Tag: Guns and such

My favorite toy

Erratum

Housekeeping, The Gun Thing

When talking about my recent acquisition, I referred to the S&W .38 revolver as a Model 60 — my mistake, as Reader Ken had originally told me that it was a Model 10 M&P (Military & Police, for those not familiar with S&W’s various nomenclatures).

Of course, I’m an idiot and can only plead Old Fart’s Disease plus (if I may make just a feeble excuse) my complete confusion with Smith & Wesson’s cuneiform-style of model numbering.  (And I mean “cuneiform” in terms of its incomprehensibility and not how they write it — although it wouldn’t surprise me if their next revolver model is termed as a.k.a. M&P, I mean why the hell not?)

Anyway… I seem to have wandered somewhat off the track — yet another symptom of OFD — so let me wind this up by making a fulsome apology.

And yes, I’ve gone full Winston Smith and corrected the earlier post, not because I’m like the New York fucking Times, but because for some reason people sometimes use me as a reference, and I wouldn’t want the mistake to cause confusion.

All that apology stuff aside, I should point out that this lovely gun shoots a lot better than I can shoot it:  at 25 ft distance, 2″ groups rested and palm-sized groups offhand.  Interestingly, I’m more accurate shooting .38+P than regular .38 Special ammo.

It has replaced the little Model 637 snubbie as an alternative carry piece to the 1911 if my clothing requires a smaller profile.

The only question remaining to be asked is:  Why the hell did it take me so long to get one of these fine guns?

[exit, kicking myself]

Reader Suggestion

The Gun Thing

Yesterday I told you to expect a story about how I came to possess that S&W Mod 10:

Here’s that story.

A Longtime Reader of my acquaintance — i.e. we’ve met in person and spent more than a few minutes chatting away — wrote to me and asked me a favor.

You see, his personal circumstances are changing (and not in a good way, which absolutely sucks), to the extent where he’s going to have to get rid of all his guns.  He’s managed to do that for most of them, but for reasons that everyone here will understand, he didn’t want to get rid of his treasured Model 10 because of all the history he’d had with it.

So he wanted to find a “good home” for the thing, with someone who would treasure it in the same way that he had, and not neglect it or gawd forbid, just sell it.

Hence:  the above gun, which now resides chez  Kim.  (And thank you again, Ken, for this most wonderful gift.)

Now comes the interesting part.

He didn’t just send me the Model 10;  he also included in the box* a little gun which I’ve always been fond of, fired quite a few times but never owned:  a Bersa Thunder .380 ACP.

Now, as I explained to Ken, I need another semi-auto pistol like I need a second New Wife (to paraphrase another Longtime Reader GT3Ted), and besides, if I think the 9mm Europellet is an inadequate self-defense cartridge, the weeny lil’ 9mm Short (.380 ACP) is going to be even less adequate.

However, I have taught plenty of women to shoot over the years, and I can recall at least three who ended up owning a Bersa simply because the little gun fit their hands nicely, the operation thereof was easy and the recoil very friendly.

And here’s the thing:  I know a woman who doesn’t own a gun herself, but who works from home and is there alone during the day while her man is at the office.  True, she lives in a decent neighborhood with a nearly-non-existent crime rate, but “nearly-non-existent” is not zero, as any fule kno.  She’s not anti-gun herself — she grew up hunting with her father — but she’s never owned a handgun, and would like to try it out.

So, as I explained to Ken, I’m going to pass it over to her with the proviso that there is absolutely no obligation for her to keep it:  if she likes it, all well and good.  And if she doesn’t, she can just return it to me.

Ken, by the way, was perfectly okay with this plan when we discussed it, and told me that as he’d read about how I’d done the same thing with a couple of my previous lady shooters, he’d passed the Bersa on to me with precisely this end in mind.

Side note:  Longtime Readers would about now be asking me why I would saddle someone with an inadequate sidearm chambering, but there are two responses to this:  any gun is better than no gun, and a “friendly” gun will always be used if necessary.  Also, Ken being the thoughtful man he is, he’d included a couple boxes of Hornady’s Personal Defense loads (which make the 9mm Kurz cartridge a lot more lethal) as well as a couple boxes of FMJ practice boolets.

So there is is.  I’ve taken the Bersa to the range already to test it for function, and it does perfectly well, chugging through the Hornady as well as it handles the FMJ rounds, with no stoppages.  And when next I see the young lady in question, there’ll be a gift from Santy under the tree for her.

Tomorrow I’ll be talking about something else that Reader Ken and I discussed.

————————————————————-

*which, by the way, went to my Merchant Of Death; so the transfer was perfectly legal, and fuck you ATF.

No Man Should

Gratuitous Gun Pics, Shootin' Time

There’s a wonderful Afrikaans idiom which goes, “Ugly is one thing, but stupid?”   (The “stupid”  is pronounced “stchoopid”, which makes it all the meatier.)

Which was my first impression when espying this little offer from PSA:

“UGLY” is for the gun;  “STUPID” is for the schmuck who’d pay nearly three grand (or the non-sale four-and-a-half grand) for this foul thing.

I don’t care how well it shoots (we’ll ignore the 9mm Europellet because in this case, the chambering is irrelevant);  this is not a gun that any man should be carrying, or competing with, or — guess who would — showing off to his friends along with his $100,000 diamond-encrusted Hublot wristwatch and $750,000 Lamborghini Astarigida*.

Ugh.  I need to get to the range and shoot some nice guns.  (see below)

*colloquial Italian expression for “erection”, i.e. “stiff rod”.  It’s what all modern Lamborghinis should be named.

Revolver Time

Gratuitous Gun Pics

It has been quite a while since I took my revolvers out for some air — I speak here not of the .22 revolvers, but the meatier ones — and as I was packing the range bag, I thought I’d drop in a quick pic of some of the old S&W warriors:

For those unfamiliar with the K-frame (and one J-frame) models, they are (clockwise from top):

  • Mod 10 M&P .38 Spec 4″
  • Mod 14 Target Master .38 Spec 6″
  • Mod 637 .38 Spec 2″
  • Mod 65 .357 Mag/.38 Spec 4″

Just so we’re perfectly clear on the topic, I love all of them equally.  Each has a specific use (e.g. the Mod 65 is my bedside gun, the little 637 a backup option, etc.), each has its own story, and a day at the range spent in their company is a day well spent.

“So why the smaller K-frame models, and not the L or N ones, Kim?”

The K-frame revolvers just fall into my hands, no muss no fuss, like they were made for them.  The larger frames, not so much.

Also, I want to draw particular attention to the first-mentioned Model 10:

 

…because I came to own it under fairly interesting circumstances, which I’ll explain tomorrow as part of a novel idea.

Large Caliber, Tiny Guns

Gratuitous Gun Pics

It’s been a while — too long, really — since I posted a Gratuitous Gun Pic, for which I apologize.  Here’s one that has me puzzled, though, and it comes from Collectors:

And here’s my question:  why on earth would anyone want a lightweight snubnosed revolver in .44 Mag?  And that especially when the entries are literally one after the other, and the prices are more or less the same?

I know, the pics are woefully small, so here’s the addendum (links in pics):

Lemme tell you, I even find the latter’s 5″ barrel a little short for comfort — but it’s still way better than that 329’s weeny pipe.

Of the Scandium lightweight frame we will not speak.

Discuss.