…for those who want a “marine”-style pump shotgun but quail at the cost and 12ga chambering of the Mossberg 500/590 Mariner:
That’s at Bud’s Guns. Yer welcome.
Not just the guns, but all the stuff that goes with them
…for those who want a “marine”-style pump shotgun but quail at the cost and 12ga chambering of the Mossberg 500/590 Mariner:
That’s at Bud’s Guns. Yer welcome.
I’ve always loved guns. Some of my best childhood memories are of taking the Diana .177 pellet rifle out to the backyard, setting up a host of tin cans, and blasting away at them until I ran out of pellets. At a rough guess, I was shooting about 500 pellets per week.
It was my first gun, and shooting it gave me a wonderful solitary activity that was only rivaled by my love of reading.
Later, when I was about 14, I graduated to shooting my dad’s Winchester 63 .22:
Compared to .177 pellets, .22 ammo was really spendy for a boy’s allowance (even back then), so I probably only shot off a hundred-odd rounds a week. I did that for the next five or so years, until I bought my first centerfire rifle.
Here, my memory fails me; it was either an Oviedo Mauser in 7x57mm, or else an Israeli Mauser (the K98k, rechambered to 7.62x51mm/.308 Win in the late 1950s).
Whatever, I had both, and used them in my first forays into hunting, which only really began in my mid-twenties — although I would shoot off a few boxes for practice each month (rifle ammo was really expensive in Seffrica, even though by then I was earning a salary).
Then I moved to the U.S., and after I could buy them legally, my love of guns and shooting went stratospheric, and my gun ownership ditto.
Of course, occasional periods of poverty followed, meaning that during those times I was forced to sell a few, and at one time almost all. And that hurt, it really did; but I consoled myself with the thought that when my finances recovered, I could always buy replacements… which I did.
Then quite recently, my desire to own guns kinda tailed off. Most probably, this came from getting to age 70 and the concomitant realization that whereas in the past my appetite for shooting was boundless, now it was more circumspect. Was I ever going to go hunting again? (no, probably not.) Was I going to take up clay shooting? (also, probably not.) I’d long since quit any kind of competitive shooting as my eyesight started its decline, and even the occasional trip to Boomershoot suddenly became less appealing — maybe because of the distance involved, but that had never stopped me before.
So as you all know, when my financial circumstances recently demanded some remedial action, I started selling off my guns to anyone who was interested, keeping pretty much only the ones I could foresee myself using at least quite often (.22 rifles and handguns, etc.) or ones that I might need in certain “social” occasions, if you get my drift.
I at least contented myself with weekly range visits because their senior citizen discount made it affordable, but even those have tailed off, for no real reason. I don’t know why that is; I still love my guns — the few I’ve kept, anyway — but the urge to shoot them, other than for practice, has more or less disappeared.
And I’m certainly never going to restock the larder, so to speak. Those days are definitely gone.
I’ve had many invitations to go shooting with various friends and Readers, and when I’ve taken them up, I’ve enjoyed the range time, but enjoyed still more the after-shoot coffees and so on: the socializing part of the event more so than the shooting, which is a complete inversion of my enjoyment in times gone by.
So something that has been a huge part of my life has gone, maybe forever, and I mourn its passing dreadfully.
Maybe it will come back — I hope it does — but until then, I’m left with this hollow feeling at the disappearance of something that has been part of my entire life.
So now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to read a book.
I see that CitiBank may have seen the light:
We will update our employee Code of Conduct and our customer-facing Global Financial Access Policy to clearly state that we do not discriminate on the basis of political affiliation in the same way we are clear that we do not discriminate on the basis of other traits such as race and religion. This will codify what we’ve long practiced, and we will continue to conduct trainings to ensure compliance.
We also will no longer have a specific policy as it relates to firearms. Our U.S. Commercial Firearms Policy was implemented in 2018 and pertained to sale of firearms by our retail clients and partners. The policy was intended to promote the adoption of best sales practices as prudent risk management and didn’t address the manufacturing of firearms. Many retailers have been following these best practices, and we hope communities and lawmakers will continue to seek out ways to prevent the tragic consequences of gun violence.
Yeah, whatever. Just to make myself clear:
I have absolutely no problem with “gun violence”, provided it’s of the kind where potential victims ventilate the goblins who are trying to harm them and/or take away their possessions violently and unlawfully.
And it was people like me who by extension would have run afoul of Citi’s so-called “Commercial Firearms Policy”.
So I’m glad they’ve had a change of heart — no doubt brought on by the Trump Administration’s overt hostility towards corporate fuckery of this nature — but even so, fuck ’em, the chiseling Shylocks.
I finally managed to pay off my credit card balance from Bank of America — the first and most public of the anti-gun banks — and closed the account. My CitiAA card is next on the chopping list. It may take some time because the balance is still quite high — air tickets for New Wife’s various family visits to Australia and Seffrica, hello — but pay it down I will, make no mistake. and then it’s bye bye, too.
Sports journalist Emily Austin responded to a question about the plight of Jewish people in America by making clear she will “clutch” her Glock 43X if that is what it takes to be “the last Jew in this country.”
Here’s a Glock 43x, which is ugly:
…and here’s young Emily, who most certainly isn’t:
Making the Tribe proud, for all the best reasons. Mazel tov.
My first exposure to the above type of gun was the Marlin Camp 45, a teeny, lightweight little thing that was so handy and easy to shoot — and it used 1911 .45 ACP mags withal — that I couldn’t understand why they weren’t as popular as .22 rifles.
Well, after the third breakage — I mean, parts that actually shattered upon extended use — showed me why the Camp 45s weren’t as popular as .22 rifles. Nice concept: total dud in execution.
There were others that came along — the Beretta CX-4 carbines were nice, and being Beretta were a lot better than the Camp 45 when it came to reliability. Also kinda cool-looking.
I had one for a while, but traded it for something else at the range — as I recall, a Ruger Redhawk in .357 Mag — and to be honest, I didn’t miss the CX-4 that much.
However, this little thing from Ruger, the LC Carbine, has caught my eye recently, and I must confess to feeling a teeny lil’ tug at the old wallet.
Now the guys at TTAG seem to like it quite a bit, calling it a “real thumper”, and that appellation will always get my attention. It has several features that do ditto: it uses Glock double-stack mags (which are cheap and ubiquitous); it looks easy to mount a decent tac-scope like an Aimpoint on the thing (and I happen to have a spare one or two in Ye Olde Gunne Sayfe); and it has a threaded barrel for an eeeeevil silencer / suppressor / moderator (pick your preferred nomenclature).
We won’t discuss the ammo issue, of course.
And speaking of which, all the range tests I’ve seen for the LC have shown that it handles pretty much any kind (FMJ or HP), bullet-weight (185gr to 230gr) or strength (+P) with equal ease, and with excellent accuracy, as it should, with a barrel longer than a 1911’s.
I see that Bud’s is selling them for under $800, which is always a good indicator of “street price” vs. MSRP (over $1,000).
I might just sell one of my other guns for one of these. Even though I’ll need to buy some Glock mags — yeah, guess why — and I’m debating whether to let the feds crawl up my ass just to “allow” me to get a frigging suppressor (don’t get me started), I might very well end up with one of these Rugers, under the “home defense / under-the-bed” rationale, so to speak.
Also, if anyone has any first-hand experience with the LC, please let me know.
…are going to be looking at what’s new in the zoo for their 2025 handgun needs.
Boy, are we in trouble.
First off, I’m going to ignore anything chambered in 9mm, whether Parabellum or Short (.380 ACP). Why? Because 9mm DA pistols are like men’s hairy assholes: they’re fugly, and every man (except Your Humble Narrator) has one (the gun, I mean). Additionally, I can’t tell the difference between them without a score card, save for the Springfield XD which is recognizable only because it’s been on the market for so long.
Then there’s this horrible thing from Century:
A handgun (yeah, right) in .308 Win/7.62×51? Are you fucking kidding me?
Then, to add insult to injury is Ed Brown’s .45 ACP “Kobra Karry”
…which will doubtless find favor with the Kardashian coven because of that obsessive need to start every name with a “K”. And only a Kardashian would be able to afford this 1911 variant anyway, at over $3,000.
And speaking of 1911s, try the new Wilson Combat Project 1 (in 9mm yet):
I’m going to go out on a limb and state that this may be the ugliest 1911 ever made… and it sells for a piddling $4,000. Bill Wilson must have been on vacation when this blingy design was approved. It’s cheaper than the Nighthawk Double Agent (also in 9mm) by a couple of grand:
…but then all 1911s are cheaper than the Nighthawk.
Fach.
Okay, I’ve slagged off these “new” guns enough. Now for the question:
If your rich old Uncle Elmer offered to buy you any gun under $2,000 on this list, which one would you accept as a gift? (I promise to make no comment or criticism of your choice because #FreeGun.)