fees, at least.
I know, I know: something about “Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord.
Bollocks.
I made an observation the other day that the prices of new bolt-action rifles of any kind of quality seem to have crept up over the $1,000 mark. (I make exception here for the “budget” rifles like the Savage Axis line, by the way.)
But it’s even worse for that old stand-by of the impecunious, American mil-surps. Here, some guy sounds off about this phenomenon, and he’s absolutely right.
Given that mil-surp rifles were almost by definition produced in the jillions, they should cost no more than a few hundred dollars, even supposing that a half-jillion people want to buy these old beauties (unlikely) and especially during these times of Bidenflation. [FJB]
Here’s a random sample from Collectors:
Even an old beater is over $500:
Don’t even get me started on the Garands and M1 Carbines:
The furrin bolt-action rifles of the same vintage aren’t any exception:
These old bolties shouldn’t cost more than $600, even today. They have outdated (ergo expensive-to-feed) chamberings and are mostly battered beyond belief. That’s always been their charm — that, and the fact that you could pick one up for a few hundred bucks.
Nowadays? No chance.
In fact, the only “bargains” below $1,000 are the crappy Arisakas, Carcanos, Mosins and such. (The good Arisakas — not the “last-ditch” ones made in uncle Yoshi’s garden shed — fetch prices very close to the Enfields and Mausers as above.)
(A special mention goes to the Swedish 1896 and Schmidt-Rubin 1911 rifles, which remain well below the $1,000 red line and are still excellent rifles, albeit expensive / hard to feed, especially the latter because of their ammo costs. Even Prvi Partizan stuff is spendy.)
“Yeah, Kim,” I hear you say, “but those are Collectors prices — and they’re not known for bargains.”
Tell you what: go to your next local gun show, look for quality rifles of the above makes (i.e. that haven’t been bubba’d and have matching serial numbers and decent bores), and if you find one below a grand, buy it, send me pictorial proof thereof and I’ll send you a box of ammo for it.
Now I can think of few people who are more old-fashioned and curmudgeonly than I when it comes to guns (other than those loons who think that brass cartridges are just “a passing fad” — you know who you are).
And here are my personal favorites in this category, just so we’re all clear where I stand on the issue:
Henry Golden Boy
Cimarron 1894
Hell, the Longtime Reader who sent me the link was even grumping something about the “Ninth Circle of Hell” for the perpetrator of said modification.
Frankly, I think that the above-mentioned circle should be reserved for people like Gaston Glock or the guy who thought that trigger locks on S&W revolvers would be a neat idea.
But for the guy who created that skeletonized monstrosity in the pic?
Nazzo fast, Guido.
Yes, if that thing is chambered for the wonderful .45-70 Govt. cartridge as it seems to be, that thing is going to cause equal amounts of pain at both ends of the gun. But if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that said .45-70 is the kind of gun that is carried a lot, and fired a little (by comparison to, say, a .22 or similar). The same is true of any of the big-bore dangerous rifles, of course.
And I have to tell y’all: I think that gun in the pic is kinda cute.
Would I want to take it out of the case in front of friends? Nope, it’s like that ugly girl who happens to be a sensational lay: something enjoyed but not displayed.
But if I did go on a hunting party with that gun and a bunch of buddies, all the mockery and abuse would mean less at the end of the day when they came back to the camp exhausted from carrying their magnumthumpenblitzenboomer cannons over hill and dale, while I arrived with a slightly owie shoulder but otherwise as fresh as a daisy.
Feel free to comment on my opinion, of course.