Ink on Steel, Old and New

Issue number 40 of RECOIL: CONCEALMENT is available, and I've got two pieces in it: A Classic Carry piece on the Harrington & Richardson self-loading .25 and .32 pistols from ye olden tymes, and a 400-round review of the new Bersa B1911.

The data box David Merrill did for the H&R .25 made me spew soda out my nose...

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See the dot, hit a lot...

Back at the range with the Staccato C on Tuesday morning.

The reticle on the Trijicon RMR HD is selectable between a regular dot and an EOTech-esque "donut of death" that has a central dot, a large circle, and crosshairs-style tick marks at the top, bottom, and sides of the circle. That might be okay atop a carbine or something, and I guess it could be helpful for people who have difficulty finding the dot, but in that little slide-mounted MRDS window both Michael and I found it a little cramped and busy and we opted for the plain dot.

Anyway, the Staccato C made it through another two hundred rounds without any sort of malfunction, bringing the total round count thus far to six hundred rounds. Fourteen hundred left to go.

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Reliability Check...

My friend Michael Grasso was able to obtain a loaner RMR HD from Trijicon to use on the Staccato C test pistol. There's some question as to whether the fact that the element slightly overhanging the rear edge of the ejection port would affect the reliable ejection of spent cases or not.

I was optimistic, since I've put thousands of rounds through several FN509's wearing a Trijicon SRO, which similarly overhangs the rear of the ejection port, without any problems.

We mounted the optic, got it dialed in, and proceeded to crank out two hundred rounds at a pace that left the slide hot enough to be painful to the touch. Not only were there no malfunctions of any type, the brass does not seem to contact the sight housing at all.

This morning I'll get back to the range and we'll try some different brands of ammunition with varying power factors.

A new 2k round test begins...

So here's the new Staccato C with its redesigned magazine profile and 4" barrel. Staccato also sent along their new in-house match ammo, loaded with the 125gr Hornady Action Pistol projectile.

Yesterday morning saw me at the range with my friend Michael Grasso and 200 rounds of ammunition. I glorped some FP-10 lubricant onto the slide rails and around the flared lockup area on the barrel out by the muzzle and then it was off to the races. We only had two magazines, but we also had two Uplulas, so one of us would blaze away while the other hastily stuffed fifteen rounds into a magazine.

By the end of the 200 rounds, the pistol was noticeably toasty to the touch, however we were off to a promising start. The Staccato C went through the full cycle of operation every time with no malfunctions of any type to report. 200 rounds down, 1800 to go.

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The next 2,000 round test.

The latest offering from Staccato, the Staccato C... (with a brief digression to note that there was a previous, now discontinued, model with the same designation) ...is kind of a big deal for the company. 

In some ways it's a longer-barreled version of the existing Staccato CS and shares magazines with it, and the magazines are the big deal part. Earlier double-stack Staccatos were using magazines whose geometry was inherited from the days when 2011-pattern pistols were expected to run with rounds like 10mm Auto and .45ACP. Because they had to accommodate wider, straight-walled cartridges, that made functioning with the smaller-diameter, tapered 9x19mm trickier.

The new magazine bodies are designed entirely around functioning with 9mm, and are said to make a big difference.

Well, we've got a test pistol and 2,500 rounds of ammo to run through it here, and we're fixing to find out. Look for updates at this blog and a feature length wrap-up in an upcoming issue of Shooting Illustrated.

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But what is it for?

Ah, square trigger guards on 1911s...

"The big change on the frame is the large, squared trigger guard. This was a fad touch on custom 1911s for a hot minute back in the day when dudes wore tube socks, foam-front trucker caps, and bootie shorts at pistol matches.

And the reasons given for it vary. It provides a secure place to park the support hand index finger for those who like to wrap it around the front of the trigger guard. It allows more room for people with jumbo-sized fingers, or maybe people wearing heavy gloves.

Personally, we’re convinced that the two major drivers behind the big, square trigger guard were: A) Some people thought it looked cool and different, and B) It was not an easy modification to execute well and cleanly; it was sort of a calling card for the pistolsmith who did it. Now, with Springfield Armory’s Emissary, you can just buy it that way from the factory."

The entirety of my Springfield Armory Emissary review is online for your delectation. You can read the whole thing at the link!

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Random 1911 Musing...

Y'know, I wonder if the proliferation of relatively cheap CNC machinery is responsible for the overall rise in the quality floor of 1911s over the past couple decades?

I mean, thirty years ago if you weren't spending a G on a 1911, it was basically understood that you were buying a pistol kit that might cycle ball reliably. Nowadays even the Turks will sell you a Government Model clone that will probably run adequately out of the box, at least with good magazines and bullet profiles that aren't too weird and are in the normal 185-230gr weight range.

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Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #252...

You know how I know that I've been living in plastic pistol land for a long, long time? The Walther PDP Steel Frame Compact test pistol arrived for a Shooting Illustrated review and I was like "Jeezis this thing is a boat anchor. How the hell is anyone supposed to carry this?"

I threw it on the scale and it weighed in at a hair over two pounds, six ounces. You know what else weighs a hair over two pounds, six ounces? The Smith & Wesson 5906, as do the various full-size steel 1911s that I carried every day for something like ten years. 

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Halfway Back to the Future

On newsstands right now is RECOIL Concealment issue no. 37, which contains my review of Springfield Armory's Emissary pistol.

I liked it, but that's not much of a surprise. I think Springfield Armory is still, on average, your best value for the money in an off-the-shelf 1911 maker if you're not going to spend Dan Wesson or Wilson Combat money.

One thing I did find puzzling about the Emissary though was that, despite the very Current Year machining and modern touches like the slim G10 grips, light rail, and bull barrel, they didn't ship it with an optics cut. If I scrape up the dough to buy the test gun, which I'm trying to figure out how to do, I'm going to have it cut to take a Trijicon RMRcc.

If you're gonna go all future-y, go all the way future-y.

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Holster Fail

You know what's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me? When someone takes one of those spring-clip IWB holsters and uses it as an OWB holster on the wrong hip. Like, a right-handed holster will have the spring clip on the right-hand (outboard) side of the holster, so that the holster is inside the waistband and the clip goes on the outside. But some goobers look at these and assume the clip is to allow it to be clipped outside the waistband on the other hip.

Only slightly less wrong are the people who take a clip-on IWB rig like that and stuff it between the waistband and the belt like the gent in this photo is demonstrating...

WRONG!

The belt is barely supporting the holster there, and the whole thing is going to flop around like a freshly-caught trout at any pace more vigorous than a brisk walk.

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Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #247...

Beretta 3032 Tomcat Inox, currently getting the snot shot out of it for an article in RECOIL: Concealment magazine.

By the way, the current issue of the mag, #34, should be on newsstands now, and I've got a few pieces in it, including a retrospective on the Springfield Armory Professional Model.

"Because they don't make a 46."

The average level of training and experience in this past weekend's class was higher than that of any open enrollment class I've ever attended. Over a third of the class were current or former cops and probably half the class had been to Gunsite, including one Gunsite Rangemaster*.

As a result, the number of 1911 pattern pistols in .45ACP was higher than in any class I've seen, to include that Awerbuck class back in '09.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were no janky off-brand Government Model clones among the bunch. There were a couple Gunsite pistols and the rest were Wilsons. Three students were shooting Glocks (including me) and there was one Sig Sauer P320 X-Five and a Heckler & Koch HK45. Both of the other Glocks had dots, and I was using Ameriglo TCAPs on my Glock 37, which I was running from concealment out of a Raven Phantom carried strong side IWB. 

Yes, I scattered a bunch of .45GAP brass amongst all that once-fired .45ACP. Some brass hound at Riley Conservation Club probably hates me now.

The class started with some dry practice and as souvenirs we got a couple of the handy little Tap Rack dry fire safety training aids from Rogers. If you've never used those, they're handy little gizmos that keep the magazine follower depressed so you can function the slide to reset the action without it locking back. Yes, the .45ACP size works in Glock .45GAP magazines.

*What do I keep saying about good instructors being eternal students?

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Remembered Pain

The 20 lines-per-inch checkering on the Springfield Pro is sure grippy, but it will leave your hands bloody and taped up by the end of a three-day Louis Awerbuck class.

Even 30 lpi checkering can chew you up with enough shooting in a weekend.

Of course, if you're shooting the Austrian Drastic Plastic, there's always Glock knuckle to contend with.

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Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #243...

Springfield Armory Professional: Canon EOS 5D Mark II & EF 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro

Mechanix gloves, Bollé goggles, a black PASGT helmet, Winchester Ranger .45ACP, and a McCann Industries Puffin Magnum... I was going for a turn-of-the-millennium SWAT vibe.

For the first time in nearly a decade I found myself wishing I hadn't sold my Safariland 1911 gun bucket. Oh well...

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Stumped.

I swear I had at least a dozen Wilson 47D magazines at one time, and now I can lay hands on precisely two...the one in my Pro and the one in my CCA custom gun...and the rest have gone air soluble.

I have no idea where they are. I've looked in the Rubbermaid tub of 1911 crap in the attic, and it's got plenty of old Para Ord factory mags, Metalforms of uncertain provenance with no bumper pads that won't work in the Pro, a few 10-round 'stendos of assorted manufacture (some quite dubious), a dozen or so 9mm mags, and even a CMC Power Mag loaded with...of all things...Cor-Bon Pow-R-Ball...but not a 47D in sight.

Dammit.

It's not that big of a deal since I hardly ever shoot the old .45AARP guns anymore, but still... Dammit.

At least I found my copy of In the Gravest Extreme that I was looking for the other day. It was under the tub of 1911 stuff.

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Throwback Thursday

I've had this thing twenty-two years now. It was my main carry piece for almost eight of them. It had the "idiot mark" when I got it, but all the rest of the wear is from me.

I got it long before I kept logbooks so I have no idea how many rounds have been through it. Conservatively, somewhere between fifteen and twenty kay. Everything is still stock except, obviously, recoil and firing pin springs and those VZ grips.

I still wouldn't hesitate to carry it. In fact, I did carry it on that one trip to Gunsite a couple years back.

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Slim Future?

I recently did a review of the SIG P210 Carry for Small Arms Review, which you can read in its entirety here.

Dimensionally, the P210 Carry is basically a twin for the Commander-size 1911, as can be seen in this photo of the test gun side-by side with my old Para Ordnance "Gun Blog Nine" LTC.

The SIG holds 8+1 rounds of 9x19mm, typical of classic single-stack nines, while the Wilson ETM mags in the Para will hold ten rounds (and work reliably with all manner of ammunition, unlike the classic nine-round Colt 9mm magazines.)

Think is, these are limited in capacity by the fact that they're true single stack magazines in metal-framed pistols with separately-attached grip panels.

There are a host of modern polymer-frame pistols that are just as slender and use stagger-stack magazines with as much as half again the capacity.

It was the time spent reviewing the P210 and thinking about recent experiences with pistols like the Shield Plus and the P365 that made me wonder...is the traditional true single-stack kind of a dying breed? An anachronism for lovers of bygone blasters?

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Offset

"Mechanical offset", "height-over-bore", whatever you want to call it, is a thing I'm more used to dealing with when using AR-pattern carbines at close ranges than when shooting pistols and revolvers.

Getting this T.O.R.O. dialed-in reminded me that the center of the optical sight is most of an inch above the axis of the bore, and given the wide range of velocities in .38 Special ammunition, it opened a whole 'nother can of worms.

The other sighting system on handguns that has this amount of offset from the bore is lasers...well, most of them, that is. They're usually slung below a flashlight on an accessory rail or perched out on a CTC Lasergrip, like the ones on the old Painted Ordnance "Gun Blog 9" here.

With Lasergrips I've come around to the solution of adjusting them so that the beam is parallel to the bore axis, such that the bullet's point of impact will be about a half inch left and an inch above the dot (on my J-frame) at anything out to something over 25 yards.

There's no real equivalent of that for a MRDS, though, as far as I know.

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Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #226...

It's time for the seasonal reset. For the last several years now I've spent the time between Thanksgiving and New Year's toting my 9mm Wilson 1911 in my old faithful Milt Sparks VM-2 while scheming up what next year's carry gun project is going to be.

I still haven't decided what 2023 is going to be focused on, toting-wise. Revolvers are still an option, but part of me wants to get some quality leather for the old Smith & Wesson 3913 and see how good I can get with it.

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It's true.

I mean, buying a full size CDP and replacing the nylon MSH with an S&A unit, gutting the lockwork in favor of some C&S drop-in bits, binning the FLGR, making sure the extractor is strac and replacing it if it's not, and putting in a Wilson Bulletproof slide stop has long been one of my "when I get around to it" projects. 

Why? I dunno, I like the way they look, for one, and I also keep thinking about alloy-framed 5" 1911s. I sometimes miss that Springfield Lightweight Loaded I got from Marko years ago and then went nuts with titanium bits to make it even lighter. (It's also the only 1911 where I replaced the metal MSH with a nylon one. Gotta shave them ounces!)

Of course, those are all things I'd do to pretty much any Kimber/SA/Colt-tier pistol off the rack anyway. I look at most sub-$2k 1911s as buying a frame/slide/barrel kit.

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