Plenty of obnoxious clichés get thrown around in the gun culture, but the most annoying is, "I carry a .45 because they don't make a .46!" I'm mildly surprised when the simpletons chanting that one manage not to drool on themselves in public.

In fact, I am so weary of it that I'm going to rectify the situation. I'm going to make a .46 caliber handgun cartridge.

Now, you might say that's a bad idea. Let me tell you something. When George Washington wanted to cross the Potomac and drive the British out of New Jersey, I'm pretty sure some folks told him that was a bad idea. But he proved them wrong, didn't he? He sent them packing all the way back to California. Smelly hippies. Without him, we'd be spelling words like "color" and "flavor" with a "u." I'm telling you, that man was a great American.

What was I saying? Oh, yeah. I plan on calling the cartridge the .46 Ginormous Action Tactical. A serious load demands a serious name, and that means using the word "tactical" to the point that it loses all meaning. It also prevents confusion, since ".46 GAT" couldn't possibly be confused with any current commercial loading.

Sarge made this adorable mockery of the innumerable shooter diagnostic charts circulating on the internet.  He takes what we're all thinking and sums it up in one picture.

YouTube videos and gun forums are dubious sources of knowledge at best, and they provide no real-time feedback for the shooter.  A simplistic chart (which is designed to correct defects in long-distance, one-handed shooting, by the way) might help as part of a whole suite of training tools, but taken by itself, it is of little value.

Most people don't need …

You can't pick up a gun magazine without seeing advertisements for Kimber's pistols on every third page or so.  They certainly look debonair in print.  In the hand, they feel wonderful, what with  all the judiciously sloped edges and modern touches.  It's obvious that they place a great priority on the idea of the gun as art.

That's fine.  There's certainly a place for that.  Unfortunately, Kimber's production practices fall woefully short when it comes to the idea of the gun as a functional weapon.

OK, folks.  9mm Parabellum isn't any more accurate than 9mm Luger.  It's not more reliable.  It does not have more "stopping power."  They are the exact same thing.

The 9mm Parabellum was designed and named by Georg Luger.  Despite the fact that he never called the loading 9mm Luger, some American manufacturers referred to it as such because the pistol bearing his name became quite popular after the first World War. It made marketing easier.

Luger was not a Nazi.  He died well before there was such a thing.  Nor did General Patton "change the name" from Luger to Parabellum to …

Word comes that Stephen Camp passed away last night.  He was a former Sargeant with the Denton, TX police.  In his later years, he was a tireless 2nd Amendment advocate with both the NRA and the Texas State Rifle Association.  He maintained a valuable and enjoyable site of his own, and he was known on many of the established firearms forums for his eloquence, knowledge, and patience.

He is survived by his wife Sandra, who has requested that any donations be directed to the Denton Police Officers' Association.

Well, it's official.  Ruger has entered the rather crowded 1911 pistol game. Ordinarily, I'd respond to this with a yawn, but a few factors make me suspect they'll do great things with it.

Jeff Quinn wrote a nice writeup on it, and he sounds optimistic.  It'll have a cast frame, which is little cause for worry since the folks at Pine Tree Castings have been proving the investment casting process to be capable of great durability for decades.  A point of interest is the fact that the plunger tube is cast as part of the frame, which …

I love the unique contour of the slide on the Sig Sauer 1911, but it makes holster selection tricky.  Blade-Tech makes their Stingray model for the gun, but most other makers aren't supporting it yet.

That means custom work, so I contacted Tom Dyer, and as usual, he came up with an elegant setup.

To this day, the steel-frame Government model remains the apotheosis of the 1911 platform.  Everyone has their own take on the design, some successful, some not so much.

After a few false starts, Sig has gotten it right.

…or, "what the heck you doin' that for?"

The market is being flooded with used revolvers right now.  There are some truly great deals to be had, but there are also a few pitfalls to avoid.  Many potentially terminal problems may not be immediately apparent.

Revolvers are generally very durable machines.  They'll endure decades of neglect, but that resilience means that some owners will inflict excessive abuse.  Some people will use them as test-beds for reckless handloads, and when the gun gives out, they'll sell it off to a hapless buyer.  Others see them as platforms for some truly questionable home gunsmithing experiments.

What follows is a list of things I check to ensure that the gun I'm evaluating hasn't been rendered unusable or unsafe.

When it comes to guns, I'm not much of a "collector."  Sure, it's nice to have one in fine cosmetic shape, but I don't mind a bit of character, especially in one that shoots this well.  Box and papers don't mean much to me, and I'd sooner have a working gun than one I'm tempted to stow away in the safe.

As K-38's go, this one wouldn't seem too special at first.  It shipped in 1975, the same year Maggie Thatcher ascended to power and Francisco Franco stepped down.  Minnie Riperton was big in the charts, and Jimmie Hoffa stopped filing tax returns.

At that point, the Model 15 was still standard-issue in the United States Air Force, as well as several police departments.  This specimen was issued to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

The department in question phased the 15 out around 1985 in favor of the Beretta 92, and by 1990, the Air Force would do the same.  More than a few Vietnam veterans maintain a sentimental tie to the weapon, and for good reason.

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. The whole idea is that the gun locks up to tell you it's empty and needs reloading. Insert a live magazine, and the slide drops easily.

There is nothing wrong with a gun on which it is difficult to drop the slide on an empty magazine.

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.