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We live in a time of fast-moving innovation. Applied technology has conditioned us to believe that anything is possible. Certainly this trend is applicable to the world of firearms. I mean this in the sense that new makers and technologies challenge existing stereotypes as to the size, weight, shape and performance of particular kinds of guns. In other words, it is not outside of reason to want a feathery-light magnum revolver. When enough folks said this, Smith &Wesson came up with the scandium-aluminum alloy that made it happen. But it sometimes happens that what the market wants is just a little beyond what technology can provide and the result is not so good.
July 26, 2011
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I have Good news and bad news. The good news is that I have every single issue of “Gun Digest,” all 65 of them. The bad news is that I picked them all up new.
July 11, 2011
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The automatic pistol was a new and intriguing device in the early part of the 20th Century. While the first ones may have come from Europe, it didn't take the canny American arms industry very long to pick up on the potential of a quick-to-load handgun that automatically removed and replaced the fired cartridge in the chamber. The guns caught on quickly and gun makers soon offered their own seme-auto pistols, particularly those of the small-to-medium size commonly known as “pocket” autos. By 1920, gun stores offered a number of both domestic and imported guns. While the market was dominated by Colt and Savage, you could also find elegant Smith &Wesson and Remington gun as well. Any one of these models is worth a complete book. But there is yet another model that was made in Gun Valley and was nowhere near as popular. It was the Harrington & Richardson .32 ACP. All guns in this category—made by these five makers—were very well made, fitted and finished. Lots of good tool steel.
June 30, 2011
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One of those odd guns that has always caught my fancy is the Merwin, Hulbert revolver and one of its more intriguing feature has recently got me “what-if-ing” again. The Merwins are a series of handsome revolvers made during the Frontier era in three sizes and several calibers. Known for their unusual twist-and-pull system of selective ejection, the Merwins were a popular gun in their day, selling slightly behind Colt, S&W and Remington wheelguns.
June 22, 2011
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Rows and rows of perfect pyramids run down the frontstrap of your pistol, all of them aligned with the precision of 8th & I Marines on Parade. It looks sharp, but it is also practical for assisting in handling the gun under stress. When your hands are wet with sweat, water, grease, mud or even blood, and you still need to shoot, those little pyramids bite into the skin of your hand and give you a solid grip on that life-saving tool.
June 14, 2011
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I recently picked up a gun that establishes just how small a true functional automatic pistol can be made. In fact, this tiny Bernardelli pistol is a fine example of the gunmaker's craft.
June 09, 2011
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At the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits in Pittsburgh, a great many members stopped me to say hello and chat for a few minutes. This is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job. Conversations of this sort are fun, develop new gun information and provide a lot of data on what shooters might really want to read about. But I fear that some of those who approached me may have come away with a wrong idea about my responses to their questions that was not a reflection of any kind of bad attitude on my part. The truth is I have a pretty severe hearing loss and I may have not understood correctly, if I heard at all. It is also an entry to one of my pet rants—the need for effective hearing protection for anyone involved in the shooting sports.
June 01, 2011
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There appears to be a modern misuse of gun terms in magazine articles, on the web and even conversationally that is causing some problems. In some quarters, it has become popular to describe certain objects incorrectly, because some folks regard this as kind of cute. It's akin to saying “ain't” when you really mean “am not.” What do you load into a modern handgun? Is it a bullet or a cartridge? It is probably a cartridge, but if that's true, the cartridge contains a bullet. Confused?
May 25, 2011
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The Wiley Clapp TALO/Colt Century Commander is nothing short of a modern-day classic.
May 24, 2011
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Trigger-cocking is a term first used in the Frontier era and almost never used today. It describes a form of trigger action where pressure on the trigger cocks a hammer from the down position all the way through to full tension and release to fire. Modern terminology for this system is double action.
May 16, 2011
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NRA members have their choice of either American Rifleman, American Hunter or America’s 1st Freedom as a benefit with their membership. All are fine books, but those of you who opt for the legendary first-ever gun magazine—American Rifleman—got a special treat in November.
May 04, 2011
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I stumbled onto a new website not long ago. The author was doing a pretty good job of evaluating the usefulness of a number of handguns that appealed to him. With an open-mind approach, he was shooting the subject pistols and revolvers in a number of different exercises, including accuracy at 25 yards and controlled pairs at 7 yards. Since I have been doing pretty much the same thing for more than 25 years, I appreciate the effort that goes into doing this, but I sometimes wonder about the precision of the information I have developed and reported over the years.
May 03, 2011
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I’m sure you are aware that Colt Firearms has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Army to produce a new service pistol chambered for a rimless .45 caliber cartridge.
April 20, 2011
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Thumbrest is a term associated with handgun grips. Usually it refers to revolvers, but some automatic pistols also have grips that include a thumbrest. Typically, a thumbrest is a carved or molded ledge of material in the top left side of the grip (for a right-handed shooter). When a shooter acquires a grip on his or her gun, the thumb rests on this ledge in a comfortably natural manner.
April 14, 2011
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I understand the reasons why this cartridge was originally designed. But I can't begin to understand why the round took the form that it did. It's called the 5.5 mm Velo Dog and it was designed in France before the 19th Century rolled over into the 20th. Imagine a straight-sided revolver cartridge case about the length of a .38 Spl., with a typical, but rather wide rim. The bullet was a .22, actually measuring about .225 inches in diameter and weighing (I think) about 30 to 35 grains. Fired from several brands of compact French, Belgian or German revolvers, the 5.5 mm Velo Dog delivered performance much like a rimfire .22 Long (not Long Rifle). Bicyclists of that Victorian era were apparently so troubled by pursuing dogs that this cartridge and the guns that fired it were the result. They just couldn't forgive Woofy and his canine indiscretions. And that's where the name came from: “Velo” is an abbreviated form of the French word for bicycle, so it is literally “bicyclist's dog gun.” In view of the annual billions of dollars currently spent on dogs, dog food and dog care, it's hard to envision a time when we deliberately produced a specialized gun/cartridge combo with which to shoot them. But it happened.
April 05, 2011
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