Indian Winter

Take a map of the US and draw a sort of "s"-curve on it. Start up in the Pacific Northwest and head eastward before curving southward somewhere over the plains, before you reach the Mississippi.

Continue going south until you get down around the Gulf someplace and then curve east again.

Everything wet of that line had a wetter, cooler-than-average winter & the first weeks of spring. East of that, we had an unusually warm, dry winter/spring...up to now.

March and the first part of April was just crazy nice weather. If you were here for NRAAM and remember how nice it was for the first couple days, well, that's how it had been for the most part.

Remember how it was icky and cold when you left on Sunday? Well, it's mostly been like that since then. It's gonna be in the thirties and drizzly tomorrow morning, too, and springlike weather isn't supposed to return until the middle of the week.

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Dear Smith & Wesson...

How come if I want a three-inch S&W Model 681 with a hammer-mounted firing pin and a flash chromed hammer and trigger like the good ol' days, I have to go to Rossi to get one?

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #237...

Being hand-modeled here by Annette Evans of On Her Own (who has one to test), the Beretta 80X Cheetah is a super-slick little traditional double-action straight blowback .380 pistol with a 13-rd double-stack mag. It has a Picatinny-type accessory rail, and can be carried cocked and locked if that's your bag.

If they made a decock-only version, I'd be sorely tempted.

Miami Heat

From the "So Goofy They're Cool" category, we have Canik's Miami Signature Series limited edition pistols...

Yeet Cannon

Seen at NRAAM: The Boaty McBoatface of the gun industry, the high-cap Hi Point, will supposedly be shipping soon.

Wheel Goes 'Round

Well, I certainly didn't have "Henry, the lever-action rifle company, releases an all-new revolver" on my 2023 bingo card.

There's no locking detent on the front of the ejector rod, which is sort of Colt-like. What appears to be a separate brass grip frame made me initially think that the lockwork forked up from below, like in a Charter Arms or Ruger, but flipping it over revealed a conventional sideplate like a Smith or Colt. It's available with both round- and square-butt grip frames.

It's a fairly decent-sized piece for a .357 Magnum. If it's a success, likely other calibers will be along.

I'm going to try to get one to write up for a dead tree outlet.

Ordering off the special menu...

The daily special at Twenty Tap yesterday was a ramen bowl that was unbelievably delicious.

Because I knew I'd never remember the ingredients, I took a picture of the menu board...

If you're coming to Indy for the NRA Annual Meeting in April, you should check them out. They've been a neighborhood fave of mine for a long time for good reason. It's good chow.

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NRAAM updates...

• From the Clue Meter


• From Old NFO


• From Mas 

Hey, look!

"Making its official debut on the show floor at NRAAM this year is a maxed-out carry version of the Sig Sauer P365 subcompact ten-shooter. Nicknamed the “Rolatini” by Grayguns COO Michael Grasso as a wink & nod to the well-known “Roland Special” suite of modifications to the Glock 19, the new Grayguns 365 setup features a number of performance enhancements."

Go RTWT!

The times, are they a-changin'?

My friend Tiffany Johnson relates her trepidation regarding the upcoming NRAAM:

Belly of the Beast https://t.co/LMG669vVRu pic.twitter.com/HhS5FPyMV5

— Front Sight Press (@FSP221) April 1, 2018

And it's an understandable trepidation. After all, this is the sort of thing still seen as a HYUCK HYUCK! knee-slapper in a wide swathe of the crowd there:

Hey, let's joke about one of the demographics most in need of a CCW permit and most harmed by waiting periods because that's hilarious, amirite?

Still, Tiffany has a point:

But here’s my bet for the time being: if there are aspects of the NRA that I want to blow up, I stand a better chance of doing so from the ballot-casting inside than from the sign-wielding, social-media-saturating, external periphery. I can look to folks like Adam Kraut to help get things done rather than just idly simmering in my distant discontent. Like dude from Armageddon said, out on the sidelines, all you can hope to do is inflict a minor, temporary burn. And right now, I just don’t think that’s enough to right the ship on Waples Mill. Don’t worry; I have no desire to blow up the NRA completely. But there are some wormy parts that ache for metamorphosis. And I never saw a butterfly emerge from outside the cocoon.

I can either sit up in the wagon and gripe about where it's headed or I can hop out, grab the rope, and help pull. Only one of those gives me any real input in its direction.
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Facts and Figures...

Sebastian has the NRAAM attendance figures:

"We have the figure, and it is the highest since Houston in 2013: 81,836. That beats Louisville last year which was 80,452. Houston will be a hard record to beat since it was the height of the post-Sandy Hook effort to attack the NRA."

Random Thoughts...

• There's nothing like two days of walking a convention (plus a side excursion on foot to the old neighborhood) to let you know everything you need to know about a pair of shoes. Turns out that my shiny new Moab Ventilators, which had been so comfortable up to this point, are apparently just a little narrow in the heel.


• Driving home yesterday, I was pretty well paralleling a strong weather front before finally turning west and crossing it just north of Cincinnati. On one side of the front it was in the high 70s and on the other it was in the low 50s. This meant the car was buffeted by gusting 30-40mph crosswinds the whole way. Under those circumstances, suddenly dropping the hammer on the Zed Drei at 85-90mph can cause the traction control light to illuminate. This was an interesting phenomenon.


• Related: Saturday it was 90 degrees out where I was. Alexa has just informed me that it's precisely half that outside where I am right now. I hurt all over. Time for Vitamin I!

Safety Is For Always

Everybody with a logo-embroidered polo shirt wants to come up with a replacement for Cooper's Rule One: "All guns are always loaded." It's a target for the ire of everybody with the slightest hint of Aspie tendencies, because they plainly know that there's such a thing as an unloaded gun.

The entire point of Rule One is that when you are handling a firearm, you need to be mindful. You need to be constantly aware of the fact that what you have in your hand is not a banana or a can of soup but an object that can, under the right circumstances, discharge a projectile with lethal consequences.

Chuck Haggard says that one shouldn't have separate habits of handling for "loaded" and "unloaded" guns because when one is tired or distracted, one can inadvertently default to the wrong one. ("How do you dry-fire, Tam?" As though I'm expecting a loud noise at any moment. And I sure don't have that gun pointed at anything I'm not prepared to pay for if I'm wrong about the gun's status.)

That's why stuff like this sends me completely around the bend:

I could have snapped this exact pose, or a variant of it, a thousand times at the NRAAM. Ignoring for a moment the way his finger has migrated right to the trigger the way the swallows return to Capistrano, what in the name of sweet baby Odin is up with the way people pick up a purportedly "unloaded" handgun and immediately plop the muzzle into their offhand paw?

Remember the small-town Indiana police chief who creased his leg with his duty Glock because he holstered it along with the drawstring on his jacket? Go watch this video for a refresher. What's the first thing he did when he got the Glock 42 handed to him by the gun store clerk? He cradled the muzzle in the palm of his left hand. His left hand which he had put a bullet through some years earlier.

Let me reiterate that: He was resting the muzzle of the handgun inches from the bullet scar where he'd previously shot himself. How many times does one have to blow a hole in their hand to unlearn that goofy habit? More than one, apparently.


What you see there with the chief in the video and with the guy in the picture above is bad gun-handling habits at work. This is why, whether I'm handling an actual firearm or a SIRT or a blue gun or an airsoft or whatever, I am very conscious of where the muzzle is pointing and do not point or wave it around casually. I want the default, habitual behavior for when there is a gun-shaped object in my hand to be caution and awareness. I always want the action of aiming a gun at something to be a conscious and deliberate choice.

And I don't ever want to have to utter the words "Oh my God, I'm sorry! I thought it was unloaded!"

Well, that wasn't the problem...

So, if you'll recall my misadventures with the Steyr C9-A1 and the Wolf Polyformance 115gr FMJ ammo...

I stopped by the Steyr booth at the show. I mentioned to the guys in the booth that I'd been shooting one and asked if there was an updated extractor available for the gun. He allowed as there was, and I said that was a good thing, because mine's been a complete dumpster fire so far.

He also told me about the Steyr's tight European tolerances and how I should avoid weak ammunition because a finely crafted piece like the C9 would be a fussier eater than...other guns. I think I did a good job of keeping a straight face, but you'll have to ask Kevin if I really did or not.

Canis lupus lupus, the Steyr's bête noire

So, anyway, from the wild ejection pattern of the Wolf and the number of malfs, I had surmised on that previous range session that the Wolf was extremely variable in velocity, with weak rounds failing to run the gun and hot ones functioning it fine. I saved ten rounds to take to the range and test over the chrono...

Here are the results:

Wolf Polyformance 115gr FMJ
LO: 1150
HI: 1178
AV: 1159
ES: 28.56
SD: 9.74

That's...well, pretty much the opposite of inconsistent. As a matter of fact, it borders on freakishly consistent for cheap FMJ ammo. I think it's safe to say that the problems are with the Steyr, hopefully they can be solved by an upgraded extractor, because otherwise this thing is just way too annoyingly fussy for me to bother with. If I take a pistol to the range, I want to be able to buy whatever cheap range fodder they have there without worrying whether my gun will run it or not.

At least the ten-round chrono string went off without a malfunction.

This makes 630 rounds fired through the Steyr C9-A1 without cleaning or lubing, with five failures-to-fire (#8, #472, #535, #555, #558), seven failures to extract (#234, #266, #276, #531, #535, #543, #558), and one failure to go completely into battery (#116). 1,370 rounds left to go.
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I guess it was inevitable.

Instead of a SHOT Show unveiling, Smith & Wesson waited until mid-May and the NRAAM to drop their newest offering, a .45ACP addition to the M&P Shield line of single-stack subcompacts:

Shown here with the flush-fit six-round magazine in the paw of your faithful correspondent, the .45 Shield is practically indistinguishable, size-wise, from the 9mm/.40 version unless the two are side-by-side. Smith has pictures. It's distinctly slender-er than its most obvious rival, the Glock 36. I'd have to see it next to a Kahr P45 to be certain, but I'd say they're roughly comparable in size.

SayUncle hand-models for you here, with the seven-round extendo. Smith claims a weight only a few ounces more than a classic Model 36 Chief's Special J-frame. I have not verified this.
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I'm not gonna take it anymore.

If the purpose of advertising is to make you stop and look, this worked.

I was indeed stopped in my tracks, temporarily bereft of the ability to even.

So, I'm supposed to be taking my 1911-buying advice from underemployed Eighties hair metal singers now? Also, if Dee Snyder's so into 1911s, how come we can only get country friggin' music at our annual NRA soirees?
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Can't I just phone this one in?

Sunday morning and my head is emptier than an Ethiopian pantry.

I've got to get out on the floor here soon and sweep up the corners I missed the first two days. Something like normal blogging should resume tomorrow.

Also, I would have been uploading all kinds of pictures of stuff, but I forgot my laptop power supply at home, so that's going to have to wait 'till I get home, too. If you have the Instagramming, there are photos there.

Second Amendment Cosplay

There have been some amusing displays of exhibitionary open carry this year, but nothing truly noteworthy. I guess for some people, a gun show or convention like this is their only chance to really signal tribal affiliations, so they go all in.

And when you think about it as cosplay, a con's the perfect place for it.

Renaissance or end of the line?

This is a pretty slick little wheelgun. I'd love to run one for a bit.

The cynic in me wants to say, however, that the revolver market share is teetering on the brink of precipitous shrinkage. Five or ten years from now, don't be shocked to find nothing but cowboy guns, large magnum hunting revolvers, a scattering of J-frame-type guns for diehard old guys to carry, and the occasional odd lungfish like the Judge or Governor.

The generation who was introduced to guns from video games and action movies just don't seem to bond with the wheelies, by and large.
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