Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 103

SHOT SHOW 2016, PART 5

The firearms industry’s premier trade show closed Friday at 4 PM, and stats show it was the second largest in the organization’s history. Sponsor NSSF, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, reported over 64,000 attendees. It should be noted that this is a closed program for industry people only, primarily firearms retailers. There were more than 1600 vendor booths.

All of us here are glad that the “miles of aisles” are done. The Evil Princess’ FitBit told her she walked six miles in just one day. When I was interviewed for the Guns America video blog today, the cameraman told me he was averaging 15 miles a day of walking through the Show.

An update on the much-discussed Kimber revolver from Kimber consultant Grant Cunningham, whom I’ve mentioned before, is here.

One of the neatest accessories I’ve seen here comes from Racking Assist, LLC (RackingAssist.com) . There are lots of folks who for whatever reason have difficulty activating the slide of a semiautomatic pistol. Inventor Russ Hoeffken came up with an ingenious device to facilitate this.

See pix. Go to the website.

Glock pistol with Rack Assist at right…

…muzzle is placed on device as shown…

…quick downward movement of hand on gun allows even debilitated user to apply body weight and activate the slide, charging a round into the chamber if the gun is to be loaded.

RoBar has come up with a premium grade AR15 rifle whose unloaded weight is…4.8 pounds. You’re looking at the lower-middle $2,000 price range, in large part because of the cost of all the expensive Titanium involved in its manufacture. The Evil Princess played with it for a while, and then sent the not-entirely-telepathic message, I want this!! Sigh…somewhere, I hear a cash register ringing.

 

 

The annual NRA show is where you see the customers. The SHOT Show is where you meet the retailers. The manufacturers are at both. I left the SHOT Show with a strong sense of “We’re on the right side of this, and we’re going to prevail, but it’s going to be a constant generations-long fight”…as it has been for as long as this senior citizen has been alive.

While the 2016 SHOT Show may be over, this blog’s commentary on it is not. There is more to discuss. Stay tuned…

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SHOT SHOW 2016, PART 4

Blog reader Jim Burke asked about the new Honor Guard, an 8+1 shot 9mm subcompact pistol with polymer frame. I spent some time today with the gun and its maker, Gary Ramey, and with some folks who unlike me were able to test-fire it on Media Day.  All looks good so far. I’ll be getting one to test for American Handgunner magazine.  Nighthawk Custom has its first Browning Hi-Power, made specially for them by Browning and then given Nighthawk’s own Cadillac/Ferrari upgrade. Trigger pull is excellent, and Nighthawk’s Shawn Armstrong assures me it is drop-safe, unlike early High Powers.  The frames are made by Browning WITHOUT the usual magazine disconnector, which a lot of American pistoleros hate.  Removing it from the gun allows an unscrupulous prosecutor to claim, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, for you to convict the defendant of manslaughter, you have to believe he acted recklessly with his gun. You have seen the proof: he deactivates the safety devices on deadly weapons!” With this particular Browning, it came from the factory without that feature, and while I didn’t tear down the one on display to examine it, Shawn told me the mag disconnector safety can’t be retrofitted. Therefore, that blood is out of the water should you come to trial for an action involving this pistol. I have an assignment to test this one for American Handgunner too, and am looking forward to it.

Gary Ramey, president of Honor Defense LLC, shows Mas his Honor Guard pistol.

This is the trigger system (“chassis”) of the Honor Guard pistol.

Smith & Wesson’s new Victory .22 target pistol gave a good first impression.

Smith & Wesson’s new Victory model .22 looks like one of their low-priced plinkers,

but the S&W rep I talked to swears that from a machine rest, it shoots like their bigger, heavier, and justly famous Model 41 precision target pistol that has been winning championships since 1957. In the hand, it feels more solid than it looks, and reminds me of the pre-war Colt Woodsman. Trigger is surprisingly good and, for a truly match-grade pistol, price is surprisingly low. I want to spend more time with this pistol.

 

Sample Victory .22’s trigger pull was nice, and overall “feel” was reminiscent of the classic early Colt Woodsman.

For me, though, the hit handgun of the show is one I’ve asked Springfield Armory for since they introduced the 9mm EMP a decade or more ago. The Enhanced Micro Pistol is a tiny gun that shoots 2” groups, and was scaled down from the original 1911 design to fit the overall length of the 9mm cartridge, which made it the first 1911 9mm that could be counted on to feed reliably out of the box.  Mine became an often-carried favorite of mine, until it was torn away from me by my evil girlfiend became a token of love that now belongs to my sweetie, the only such pistol owned by a Princess of Polymer Pistols infamous in shooting circles for her anti-1911 rants. It won me several IDPA BUG (Back-Up Gun) matches, and at least one IDPA match in the Enhanced Service Pistol division against full size, tricked out 1911s, long barrel Glock 34s, etc.  Back then, I implored Williams to make one with a longer slide for more advantageous sight radius, and a longer grip-frame to extend the 9+1 magazine capacity to 10+1, the maximum allowed in IDPA. That request has been answered this year with the EMP4, whose configuration now resembles a slightly thinner Colt Commander.  This is the one gun I’ve seen here that gets my “Most Likely I’m Going To End Up Owning One” award if it turns out to shoot as good as it looks. The smaller grip frame and shorter trigger reach makes us average-size guys feel like a six-foot-four John Wayne holding a regular 1911 .45, but it ain’t about machismo: it’s about getting more flesh and bone wrapped around the grip to stabilize the gun, and more finger into the trigger guard to give more leverage for fast, sure trigger-pulling.

 

Springfield Armory EMP4, left, is only slightly larger than the proven EMP, right, but holds one more round and offers a longer sight radius.

 

Left, Springfield EMP; right, its new companion gun, the EMP4.

On other fronts, I missed meeting gun expert Richard Mann, for whose work I have a lot of respect, at the Galco booth. However, Galco’s Mike Barham showed me the new sling Richard designed, appropriately called the RifleMann sling.  In can be used as a hasty sling, of course, but also more or less like a marksman’s sling, and like the Ching Sling popularized by the late, great Jeff Cooper. What particularly intrigues me is that the sling can be quickly locked onto the shooting arm instead of the support arm, which could be a game-changer in certain awkward or disadvantaged positions. I’m getting one. Or two. Or three…

Galco’s Mike Barham shows the solidity of new RifleMann sling, which can be applied to the firing arm instead of the support arm if user chooses.

 

One pair in hand and one pair on, a 5.11 staffer demonstrates the already infamous Tactical Yoga Pants.

And, finally, in the matter of the 5.11 Tactical Yoga Pants: I am ordering a pair, which will be tested by my beautiful surrogate stepdaughter, a second degree TKD black belt and pistol-packing ex-Marine. One blog reader who will remain nameless, and whose twisted sense of humor is frighteningly like my own, suggested that I model a pair. A much more suitable model is depicted in the attached photos.

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SHOT SHOW 2016, PART 3

Rifles: One rifle now getting a good bit of attention here is the Howa “mini-rifle” newly chambered for the 6.5 Grendel cartridge, and for 7.62X39. It should be available in these calibers later this year. The short action and 20” tapered sporter barrel bring it in under six pounds unloaded, sans optical sights. Many are reporting the action to be extremely smooth.

Shotguns: Benelli is celebrating the 25th anniversary of their excellent Black Eagle semiautomatic sporting shotgun. It’s gone through some permutations in that quarter century and now sports a quintessentially modern European styling, with the same rugged reliability as the one I won many years ago at a match. I was no longer into bird hunting and sold it to someone with more need for it, but miss it still. Franchi introduces a line for small statured folks (they’re pushing it for female shooters, a growing gun demographic) called the Catalyst. The Affinity Catalyst is an autoloader, and the Instinct Catalyst, an over/under.  On the economy side, the new Stoeger P3000 has that distinctive “Euro” look much like the Benelli, but is a slide action with manufacturer suggested retail price of only $299.

Handguns: The new Kimber revolver that’s getting so much attention has apparently had design input from wheelgun guru Grant Cunningham, which to my mind is reason enough all by itself to check one out.  SIG is showing competition versions of their striker-fired P320, and also, their long-promised variant with the manual safety is apparently at last available.  Both seem to be getting big thumbs up from SIG fans visiting the booth.

Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to alert you to the fact that one of my favorite clothiers, 5.11, has just introduced…Tactical Yoga Pants.

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SHOT SHOW 2016, PART 2

With permission I now channel you a dispatch from Jeff Chudwin at the SHOT Show:

“Range day on Monday for media and industry was held at the Boulder (City Nevada) Rifle and Pistol Club. So much firearms and gear to report on, not enough time.

 

Having used a 1911 pistol for many years in competition and carrying one for my law enforcement work, I first went to Colt to see what they were working on. Good news to report.

“Colt displayed a number of 1911 Government models that included the light rail version built for the Marine Corps with an Ion Bond (PVD) finish that replaces the original Cerakote, a blue finish competition model in both 9m/m and .45 with a fiber optic front sight, under cut trigger guard, Novak adjustable rear sight, beaver tail grip safety,  ambidexterous thumb safety, match barrel, and custom Colt logo G-10 grips, a  blue finish Combat Unit Rail model in .45 similar to the competition model upgrades but with 25 line per inch checkered front strap, light rail, custom Colt grips, and a  fixed Novak rear sight, a pair of Commanders with the enhanced frames and slides including a blue finish Lightweight Commander in 9 m/m, and a stainless .45 Commander with 25 lpi checkering named after noted writer Wiley Clapp.

“With the limited shooting opportunity I was able to shoot the rail gun and the 9 m/m competition model. With production features mirroring what used to be expensive custom modifications, handling and feel was very good. Both pistols were accurate on the steel targets out to 25 yards but the real answer will have to wait until I can get a chance to run the pistol through a far more extensive set of tests.

“Handling qualities and looks wise, these are very nice pistols. As indicated in the sales sheet below, Colt is obviously working hard to bring the costs down on the 1911’s yet give you an out of the box pistol ready for hard service.

“My only suggestion to Colt is make these pistols in a slim line version using the VZ thin grips and a short trigger. This simple change truly enhances the feel and shootability of the 1911 platform for smaller hand / shorter finger shooters who make up a good part of the market.

“Colt also has a new econo model AR carbine. The Expanse M-4 has all the Colt features minus a dust cover, forward assist, and lacks the chrome lined barrel. For those who will not be in extreme conditions where salt water and rust are a concern, I am not worried about the lack of the chromed chamber and bore. The other rifles we have used since we started shooting do not have this feature and have held up just fine. The dust cover and forward assist are obviously preferred but again, not truly needed. All said, I you want a Colt, the price is right at just under $700 MSRP.”

Thanks, Jeff!

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SHOT SHOW 2016, PART I

It’s that time of year again, the SHOT (Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade) Show. It is here that firearms and accessory managers introduce more new products than any other time of the year.

For part of it, I’ll be commenting, and for part of it, I’ll be channeling posts from my good friend Jeff Chudwin.  A champion shooter and master instructor, Jeff is one of the world’s foremost experts on tactical police use of weapons, so don’t be surprised if his observations trend more to “protection of life” stuff than “sporting” stuff.

I’ve just gotten done putting beaucoup bullets through the Walther PPS M2 9mm pistol, a more ergonomic upgrade of one of the most successful sub-compact, small frame, full power semiautomatic handguns.  Definite thumbs up. Something I haven’t handled yet is Kimber’s announced first revolver, an all-steel 23-ounce pocket size .357 Magnum with a six-round cylinder. I hope to have an opportunity to test one before long.

Rifles? Colt has announced an economy-grade version of their AR15, which many still consider the gold standard for the breed.  It’s good to see that company paying more attention to the civilian market. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some new .17 caliber offerings across the board for varmint eradication.

Shotguns? The biggest “new thing” I see there so far is a new 12-gauge slug from OATH, which promises shallower but wider and more devastating wound effect. Apparently geared more toward anti-personnel work, which will make it of interest for farm and ranch defense for example, if it works out I can see it as having an application in the hunting fields. There are lots of places where deer hunters are restricted to shotguns; where the deer don’t run terribly large; and where hunting pressure is so intense that if your quarry runs over the top of the hill before it dies, another hunter might claim what should have been YOUR venison. Doesn’t sound like the right wound profile for Alaskan grizzlies, though. Time and testing will prove its worth.

More to come. Any new stuff all y’all are particularly interested in?

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I DID NOT KNOW THAT

If ya don’t read, ya can’t write, and if ya don’t learn, ya can’t teach.  Christmas season afforded me some recreational as opposed to work-related reading time for a change…and whaddaya know, I learned some stuff.

I grew up reading the work of Dashiell Hammett, who created the original hard-boiled private eye genre with characters like Sam Spade.  I had always heard the author’s first name pronounced “DASH-ee-ell,” or occasionally “DAY-she-ell.”  Turns out the man himself pronounced it “da-SHEEL.”  Learned it from the superbly researched bio, “The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett” by Nathan Ward.

Likewise, I was a little kid when I read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Little kids tend not to pick up subtleties.  Reading Shelley Fisher Fishkin’s recently published “Writing America: Literary Landmarks from Walden Pond to Wounded Knee,” I found the following:

“In 1949 in an essay  titled ‘Everybody’s Protest Novel,’ James Baldwin wrote that Stowe was ‘not so much a novelist as an impassioned pamphleteer,’ author of ‘a very bad novel’ whose sticky sentimentality gave life to racial stereotypes while denying life and complexity to its black characters; the book, Baldwin believed, promoted rather than challenged prejudice based on color and race: the only black characters in the novel who manifest intelligence, initiative, and independence, he reminds us, do so in direct proportion to the lightness of their skin.”

I totally missed that as a young boy, and am going to have to reread “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

If you folks out there have had any such “Damn—I didn’t know that” moments lately, you’re invited to share them here.

 

 

 

 

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A GREAT GUN FUSION

Through the extremely generous good offices of my friend Chuck McDonald I now have a gun that has fascinated me for many years: a “Smython,” also known as a “Smolt.”

The brand rivalry of Colt versus Smith & Wesson is older than Ford versus Chevy or Coke versus Pepsi.  In the third quarter of the 20th Century, gunsmiths started putting Colt Python barrels on Smith & Wesson revolvers (usually medium size K-frames, but occasionally the larger N-frames). Though it has been postulated that it was for one-handed bullseye shooting, my understanding has been that it was really for PPC, the Practical Police Course, shot on the tight-ringed B27 target with 24 of every 60 shots fired from 50 yards. The faster rifling twist of the Colt barrel generally made that brand a tiny bit more accurate than the slower-twist S&W barrels with .38 Special target loads. Why the Python barrel in particular, since the Python wasn’t introduced until 1955 and Colt had been making double action target revolvers on the same frame since the first decade of that century? Because the Python was the deluxe show-pony of the Colt line, and Colt engineers came up with the feat of tightening the bore by a thousandth of an inch from forcing cone to muzzle. This was believed to drive the lead bullet deeper into the rifling, resulting in the Colt’s slightly greater accuracy. The weighted full-length underlug beneath the barrel held the gun steadier on the tiny X-ring of the target: S&W didn’t make such a gun until circa 1980, when they came out with their Distinguished Combat Magnum L-frame series, models 586 (blue or nickel) and 686 (stainless), essentially an S&W copy of the Colt Python except that its rib atop the barrel did not have the Colt’s distinctive (if largely useless) “ventilating” cuts.

Why put a Python barrel on a Smith & Wesson instead of just buying the whole damn Python? Because most police revolver shooting in the PPC game (and of course, in defensive shooting in general) is done double action, and the Colt had a two-stage pull that “stacked,” or became a little harder at the end of the trigger stroke. The S&W was smooth and even all the way through a single pull, which most of us found more manageable.

Why else? “Because they COULD.” The S&W frame and the Colt barrel do not “mate” in nature, and it requires some pretty fancy machining to get that to happen. It was kind of like Smith & Wesson’s original Registered .357 Magnums from 1935, with fine grooves on the side of the hammer and checkering on the top of the frame that did nothing at all for the shooter but simply showcased how finely S&W could craft a handgun. The Python barrel on the S&W frame sorta gave the same showcasing of a gunsmith’s skills.

I’m not sure who the first gunsmith was to do this, but I think it may have been the great Bill Davis, in California.  Because the S&W has been proven to work better with front-and-back lockup since around 1902, Davis laboriously installed a spring-loaded front ejector rod lug in the Python barrels of his conversions. Some other gunsmiths installed a ball-detent where the frame meets the cylinder yoke to lock the forward end of the cylinder in place.  The specimen on my desk as I write this is not marked and has no written provenance as to the gunsmith, but the barrel-mounted front lug smacks strongly of Bill Davis’ work.

For frosting on the cake: Most of these guns were made on target-model Smith & Wessons with micrometer adjustable sights already installed. This one was done on a Model 13 “pinned and recessed” (S&W aficionados know what I’m talking about), which was a fixed sight .357 Magnum revolver. That means a great deal more machining had to be done to install adjustable sights, which were expertly and seamlessly melded onto this particular revolver. It also has the wide target hammer and target trigger, not normally sold with the service-style six-shooters.

A much smaller number of such fusions were made with Colt Python barrels on Ruger Security Six revolvers, which inevitably became known as Cugers or Cougers. Again, Bill Davis is the gunsmith most often associated with the conversion.

For more on the classic Colt Python itself, the 3-segment magnum opus I wrote on it almost 40 years ago for American Handgunner can be found .

Yes, some of us gun collectors are into arcane minutiae.  All I know is, I can’t wait to shoot this darn Smolt.

Thanks, Chuck!

 

Thanks, Chuck!

 

The “Smython,” a/k/a “Smolt.”

 

Compared to 6″ barrel Colt Python at left, the “Smython” at right has a front lug lockup for the S&W ejector rod. Arrow shows the pin which holds it in place. I suspect the fine hand of master gunsmith Bill Davis at work here.

 

“Smython,” top; below, for comparison, Jerry Moran custom Colt Python.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE PRESIDENT’S LATEST

So far, the President’s nervously-awaited announcement on his executive orders relating to “gun control” shows little potential except for unmitigated cluelessness.

Here’s friend Andrew Branca’s take on it at the always-informative Legal Insurrection site.

Second Amendment stalwart Alan Korwin has some important observations, as well.

And Dave Workman of the Second Amendment Foundation has another cogent analysis.

Let us know what you think of it all.

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A PERSONAL REVIEW OF 2015

Is it time for New Year’s Resolutions? I dunno…that tradition never particularly worked for me. It is, however, a logical time to look at the past year and forward to the new one.

The Evil Princess and I were lucky in a lot of ways last year. Health? She came down with a monster flu a bit less than a year ago that made us cancel our trip to the 2015 SHOT Show, but she recovered soon.  I had a tenacious respiratory infection it took all summer to shake, but I came out of it OK. At our my age, I’m just glad nothing was worse.

2015 was a very heavy travel year for us. But we never got stranded in air travel, nor lost our luggage even briefly, and road travel problems were few and relatively minor.  Given that we’ve had years where none of those things were true, we consider that an overall win.

Having taught outdoor shooting classes in tropical storms and horizontal sleet, we were blessed with the weather this year. The worst we experienced was Texas in May, just when the monster rains started that didn’t stop, and caused the massive flooding the Lone Star State experienced. We shot in horizontal rain and major mud, using iPhone apps to follow the weather and get our students safe before the lightning hit. A day or two after the Evil Princess and I drove east, the hotel we’d been staying at was wrecked by a tornado.

What we teach has potential for injury. I didn’t keep a total “round count” of live fire training, but there were weeks where we and our students put 20,000 bullets downrange. There were no gunshot injuries…par for the course. We only needed two ambulance runs: a wounded warrior’s wheelchair went out of control on the handicapped-accessible ramp and dumped him during a classroom break, and one young woman dislocated a knee during weapon retention training with dummy guns. Both students were in and out of the ER and swiftly back to class. We are grateful.

On this end, we have to occasionally had to re-schedule classes because they conflict with court dates. We had to do that twice in 2015, fortunately with enough advance notice that the students had no problem with it, though on our end we ended up losing a class or two that we could have done elsewhere. One trial ran longer than expected (again, par for the course) and my staff proved they don’t need me by teaching the first day of class superbly prior to my late arrival. Whew.

For us, the first part of the year is mostly sabbatical from training. For most folks, right after Christmas is a lousy time to be coughing up tuition and travel-for-training money, and on the police side, it’s when Academies are often starting and the instructors who take train-the-trainers programs can’t be spared. It allows us to get caught up on writing, bookkeeping, curriculum review, and “personal time.”  My significant other and I enjoy competitive shooting, and just a few years ago, were able to log 24 matches in one year. In 2015, from mid-March to the end of the year, we were able to shoot exactly ONE match.  Frankly, it’s not looking much better than that for 2016, but we ARE gonna hit at least four or five shooting tournaments during our first-quarter respite.  That’s about as close to personal New Year’s Resolutions as we can get.

How about y’all?  Feel free to chime in here on last year vis-à-vis this year, from YOUR personal perspective.

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ON NEW YEAR’S EVE

I am writing this less than three hours before the calendar turns.  In Munch, train stations have closed due to terrorist threats.  In Paris and Brussels, I’m told, traditional public New Year’s Eve celebrations have been canceled for the same reason.  In New York City, NYPD will supposedly saturate Times Square with some six thousand police officers.

Wishing all y’all a cautious, safe, and happy holiday weekend! Those things aren’t, after all, mutually exclusive.

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