Tag: Guns and such

My favorite toy

Helping Hand

Righteous Shootings, The Gun Thing

Well that doesn’t quite fit The Narrative, does it?

A man with a concealed-carry license was commended for coming to the aid of Cicero police who were engaged in a shootout with a man who shot and wounded an officer near the Stevenson Expressway Thursday, authorities said.
Cicero Police Officer Luis Duarte, 31, was shot four times during the encounter near the 4200 block of South Cicero Avenue during the evening rush hour, but it might have been worse if the armed citizen hadn’t stepped in, officials said.
“We were lucky enough to have a citizen on the street there who’s a concealed-carry holder, and he also engaged in gunfire,” Cicero Police Supt. Jerry Chlada Jr. said outside Mount Sinai Hospital, where Duarte was undergoing surgery Thursday night.

And in Chicago, even.  No cries yet about “vigilante justice” from The Usual Suspects, but no doubt they’ll be coming soon.

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.

Temptation

Business, The Gun Thing

Over at Insty’s, Stephen Green commented on this little story that he couldn’t imagine going into a Levi Strauss store ever again, and I agree.

Levi Strauss announced on Tuesday it would be creating a new gun-control group with billionaire Michael Bloomberg and donating millions of dollars to a collection of established gun-control groups.

I don’t wear jeans often — in fact, I last wore them about a year ago, so I’m hardly in Levi’s target market anyway.

But that’s not the “temptation” I refer to in the headline;  this is.

A couple weeks back I gave a woman a “lyft” to the airport.  She’d just come out of the Levi Strauss store here in Plano, and as we drove off I asked her what she’d just bought there.  She said “Nothing;  actually, I work for Levi Strauss.”

For a moment I considered — really considered — whether I should act like someone from the Left would act, and terminate the ride then and there, declaring that as a member of the National Rifle Association, I refused to provide a service to an organization which supported gun control.

I didn’t do that, of course, because I’m not some virtue-signaling asshole.  What I could have done was start to talk about how much I loved guns, and shooting, just to piss her off;  but I didn’t do that either because that might have “triggered” the woman into giving me a one-star Uber rating at ride’s end, running the risk that she was a virtue-signaling asshole (she was a San Francisco native, so the odds would have been high).

As it stands, though, I’ll just have to content myself with never again buying anything associated with Levi Strauss (which would be Dockers, Signature and Denizen).

Bastards.

Critter Control

The Gun Thing

From Brit Reader Quentin, asking (for a Brit) a hypothetical question:

“Do you have any thoughts on which pistol to use with wildlife, not goblins? After all, shooting snakes and other critters was one of the main uses of pistols.”

My answer:
It kinda depends on the size of the critters. Basically, a .22LR will handle 99% of critter-elimination needs (shotshells in the case of reptiles). Larger critters may need a little more, but I struggle to think of many.

Myself, I carry a little NAA Mini-revolver in .22 Magnum (loaded with two CCI shotshells and three hollowpoints) if I’m out doing my morning walk (angry unleashed dogs, for the shooting of), or if I’m ever out in an area where there may be snakes and such. 

(I’ve actually shot a couple of snakes with the rimfire shotshell, and the result is that the worm just goes limp — lights-out with a single shot.)

But any rimfire revolver would do, of course:

That’s a Colt Peacemaker with .22 LR / .22 WMR cylinders.  For us mere mortals who don’t want to spend two grand on a rimfire plinker, there’s always the cheaper option, such as the Ruger SP101 double-action:

… or the single-action Ruger Bearcat (.22 LR only):

…or Single Six (like the Colt above, with the LR/WMR interchangeable cylinders):

…as well as the usual S&W K-22s, etc. (like this “Heritage” model):

[drooooool]…

Where was I?  Oh yeah, critter guns…

If anyone has any other suggestions, I’ll happily entertain them in Comments.