Ordnance

127 posts
Ordnance

Weird Handgun Buying Criteria, Part 1

Today’s issue: difficulty using the slide release on an empty magazine.

This is an utterly irrelevant issue. First off, that little lever on the left side of the gun is a slide stop, not a slide release. Notice the somewhat inconvenient placement on many guns. To release the slide, the proper technique involves pulling the slide to the rear and letting it “slingshot” into battery.

Now, I’m aware that there are very experienced and knowledgeable shooters who use the slide stop as a release. They’re not wrong, but that method has its drawbacks. In a stress situation, fine motor skills evaporate. Operating a small, oddly-positioned lever with shaking, sweaty hands will be problematic at best.

If you try the slingshot method on a pistol with an empty magazine inserted, you’ll quickly discover that it does not work. Why not? Because you’re not supposed to drop the slide in that state.

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Ordnance

Herter’s Ammunition Isn’t

George Herter was a character, to say the least.  He made a living making and selling things he liked, and while eccentric at times, many of his wares were quite good.  By his own estimation, everything he made was the Best Thing Ever.  I’ve seen the old catalogs, and some of the claims are hilarious.

Hyperbole aside, I have some of his 6.5×55 ammunition, and it’s very accurate.  Some folks think he used Norma components.  By all accounts, his ammunition was good stuff.  He was also known for developing some interesting wildcat cartridges.

His company went out of business years ago, so I was quite surprised to see people showing up to the range recently with newly-minted pistol ammunition bearing the Herter’s name and crest.  More sobering have been the two catastrophic failures I’ve seen it cause.

Ordnance

S&W SD Series

1 comment

The SD9 and SD40 are Smith & Wesson’s most recent polymer pistols. Their price places them squarely between the Sigma and M&P, which would be around $420 on the street.

The Sigma pistols are excellent guns for the money, but a few things have always been lacking.  First off is the dreadful trigger pull, which is a long and uneven.  They have plastic sights which are prone to breakage during adjustment, and the accessory rail is of proprietary design.

The SD pistols seem to address these issues.  In fact, it appears that this model is simply an improved Sigma in many respects.  What follows is a brief comparison.

Ordnance

CZ P-01 Revisited

CZ P-01

18 months now, ~2400 rounds, one failure.  One, and that was with oddball 147gr subsonic ammunition.  The pistol has fed nine separate factory defensive loadings and countless target loads without fail.

I continue to be quite pleased with it.

Ordnance

Deadly Force and Morality

Unfortunate as it is, the Roger Witter incident in Portland gives us the opportunity to consider one very important fact:  human life is worth more than any property.

Mr. Witter wasn’t protecting anyone from harm.  Two shoplifters were leaving the scene without violence.  Furthermore, he showed an utter disregard for the 4th cardinal rule of gun safety when he fired after them in the direction of a busy rail station.

He placed people in danger to serve a very surreal definition of civic duty.  In the moment he pointed a firearm at someone and pulled the trigger, he equated a piece of merchandise with a human life.

Please think long and hard about that.

The most important lesson I ever learned about the defensive use of firearms comes from Massad Ayoob.  Loosely recalled, it reads like this:  human life is the most precious thing in this world.  If you can’t recognize its worth, you have no right to a tool that so easily robs someone of it.

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Ordnance

S&W Model 65

1 comment

This 65-3 was produced in 1987.  Other notable events from that year include Gary Hart dropping out of the Presidential race, Sonny Bono running for the office of Mayor of Palm Springs, and Ronald Reagan delivering what was possibly his most important speech.  U2 released The Joshua Tree, and Rick Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up” reached #1 on both sides of the Atlantic, long before anybody with taste found it the least bit ironic.

The Model 65 was produced from 1972 until 2004.  It was the fixed-sight counterpart to the 66, and was carried by the Customs Service, as well as several state police agencies.

A common misconception is that the 65 was a stainless version of the Model 13.  This isn’t entirely true, as the 13 was not introduced until 1974.  Prior to that, the blued counterpart to the 65 was the 10-6, which had been upgraded to .357. 

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Ordnance

The Call of Duty Effect

Anyone who’s worked in a gun store knows that guy. He’s in his early 20’s and usually comes in with a couple of friends. They want to see specific guns:  the Deagle, the M4, the SCAR, anything in “fifty cal.” Most of all, they’d love a chance to fondle the ever-elusive ACR.

Soldiers on leave? Procurement agents for law enforcement? Well-heeled NRA High-Power competitors? No.

These are the Call of Duty generation.

Once handing them the gun used to kill the terrorists in Level 7, you’ll spend a good ten minutes reminding them with increasing sternness not to sweep other patrons with the muzzle. They’ll usually pull out a cell-phone and take pictures of their friends posing with it. They’ll tell you it’s the most “badass” gun in the whole game, and how they totally own the noobs with it.

Goofy as they might be, I’ve never dealt with one whom I considered to be the least bit dangerous.

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Ordnance

S&W 3" Model 10

2 comments

This revolver was made when the TRS-80 was the pinnacle of computing technology.  Blade Runner was in theaters. Ingrid Bergman and John Belushi died, and Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.

Even if the J. Geils Band and Survivor aren’t with us any more, Smith & Wesson still is.

The Model 10 has been around in one form or another for over a century.  Until this year, it has enjoyed an unbroken production run, the longest of any firearm in existence.  That’s not hard to understand, as the .38 Hand Ejector is a reliable, accurate and powerful platform.  All modern double-action revolvers can trace their lineage to it.

Ordnance

Dan Wesson Bobtail Commander

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Click to embiggen

I got out of 1911’s for a number of reasons.  This gun seems to address every one of those concerns.

The Dan Wesson company was founded Daniel B. Wesson’s grandson.  He left the employ of Smith & Wesson during the Bangor Punta years, and the new company focused on a unique modular revolver design, which was very popular with silhouette shooters.  In the 1990’s, the company passed out of the Wesson family’s hands, and the focus was shifted to automatics.

I’d heard good things about Dan Wesson’s 1911’s, and they certainly deserve praise for keeping the 10mm cartridge alive.  It wasn’t until a few months ago that I actually had a chance to shoot one, though.

I found myself very impressed.  The gun was accurate, controllable and reliable.  It’s also quite unique.

Ordnance

Pushing the Envelope vs. Pushing Your Luck

5 comments

Pictured below are the sad remains of a S&W M&P 340 revolver.  The 340 is a J-Frame chambered in .357 Magnum.  Its frame is an aluminum alloy infused with a small percentage of Scandium, and it weighs in at 12 ounces.

The owner fired six rounds of .38 Special through it without issue. The first shot of .357 blew up the gun. The owner was unharmed, as all of the unpleasantness happened forward of the muzzle.

Ordnance

An Embarrassment of Cartridges

I’ve been clearing this up for a lot of people this week.  If you’re new to shooting, it’s easy to look at the huge variety of ammunition out there and get incredibly confused.  There is nothing wrong with asking, and it’s far preferable to blowing up a gun or getting hurt.

Here are a few of the misconceptions I most frequently have to address:

  • .38 S&W is not the same as .38 Special
  • .38 Super is not the same as .38 Special
  • .357SIG is not the same as .357 Magnum
  • .32 S&W is not the same as .32 ACP (also known as .32 Auto)
  • 7.65 Browning is the same thing as .32 Auto
  • 6.35mm is the same thing as .25 ACP
  • .45 Colt is not the same as .45 ACP
  • .45 GAP is not the same as .45 ACP
  • 7.62×39 is not the same as 7.62x54R
  • 7.62×51 is pretty much the same thing as .308
  • 7mm Mauser is not the same as 7mm Remington Magnum is not the same as 7mm Ultra Mag is not the same as 7mm-08 is not the same as 7.5mm Swiss
  • 9mm Largo is not the same as 9mm Luger
  • 9mm Kurtz is not the same as 9mm Luger
  • 9mm Luger is the same as 9mm Parabellum
  • .38 Short Colt is…wait, where did you find .38 Short Colt?!?

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Ordnance

Some Bargains Aren’t

Gun show reloads strike again.  Fortunately, the gun was intact.

This is a casing from a 9mm reload, fired from a Glock 19.  It’s a standard-pressure, 115gr FMJ sold in bulk at local gun shows.  What you’re looking at is a case-head failure.  This can break a gun really quick.

It can also lead to severe injury.  Saving a few bucks isn’t worth taking such risks.

Ordnance

The Myth of “Non Lethal”

1 comment

Ever since Taurus started marketing this silly gun, I’ve been saying something like this would happen:

The gun, a model known as “The Judge,” was loaded with bird shot, and Davis took aim at her husband and emptied all five of the weapon’s chambers as he fled through the yard, Bonnett said. He was hit in the upper and lower back by two blasts before escaping, Bonnett said.

Connie Davis shot her husband after he admitted to a prior affair.  Full stop.

It doesn’t matter that the loads were likely insufficient for causing serious bodily harm.  Ms. Davis leveled a deadly weapon at another human being and pulled the trigger.  That’s the salient fact, and it illustrates my problem with the Taurus Judge.

Ordnance

Cobb County GFL Renewal

Just a heads-up for anyone applying for a Georgia Firearms License in Cobb County: my recent renewal took fifteen days.  I applied on 09/28 and received it today.  That’s eleven business days.

In truth, the license was issued 10/06, so make that six business days.  Mark that as a huge improvement in the four-month wait I endured when I renewed in 2005.

Silly thing still looks like it was printed and laminated by an elemetary-school art class.  Fulton County has started issuing hard plastic licenses that look more professional, and which are far easier to fit in a wallet, but I guess I’m stuck with this one until 2014.

Ordnance

By a Hair’s Breadth

Below is a 95gr .380 FMJ. Due to a negligent discharge, it ended up plowing through two plastic rifle cases, a wooden 2×4 bench, two layers of drywall and a chunk of carpeting. Though it was robbed of most of its energy, it still bounced hard enough to cross ~35 feet of a retail sales floor and lightly impact a wall.

Notice that it’s still largely intact and quite capable of rending flesh and bone.

Ordnance

Marketing: 1935 and Now

When FN Herstal came out with the 5.7x28mm cartridge (and the accompanying Five-seveN pistol) a few years back, there was a bit of hand-wringing in certain circles over its ability to pierce body armor.

Bear in mind, the 5.7mm is really a souped-up .22 WMR, not some >5000 ft/s barnburner.  It’s not the first (or only) gun made that’ll punch through body armor.  Yet, everyone got their panties in a bunch over it.

Ordnance

Our Own Worst Enemies

4 comments

Want to know why there isn’t an outdoor range anywhere convenient to a metropolitan area? Want to know why even the remote ones keep closing up? Want to know why existing ranges receive such harassment?

Here’s your answer:

[flv:https://lonelymachines.org/video/resaca.flv 480 368]

This video, filmed at the John’s Mountain WMA range in Resaca, was brought to my attention today.  I’ve witnessed some truly horrid behavior at outdoor ranges, but I assumed that John’s Mountain was far enough from the suburbs that it hasn’t been subjected to this sort of treatment.

Apparently not.  Besides the shocking number of safety violations, you can see plain vandalism to the property.  This is why we have to drive farther by the year to find a 100-yard range.

Ordnance

Concealed Carry Badges

CWP Badge

Back in the 1990’s, I used to see these things at gun shows from time to time, but I didn’t think anyone actually bought them. I certainly don’t expect to see anyone with a lick of common sense wearing one.  Yet, I saw three of these things this weekend.

I can’t emphasize enough what a bad idea they are.

Ordnance

Facing Lead

Her name is Barbara, but her friends call her Barbie.  I am not kidding; she told me this herself.  She’s in her mid-40’s, fake blonde and not very bright.  At some point, someone did Barbie the disservice of telling her she could cruise through life on her looks alone.

Under some circumstances, I could almost pity her.

That is, unless she’s waving a loaded .357 Magnum in my face.

Ordnance

The Ruger LCR

Ruger LCR

Well, it can shoot; I’ll give it that.

Now for my complaints:

  • the front sight is hard to keep in focus,
  • I can’t get all my fingers on the grip, and
  • it’s a bit snappy on recoil.

Yeah, I’m being smarmy.  These things are par for the course with any snubnose revolver.

Ordnance

USC § 922(b)(1)

I got several questions about this today, and I thought I’d clarify.  As of November, you must be 21 years old to receive a frame or receiver for a firearm.  It doesn’t matter if it’s to be used to make a rifle or a handgun; it’s now treated in a similar manner as a handgun.

Congress didn’t pass a law while we weren’t looking, nor did the ATF sneak a regulation in under the radar.  This is simply a clarification and enforcement of a clause buried in Code section 922, which states:

[It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to sell or deliver] any firearm or ammunition to any individual who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe is less than eighteen years of age, and, if the firearm, or ammunition is other than a shotgun or rifle, or ammunition for a shotgun or rifle, to any individual who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe is less than twenty-one years of age

Receivers were never explicitly targeted previously, but as per a letter sent out last week (pdf):

A frame of receiver is a type of firearm “other than a shotgun or a rifle” and the transfer by the dealer to an individual under 21 years of age would be prohibited by Title 18, U.S.C.,

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Ordnance

Squib Loads

S&W Model 29 Mountain Gun. The loads were factory CorBon 200gr .44 Special. The operator was an experienced shooter with military training.

The shooter started with .44 Magnums, then switched to Specials. It’s likely that he expected the milder report and recoil of the .44 Special loads and therefore didn’t notice the discrepancy at first.

Surprisingly, the ejector rod is fine, as are the topstrap and cylinder. Looks like a new barrel assembly should have her back up and running. The shooter was wearing eye protection and was not hurt.

Lesson learned: be careful when switching between Magnum and Special loads, as you might not pick up on the difference in time.

Ordnance

S&W Model 18

SW Model 18

The Smith & Wesson K-Frame in .38 Special was a resounding success from its inception. In 1931, they introduced the K-22 Outdoorsman, a 6″ K-Frame in .22. The platform was an immediate hit, and its utility and popularity have never waned.

The K-22 was designed for the “high velocity” .22 rounds that were in vogue at the time. There had been concerns over the possibility of case head failures, so D.B. Wesson counterbored the cylinder with recessed chambers. This approach would also be used on the company’s Magnum caliber revolvers until the late 20th century, when stronger metallurgy (and better ammo design) rendered it unnecessary.

For many collectors, the recessed cylinder is a symbol of a bygone era of better craftsmanship. I’m not sure I agree, but given the choice, I’ll certainly take a revolver with pinned barrel and recessed cylinder over one that doesn’t have those features. I don’t know why; perhaps it’s just the allure.

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Ordnance

Rimfires and Self Defense

2 comments

The .22 Long Rifle cartridge has a long and rich heritage, and it is superb for target shooting and small-game hunting. As a self-defense loading, it has several major shortcomings. There are very few realistic situations where it can be considered viable.

To its credit, the .22 LR produces only slight recoil, facilitaing easier follow-up shots. The size of the cartridge allows it to be chambered in smaller pistols. Ammunition is cheap and widely available, and in countries that ban civilian use of service calibers, it may be the only alternative available.

Balancing out its meager virtues, one must consider the fact that rimfire ignition can be unreliable. Quite simply, you’re going to have duds. This is patently unacceptable for a platform that should be expected to perform under unpredictable and dire circumstances. A gun that fails in the face of violence is the most dangerous thing you could possibly hold in your hand.

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Ordnance

It’s too late to paddle

4 comments

OK, I think I get it. A hostile alien race is planning an imminent attack on Earth. Conventional weapons are useless against them, but owing to their squishy physiology, the meager .380 ACP cartridge is the only thing that can stop them.

Am I close? Because that’s the only reason I can see for the inexplicable shortage of .380. Some folks are stockpiling it like there’s no tomorrow, while those who were late to the party seem to be going into apoplexy over the sudden shortage.

Demand quickly exhausted the supply, and now we’re seeing crap like this:

Ordnance

Fun with Handloads

185gr Golden Sabers loaded on ~6.5 grains of HP38. Nice and warm, and just scratching at supersonic. The best part is, I didn’t have to do the work. A customer of mine took up reloading, and I’m just the (quite) willing guinea pig.

Given the current economic downturn and the trend of hoarding ammunition to the point of scarcity, many folks are turning to reloading. More power to them!

Reloading isn’t just about saving money. It allows you to tailor loads to your specific gun and situation, and once you’ve got the process down, you can achieve accuracy easily surpassing many factory loadings.

Case in point: I’ve got a marvelous .38 Special defensive load that runs a 125gr XTP over 8 grains of HS6. It reaches 1220ft/s out of a 4″ barreled revolver, and falls just subsonic in a snubnose, all while running at less that 20,000 CUP. That’s a bit warmish for factory loads, but still well within the tolerances of a good gun.

Civil Rights Ordnance

Ballistic fingerprinting rears its head in Georgia

Senator Ramsey has sponsored SB 12, a bill that calls for all ammunition sold in the state to “contain a unique code.” This is identical to failed initiatives in New York, Maryland, and most recently, California.

This isn’t a crime-solving tool, it’s an attempt to strangle the shooting culture by raising the price and choking the supply of ammunition to civilians.

The Left claims that their intentions are to create a database whereby spent casings (if any) found at a crime scene can be tracked back to the owner of the firearm. I can tell you that’s a loopy idea right off the bat.

Ordnance

More Shot Show rumors

So, the 2009 Shot Show hasn’t even happened yet, and folks are already making predictions. Some are true, some are probable, and some are real head-scratchers.

First off, Smith & Wesson appears to be bringing the .41 Magnum back with a vengeance, reintroducing several “Classic” iterations of the Model 57. They’re also chambering one of the Night Guard revolvers (1) for the cartridge, as well as introducing one in 10mm. They’ve decided to jump on the .327 Magnum bandwagon with a really odd hodgepodge of features.

The Classic series will also include the Model 14, 17 and 18. As much as I want a Model 18, I don’t like the newer lockwork, so I’ll be holding out for a good used specimen.

Of course, all that’s verified by their web site. Still in uncertain but viable territory is the suggestion that they plan on producing the 19 and 66 again (2).

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Ordnance

Rule #1

A sixgun or automatic pistol is a tool, and a deadly one; handle them as such. From the start, consider all guns as being loaded whether you know them to be empty or not. Treat them as loaded guns and you will never have an accident. I am scared of empty guns and keep mine loaded at all times. The family knows the guns are loaded and treats them with respect. Loaded guns cause few accidents; “empty guns” kill people every year.

–Elmer Keith, Sixguns, p. 87

Posted because I’m tired of telling grown adults nicely.

Photo from Dean Spier’s site.

Ordnance

S&W Model 19

1 comment

This is a model 19-3.  There are many like it, but this one’s mine.

The Model 19 is the descendant of the Combat Magnum, introduced in 1955 at the behest of Bill Jordan.  Jordan recognized that the K-Frames were a marvelous balance of weight and accuracy, but he wanted a Magnum, and Smith & Wesson’s N-Frames were a bit heavy to be carried all day.

So the engineers started brainstorming.  They gave it a heavy barrel and an underlug (like the N-Frames), and thanks to advances in heat-treating, the steel was strong enough to handle the increased chamber pressures of the .357 (1).

It was an immediate hit with law enforcement, and when Smith & Wesson starting numbering their revolvers, the Combat Magnum became the Model 19.  The 19 was produced until 1999.

Ordnance

Price gouging or not?

There’s a simple duality of laws at work in a market economy known as the supply/demand relationship. Generally, if demand for a good increases, then the supply of that good scales up accordingly. This keeps the price of that good somewhat level.

However, if the supply cannot match a sudden spike in demand, then the equilibrium is skewed, and prices rise. That’s what’s happening in a segment of the gun industry right now.

Ordnance

Post-election Feeding Frenzy

Enough, people.  This is just getting silly.

I was at work the other day, and a twitchy fortyish guy in a Polo shirt walked over to me, brandishing an AK-47.

“Can you show me how to work this?”

“First off, watch the muzzle! Is there something wrong with it?”

“No, I just don’t know how to use it. Can you show me?”

At this point, I was tempted to say, “no…for that you need the proper mindset and a great deal of training, neither of which you’re going to get in five minutes.”

Instead, I gave him a quick run-down, making damn sure he didn’t load the thing. It was obvious he had never handled a gun before in his life. I asked him why he’d chosen that particular gun. His response was, “because Obama’s going to take it away.”

That’s not a reason, gang.

Ordnance

CZ P-01

I’m not completely bereft of those newfangled automatics the young people prefer, it’s just that I’ve found very few that truly sing to me.  Sig Sauers certainly do, and a few years back, I came upon a dark horse in the CZ-75.

Ordnance

Western Leather for the Modern Age

I can’t abide putting nice guns in ugly holsters.  Ugly guns, sure.  Stick a Glock in whatever works, but my Smiths aren’t just tools, they’re my constant companions.  I take a certain amount of pride in their workmanship and aesthetics, and they deserve the proper treatment, so to speak.

While there have been some marvelous improvements in holster design over the last century, but one of the most enduring was the brainchild of Lee Trimble and Tom Threepersons.  Now simply called the Tom Threepersons design, it was first marketed in the 1920s by the famous S.D. Myres (now merged with El Paso).

Ordnance

THR, back in business

The High Road is back up and running on a new server.  All of the old moderators are back, including those who were banned.  User profiles and posts have been preserved, which means Oleg got ahold of the database.  The whois database shows that the domain is in Oleg’s hands, where it belongs.

Basically, it’s the same site, but with a different domain suffix.  It appears Derek still has ownership and registration of the old address.

At the moment, it’s running a bit slow, but that could be a result of all of us flooding into it at once.