I wish to honor the memory of Sylvia Edwards of Lee's Summit, Missouri, who died today.  She faced problems far beyond the norm  and handled them with grace and humor. Rest well Friend.

M1 Carbine-- just milsurp junk

As we all know, the M1  Carbine is  a sloppy WW2 make-do, a substitute for the pistol and designed to permit the untrained citizen soldier  to inconvenience the enemy to a slightly greater degree than permitted by his  1911A1 skills.

Ergo this group could not possibly  have been fired by my friend Ken from a run-of-the-mill  GI carbine a couple of months ago,  five  shots at some 35 yards, standing, leaning on a tractor tire,  on a cold day.

The aiming mark  is 1 3/4 inches. The group measures 5/8.  I don't know the ammo, but we usually grab a handful from which ever can is closest. 

I would claim this target as my own, but sometimes Ken reads this crap.

fff 

!

Overheard in an Iowa Gander Mountain on the Mississippi

Me: (Places a box of box of  9mm Luger blasting ammo -- $14.99 --  and a $20 bill on the counter.)

She: Your zip code?

Me: You don't need to know that.

She: Yes I do. (Pause) Oh, I need to know if you live in Iowa or Illinois.

Me. Why?

She: Because if you live in Illinois I can't sell you bullets. You live in Iowa or Illinois?

Me: I do not live in Illinois. (This was wretched expedience over principles. I wanted the rounds  and I wanted to get on the road pronto. Mea clupa.)

She: (Gives her customer a glare of pure hatred,  picks up the twenty and rings the sale. Bags the "bullets" and forces a thin kyu through her painted lips. )

-----

Supposing I had told this twit that I was on my way home to Staten Island?

The marketing firm called Ruger

The latest news from Ruger is that the same top-notch engineering and quality control that went into the LCPs and SR9s now may infect the LCR . Like  its black plastic sibs it  is proving itself capable of surprise, namely strewing gun parts and shards of cartridges, over a wide area.

The report, via Tam, is here. 

Full disclosure: I have personal beef with this company. After months of trying to get some one's attention to a badly botched safety conversion of a three-screw, I finally tore the thing down and fixed it myself. It is still tough to get over the fact that the returned Single Six was accompanied by a signed statement that a certified technician had test fired the weapon and found it flawless.  Could the lack have been in me for being unable to cock the hammer without multiple tries and jiggling the cylinder and trigger? That it wouldn't lock up  when cocked? That the trigger would only randomly release the hammer? Mind you, this was out of the box, and many weeks worth of emails to Ruger were rewarded with silence.

My Ruger disgust goes deeper -- to the LCP fiasco, the SR9 recalls, and now the case of the exploding plastic wheel gun.  As an RGR stockholder I watched the company being delivered into the hands of the MBA marketing shamans who may never have fired anything more lethal than an Andre cork. They looked around, saw that other gun companies had proved black was beautiful, or at least profitable,  and started ordering vats of the plastic crap while their interns researched abbreviated time-to-market possibilities. 

The result is exploding guns, and, quite probably, a corporate decision that it is cheaper to get sued a few times and to spend more on public relations  than it is to build proud firearms. 

For decades I was a Ruger addict. Getting over it requires a 12-step program, including dumping the last of the RGR stock. Who the Hell wants to own stock in --  or a gun built by -- the new Lorcin of the firearms industry?

The process  is much like watching a once beautiful and faithful  wife go emotionally awry and wind up down  at a Scully Square corner,  desperately motioning "c'mon" at slowly passing cars.