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Smith & Wesson calls it the “Mix-Six-Shooter” because you can mix and match loads to suit your needs.
February 23, 2012
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A reader e-mailed with a question about the use and actual shape of feed ramps in modern pistols. He had apparently witnessed a catastrophic failure in a popular brand off semi-automatic pistol chambered for the 9 mm Luger cartridge. From this, he had begun to believe that certain types of so-called “unsupported” feed ramps were inherently unsafe and the use of supported ones would eliminate failures of this type. First of all, the use of some kind of feed ramp is virtually required in all pistols for efficient operation, with some feed ramps integral to the barrel and others in the receiver. Some manufacturers even build a feed ramp into the magazine. I genuinely believe that no maker (and certainly not the one the reader had named) would ever offer a pistol for sale that had a dangerous design flaw. There is simply too much at stake. The design of a particular feed ramp is developed to achieve efficient operation and not to cut corners.
February 17, 2012
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Not long ago in this blog, I mentioned the folding hammer on the Merwin, Hulbert revolvers. In doing so, I noted the interesting twist and pull system of selective ejection used on these guns. Several readers wrote to ask about that feature. I'm happy to once again talk about one of my two favorite odd-ball firearms that really differ from the norm. Merwin, Hulbert revolvers were Frontier-era wheelguns and contemporaries of the Colt, S&W and Remington big-bores that we all recognize.
February 10, 2012
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When the automatic pistol was a fresh new concept, designers of that time faced the same problem that modern designers also face—feeding. Since the slide and breech face of a pistol are directly behind the chamber end of the barrel, the pistol magazine has to be below and behind the chamber. A round of ammunition must come off the top end of a magazine, slide up a feed ramp and enter the chamber. At the same time, the rear end of the cartridge must clear the magazine feed lips and pivot upwards so the rim slides under the hook of the extractor. It is a complex series of mechanical functions that must happen in sequence or a serious malfunction will ensue. Many things can go wrong and any of them constitute a bottleneck in the feeding cycle. Curiously enough, designers of yesteryear worked out those problem bottlenecks with the help of yet another bottleneck. This one, however, was in the cartridge, not the gun and it was a shape, not a problem.
February 07, 2012
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I know that it is considered unmanly, but we are all going to have to accept the necessity for reading the little book that comes with our new firearms. Modern automatic pistols are examples of advanced design and engineering, but they are also different from the handguns of years ago. I can clearly remember a time when all readily available pistols had single-action triggers and manual safeties, high on the left side of the frame. The operating procedure was pretty much the same for the all. But then the GIs started coming back with souvenir P38s and PPKs in their dufflebags and everything began to change. For the first time, we had semi-auto pistols with both DA and SA triggers in the same gun. It was all in the name of progress, but it could be confusing.
February 01, 2012
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There are several games in which shooters can compete with handguns. There's the bullseye game for pure marksmen, PPC for policemen and IHMSA for long-range fanatics. Defensive shooters like to hone their skills with IDPA or IPSC, while Frontiersmen prefer SASS and its derivatives. I encourage all handgunners to try their hand at some form of competition because it teaches you about your ability to shoot under pressure, and that's very important. Plus, the atmosphere surrounding a match is great, particularly in the exchange of ideas, techniques and the like. It is indeed unfortunate that certain people always look for ways to get an edge, usually by shading the rules, if not actually breaking them. However, once there was a game that kept shooters from breaking the rules by severely restricting the number of rules in force.
January 23, 2012
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A reader responded to a blog with his concerns over proper use of the terms “automatic” and “semi-automatic.” In terms of describing the type of action used in many magazine-fed firearms, automatic means continuous fire as long as the trigger is depressed and ammo is available in the gun. Semi-automatic means one shot for each trigger press and reset.
January 11, 2012
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Taurus hit a real home run with the Judge revolver. Inside a few years, Taurus has sold tens of thousands of the guns which had all three of our major ammunition manufacturers creating special Judge loads. The idea of a special cartridge-firing revolver in .45 Colt with an extended cylinder that can take .410 shotgun shells apparently touched something very deep in the American shooter. Mostly, I think folks are seeing the Judge revolver as a multiple-projectile shooter, although I have no hard data to support this belief. Americans have always liked multi-function guns going back as far as the Revolutionary War, when George Washington 's soldiers sometimes used buck-and-ball loads in their muskets.
January 09, 2012
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It is really amazing how many cartridges have long service lives. During this centennial year of the great .45 ACP cartridge (and the gun that shoots it), we remember a full century of service for this legendary problem-solver. Students of the .45 know that the basic idea is more than 100 years old, since Colt made early relatives of the 1911 as far back as 1905. The desirable ballistics of a big, slow-moving .45 slug for military service goes back as far as 1875 with the .45 Schofield round and 1873 for the .45 Colt. That turn of the century era was fertile time for ammunition designers. We saw the .38 Spl. introduced in 1898, the 9 mm Luger in 1904 and the .44 Spl. in 1907. The .38 Spl. became the top police cartridge of the 20th century in America. It also was the basis for .the famous .357 Mag., which ushered in the Magnum handgun era.
December 22, 2011
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The XD(M) 5.25 is the pistol that Rob Leatham wanted all along.
December 21, 2011
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The Baughman front sight was created on special order for a senior agent and firearms expert for the FBI. Frank Baughman was well-known in the Bureau as a close confidant of J. Edgar Hoover in the tumultuous time before World War II.
December 15, 2011
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For as long as automatic pistols have been in existence, designers have come up with many different ways to make them work. And by “work,” I mean handle or operate. Another term that I have often used is lockwork, which is the functional relationship between the various components of the action—hammer, trigger, sear, etc. Basically, we are talking about a series of hand motions or manipulations that make the gun shoot, reload and return to a safe, carrying condition. When it all started, the guns were almost always pure single-action, where the hammer was cocked by the movement of a recoiling slide, then released to fire by a crisp single-action trigger. Since the hammer was cocked, the designers usually provided a manual safety. This is the system used on the enduring Model 1911 and the one preferred by many professionally trained pistoleros.
December 14, 2011
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Older revolver catalogs used to list two basic butt shapes for their products—round and square. This actually meant slightly different things in the literature of the two big pre-World War II gunmakers—Colt and S&W.
December 07, 2011
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Handgunners in search of a new target for informal plinking and impromptu competitions need to take a look at a new device I recently found. Made by a company called Do-All Outdoors, this new target is known as a bouncing ground target.
December 06, 2011
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People approach handloading from different perspectives. When I was moving every few years in the service, handloading just didn't seem to be practical. Things eventually evolved to where I had the time and space for a good loading shop. My approach may be unusual, but I was so intrigued with the game that I dived headfirst into it by selling a minty Colt Single Action .44 Spl. for enough money to buy every single piece of equipment I thought I might need, along with die sets for every major pistol caliber. While most people piecemeal themselves into the game, yours truly did it all at once.
November 29, 2011
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