Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 124

THE “REEL” WEST

My generation grew up in the golden age of TV Westerns.  One we regularly watched in our home was “The Rifleman” starring Chuck Connors.  A fellow nostalgia buff took the time to splice together all of lead character Lucas McCain’s shootouts.  The body count he came up with was … 120.

Budget ten minutes to see it here:

Takeaway lessons:

My generation grew up with TV role models who racked up three-figure body counts, sometimes four at a time, and managed not to go out and perform mass homicides for real.

The Western gunfighters of mid-20th Century television apparently had bad-guy-seeking bullets. Notice how often the lead character shoots from the hip, with his muzzle angled starkly upward, and the camera then cuts to bad guys some distance away clutching their chests and falling.  Simple geometry tells us that if Chuck Connors had been firing live ammo, a huge number of his bullets would have gone harmlessly over the heads of his targets.

Those gunfighters also had time machines. Presumably, “The Rifleman” was set in the 1870s-1880s. The stylized large-loop-lever signature gun of the star is a Model 1892 Winchester.  The gun nerds tell us that the props Connors used consisted of a rotating battery of three of them, two ’92 Winchesters and one South American copy, the El Tigre.  A stud inside the trigger guard of the lever hit the trigger as the action closed, allowing his rapid spray of shooting. Of course, with this device in place, every time you jacked a round into the chamber, your gun would fire.

Those gunfighters could also defy the law of gravity. The Winchesters had open-top actions. When Connors did his trademark one-handed flip to chamber a round, in real life the cartridge would have fallen out of the top of the rifle before it came back level, and the chamber would be empty when he pulled the trigger.  Hollywood lore has it that Connors’ prop rifles were fitted with studs to keep the “five-in-one” blanks (so called because they were shaped to fit five different calibers) from falling out when he did that stunt.  Why didn’t the rifle go off when he merely chambered a round?  It wasn’t telekinesis: the stud inside the lever was adjustable.  Only thing was, you had to be in league with the scriptwriters and the propmaster, who would make sure that device was adjusted properly before that particular scene was shot.

Those gunfighters faced zombies before George Romero thought of them.  Watch carefully – in different episodes, the same character actors playing bad guys get blown away again and again.

Yes, it’s true…we gun people love to make fun of gun stuff that appears on the entertainment screens.  The hell of it is, though, those “Hey, wait a minute, I smell contradictory BS” moments come in the study of ACTUAL past gunfights, too…and unless something newsworthy comes up in the meantime, we’ll discuss THAT next in this space.

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O…M…G

Every now and then, even those of us who make our living with words are rendered speechless.  I offer you the press release:

Cabot, PA

January 29, 2014

 

Pennsylvania based Cabot Guns transforms the 1911 into a work of fine art depicting the great American debate of gun control on a mirror image set of left and right hand pistols featuring President Barack Obama, President George W. Bush, Piers Morgan and Ted Nugent.

 

A mirror image set of 1911 style pistols featuring artistic renderings of President Barrack Obama and Piers Morgan was displayed earlier this month at SHOT, the world’s largest consumer firearms tradeshow in Las Vegas, NV. The pistol set is named “The Left and the Right.”

 

Cabot Guns crafted this rare left and right-handed set of iconic 1911s over the last year. The pair are true mirror images of one another with the exception of the images on the handles. The grips of the right-hand gun depict President George W. Bush on one panel and Ted Nugent on the other while the left-hand pistol grips feature President Barack Obama and Piers Morgan. The pistol set illustrates elements of a great American debate on firearms. Fine art Scrimshander, Darrel Morris, was commissioned to carefully handcraft the art on each grip.

 

Cabot Guns President and Gun Designer Rob Bianchin had been contemplating the project for some time and wanted to use scrimshaw to detail the work. “As the guns are positioned in opposite directions, the grips show President Barack Obama facing to the left while President George W. Bush faces right,” said Bianchin. “While oriented towards one another, the right-hand pistol depicts Ted Nugent and the left-hand gun depicts Piers Morgan, representing the great ongoing debate in 2013.”

 

Nugent viewed the pistols during their exhibition at SHOT and described the work of Cabot Guns as ballistic art. “Cabot Guns treads the line between firearms and art. The medium of our art is our guns,” added Bianchin.

 

“The art of scrimshaw – engraving on bone or ivory – dates back to the 1700s,” noted Bianchin. “And the detail in Darrel Morris’ scrimshaw work is just fantastic.” Morris explained the process of scrimshaw; “Scrimshaw works are created by punching tens of thousands of tiny holes in the surface of the ivory and filling them with black oil paint. This technique takes hours and hours of meticulous labor, but it makes it possible to achieve very delicate gradations of tone resulting in incredibly lifelike images.”

 

It should be noted that the Cabot left and right pistol sets are true mirror image pistols. The left-handed pistol is built from the ground up from a block of billet steel; it is not a converted right-handed pistol. Not only is the ejection port engineered to the left, but all small controls have been inverted. Even the rifling in the barrel has been reversed.

 

A three-year-old start-up, Cabot Gun Company is based in the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania. Cabot utilizes Penn United Technologies Inc. to produce its 1911s. Penn United Technologies is a world-renowned manufacturer of precision components for aerospace, nuclear, and other industries requiring precision manufacturing. “Each Cabot represents the work of over 70 of America’s finest engineers, tool makers and master craftsmen,” added Bianchin. “Our objective is to build an important and enduring American brand,demonstrating how the finest products in the world are built right here in America.”

 

Cabot Guns was launched in 2011. In a short time, the company has won two consecutive NRA National Pistol Championships. The Cabot 1911 has been described as “the Rolls Royce of 1911′s” by S.P. Fjestad, Author and Editor of the “Blue Book of Gun Values.

 

Media Contact: Robert Bianchin, (724) 524-1002 or robbianchin@gmail.com

For additional information on Cabot Guns please visit http://www.cabotguns.com. For information on Scrimshaw artist Darrel Morris visit http://darrelmorris.fineartstudioonline.com/

 

Respectfully,

Robert A. Bianchin, President

1-855-THE-1911

While I’ve never shot a Cabot 1911, they have earned high praise among those who are experienced with them.

I worry that my left-handed friends in the gun owners’ civil rights movement might take the Obama/Morgan version as an insult.  Perhaps they can come to terms with it by picturing each of their grip panels shedding a tear every time they press the trigger.

Personally, I’ve only met two of the four men depicted, and I respect them both: I’d be proud to own a pistol bearing President Bush’s image or Ted Nugent’s.

But there’s a reason why I should have the one with the pictures of the two of those men I haven’t met. Being right-handed, it occurs to me that I should buy the left-handed one with the pictures of President Obama and Piers Morgan…install an ambidextrous safety since I’m right-handed…and enter a quick draw contest.

In theory, I should have an advantage, since any self-respecting holster would want that pistol to be gone from it sooner.

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ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY

Yee-haw! Today, my buddy John Strayer and I are “one year helicopter crash free.”

A year ago  we and pilot Graham Harward managed to walk  stagger away more or less intact from what one commentator called a “hard landing.”  Yes, as a rule of thumb, “landing” upside down is hard whatever the conveyance.

We’re all completely recovered, and the scars are just souvenirs.  No lawsuits; we knew what we were getting into when we stepped aboard the helicopter.

The incident, like all such things, gave each of us involved a sharpened appreciation of the people we love, and the people we serve.  (We all got a pretty good dose of adrenaline and survival euphoria, too.)

Thanks to all for the kind support after it happened.  Lessons came from it. John had a gun in hand when we lost power, and the bird went down too fast for him to holster; I’ve mentioned his impressive trigger finger discipline in every firearms safety lecture I’ve given since, and discussed it more in Guns Magazine.

Another lesson, of course, is that our being helicopter crash free may just have something to do with neither John nor I having been in a helicopter since.  Our significant others both told us in no uncertain terms:

NO. MORE. HELICOPTERS. EVER!!!

We have replied,

bigger helicopters? With newer engines…?>

Our pilot, of course, has been flying ever since, doing contract helicopter work, and doing just fine.

But, seriously, thanks for caring.  They tell us to live every day as if it was our last.  If I had done that, I would have given all my stuff away and the funeral director would be wondering where the body is for the last 51 and a half weeks.  Perhaps it suffices to live every day as if it might be your last, and try like hell to do something good with the time.

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RUGER AND S&W DUMP CALIFORNIA

Ruger and then Smith & Wesson have recently announced that they will no longer be selling much of their product lines in California, as Emily Miller notes in the Washington Times.

Microstamping is not only unproven and impractical; it’s abundantly clear that no good is likely to come of it.

Were the California legislators who made it law so blinded by moonbeams and butterflies they couldn’t see this coming?  Or was their intent all along to say to the public, “You can only buy guns made to incorporate our stupid idea, and since no gun manufacturer will go along with it, well, you just can’t get that  type of gun anymore” …?

Micro-stamping Firearms Will Not Reduce Crime

University of California at Davis Study – Backgrounder on Firearms Microstamping Technology

AFTE Journal – Backgrounder on Firearms Microstamping Technology

National Academy of Science Report

AFTE Journal

Study Funded by the California Policy Research Center

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MEMES

Looking through the relatively thin pickings of meaningful new gun designs in this year’s crop, I noticed that one I mentioned here, the Glock 42, a seven-shot .380 pistol, got a ton of comment on the internet. Much of that commentary was on the theme of “if I’m going to carry a gun that size, I’d want it in full power 9mm Parabellum, not a wussy .380 a/k/a 9mm Short.”

Let me make it clear: I’m not a .380 fan. In 40-plus years of studying gunfights – not just reading books, but personally debriefing survivors and going over autopsy reports – I’ve come to consider the .380 marginal if not sub-marginal as a defensive weapon. I’ve just seen too many cases of the bad guy sucking up bullet after .380 bullet in vital zones and still coming. But, I’ve also seen cases like the recent controversial Tampa shooting, in which a senior citizen dropped the man he shot with a single .380 to the chest.  (I’ve seen one-shot stops with well-placed .22 bullets, too, but I don’t recommend a .22 for self-defense, either.)

If you go on the gun forums, you’ll find that a recurrent theme is “how much is enough to use for self-defense, and how much is too much?”  And you’ll discover that there’s some ego investment in those discussions.

The meme seems to be, “If you carry more (more powerful ammo, more cartridges, even more guns) than I do, you’re paranoid.  And if you carry less than I do, you’re a pathetic sheeple.”

Oh, good Lord…

First, if you’re carrying a seven-shot .380, you are better prepared to defend yourself against a homicidal armed criminal than a high 90th percentile of the population, who are carrying nothing at all which could realistically stop such an attack.

But, second, if that attack actually comes, you might wish you had something a little more than than a .380.  The saying is: “You’ll never meet a gunfight survivor who says he wishes he’d had fewer, less powerful rounds.”

Having shot the new Glock 42 with more .380 rounds than most folks outside the Glock factory, I was impressed with its ease of operation, extremely mild “kick,” and accurate delivery of rapid fire. There are a helluva lot of people – petite females, the elderly, the disabled – who will shoot faster and straighter with this gun than with something more powerful. There, I think, is its market niche…wait a year or two, and see, but I expect it to become a best-seller.

Will I carry one? Probably not. Whenever a gun magazine asks me to test a .380, I feel like Ralph Nader test-driving a Corvair for Motor Trend. But as someone who trains others to shoot, I am going to see about buying my test sample to keep it on hand so students who don’t think or function as I do, can try it.

As I write this, I’m wearing a different Glock pistol. It’s much more powerful than a .380, and holds far more cartridges than the slim little G42, and I have a spare “high capacity” magazine on the opposite hip.  That works for me, but I have to accept that some other people need something different to fit their abilities, their lifestyles, their dress codes.

God save us from BS memes.  A center hit with a .380 beats a miss or even a peripheral hit with a .44 Magnum.

Something is better than nothing.

Discussion invited.

 

Firing one handed, I found recoil quite controllable with the new little Glock .380.

 

Note the best four of these 5 shots from benchrest at 25 yards. The one outlier may have been unnoticed human error. Sights have since been drifted for center hits. This is unusually good accuracy for pistols in this class.  

 

 

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SIG INTRODUCES THE P320

Last summer, I got to sit down with SIG-SAUER CEO Ron Cohen and the engineers, and got to play with a prototype of their new striker-fired pistol.  I promised them I wouldn’t discuss it in public until they announced it at the SHOT Show this week.  Some in the business didn’t hold to that agreement.  I did.

And, it has now been announced:

This is the first striker-fired SIG pistol, and is of course designed to compete with the hugely successful Glock and Smith & Wesson Military & Police semiautomatics.  It’s built on the chassis of SIG’s familiar P250, and in fact the prototype we photographed six months ago is actually marked P250.

The P250 had growing pains, particularly in the area of the trigger bar.  It had one of the smoothest double action only trigger pulls in the semiautomatic pistol industry and still does, but today’s market seems to want shorter trigger strokes, which the P320 certainly delivers.  The widely copied Glock trigger safety – which SIG calls a “tabbed” trigger – will be only an option on the P320, since some folks don’t care for that design.  The P320 will share the P250’s modular design, allowing quick changes of grip length and configuration, slide and barrel length, and caliber.  Now, going back to the Dan Wesson revolver of decades ago, it turns out that quick-change barrels are not a big draw for American police and handgunners, but the feature is there for those who want it.

The early bugs seem to have been worked out of the P250 design…I liked what I saw of the P320 prototype in New Hampshire…and the P320 is going to be a handgun to keep an eye on.  Congratulations to Ethan Lessard, SIG’s in-house genius who led the P320 design team.

Ethan Lessard, left, fills Mas in on new suppressors, the just-announced P320, and other matters SIG, August 2013, Exeter NH. Photo from forthcoming Second Edition of Gun Digest Book of SIG-SAUER.

 

 

 Prototype P320, photographed in summer 2013.  Note that frame is marked “P250.” Photo from forthcoming Second Edition of Gun Digest Book of SIG-SAUER.

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More new introductions that may tickle shooters’ fancy…

Burris brings out some interesting high-tech riflescopes geared for the hunting market. They call the series Veracity. Info here: .

I’ve been an enthusiastic advocate for active hearing protection for many years. It lets you hear small sounds while reducing loud sounds. They’re great for everything from hunting to building searches, and of course, very effective on the firing line. SportEar promises to be “unveiling the most innovative” such devices at the SHOT Show this coming week, so you might want to check out their website in a few days: http://sportear.com/ .

Finally, in the interest of transparency (chuckle), Taurus has announced a new snub-nose five-shot .38 Special revolver called The View. It derives its name from a clear sideplate on the right side of the frame, through which the mechanism can be clearly seen. Some are already deriding that as a gimmick, but I can see handgun instructors buying this gun just as a visual aid to better show how double action revolvers work. (Double check with your accountant, but my understanding is that any gun you buy to teach with as a firearms instructor is a business expense you can write off.) What a lot of people are missing about this gun is that at the weight Taurus has specified, it should be the lightest .38 Special revolver ever made. +P ammunition is not recommended. Barrel is much shorter than the classic two-inch length. The ejector rod is a mere stub. That would be a deal-breaker in terms of quick reloading, but a great many people who carry these guns don’t carry spare ammunition for them anyway, making that issue a lot less relevant. Information is here: http://www.taurususa.com/pdf/2014_taurus_catalog.pdf .

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DELICIOUS IRONY

A brief time out from discussion of new firearms for 2014, as we share this Breitbart report.

Sounds as if Illinois, our last state to get a provision for concealed carry handgun permits, applications for those permits are outpacing Obamacare signups…

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2 NEW GLOCKS FOR 2014

I was on my way to a Glock match, ironically enough, when I learned that Glock has ended its media embargo on their two new models, which I previously couldn’t talk about until the 6th per Non-Disclosure Agreement.  Harris Publications got my short preview on them up on Saturday. When I viewed it (it may have been corrected by now) the  video cut off in mid-sentence just when I was starting to discuss accuracy of the Glock 42 in .380.  At a full 25 yards, this little pocket pistol kept Winchester 95 grain full metal jacket under four inches, and shot even tighter with Remington Golden Saber 102 grain hollow points.  Buffalo Bore’s popular hard cast lead 100 grain load kept four out of five in four inches at 25 yards, a dimension widely considered to be “acceptable combat accuracy” with full size service pistols much larger than this wafer-thin, 13 or so ounce pocket pistol.

The 41 will compete with long-slide polymer frame .45s such as the Springfield XD(m). The long, thin slide gives the “wand-like” handling of the Glock 34 9mm and Glock 35 in .40 that have made them so popular in IDPA and USPSA competition, respectively, but with 13-1 rounds of .45 ACP.  It put all shots under two inches at 25 yards with Remington 185 grain hollow point and Federal 230 grain +P.

Testing on this end, begun in December, will continue, but so far we’re happy with both and haven’t been able to make either pistol malfunction.

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NEW GUN SEASON

January is “new gun intro” season in the firearms industry, with the major trade show mid-month being the stage:  SHOT, the Shooting and Hunting Outdoor Trade Show.  I won’t be there this year (trial schedule conflict) but will try to keep you apprised of what I can find out remotely.

Some new introductions will be window dressing, such as Mossberg’s series of “Duck Commander” motif firearms, mostly shotguns with a couple of ARs thrown in.  (Exactly what AR15s have to do with ducks escapes me, unless it’s suitability to amphibious operation, but…)

Some will be radical for their kind.  Consider the Remington R51, a sleek 7+1-shot 9mm pistol with some elements of that company’s famous old Model 51 design, including flat super-thin profile.  There are profound differences, of course: the new one is locked breech in design, and built for 9mm Luger +P, while the original was a .380.  Pundits who’ve seen it are divided as to whether the design is “retro” or “ultra-modern.”  I see it as some of both.  The swooping, sculptured lines and overall shape remind me of what “futurists” who touched on guns half a century ago predicted pistols might look like today. (An interesting taste of that can be found here , though Asimov didn’t touch on firearms.) Price point is remarkably low, and I for one am looking forward to putting one of these new Remington pistols through its paces.

Since December, I’ve been working with a couple of guns I can’t talk about yet.  The manufacturer is so serious about the “media embargo” going through to January 6 that I’ve had to have everyone on my test team sign non-disclosure agreements from the company.  One is an especially interesting departure for the manufacturer in question, while the other is much more evolution than revolution, and all of us who are shooting them like them but can only hold our hands over our mouths and mutter, “Mmmff.  Mmmff!”  Will have more to say on these next week when the embargo lifts.

So far, advance press releases to us gun writers indicate a lot of minor and often cosmetic changes, but there’s always something that represents at least a small step forward, if not a giant leap.  We’ll talk about the new stuff more this month as all of it unfolds.

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