I've wanted one of these for years, and so I up and ordered one from the Civilian Marksmanship Program. CMP is an interesting program: it is chartered by Congress to provide DoD surplus rifles to the American public. They get rifles from DoD (these days there are not a lot coming back from overseas Allies; I think mine may have come back from South Korea but that's just a guess). CMP armorers refurbish the rifles so you are guaranteed to get a functioning weapon. Pricing is good (I paid $750 and it came with a nice hard case and free shipping), but what they have is what they have. Mine is a Springfield Armory Service Grade model (which means that it has some wear) manufactured in October 1943; personally I think that the dings in the stock add to its charm.
It does have a rather mysterious stamping that I haven't had time to research yet. If any readers have any hints I'd be mighty obliged.
Now this isn't really a range report about the rifle - I posted one quite some time ago and so will just point you to it if you're interested. Today is about how I sighted it in. You see, after the armorer is done you have a fully functional rifle; you may or may not have a rifle that hits where you aim - at least out of the box. You need to zero the rifle yourself, and that's what yesterday was about.
Now unless you have your own private range, you need some sort of spotting scope to look at your target after you fire a shot. If you're at a public range (as I was) you can't just traipse downrange to get a closer look at your target when the range is hot. Besides, it's a hundred yards away so that would be a lot of walking. A scope (or binoculars) is better.
The M1 has a pair of knobs that move the rear sight either right or left (windage) or up and down (elevation). You can see the knobs on the picture below, one on each side of the peep sight.
Here's a top view. The sights and knobs are right behind the open internal magazine.
The process of sighting in goes like this:
Fire a single shot.
Look at the target through the spotting scope. There will be a hole in the target (c'mon - you're shooting at 100 yards off of a bench rest. Of course there will be a hole in the target). If the hole is to the right or left of the bullseye then you need to adjust the windage knob. It if is above or below, you need to adjust the elevation knob.
My hole had the right elevation but was to the right, so I worked the windage knob. If both windage and elevation are off you probably should adjust one first until it's right, and then work on the other (e.g. windage first until you have it dialed in, then elevation). This way you only have a single variable that is changing between shots.
Go to 1.
Now I was a dummy yesterday and left the manual of arms booklet at home and so it was a 50/50 coin toss as to whether I was adjusting windage to make the zero closer to the bullseye or further away. I guessed wrong, and saw the next couple holes appearing further to the right from the X ring. Sigh. OK, dial back the other way. All in all I fired 12 rounds to get windage right, correcting between each shot. Then I scrounged some Shoot-n-See dots to cover the holes and put two clips down range.
Interestingly, even though I was shooting from a bench rest, I used a shooting sling for the second clip which tightened the grouping up noticeably. Almost everything went into the red or black when using the sling, as opposed to a bunch in the 8 and 7 rings without the sling. I'll leave a discussion of shooting slings for another day.
So there's no magic to sighting in, just a careful and deliberate shoot-check-correct-repeat process. Now I need to get out regularly at 200 yards - and then 300. Then a Garand Match, which they run at my club.
The Queen Of The World and I went shooting last weekend because we had this little beauty to break in:
The problem with Florida is that you don't often get a chance to wear a jacket, so a big 1911 isn't always the easiest to conceal handgun. This pistol is tiny, and so can pretty much go anywhere with you. Surprisingly (to me), it's chambered in 9mm (rather than .380 ACP) and can even handle +P loadings. Even more surprising (to me) is that the recoil is very manageable. It's actually fun to shoot despite its diminutive size. SIG claims that the P354 has the lowest bore-axis ratio of any handgun currently manufactured. I haven't checked this claim, but this pistol is not at all "snappy" in its recoil.
So to the basics: Polymer? Check. Striker fired? Check. Double stack 10 round magazine? Check. Tritium sights? Check. All standard.
We did a couple of upgrades. The grip is really short, and so I ordered some 15 round magazines which add about another inch to the length of the grip. They didn't arrive in time for this review, so the shorter grip doesn't hurt shootability.
We also bought the SIG laser for this pistol. You see that at the bottom of the picture here, right in front of the trigger guard. It's pretty slick - it snapped right in and there's an activation button right where your hands go around the grip. Grab the pistol and the laser comes on; put it down and it goes off. Got to love SIG engineering.
The sights are superior. Excellent sight picture, and the tritium dots are very visible in both bright and dim light.
This picture is a little off-center so you can see the laser dot. The laser comes with an Allen Wrench that lets you adjust elevation and windage. I got it mostly dialed in but need to take it back to the range to get it dead on at 7 yards.
Accuracy is fine - this is more accurate than I am. There are some flyers from other targets on the page; all of the SIG's were on the color. Heck, they'd better be with a laser and all. The trigger is great, crisp break.
So what didn't I like? Well, the magazines have really stiff springs - like I-could-only-load-5-rounds stiff. This will work itself out over time.
The grip is really short. The extended 15-round magazines should fix that.
And I'd like a manual safety. That's personal preference, SIG actually makes a variant with one to comply with Massachusetts regulations (spit) - the P365-MS.
Lastly, I do not look forward to the arguments with The Queen Of The World about whose gun this will be. Alas, I think I know how that will play out ...
All in all, I can see why this is such a popular pistol. The component systems are all mature: the striker system from P320, the recoil locking system dates to 1975 (!), and the Fire Control Unit is an updated version of the one from the P320. These components have all been combined by engineers who kept an eye on the overall system, and blend together beautifully.
The standard disclaimer:
I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.
I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.
I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting.Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.
The summer of 1940 was a dark time for the British Empire. The "Miracle of Dunkirk" had rescued 300,000 of their army troops from certain capture by the Wehrmacht, but they had to leave essentially all their equipment behind. The British Army looked around for inexpensive and quick to produce weapons for the returned soldiers and new recruits.
They bought Thompson sub machine guns in as large a quantity as they could get (or afford), but it wasn't nearly enough. In desperation, they turned to Maj. Reginald V. Shepherd and draftsman Harold Turpin, who designed this dandy little gun at the Royal Armory at Enfield. Their initials (S and T) along with the first two from Enfield (EN) gave the gun its name.
It was the opposite of the Thompson, which was nose bleedingly expensive due to the extensive machining required in its manufacture. With only 47 separate parts, Shepherd's and Turpin's gun was made out of stamped steel, with almost no machining required and only a little welding. Basically any metal shop in the realm could knock the STEN out, and they were cheap as chips - the first ones only cost 15 shillings - maybe $10 in 1940s money.
As you'd imagine, it was butt ugly. Nothing but stamped metal, a handgrip that's, well, unique (although not uncomfortable), and a pipe stock instead of the "shoulder thing that goes up".
But in the dark days after Dunkirk, it was an Ugly Duckling.
Nice shot by The Queen Of The World, catching multiple expended brass cartridges in the air.
This gun was not designed for long range, aimed fire: instead, it was purely a short range weapon for putting a lot of rounds down range. It did this admirably. The indoor range I shot at was 25 yards, but the STEN wasn't going to be accurate past 100 yards anyway. I usually try to take pictures of the sight picture but here it was beside the point - a front post welded on the barrel and a peep rear sight probably wouldn't have been used in action anyway. Certainly at close range it did the job:
Yeah, it's a Nazi Zombie. 80 rounds didn't take long at 500 rounds per minute. And they probably didn't weigh much more than ten rounds of 12 gauge, although as T-Bolt says a shottie is the worst anti-zombie weapon ever. For a swarm of zombies, you could do a lot worse than a STEN. You see, it's a very easy gun to fire:
There is essentially no felt recoil, and there is no muzzle rise at all. I wasn't even really braced like you normally would for hand held automatic fire, and I didn't need to be. When it counts, the Ugly Duckling turns into a swan. If I practiced with 500 - 1000 rounds then I expect I could keep all 80 rounds in a palm sized area at that range, and I'm not a particularly good shot.
And did I mention that they were cheap as chips to manufacture? You could probably pick up everything you needed to make one at Home Depot, for $50. The action is dead simple, firing from an open bolt - when you pull the trigger the bolt slides forward, stripping the next round from the magazine, chambering it, and firing it. The recoil pushes the bolt back, ejecting the case, and driving the bolt back until it is stopped by the recoil spring. Lather, rinse, and repeat until the rounds are all expended or you let off the trigger.
The "grip" is, well, unique. It's a little stamped plate welded to the gun. It's a lot more comfortable than it looks, and when I was shooting the gun I didn't even notice. You can see the select fire lever (basically a thick wire) right above the trigger. There's no safety, other than the safety that you keep stored between your ears.
The magazine loads from the left side which would be handy if you wanted to hit the dirt to avoid incoming fire. The magazine itself fit pretty loosely and if you held onto it then you'd get a lot of failure to feed jams. I held onto the 2 inch magazine insert port which is (again) stamped metal welded onto the gun. The esthetics were nothing to write home about but it worked really well.
You can also see the rear peep sight and the front post. In all honesty they probably could have left these off the gun for as useful as they would be. It would no doubt have saved another shilling that way.
The Queen Of The World took me to shoot this at The Machinegun Nest in Frederick, MD. I'm not usually a fan of automatic fire as there's really no hope for much accuracy and you have to pay for the ammo (well, unless you're at Uncle Sam's Summer Camp; Dad used to talk wistfully about shooting the M3 "Grease Gun" in his Army days). But TQOTW paid for the ammo, so it was surprisingly guilt free. And with absolutely no muzzle rise, the accuracy made it even more guilt free. It was a fabulous birthday present.
If you're in the area, I highly recommend The Machinegun Nest. It's very well organized and there's a good selection of both automatic and semi automatic guns to rent. The supervision was excellent to keep even novices out of trouble. Also, they have Date Night on Fridays, so our young Gentlemen readers can take their young Lady friends to a unique experience. Don't be afraid of trying the STEN, ladies - it looks like an Ugly Duckling but shoots like a swan.
The standard disclaimer:
I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.
I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.
I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting.Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.
This is a really, really good idea for a second range bag. Hopefully nothing goes wrong, but if it does, it goes really wrong, really quick.
I also think that with as many EMT folks who are also gunbloggers, a (say) one-hour first aid refresher at a blogshoot is a particularly useful idea. It won't make the rest of us EMTs, but it will give us an idea about what to do if something goes really, really bad.
The Lee Enfield No. 4 was a variant of the Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield (SMLE) of World War I fame. Most of the modifications were to make it easier to manufacture - a critical advantage in 1939 when it was adopted. His Majesty's forces carried this as they first stared Hitler's Wehrmacht down, and then took the battle to the Continent.
The rifle's name is the combination of the names of James Paris Lee (designer of the Bolt) and Enfield, the town in England where the Royal Small Arms Factory was located. In keeping with Lee's original 1879 design, the magazine is removable, but was only removed for cleaning and maintenance.
All in all, something like 19 Million Lee-Enfield rifle variants were made. All used the same bolt action and ten-round internal magazine. The action has the reputation as the fastest bolt action ever made in a battle rifle, and the Tommys all trained for the "Mad Minute" - sixty seconds where the soldier was expected to put a minimum of 15 aimed rounds into a 12 inch target at 200 yards. That was the minimum passing score, and well-trained troops would typically double that. Since the rifle was loaded via 5-round stripper clips, that means that four stripper clips would have to be loaded during that 60 second interval.
That aimed shot every 2 seconds meant that a company of British infantry could put 3000 aimed rounds down range in a minute. German troops in 1914 reported that they ran into machine gun fire; it was actually a regiment of soldiers firing this.
It fired the rimmed .303 British round, shown here next to the .45 ACP for scale. The .303 cartridge is rimmed (like a revolver round), adopted in 1888 for the (Black Powder) Lee-Metford rifle. Later, cordite replaced the black powder, which was ultimately replaced by smokeless propellant. The round was the standard British battle cartridge from 1889 until the 1950s, seeing service under Queen Victoria, Kings Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II. Quite a run. While still widely available, it's a bit spendy (I paid $18 for a box of 20 and thought it was as good a deal as I'd likely find). You might want to consider reloading these.
It has quite a bit of splat, and I found myself improvising a recoil pad after the first ten rounds or so. It's certainly not impossible to shoot, although it's is said that the Jungle Carbine variant (with a shortened barrel) kicks so hard that it was issued with a rubber butt plate. The M1 Garand has a positively soft recoil in comparison.
The sights are clearly designed for a battle rifle. The older SMLE didn't have the peep sight behind the chamber; rather, it had a U-sight mounted in front of it. You can flip the sight up, and the sight can be adjusted for ranges from 100 yards to way, way out past "Fort Mudge" (1300 yards - at least the scale goes to "13"). You adjust the range by turning the top knob. Each click from turning the knob is a very fine adjustment - it seems like ten yards or so. It takes a lot of clicks to get the sights up to 1000 yards.
The problem, as long time readers have been anticipating, is not with the rifle. It's with my marksmanship.
Eighteen rounds down range at 100 yards. The first 3 were low off the paper because I expected the rifle was zeroed at 100 yards. Walking the impacts upwards got the rest on the paper, although I can't say that I'm very pleased at my groupings. The red circles are each 3 inches in diameter, and were quite difficult to see with my (mumble-something aged) eyes. There's a decent chance that most would go into a 12 inch black target (the "Mad Minute" target), although then you'd need to put it at 200 yards.
The trigger is outstanding - an eighth inch of take up, but then with a crisp break after a heavy pull. My marksmanship was in no way hampered by the trigger.
The bolt works very smoothly. It is based on Lee's locking design patented in 1879. The design is "cock on close", where pulling the bolt back ejects the spent case, and then closing the bolt both chambers the round and cocks the weapon. There is a cocked indicator, sticking out from the back of the bolt below here. You can also see the safety lever sticking straight back towards the butt stock (in safe position). Rotating it upwards and forwards will ready the rifle to fire.
The bayonet is the "pig sticker" spike, which replaced the traditional sword type. I didn't shoot with the bayonet on, as my marksmanship can't take any more challenges. Still, this is likely lighter than the sword type, and you'd still get your stabby-stabby with this in place.
This is great fun to shoot, and attracted a small crowd at the range. While it would do fine on deer (or larger game, like Kudu), you need younger eyes than I have if you're going after anything further than 100 yards or so. Or a scope, but bubba-ing a great old piece of history like this would be a shame. It was the rifle of Empire, from the days when the sun literally never set on the British Empire. The Empire's day has passed, and this rifle has passed with it, but for those who appreciate the poetry of rifles (as opposed to the stark utilitarian prose of modern designs), this rifle brings it in imperial gallons.
The standard disclaimer:
I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.
I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.
I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting. Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.
I must say that I'm a little mystified by this pistol. I'll get to that in a bit, but first let me offer a quick overview of its virtues: it's light weight but solidly built, it has very low recoil, it points nicely in the hand, it has good factory sights, and it has a perfectly adequate trigger (meaning that if you like the Glock-style trigger with lots of takeup and crisp reset, you'll like this; if you like the 1911 style trigger, you might not).
Oh, and it's plenty accurate:
This pistol certainly seems to do the job.
But as I said, I just don't get this pistol. I don't understand what it's for. It fires these:
These are the FN 5.7 x 28 mm cartridges it's chambered for, with a quarter and a .45 ACP for scale. Hornets. Fast hornets: 23 grain bullets will fly downrange at 2800 fps (!). It's really the opposite of the .45 shown here, which is ten times the weight and less than a third the muzzle velocity.
And for the life of me, I can't imagine what you'd want this for.
Sure, in a rifle, it looks like it'd be a fine varmit cartridge, along the lines of the .22 Hornet. The velocity would keep it flat shooting out to a couple hundred yards, I'd think. What value that has in a pistol is beyond me.
The Brady crowd is annoyed by this pistol, and periodically comes out with hyper-ventilating oh noes it's teh armor piercing ammo!!!1!!eleventy!
And so while I can appreciate that this gives the vapors to the Usual Suspects, I don't understand what this is for. I don't understand the design goal. It looks like a rifle cartridge in a pistol form factor, which gives you all the disadvantages of a small caliber with all the disadvantages of a pistol.
Oh yeah, and it's fifty cents a shot, so you're paying ten times what you'd pay for .22 LR. As an intellectual exercise, it was fascinating, but I don't see one taking up space in my gun safe any time soon.
The standard disclaimer:
I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.
I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.
I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting. Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.
The 1870s saw a massive change in firearms technology, with the widespread introduction of the brass cartridge case. One of the companies riding that wave was the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company, which in 1872 introduced the .50-90 cartridge, and this magnificent rifle to go with it*.
The cartridge was fifty caliber (one half of an inch in diameter), and when propelled by its 90 grains (5 g or so) of black powder, the soft lead bullet had enormous energy which would take down even massive beasts like the American Bison.
Unsurprisingly, it became very popular with Buffalo hunters. So much so that it was the rifle used by Billy Dixon at the Battle of Adobe Walls, where he took down a Comanche attacker at the distance of a mile.
Long time readers, knowing my very modest marksmanship skills will know that this rifle is much, much more accurate than I ever will be.
The rifle is a single shot action (i.e. no magazine), where the lever that doubles as the trigger guard opens the breach by dropping a massive block. This "falling block" design made the rifle extremely strong, and able to stand up to the pressures generated by the massive cartridge.
This is a reproduction that Ye Old Furt graciously let me shoot. The case hardening was so sweet that I was afraid I was going to drool on it. The trigger is pretty interesting. You can use the trigger normally, in which case, you simply squeeze the front trigger like you would on any rifle. Alternatively, you can use the second trigger to "set" the first, making it a hair trigger. The hunters would do this when they were shooting at very long distance, and had to wait for that instant when their target was in their sights.
Given the, err, exuberant recoil this rifle packs, I didn't quite dare. Plus, I was shooting at a measly 100 yards, which was no test of the rifle at all. Me, that's a different story, although aiming at center mass delivered a hole in center mass. Rather gratifying, actually.
The ammunition is spendy, I'd imagine. The cartridge is obsolete, and so you either need to reload or buy from someone who does. It's also dirty - it's black powder, after all. The barrel didn't seem to get fouled with the dozen or so rounds we jointly launched down range, but this isn't a clean-your-gun-once-a-year deal like a Glock.
So let's see: obsolete, loud, dirty, and kicks like a mule. I want one so badly that I can taste it. Come to think of it, this may be a rifle that matches my own temperament: obsolete, loud, dirty, and kicks like a mule.
What would hold me back (other than the obvious downside of the expense) is knowing that I cannot come close to shooting this rifle as well as it deserves. This looks like something that gets comfortable at 500 yards or more, sort of like a Porche that never feels like it's quite alive at 55 MPH.
But there was a puddle of History on the ground, where it had been dripping off this rifle. And there's no denying that shooting it drew a crowd, in a way that no AR ever will. Thanks to Ye Old Furt for sharing a bit of history with me.
* Trivia: the last rifle introduced by the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company was designed by Hugo Borchardt, who went on to design the first auto-loading pistol.
I got this compact 1911 pattern .45 ACP pistol for the 100th anniversary of the Army's adoption of the design. And because I can, now that I don't live in Massachusetts. But a new gun that's never been fired makes Baby Vulcan cry, and so it was off to the range.
This is an interesting gun, in a good way. It's very small for a 1911, which was the primary reason I bought it. The barrel is only 3½" long. With the typical 1911 thinness, it seemed a good choice for concealed carry. The .45ACP hollow point cartridges give a lot of peace of mind - even if something goes wrong and the bullet doesn't expand, there's still plenty of splat at the naughty end.
Citadel is one of the brands of Armscor, which also owns Rock Island Armory, High Standard, and STI Spartan. Like the RIA 1911s, my Citadel was manufactured in the Philippines. The quality seems very good, which was a major factor in my purchase decision. Despite its small size, this is a heavy pistol (2.2 lbs unloaded). The frame is steel, as you can see in this picture. The Mrs.' SIG is on the left (disassembled frame/barrel and slide are SIG, the rest is the disassembled Citadel).
You can see that it's not much bigger than her SIG P230. Because it's compact, it doesn't (can't?) use a barrel bushing. To disassemble, you lock the slide back, and then insert a paper clip into a hole in the full-length guide rod. In the picture above, you can see a blue paper clip holding the spring back. Then you can let the slide forward until it hits the paper clip, at which point you can remove the slide lock and the slide itself. It's a lot simpler than it sounds, but I must confess that I had to poke around Youtube for a bit to find a video that showed how to do it.
A note to new shooters: Youtube has a huge number of really good videos for things like gun disassembly/reassembly.
It shoots great - hey, it's a 1911, right? Long time readers know that my marksmanship is modest at best, but here's my first shot (target at 24 feet). There's a reason that so many people use 1911 pattern pistols in competitions. Yes, they're heavy, but they shoot straight and the weight helps control recoil well.
This one is short, and so has a very slightly "snappy" recoil. The usual 1911 recoil is almost pleasant - more of a push back into your hand than an upwards rotation. This has more muzzle rise than you'd get with a full size 1911, but I found it very controllable. I had tried a Smith & Wesson M&P in .45 ACP, and found it decidedly "snappy" and unpleasant to shoot. This is nothing like that; it's very quick to get back on target, because it doesn't go very much off target.
The sights are decent, for a low/mid end production gun. I expect that I'll ultimately upgrade to something like tritium sights eventually, but out of the box these are perfectly serviceable.
The trigger is surprisingly good. The manual claims a 1.8 kg pull (I haven't been able to test this), but it seems a combination of not-too-heavy/not-too-light. This is admittedly subjective, but the Range Safety Officer remarked on how good the trigger was, so it's not just me. There's very little movement required: maybe an eighth of an inch pull. I quite like this feel, as opposed to a military style trigger like on the Beretta 92. The Beretta trigger feels "spongy" to me, with a lot of "take up" before the trigger is ready to break. Unlike this, the Citadel's trigger is crisp. I'm quite happy with it as-is; unlike the sights, I doubt that I'd feel the need for a trigger job down the line.
One thing that has been odd is that the slide doesn't quite return to battery sometimes, stopping perhaps an eighth of an inch before a full reset. #2 Son and I put 15 magazines through it yesterday, and we experienced this 5 times. I suspect that this may disappear after running 400 or 500 rounds through it, cleaning and lubricating it after each range trip. If not, then it'll be back to the gun store for them to figure it out. I've been using Remington Rem Oil to lubricate the slide; if anyone has any suggestions for something better, please leave a comment.
So far, I'm happy with it. Assuming that I get the slide issue figured out, I'll be really happy with it. The quality seems very good for the price ($550), and the size and heft were what I was looking for in a CCW pistol.
Oh, and the standard disclaimer:
I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited.
I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.
I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting. Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.
Reader Erich was kind enough to take me to the Albuquerque Range the last time I was out there (and a very nice range it is). He was also kind enough to let me shoot his Chiappa Rhino, which is a very interesting revolver.
Long time readers know that I have a sentimental streak for traditional firearms, one that runs pretty deep. This is not a traditional revolver. In fact, your first impression might be that it's a pretty hideous design. Your first impression would be wrong.
The design works, and works brilliantly. This is a .357 Magnum revolver weighing 25 ounces (!) that is simply a pleasure to shoot. And therein lies the tale of the design.
The most important part of the design is the barrel placement, which is aligned with the bottom cylinder, not the top one. Chiappa describes why:
The new Chiappa Rhino barrel is aligned with the bottom most chamber which is the key component to Rhino's tame characteristics. The position of the barrel lowers the center of gravity and yields a centerline of the bore more in line with the shooter's arm allowing for the most natural "point ability" while engaging a target. This characteristic also drastically reduces both recoil and muzzle flip which insures subsequent shots to be on target faster than ever before. The reduction of the recoil allows for the use of ultra light alloys to be used in the construction of the Rhino minimizing any adverse effect.[bold in the original - Borepatch]
While the revolver is quite frankly butt-ugly, Chiappa's description is entirely correct. There is no muzzle flip, even when shooting 195 grain .357 Magnum loads. Remember - the revolver only weighs a pound and a half.
You can see the barrel placement here. It puts the recoil force vector in line with your hand and arm, so the recoil is if anything like what you'd get from a 1911 - a soft push, rather than the snappy rotation that I'm used to with .357 revolvers.
Like I said, this is not your Dad's .357 snubby. Erich brought along a Colt Detective Special (IIRC, this is the same as JayG's "Snubby From Hell"). Almost the same size and weight, but ferociously unpleasant to shoot.
There's a lot to like about revolvers for a concealed carry gun, not least of which is that your "malfunction drill" is "pull the trigger again". Despite every fiber of my being screaming at the top of it's lungs ugly plastic space gun, this would be a very, very good choice. If you're considering a CCW revolver, you really need to look into one of these.
One potential downside is that they seem kind of spendy - north of $800 not so long ago, although street prices may be less.
Once again, a huge thanks to Erich for a fabulous morning at the range, and the chance to shoot one of the most interesting guns I've ever fired. Erich put up a detailed post about his experiences with his Rhino, that's well worth your time, although it appears that registration is now required.
The standard disclaimer:
I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.
I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.
I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting. Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.
#1 Son accompanied me to the range yesterday, and practiced his photography-fu. They had a pistol in their display case that I'd never shot before, the Fabrique Nationale P-9 semiautomatic in 9mm.
Shown next to quarter and penny for size perspective. The P-9 is a more or less basic semiautomatic, reminiscent of a SIG. Large Standard capacity magazine shown, because we were shooting in the United States of America (New Hampshire subdivision), rather than the People's Republic of Massachusetts.
It's a handy pistol with a solid, reliable feel to it. The sights are excellent - square black front post with white dot matched with square black rear posts with white dots made aligning on target quick and accurate.
My groupings were decent for me - 3" to 4" groups at 30 feet. Regular readers know that my marksmanship is modest, and this pistol is certainly more accurate than I am. I expect that if I shot it regularly, I'd be able to tighten things up considerably.
I'm right handed, but not everyone is; the safety can be worked from either side, which seems pretty handy for southpaws.
One feature that I found a little jarring was the de-cocking lever, which was combined with the safety. Up for safe, down for fire, down even more to de-cock the hammer. This seemed a bit counter-intuitive to me, but I guess that this would keep you from de-cocking when you made the gun safe. On the other hand, it seems like you might de-cock when you were ready to shoot, which seems worse. It's not like this was hard or anything, just that it seemed different than I expected. Your mileage may vary.
Since this is New England, no ride home from the range is complete without Moxie. Not only caffeinated and refreshing, but Green, too: I'm given to understand that it's made with Coal Tar, so you're helping to clean up America. Well done, you!
I had heard the quote, of course, but hadn't understood why until yesterday. Regular readers know that my marksmanship is modest at best - I didn't grow up on a farm, or even shooting regularly. I'm pretty typical of the kind of fellow who would have joined up back in World War II: I've shot a rifle before, but not often or at range, and never for accuracy.
This rifle makes even a guy like me look like a good shot.
ASM826 was unbelievably kind enough to take #2 Son and me to the range yesterday, along with reader Dan. The big event of the day was shooting ASM826's Garand. While I'd shot the M1 a couple times, it was just plinking at one of the New England Blogshoots. ASM826 - as you'd expect from a former Marine - insisted on a more rigorous trial. Iron sights, at the maximum 100 yard distance that the range offered. I settled in, with Dan on the spotting scope, ready to watch me miss the danged target.
Careful loading the clip, as the bolt likes to eat the thumbs of shooters who let their digits linger in the breach during loading. The recoil from the .30-06 cartridges was surprisingly mild. Perhaps it was padding from the jackets warding off the February chill, but more likely it was the 11 pound weight of the rifle. Eight shots, and then we walked down to see if I'd gotten any rounds onto the paper.
Like I said, this rifle makes even a duffer like me into a decent shot. This is my grouping from the first time I'd shot a Garand at a target. Four of the eight in the ten ring!
Like I told ASM826 and Dan, you'll never shut me up about my marksmanship now.
Next was prone (seen below, posed for the camera). This was my first introduction to the shooting sling, discussed at length in Jeff Cooper's The Art Of The Rifle. You can see the sling looping between my upper left arm and my left hand. As a rifle n00b, I'd never done this, and was astonished at how it positively immobilized the rifle. I could completely relax my muscles, and the muzzle stayed on target.
This is even more accurate than shooting from the bench, it seemed. The iron sights were excellent - a pin-hole rear sight with a square front post. My eyes (sadly) are not as young as they once were, but the target lined up easily. ASM826 said to put the black circle of the target on the top of the front sight post when aiming, and this sure seemed to work well.
And so in 30 minutes of practice, I was well on my way to the skill set that an infantryman would need. Which is almost certainly the point - the way to take millions of questionable shooters and make them into soldiers who can storm the Atlantic Wall is to make it easy for them to hit the target. The Garand does that, superbly.
Thanks to ASM826 for taking the time yesterday to show just how easy it is to be competent at a basic level. I've a ways to go to shoot as well with this as Dad - after all, he got his "Expert" badge, back when he went to Uncle Sam's summer camp. But CMP (and who knows, maybe even Appleseed) are here for those of us who want to follow in the footsteps of the Greatest Generation.
Oh, and the standard disclaimer:
I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.
I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.
I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting. Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.
Since Lissa's other half has posted a TDY to Charlotte for months, it seemed like a good excuse to meet up at the range for some shooty goodness and recoil therapy. Labor Day morning turned out to be a perfect time, since things were a bit slow, and the nice folks at Manchester Firing Line spent quite some time with us. Ultimately, Lissa chose two auto-loading pistols to try out.
Sig-Sauer P239 in 9mm:
This is a nifty, compact 9mm pistol. Small enough for shooters with smaller hands, but with enough mass so that recoil is very manageable. The pistol and its single-stack, 8 10 round magazine are Massachusetts legal (spit), and are quite impressive.
The trigger is crisp, with very little take up. Note: I only shot single action; the pistol supports double action as well, so you can carry concealed without a round in the chamber [UPDATE: Sevesteen in the comments points out that you need a round in the chamber. That's what I get for blathering about something that I didn't try. Note to self: next time, make sure you try both single and double action.]. I'm told that the DA pull is a loooong one, but forgot to try this, so I can neither confirm nor deny it.
The sights are interesting - a white dot on the front sight is very easy to pick up. The single white dot on the rear sight took a little getting used to to figure out how it was supposed to align. However, this was me, and after 3 or 4 shots, it was pretty obvious where you were supposed to sight.
Recoil was modest, which was surprising in a pistol this small. I was expecting something snappier, and it wasn't at all. If you shot defensive +P ammunition, I wonder if you'd get more recoil.
At the risk of sounding boring, this is exactly what you'd expect from a Sig - solid, reliable (not a fail-to-feed or fail-to-eject hiccup in 100 rounds), controllable, and accurate. If I were looking for a small pistol for CCW, this would be on the short list. The only problem was that Lissa liked shooting this so much that I only got a few rounds in.
Ruger SR9 in 9mm
I like Ruger pistols quite a bit, so the idea of a Ruger auto-loader was intriguing. I have to say that I liked this pistol. Not sure I'd get one though. Let's go through the pistol and all the good things it offers and then come back to that.
It's noticeably larger than the Sig P239, which gives room for eleventy bazillion (OK, 17) rounds in its (Massachusetts non-compliant - spit) double stack magazine. If you're left handed, it has a safety and magazine release on both sides, which I guess would be nice.
The trigger was fine, with very little take up. It has a trigger safety (one of those safety-in-a-trigger thingies that are supposed to prevent accidental discharges). Seems a bit of overkill with the regular safety, but whatever.
I was surprised at how much recoil it had. Not overpowering by any means, but it seemed more than the Sig. Given how much bigger it is than the Sig, this was not at all expected. Note that the recoil is still modest - nothing like .40 or .357, just more than I was expecting based on the pistol's size. Your mileage will definitely vary here.
The sights were disappointing, not because they were bad, but because they could have been so much better. I have to admit to being a huge fan of the 3 dot style sights (one on the front sight, and one on each side of the rear sight). White dots on black sights are way easy to pick up when you're in a hurry, so this is a big improvement over older style sights. The SR9 has a three dot sight, but the rear sight dots are small and seemed dim (harder to see than the front one). Every time I lined up on target, it seemed like a missed opportunity for Ruger, at least to me.
Not that it hurt accuracy, which was better than mine. I found my groupings improving the more I shot: I probably put 60 or 70 rounds through it, and improved every time, so I expect that I'd get used to it. However, I don't think that I should have to get used to it. Certainly this could have been as good as the sights that come on Glocks - it seems a bit of a missed opportunity.
Reliability was excellent, without a single glitch in 100 rounds or so.
I was definitely making frineds with it. So why wouldn't I get one? Clearly it's not because it wouldn't do the job. It's a combination of little things:
1. I'd need to replace the sights, not because they don't work, but because they were a bit annoying. Literally every shot had What IS it with these sights running though my mind. It's a distraction. Your mileage will vary here.
2. It's big for a CCW pistol. If you're getting something this big, why wouldn't you get one of the compact .45 ACP pistols?
3. Why does it have so much recoil, for such a small caliber in a big pistol? This was initially a distraction, but only initially, and in the end didn't matter much to me.
But that's just my preferences. I wouldn't feel short changed if I had to carry this.
While we were at the range, Big Bore Bill was a couple lanes down, shooting his 500 Smith and Wesson. He ended up with quite an audience, lighting off what in effect were revolver based flash-bang grenades. Interestingly, he said that one reason he reloaded (other than it dropped the price from $3 a trigger squeeze) was that the factory loads were too hot for the range. Yowzer.
Oh, and the standard disclaimer:
I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.
I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.
I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting. Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.
