Not Surprising

There’s another one of those (I suspect) A.I. videos talking about the ten guns that are sitting unsold on shelves, and have been almost since their introduction to the market.

There are a couple of obvious losers — the Remington R51 9mm, for example, which was the harbinger of the downfall of the once-great company because it was a shoddy, badly-engineered piece of junk (very much like the company).

The next were those which somehow thought that an expensive 5.7mm bullet was just the thing that the market wanted, and tied that belief to their launch in $900+ guns that were too bulky to carry and too flimsy to be serious rifles.  They were, in essence, expensive range toys, and in the post-Covid years were precisely what the market did not need.

In fact, “expensive range toys” is a pretty good description of most of these ten stinkers.  In saner times, one would have hoped that cooler heads in Marketing would have figured out that mistake;  but there weren’t sane times, anything but.  They were the early Biden-Covid years, when the feral ATF, FBI and Department of Justice looked for any excuse to deny gun owners guns, take away their guns and criminalize gun owners.  And the Covid-era panic buying of toilet paper (FFS) was a perfect companion to the rush to buy guns, any guns, by people who didn’t know anything about guns, where price hikes followed shortage as inevitably as night follows day, where dropping $3,000 on a semi-auto piece of crap seemed an obvious ploy to increase profits, or to plug up a gap in a gun manufacturer’s product portfolio.

Meanwhile, the real gun buyers — guys like most Readers of this website — didn’t fall for any of this nonsense, and spent out money (if we did at all) on proven guns and, while gritting our teeth, insanely-expensive ammo.

Then the waters started to recede, Covid panic ended, and suddenly gun dealers were confronted with a plethora of guns to be sold on consignment, as the panic buyers turned into gun-free zones as before.  Many gun stores which previously had not offered consignment sales now realized that there was money to be made in the commission business as a way of keeping the doors open.

Of course, the idiots who’d purchased awful guns like  like our top ten rascals in the video handed in their geegaws, and now the dealers were left with cluttered shelves full of expensive range toys which nobody wanted.

So when the godless gun-grabbers of the Biden Party lost the White House, the gun market as a whole cooled off, as always happens when the Happy Times return and people are no longer thinking they need to gun up in case of you-know-what.  It happened after Obama was term-limited out of office and conservative voters made sure that Hillary Fucking Clinton didn’t get to play her little Commie reindeer games, and one would have thought that gun manufacturers would have learned their lesson, but of course they didn’t because that has to be the only reason they launched those terrible guns.

It’s funny;  I looked at all the guns on the list, and realized that I, as big a gun lover as exists anywhere in the universe, wouldn’t be interested in any single one of them now, even as a gift let alone at their severely-discounted-but-still-insane prices.

Screw that, and them.

(Read the comments from @reaver6666 in the video’s comments for an excellent overview of the products’ common failings.)


By the way, there’s another A.I. crappy that breathlessly announces that these are the 12 guns you can buy on the cheap.  Yeah, right.

Unexpected Pleasure

If blogging seems a trifle light today, it’s because most of yesterday was spent in the company of Longtime Reader UncleKenny — during which we had a fine session at my local range, followed by coffee and a long chat.

I should point out that most of the chatting was done by me, because as I seldom nowadays have any social contact with friends, I tend to jabber on endlessly when I do.  He didn’t fall asleep during said chat, and on occasion even prompted me to continue, which says much about his scholarliness and gentlemanliness.

I have without doubt the best damn Readers on the Internet.  Thanks, Ken, and it was a rare and special privilege to meet you in person.


Afterthought:  I should point out that nobody’s perfect:  he did bring a Glock to the range after all, but at least it was chambered for the manly .45 ACP and not the other rubbish.  And anyway, such lapses in taste can always be forgiven among friends.

FAQ – BBQ Gun

For the benefit of my Furrin Readers (Euroland, Oz, Britishland, California, etc.), I probably need to explain the meaning of the term “BBQ Gun” or “Governor’s BBQ Gun”.

This would be the handgun you’d wear to a formal barbecue event.  It should be a little more “showy” than your EDC (everyday carry) piece, and one you’d not be ashamed of wearing in polite company.  (By the way, this stipulation would automatically exclude such filth as Glock and Hi-Point pistols, but not old, well-worn pieces like your grandfather’s Colt Peacemaker.)

Your holster too would be a showpiece, not an IWB (inside the waistband) type.  Depending on the state, it could be unadorned or else festooned with things like silver buckles, turquoise stones and fringes.

Anyway, the question I’m frequently asked is:

“So what’s your Governor’s BBQ Gun, Kim?”

It’s not a pistol, but a revolver:  my beloved Ruger New Model Blackhawk (.30 Carbine)

I have a holster for it, but it’s kinda plain:

….so I’m idly looking around for something a little dressier:

Okay, maybe not that last one.

It might be that I have to sniff among the options at an Evil Loophole Gun Show, soon.


Note that in the states outside America such as California, Illinois and New York, there’s no such thing as BBQ gun because those governors tend to hate and fear guns (unless carried by their bodyguards, of course).

Seriously Tough

Mr. Free Market has been doing some Internet research (LOL) during his break from evicting widows and demolishing historic homes, and has come up with this series of African hunting escapades, the PH being the peerless Buzz  Lightyear  Charlton, who cannot be described as a Zimbabwean.  Nope, anyone who stalks his prey in the African bush wearing Crocs or Birkenstocks is a damn Rhodesian.

Eland  (which makes me realize how lucky I was to get mine)

Buffalo

Elephant

I can’t see what the clients are shooting, but Buzz carries a .500 Nitro Express double rifle.

To call him an expert PH is to make a mockery of the term “expert”.

Oh, and note that after the shot is made, the party is in no hurry to get to the downed animal.  Caveat venator.

Range Report: Ruger LC Carbine (.45 ACP)

I’ve kinda had the hots for this little gun since it first came on the market, so when I had a chance to exchange one of my “spare” guns for the LC a week ago, I jumped at it, and went to pop a few rounds off at the range yesterday, you know, just to make my acquaintance  I even bought a couple boxes of 230gr FMJ for the occasion, and two spare mags.

There are a lot of things to like about the LC:  the chambering (.45 ACP, ’nuff said), the compact size, the Glock 21 12-round* mags it uses, and of course the Ruger quality and reliability.  And yeah, it has all that.  I also found the trigger acceptable — about a 5-lb break but very crisp, and the gun was acceptably consistent in terms of grouping (given my shitty eyesight):  the bullets struck dead center off a sandbag at 25 yards.  (It also shot 4″ low out of the box, but with the front-sight adjustment tool I got that right.)

And it fed reliably — not a single jam or malfunction with either the FMJ or the various hollowpoint cartridges I tested it with.  Clockwork, brass ejected firmly etc. etc.

Mechanically, therefore, it was fine;  and on that basis I’d take it to war, so to speak, without a qualm.

But the “ergonomics” (as Mae calls the feel of a gun)?  Not so fine.

The recoil is excessive, even considering that it’s shooting the John Moses Browning .45 ACP cartridge and not a proper rifle cartridge.  That straight-though stock (more on that in a moment) slams the stock straight into the shoulder with considerable force.  Even when I popped an extra recoil pad on the butt, it wasn’t pleasant.

And here’s something I’ve noticed when shooting these kinds of guns (e.g. the AR-15 and others of the “chassis” gun type) while wearing hearing protection “lids”:  you can’t get a decent stock weld with your cheek to get the sights to fall naturally into your sight line.  That’s because unlike a regular rifle, there is no drop of the stock below the barrel line, so your ear protection (we used to call them “pots”) get in the way of your hold.

Now on my AR, you can see that my cheek does not need to come down onto the stock because I’m using a high-elevation red-dot sight.  But the low position of the pop-up iron sights on the LC makes life difficult, in that you have to re-position your head after every shot.

So basically, I’m going to have to put a high-rise red-dot sight on the LC, which I did not want to do because the aperture (Garand- or Marble type) is plenty accurate for me and to be frank, that’s one of the reasons for owning a short-range pistol-caliber carbine (PCC) in the first place.  Like a fork, you pick it up and it works.

I’m starting to regret selling my M1 Carbine, now.

Does this mean that the LC is going to be used only in the open air, when I don’t have to wear pots and just rely on earplugs — i.e. when I go over to TDSA twice a year?

Frankly, I’m disappointed because I was looking for a good answer to the question, “Do I really need an AR-15 ‘pistol’ for those social occasions?”

And the Ruger LC Carbine doesn’t seem to be it.  In my hands, it’s about a 50% solution, and I don’t like those.

Right now, of the two carbines I prefer to shoot the AR — and I don’t especially like shooting the AR.

Also, that “flared mag well” caused me to pop a blood blister on the heel of my right hand (for the first time in about forty-odd years) when I slammed a mag home.  Ouch.


*Glock calls them 13-round mags;  I call them 12 because it’s impossible to load that 13th round without that loading tool thingy.

Kick Them All Out

Honestly, I just don’t have time for this kind of bullshit anymore:

The NRA filed suit Monday against the NRA Foundation, alleging rogue leadership at the foundation misused about $160 million dollars.

FOX News reported that the NRA “alleged the foundation used its trademarks without authorization and diverted donations intended for NRA charitable programs.”

The lawsuit claims that the foundation is run by a group of former NRA board members who lost control of the NRA board and are now bitter. Reuters pointed out that the lawsuit describes the former board members as Wayne LaPierre “allies.”

NRA attorneys wrote, “The Foundation has been seized by a disgruntled faction of former NRA directors who lost control of the NRA’s Board following revelations of financial improprieties, mismanagement, and breaches of fiduciary duty and member trust.”

Disband the lot:  the NRA, the NRA Foundation, and any of the rent-seekers on the periphery:  the fund-raisers, the pimps who push “NRA-approved” life insurance policies, and whoever else I’ve missed.

Keep, but rename the youth- and training programs, because that’s all the NRA is good for.

Feel free to take me to task for all the great things the NRA is supposed to have done for gun owners over the years, because in the immortal words of someone talking about something else, taken all together it doesn’t amount to a bucket of cold spit.  And that includes the NRA-ILA, which has a woeful track record in its stated purpose.

Forget about this lobbying group, and if you’re going to give money to the Cause, direct it towards the Second Amendment Foundation*, which does stuff like file successful lawsuits against the gun-grabbers — you know, things that actually work.

But the NRA?  Drop them all down a nearby well, them and their fucking “Foundation”.


*full disclosure:  I have nothing to do with the SAF and never have.  I have over the years, had plenty to do with the NRA, and the experience has left me mostly underwhelmed and unimpressed.