Tag: Guns and such

My favorite toy

Ultimate LDR News

The Gun Thing

Finally — finally! — I was able to get to the range yesterday, and I think the sighting-in is almost complete.  Good grief, it’s been so long (thank you, Chinkvirus), that I probably need to remind y’all what the heck I’m talking about (link):

Here’s the target, at 100 yards:

That was with El Cheapo (Prvi Partizan) ammo.  LOL on me, by the way:  in the five-shot group, the bottom three were the first fired;  then I adjusted the scope and fired off two (the top two that are almost touching) — only I adjusted the scope UP instead of DOWN because Idiot Kim.  Finally got it more or less right, although I’m peeved that none of the final three were touching.

Next week, I’ll try a couple different makes over two or more range sessions, see which one works best, and then hold the drawing next weekend.   Which means the Hawkeye should be on its way to its new owner around August 20.

Good luck to you all.

Not My Kind Of Gun

The Gun Thing

My first-ever carry gun back in the 1970s was actually an inherited Baby Browning (.25 ACP, about the same as a .22 Mag in effectiveness), and I have to tell you, I never carried it with any confidence.

That youthful feeling of skepticism has carried over into my later years, with a vengeance.

This article here gives all the reason why I don’t carry a “pocket gun”.  Here’s my summary of reasons:

Mostly, the caliber choices are inadequate (.380 ACP is marginally effective, but only with super-premium cartridges like Hornady or the like), and if you do carry a beefier chambering, the gun is well-nigh uncontrollable.  Newton’s law will not be denied.

I have fairly big hands, and shooting a Ruger LCP / Kel-Tec P3AT-type is frankly a real hassle for me.

 

I find it easier, in fact, to shoot a micro-handgun like the NAA Mini-revolver (which I do carry, loaded with .22 Mag snake shot cartridges but only when I’m in, um, snake country).

(And I have the oversized rubber grips on mine [see below], to make it more controllable.)

Here’s my take on this whole issue.  The common rationale for carrying one of these peashooters is that it’s better than carrying no gun at all.  Maybe that’s true, but I think it’s more likely not true — accuracy (in almost any chambering) is problematic, which leads to the counter-argument that these are really “under the chin” guns (or as I call it, “halitosis range”).  Quite frankly, though, I’m not comfortable with getting that close to a goblin — hell, if you’re going to be in kissing distance, a decent fucking knife is the equal of any of these peashooters, and I’m too old to be getting into knife fights or, for that matter, grappling with some asshole who’s forty years younger than I am while I struggle to put a bullet into his eye, throat or belly.

No, thank you.  My sole concession to carrying a smaller gun is my S&W 637 Airweight, and to be frank, I feel undergunned when I head out on a pizza run (the most common reason to take “any” gun when leaving the house).

Here are my primary carry choices:

Not pictured:  Browning High Power.  Still to come (from):  a Colt Python, S&W 66 / 627 / 686, Ruger GP100, Kimber K6 and maybe a couple others.

I have no plans — none — to buy a pocket anything except a watch.  But that’s a story for another time…

Girly Guns

Gratuitous Gun Pics

A comment to an earlier post about sissy guns got me thinking about the above headline:

“I’m with Kim. I don’t understand what Sig is trying to do with this gun. It’s like when Kimber came out with the Bel Air Micro.”

I had never heard of the Kimber Bel Air, so I looked it up.  Great Vulcan’s bleeding hemorrhoids.

The only thing I like about this gun is the Novak sight setup.  I think I’ll buy Daughter one for her birthday, because it has to be better than the Taurus thing she’s carrying at the moment.

And she’s never going to get rid of her Buck Mark:

Just looking at all those girly guns makes my breasts start to grow…

I need to top up the old Testosterone Tank, so if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range.

Nope, Nope, Nope And Nope

The Gun Thing

John Hawkins loves him some new offering from SIG:

In a world full of consumers seeking out pocket pistols, sub-compact daily carriers, and snub-nose revolvers built with a minimalist design, the Emperor Scorpion stands out as an ode to one of the most iconic, full-sized guns ever made. And thanks to Sig Sauer, the Emperor Scorpion not only captures, but actually surpasses, all the wonder and awe you and I felt when we shot the 1911s our grandpas owned.
One more point: The Emperor Scorpion is made in the U.S.A.

Well, allow me to retort.  [/Jules Winnfield]

Things that put Kim off from buying a new-style 1911:

  • front-slide serrations:  never needed them, never will, and they wear on leather holsters
  • ditto serrations on the front of the grip:  chafes the hand after about 100 rounds, and I don’t suffer from sweaty hands anyway
  • raised nubbin on the grip safety:  these are for people who aren’t holding their guns tightly enough
  • camo-Barbie color:  ’nuff said.

Oh, and lookie here:

Finally:  I’ve always made fun of SIG, S&W and Glock for their impenetrable model-numbering systems (in SIG’s case, 225, 226, 229, 232 etc.) but that does not give them an excuse to make their latest 1911 sound like a character from The Lord Of The Rings.  “Emperor Scorpion”?

Call that the fifth “nope”.  If I’m going to shell out over $1,300 for a 1911, it has to have more class.  Kinda like this one:

‘Nuff said.  And it too is made in the U.S.A.

No doubt some teenager running SIG’s marketing department would write me off as just another old asshole who’s going to die soon anyway — it’s far sexier to chase after the “youth” market, after all.

Except for one thing:  I have probably another two, even three more 1911 purchases left to me before I shuffle off this mortal coil, and yet another one as a present for the Son&Heir, maybe as soon as his next birthday, even.  None of those will be this Chief Insect 1911, though.

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Argentine 1909 Mauser (7.65x53mm)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

As any fule kno, I have a love of All Rifles (Mauser), and the 1909 Argie is no exception.  Yeah, it’s chambered in the offbeat (and wonderfully-powerful) 7.65mm Argentine — how offbeat? the “53mm” cartridge casing is actually 53.6mm in length — but like all Mausers of the Gew. 98 or K98 family, the action is almost indestructible and I would have absolutely no hesitation in picking up one of these to go into battle, hunt at medium ranges, or blow away a goblin.  In terms of power, it’s roughly equivalent to the British .303 Enfield of the same era;  in terms of recoil, it’s worse.  I once did a side-by-side shoot-off with two rifles thus chambered, starting with a mag load (10 rounds) from my old SMLE .303.  Then, after three rounds of the 7.65mm, I put the 1909 down gently and had to have a soothing shoulder massage from a maiden of the Orient  a Swedish girl named Hanna  my girlfriend of the time.  The .303 was a pleasure, by comparison.

Another reason not to plink with the Argy rifle is the ammo.  While it’s not especially uncommon (from vendors who specialize in such cartridges), you’re not going to find it at Bubba’s Bait ‘n Ammo Shack.  But thank goodness for those erstwhile Commies at Prvi Partizan, where the cost per squeeze is about a dollar (actually quite reasonable, given the obscurity of the cartridge).  Shooting a serious hunting load from Norma will treble that, but hunting doesn’t require thousands of rounds to be touched off — if you know what you’re doing, of course.  Hornady also makes cheap-ish 7.65mm ammo, but the bullet is much lighter (150gr vs. the “normal” 174gr), which means you’ll have to adjust from your practice ammo to your hunting cartridge — always a little problematic with iron-sighted rifles.

Also, the 1909’s straight bolt handle makes mounting a scope problematic, and if I were to advise against anything to do with the Argie, it would be attempting this yourself.  If you just have to have a scope-mounted old 98-type Mauser, start with one of the later (e.g. M48 Yugo) models.  Even that can require very tall mounts:

As for the 1909 rifle itself:  it never saw combat with the Argentine armed forces but even so, most of them are pretty battered by now, and all-number-matching rifles are a rare find.  There’s also a lot of stuff said about the Argentina-made 1909s vs. the German-made (DWM) ones, but I’ve fired more than a couple of the Argy Argies, and they’re fine.  In any event, DWM made nearly three times the number of the others, so mostly you’ll find it’s a DWM.

The Argentinians (not DWM, as I recall) also made a carbine model (like this one), but that is even less pleasant to shoot.  When it comes to recoil, heavier is better.

Current prices seem to run anywhere from $300 (gun shows) – $750+ (FFL), but those at the lower end need to be very carefully checked over by a gunsmith — I wouldn’t risk getting a cheap one, myself.  One inherent problem is that damn rifles are most often the target of amateur gunsmithing — usually converted into a more common chambering.  These should be avoided like the plague.

All that said, however:  the 1909 Argentine Mauser is a sound, effective rifle, and I do regret selling mine.  [exit, kicking self]

Why Not?

Crime, Gummint, Law and Order, The Gun Thing

As police presence and power decreases (forced by, lest we forget, Democrat-controlled local governments), it seems only natural that people are saying, “Well, we did deputize the enforcement of laws and peacekeeping functions to government — but if they are unable or unwilling to perform those functions, we’re just gonna take that power back into our own hands.”

Hence:

Violent Crime Explosion Forces Minneapolis Residents to Form Militias

Breitbart’s John Nolte, by the way, doesn’t think this is a Good Thing, and he gives a number of sound reasons why.  I, however, am not interested in ivory-tower discussions — I prefer to remain rooted in reality — so I think that even if Nolte is correct, it doesn’t matter.  The reality facing these people betrayed by their government is real, and it’s dangerous.  So I say:  go on, buy guns, learn how to use them, and do whatever you have to do to protect yourselves from the raving mob.  Right now, the BLM/Pantifas are actively behaving in ways that makes me think they’re looking for martyrs, and if a bunch of citizen militias help them achieve that goal, so much the better.  (I would love to see a situation where a militia group drops the hammer on some scumbag looters / rioters, and when the cops put in a belated appearance to try and arrest the shooters, the militia sticks to their guns, so to speak, and tells the cops to go pound sand.  Let government try to maintain its “monopoly on force” in the face of an armed and angry citizenry trying to protect themselves and each other.)  As the Z-man sourly puts it:

“Gun sales are booming, but the people buying the guns imagine themselves defending their life and property within a system of laws. What happens when they realize there is no system of laws?”

Interesting, but behind the curve.   More intriguing is what happens when the cops realize there is no longer a system of laws.  And Z-man talks about that too:

Social collapse comes when the majority stops accepting the legitimacy of the system and the authority of those in charge of it. The one result of the street rioters and their corporate and political sponsors is they may get what they want. The majority may stop accepting the legitimacy of the system. That silent minority may lose all faith in the system and the people running it. That would be us one step from the edge, when all respect for authority collapses and takes society with it.

That would be this scenario:

Yeah, I know:  it sounds like I’m promoting anarchy, doesn’t it?  Tell me that what’s going on right now in Portland, Seattle and Chicago isn’t already anarchy.  Only what it really is, as Z-man points out, is government-enabled (and even -supported) anarchy.  If the Left is so keen on anarchy, let’s give them the full flavor.

But just for the record, I’m damn glad that it’s Black people (and women) buying more guns.  Self-defense is a universal right, after all.