Lame Post

My last gun post was Lame. Caleb Has a post up that’s a better explanation of the same video which makes sense as he’s the dude in the vid. Still this quote goes very well with some of the stuff talked about.

Dance with the one who brung ya. I’m shooting a 1911 in that video. The last time I shot a 1911 in competition? July 12, 2009. Over a year ago. Since then I’ve shot only striker fired guns and revolvers in competition.

There are two reasons why I carry a 1911.

#1. While the 1911 isn’t the best gun in the world, and there are plenty of guns that are as good as a nice 1911 for carry, in my opinion there is no BETTER gun. (Whenever I think of switching to a different primary carry gun one big thing that stops me is “But you already have a nice 1911 Commander…) Why spend money on holster, magazines, and training when what you have works just fine?

#2. The 1911 was the gun that got me into shooting, and its a very popular platform. That means that even BEFORE I bought my first gun I had run more rounds through a 1911 and handled more 1911s than any other gun. Also because of this when I finally decided to GET my first gun, it was a 1911 (The Stainless S&W Government model I wrote about before) so when I was determined to get the restriction dropped from my permit (My first LTC was “Target and Hunting Only” because I lived in an unfriendly town to gun owners) I bought a S&W1911Sc as soon as I found one for a decent price.

So while a 1911 has superfluous safeties which can be failure points, I’ve shot these damn guns so often that if something fails on my 1911 its because of parts breakage, not because I didn’t do my part.

This entry was posted in Guns. Bookmark the permalink.

0 Responses to Lame Post

  1. Seriously. The 1911 is the chevy smallblock of pistols. If there is something you don’t like about yours, someone has already come up with a way to fix it. Granted some of the fixes will require machine work, but a surprising number of things can be changed out and fitted with basic punches, files, and time.

  2. Sailorcurt says:

    I disagree that any of the safeties are superfluous. The 1911 was designed to be carried cocked and locked with an extremely light (and thereby precise and accurate) trigger pull.

    I know some of the notable and successful gamers like to pin or otherwise defeat the grip safety…and that’s fine for a gun that’s only used in the tightly controlled and regulated environment of competition matches…but for a working gun, carried cocked and locked through the daily grind of a normal person’s life, including all the bumps and bangs and shocks that could disengage the thumb safety (and has on mine once or twice), the grip safety is an integral part of what makes the 1911 the longest lived (and, arguably, best) working gun in the world.

    There’s nothing superfluous there, IMHO.

  3. ZK says:

    Having built a Series 70 1911, I’m unsure if I think the grip safety is superfluous. I don’t really see a situation where it would prevent more failures than simply not touching the trigger, but I sure as heck don’t disable mine. It’s worth noting that when worn or poorly fitted, the grip safety will typically fail on the side of “bang” not “click” which is good on a working gun, in my book.

    I do think the firing pin block on SW1911s and Series 80s is superfluous, but if it gives one piece-of-mind about drop-safety, then fine.

  4. Caleb says:

    IIRC, the grip safety wasn’t John Moses Browning’s idea, but rather the Army. The Browning Hi Power, despite having been frogged-up with a magazine disconnect safety lacks the grip safety.

    • True, but having both is fairly common on Browning’s guns as well. Both of the 1903s and the 1908 have grip and manual safeties.

      • Thomas says:

        As I Recall, JMB was LEFT HANDED and thought that a Grip Safety was simpler than an ambi safety on his initial design, but I could only be going on the HISTORICAL RECORD that he was left handed and his initial drawings…, OH, and the fact that he WAS LEFT HANDED…

        Do a bit of research and you will find I am correct, even if I don’t like them myself, and have been known to PIN THEM.

        The US Army requested a thumb safety, the original original original design ONLY had a grip safety.

  5. Sailorcurt says:

    Now that you mention it Caleb, I remember having heard that before. Tam would probably know for sure.

    Even so, I still like the grip safety. I have, on a couple of occasions, through bumping into things during the normal course of the day, discovered the thumb safety disengaged when putting the gun away for the night.

    You’d still have to pull the trigger, but with the relatively light trigger pull of a 1911, I could see that happening by accident if it weren’t for the grip safety.

    Of course, I’m left handed, so the thumb safety is on the outboard side when I’m wearing a 1911 in a hip holster. For righties, the thumb safety is inboard against their body and better protected against being banged against anything…so my feelings on the matter are probably a bit skewed by my personal circumstances.

    My understanding of the magazine disconnect on the Hi Power is that the requirement was a part of the original design specs that JMB (PBUH) had to work within in designing the pistol. I’d like to think that, if he’d had his druthers, he’d have left it out.

  6. Thomas says:

    Whilst I’m ranting about people who don’t actually know the history of the Browning designs as well as they think the do:

    Perhaps you could NOTE the hands holding things and how in this picture of JMB, and it’s not flopped over or photoshopped/GIMPed.

    http://gunownersresource.com/gorole/images/f/f1/JohnBrowning.jpeg

    People that aren’t “snarky morons” have spent decades actually LEARNING THINGS instead of thinking they did.

    Feel free to go to the museum down the road from where PO Ackley had his shop and look at lots of pictures of a Lefty who you mostly like the firearms designs of…

    Cheers.

    • Sailorcurt says:

      Dude, you need to cut back on the caffeine.

      Before you showed up, I saw a lot of people saying things like “If I Remember Correctly” (IIRC) and other things indicating that no one was asserting expertise, rather we were just having a friendly discussion while acknowledging that we don’t know everything.

      Only one person on here starting spouting things like they were some sort of expert.

      And calling people who are just having a friendly discussion “snarky morons” hardly engenders trust in your expertise.

      In fact, what that does is cause you to look like nothing more than an insecure blowhard who must belittle others to satisfy his own psyche’s desire to feel like the smartest guy in the room.

      In other words, you’re making yourself look like an ass. If you’re not, in fact, an ass, you may want to reconsider your approach in the future.

      If, on the other hand, you are actually an ass…well, then carry on, you’re conveying it perfectly.

    • Sailorcurt says:

      Because Thomas piqued my interest (in spite of coming across as an ass) and because I couldn’t sleep anyway, I did a little poking around.

      I didn’t find anything that definitively identified JMB (PBUH) as a lefty, but nothing that ruled it out completely either so I have no position on that assertion. Interestingly, I looked for more photographic evidence; Of the four pictures I found in a Google Image search that depicted JMB holding guns, three of them show him holding them in a way that would imply that he was right handed:

      http://armasonline.galeon.com/documentos/image2/browning/johnbrowning.gif
      http://www.army.mil/-images/2009/01/12/28323/size1-army.mil-28323-2009-01-15-100129.jpg
      http://www.dls-jagt.dk/jagt/artikler/browning/Image6_300.jpg

      The only one I found that showed him holding a gun in a left handed pose is the one already linked by Thomas.

      I’d hardly call one out of four photos depicting him as left handed to be definitive. It’s altogether possible, of course, that any or all of those photos could have been accidentally reversed at some point in the past 100 years during development, copying or distribution…it happens. Or it’s possible that the photographer just posed him that way without regard to his dominant hand.

      Therefore, I take no position on the issue. Without more solid evidence It’s simply inconclusive.

      As far as the thumb safety/grip safety, I found nothing that supported the claim that he initially used a grip safety rather than a thumb safety to make the gun more ambidextrous. From what I found, the original design that the M1911 was based on (the M1900, via the M1902) had no safeties at all. The first design I found with any safety was the FN Model 1903 and Colt M1903 hammerless models (they were virtually the same gun, but in different calibers)…which, interestingly, included both the (right-handed, non-ambidextrous) thumb safety as well as a grip safety…just like the later M1911 design. The remaining designs leading up to the M1911 (M1908 Vest Pocket pistol and FN Model 1910) also featured both right-handed thumb safeties and grip safeties. The only contemporaneous design that didn’t have a thumb safety (the M1903 Pocket Hammer), again had no safety at all.

      The M1911 was reportedly a scaled up version of the (safetyless) M1900/M1902 models, which may hint as to why the earliest prototypes didn’t have thumb safeties, but it’s apparent to me from the other designs leading up to the M1911 that JMB wasn’t exactly opposed to the combination of a thumb safety and grip safety.

      As simple as the design of the ambidextrous safeties that are currently made for standard GI style M1911 pistols, I simply cannot imagine that a genius like JMB couldn’t have come up with something along those lines had he really been trying to make the pistol more ambidextrous. He may have wanted to eschew the thumb safety as redundant and unnecessary on the M1911, but I see no evidence that indicate he was concerned at all about making any of his designs ambidextrous. Had he been trying to do so, I would imagine that he would have succeeded, considering who we’re talking about here.

      In summary, although I cannot boast to having spent “decades actually LEARNING THINGS”, the hour or so of research that I’ve done online has drawn me to the conclusion that the claims of Mr. Thomas are dubious at best.

      I could be wrong. It’s been known to happen; and I don’t base my entire self-image on indignantly correcting the perceived mistakes of “snarky morons” on the internet so I’m more than happy to be educated by someone with more to back up their claims than a couple of photographs with no historical context, but the limited research I’ve done so far leads me to believe that Master Thomas is as full of crap as he is of himself.

      I’d love for Tam to weigh in on this as she is, as far as I’m concerned, the final word on such questions.

      • Thomas says:

        I think you should look at the evidence of the history of the plan drawings of the pistol. Thumb safety was secondary and requested by the army. Check the Browning Museum for a day and look around.

        Tam’s a theoretical expert on firearms I actually have copies of hanging on my walls. You’re welcome to believe who you want.

        Grip safety came first. Firing pin safety came last.

        That is the history of the .45 Pistols of JMB, and he tended to design things in a way as to make themas ambidextrous as possible, which is also noticeable in some of his shotgun and rifle designs that had BOTTOM EJECTION as opposed to side ejection at times. The fact they weren’t his biggest commercial successes does not mean he didn’t have a habit of tending to develop things as lefty-friendly.

        I don’t use stimulants, not even caffeine or nicotine and I don’t particularly care if you think I’m an ass. I DO care about firearms history.

        • Thomas says:

          FWIW, Samuel Colt was purported to be left-handed as well.

          I’ll tell you what could settle this, AND it wouldn’t be Tam, it would be looking at the Patent Applications for the Colt Automatic Pistol as designed by JMB and noting it had a grip safety before it had a thumb safety. Odd thing about the patent office, they Date the applications as they file them. The primary self-loading pistol patent applications, related to JMB designs were filed between June of 1903 and Feb, of 2010.

          Then you wouldn’t have to take the word of one person on the internet over another because you could look at probabilities based on KNOWN HISTORICAL EVIDENCE instead of insulting people on the internet. That’s Tam’s specialty, her “snark” thing. I just point out when people are looking at things backwards. AS far as I know, Tam’s experience “working for an SOT” was doing shipping and receiving, more likely than firearms design.

          SAILORCURT: You’re an asshole and full of shit.
          Wally to Thomas: Hey, so is that from the factory blueprints? I wondered if that was the same or not as the earlier Stoner fire control groups.

          If it were me, Wally and I might vote YOU off the island in a metaphorical sense.

  7. Thomas says:

    One other thing, for the sake of the NON-RUDE people here:

    The original JMB design for the Army had Neither grip nor thumb safety. The safeties were primarily a request of Cavalry, and to a lesser extent the Army in general.

    I can’t talk to JMB, as he is DEAD, but I can look at machine drawings and patent applications.

    His INITIAL instincts, before being asked about safeties, was probably that if a half-cock notch is good enough for revolvers, it ought to be good enough for self-loading pistols.

    Feel free to REFUTE instead of sling mud if anybody has evidence to the otherwise, related to the actual evolution of the firearm.
    If you want to sling mud, I’ll stick to posting useful historical firearms tidbits on my own web page and not bothering commenting elsewhere, as I have the books and evidence or tend to own things, before I shoot my mouth off about them. I don’t have a Johnson Rifle YET, but I own BOTH books the Johnson wrote about firearms design, that have plan drawings in them, so I’d probably comment on those without personally having been able to take one apart. I do on more 1911 patter pistols than I could tell you without stopping to think about it and counting in my head and a rather extensive library on them.

    Oddly, My first serious class at gunsmithing college, decades ago, was taught by the Chief Pistol Smith (Retired) of the Army Marksmanship Unit, and some things I know about function of 1911s and history are in my class notes courtesy of Harold Thomason’s 1911 pistol smithing courses. For an “asshole who’s full of shit” I still correspond with a number of my still living instructors from that program multiple decades ago. And I still repair and build guns and read about them voraciously when not studying military history.

  8. Sailorcurt says:

    Check the Browning Museum for a day and look around.

    I might someday…I didn’t have time this morning while suffering insomnia at 4am. So I relied on the information that I had available.

    Which is good enough for me, because, as I said, I don’t base my entire self-image on indignantly correcting the mistakes of “snarky morons” on the internet.

    I might be completely wrong about the details and history of JMB’s pistol designs…you know what? I’m OK with that. That’s why I don’t assert my opinions or what I believe to be true based upon the information I have available as unassailable fact. Not everyone has delusions of grandeur.

    I don’t use stimulants, not even caffeine or nicotine…

    Maybe you should start

    …and I don’t particularly care if you think I’m an ass.

    Whew! That’s a relief. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

    …instead of insulting people on the internet…

    One other thing, for the sake of the NON-RUDE people here:

    Those two statements were classic. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

    Because you were the absolute epitome of civil discourse when you entered this thread, displaying nothing but courtesy and kindness in attempting to constructively dispel the minor inaccuracies in the discussion to that point.

    Right?

    In Bizarro World.

    You see, there is this thing called “credibility”. Credibility earns one respect and an admiring and appreciative audience. Credibility is achieved through a history of one’s assertions proving to be supported by data, information, demonstrable sourced and verifiable facts. On the internet it is considered proper etiquette for links to that data, information, etc to be provided by the person making the assertions.

    All you’ve offered to date is INTERNET SHOUTING, Mall Ninja-esque claims of grandeur and accomplishment, appeals to authority, and an abusive, grating manner.

    Every time Tam has made an assertion in my presence, she has provided documentation supporting it, and that assertion has proven, with a little research, to have been factual according to the information available. I checked out a few of your assertions when I had the time and inclination…assertions for which you provided virtually no supporting evidence whatsoever…and found no corroboration to support your claims.

    I believe Tam because she has sufficiently demonstrated her credibility.

    You? Not so much. Apparently, we’re just supposed to take your word for it because you know how to operate a caps lock key and can indignantly direct us to a physical location that, for all you know, could be on the other side of the planet from our present whereabouts.

    In other words, what you have demonstrated is that option “B” of my initial reply to you was actually the correct assessment:

    You are, in fact, an ass. Therefore, feel free to continue demonstrating it with every comment you post. You are only serving to damage your own credibility even further…which is actually quite convenient for the rest of us. From this point on, whenever you appear to bestow your “wisdom” upon us, I now know in advance that I don’t even need to bother looking into your claims and assertions, I can simply dismiss them out of hand as the rantings of a poor little man who desperately desires the self-actualization that comes with the attention and admiration of others, but lacks the basic tools and abilities required to achieve it.

    It’s quite sad.

    And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

    • Thomas says:

      John Browning has a museum and an autobiography WITH ILLUSTRATIONS he had a person help him write.

      You are a rude fuck on the internet.

      The fact that you don’t “have time to look things up properly” doesn’t put you in the position of being anything but a loudmuth asshole who isn’t capable of one peer reviewed publication, not unlike a lot of other snarks.

      I believe me, because I get paid to do these things and I’ve never seen “tam” anywhere on the internet. Where’s here books? Where are her articles in Small Arms Review? When was she at Knob Creek lately? What SOT does she/did she work for?

      You’re welcome to believe things wrongly, it’s a free world and any asshole pretend sailor can say shit on the internet that they wouldn’t say in polite company or even to a person’s face in a bar or brothel.

      You’ve wasted enough of my time.

      Call Marc, David, Bruce, or Paul BROWNING and ask them or pick up a fucking book.

      I was trying to be helpful by pointing out the original design didn’t even have a proper safety and the thumb safety was the last one until the firing pin safeties. You can go read, you can call me whatever names you want, and I’ll call you an ignorant asshole.

      What Gun Shop do you work at? None? Ever own a Firearms Company? Reckon that’s a “no” as well.

      So you’re just internet noise like linoge and his pals.

      I’m gonna go to bed CRYING MY HEART OUT because somebody who doesn’t know their 1911s from their own asshole doesn’t want to know the actual history of their evolution…

      Cry me a fucking river, perhaps you could use the tears to douche the sand out of your vagina?

      Worth a shot, I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on television.

      Thought for you to think on, as these flame wars on gun threads are a repetitive and moronic thing usually fueled by people like YOU that don’t have the time to actually LOOK THINGS UP.

      “It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” –Noel Coward

      You probably couldn’t be bothered to read any of his books either…???

      Prove me wrong?

  9. Thomas says:

    Just because:
    I emailed and asked your pal “Tam” for references.
    I’m willing to give mine.

    We shall see who has bonafides, sailormoron.

    If she doesn’t have any or won’t answer the email, than I reckon she isn’t any more or less of a resource than I am to you of the Tam fanboy nation.

    Put that in your crackpipe and smoke it. And read a REAL BOOK once in a while. It’d do you some good.

  10. Sailorcurt says:

    I wasn’t going to respond again, but I have to admit that you are right about me in one respect:

    I can be an ass myself under the right circumstances: I don’t suffer fools gladly. Especially arrogant fools.

    Here’s an important tip that I learned at a very young age. It’s based loosely on “The Golden Rule”: If you don’t want people to be rude to you (on the Internet or anywhere else), don’t pop right out of the gate being rude to them. There’s an old saying about it that most people learn in Kindergarten or even before…you may have heard it: “Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it”. Because if you habitually “dish it out”, you’re inevitably going to meet someone that serves it right back to you in spades.

    Besides, it’s entertaining to spin you up like a top and watch you sputter in impotent rage. It must really suck going through life allowing everyone else around you to control your emotions like a puppet on a string.

    And that’s really all I’ve got to say about that.

  11. Thomas says:

    Talked to antique dad, who taught medical school, as well as is a retired officer:

    “If somebody can’t be convinced or even expected to be thoughtful about things, you are wasting your time talking to them. Your knowledge of some of these things, being as some of the people involved are dead and only word of mouth with incomplete historical records, it is basically YOUR intellectual property at this point in history. Why would you waste your time arguing with some moron while giving away your intellectual property? You may not have designed them but you have a better understanding of the history than most people, even people that have written books about the history because you have a great love for these things. Go back to the bench and working on YOUR book and ignore the MORONS.”

    Life Member GOA, MSSA
    Tore up his NRA card when they fucked us over on some NFA stuff.
    Call Larry Pratt and ask.

    Probably have underwear older than any gun tam and “tactical-fake-sailor-child” ever fooking owned.

    You can call ALL off those people up and ask about me.

    Because I will establish BONAFIDES vs mouthy snarks.

    If you can find another person of my name in Texas that isn’t me, I’d be interested to know.

    Some people contribute to knowledge about firearms and some people are assholes on the internet.

    I AM an asshole, but I have no reason to lie or give false knowledge, it doesn’t benefit me in any financial fashion.

    I’m the guy that when some asshead wanted to beat up a gun owner and yapped around Bob S.’s place about just to beat up a gun owner, in TN, as I recall, I offered to pay for the boxing ring and the ref, as well as gloves. That ASSHEAD didn’t show up either.

    Sailor Twat. Ball is FIRMLY IN YOUR COURT??? IS IT NOT?

    CAPS ABOVE JUST TO FUCK WITH YOU FOR BEING A DILDO about CAPS that were appropriate.

    Weerd, I hope your wife is doing well, but is this dildo your friend?

    If so, I’ll sign off. You have plenty of friends and I have things to BUILD and design and WRITE isntead of arguing with losers.

    If Tam has any ACTUAL CREDENTIALS she’s welcome to respond to the email and I perhaps might speak to her on the phone.

    If nobody steps up to the plate to defend being what they seem to be, why would I bother with you?

    Was a fair question from retired officer dad, wasn’t it?

    You lose a free resource on the internet and I don’t lose anything and spend more time translating a book about arms I get paid for.

    WIN-WIN?

    At the end of the day, I can build a wheel lock and sailor twat charted up a non-victory on the internet and lost people that might help him with functional or design problems.

    tamfans too.

    Whine if you want about some unacreddited faggots that will not answer emails or establish bonafides, I don’t believe anybody who’s nothing but a BLOGGER.

Leave a Reply to Sailorcurt Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *