“Spring forward, fall back.” It’s that day again.

The daylight savings time thing got a smart enhancement this year when they postponed the turning back of the clocks to today. It allowed the trick-or-treaters another hour of daylight last night, and made things safer for all those excited little pedestrians running around the streets in the evening hours. (I noticed last night that ninjas seem to be “in” for Halloween this year. Black clad in the dark, scampering across streets…sigh. And I didn’t see a one of the little ninjas wearing the usual light-stick around their neck. Doesn’t go with the ninja costume, I guess.)

I dunno who came up with the idea of changing flashlight batteries and especially smoke alarm batteries at time change, but it made excellent sense and has probably saved lives. I’ll be doing that today. (As noted in an earlier blog entry, flashlight batteries can be expensive, especially the modern lithium type, but not being good-to-go in fast breaking emergencies is MORE expensive.)

As a gun person, I extend the concept a little and on “spring forward, fall back” days also change out the magazines in my autoloading firearms. For instance, the standard “load-out” for a duty pistol is three magazines, one in the gun and two on the uniform belt, so I try to keep at least six mags on hand for any auto pistol I use regularly. When I change the clocks and the batteries, I’ll also unload the carry mags that have been full up, and “let ‘em rest” until the next time change. The ones that have had their springs at rest will be filled up and put into the “carry rotation.” A good way to keep track of them is with a tiny spot of white or yellow paint on the floorplates, yellow for summer and white denoting winter.

I’ve heard many engineers say that this isn’t necessary, and that they learned in metallurgy class that it’s flexion of the springs caused by action and use that wears them out, and they’re not under stress when compressed. Well, I ain’t never been to metallurgy class, and can’t speak to that. However, there are other studies that say otherwise, and tell us that being constantly under maximum pressure can cause magazine springs to “take a set,” resulting in them being too weak to keep doing their job when the cartridge reservoir in the magazine has been reduced by firing, and the tired spring has to keep pushing them up. Mike Izumi is one who has studied this, and he holds several aerospace patents. When guys who are literally rocket scientists talk about this, I tend to listen. In his avocation as a part-time cop and firearms instructor, Mike determined that it was a good idea not only to rotate full and empty magazines, but to store the full ones a cartridge or two down from full capacity to lighten their load, and top them off only when he was “taking them to work.”

Maybe it’s a belt-and-suspenders approach, but that kind of caution is what firearms are all about.

Yesterday morning, I listened to the on-line stockholders’ report from Sturm, Ruger Inc., delivered by Mike Fifer, the current CEO.

I had the impression of an honest man giving honest answers to honest questions.

I knew and admired the late Bill Ruger, Sr., the company founder. He was always proud that his corporation had no debt. That’s still true today.  Too bad we never elected a man like that to run the whole damn country. Congrats to Fifer and his crew for keeping that paradigm intact.

Item: there are some 300 different SKUs (Stock-Keeping Units, or specifically different products) now being shipped out of the Ruger plants in Newport, NH and Prescott, AZ.

Item: the newly introduced products are the ones that are selling best. Welcome to typical American consumer values. “We want new! We want it now!” (That’s me talking, folks, not Fifer…but apparently Fifer is seeing the same thing.)  The small frame LCR revolver introduced last January, and the LCP .380 pistol introduced the year before, figure hugely in those massive sales, which seem to be up somewhere around two-thirds higher than the previous year.

Item: innovation is alive and well in American gunmaking. Said Fifer, “We took orders for three times what we thought the best case scenario would be, during the first 48 hours of the (2008) SHOT Show. (Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade, the primary industry show in the firearms world). We’ve been adding engineers left and right, made offers to two this week, and are still looking for more.” Concluded Fifer, “I don’t think we have enough new products.”  Fifer later added that while there are teams working on new platform products, established products are still getting “line extension” – modifications that better suit them for specific purposes for which a market has been identified. The bottom line is that new projects are getting the most attention.

This blogger’s take…

Fifer has done his homework.  He has under his command some of the most brilliant engineers currently working in the firearms industry, and some of the most savvy marketing folks who best understand the real motivations of the people who buy guns.

Personally, I was impressed as hell with their SR556 interpretation of the AR15 rifle. Fifer was candid enough to say in his talk to the stockholders, “There were some cost overruns on the SR556, but it will be a good long term product for us.” (Damn, in this blog several months ago, I TOLD ya the SR556 would be a good buy for the consumer. When the manufacturer admits it costs too much for him to make, that’s nature’s way of telling the consumer he just got a helluva deal.)

Fifer and his people get out and go into gun shops. They talk to consumers. (Interact with those who buy and sell what you make? THERE’S an idea whose time has come!)  They’ve noted that empty shelves are filling back up again, more with guns than with ammunition.

Bottom line? Ruger is a profitable company to invest in because it listens to its end-user marketplace.  That’s what makes companies successful in this country.  That’s what Bill Ruger, Sr. did to make his company successful.

I still remember standing beside Bill Senior’s grave on the day of his funeral…but right now, I have to think he would be proud of where his company has gone since he left us.

Ruger’s LCR, introduced this year, is selling extremely well.

Just got back from six days in Tallahassee, five of them at the Pat Thomas law enforcement training center both studying and teaching at the High Liability Instructors Conference, and one day prior shooting the pistol match that was ancillary to the event.  Practice was a constant thread that ran through the entire experience.

The two events that kill more cops than anything else are shootouts and car crashes.  There was heavy emphasis on preparing for both.  When your vehicle is slewing out of control is a lousy time to START getting experience in steering out of a skid.  That’s why the $45,000 Skid Car device we mentioned in the last post is absolutely worth its price for training purposes.  Training costs are cheaper than death benefits and lifelong Workman’s Comp, and those two things are exactly the stakes on the table.  As cops have long said, it’s better to sweat in the training environment than to bleed in the street.

The pistol match kinda brought that home for me, and for the significant other. She’s the current state and regional women’s champion in International Defensive Pistol Association shooting, and being five feet tall, was chosen to teach the bloc for instructors on how to adapt small-handed female officers to full-size issue service pistols.  Primarily an auto pistol shooter, she grudgingly practiced with her “old fashioned” Smith & Wesson Model 67 revolver. The practice paid off at the match: she won High Woman in the service revolver category.

I had practiced with her, something I don’t usually have time to do before a match anymore. The practice paid off for me, too.  Another truism in law enforcement is that “in a fight, you won’t rise to your greatest possible ability, but will probably default to your training.”  This course involved the police B27 silhouette target fired in competition mode, which means that the target is a 2” X 3” oval tie-breaker X-ring, fired at under time constraints from as far as 25 yards.  The practice scores were consistently 100% in “qualification mode,” but in the much tougher “competition mode” scoring they ranged from 97.5% to 99.2%.  Did I skyrocket with a flash of brilliance and shoot 100% on match day? Hell, no…but I did default to the 97.5% bottom line of performance “on demand,” and that was enough to win the revolver match (S&W Model 64 .38 Special, 4” barrel) and the pistol match (Beretta Model 92 9mm), and take the overall win.  For me, practice beforehand hadn’t delivered stellar performance, but it HAD helped to guarantee a safety net where “fallback” wouldn’t fall TOO low.

The lesson is, I guess, that the more you drill with the relevant skill, the more you retain that skill for “on demand” performance. The deposits practice makes in your bank account of what some call “long term muscle memory” give you a balance against which to draw a check when you need to pay out some skill for something important.  That’s a check you can’t afford to bounce.

There’s a reason cops practice. It’s the same reason we all should.

Practice target: Gun is S&W Model 64 .38 Special with Craig Spegel “Boot Grips” designed for concealment.

Match day. With Stage 2 of revolver event complete, score is 180-16X out of 180-18X possible, so far. Model 64 is in Ayoob Rear Guard holster by Mitch Rosen, on right hip.

Gail is happy that she has practiced with that old “20th Century gun,” S&W Model 67 tuned by Bill Pfeil with Hogue grips and riding in Milt Sparks #1AT holster.

Practice pays off. Match director Mark Rominger, left, hands Mas a gift certificate for a new S&W pistol, prize for top overall shooter. Score was delivered with Beretta 92 9mm pistol that’s concealed under Mas’ EOTAC lightweight vest.

This week I’m at the High Liability Instructors Conference hosted by the Florida Public Safety Institute. As the very theme underscores, the emergency services in America – fire, police, and ambulance – deal in the coin of human life. When lives are on the line, the civil liability is high.  So is the risk. The firefighter who runs into a burning building to save a child, the cop who races toward the sound of the guns to stop a mass murderer, and the paramedic who resuscitates a bleeding AIDS patient with open sores are all risking their own lives to save someone else’s. Hopefully, they succeed. Sometimes, inevitably, they don’t. If someone is hurt or killed, in this litigious society, lawsuits get filed, even if the harm or the death was not the fault of the official responder. It’s a classic case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

Throughout the massive, beautiful campus of FPSI, you can hear the screech of tires and the crash of gunfire. It sounds as if an action movie is being filmed.  And, truth to tell, some of this is fun.  Chasing “bad guys” and ramming them off the training track with a PIT maneuver in a patrol car especially reinforced to take the repeated impacts, or going through a curve in the Skid Car – a vehicle fitted with a $45,000 apparatus that allows the instructor to cause it to lose traction and skid, and see if the driver can bring it back under control – is fun.  Disney World could sell this experience for a hundred times the price of an E-ticket ride. But these instructors are here on business, all 265 or so of them, and the Institute is charging them only a hundred bucks apiece for 40 hours. But the knowledge they’ll bring back to their emergency service agencies is priceless. It will save untold lives in the future.

We are surrounded by reminders of the danger these people and their in-service students face every day at work. The wreath solemnly laid in the opening ceremony, to commemorate those who died in the line of duty. The Troopers’ Memorial which we pass each day on the way to classes.

We’re getting state of the art material from top instructors from around the country. But it’s also a recharging of the batteries, a renewed commitment to the jobs we all do. And it’s always a joy to be surrounded by people who accept high risk and high liability alike, in return for the high satisfaction of saving human lives and providing a sense of safety and peace of mind to others.

Florida Highway Patrol cars set up for the repeated collisions of PIT Maneuver training.

The Troopers’ Memorial reflects the many generations and both genders of FHP who have sacrificed their lives in the name of public safety. Note the older style uniform on right, with service revolver in crossdraw holster.

The helicopter on the tower, located on a live-fire range, allows rappelling and assorted other SWAT rescue maneuvers.

If you are knowledgeable about firearms and enjoy good fiction, you know how little of the latter embraces the former. This is why novelist and movie critic Stephen Hunter’s series about gun-wise protagonists, two generations of a Southern-bred military family, have become so hugely popular among us “gun people.”

My own favorites in the series include “Dirty White Boys,” “Hot Springs,” and “Pale Horse Coming.” The latter uses the device of real characters with slightly altered names when mid-20^th Century lawman Earl Swagger assembles the great gun experts of the period as a posse seeking justice in the Deep South.

Hunter does something similar in his latest in the series as Swagger’s son, retired Vietnam era super-sniper Bob Lee Swagger, decides that it’s once again “time to hunt.”

Suppose that someone murdered lefty icons such as Jane Fonda, Bernardine Dohrn, and Bill Ayers with a high-powered rifle from long distance. Suppose the quintessential Marine Sniper, Carlos Hathcock, was still alive and framed for the murders, then murdered himself?
And suppose Bob Lee Swagger joined up with real-life Marine sniper Chuck Mawhinney to right the wrong?
And suppose it all wrapped up to the tune of Marty Robbins’ classic cowboy ballad, “Big Iron”?

That’s what you’re looking at in the latest novel in Hunter’s series, “I, Sniper.”

And, best of all, Stephen Hunter’s masterful writing and plotting craftsmanship allows it to happen within that rarely achieved “willing suspension of disbelief,” which is exponentially harder to achieve when technical devices and protocols are involved, and when the audience knows those devices and protocols.

The novel’s title is a play on words that derives from a piece of gear that is a key to the plot: “iSniper.” Though there’s a computer game of that name, in the book it’s a sophisticated, computerized telescopic sight that’s only a few years out from actually existing at the level it does in the novel.Clearly, Brother Hunter has done his homework.

Hie yourself hence to the bookstore and reserve yourself a copy of “I, Sniper” by Stephen Hunter via Simon & Schuster. I’ve just finished reading an advance proof copy, and I have to say it’s the best fiction I’ve read this year.

The California house and senate have reportedly passed an egregious law that will profoundly hamper honest citizens’ ability to purchase ammunition there.

Cabela’s, one of the nation’s leading retailers of ammunition for hunting, target shooting, and home and personal defense, has stated that it will not sell ammunition in California if the Governor signs it into law. Links HERE and HERE.

If you live there, or even if you just care, you owe it to yourself and “the cause” to write a polite, sincere letter to Governor Schwartzenegger. This would be a truly ominous and ugly precedent.

My friend Dan Marcou, a retired SWAT cop and police supervisor from Wisconsin, has another police novel out. This one is titled “Nobody’s Heroes,” and it continues the adventures of a group of street cops in a small city in Dan’s state. This time, they’re up against a serial killer.

If Dan’s action scenes sound realistic, well…it’s because they’re real. He hit upon the ingenious strategy of taking real-life gunfights and simply transposing them shot-for-shot to his fictional characters. In this case, cop’s cop “Dave Compton,” a beloved street-wise patrol sergeant, relives the shooting of a real-life beloved, street-wise patrol sergeant, Dan’s and my mutual friend Marcus Young. In both cases, the good guy survives multiple gunshot wounds and goes on to inspire others, and in both the real case and the fictional version, the classically evil bad guy ends up in the ground. Marcus is of course one of those mentioned in the acknowledgements.

Brother Dan also has a way with words. When officer asks a more experienced one why he calls even the worst bad guys “Sir,” the latter replies that it’s an acronym for “Sincerity Isn’t Required.” That’s a better definition than the one I learned many years ago. At one point, the serial murderer is described as “nervous as a feral cat at an NRA picnic.” Dan’s stuff is just fun to read.

You can order an autographed copy of “Nobody’s Heroes” from Dan Marcou, PO Box 195, Holmen, WI 54636 for $20 including postage. In a time when certain politicians try to spin fiction into reality, it’s good to see a veteran street cop turn reality into entertaining fiction.

The cover story in this week’s issue of Business Week magazine focuses on the spectacular commercial success of the Glock pistol, and how a relatively small European manufacturer rose from obscurity in the 1980s to, in less than a decade, dominate a very traditional market that had always “bought American.” The piece was researched primarily by staff writer Paul Barrett. Reading some of the commentary on BW’s own website and on some of the gun forums, it appears that some gun people took it as anti-gun.

I know Barrett, and I didn’t take it that way. In fact, he’s one of the few mainstream media people I know who seems to take a totally neutral approach to this highly polarized debate. In reading his article and the related sidebars carefully, I can find no hint of editorial prejudice against gun owners. The online version opens with a video of me explaining why both police and “civilian” markets took to the Glock pistol like ducks to water. Both Barrett and his editors had the opportunity to edit out the comments in which I treated the private citizen sector with the same respect as the law enforcement sector. They did not.

I took Barrett to a couple of pistol matches so he could see why ordinary folks liked these popular handguns. In an exercise in “participatory journalism,” he took some private lessons with us and competed in the second match, using a borrowed Glock 17. He proved safe and competent for a man who has never owned a firearm and had only fired them in the course of research related to his reportage on the weapons industry. New to the gun, he did not come in last in the match.

In talking with Barrett, I got a sense of an honest reporter trying to show every side of the story he had been assigned to write. Some former Glock execs, whom he plainly showed in his article to be  inimical toward the company, had to be quoted; when I talked with him, he was trying desperately to get counterpoint comments from current Glock spokespeople.

More than a month before the article came out, Paul Barrett was interviewed for the ProArms podcast by producer and editor (PrEditor?) Gail Pepin, with a view toward getting an outside analyst’s view of gun issues in general and the gun industry in particular. It can be downloaded from The ProArms Podcast site.  That, too, sounded pretty even-handed to me. The poet Robert Burns said, “Oh, what a gift the giftie gie us, to see oursel’s as others see us.” The ProArms interview of Barrett is a unique opportunity to see how we gun people are viewed by that rare creature, the unbiased and unprejudiced outside observer who has studied us.

I can understand how some reflexively call the reporter “anti-gun” when he quotes sources hostile to someone’s favorite gun manufacturer. Gun owners are a minority long persecuted by mainstream media, and we can be as prone to over-reactions as Harvard professors who focus on racial prejudice and suddenly have a cross-racial misunderstanding with law enforcement.

Read the Barrett article and sidebars in their entirety. If you believe a media source has been unfair to you, your beliefs, and the truth, by all means speak out and hold them accountable. But, if you see the uncommon case where a mainstream story touching on guns has been done without prejudice to the guns themselves and those who own them, it’s just as important to write a comment and let the magazine know you appreciate honest, impartial reportage.

“Reinforcing good behavior,” and all of that…

Mas, background, and Herman Gunter, foreground, coach Paul Barrett on how to shoot a Glock.

Participatory journalism: Paul Barrett shoots an IDPA match with a borrowed Glock 17 9mm.

Finished the S&W seminar last night, and the thirteen or so of us who were there were by and large pleased with what we saw of the latest introductions.

On the rifle range, we were all impressed with the accuracy and smooth function of the Thompson/Center high powered, bolt action hunting rifles. T/C was famous for accurate, value-priced guns even before they became an S&W subsidiary. The distinctive Icon Precision Hunter, new this year, lived up to its name with groups well under an inch at a hundred yards. Even their low-priced ($500 manufacturer’s suggested retail price) Venture model was doing under an inch at that distance. We were shooting the Precision Hunter in .22-250, and the Venture in .30-06.

Those cute little .22s I mentioned in the last blog entry endeared themselves to all. Factory insiders told us to expect an inch and a half shot grouping for five rounds at fifty yards. We did that easily with CCI Mini-Mag ammo, which is a small game hunting and general purpose round. Chris Christian, who writes for Outdoor Life, got 1.1” in a strong crosswind. In the course of two days we put thousands of rounds through an assortment of these cute little AR15 clones, and I never saw one malfunction. It’s going to be interesting to see, down the road, what these rifles can do with standard velocity Match grade ammunition. I’m down for two of ‘em, one for me and one for the Significant Other and Adult Supervisor.

The comments on the previous entry on this topic showed the intensity with which firearms traditionalists dislike the integral lock system that S&W has been putting in its revolvers for the last several years. The keyway is an unsightly hole above the cylinder release latch, and the key that comes with the gun can be used to lock the action frozen, preventing firing if the gun gets into unauthorized hands. This produces a visceral negative response from gun folks on several levels.

First, it changes both the appearance and (subtly) the frame shape of the gun. It’s an esthetics thing. Second, it’s like dumping mandatory helmet laws on motorcyclists: experienced practitioners believe they can handle their own safety needs, thank you very much, and don’t like someone else’s safety concepts being forced upon them. Third, it’s a constant reminder of the anti-gun Clinton Administration’s attempt to force unwanted things down the throats of free American gun owners, which is why so many disparagingly call that little keyway the “Hillary hole.” Finally, there have been a few – not an epidemic, but definitely, a few – cases where the damn thing has locked itself spontaneously during firing, and that just sends cold chills down the backs of those who rely on firearms for life-saving purposes. I’ve generally run across that happening only with the very powerful guns in very light formats, the Model 329 super-light .44 Magnum with hot loads for example.

I discussed this with the S&W folks at the seminar, and frankly, long before then. There is strong sentiment among some at S&W to get rid of the lock, just as there is among those consumers who prefer classic firearms. However, the company is going to stay with them for a while because of the liability climate, and the fact that integral locks are required to sell their products in jurisdictions such as California. The feedback S&W gets from firearms retailers and general consumers is that only a small, hard-core group of gun fanciers consider the lock a “deal-breaker.”

For those who don’t like that feature, S&W added this year another gun to their “lemon-squeezer” line, a retro re-introduction of the Model 42 revolver of 1952. “Hammerless” in external configuration, it has a grip safety that will only allow the trigger to be pulled when in something approximating an intentional firing hold. Action was sweet, workmanship was good, and the little Model 42 snub-nose (weighing under a pound thanks to its aluminum frame Airweight construction) shot where I put the sights. Buying one of this series, also available in all-steel from an earlier introduction, can help send S&W the message that you’ll spend your money for their guns if they DON’T have those internal locks you don’t like.

More later…

Here’s the new version of the classic-style K-22…

Chris Christian of Outdoor Life got this 1.1 group with the 15-22 in a crosswind at 50 yards with CCI Mini-Mag .22 LR ammo.

This is the reincarnated Model 57 in .41 Magnum.

Newly introduced .38 Special Airweight Bodyguard, the Model 438, is blackened stainless with aluminum frame. Red arrow points to the internal lock keyway…

…while the lock is notably absent from this Model 42-1 Airweight .38 Special “lemon squeezer.”

Industry wide, a lot of the new guns introduced and promised at the SHOT Show the first of the year have been held up. The reason is that demand for certain current-line models has been so great that to keep up with it, the newer entries had to be pushed to the back burner. It’s true of many companies, and it is certainly true of Smith & Wesson.

I’m presently at a gun writers’ seminar in Tulsa, on the splendid USSA (United States Shooting Academy) range. We’re getting to play with some of the cool new rifles and handguns from this maker that should have been available to the consumers by now…and would have been, if the post-election gun buying frenzy natinwide hadn’t thrown production schedules into a cocked hat.

As nature gave us a panoply of its broad range of Oklahoma weather through the day — by turns windy and still, pouring rain and unremitting sun — we got briefed by S&W executives and engineers, and got to put lots of rounds downrange.

Star of the show, I think, was the coolest little .22 rifle to come along in a while. It’s the .22 Long Rifle version of their M&P 15, which in turn is Smith & Wesson’s take on what has truly become “America’s Rifle,” the AR15. Rendered with lots of polymer, including even the accessory rail, it weighs only about five pounds or so. More than a dozen of us poured 25-round magazines of CCI ammo through it, and I didn’t see a single malfunction. Accuracy was good on the “practical range,” shooting all sorts of steel knockdowns and silhouettes. We will be taking it to the longer rifle ranges tomorrow and hope to be able to bench test it for accuracy. It will sell for $499.95 suggested retail, and I predict it will definitely be a hit.

We plan to work with a precision rifle from Thompson/Center, now of course a Smith & Wesson subsidiary, tomorrow.

On the handgun side, the adjustable sight version of the 1964 Model 57 in .41 Magnum proved eminently “shootable.” Something of a “niche cartridge” these days, the .41 Mag has always had a strong following among those who really knew their guns and appreciated a heavy-duty outdoorsman’s revolver. We also got to shoot the new iterations of the great old K-22, in both 6″ barrel Model 17 and 4″ barrel Model 18 configurations. These are recent additions to S&W’s successful “retro” line they call the Classic Series.

There are also new variations in their super-popular Military & Police semiautomatic service pistol line, and their 1911 series semiautomatic pistols, and more.

I’ll get back to you after tomorrow’s shooting session, with more info, and should have some pix for you by the end of this week.