Category: Guns

I was listening to some older episodes of Handgun Radio, and got to episode 121, where they were talking about the “Ring of Fire” guns and other “Saturday Night Specials.  It got me thinking.

I know there was a time when .32acp, .25acp, and other calibers that are now considered woefully under powered rounds for self-defense were popular.  Especially in pocket guns that were primarily bought for that purpose.

I’m curious if the trend to thinking that they were under-powered, and therefor mostly useless (except for the .22, which fell into the “cheap target shooting round” duty) relates to the passage of the GCA of ’68 and the introduction of the import point system largely aimed at killing those small pocket pistols.  I will readily admit that I have done zero research to back up this hypotheses, but I could easily see gun owners creating the mindset of “well, those stupid little mouse guns are useless, anyways,” when the majority of the supply in the US was cut off.  Could be similar to the fairly common statements of “machine guns are only useful for burning through a lot of ammo fast and not hitting anything” that is around today.

Not saying that I’ll be trading in my 9mm carry guns in for ones in .25acp anytime soon.  There’s no doubt that 9mm, .45acp, or whatever your common carry gun round of choice is (yes, even the .380) does more damage to the bad guy than the little .25acp.  Just one of those random thoughts.

While my mind is currently focused on heading to Louisville for NRAAM, I figured I’d throw up this quick post.

A little while ago, a buddy of mine asked me what my top 3 gun wish list was at current date.  I couldn’t really answer him at the time, but it’s been peculating in the back of my head.  So… here’s my attempt to answer that.

1. a “modern” centerfire bolt-action.  Oddly enough, I don’t have a bolt action rifle that’s not in .22 that was built in my lifetime.  While I enjoy my Mosin Nagant m39 and my Ishy Enfield is great for a milsurp bolt gun, I do want to eventually do things like the Boomer Shoot.  That pretty much requires a modern bolt gun with a good scope on it.  The Remington 700 used to be the default for this, but I’ve been steering clear of them due to their current QC issues.  Maybe a Savage Axis II?  Or even that new Ruger Precision Rifle?  Then there’s the question of caliber.  .308 would be good, due to it being something I already keep in stock, but I’m not averse to arguments for other calibers.  Especially since, from what I’ve read, .308 is kind of on the bottom end of recommended calibers for the kinds of distances you see at the Boomer Shoot.
2. a snub nose revolver.  Like the #1 pick, this is to fill a hole in my collection.  Thinking a S&W in either .38 or .357 just to keep control commonality  with my Model13.
3. 12ga coach gun.  There’s just something about a double barreled 12ga that hits my giggle button.  And grabbing a shorter barreled one just hits it that much more.  Of course, if I ever thought I could justify the cost, Chiappa’s Triple Threat would be awesome.  If 2 barrels is good, 3 is better… right?

So… what do you think?  Honestly, #3 was difficult to choose.  I still need to get into black powder at some point, and a replica navy revolver kit would be damn nifty.  As would one of those “build your own Kentucky rifle” kits.  I think I’ve got the pocket gun bug out of my system… for a while… all those NAA Guardians make me giggle…  There are other guns that I would happily take if handed to me (a Barrett .50cal, for example), but I tried to limit this to ones I could actually see buying.  Anyways, this is just the top 3.  Doesn’t mean that there aren’t more. 🙂

So, what’s on your list?

Last weekend, I packed up my gear and headed to Oak Ridge for the first East Tennessee Bloggershoot hosted by Dennis at Dragon Leatherworks.  For those that have never been, it’s a beautify part of the country, and I highly recommend visiting.  Especially if you can manage to get a tour of the national labs that were involved in the Manhattan Project and are currently home to the second most powerful supercomputer in the world.

I started the weekend arriving at Dragon Leatherworks store, where I picked up a new purchase for me (a Sig p290rs, watch for a review in the near future).  It’s a nice shop with a pretty good selection of firearms and some absolutely beautiful holsters.  Of course, if they don’t have it in stock, Dennis is happy to order it for you.  The Jack was already there, and we chatted while Dennis manned the shop for the last couple hours of the business day.

After that, we headed to Dennis’ place for burgers and met up with John Richardson and his wife.  Erin Palette was supposed to join us for dinner, but due to some serious traffic issues, didn’t roll in until close to midnight.  Oleg, being the crazy man that he is, decided to get up at the crack of dawn, and make the drive in Saturday morning.  He also had a young shooter and his family in tow.

Saturday morning came, and we loaded up and headed to the range.  Unfortunately, it rained during a good portion of the day.  That said, one of the pistol ranges and the rifle range had cover over the shooting line, so we just shot from under those.  The rifle range had steel targets set a various distances out to, I think, 175yards.  For a guy that is normally relegated to punching paper, it was great fun to hear the ring of steel and see the target swing on every hit.

Unfortunately, due to the rain, this was pretty much the only good picture I got of the shooty goodness.  We had a pretty good representation of old battle rifles, Erin brought her “Sleep of Reason” Mosin Nagant, which is now sporting an Archangel stock and new muzzle brake, and Oleg brought some interesting stuff including a triple barrelled shotgun.  Oh, and Oleg brought a scoped Howa .308 (I can’t remember the model) that made hitting the steal torso at 175yards almost boring… almost.

One thing I always find interesting at these things is what people gravitate to.  You have the oddities, like The Jack’s Boberg, that folks are interested in because they’re just weird, or Erin’s pimped out Mosin that shows that you can take one of those old war relics and turn it into a pretty accurate rifle.  John brought out an IBM make M1 Carbine in good condition that sparked a couple history conversations.  Everyone seemed to enjoy hitting the 75yard steel torso with my Marlin .357mag.

After all was said and done at the range, it was back to the ranch to clean up and get ready for dinner.  For most of us, that meant at least a change of clothes due to the mud, and I think we managed to not track mud all over the house.  The Jack was gracious enough to work the grill for us.  If you ever have the chance to sample his cooking, do it.

Did I mention that there was tasty, tasty meat?

I was also told that my apple and peach pie went over well.  As a side note, apple pie (the drink) does go well with apple pie (the food).

We also took a tour of the workshop where Dennis actually makes all the holsters.  He gave us a brief run down on how he makes them, and some things that he’s got in the works for the future.  Beyond that, it was the usual chatting and card games that happen when you get a bunch of us together.

Sunday was breakfast, and back on the road back home.

I have to thank Dennis and his wife (who did a lot of the prep work to make this happen) for a great weekend.  They’ve already stated that they want to do it again next year, and I hope to be there and see more folks there.

By the way, if you haven’t already checked out their website, Dragon Leatherworks makes some great holsters.  I have one that I love, and I need to order a couple more.  Great thing about them is that you can drop $300 on a BBQ holster for your BBQ gun, but the basic holsters start around $65.  There’s a number of assembly line holsters that will cost you more than that.  Instead, you can get a handmade holster that’s well made, built in the USA, and made by a small business.  What’s not to like?

Last weekend, WizardPC and I went to the local state run rifle range.  While I’ve been keeping up with my pistol shooting, I have to admit that I let my rifles collect dust.

He had recently inherited a Winchester 30-30 recently, and needed to try out his new .300blk AR with suppressor. I will have to say that the suppressed AR was all sorts of giggle worthy.

That said, I damn near hit the mag release on the AR while loading it like a n00b that doesn’t own 2 ARs and has put a good amount of rounds down range through them.  Wizard, on the other hand, had sever issues getting the ammo shoved into the loading gate of the Winchester.  I will say that we both did well with the bolt guns we brought…

Remember years ago when Wizard introduced me as a guy that’s more into old guns while he’s more up on the modern stuff?  Yeah… apparently things haven’t changed too much.

Earlier this week, I was driving down the road and listening to NPR when On the Media came on.  This week, they’ve decided to take on the issue of gun violence with all the non-biased reporting that you’d expect from them.  Conveniently, they break their show notes down in chapters, so I’ll touch each one.

It starts off with them reminding us that Obama recently spoke on gun violence and signed executive actions.  Of course, they lean heavily on anti-gun quotes and state that the biggest thing blocking “common sense” gun laws was the evil NRA buying off folks in Congress (more on that later).  Oh, and they have someone from Think Progress on the line to talk and answer some softball questions.  I will give them credit for admitting that Think Progress is an extremely left leaning organization.   Of course, they let him say that the thought that the 2nd amendment is an individual right is a new thing that the NRA came up with in the ’80’s without challenge.

The second segment talks a little bit about gun laws and the NRA.  Specifically, they talk about the Black Panthers protesting new gun laws in California in the ’60’s, and even dance around the fact that a lot of gun laws were racially based.  They also talk about how the NRA used to be pretty much about hunting, and wasn’t a big political player.  Then they talk about the “Cincinnati Revolution” in ’77 when a huge number of board members were replaced, and the organization made a major shift from just being about hunting to what we know as the NRA today.  Of course, they referred to the this change as being made by “radicals” in the org, and ignore the fact that a major change like that couldn’t happen or be maintained if the membership as a whole didn’t agree with those “radicals.”

The third segment leans heavily on that pole that stated that 90% of folks in the US want stronger gun control.  They vaguely mention that there are other polls that say that that’s not true, but also state that there is no pre-existing information out there on it.  Constant contradiction seems to be a constant throughout the program.  They also fail to talk about the states where they have put new gun laws up for vote and the general populace voted overwhelmingly in favor of gun rights.

Next, we have the standard bit on how the CDC can’t do research on gun violence.  While they completely ignore the study that the CDC *did* do under Obama’s orders after Sandy hook, they make sure to trot out the study that said that you’re more likely to get shot if you own a gun than if you don’t.  They do admit that that study was the reason why the law that blocks the CDC from funding studies that advocate the restriction of gun rights, but they conveniently fail to mention that that study has been completely debunked and was meant to be propaganda from the beginning.

The 5th segment was an interesting bit of logical gymnastics.  They pull out the recent study showing that, in most arenas, the general populace doesn’t have nearly as much political collateral than the rich and powerful.  Here’s where it gets fun; they admit that that’s not the case with the NRA and gun rights.  Their expert states that the NRA’s membership isn’t the hugely rich and powerful.  He states that the NRA’s power is because of a combination of money an “lots of boots on the ground.”  I can’t translate that as anything other than “it has lots of noisy members.”  Of course, he also states that it’s “difficult to find out” how much money the gun manufacturers give the NRA (oh, wait… no, it’s not), and weasels his way around not saying that the NRA is not representing its membership.  The host straight up asks the expert how they can defeat the NRA and the expert refers to guns as “one of the problems with democracy.”

The last segment is actually fairly good.  It deals with the idea of pushing programs that work with gangs to reduce violence.  I agree with this idea, and programs that have been tried in the past have actually worked rather well.  Of course, that means dealing with the people instead of just banning guns, so that tends to not be on the table.

I realize that I’m not quite as good a fisking as Weer’d, but I just had to put this down.  I linked the particular episode at the top, but, if you really want to raise your blood pressure, here it is again.

Some of you may remember that I have been in the market for a Beretta Bobcat for a while.  Especially after a certain incident at last year’s NRAAM steered me away from Taurus’ PT-22.  Unfortunately, it seemed like the moment I decided to buy one, the supply dried up.  I was even told by a trusted gun deal “good f’ing luck.”*

Well, fast forward to New Year’s Eve, and I spotted one on one the local FaceBook gun swap groups.  A guy had got one in a trade, and was asking what it was worth.  Several folks were offering to do him a “favor” and give him roughly half of what it was worth.  I chimed in telling him to look at what it was going for on Gunbroker, and that I’d be interested if the other offers fell through.  The next day, he contacted me offering to sell it for somewhere in the middle of what those guys were offering, and what the ones on Gunbroker were selling for.  After a quick drive out to meet him, I came home with this little guy:

This particular little guy is in .22lr, although it also comes in .25acp.  After doing a little research, it looks like I can convert it to .25 by ordering a new slide, barrel, and magazine from Beretta for about $130.  While I don’t plan on doing this conversion now, I might down the line if I ever decide to actually carry it.  .25, by virtue of being a center fire round, is more reliable, but significantly more expensive.  Oddly enough, the .25acp mags hold 8 rounds instead of the 7 round capacity of the .22.

For those of you that are unaware of the Beretta 21a “Bobcat” pistol, it’s really a relic of the past.  There was a time when there were several companies that made true pocket pistols in small calibers (.22lr, .25acp, .32acp, etc).  For the most part, these have given way to guns that are slightly larger, but fire “more serious” cartridges like the .380acp and 9mm.  Heck, you can now get a Boberg or Springfield XDs in .45cal!  I’m sure some of this has to do with modern manufacturing/materials allowing for things that just weren’t possible even a couple decades ago, but it’s also damn convenient to share ammo between your carry gun and your range gun (to say nothing of stopping power).  These tiny guns have been described as “guns for when you can’t carry a gun” due to their ability to disappear  in a pocket, and are really designed for little more than contact distance.

One of the interesting design traits of this gun is the tip up barrel.  The barrel is spring loaded and will tip up when you hit a lever (as seen above).  This allows you to load or unload a round in the chamber without racking the slide.  While that’s not a big deal on larger guns, it’s a nice feature on something this small where the slide is too small to easily grab.  The downside is that there’s no extractor, so the only way for a casing to leave the chamber is either through the recoil of firing it, or prying it out with your fingernail.

Another interesting design choice was the placement of the magazine release.  You can see it in the picture above between the two screws on the grip.  I know Beretta has released a few models with the magazine release there (including a very early version of the 92), but I’m unaware of any other company to do so.  While it is in a location that pretty much guarantees you won’t accidentally hit it, it also means that you will need to use both hands to drop the magazine.

Even though .22lr is still scarce around here, I did have some on hand and have been able to get to the range to try the little guy out.  Unfortunately, most of the ammo on hand was in the form of Federal bulk made during the true insanity, and not exactly the most reliable ammo.  This was proven to follow form, by that ammo causing several stove pipes and failure to fully cycle.  I did have a 50 round box of Winchester Sidewinder with me, which performed flawlessly.  The difference between the two sets of ammo was demonstrated by the Sidewinder ammo producing a noticeable fireball when fired from such a tiny barrel.  Also of note, you can load 8 rounds into the magazine, but it will not actually seat in the gun with more than 7, which is the advertised capacity.

I was rather surprised by the accuracy.  The trigger was fairly nice in either double action or single action mode.  I’ve definitely dealt with worse triggers on more full sized guns.  The sights, while definitely usable, are… difficult.  They are very low profile, and the rear sight is rounded.  If you’ve ever handled a single action revolver with the old school “complete the arc” sights, think that… only smaller.  That said, I was able to easily keep rounds on a 6″ target at 5 yards, which is pretty good considering the shooter and the optimal range is best described as “shove up bad guy’s nose, pull trigger.”

I will say that I have already made one “upgrade” to this little mouse gun.  Beretta was having a sale that included wooden grips half of.  For some reason, I just couldn’t resist the look of the wood with the little brass medallions.

And… of course… one of my cats had to get in on the act

The last thing to talk about is why I bought this.  Honestly, I can’t give you a good answer to that.  While it was designed to be a pocket pistol, there are modern guns that do that job better.  While I would have no qualms over carrying this pistol with either the hammer down or cocked and locked, I would rather have something like a .380 or 9mm in my pocket.  It is a lot of fun at the range, but it’s not a marksman’s pistol like my Buckmark.  Heck it doesn’t even share the same controls as a gun I would/do carry like my Bersa Thunder 22.

In the end, all I can say is “it makes me giggle.”  Of course, is that necessarily a bad thing?

*incidentally, I have since seen 3 at the local gun show.  All in .25acp and for at least $100 more than I paid.  Such is life.

As seen on Facebook from a liberal friend who used to be anti-gun in reference to a Huffington Post article entitled “If Guns Are So Good, Invite ‘Em to GOP Rallies“:

As a skeptic, I have to reconsider my prejudices that I may have been taught earlier in life and review the evidence. The fact that I have a much smaller chance of being shot by the average gun enthusiast than by a police officer means that in your scenario, you’re going to be statistically pretty safe in that hall, much more safe than if every one of those heavily armed individuals were also wearing police uniforms.

See… sometimes folks on the other side actually look at the facts and admit that they might have been wrong.

It’s always nice to see that happen.

I know, I’m a couple days late on this one, but I’ve got to rant about it.  If you haven’t already heard, a couple who lost their daughter in the theater shooting in Aurora, Co decided to sue 4 websites that sold the killer ammo.  They lost… badly.  Not only did they lose, but they now owe over $200k in legal fees.  Oh, by the way, just to twist the knife, Lucky Gunner has decided to donate their portion of the money to a pro-gun org, to be chosen by vote here.

Now… would these grieving parents scuttle awaay and lick their wounds?  Of course not!   They’ve gone onto national TV to declare that the evil, horrible judge has probably forced them into bankruptcy!

To save you from watching the video in the link above (and if you’re like me, the shouting at the screen and possible blood spewing out your ears), let me address a few of the points.

Right of the bat, the judge didn’t put you into this situation.  They did.  This is the equivalent of suing the gas station that sold the gas in the car of a drunk driver that plowed into a school bus.  It was a stupid lawsuit, they, and the lawyers that represented them, should be ashamed of themselves.

They claim that the NRA paid for the lawyers for the defendants.  Really?  I haven’t done much research into it, but Lucky Gunner claims that they paid for their own damned lawyers, and I haven’t seen the NRA using that cost as a reason for me to give them more money.  Even if they did, so what?

The host mentions that the Brady Campaign “filed the suit on their behalf.”  Oh, so I guess it’s ok if the largest lobbying group in their field pays for the lawyers if it’s on their side?  Oh, also not mentioned is that both the wife and husband work for the Brady Bunch.  Of course, if the Brady folks were so righteous, they should be the ones picking up the bill, but that would rob them of another “victim of the evil gun lobby.”

They claim that this wasn’t about money, but an attempt to change the laws.  They… sued… private companies… to make new/change laws… what?!  I’m not a lawyer, but that’s not how this works!  That’s not how any of this works!

They claim that they would have more rights if a kid shot theirs in the eye with a bb gun.  Really?  Little Ralphie could sue Daisy for shooting his eye out?

I’m thinking that this was planned from the beginning.  If, by some insane chance, they won the case, hurrah! some evil ammo dealers hurt/out of business.  If they lost, well, claim it was the evil gun lobby that destroyed this couple’s finances.

To the couple, I must say “I’m sorry for the loss of your daughter, but… F you and the horse you rode in on.”