To Mr. Robert Zimmerman who turned 69 yesterday.
(BTW there are very few good live videos of Dylan on youtube)
In all hilarity one of my more amusing discoveries for the NRA convention was my trip to the Cobra Booth. They got a LOT of press in the news about the convention because of their brightly colored pocket pistols, J-frame revolvers, and Derringers. I didn’t handle the Small Revolvers, but I’ll say the Pistols were pot-metal blow-back guns that appeared to be copies of Lorcin and Raven Arms “Junk Guns” of years past. And I’m not a huge fan of the Derringer as a self-defense weapon, their derringers solidify them as HORRIBLE defensive arms. I’ll just say that with the awkwardly long hammer stroke added with what feels like a single action trigger pull NORTH of TEN POUNDS, leads me to seriously question if the two shots and horrible reload ergonomics can be deployed to any use.
Maybe you keep a derringer for a fun range gun…your idea of fun is different than mine.
Still what amused me was the Patriot Series of Pistols. Here’s a picture of me holding one at the show.
Not at all pretty, but unlike the above guns this one was actually very light and compact, and they come in .380 Auto, 9x19mm, and .45 ACP, also they have a DA trigger with no external safety. So in design it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Also they are VERY Inexpensive Guns
Then I felt the trigger.
HO-LEE-SHIT! This was hands DOWN the worst trigger I have EVER felt, and I have pulled quite a few, and had been pulling triggers all weekend. It was HEAVY, it was LONG, it was gritty as a dirt road, and the worst trigger slap I’ve ever felt. Essentially when the sear breaks the trigger suddenly slaps back into your finger with a force that gets you wondering if you’ve just been bitten by a mouse trap. This was so amazingly bad I was dragging bloggers from all over the floor just to feel it. I snapped this picture of Breda just after she’d dry fired the gun two or three times.
Look a little closer:
The photo doesn’t give the bruise on her finger justice. This is NOT a gun that will make practice pleasant. Also I found This Review who had test fired the Patriot 45.
The slide rides on polymer rails, not on metal inserts, which are common on many polymer-framed handguns. Although the expected life of the gun is unknown, Cobra reports firing more than 30,000 rounds through one of its test guns and it is still in use….Trigger pull was stiff, and after an extended range session my trigger finger had developed a blister. This may have contributed to some larger group sizes, but it should not be of concern to the owner who may practice occasionally.
I have some concerns about the longevity of a polymer gun that molds its rails out of plastic, as far as I know most polymer guns use a steel insert for the slide rails to mate with, and of course I wonder about a gun mag suggesting a user only “practice occasionally”.
Still where do I go from here? I’m a professional scientist I could simply save up a few hundred more and get a much better pistol But I’m not everybody. I personally have a friend who keeps a Hi-point in his nightstand. Dunno if he’s gotten around to getting his carry permit yet, but if he did, I’m sure he packs it in a cheap nylon holster.
You know what? His gun’s a piece of shit, but its better than harsh language, or even a good fighting knife if he ever needs to defend himself. And you know what? He bought the gun because he’s poor, and if you don’t have a lot of money to spend on guns, you don’t have a lot of money to spend on rent, meaning you might not live in the most pleasant part of town.
So if you can afford a better gun, I’d totally get one. Still a light subcompact gun in 9×19 or .45 ACP for under $300 new is quite impressive, still I have to wonder if this doesn’t have a better trigger pull.
An amusing bit of blog fodder if nothing else!
Arrrrrr
-Weer’d Beard
Tam links a Firearms Blog post on a Ruger LCR Caboom
Go over and have a look. Its a VERY strange looking catastrophic failure. I have no idea what could have caused that. The instructor suspects bad timing, and the damage done by a bullet or part of a bullet exiting the gun but not entering the forcing cone. I’d have to see the forcing cone to confirm that. I wonder if its just not a barrel that decided to fail and fucked up the lightweight barrel shroud.
Looks like the cylinder and top-strap survived, so I disagree with Tam’s proclamation that Ruger’s robust design reputation might be in question. Still gives me pause, as I really kinda want to buy the New LCR in .357 Magnum
We’ll see
Arrrrr
-Weer’d Beard
Congratulations to the future Mr. and Mrs. William Button!
Getting married was one of the best decisions of my life, I suspect it will be for you two as well!
Arrrrrrr
Told Vector I’d post this.
Boss showed it to me, thought it was really strange, and amusing. SO here it is.
They call me Weer’d for a reason.
This guy does great youtube videos. Here are a few that amuse me.
I love to see how modern semi-autos have really come so far in terms of reliability. Wasn’t long ago people would deride semi-autos because they would jam in combat. We still have cheap semi-autos that don’t run well, or need very specific ammo to function, and of course (most common with 1911s, Berettas, Glocks, and other guns with a plethora of after-market magazines) a perfectly reliable gun can be mucked up by putting a crappy magazine into it…or simply allowing a magazine to run in the gun well past its service life. (Remember if you have a magazine that starts causing malfunctions, don’t try and fix it, just toss it in the trash and buy a new one. Magazines are like gun springs, they’re consumable parts and once they’re used up just buy new ones and move on.)
That being said there’s a part of me that cringes when I see this. Just because you gun can run for 1200 rounds without cleaning, or survive being burred in mud, or frozen in a block of ice, or used as a marine boat anchor, doesn’t mean that its GOOD for your gun. I see stuff like increased rail wear, metal corrosion, increased barrel wear, decreased overall service life.
I’m glad to know that if I was ever in a horrible situation where my gun got dragged through the mud, or exposed to lots of dust, or just couldn’t be cleaned that it isn’t unreasonable for me to expect it to run. But also I like my guns, and I’d rather spend my cash on new guns, or ammo, or other shooting supplies than replace a shot-out gun because I lapped the rails loose with burnt powder and no lube because I wanted to see how long it would function in those conditions.
Glad there are people who love their guns less than I do, because they supply valuable data, and they rough up their guns so I don’t have to!
Arrrrrr
-Weer’d Beard
Likin’ the new Digs, And I found some cool shit to link to, so have a peek.
Google has a splash page celebrating Pacman, and you’ll note that where “I feel lucky” usually is, is “Insert Coin” and you can PLAY the splash page.
Cool, but in the end it’s just Pacman which is fun for all of 20 mins for me. I like games to be…uh…different, rather than “More of the same, just faster”. Nethack is wayyy cooler.
Also Alan decided to do some number crunching on Vicious Circle and found that Vicious Circle #40 is the #1 rated by downloads. I noticed that that also happens to be the debut episode of a certain salty blogger on the show.
Dunno if I can take credit or not.
Yarrrr
So in the last 24 hours a few people have had a similar reaction to the discussion topic here: here and here with the response “I don’t want to live in fear!”
Only I don’t see it as working like that. Now I’ve never had to fight for my life, and I hope I never have to, but I have been in a bunch of scary situations, and I will personally attest that fear has never set in until I was out of options…or the dust had cleared and I was thinking about what COULD have happened.
That has lead me to to always be prepared and always have a backup plan, not only because its smart, but because it gives you something to do when things get bad other than being scared, and being scared sucks!
So just for a tie to that and also showing my personal definition of condition orange I’ll talk about last night. Last night the wife and I went for a walk around the lake, we had some errands to run in town and I wanted to take some pictures of the baby geese.
My town, and the walking path around the lake is totally yuppified, but still I brought my gun. As we were walking I noticed a car pulled off the road and onto the shoulder, just behind us. I turned my head I noted it was a late-model Cadillac in great shape with a middle-aged man behind the wheel and no passengers I could see.
Now the shoulder he pulled over was right on the lake and a common spot for people just to park and look at the lake, or go over to one of the many benches at the water. The car seemed not to be the ride of somebody looking to do me harm. If you can afford a Caddy, then what do you expect to get from the Weer’ds? And the driver didn’t strike me as somebody particularly interested in me.
The car stopped and we kept walking, and that was the end of the story, but I noted to Mrs. Weer’d that event right there was a pretty typical “Condition Orange” for me. I didn’t reach for my gun, I wasn’t afraid of anything, I just saw a car pull up behind me and “follow” me (I assume he was just getting his car as close to the curb as he could without scuffing his rims) and I kept an eye on him until I was sure he had no interest in me. It was a minor thing to do, that essentially took nothing out of my day, but it sure did add to my safety because if something HAD happened, I had my eye on him.
Turned out the Mrs. was doing the same thing. But then something different happened…
A young woman jogged by wearing a skin-tight jogging suit. I immediately checked her outline for weapons…then I checked again. When I mentioned this to the Mrs. she just rolled her eyes. : ]
So errands run, got a little bit of exercise, and I got a few pictures:
Some Ducks
The Baby geese were nowhere to be found, I’ll keep my eyes peeled.
Arrrrrr
-Weer’d Beard
Wow, looks a mess in here. Careful where you step, Weer’d World is now under construction…which is a huge improvement from those particleboard signs with some very nice computer images printed on them saying “Site of the new Weer’d Blog!” (non union labor of course)
So I gots my learning curve to figure it out and then the harder task of making this place look decent.
So talk about yourself. Feel free to drop hints and tricks in the comments (Especially hits and tips that might help me blog from a windows mobile phone)
I’ll get this place running soon enough!
Thanks for all the encouragement!
While you wait, listen to Vicious Circle #51
Arrrrrr
