Category: Gratuitous Gun Pics

I once heard a very cynical man describe engraving guns as akin to engraving a hammer or an anvil:  “Looks good, doesn’t do nothin’ for it.”

In pure common sense, I agree with him.  However, as someone who appreciates great skill and craftsmanship as much as anyone alive, I deplore such cynicism.

You see, art doesn’t have to be functional;  it just has to excite.

And right on cue, we have this example from Steve Barnett (and right-click to embiggen and enjoy):

Let me start off by looking at the lines of this Safari Custom rifle as a whole:  without a single cut of engraving, that is one exquisite rifle:  lean, curved in all the right places and just plain beautiful.  Now let’s look at the engraving:

 

Good grief, that is so lovely, and so tastefully designed that it makes my heart race.

Now let’s look at the price:  $13,500.

Before anyone gets to having palpitations and fainting fits, allow me to point out that a new Mauser M98 Diplomat in the same caliber runs for:  $15,000.

Functionally, it is identical to the custom rifle;  aesthetically, it’s not even in the same zip code, let alone ballpark.  Lexus, meet Lambo.

And finally, I know that someone’s going to say that they’d be too afraid to take the Safari Mauser out on an African safari, lest they scratch or somehow mar the finish.  Me, I say phooey:

• dropping the rifle out of an unlatched gun case onto concrete and scratching it up:  a terrible accident
• scratching the rifle on some ugly African thorn tree while stalking a lion or Cape buff:  a battle scar.

And yes (sigh), I know you can get a Ruger African rifle (in .375 Ruger, though) for a little more than a tenth of the cost of both the above Mausers.

Oscar Wilde once described a cynic as a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.  I think the old pederast nailed it.

If ever there was a handgun chambering that could be called “pointless”, it might be the venerable .30 Carbine.  Originally designed for the M1 Carbine of WWII (itself a replacement for the Colt 1911 Government, and carried by support personnel and so on), the .30 Carbine cartridge itself is often derided as being inadequate as a manstopper — although from a carbine-length barrel, it has better ballistics than the .357 Mag fired from a revolver.

It makes even less sense in a handgun.  AMT once made one of their Automag models thus chambered, to general derision, but Ruger takes the cake with its single-action Super Blackhawk model (7½” barrel).

Why, one may ask, would one choose a single-action revolver (with its signature clunky reloading mechanism) as a companion piece for a carbine?

I’ll tell you why.

Because pound for pound, there is no more shooting fun than touching off a few (okay, lots of) .30 Carbine rounds out of this bad boy.  The 18″ jet of flame comes out the muzzle, the cylinder-gap flash a couple inches too, and the recoil is about the same as a .357 Mag out of a long-barreled gun weighing nearly four pounds (!), i.e. very manageable.

And then there’s the noise.  At the range, few guns can cause a “prairie dog” scenario among the other shooters, as they quit shooting their own guns and crane their necks back from the partitions to ask “What the hell was that?”  I once even had a Good Samaritan rush over to see whether I’d had a barrel blowup.

As you can tell, and if you are a Reader Of Long Standing, you will no doubt realize that I have owned such a gun before. The only change I made to the Blackhawk was to change the grips into some meatier stuff which a) made it fit better in my hand and b) attenuated the recoil still more.

But lo, there came a Time of Great Poverty, wherein your Humble Narrator was forced by the moneylenders into selling his beloved .30 Carbine Blackhawk, and many bitter tears did he weep in the doing thereof.

However, the buyer was a Longtime Friend and Loyal Reader, who agreed to my terms of not selling the gun in the future unless I go right of first refusal.  He never sold it.

Anyway, many years passed by until a couple weeks back, when we were idly chatting about this and that, and we came to discover that I had a gun of particular interest to him, and yes, he would absolutely entertain the idea of a straight swap thereof for the Blackhawk.

Say hello to the Prodigal Gun:

And this, O My Readers, is the gun that I had intended to shoot at the range until the foul pestilence known as the Upper Bronchial Respiratory Infection laid me low.

Next week, I promise.

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One additional note:  along the way, I (and my buddy) had occasion to lay up an adequate supply (+/- 1,200 rounds) of .30 Carbine ammo to feed both the M1 Carbine and the Blackhawk.  Both of us had purchased a couple hundred Remington soft-point rounds (which the M1 carbine doesn’t chamber very reliably) and for reasons of price, also about 500-odd rounds of the steel-cased Wolf ammo — which, according to Reader RHT447 who knows about these things, is not good to shoot out of the M1 carbine because the steel casing beats up the action fearfully (and may have been the cause of the extractor breaking, as chronicled earlier on these pages).

Of course, the Blackhawk pays no heed to such fripperies, and being a Ruger digests the steel casings as candy.  So it’s the lovely Korean-surplus FMJ ammo for the carbine, and the Remington SP and Wolf ammo for the Blackhawk.

I wonder which one will run out first.

Smith & Wesson have made several excellent revolvers over the many years of the company’s existence;  in fact, they’ve made so many that the blizzard of differently-numbered models is bewildering, especially to an Older Man Of Little Brain And Much Confusion like myself.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look on any specific model with a jaundiced eye, oh no.  Rather, we should regard each of them with extreme pleasure… and which brings us to this particular model, the 19 (from Merchant Of Death Steve Barnett) — which many regard as one of the very best:

I guess the only question to be asked is:  “Would this be an acceptable gun for the Governor’s BBQ party?”

My answer would be:  “Of course it would.  It’s absolutely gorgeous.”

My own taste would run instead to the blued 6″ version (because blue is less show-offy, and the 6″ barrel handles the .357’s recoil better than the shorter 4″):

…but it wouldn’t matter, because it’s still the same damn fine revolver.

And yes, I know:  the K-framed Mod 19 may not stand up to heavy shooting of the .357 Magnum cartridge, the N-frame (model 27) being perhaps better-manufactured for that purpose.

But honestly — and I say this as an owner of a K-frame Model 65 in the same chambering — exactly how much intensive .357 Mag shooting can one handle before there’s an aching wrist in the picture?

I just think the K-frame revolvers fit better in my hand than the beefier Ns;  and that is one of my major criteria in buying a handgun, any handgun.  And for those of an historical bent, it should be pointed out that S&W has been making their K-frame revolvers since the late 19th century.

Discuss.

Double-chambered rifle/shotgun combination guns were popular during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, and while I can see the desire for such a type of long gun, I’m really not so sure of its actual utility.  Here’s an example of what I’m talking about, from Merchant Of Death Steve Barnett, a Borovnik 20ga/7×57 Mauser:

Look, it’s a beautiful old piece, and it happens to encompass two of my favorite cartridges in one handy package.

But it’s only one round per barrel, and if I know anything about hunting, it’s that a rapid followup shot is often necessary.

But a shotgun (even a slug) round, followed by a rifle bullet?  Or vice-versa?  (One can elect which barrel shoots first, simply by using the applicable trigger.)  I’m trying to think of the situation which would fit the purpose.

I can see a double rifle in 7x57mm and, of course, a double-barrel shotgun in 20ga;  but mixing up the two seems to be one of those situations where the gun does one or the other functions well, but is somewhat wanting when it comes to both uses.

This doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t want to own a combo like the above, of course:  it’s a work of art, and very desirable.  I just can’t see taking it into the field.

Or am I missing something?