Category: The Gun Thing

Here’s a fine tale of woe:

When I bought the safe, I chose a Sargent & Greenleaf electronic lock because it was much faster to open than a dial lock, and I was in and out of the safe a lot, so I appreciated the convenience. This time, however, I hit the combination, and the numbers beeped when I keyed them, but I didn’t hear the “wearnt-wearnt” of the locking bolt moving. Just a “wearnt” sound, and no movement.

No worries. Probably just needed to change the batteries. Swapped them out with brand-new Duracells, and the keypad beeps sounded fine, but I still heard just a single “wearnt” sound after the combination. And the handle wouldn’t turn. Hmm.

So in comes the Larry The Locksmith, who gives it a going-over, and:

“The lock mechanism is dead. Happens with the electronics. Sometimes they just quit. And we can’t get replacements these days because the boards are sourced out of China.” There weren’t any in the U.S., and there was no prospect of any becoming available for years.

End result?

     
…plus a locksmith’s bill for drilling and installing a new lock:  $1,100.

Not so convenient in the end, was it?

Here’s my problem with all this electronic shit.  Occasionally, it acts like a sheep.  It just says, “Ah, fuck it,” and dies.

My various safes all have keys, whether ordinary-looking keys (a.k.a. “pin-tumbler lock”) for the cabinets (ammo etc.) or for Ye Olde Gunne Sayffe, cam locks.

Here’s the secret about all this.  All safes are inconvenient and time-consuming to get into:  that’s just the function and nature of the beast.

But I’ll take fumbling with keys and their operation — cam locks are a royal PITA — over random entombment — via electronic locks — any day of the week.

My real choice would be an old-fashioned combination lock with a fallback key mechanism, but they’re finicky to work — almost as bad as one of the above — not to mention beastly expensive because they are, after all, precision machines.  Here’s the ultimate compromise, also from the abovementioned company:

Never forget:  if someone really, really wants to get into your safe, they will.  What you want to do is make it as time-consuming and difficult as you possibly can.

If you’re consumed by some fear that you might be attacked and have to go for the guns, then don’t lock all of them away.  Have at least one gun close to hand — bed, office, workshop, wherever you feel the most vulnerable — and deal with whatever problems this may cause.  (Small, inquisitive kids?  Teach them about gun safety, and either hide the guns or put them out of reach.  Whatever works.)

And finally:  don’t trust electronic technology to work faultlessly all the time.  Sometimes, old-fashioned mechanical just can’t be beaten.

Reader LowKey asks in Comments:

“Speaking of your “frankenpoodleshooter”, how are you finding the platform now that you’ve had some time with it?”

I need to give a little background before I answer the question.

I love shooting.  I love shooting just about more than any man I know.  Ever since I first pulled the trigger (RWS/Diana air rifle) back in the (very) early 1960s, I’ve loved shooting with a passion that sometimes worries me.  No other activity gives me the same pleasure that I get from pulling the trigger, feeling the recoil, watching the result on the target and doing it again and again until I get tired or run out of ammo.  This applies most especially to rifles, probably because of a youth spent shooting through a box of five hundred (500) .177 pellets in maybe a couple-three sessions each week in our backyard.  (I grew up on a fairly large piece of land, with plenty of open space and a conveniently-placed backstop — a tall rockery built along the bottom fence line to give us privacy from the neighbor, whose house had been built a little too close to our property boundary to my father’s liking.)

Instead of a weekly cash allowance like other kids got, my parents bought me a 500-round box of pellets each week for two reasons:  a cash allowance would have just resulted in me buying candy from the corner store, and because I pleaded and begged for that substitution.  I loved candy (still do), but between shooting and eating candy?  No contest.

That love of shooting, that connection between me and that long device of wood and steel held in my hands has never left me, and at this point I don’t think it ever will.  It pretty much doesn’t matter what rifle I shoot, really, but I prefer single-shot rifles (going back to the air rifle, maybe?), especially my treasured Browning 1885 High Wall in .45-70 Govt:

…followed by bolt-action rifles like the Mauser K98k and M96 Swede — which formed by far the larger part of my shooting experience from age 18:

…and only eventually semi-automatic rifles, even though I graduated from the Diana to a Winchester 63 (now Taurus 63) semi-auto .22 rifle:

…which remains to this day my all-time favorite .22 plinker.

Much, much later came the serious semi-auto rifles like the M1 Carbine, AK-47 and SKS:

…the last, incidentally, being my favorite semi-auto rifle to shoot.

Which brings us, finally, to the frankenpoodleshooter (see pic above).

Here’s how I feel about it.  It is a very pleasant gun to shoot, because the little .223 cartridge is far lighter than its 7.62x39mm Commie counterpart, it runs like a top (so far, after about 700 rounds), and it’s probably a great tool for its intended purpose (crowd control in, shall we say, riotous circumstances).

And that’s also its biggest drawback for me:  it’s a tool, nothing more, and I get no more pleasure shooting it than I get from operating a power drill.  Unlike the other rifles I shoot, it’s a basic shooting “platform” (I hate that term) rather than an extension of my body.

Whenever I’m shooting another of the rifles I love, I end the range session with a profound sense of regret — “damn, I wish I’d brought more ammo”, or “damn, I’d better get back home before I’m late for dinner”.  In other words, something really important has to drag me away from the thing.

I get no such feeling after a range session with the poodleshooter.  I own it because it was essentially a gift from two great friends, and because I wanted to shoot the same gun with them as they were shooting at the range.  It’s part of a fellowship, in other words.  But outside that?  It’s a tool, and I’ve never regarded any of my rifles as a tool, even the hunting ones.  Basically, one or two mags downrange, and I’m done with it.

I love my rifles;  I don’t love the AR-15, and it’s the very first time I’ve ever felt that way about a rifle.  That said:  if anyone were to try to take it away from me (and you know who you are), expect a little resistance.

More than a few of my Readers have suggested that I start reloading ammo — at least the .38 Special — so that I can build up a decent stock without bankrupting my self by buying it retail.

One unbelievably generous soul has even offered to set me up with a complete reloading station (an older, simple affair that he no longer uses) including powder, primers, casings and even boolets.

Did I mention before that I have the best damn Readers on the Internet?

Here’s my problem.  Even with the best will in the world, I have no space to start reloading ammo.  When we moved from Plano, we moved into a tiny and I mean tiny apartment that is just large enough to hold two people.  There’s no way I could set up a loading station there, unless I set it up, reloaded for a few hours, then broke it all down again before New Wife got home, and then went through the whole rigmarole again and again.  She’s not afraid of the business, mind you, but we just have no spare room available — I’d have to move the dining room furniture out (where?) just to be able to set it up.

We do have a garage (not attached to the apartment, but a hundred-odd yards away), but it’s not insulated — think:  Texas oven — and in any event, I’m pretty sure that there’s something in the lease which says I can’t do it anyway.

So I have to decline all such offers (thanks, Bruce) and be content with buying the ammo as cheaply as I can.

Several Readers have stepped up with suggestions of places where I could do just that, and I’ll be doing the due diligence when the time comes for me to do some serious bulk purchasing.  In the meantime, I discovered that Texas Legends (my local range) actually sells practice ammo at quite a reasonable price, the only problem being that it’s the heavier 158gr. loads, with nothing smaller available.  Still that’s not going to kill me nor break the bank — a couple hundred rounds over the next month or so is doable — so while I hate being “short” of ammo, at least I’m not faced with the Covid-era situation where there wasn’t any ammo available.

And I have shall we say an adequate supply of premium self-defense .38 Special (chortle chortle)  so the situation is not too critical.

By the way, there’s a lesson here:  if you practice a lot, as I do, be sure to take stock of your ammo supply at regular intervals (as I didn’t, in this case) so you don’t end up in my predicament.  I’ve always checked my .45 ACP stock levels because that’s the handgun caliber I practice with the most, but because until recently I only had the little S&W 637 Airweight (my backup), I hardly ever bothered with checking the .38 Special stock because I hardly ever shot the thing — maybe twice a year.

Now, of course, I’m in a different situation with MOAR .38 revolvers (however did that happen?) and having rediscovered the joys of centerfire revolver shooting, I’m going to be doing that a lot more.

And there’s always the .22LR guns, for which I have sufficient stocks to last me (and the Son&Heir, and his Son&Heir) several lifetimes, regardless of frequency.

Once again, though:  thank you all for your concern and your support, as always.

Every time I see something like this, I become ever more proud to be an American.

And it’s perfectly legal.

Now go there and see how it works, and if you don’t feel the stirrings of at least a teeny chubby, we can’t be friends.