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Winter Of My Discontent

The Gun Thing

I have moaned before about a) relinquishing my beloved 1911 and b) finding the Browning High Power to be a rather inadequate substitute (apart from its Europellet chambering).

Let’s be clear:  this BHP is a lovely gun.

I have yet to experience a single failure to feed, regardless of what magazine I use, and it shoots every single type of Europellet I put through it — hollowpoints, solids, lightweight or heavyweight, it handles them all and says, “Please Sir, may I have another?”  It’s also a lot easier to clean than the 1911, which is A Good Thing.

All is well, in other words, except for the trigger which does not come close to my 1911’s bang switch, perhaps excusably given how much work and shooting has gone into the latter by comparison.

And then there’s the Europellet, which I still think is inadequate as a stopper.

For the first time in my life, I feel undergunned when I walk out the door carrying the High Power, and that feeling is unaccustomed, unsettling and unwelcome — which makes me grateful for the extra seven rounds in the BHP’s mag.

I discussed all the above with the Son&Heir over dinner last week and he, bless his heart, suggested that we swap guns:  my 1911 back to me, and the BHP over to him.  Which all sounded good, until he tried the BHP’s trigger.

Understand that as a one-time TeamUSA competition shooter, he has a far greater degree of skill and control in his trigger finger than I do — and he hated the BHP’s trigger.

So all talk of a swap ended at that point.

Ad then I got these suggestions from the Peanut Gallery  my Loyal Readers, who made suggestions such as “I think it’s the gun, not the ammo”, “The other thing to consider is a new 1911 chambered in 9mm”, “I couldn’t carry a gun I didn’t enjoy shooting”, “Sig 1911 Ultra .45”, “CZ RAMI 75BD”, “CZ 75B… CZ P07… CZ P10C”, “Para Ordnance P-14”, “Turkish-made 1911 in 9mm”… and lots more.

I think you can all see where this is heading:  get a gun which suits you, Kim.

I don’t think that anyone needs to be reminded that I’m quite possibly the world’s most susceptible gun buyer on the planet.  Okay, “gun whore” if you want to be blunt.

Unfortunately, I’m no longer a self-employed consultant paying the I.R.S. over $20,000 dollars per quarter;  I’m a retiree on a (low) fixed income and savings that are nearly 80% lower than a couple years back (FJB).  But what the hell, I can always sell one of the guns that I managed to recover from The Tragic Canoe Accident of 2014 (-15? -12? whatever).

So if I wanted to stay with the 9mm Europellet — a GREAT BIG HUGE “IF” — then all sorts of lovely guns become available — (hammer-fired / full-sized*, of course), e.g.


Now let’s just turn that “IF” (above) into “Ah fuck no“, and decide that it’s time that my damn body started to man up and just deal with the pain of shooting the .45 ACP…

I think we’re all familiar with where I’m going here:

Option C, therefore, is to trade or sell the High Power and buy the Springfield Garrison in .45 ACP for around $780 (sigh). Then I could just swap the “new” 1911 for the “old” 1911, so to speak:

I mean, why should the Son&Heir have to deal with an old, worn gun?

Your thoughts in Comments.

*my hands are large-ish, so I have no problem shooting a full-size 1911, but I do occasionally have a problem with a gun which holds a 15-round mag.  And if I’m going to stick with light (175-185gr) .45 ACP ammo, I’d prefer the Government size over the Commander (which I’ve owned in the past, so I’m familiar with it).

News Roundup

Bad News

Sponsored by:

Ooooookay, then:


...where they’ll all simply sink into the abyss, just like all the other things poured into Africa over the decades.


...help this old atheist out:  exactly where in the Bible does it say that God loves variety — especially of the kind you’re describing?


...and on a parallel note:  exactly where in the Constitution is this power granted to the Federal government?  Oh, wait:


...a stove too far, was it?  Wait till you try to ban the internal combustion engine.


...the Frog cops are being coy about the race / nationality / ethnicity of M. Le Stabber, so let’s just assume that he’s not a conservative French White man — because that would have been in the headline.  UPDATE:


...can I call ’em, or what?


...I wouldn’t have thought that this action was at all unusual in NYFC, so not diverse at all.


...am I the only one who thinks that this punishment may be just a wee bit excessive, considering that murderers typically get only 20?


...man, TexGov Greg Abbott should be getting royalties for all this.


...okay, if ever the name fit the animal, this would be it:


...from the very beginning, they should have named the website “From-slags-to-riches.com” .


...I’d love to see it happen, even just for the sake of Constitutional consistency, but it won’t.  Pity.


...okay, I understand the meaning of the individual words “oral”, “sex”, “tour” and “model” — just not when written in that order.

And now for the INSIGNIFICA:

 


...headline edited for brevity.

This must be what is nowadays called the “JBF” (just been fucked) hairstyle:

On her, it works.  Then again, most things work for Salma.

Now get to work, or whatever.

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

Just for a change, today’s Monday Funnies is all about guns, because you guys don’t get enough of that stuff around here.


I need to do something about that.  Anyway:


And to round things off:

Now get outta here and head to the range.  Baby Vulcan will bless you.

Stranger In A Strange Land

Travels

Well I walked all around this crowded planet
But I walked all alone;
Though the places change, the faces stay the same.
Spending my money thinking up funny stories that you tell
In a noisy bar where no one knows your name.
Running out of places still worth running to,
Taking pictures no one’s home to see;
Making deals with small-town tourists traveling alone:
“I’ll take one of you in Rome
If you’ll take one of me.”

— Paul Williams, Look What I’ve Found

The above memory was prompted by this article, wherein a list of 40 reasons is cited as to why it’s better to travel alone.

I hate that.  For me, solo travel is not worth the effort, and unshared memories are completely pointless.  But:  sitting alone in a Paris bistro?  drinking coffee and eating pastries in a Viennese coffee bar, by yourself?  looking into shop windows inside London’s Burlington Arcade, just for your own curiosity?

I get it, by the way;  having complete control of your own itinerary is great, because you get to do only what you want to do.  But honestly, often someone else’s “wannado” can open your mind to something fine you might otherwise have missed.

I remember taking New Wife to see the wonderful Green & Stone artists’ supply shop in Chelsea, and after browsing around and being captivated, she said:  “It makes you want to take up art, just so that you can use all these lovely things.”

I’d visited Green & Stone several times in the past, but I’d never been able to put into words what she (my traveling companion) did so effortlessly:  and it made the whole experience better.

Worst of all, of course, is at the end of the day you, the solo traveler, have to go to bed without someone to lie next to, to cuddle and recap the day’s wonders;  and you don’t get to fall asleep next to the warm body of someone you love.

Travel alone?  Pah.

I’ve traveled all over the United States with my friend Trevor, both as foreign tourists and later as domestic tourists.  I can truthfully say that in all that time, there is not a single day we spent together that would have been better spent alone.  Even when we were freezing our nuts off:

Or keeping warm, so to speak:


Don’t ask.

Here’s another take.  On one of our trips (can’t remember where, but somewhere on the East Coast), we went to a noisy bar where no one knew our names, but a group of people was having a huge party — except that the two guys who’d brought guitars for a sing-along couldn’t play for shit, and only knew a couple of songs.

Ordinarily, I’d just have shrugged the thing off and left when I got bored;  but NO! my friend Trevor pointed to me and shouted out:  “Hey!  My buddy here can play guitar!  And he knows quite a few songs!”

I didn’t kill him, but took the guitar and started to play, just for the hell of it — which I’d never have done by myself.


The party lasted till 1am.  (Okay, a wee bit longer than that, as I recall.)

Travel alone?  That’s for other people.  Give me my wife, my kids or a close buddy like Trevor, and I’ll take that accompanied trip all the way over being on my own.  Seven days a week.

Rhapsody In Khatia

Music

Longtime Friend & Reader JC_in_PA suggested that I give this one a listen.  I did, and so should you.  The intro (i.e. the part before Khatia Buniatishvili gets going on the piano) is one of the best live interpretations I’ve ever heard.

Some pics of Khatia:

Lovely.