Tag: Guns and such

My favorite toy

Gratuitous Gun Pic – Mauser Sporter (8x60mm S)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Here’s another take on last week’s GGP of the Mauser Sporter 7x57mm rifle.  This one (also from Collectors Firearms) is more conventional-looking, and chambered for the unusual 8x60mm S cartridge:

And the action is likewise quite lovely, with a polished knob bolt (rather than the butterknife) and conventional scope rings.  Still with the full stock and double set triggers, though.

As for the 8x60mm S cartridge:  it’s basically a lengthened casing derived from the military 8x57mm cartridge, and was created to circumvent the Versailles Treaty restrictions on the production of military chamberings — the thought being that hunters and their clubs could become ersatz  reserve units for the Wehrmacht.  (I know, stupid, but that’s gummint for ya.)  So DWM simply changed the cartridge while keeping the bullet (the “S” denotes .323″) — and the longer casing meant more gunpowder, ergo  a more powerful cartridge.  As such, the 8x60mm is very close to the .30-06 Springfield in terms of performance.

So why buy this rifle, when the cartridges are hard to find?  Actually, one might think that the 8×60 S is rare, but it isn’t — quite a feat given that it was made solely for pre-WWII German hunting rifles.   True, you do have to look around for them, but they’re made in quantity by Serbia’s Prvi Partizan company, and in keeping with PPU’s philosophy, they’re inexpensive — I found them selling for just over $22 per 20, which makes the rifle a perfectly acceptable purchase.  (The only problem is that this rifle is horribly –and I think unjustifiably — expensive, even by Collector’s standards.)

Now… where are those lottery tickets?

Pretty Much Forever

The Gun Thing

I’m going to add my two cents to this opinion (found via Insty, thankee) about keeping your magazines loaded:

Even when kept fully compressed, a magazine spring will retain its energy long past the operational life of the ammunition.

Here’s my take.  I own dozens of magazines, of all types and calibers, fitting all sorts of guns, and I’ve owned most of my Chip McCormick (CMC) 1911 PowerMags for close to twenty years.  I keep all of them loaded, all the time.  When I was cleaning out my house, I found a box of what I first thought was junk (but wasn’t).  At the very bottom, underneath all sorts of stuff like photos and old papers were two 10-round CMC Powermags, loaded.  Judging from the other stuff in the box, I packed it when we lived in suburban Chicago back in the late 1990s, and had never fired the two mags — for twenty years.

With some trepidation, I unloaded them, expecting to find that the last couple of rounds were loose in the magazines — i.e. that the springs had “taken a set” when loaded to capacity and lost their tension.  In both mags, the bottom cartridges were held as tightly against the mag lips as the first round.  So I reloaded them.

The next time I went to the range, I fired off both mags through the Springfield 1911.  Both mags and ammo functioned flawlessly.   I put another ten loads of “new” .45 ACP through each (200 rounds in total) and the mags again worked as though I’d just unwrapped them.

The same has been true of every single magazine I’ve ever owned.  The only time I’ve ever had an issue with a magazine was a cheap one that came with a Taurus .380 pistol — the “second” mag, not the one actually in the gun — and I think it was broken from the start.  Magazine, say hello to Mr. Hammer.

As I said earlier:  all my magazines are loaded, all the time.  An unloaded magazine is just a box with a spring inside, just as an unloaded gun is just a heavy (and expensive) cosh.  Whether they’re .22 LR mags for my Marlin 880SQ rifle, the Mec-Gars for the Browning Hi-Power or the many CMC PowerMags, if I pick one up or take it out of the bag, it’s ready to go.  Even the several AK-47 mags that were tragically lost along with the gun in that canoeing accident were kept loaded.  (As an aside, the mags that absolutely MUST be kept loaded are those that would be needed for your carry- or SHTF guns.)

That has been my experience, and that is my advice.  YMMV.

Gratuitous Gun Pic – Mauser Sporter (7x57mm)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Looking over the posts for the past week or so, it occurs to me that there are far too few entries which conform to the original premise of the GGP series, namely, providing pics of guns that we gun-lovers can drool over, for whatever reason.  Allow me to remedy the situation forthwith.

Here’s one being offered by Collectors Firearms:  a pre-WWII Mauser 98K Sporter in one of my favorite calibers, the venerable 7x57mm.

Good grief… this gun rings just about every single one of my rifleman bells:  Mannlicher-style full stock, “butterknife” bolt lever, and  a double set trigger?

The only way this rifle could be more beautiful is if it had breasts.

I know that modern-day shooters look askance at the old-style scope front claw mount (which grips the bell rather than the barrel), but there’s nothing wrong with the concept — having two barrel grips just simplifies the production process and therefore the cost thereof.

Okay, it’s expensive,  because a) rare and b) Collectors.  But like I said about the Colt 1903 pistol, this is not a “first gun”, at least if you wanted to go hunting:  other more modern guns might be a tad better.  But in a pinch, this gun could  be your go-to hunting rifle, and I very much doubt that it would let you down, whether in its operation, accuracy, reliability or chambering.  And for a hunting rifle, that’s pretty much all you can ask for, isn’t it?  The fact that it is more beautiful  than 90% of modern hunting rifles is just a bonus.

Speaking for myself:  if I won the lottery, I’d buy this gun in a heartbeat.

Makes Sense

The Gun Thing

As the Socialists (you know, politicians, mainstream media, teachers’ unions etc.) are going all “NO MOAR GUNS!”, the people who were actually affected  by the recent gun violence seem to be taking a different approach:

More El Paso residents than ever before crowded into a class over the weekend to become certified to carry a concealed gun in public in Texas after this month’s mass shooting at a Walmart store that killed 22 people.
…
The vast majority of people at the classes were Hispanic; El Paso is a predominantly Latino city. Police say the accused gunman deliberately attacked Hispanics in the Walmart.
…
“We actually had two people buy guns here who were actually in the Walmart on the day of the shooting. The other people are just saying, ‘Hey, you know I want to be able to protect myself in the event of something going on’.”

And, of course, most of the guns being bought were handguns — the eeeevil killing machines that were once the named target of an organization known as Handgun Control, Inc. (and now known by a pseudonym, although it’s the same bunch of assholes).

Whatever.  Despite the moanings of the aforementioned gun confiscators, it seems as though a lot of people are not going to be helpless victims anymore — which is exactly as it should be.  (I just wish that little turd had walked into a Wal-Mart where a dozen or so of his would-be victims were already  carrying guns — I suspect that the outcome would have been a whole lot different, in a good way.)

And now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to do a little practice myself.  In the spirit of our buddies in El Paso, I’ll be doing handguns today:  an hour or two of dry-fire drawing practice at home, followed by a couple hundred rounds sent into a target at the DFW Gun Range.

Dept. Of Righteous Shootings

Righteous Shootings

From Charlotte N.C. comes this wonderful news:

Police say a gas station customer was acting in self-defense when he took matters into his own hands Thursday morning, shooting two suspects who tried to rob the store.
Chaotic moments broke out just before 4am at the 7-Eleven in the 4800 block of Brookshire Boulevard.
Police say the two teenage suspects, identified as Qwanterrius Stafford and Brenna Harris, first robbed the customer of his wallet before turning their attention to the store clerk.
“They immediately went straight to him, pointed a gun at him, within inches of his face, very aggressively pointed a gun at him,” Sgt. Brian Scharf with CMPD said.
They had no idea that customer inside had a lawfully concealed gun until he fired shots at both suspects.
Stafford, 16, died inside the store, according to investigators. Harris, 17, got about a mile and a half away on Saratoga Drive before police took him into custody.

[pause to let thunderous applause, jeers and catcalls die down]

Given the names of the would-be property-redistributors, I’m not even bothering to play “guess the race” of the choirboys.

Suffice it to say:

Good Guy 1.5, Goblins 0

You may all go do your Happy Dance now.

Every Time, Dude

The Gun Thing

You’d think the Gun Grabbers would have learned by now, but nooooo:

Gun sales are surging after the weekend mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, fueled by first-time buyers seeking pistols they can carry with them for protection.

The rest of us are just packing an extra mag or two.

Well, so much for “Moar gun control!”

Me, I’m okay for carry pieces — but I’m still looking for an affordable one of these:

You know, in case I get invited to a BBQ over at the TexGov’s place or something.