Executive Poker

I've written about "gent's folders" before; smaller pocket knives that aren't all aggro and tacticool-looking.

Most of the ones I've played with so far were the short-bladed kind, which are not only non-threatening looking but also legal in the widest variety of places.

If you're not constrained by regulations regarding blade length or a locking blade on your folder, there's also the "stylus" type of gents folder, which I hadn't really played with before, so I decided to give the CEO model from Columbia Knife & Tool a whirl. (I sold some old ammo at this weekend's otherwise dismal Indy 1500 gun show and decided to share some of my small windfall with Brad, the knife guy.)

As the name would suggest, this style of knife is very slender, and will generally slip into any pen pocket large enough to accommodate a fine writing instrument, like that Monteverde Regatta.

You could carry it in your pants pocket, I guess, but I think its natural home would be a shirt or jacket pocket where pens are normally carried.

The blade is a bit over 3" long (3.11", to be technical) which can run afoul of local regs in places like Boston or Chicago. It's made of 8Cr13MoV steel, which is a lower-tier Chinese stainless that's roughly similar in properties to Japanese AUS-8... you're not getting exotic alloys at this price point. It's less rust resistant than good ol' 440C but easier to sharpen and less likely to chip in my experience.

There are complaints from reviewers at Amazon about the lack of a flipper on this variation (they make one with a flipper for a couple bucks more) but I prefer the slimmer profile of the flipperless one. This isn't a tactical knife.

The pivot is smooth and fitted with a ball bearing; a good shove on the thumb stud will often pivot it right into the locked position, although this is not an assisted opener. The pocket clip makes it sit nice and low and only someone who's paying a great deal of attention to your chestal region will notice it's not a pen. The lock is positive and the blade on my example was nice and sharp right out of the box. It's well up to normal everyday knifely chores.

Given its intended use, I give it a solid B grade. It's nothing exotic, but it's good-looking in a very clean and simple way, and the price is right.

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Overheard at the Gun Show...

I was trying to explain to a younger friend today what a weird scene the Applied Violence Community (for lack of a better umbrella term to encompass armed and unarmed combatives) was from 1990-2000.

"The US military had seen barely two weeks, total, of ground combat since 1973. MMA hadn't really taken off yet. You didn't carry the internet around in your pocket so you could fact check bullshit claims.

You think stolen valor, PX heroes, fabricated tough guy backgrounds, and bullshit kung fu woo-woo run rampant today? It's nothing compared to back then."

This is a thing I don't get. I'm not any kinda badass; I'm just a writer who goes out to learn stuff and then report back what I learned. I don't understand the whole wannabe-sensei thing.
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Fun Show Time!

It's Fun Show weekend here in Indianapolis, and I'm headed there with Shootin' Buddy in a few. Let's sing the Fun Show Song!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

Thanks to the still-unknown medical bills hanging over my head, I don't really have any huge plans for this show, mostly just seeing and being seen and socializing with my peeps who I only see at Fun Show time.

Oh, I do need to get a couple magazines for the next 2k test gun...

That's right, thanks to the assistance of Commander Zero at Notes From the Bunker, it's fixin' to get all 1990's up in this place...
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Fun Show Report...

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

Little show at the Marion County Fairgrounds today.  Lots of vendors obviously still clearing stocks of panic-hoarded AR mags and suchlike. It was a buyer's market for little pocket self defense guns, too. Shields are a hair under three bills when you factor in the rebate, and there were tables of Elsie Peas for two-fitty.

Rimfire ammo is starting to show up in quantity again. I picked up a 500-round brick of Aguila plated hollow points for 6½¢/round, as well as fifty rounds of Velocitor and fifty of the CCI Copper .22 stuff. This stuff has a date with the chronograph and some jello in its future, both from a normal-size handgun, a rifle, and the little NAA Mini...
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Fun Show Weekend!

It's the big National Gun Day show in L'ville. I think we'll duck down to take a look.

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

This is mostly just a looking show for me, although if something's really worth the purchase I can have it transferred to an Indiana FFL. I really should get a C&R license.
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Crown Point Gun Show, Part II: The not-guns part

The old Lake County courthouse in Crown Point is a glorious Victorian-era pile occupying the whole of the town square. Naturally, the seat of county government has been relocated to a hideous concrete-and-glass complex hard up against the jail, outside of town.

The old Lake County Sheriff's House & jail, famous for a gangster who stayed briefly within its walls before letting himself out and taking off with the sheriff's car.

Right next door to the old jail is Crown Brewing. That's their Basilisk chocolate milk stout.

After stopping in at Crown Brewing, we headed slightly north and west to Griffith to check out Blythe's, a large and bustling gun store. A couple doors down from Blythe's was a shop called simply "Charcuterie". If Griffith could put a pass-through between the two stores, they'd have a hit on their hands.

After browsing guns and smoked meats, it was time to head just around the block to New Oberpfalz Brewery for a late lunch. I had a pint of Hopwagen American IPA, on the right, while Shootin' Buddy ordered their Krieghammer APA.

 I was in the mood for some charcuterie.

And then it was time to head back south, through the fields of spearmint and corn stubble and spinning kilowatts.

Giant machines to suck the lightning from the sky and send it through copper pipes into faraway houses where it's turned into glowing dreams on Chinese glass.

Gun Show & Aftermath, Part 1...

So, Saturday I drove up to Lafayette to meet up with Shootin' Buddy, and from there we continued north to the Crown Point gun show. The trip and the show is worth a post of its own, but this is about the things I bought, or rather it's mostly about one of them.

As part of my continuing efforts to gradually rebuild my depleted 5.56 ammo inventory, I picked up a hundred rounds of Winchester Q3269. I found a correct magazine for my little Steyr .25 pistol; that's the mag with the weird tail on the floorplate.

For the future amusement of the internet, I acquired a box of Liberty Ammo Civil Defense 50gr .357 Magnum ammo, which is allegedly travelling some 2100fps at the muzzle. Also grabbed a box of G2 Research 10mm ammunition which should, by combining the awesome power of the 10mm Auto cartridge with hypetastic RIP bullet technology, blow a jello block covered in four layers of denim clean into an alternate dimension.

Lastly, I purchased an ETS 31-round Glock 9mm mag, which joins the 20-rounder I already had.

Saturday I brought the Robar Glock 17 to the range along with both ETS mags. I discovered that the slick plastic of the magazines did not play well with the Wolf Polyformance ammo, with the rounds binding severely in the magazine by the time I'd stuffed ten in there.

I disassembled the mag and extracted the Wolf, bought a box of brass cased Federal RTP and loaded the magazine with no further problems.

A few rounds gone, with no malfunctions. The 20-rounder, which has already been on a couple range trips, worked normally.

Neither the 20-rounder or 30-rounder had any malfunctions in the 17. The Wolf Ammo worked in the Sig P320 with no issues.

Monday morning, I was back at the range with the two ETS mags loaded up with 50 rounds of Federal American Eagle 115gr FMJ.

Again all fifty rounds functioned fine through the guns. I'll be continuing to keep these magazines in play.

It's fun show weekend.

Posting has been interrupted by me hanging out at the fun show. I split a table with a friend, as much for the people-watching as anything else. Let's sing the Fun Show Song!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

Not much of a crowd, and nobody's buying much of anything. You'd think that folks would be in the middle of a frothing election panic right now, seeing as how the gun-buying public is prone to such things, but maybe folks are all panicked out? Alternatively, folks might be too broke to panic.
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Fun Show Time!

Let's all sing the Fun Show Song!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

I'm broker'n dammit, so I'll probably just be putting nose prints on display cases. I've got to save my dough for hotels & airfare over the next couple months.
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It's that time again!

It's Fun Show time! Let's sing the Fun Show Song!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

Not really needing anything, but you never know. There might be that one special something I suddenly realize I can't live without.

Hooray!

It's Fun Show time! Let's sing the Fun Show Song!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

Unfortunately, it's that time of the freelance writer's month where the bills are paid and now one is eagerly awaiting the sound of the postman, in the hopes he might have brought more cashable mail. Therefore I doubt I'll be doing much other than staring longingly at stuff, but it'll be a chance to meet up with friends and keep up acquaintances.
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Decisions...

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to stop at Mickey D's on the way to the fun show? I mean, you want to be at the fun show as shortly after 0800 as possible in order to get a non-atrocious parking place, but the food at the concession stands, even the little cafeteria, borders on inedible to my Broad Ripple-spoiled palate. How you screw up a simple sausage/egg/cheese-on-toast that badly remains a mystery to me.

That's one thing about Mickey D's breakfast; barring an unusually bad franchise, it's about as known a quantity as there is in fast food. A sausage McMuffin's a sausage McMuffin, from here to Kyoto. Well, maybe not in Kyoto...it might be something weird there.
.

You know what time it is?

That's right, it's fun show time! Let's sing the Fun Show Song!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.
Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyeful
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.
Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

I'll put a spare AR, some knives, and a couple Smiths out, along with some odds and ends, but mostly it's an excuse to sit and people-watch...
.

Fun Show Time!

Let's all sing the Fun Show Song!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.
Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyeful
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.
Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone. 

Got half a table again, just so I can sit and watch the parade instead of having to stand and be in it. Even have my bingo card drawn up...

I'll throw a couple of my less-beloved Smiths on the table at Greater Fool prices and see what happens. Also see if I can't turn my M&P357 into a Glock 32 or 33.
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Oh, it's a Christmas miracle!

Ambo Driver and Squeaky joined forces to make me the most wondrous Christmas present!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

Two Americas...

"What Really Goes On At A Gun Show" reads the panting headline at CNN Money.

To me, the article sounds about as exotic as "What Really Goes On At A Flea Market" or "What Really Goes On At The Comic Book Show", but apparently to the writer and his soft, cud-chewing co-workers it's as titillating and exotic as "What Really Goes On In The Slave Bazaars On The Dark Side Of The Moon".

And the funny thing is, in the opening paragraphs, they acknowledge that gun shows are common, that they occur in droves every weekend from coast to coast, and that people throng to them. Then they go on to explain what happens at a gun show without stopping to think that, you know, a sizable minority, maybe a third, of the people reading your breathless little hit piece have been to a gun show and you might as well be explaining what goes on inside of a supermarket to them.

Speciation is well underway.
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Well...

...I did what non-licensees are supposed to do at fun shows: Turned two guns into two different guns.

One is a surprise that I need to take pictures of, and the other is a Glock 37 that I will be shooting the bejeezus out of  because why not?

Due to the ammo situation, po-po trade-in .45GAP Glocks are stupid cheap around here. In the days of internet ammo sales, when you can buy by the case from someplace like Lucky Gunner, the ammo not being in stock at your local gun store isn't as big a deal. This can make scratching an odd caliber itch a more reasonable proposition.
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Fun Show Time!

Hooray! It's time to sing the Fun Show Song!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

This time 'round I'm helping man some tables. I'll throw a couple of my older Smiths out at Greater Fool prices to have an excuse to be there. I think I'll also put that stippled FNS-9 out and if it sells, plow the money back into some other pistol to shoot 2,000 rounds through for the amusement of the internet.
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The Safety Dance

So, the table we got at the gun show butted up against several others that were unused because their usual tenant, a medical supplies vendor, had gotten hurt in a wreck and couldn't make the show. The morning of the second day, we spread out a little, moving some holsters over to the empty table behind us to keep that end of the aisle from looking deserted.

Among the stuff I had over there was a Safariland Glock 17/22/31 paddle holster, on the diagram below in position "H":

Mike and I were sitting in the chairs marked "M" and "T", facing in the directions indicated. Mike was talking to someone on his end of the table when I hear a voice behind me asking "What's this holster fit? Glock?"

I glanced over my shoulder and nodded at the person asking the question, a uniformed police officer; not an IMPD guy, some other local department. "Yep, it's for full-size Glocks."

He nodded thoughtfully while turning it over in his hands, "How much?"

"I dunno... Twenty bucks sound cool?"

He mulled that over for a second as I turned away to see what was going on down Mike's way when, out of the corner of my eye, I see the cop unholster his sidearm. I got a real good look at the muzzle in my peripheral vision, and also took extremely good note of the fact that, even if his lack of muzzle discipline was appalling, at least his trigger finger was in register against the frame. Thank heavens.

I stood up in as casual and non-startling a manner as possible as he stuffed the gun into the holster, sliding his off-hand down until it was cradling the muzzle end of the Safariland rig. Then he nodded, pulled his heater out and stuffed it back into his duty rig and reached for his wallet.

I would venture that a solid plurality, if not a majority, of negligent discharges at gun shows happen when some special snowflake decides they have to test the fit of their loaded sidearm in a holster. If such had happened here, I wouldn't have been able to tell y'all about it because they'd have been cleaning my brains off the next row over and hopefully the .40 slug wouldn't have gone through anybody else on its way to embedding itself in the back wall of the corn dog stand three aisles away.

I don't want the last fleeting thought going through my mind to have been "Boy, you sure are the only one qualified enough..."

Folks, I don't care if you flout the show rules and don't unload your concealed carry piece and have it zip tied at the door; that's none of my business. But if you're gonna carry a loaded gat around the show, it needs to stay in the $&#@^$ing holster, &^%^ it!

Don't pull it out to show your friends, and don't give me that "I had to pull it out to check the holster fit!" because we're in a giant room where there are hundreds of guns for sale just like yours, and we can use one of them instead.

Stop touching it. And especially stop touching it while it's pointed at my head.

Fun Show Time!

Let's sing the Fun Show Song!

Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.

Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone.

I''ve got half a table at this one, because if you're going to pay to get in for a few days, you might as well pay to sit down. Come say hi!
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