I understand pistols that are engraved and inlayed and plated to the point that they are essentially un-shootable objets d'art, or at least I do when the guns in question are old Broomhandles or Lugers that probably wouldn't get much range time anyway. They're not my personal cup of tea, but I understand them.
What I don't get is heavy engraving and serious bling on modern MIM-'n'-plastic guns full of toaster parts. It's like seeing hand-stitched Connolly leather, lambswool Wilton carpets, and a hand-polished walnut burl dash in a Toyota Camry with stamped steel wheels and dog dish hubcaps.
(H/T to Rational Gun.)
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31 comments:
I can't disagree with you.
Cadillac Cimarron, anyone?
Hoo.
A mammoth gave its life for that first one? That's humiliating. Now we know what killed off the species: It was shame.
It's from a video game, CoD, BlackOps zombies.
I have a, um, er, um a friend, no, wait, I have nephews! My nephews told me that once you get your guns upgraded in the Pack-a-Punch machine, they have similar engraving.
Shootin' Buddy
"Rich Corinthian Leather" in that cheezy faux-pearl-finish-you'd-better-NOT-wax-it Volare...but hey, it had that groovy hood ornament you'd almost think it WAS a high-class import. Right?
Yeah, and fill the rusting-out trunk with some of those there viking SIGs, gold Glocks, and what in God's name did they do to that VP70Z?
Not sure if you'd remember the K-car that Chrysler tried to advertise as being too easy to mistake for a Mercedes (early 80s), but if there's folks who will buy that kind of advertising there are clearly folks who will buy guns like that. As Noah D hinted, shadows. Definitely not form.
Oh, the engraving on that SIG is superb, but it's like seeing the Mona Lisa painted on the back of the lid of an orange crate.
What engraving for toast? On the back lid of an orange crate you're supposed to see Jesus in the goooey deposits of squished pulp and fruit-juice.
I suppose with the plastic guns a creative-type kid can get to work with his wood-burning kit and earn a merit badge - but it would be easier to just take the slide off and let the Rottweiler chew on it.
Sigh! If Guns only came in White, Generic Boxes labeled "Gun"....
Once you've got gold inlay on the chamber hood, it's really barely a gun anymore. (And I don't know that the sights on that SIG would stand up to actual shooting.)
""like seeing the Mona Lisa painted on the back of the lid of an orange crate.""
One to remember......
The Sig has a bizzaro-world weird peep-sight rear where you have to look beneath the ship's-sail trough the square notch - my CCW Sig-carrryin' friend who saw it said, "I would prefer to be unarmed."
Remember all the gold-plated AKM's that they found in Iraq?
I don't have anything of substance to add, but the comment above makes me feel a little bad about calling myself an engineer.
And from here onward the phrase "HOT RANGE" will be replaced with "ENGINEER".
Eyes and ears people, watch those muzzles, and be aware of the potential for fragments to return to the line....
BGM
DirtCrashr,
"The Sig has a bizzaro-world weird peep-sight rear..."
The SIG is not intended to be fired.
Engineer,
"You're not an engineer."
And you're not a firearms aficionado nor an appreciator of fine art. :p
Same reason city dudes put on oilskin dusters and drovers hats, or ricers put coffecan sized tips on their stock civics, or Adam and Jamie polished turds. To make something into something it isn't.
Engraving has also crossed a line. What used to be possible only after hundreds of hours of painstaking labor can now be done in short order with a laser. I've seen a powerful lot of both, up close, and the only way an amateur can tell is that the laser stuff looks substantially better. Sooner than you think, coming to a gunshow near you, heavily laser engraved firearms with a few manual touchups to make it look hand done.
Og,
I've seen a lot of cosmetic laser-engraved stuff, but most of the deep-engraved art-pieces I've seen are still done by sumdood.
Part of the point to them is that some poor bastard with a loupe and graver ruined his eyesight.
the TALO group has created an entire industry of tacky engraving on things like ar15's and Ruger lcp's. i asked my buddy in manufacturing why this should be so and he told me that the mall ninjas had taken over the firearms industry.
code: ompolast xacti- some words from Harry Potter.
Critter,
Most all of the TALO guns I've seen have been laser-engraved, so no journeymen went blind producing them. ;)
i do know it, but they're still tacky. :)
Oh, no doubt!
I'm a lot more tolerant of tacky engraving if some poor bastard went blind and arthritic producing it, though. ;)
+1 @ OG, CNC is not art. That is the dangerous thing about living in a free country. Someone can show you something a bit 'blingy' and your assets are gone. Now, to work on that captcha.
Huh.
This just makes me want a dead basic G19 all the more.
So I can do nothing with it but carry & shoot it.
Jerry: Lasers are not CNC. And CNC machines can easily produce art, if you think of art as the design, not the implementation. Not too long ago, any graver that used power tools instead of tiny chisels was considered 'Not an artist'
By definition, really, art is not something that can be functional, and must be solely decorative, though those lines are easily blurred.
See if you can figure which pieces are hand engraved, and which laser. I know it's difficult from a picture.
i have seen some godawful hideous pos engraving and pimp jobs in my time, but i lack words with enough negative connotations to even begin to describe that sig...
i cannot think of a comparison, i really can't...
at least they didn't give it a titanium gold tiger stripe finish with red infilled lettering, and inlaid LEDs that flash in random patterns...
My idea of bling, is rosewood grips on a Sig 220. Engraving a Glock would be like putting 20" spinner wheels on an old Chevy truck.
I think your tacky car analogy is very appropriate. Even though that Sig front sight is supposed to look like a ship's figurehead (I guess) it looks more like the hood ornament on a pick up truck.
Seeing as I hate Glocks I am perfectly fine with that engraving. However, my hate not withstanding, the only really good thing about a Glock is that they go bang and not that one probably never will.
Maybe there were people a hundred years ago decrying the use of engraving on otherwise fine weapons? Maybe in another hundred years smoeone will look fondly upon some of those guns (not the viking one though).
The SIG is not intended to be fired. Oh.
But what about the Viking Funeral it inspires?
That never occurred to me. It's a GUN, it gets fired. I would have ruined it.
"There's a sucker born every minuite and they should be parted from their money as soon as possible."
WTF is that on the end of it, a shortwave antenna?
Gmac
Hey, Spud, I actually have Rosewood grips on my P220. It's an old "West German" marked P220, and honestly, you're right. It looks awesome. I kind of liked the look of it before I refinished it, but it wouldn't stop rusting.
What I don't get about the Glocks is not the engraving, but the style . . . If for some reason I wanted to get a Glock or an XD/HS2000 engraved, I would want to insist on engraving that makes sense. The flourishes and curls and elaborate fleur-de-somethings all over don't make any sense on a rectangular, industrial slide sitting right above a plastic frame. I'm not an artist and won't pretend to be, but there must be images and pattens that would enhance the industrial, almost anti-aesthetic look of these pistols.
But in the end, I'm too cheap and too fickle to end up spending much money on either permanent tattooing or engraving.
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