Tag: Guns and such

My favorite toy

And Just In Time For National Ammo Day

The Gun Thing

…comes this news, also via CW:

Ammo maker announces Georgia factory, hiring spree for hundreds of jobs

In July, Italian gun maker Beretta bought Norma Precision and other ammunition makers from RUAG International, a company owned by the Swiss government, for an undisclosed price. Norma Precision had already announced that it was moving its headquarters to Georgia, setting up a factory in the Savannah suburb of Garden City.

Norma said 88 current employees in Georgia would be offered transfers. Employees will make an average of $57,000 a year, said company spokesperson Rose de Vries.

Last year, Norma Precision said it imported more than 400 containers of ammunition from factories in Europe, while also delivering more than 30 million cartridges of ammunition made in the U.S. De Vries said Norma would also export ammunition from the Georgia plant. 

My only knock against Norma ammo has always been its cost.  If that were taken out of the equation, and somebody were to tell me I could only shoot Norma rifle ammo for the rest of my life, I’d be perfectly happy to do so.  Hell, I’d be ecstatic.

Reminder:  National Ammo Day is on November 19th.  You all know what to do.

Evolution

Drive Time, Gratuitous Chick Pics, Gratuitous Gun Pics, Old Fartism

In my innocence, I always imagined that evolution was a Good Thing, in that v.2.0 would always be an improved version of v.1.9.9, and so on.  (Of course, that belief has been massively degraded by having to deal with software companies, but that’s for another time.)

I understand, therefore, that evolution is not necessarily an improvement, but by and large it has proven to be so — a 2021 Corvette is a much better car than its 1961 ancestor, at least mechanically speaking.  As for its shape?  I’ll let you decide:

Regardless of the shape change (ugh), I think we can agree that the 2021 model performs much better than the 1961 model, mechanically speaking, because let’s be honest, engine technology, materials and things like suspension- and brake technology are better now than they were sixty years ago.  And even the modern shape is no doubt far more efficient in terms of air management than the older one, so at least there’s that.

Now let’s talk about guns.  Here we have a situation where the technology has hardly changed at all, materials have improved somewhat, but (say) a .22 pistol’s operation and efficiency have stayed pretty much the same.

So sixty-odd years ago we had .22 pistols that looked like the High Standard and Beretta:

 

…which, I think we can all agree, did an excellent job of putting the boolet into its intended destination.  Modern pistols, of course, do just as good a job of that — pistols like the FN and SIG:

 

…but for all their improved technology and materials, they somehow end up looking like a dog’s ass.

To return to the cars for a moment, it’s as though the Corvette:

…somehow ended up looking like this:

I know, I can hear y’all now:  “The old fart’s lost it again, jabbering about the Good Ole Days.”

Yeah, maybe.

But I’d still rather own a Beretta 101 than any of the current crop of .22 hand-bricks.

And to wrap this whole train of thought up, I want somebody to explain how ideals of female beauty like this:

…have somehow evolved into this:

Same form, same basic functions between the two models… but ugh.  No thank you.

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Winchester Model 64 (.32 Win Special)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

Kimmy likes this one:

The Model 64 was produced from 1933 to late 1957, and from memory well over 65,000 were made, making this rifle not especially rare.  (It was re-issued in 1972 for about a year, chambered only in .30-30 WCF.)

What is rare about this rifle is finding one in excellent condition, because like most lever rifles of the era, they were used hard and often.  No safe queen, this one.

And as always, you can’t go wrong with the excellent .32 Winchester Special cartridge, which turns the .30-30 “deer” round into a more powerful “black bear” round.  Its only drawback, of course, is its scarcity (and therefore 4x the cost) compared to the .30-30 WCF.

That said, just as a dangerous game rifle chambered in .375 H&H is not going to be used that often (and its ammo cost is therefore irrelevant), the same can be said nowadays for a Win 64 in .32 Win Spec — it has become a specialist rifle rather than an everyday one.  So if you’re doing a black bear hunt in Pennsylvania or Maine, for instance, you could do a whole lot worse than carrying one of these into the woods.

And I love that breech-mounted peep sight:

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Ruger GP100 (.357 Mag)

Gratuitous Gun Pics

As I was browsing through my daily fare of (gun) porn, I stumbled across this beauty:

I used to own a GP100:

For some reason, the grips (as pictured above) didn’t seem to fit my hand properly, and then there was that Ruger trigger — although in mitigation, I was comparing that pull to my Colt Python’s — and the barrel was too short for .357 Mag shooting comfort, so I ended up selling it to buy something else.

All that said, if I look at the stainless model in the first pic, with its Hogue grips and 6″ barrel… hmmm, how much would a Ruger trigger job cost?

Thousands of people love and shoot the GP100, so who am I to argue with them?

And the final comment:  I eventually ended up shooting the Python to pieces;  I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have done the same with any GP100, using the same number of rounds.