Lots of folks have planned what gun(s) they’re going to buy this year. An Internet friend on a closed forum has taken a different approach: his new year’s resolution is to spiff up the guns he already has.
I can march to that. Shortly before the end of the last year, I picked up a new Glock 17 with the RTF2 grip frame treatment. RTF stands for Rough Textured Finish, and this one is so aggressive that Glock is only making it now for police holster guns. I found it uncomfortable to wear in an inside the belt holster against bare skin under an un-tucked T-shirt; it’s much more abrasive than the standard RTF treatment on the current Generation 4 Glock pistols. Significant Other likes the way it sits in her hand, though, and she enjoys Glock matches, so this one got some Dawson adjustable sights with bright fiber optic on the front post. She is partial to light trigger pulls on match guns, and this will be a dedicated tournament-shooting pistol, so we’ve installed a 3.5-pound connector from Lone Wolf.
My favorite pistol since I was twelve has been the 1911 Colt .45 auto. Back in the Time of the Ancient Ones, as my children would call my prime of life years, I tested a then-new Colt Enhanced Lightweight Commander .45. It grouped about two inches for five shots with just about anything at 25 yards, and I don’t recall it jamming. I liked it enough to buy it, and set about making a project gun out of it for carry. I figured I’d have the best masters do each bit of work. The legendary Dick Heinie installed one of his street-concealable speed-reload magazine chutes. Pete Single, perhaps the best checkering artisan in the business, checkered the frame for traction.
Time went by, and the project slid further and further toward the back burners. I won a Commander-length Bar-Sto barrel and bushing at a match, and will send that to Irv Stone IV for his masterful installation, which should bring it from a two-inch grouper to a “one-inch gun” at 25 yards, without sacrificing reliability. I’m still trying to decide who I’ll ask to do the trigger – it’s pretty decent right now, but a plastic trigger is just not esthetically acceptable – and I’m trying to decide between Dave Lauck at D&L Sports and Hilton Yam at 10-8 for the heavy duty fixed night sights. When all that is done, it will go to Robbie Barrkman at Robar for a finish that’s impervious to weather and sweat.
When it’s done, it’ll be my “geezerhood gun” for retirement if I ever get that far. Light to carry, hard hitting, something I’m comfortable with…and, yes, there IS a nostalgia factor at work there.
I don’t usually give my guns nicknames, but I may call this one “Freddy the .45.” In the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies, the monstrous Freddie was said to be “the bastard child of a thousand madmen.” This pistol will kinda be the bastard child of a thousand madly good gunsmiths. (Well…maybe not a thousand…but writers are allowed poetic license, aren’t we?)
But, enough about my stuff. What’s your “grail gun” you intend to buy for 2012, or your project to customize a firearm you already have in your possession? Share it here!
9mm GLock 17 RTF2 out of the box…
…and same pistol retrofitted with Dawson adjustable rear sight and fiber optic front. Lighter trigger connector and oversize slide lock lever have also been added.
On January 8, the Brady Bunch suggested a lighting of a candle as a protest to gun violence.
Awww…how sweet.
The 8th, of course, was the one year anniversary of the grotesque mass murder in Tucson, Arizona by Jared Lee Loughner. His most famous victim, left brain-damaged for life, was Arizona Congressman Gabby Giffords. She was clearly his intended target.
The gun-banners made much of the fact that Representative Giffords was shot with a Glock 19 9mm pistol. They neglected to mention that Gabby Giffords had, prior to the shooting, proudly stated that she owned and had a license to carry a Glock 19 of her own. The mass-murderer was put to the ground and captured by courageous citizens, including ARMED citizen Joe Zamudio, who was carrying a pistol of his own at the time, a Ruger P95 9mm.
But lighting a candle will prevent the Jared Loughners of the world from carrying out their monstrous deeds? Good Lord…it’s like the candlelight vigils from the Take Back the Night Movement.
It’s nice to know that people care. Hell, I care. I’ve spent an adult lifetime learning how to ward off monsters such as Loughner, and sharing that knowledge with others.
Some pro-gun bloggers got together and did their own January 8 counterpoint to the Brady thing. I wish I had contributed more to that: all I did was take a picture of some strong women with candles and nine millimeters at a Glock match in Clearwater, Florida on the 8th. (Great match, by the way, and kudos to the Wyoming Antelope Club in Clearwater for putting it on.)
The decades have taught me that women won’t take back the night by marching with candles. They’ll take it back when those who prey on them learn – some the hard and final way – that their intended victims can be more dangerous to them, than they are to their intended victims.
Those you see below have it right.
If some monster tries to rape or murder a woman I care about, I don’t want him to see the flickering light of a candle.
I want him to see a muzzle flash, from the front.
I hate to paraphrase Al Capone, but a candle and a Glock will earn women more safety than just a candle. From left: Gail, Kitty, and Lisa Marie of the Alabama Holster Company’s all-girl pistol team, January 8, at Glock match in Clearwater, FL.
I appreciate all the comments about “gun folks’ Christmas”… thanks to all.
As we bask in the aftermath of our holiday gift exchanges, Significant Other calls to my attention this cute YouTube rant from a little girl who, in her thus far short life, has apparently already tired of being told “If you’re female, you need Pink Princess Products.”
Significant Other shares the child’s sentiments. Adamantly opposing the current “pretty in pink” pistol marketing, she carries black guns, presumably the better to intimidate those who would try to sell her something in Rose or Raspberry.
How unfortunate that the latest batch of firearms that came in for me to test for gun magazines included this one…
It suddenly occurs to me, the Insignificant Other, that I should perhaps round up some OTHER females to take part in the testing…
So…I just finished teaching a class with a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver as my teaching gun…and out of 21 students, only one was using a revolver instead of a semiautomatic pistol. He was 78 years old. This told me something.
That said, though, he finished with a score of 220 out of 250 possible with his snub-nose Ruger SP101, and there was at least one instructor on the line with the same kind of gun to show him how to work it, since the “least modern gun” on the hips of my staff instructor cadre was a 1911 .45 auto, and all the rest had Glocks, S&W M&P autos, or the Springfield XD. Today, I start an advanced class, and have seen the writing on the wall: I’ve switched to a polymer Glock 26 9mm autoloader as my teaching gun for this week.
About ten days ago I was in Phoenix, competing in the South Mountain Showdown, and using the S&W in Stock Service Revolver class. Significant Other and I found ourselves shooting one stage with some other revolver fans. “Cool,” I said, “we’re in a nest of revolver shooters.”
“Or maybe a gaggle of revolver shooters,” she suggested helpfully.
“A cylinder-full of revolver shooters?” I ventured hopefully.
“Or a speedloader of revolver shooters,” she said supportively.
Now, I know the proper term.
We were obviously a “museum” of revolver shooters.
Help me out here…I’m not the LAST dinosaur, am I?
It’s hunting season, for Heaven’s sake. How many of you are going to be hunting birds with a good old classic double barrel shotgun, and how many are going after the Thanksgiving turkeys with a shotgun made of Fiberglas and synthetic stocks with Sorbothane recoil pads? How many will be stalking the winter venison with good ol’ bolt action or lever action rifles made out of blue steel and walnut, and how many will be using something that’s plastique fantastique and tactique-al?
Like that guy said to Clint Eastwood in the first “Dirty Harry” movie… “I got to know.”
I joke with people that if carrying an iPhone makes you a Yuppie, I am exempt because my iPhone lives in an armored MagPul carrier, and therefore, I am at worst a “Combat Yuppie.”
Ya know, it isn’t a joke anymore.
For decades, I’ve taught Good Guys how to do building searches. Since they came out with pocket phones that take pictures, I’ve included in the curriculum the tactic of putting your phone on photo mode, reaching it out around your cover when you’re doing the search, and simply taking a picture. The camera will instantly show you an image of what’s visible from its perspective, without you having to stick your head out into the field of possible opposing gunfire to see it with your own eyes, and maybe get your head blown off for doing so.
And, for some time, we’ve had iPhone apps for calculating bullet drop at distances: iSniper.
It turns out that our innovative young soldiers and Marines have found more ingenious applications for their smart phones: maps, direct communications on the battlefield, and more. The military establishment had caught up with what our sharp young techno-warriors have often already figured out for themselves, as seen here: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20111005.aspx
If memory serves, it was Descartes who said, “I think, therefore I am.” Perhaps the new motto for those in mortal conflict may be, “iFight, therefore iPhone.”
Most of you reading this are more techno-literate than I am. Please share here any tips you have for using this technology to fight and reconnoiter, when the stakes on the table are the lives of the Good Guys and Gals.
Have questions regarding this Blog? Please email us. Comments may appear online in "Feedback" or in the "Letters" section of Backwoods Home Magazine. We read every email you send us, but due to the sheer volume of mail we receive, we can't respond to each one.
