In the meantime, Sitemeter drew my attention to an old forum thread, where somebody asked what an internet gun forum would have looked like in 1912 when Smith discontinued the No.3 top-break .44s and another poster replied:
Today's top posts on Ye Olde Gun Forum:*sniff* That's beautiful, Tom Servo; I wish I'd written it.
"OMG, Army's going to .45 automatics. WTH?!?"
"Woodrow Wilson coming for our guns?"
"WHAT IS VALUE ON MY VELO DOG PLZ"
"S&W Hand Ejectors just not as good as the old stuff."
The next time someone is going on about MIM or lamenting the end of pinned barrels and recessed chambers and suchlike, bear in mind that the very first manufacturing change Smith & Wesson ever made to their revolvers, between the First and Second Issue Model Number 1 .22 short tip-ups, was to go from an oval cross-section frame to a flat-sided one and from a tiny round sideplate to a big odd-shaped one in order to make the guns cheaper and easier to manufacture.
One wonders if telegraph operators in 1860 bitched about it to each other?
.
And what about these golden oldies:
ReplyDelete"HELP! Best barrel length for sawed-off shotgun?"
"DEAL ALERT! Colt M1895 Machine Gun in 6mm Navy $150 + Free Shipping"
"Woodrow Wilson IS coming for our guns. ATTN Trinidad Colorado Readers!!!"
This stings just a bit. I'm not anti-mim or devoted to pinned barrels but I do cast a sideways glance at the two piece barrels.
ReplyDeleteI'm mostly indifferent about the ILS but if price was close to equal I would probably opt to buy one without.
Not mentioned but still in the same line of thought was coming to realize over the past three years I am faster overall (and not just on reloads) with a bottom feeder than my beloved wheelguns.
At least I selected the 1911 as my bottom feeder of choice. I'm just about equally fast with it as the XD-9 or CZ75B.
The real hurtful realization was that my boss who at age 38 is looking to buy his first handgun adapted to the XD and my friend's G17 faster than the old .38 M&P. Even shooting the latter in single action.
"Have you seen that Farquhar-Hill rifle? Holy smokes! 20-round drum! Who in God's name needs a 20-round drum? No one needs that much ammunition except maybe for a properly crew-served machine gun, but even then...wow. 20 rounds is just too much." To which some reply would include, "Yeah, I even heard the Browning guy was looking at a 20-round rifle, but sheez...that just can't be of any practical use. It'll never catch on," and someone else will add, "Just like that crappy old Mondragon, by ejecting automatically, it's basically sh***ing where it eats. What a stupid idea."
ReplyDeleteI'm sure some posts would be an argument to why the whole "going to a .45 because the.38 was underpowered" would include the bits about "well, that was only the Phillipines, and in the rest of the REAL world..." opposed by ,"That new Europellet 9mm will never catch on."
Certainly there would have to be total distractions like, "Have you seen the new Savage add? That lady has a cigarette, fer chrizakes!" and non-gun stuff aong the lines of, "Yeah, there' sno way they're going to finish that canal on time. Waay over budget, and those slides at Culebra..."
See how much smarter we've become since then?
How could I forget the inevitable conspiracy thread? "You wanna know the REAL reason McKinley was assassinated? Heard tell that he knew the true story about the Maine and was going to go public before the next election..." and "Of course the real reason they had to drop the Krag was that someone at Springfield finally leaked that they were actually made by Quackenbush."
ReplyDelete>>One wonders if telegraph operators in 1860 bitched about it to each other?<<
ReplyDeleteIf they didn't they should have. :)
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(Next time I run across it, I'll send a sheaf of notes I once took on early beaver trappers who predicted the new percussion cap fad would lead to disaster in the Rockies.)
LOL, good one Tam, and yes the telegraph operators probably did...
ReplyDeleteJust as buggy whip maker derided the unreliable automobile.
ReplyDeleteASCII was a mistake.
ReplyDeleteEBDIC can be expressed in octal without a bunch of hexadecimal voodoo.
"That's beautiful, Tom Servo; I wish I'd written it."
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm full of catchy snark. And bacon.
I do think telegraph operators griped about the deficiencies of Morse code. Of course, they did so in Morse code.
Telegraph operators probably also griped about switch from American Morse to International....not to mention snarking about those young whippersnappers sending messages on that newfangled "wireless" thing.
ReplyDelete"Smokeless powder is just a flash in the pan."
ReplyDelete"The New Self Contained Cartridge: Smart Or Deadly?"
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteActually if you read the old gun magazines, they did.
But with better vocabulary, more elegant sentence structure, and a broader assumed universal literature exposure for Classical references.
ReplyDelete"The army needs to get rid of that dandified 30-06 and get back to the manly 45-70!"
ReplyDeleteRifling is just a passing fad.
ReplyDelete"Jacketed bullets will just wear out those barrels in a handful of shots."
ReplyDelete[1912 Edition:]
ReplyDelete"First the .30'03, now the .30-'06! It's all a boondoggle! I want my Krag back!"
"Smokeless Powder: The Passing Fad. Laments Of A .32 Winchester Special Handloader."
"Love My New FN M.1910! Carries Like A Dream, But I'll Bet I Could Start A 'Real War' With One!"
[1850's edition:]
"Let's See Daguerreotypes Of Your Carry Rigs!"
"Rimfires: Still Not As Good As A Reliable Pinfire!"
"Which Paper Patched Ball For Bear?"