Showing posts with label Cuz Colt doesn't make a .46. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cuz Colt doesn't make a .46. Show all posts

Mar 10, 2015

Down at the Quad-Cities Loophole the Other Day

Some days are luckier than other days.


















Some Bushes are better than others.



Roll out the barrel







And, just for lagniappe, a little plastic souvenir of where she was.



According to the old man selling out his personal collection, he fired it there in the 60s. It is a Rock Island Arsenal product inspected by Mr. Frank Krack, and perhaps built by him. He was an assistant foreman who, apparently,  sometimes liked to create some of the RIA National Match/Camp Perry products.

Both slide and frame are Colt 1911, manufactured in 1917 according the SN lists.

No, I won't say what I paid, but  I risked finger injury in getting the asking price out of my pocket. The  seller was still setting up; the Colt had just hit the table as I approached. I decided to haggle only  half-heartedly because there was a very anxious dude standing close behind me, breathing heavily, and I didn't think it was my body cologne exciting him.

Oct 27, 2014

The Commander Reporting for Duty, Sir.

It's one of the reasons for a quiet blog lately.*

So, is it done?

Of course not. A 1911 is never done until the builder/owner has exhausted(a)  his entire reserves of patience and (b) the last Federal Reserve Cartoon he owns.








The trigger is a dream, and, even though her uniform is slightly mussed, she is otherwise fit to dissuade your rampaging thug from the notion that well-ripened Americans are easy pickings.

I like that old boy despite his questionable habit  of keeping too much cash in the house and letting the neighborhood know about it.

Here at Camp Jiggleview, of which I am Commandant, the miscreants would find  no more than the jug where I toss change and dollar bills. The rest of the on-hand wealth consists mostly of some new wool socks against the coming polar vortex and said Commandant's new Coltish Commanderoid.

She is about 80 per cent complete, behind schedule due to a devil of a time swapping around hammers, sears, and disconnectors.  The Windom loophole Saturday turned up a large handful of 1911 internals, including the ignition parts that finally gave me the letoff  I wanted. She's still unfired but feeds hard ball fine and will go bang.  (If you can't get out in the country right away you can chamber a primed empty and squeeze her off, even though that is probably illegal here in Smugleye-on-Lake. But what the Hell.  Molon labe.)

There's a new beaver tail grip safety on the bench, but it defied my "drop-in" hopes, and I've had all of the "minor fitting" I care for at the moment. It will be added in due course, probably as I get her ready for for the final finish.

(Geekout: AMT aluminum frame; Caspian slide, straight GI sights. The hammer is a Model 80 piece, lacking a half-cock hook. There's a ledge in its place to hold half-cock, but a trigger pull drops it.  I can live with that, but I'd rather -- and will -- have the JMB original.  The grips are Pachmayr wrappers, and yes I know how utterly trailer-park that makes me.  Don't care. I've always liked the way they feel, and in the immortal words of Charles Parlier, "This is muh working' pistol, not muh lookin' pistol." )

---

*There are others keeping my fingers busy with chores other than typing, but here's no plan to retire the TMR until authoritarian forces are entirely routed, and I don't expect that to happen for a very long time, months anyway, perhaps even a few years.

Aug 15, 2014

Fresh gun porn

So far, so good.

She's at that awkward stage. Too loose to require heavy percussion cycling, too tight to function without severe muscle. Technically, this is what we pistol smiths refer to as the period during which we  root around for our white polishing compound and gird ourselves for several hundred manual cycles.


Note absence of Dremel. Note presence of brass hammer. It makes a guy feel just like P.O. Ackley. (The tactical scissors are for cutting strips of the abrasive cloth.)



Aug 13, 2014

Walter does not dream of Windex and Pledge

A cheery note from the Caspian folks is disrupting my plans.  Some family is visiting this weekend, and I vowed to tidy the place in their honor. But the commanderish slide is en route, scheduled to arrive here at Camp Jiggleview, of which I am Commandant,  in about 40 hours.

I feel a distraction coming on, and if any of  my people are looking for housekeeping lapses, I'm afraid they may find them. It seems more urgent to sort through the parts one more time, calibrate the mike, ensure enough 400-grit emery and jewelers rouge are on hand. And so forth.

Commanders are just so studly. All a sophisticated Boomer needed in his glory days was the short 1911 for everyday wear along with a PPk  for strictly formal occasions.  (The Walther rode nicely in our cummerbunds.)  Bring on the Symbionize Liberation Army. Bring on Goldfinger.

The pleasure will be in the build. No matter how well armed, I am unlikely to be summoned to Double-0h-Seven evil-doers. It is enough to know that if I were, I would be equipped to shoot them through in a stylish, yet classic,  fashion.

Pocketa pocketa pocketa.








Jul 30, 2014

The Thousand-Dollar Morning

There aren't many  days when I blow through $1,000 before breakfast.

It all started with New Dog Libby whose food supply was down to 48 hours. Meaning Walmart. Where I discovered Sam's heirs were out of .22 Long Rifle and Sodastream replacement cartridges.  So I settled for

--a month's worth of Purina in an Ol' Roy bag

--a week's worth of milk and bread

--and one medium-grade party's worth of beer.

Elsewhere in the great commercial centers of the Smugleye-on-Lake SMSA I acquired four gallons of non-ethanated gasoline for the small engines required to maintain the parade fields of Camp Jiggleview, of which I am Commandant.

Math whizzes will  note that even at Ben Bernanke/Janet Yellin prices I am not within spitting distance of a grand, but wait. There's more.

While among the barbarians anyway, I thought, "What the Hell.  The van is already warmed up and there will be a winter this year, Al Gore to the contrary notwithstanding." So I  turned into the local grain elevator which also sells propane, waded through the early-morning farmers and agricultural poseurs loafing over free coffee, and bought

--one year's worth of icky fossil fuel.

Honesty requires admission that even the earth-smarming LP didn't quite get me  to the four-figure threshold which justifies a whining blog entry, so I waffled a hair and have just -- still before breakfast -- transferred the remainder of the balance due the fine (if dilatory) Caspian folks for

--what I hope is a life time's supply of slide for the Commanderish project in .45 ACP. (The promised delivery time, more than 13 weeks ago, was "about 8-10 weeks." At least they're being honest in their pledge not to bill my plastic company until it is shipped.)

That did it, and so to breakfast before seeing if there is air in the bicycle tires so I can once again go can collecting in the country air.

---

Side observations include.

1. The critical shortage of Sodastream cartridges rivals that of .22s. One suspects a conspiracy between Bloomberg and Holder. Each knows compressed carbon dioxide can readily be converted into a weapon of mass destruction with the addition of a few other chemicals commonly found around any well-supplied home -- propane (UH Ohhh), ammonia, Clorox, and/or Ffffg.  Among others. This terrorist threat would certainly make make women, children, and minorities hardest hit.

2.  Since women are supposed to be nicer and more truthful than men, I had hoped to find Janet's dictated "2 per cent" inflation was truth rather than an echo of Ben's long lie. It was saddening, therefore, to find smoked picnics (the cheap parts of pigs) at $2.38 a pound against against an historical (c. 2009) under a buck. Perhaps worse,  Smucker's all-natural peanut butter has advanced from $2.49 to $2.98  in just a few months, a clear inflationary rate of 19.67 per cent.

And if all that ain't as true and sincere as a Jimmy Swaggert apology I'll kiss your picnic on the steps of the Federal Reserve Board and pay you to hire Hillary Clinton's booking agent for the running commentary.





Jul 12, 2014

The Guns We Need

By "we" I mean Dick Sommers, my grandpa's Uncle George, and me. Maybe you, too, but not necessarily. As Dick told the preacher, some thinks one way, some another.

---

Dick went early to the upper Missouri and crossed the Divide to the Seed-skee-dee and beyond. He trapped his plews, bedded his squaws, and drank his whiskey until he began to gray. He returned to Missouri, married up white, and farmed his plot until he buried her. Then he allowed himself to be talked into guiding an early emigrant train to the Oregon Country.

Except for the kitless preacher,  who mooched, Dick's plunder was the slimmest of the lot, barely a burden for two pack horses on the six-month trek. Indian trade truck, kettle, a robe or two, and "a couple of knives, his Hawken, and an over-and-under  double with one barrel big enough for bird shot." And a small keg of whiskey.

The best modern analogue is found elsewhere, in good writing about equipping for a serious north woods canoe trip. The better authors remark the primitive red man who set out for a season with his bow, quiver, knife, and maybe a sack of pemmican. "Our equipment is a substitute for his knowledge," they write.

 Dick Sommers knew; his main arsenal lived in his head.

---


"Uncle" George lived and killed about a century later. He is my only known ancestor to fall low, a lawyer and incessant  office seeker who got hisself elected mayor of Madison, Missouri, twice, and justice of the peace in his old age, a time when he got an idea. He would sue a passel of his relatives to get his legal paws on a small dirt farm northwest of Madison.

The merits of the case are murky, probably lost forever. The larger points are that Leslie, 40, died, George took poison in prison,  and the large extended family -- a whole raft of us infested those parts then -- factionated itself  like a pack of Sunnis and Shi-ites. All over 111 acres of miserable ground which wouldn't have brought $25 an acre.

Leslie shared a surname with  George and was probably a nephew, maybe with some "removeds" and "greats" tossed in. He was 40 to George's 68.  He was on the other side of the law suit and pissed off, and aggressive, and, family lore holds,  on familiar terms with strong spirits.

On November 13, 1926, they met in downtown Madison.  A scuffle happened. George told the jury that being old and weak he was forced to shoot.  Two quickies and finisher.

 Within a month George was convicted of manslaughter. He appealed, lost, and in 1928 went to prison. Two years or so later, in the infirmary, he found a jar of potassium-something and drank.

So, back to the point. Then as now the media were awful light on interesting details but did report the gun George needed was

"a .32 revolver of the blue steel variety."

Therefore we are certain that whatever his other character flaws, my  ancestor George wouldn't be caught dead carrying no whore-house special colored chrome or nickel or some two-tone Brucie gun. A sure-nuf man's man. That's always been a great comfort to me.

---

Me? I figure that the only guns I actually need to face the wild world, including the wild civilized world called cities, are two: A 1911 out of John Moses Browning for carry and an old Savage .22LR over and 20-gauge under for pot meat and general pest control. With an especially sturdy pack mule I'd add a .30-06 to reduce the need for careful stalking, but we're getting pretty close to effete foo-foo-raw here.

I have other stuff, of course, but they're mostly fashion statements, unless I miss my guess.

Ain't no harm in that, I reckon, but, as I may have mentioned, some thinks one way, some another.

---

(Dick will be familiar to A.B. Guthrie readers.)


May 2, 2014

Gratuitous Parts Porn

This project should have been done in February, but you know how it is. One book leads to another and pretty soon you're left with an inside job when the weather and the cluttered state of your estate logically require outside time.

But it's nagging me. A little voice in my head keeps saying "you ain't got no commanderish pistol yet so you ain't s---."

"But-but-but, I got MOST of a commander..."

"Don't pee down my gun barrel and tell me it's Hoppes No. 9."  (The head voice is  sometimes a bit vulgar.)

So. Caspian has my plastic numbers and the Brown Truck of Glee will appear in due course bearing an in-the-white slide.

---



















A guy serious about 1911s never passes up a good deal on parts,  or practically any deal at all. Most of what you see represents four or five  years of loophole finds, and there are enough little steelies to outfit the AMT 4 1/4-inch frame and most of the new slide.

I think this one will come in around 350 - 400 Federal Reserve Cartoons. It is no special bargain but a reasonable enough value if my tinkering skills haven't deteriorated too badly.

It will be built loose, not quite as wobbly as the GI version, but close and -- if I don't get too tired of wearing out 400-grit emery --  smoother. Its planned destiny is  belt-riding, sure to go bang every time but not expected to snuff candles at 50 yards every time.

Finish? Likely Mr. Brownell's spray and bake stuff;. Color? Undetermined but probably GI gray unless I decide to impress everyone with my cool tacticality.Then camo.


Mar 31, 2014

Prelude to a loophole report; serious gun question

For astute readers with Sig experience. Or even without:

Should a fellow acquire an as-NIB Sig 11 Carry (in .45 ACP, of course) at a net cost to himself of $671? Even if it requires parting with a very nice Savage 99 for whom his affection keeps growing?

Would it help to add that the Sig comes (a) with three magazines and (b) from a dealer whom the would-be buyer likes, one who has given him more than one good deal over the years? (It does not, however, have a Picaninnnineeheehee Rail, nor a laser pointer, nor, for that matter, even a USB port.)

I'm a little embarrassed to post a personal quandary for all the world to see because I am ordinarily quite capable of making my own decisons about the proper relationships among myself,  my Federal Reserve Cartoons,  and my blue steel.

But, gee, this has become a series of existential moments, and I've never been too good at resolving conflicts via the philosophy of gay French navel gazers.



Mar 3, 2014

Jim's Beauty Secrets

And here you thought I was going to advise you to irritate an authoritarian statist every day, didn't you?  You should, of course, because that makes you smile, and a smile is about the sexiest thing going.

But I'm really talking about skin beauty. This time of year my hands get all crinkly. When I pick up my 1943-issue 1911 A1 in order to irritate an authoritarian statist it sounds like a class of junior high kids wadding up their D-minus English essays. You  don't want  that. For one thing, it might alert the statist and give him time to hide.

My usual beauty aid is Corona, sometimes known as horse liniment. It works pretty well, and if you use it while drinking Mexican beer you might break into a syncopated Corona Corona improvisation. That would be sexy too, especially if your date is named Juanita or something like that.

Last night, however, I found something better. I went to an auction and came home with a professionally done 1903 Remington sporter. It needs a spa day too, but that's okay because dirt cheap. One problem was the sling, high quality leather but drier than high-noon Yuma.

Dry leather requires mink oil, and I used my fingers to smear great gobs of it all over the strap. It's still soaking in, but, ooh lah lah!  My silken hands. I dare not go to the WalMart today lest droves of lady associates swoon.




Aug 31, 2013

Sometimes I worry about me.

Who's the hippie chick of "Clouds Got in My Way?"  Can't remember and don't care enough to look it up.

But I'm like that, God save me. Jake could have been comforting me with a slight adaptation, "A Focus is a Sometime Thing."

---

I was up, coffeed, and ambitious at sunrise. Goal-oriented, ya might say. Get that durned shop straightened up for Phase Two of the kitchen beautification project  and, at a decent hour when the neighbors are up, put the screaming diamond blade to the slate.  For 30 minutes I was Mr. Achievement. Hell, Babbitt would have approached me about joining Rotary.

Then I got to the cluttered bench where I usually do crude metal work. In a far corner, on top of some chain hooks, shone the Combat Commander hammer with strut.  I was happier than Betty Furness with a really white wash. Been looking for it ever since I brought the new Commanderish project home, looking in all the wrong places, like the room where I keep gun parts.

A true Rotarian would have smiled, pocketed the hammer assembly, and continued methodically accomplishing the Main Thing, checking off the shop titivation achievements one-by-one on his carefully prioritized list.

Damned clouds. Two minutes later I was at the gun room bench with the Commander parts spread out. It seemed wrong because the other half of my attention was locked on the ugly holes in the kitchen wall. But what pretty steel parts...

I was the starving donkey between two hay stacks. Clearly a decision was called for. So I came in and wrote it up for the furshlugginer internet.





Aug 27, 2013

Squeaky's 1911

Other than the locals reporting that I'll be hot today, only three electric teevee news flashes stirred my parts this morning. Miley's undies, of course, followed by Team Obama's decision to Cruise missilize those Syrian Islamists whom we currently dislike.  War is fun, so let's make something go bang.

Like  -- and this is story three -- Squeaky Fromme. Thirty-eight years ago she tried and failed to kill Jerry Ford in a pique of annoyance that he was polluting things and killing all the redwood trees.

Poor little Squeaky idiot, no better at making guns discharge than anything else in her incompetent life. "Fromme managed to say a few sentences to the on-scene cameras, emphasizing that the gun "didn't go off."   That often happens when would-be assassins neglect to chamber a round.

Now, to quickly dispose of the moral issues, a guy shouldn't pollute or chop down redwoods unless he needs to make some nice patio furniture or something like that. And, in general, one should avoid pointing pistols at people, even politicians.

Forget all that. Assuming that this is the actual Fromme pistol,* "Gee, what a nice piece."




















It appears to be an honest 1911, unbubbaed, unarsenaled, never converted to to  A1.  Grips, mainspring housing, grip safety, and long trigger point to an as-issued 1911, issued to (and quite possibly stolen by) a Yank officer  who went Over There in 1917.  The magazine catch looks newer, but that could be an honest repair

The Colt has lived actively and shows bluing wear and freckles. Nevertheless, it would be a pricey item without any historical significance at all. Given that Lynette Fromme made it  famous, I wonder if it might be the world's most valuable 1911?  When I finish my new kitchen window treatment, I think I'll scrabble around for its provenance since 1975.

Edit to add: Nothing  complicated on provenance. The prosecutors gave it to the Ford library where it is still on display.

---

*Historiography note: To claim the pictured gun is the actual Fromme weapon puts a certain amount of faith in a number of people and agencies -- cops, Secret Service, the news and image archive industries,  and Wikipedia. It rings true to me, but I leave open the chance that some frenzied breaking-news editor  screamed to his staff, "Hey, I need a picture of an Army gun!", and things just went on from there.



Aug 23, 2013

The Bastard King of Handguns*

It was time for a chore, pawing through the parts inventory of a deceased friend. Little on the planet will humiliate a man more. You amble through life thinking you're a pretty savvy firearms enthusiast. Then you start examining box after box and find you can confidently identify perhaps one part in 100. Toward the end you babble about whether this gizmo is for a Daisy Red Ryder or a Holland and Holland .577 Nitro Express.

I did okay on the .45 ACP stuff and actually carried away two projects. One is simple enough, a small tray of  parts which I'll try to sell for the family. The other may constitute a career.

It appeared to be about three-fourths of an AMT-frame-based  Colt Commander clone. I brought it home half-minded to try to sell it with the other parts, half-inclined to finish it up and buy it myself. That's still the unsettled state of my ambition, but the build is looking iffier and iffier.

The new aluminum frame is cut for a 4 1/4-inch barrel. The slide is a butchered reblue of  an unmarked something for a 4 and 1/4 inch barrel. Among other issues, the slide safety cut is 1/8-inch to far aft, meaning the safety can be engaged only with the gun out of battery that much. Not to mention the the barrel is .38 Super and the slide .45.

If I decide to take on the project, I'll report the geekery with photos -- not in hopes of  acquiring your admiration, merely to illustrate that there are still men who like to audition for the role of Sisyphus.

---

Advertisement:   If any blog buddies are interested, the parts box holds a few GI:

triggers ... recoil spring plugs ... thumb safeties ... grip safeties ... and new  Coltish checkered walnut grip panels.  Also that barrel marked "Colt  .38 Super Match" looking lightly used.

Pricing: Check Brownell's. Knock off 40 per cent. Add about $5 for the USPS. Pay by  personal check made out to the family member, not me. Email me at  --   alongfordmick aht yahoo daught kahm.

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*Referring only to the Commanderish project, not the sainted JMB's concept and execution of the world's only really necessary center-fire handgun.

Apr 11, 2013

Memo to the IRS

Welcome to my blog, and I hope you enjoy reading it more than I enjoyed  sending you that check day before yesterday. It again amounted to the price of a very nice Colt 1911 which, as you may know, is a robust yet concealable  heavy-caliber weapon capable of accepting high capacity magazines.

(It usually doesn't,  because most fellows like me tend to tuck it in our pants and a special big magazine is uncomfortable. Too, a magazine in my pants that sticks out a long ways may, depending on exact positioning, confuse certain onlookers about my social intentions.)

But anyway,  as I say, welcome to my site, and I really don't care if you read it because when I publish something  to one and all, I think I agree with you that I indeed do give up what you fellas and gals are calling an "expectation of privacy."

Now, about my email:

Piss off.

If the first place, it's none of your damned business what I write to the pretty lady in Ohio.

In the second,  you are wasting money. Even if i did forget to report the profit (about $8.50 if I recall correctly) from that garage sale I held back in 1997, I doubt I would detail it in an electronic letter to my spiritual advisor or my vet.

One of your lawyer guys defends your sneaking, unconstitutional practices with,

"...if a service provider fought the (subpoena only, no warrant)  search request, it would likely result in "protracted litigation," meaning that any leads from the emails would be "stale" if the IRS ever obtained them."

So, you mean that all you have to do is claim administrative inconvenience as an excuse to pry open every confidence of my life and I'm supposed to light up with an awed understanding. Like Zing go the strings of my heart?   


Apr 2, 2013

It takes a Smith and Wesson to Beat the Sugar Shack Blues

The main problem here is a feeling like I'm getting to be a liberal hippie with a Gibson knockoff strapped to my 10-speed, looking for a commune and humming something by Joan Baez while dreaming of world peace and free love achieved by  eating nuts and berries and crapping in a hole in the ground.

About the only way I can restore psychic balance is by keeping in mind that real maple syrup is getting expensive enough to attract thieves.

That justifies strapping on the SW 645 and threading my macho saddle-leather belt through the slots on the tactical magazine holder -- the one that holds my extra clips back and forth like a real 21st Century ninja rather than up and down like an old Elmer Fudd.  I'm cocked and locked on sap-bucket patrol. Come on, Maple Mob, make my day.

---

It was supposed to be lower key than this. I figured two silver maple taps would get me a couple gallons of sap. I'd boil it down to two ounces and check one more thing off the bucket list.

Think about the Guinness tap in a busy Galway pub on Saturday night.

The sap ran free on Day One, and that night I reduced two gallons or so to about a pint of not-yet-syrup. Friends, that stuff is good, even at that thin stage.

So four more taps -- which produced nothing for 48 hours of wrong weather, then, today, better than eight gallons. It's all on the stove now, three burners worth in the three biggest pots I own. The crock pot is pressed into duty as a pre-heater. There's still a gallon of raw material in the refrigerator. And the taps continue to drip. I understand Mary Shelley better now.

It looks like I'll go on this way until Thursday when the weather gets wrong again and the buds get more robust. (The internet tells me  budding-tree sap sucks; the season is over.)

TBC, he says as he ambles off to put on a camo sweat shirt and dry fire his big, dangerous pistol. Whistling  Kumbayah.











Oct 21, 2012

Guns galore

...and some nice ones. They go to auction this afternoon, so if you need me for emergency political or philosophical consultation I'm afraid I won't be here.

The queen of the hop is an apparently original Rem-Rand 1911A1.  The joker of sadness is a Colt GI issue .45. Chromed.  Add some Pythons to the mix and you at least have plenty of eye candy.

I seriously doubt I'll bring anything home. Auction prices around here have been astounding recently -- not just over the market, but off into the realm of stratobucks (thanks in part, of course, to Ben Bernanke's starship Kwee* Three Et Seq.)

I'll be leaving in about 90 minutes, so if you want to place a proxy bid...

---
*Q.E., quantitative easing, i.e. the Charminization of the Greenback.


Dec 12, 2011

Survival according to Mommie Dot.Guv

A sign of the season has arrived, my government's annual hints from the Highway Patrol about avoiding death and other inconvenience on our wintry roads.

A winter survival kit should include items such as a coffee can or container, a candle, matches, sand or kitty litter, some candy bars, extra blankets, a shovel and a working cell phone.

I'll forgive the omission of a well-tuned 1911 and several charged magazines.  I can overlook the absence of a flashlight. After all, these little public relations fluff jobs are meant for people qualified to operate neither.

But why a can AND  kitty litter? Seems to me that if you're traveling without a cat one or the other would suffice. And even if  you have Tabby with you, couldn't you share? I mean, it's an emergency and all.

Dec 8, 2011

Let Hitler cure your megrims

Please step over to Random Acts of Patriotism for the Hitler take on John Moses Browning's 1911 versus the Teutonic brick. If it doesn't make you laugh you're not a true gun nut.

H/T Borepatch

Nov 2, 2011

John M would approve

Please wander over to the Coal Creek Armory site for a look at a very nice 1911. It's a gift, on its way to combat-wounded veteran Captain Mark Brogan USA.

CCA seems to build a lot of custom 1911s, said  to  possess extreme accuracy and dependability.  This one is also an eye treat because of what it lacks -- no duded-up two-tone finish, no ninja rails, no lasers, no glass, no extraneous buttons and levers. Someone in Knoxville understands what a pistol is for.

The armory has taken it on itself to demonstrate respect for the young men and women we send off to far and ugly places, as we all should. Never mind that the political masters often order them into foolish adventures; that's an entirely separate issue.

H/T Tam.

Oct 16, 2011

The S&W 645 makes me feel so tactical

I almost wish I lived close to a mall so I could dress up ninja and impress some girls wearing tattoos and chewing gum.

The SW is home, admired, and tested.



I expected one magazine and got four -- plus one of those high-fashion black nylon pouches that holds two spares back and forth instead of up and down. Tacticool.

I already had the tactically-tooled leather holster --  made it decades ago to a "speed scabbard" pattern for GI .45s. . It holds the Smith nicely but will benefit from a small  sight cutout. I needed to do that anyway for the GI here that carries adjustable Micros.

The field test:

-- Functioning was perfect with everything I tried, including semi-wadcutters. (The 645 is said to be a garbage disposal unit -- if your junk ammo won't work in anything else, shoot it in the Smith.)

--Excuse-wise, this gun hasn't been shot enough to wear off the proprietary Smith and Wesson burrs. It's rough, especially the DA trigger. The SA pull is nothing to brag about either.

--I am pleased no one witnessed this tryout session.

-- I consider the  hood of a pickup a bench rest analogue. So lean across, get a good two-hand hold, squeeze off factory loads carefully. Gotta see where the gun shoots, don't we?

--In my hands, all over the damned place, that's where. At 50 feet a string of five scattered low left over a good seven inches. I can fix the impact point. I can't even identify yet how to fix myself. Flinch? Jerk? Total cognitive breakdown? Motor skills eloped with O'Reilley's daughter?

--Repeating the hoody position with a load of home made 200-grain SWCs at a peppy 850 fps or so,  the results were better by about half an inch. It isn't the gun, nor the ammunition.

--Switching to the combat mode,  I moved in to 30 feet, took a Weaverish stance and banged off eight as quickly as I could reacquire the target -- a sheet of typing paper. Three in the kill zone,  two possibles, two that would have made him mad, and one clean miss. A couple of repeat strings had similar results.

Excuses: New gun. Very windy (the flimsy target holder moved a little).  Distracted by cows mooing in the nearby pasture. Libby emphasizing that I was making entirely too much noise. Lost concentration worrying about CERN failure to find Higgs Boson.

Proper reaction to excuses: Bull Roar, James. Go practice.

May 27, 2011

The proper functions of government

The wise-ass who wrote this intended to make fun of state lawmakers. So, I ask, what is wrong with declaring the 1911 by John M. Browning (PBUH) an official state pistol? Or the  dutch oven an official state cook pot?

Me? I am absolutely delighted when elected officials act only within their competence level.

For example, not even the no-carry Wisconsin legislature could damage its polity much by declaring the cream puff the official state dessert.