Dec 19, 2010

About that foreign weenie...

Every time truth requires me to admit to using a 9mm Eurowimp as my bread and butter piece, I feel compelled to get all defensive about it.

I loopholed the 59 cheap, as it should have been. It was intended to be trading stock, but my vestigial conscience denied permission to foist it off until it could be used as intended. So I disassembled, deburred, throated, and polished the internals. Most significantly I ground enough metal from the frame to permit the trigger to go back far enough to trip the sear every time. This is the truth, and I can still display the tool marks to doubters.

About the time I finished making the damned thing work right,  I got sucked into the high-capacity vortex which was just gathering speed in those days.

"Look,"  I thought,  "with 13 rounds in one magazine, I am  reasonably well covered for any threat I can imagine, even if I can't immediately put my hands on the spare."  


It remains a valid point, even after a guy becomes totally disenchanted with the 9mm as a defense round. (You can hedge your bet with zippy hand loads, and I do.) Besides, I really like shooting the thing.

But the controlling point is that my life has become almost as threat-free as a modern American life can be.  On the rare, all but nonexistent, occasions when I don't t think that Pollyanna-ish view is justified, the pipsqueak goes into the safe, and out comes one of Mr. Browning's (PBUH) 1911s in the decisive .45 ACP.

I do not urge this solution on others.

2 comments:

George said...

Good you got it to work! I mistakenly traded my first handgun (a 39-2) and cash for a 59. Couldn't hit jack with it, and carrying cross-draw kept depressing the mag release. Not good for fast-drawn in the convenience store! Ended up with a 49...which was blue and rusted.
Now have a 1911 and nickel 442. Live and learn!

Jim said...

Thanks for the note on a potential magazine release problem. I use cross draw and haven't had the problem, but I'll do some experimenting to try to see if I've simply been lucky.


Jim