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Actually, it's a lot more than the smell, but have you ever been in a shop that builds plastic holsters? I have and the smell of that solvent is revolting.
August 20, 2010
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While I don’t consider myself to be old, I do remember the onset of gun-mounted lasers, especially since one of the very first wasn’t even mounted on a real gun, but rather on a movie prop. Have any of us forgotten when Schwarzenegger brought the idea of gun-mounted lasers to the masses with a SureFire, then known as Laser Products Corp., laser as the Terminator?
August 19, 2010
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Over the weekend, I took another look at “Principles of Self-Defense,” and, as often happens, a section got my attention. This time, I was struck by the chapter on ruthlessness.
August 17, 2010
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Actually, I do have a (very) few rounds left over from recent survey stories on .380 autos in both Shooting Illustrated and American Rifleman. NRA Publications Division received a great deal of feedback in the form of letters, e-mails and phone calls about these articles. The most persistent lament from readers is the lack of .380 ammunition on dealer shelves. Obviously, there is nothing that we can really do to resolve the shortage. But we can look at the situation and possibly get some kind of handle on what happened.
August 17, 2010
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Back in the late 1980's, Smith & Wesson was in the midst of a radical update of the entire product line. This was the era of the Third Generation autos that ended up filling the holsters of the majority of cops in America. It was also the much-mocked “Gun of the Week” era when an absolute flood of new models hit the market with astounding frequency. The company's marketing was, to say the least, aggressive. Eventually, things calmed down and the product line firmed up. In this period, the old line Massachusetts gunmaker produced some of the finest firearms in their history. These weren't all the self-loaders, either. While not all that well known, the Model 629 Classic DX .44 Mag. revolvers of that era may have been the most accurate wheelguns the company ever produced. There weren't that many of them, but they earned their “DX” marking on the basis of objective evaluation. It makes for an interesting story.
August 13, 2010
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Nothing will put you out of a fight faster than panic, which can quickly be caused by a stoppage or malfunction if you don’t know what you’re doing and haven’t practiced clearing your handgun under pressure. While there are numerous drills for practicing malfunctions and stoppages, a basic stovepipe—when an empty case fails to fully eject—is a great starting point.
August 12, 2010
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In a lifetime of shooting, I have been involved in a number of forms of competition. My first pistol match was in Basic School at Quantico over 50 years ago. It was a bullseye match fired on the National Match course of slow, timed and rapid fire. Over time, I became an avid, if not spectacularly successful, bullseye competitor. Naturally, I had to have all kinds of specially modified pistols to shoot the course. Later, as a police officer, I was bitten by the PPC bug and traveled all over California to compete. It was a great time (particularly when I was driving a Volkswagen and gas was 30 cents a gallon) and I had the practical advantage of competing on the same course I fired for qualification. Literally, I was training as I was competing—great idea. Then, I became interested the IHMSA game, where we shot at silhouettes of game animals at great distances. This took a powerful and accurate handgun, but the basics of the game were still sight alignment and trigger management. In time, I discovered IPSC, IDPA and SASS and had brief flirtations with these sports. Yep, I have had a heck of a good time competing with handguns. In so doing, I have developed a huge fund of knowledge on how to lose a pistol match, because I have lost more than my share of matches.
August 09, 2010
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Everyone has his or her own theory about what gun to carry. Some people prefer semi-autos because of speed and capacity, while others favor the reliability of revolvers. As a section of society, we can’t even agree on what caliber is best for self-defense with some people believing that there are many good self-defense calibers while others think that the only round for self-defense begins with a four and ends with a five. Nothing I do will ever end this argument, but I can explain my reasoning behind what and how I carry.
August 09, 2010
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One interesting gun that came out of California in the 1970s was the Thomas pistol. The Thomas was a light, mid-sized DAO gun with single-column magazine of .45 cartridges.
August 06, 2010
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I can’t help the pun—Buck may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but they’ve got a wonderfully strong brand. Back in the day, Buck was “the” knife to own. The Buck 110 has gutted more deer, opened more boxes and whittled more corncobs than all the other hunting knives combined. In their heyday, Buck was making 100,000 knives a week.
August 04, 2010
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There has been a lot of fussing lately about lead bullets. The State of California has banned lead bullets for hunting in certain areas because the endangered California condor was supposedly eating carcass remains, digesting lead fragments and dying.
August 04, 2010
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There are many ways to prevent crime: alarms, unfriendly plants around your home, staying aware and the 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms. One simple way that requires very little effort is by getting to know your neighbors.
August 03, 2010
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It must have been the last gallant battle of the Wondernine Wars, but after everybody developed a durable, shootable 9 mm pistol in the 70s and 80s, the ammo industry went into herculean efforts to make 9 mm hollow point ammo that would expand reliably and penetrate deeply.
August 02, 2010
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Remington built a brand around a lifestyle, which is incredibly difficult to pull off (think Harley-Davidson), but they did it superbly through a concept they call “Remington Country.”
August 02, 2010
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Colt is a classic example of how incredibly difficult it can be to kill a good brand. A story about Colt’s managerial incompetence, which bordered on buffoonery, first broke in GUNS Magazine in a story titled, “What Went Wrong In Harford?” The date of the issue was 1956.
July 30, 2010
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