Category: Gratuitous Gun Pics

Pistol-caliber carbines are a common topic for discussion on this here back porch of mine, and I thought I’d make mention of this puppy, CZ’s latest incarnation of their excellent little Skorpion subby, the Scorpion EVO 3+ which comes with a 16″ barrel and folding stock.

Look, it’s come a long way from their original little full-auto sweetie, the SA vz.61:

…most notably in that the EVO’s chambering has been (marginally) upgraded from the original .32 ACP to the 9mm Europellet, and the new guy just looks better than the toy-sized original.  (I also like the fake suppressor on the EVO carbine, guaranteed to give the gun nannies fits, but which is removable so one can add a real suppressor onto its threaded barrel for extra-added hysteria.)

The EVO 3+ also comes in a 4″ pistol configuration:

…but I think it’s butt-ugly and if you want CZ reliability in a pistol, then the CZ 75B will do just fine.

Getting back to the carbine:  the nice thing about the new Scorpion is that it retails for well under a grand (compared to the HK MP5 at 3x), and its magazines are, at ~$30, likewise much cheaper than HK.  The only bummer, as far as I can see, is that the Scorpion doesn’t accept the CZ 75’s mags but uses a proprietary one.

As I’ve said before, I’m somewhat dubious about the utility of a 9mm carbine, but I reckon that if you must have one, this new Scorpion seems to fit the bill.  More about it here, and these guys sell it as well as the mags.

Afterthought:  you know what I’d really like to see?  A Scorpion chambered in .45 ACP. matched with their manly CZ 97 B pistol:

I used to own one of these (sold during the Great Poverty Episode), and I miss it terribly.  What a beautiful gun it is, to be sure.

Here’s something from Collectors which may seem to carry too high a price (even for them), but really isn’t:  3-Gun Set Belonging to Col. S.B. Sightler ($17,500).

Now I have no idea who the late Colonel Sightler is, or how much his personal collection may be valued by a collector.  What I do know is that the collection is as follows:

Parker DHE side-by-side 20ga shotgun:
(not the actual gun, but a representative sample thereof)

Underwood M1 Carbine:

And Winchester 62A pump-action .22 rifle:

Now here’s my point.  Each of the above guns is, by itself, supremely droolworthy.  And their average sale prices, individually, reflect that.  Depending on condition, a Parker DHE 20ga typically runs about $10,000-$14,000 (I’ve seen higher);  Underwood M1 carbines can fetch $1,500-$1,600;  and a Winchester 62A about $1,200-$1,500.

Adding that up, it comes to around sixteen grand for the three guns, if bought individually.  In that light, the $17,500 that Collectors is asking for the collection doesn’t seem that extreme — even allowing for their normal (inflated) markup.

And one last thing.  Given that these guns were owned by an ex-military man, I’m willing to bet that all three guns — even the little Winchester gallery gun — are in fine condition, which makes them a safe purchase.

If I were a collector and in the market for some decent guns, I’d be sorely tempted.  The provenance is just a bonus.

From Collectors comes this little peach:

Okay, here’s my take on this classic.

The Walther PP / PPK models are quite possibly the sexiest-looking pistols ever made*.  Those sleek lines and usually-faultless operation make for a tempting package — on the surface — and as James Bond’s gun, it works.

Unfortunately, Reality intrudes.  The .32 / .380 ACP (7.65mm / 9x17mm in Eurospeak) Browning cartridges are not serious self-defense options, and unfortunately I find that shooting the “more powerful” 9mm Parabellum (9x19mm) to be rather unpleasant in the small PP frame.  (My opinion;  yours may vary.)

One would think that it would be fun shooting the smaller .32 ACP cartridge in the PP (as it is with the Colt 1905, for example), but it isn’t — at least, not for someone with large or beefy hands such as mine.

The last time I fired a PP pistol, I became aware of some wetness in my grip, discovered that the sharp edges of the PP’s slide had made two razor-like cuts in the web of my hand, and I was bleeding like a stuck pig.  Painful, and a pain in the ass to clean up (which one has to do immediately, because blood does ugly things to a gun’s bluing).

My shooting companion — the owner of the PP — was a slender woman who had small ladylike hands, and who had therefore never been cut by the recoiling slide.  She loved shooting her little “purse gun”, as she called it, and was horrified that it had wounded me.

So as pretty and sexy as the Walther PP and PPK pistols are, there is a public health warning attached to them.

All that said:  I’d get the above pistol in a heartbeat, because it’s beautiful and sexy.  But I wouldn’t shoot it that much, unless wearing a shooting glove.

*with the possible exception of the Beretta 70-series .22 pistols.

I must confess to having mixed feelings about this offering from Steve Barnett:

I know all about Ed Brown’s 1911s:  they’re fantastic bits of machinery, reliable to a fault, engineered way up the quality curve, and so on.

But the problem I have is that “way up the quality curve” thing:  at the end of the day, it’s still a 1911.  And just how much better is a quality offering like this one than, say, a Springfield Loaded 1911?

Four times better?  (Because that’s the price difference between the two models.)

Like I said:  mixed feelings.  As any fule kno, I love me my quality guns, most especially shotguns of the H&H / Abbiatico genre.  But those are hand made (which the Ed Brown isn’t), which has to count for something.

And maybe it’s just because it’s a 1911 — yes, essentially the same as a 1911 Government as used by Our Brave Boys in France, the Pacific, Vietnam and so on.

Finally, I have no issue with super-quality 1911s of the Nighthawk / Ed Brown ilk — several of my Readers own such pieces, I’ve been lucky enough to have them let me shoot their guns, and without exception, they’re wonderful to shoot.

But I have to confess to y’all:  even if I won a lottery, I’m not sure I’d buy a premium 1911 — note, I said “not sure” because hell, I might just indulge myself, much as I might indulge myself with an Omega wristwatch for about the same money.

And maybe it’s because I’ve just been so well served by my plain ol’ Springfield Mil-Spec 1911 (and yeah I know, it’s far from standard issue, with a widened ejection port and polished trigger group).  Maybe it’s because I just don’t see how much better an Ed Brown would work for me.

I must be getting old, for such common sense to have crept into my life.