Postings...

• Super badass twin turbo V-8 ragtop Benz.


• Resurrecting a camera.

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Written Elsewhere...

• My 200th post at Cars Gone By: A 1966 Mustang GT convertible.


• On the reasons behind the enduring popularity of the 1911.


• The U-Shaped Utility Curve of All the Things.

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Gun Geekery...

The patent that made the micro-nine possible...

Micro pistol and micro poker.

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Link Stuff...

• Early '00s Aston Martins were such good looking cars.


• Writing with style!


• Motorcycle roadtrip through Vietnam...

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Elsewhere...

• Shooting a Triumph TR-3A in action with a Nikon D800 in color and B&W...


• A '66 Impala Sport Coupe with a rat rod vibe.

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Random Gun Stuff...

• The Case for Pocket Poppers: Not everything needs to be a Glock 19.


• Why "Well, I know a Green Beret, and he said..." may not have much relevance to private citizen defensive firearms use.


• What's the difference between porting and compensators?

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Some Links...

• Marko's writing update...


• Bobbi's omelette tips...


• I updated my older posts on the 1967 Plymouth GTX and 1968 Plymouth Road Runner with period road test data.

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Elsewhere...

• Pictures are no good if you can't find them.


• By 1970, the Mustang was already fattening up to hibernate through the Malaise Era.

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Miscellaneous Linkery...

• "I'm not saying they were right or anything, but their tanks sure were cool..."


• Don't poke the author. It's rude.


• Resilient Wheat


• 1969 Camaro RS/Z28

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Hey, Look!

Always be learning!

The first few times at the range with a handgun are a real big deal for most folks, and you’re likely to imprint pretty strongly on the first pistols you tried, the words of wisdom from your dad/cop friend/whoever took you to the range that first time and the coaching from the instructor at your first concealed-carry class.

For most people, that’s about as far as it goes. Shooting isn’t a hobby, nor are guns a lifestyle for most firearm owners. They’ll get to the range a couple times a year, maybe, and 20 years from now they’ll still be shooting the same way they were when they started out. They may retain some of the basics, or they may not.

The fact that you’re reading my column in this magazine indicates that you’re probably a little more into shooting than the statistically most common handgun owner. Like the music enthusiast who seeks out new bands to listen to, you’re probably more open to broadening your shooting horizons than Joe and Suzy Average. Perhaps you seek out coaching from different instructors in order to learn new techniques. I know I do.

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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Elsewhere...

I vastly expanded the 928 stuff I'd written earlier to create a new entry at the car blog.

Car Blog

So, I've put up a blog for just car stuff. Going forward I can cross-post the Automotif pieces there, plus I have an enormous back-catalog of them on this blog that I can port over there and populate it fairly quickly. Hopefully I can diversify my freelance writing career and get some automotive and photography writing in just to see my byline in a few other places before the entire written word industry drowns in a sludge of AI-generated gobbledegook.

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Tab Clearing...

• Benjamin Dreyer on the "Singular They". (If you do any writing, you really should read Dreyer's English. He's a delightful and witty writer.)


• Squillionaires with jillion acre spreads in Wyoming can be incredibly petty.


• "Getting canceled by the woke mob" is apparently a career path now.

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Quality Blaster on a Budget

My review of the Rost-Martin RM1C is up in its entirety at Shooting Illustrated. 

Whether shooting underpowered, budget 115-grain ball ammo that barely cracked the sound barrier or 124-grain +P Speer Gold Dot hollowpoints, the Rost Martin chugged right along without a malfunction. After the full 450 rounds, the mount was still snug and the dot had held zero, too.

Considering that the MSRP of the RM1C is only $459, significantly undercutting similarly featured competitors from Glock and SIG Sauer, that’s impressive. The fact that the pistol comes with the full panoply of modern features—like an optics cut and fully ambidextrous controls—rather than making you feel like you’re driving a budget rent-a-car is a bonus.

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Space Cowboy

One of the silliest lines I've heard regarding the Taurus TORO revolvers is "A red dot on a revolver? Isn't that like putting a spoiler on a horse-drawn wagon?"

No, it is not.

It is like putting a GPS in a horse-drawn wagon. A wagon may be slower than a car, sure, but it still needs to know how to get to its destination.

On that note, here are some thoughts of mine on life with the Taurus 856 TORO...

Hey, look!

So, the Spyderco is a better knife than the Victorinox—if all you need to do is cut stuff with a knife. The Climber, on the other hand, does knife stuff pretty OK, as well as being able to do a reasonable job with a lot of other chores, too.

Of course, the Victorinox is only doing a “reasonable” job with all those screwdriver or bottle-opening chores. People who need a tool that can do really good work with the knife blade as well as handling all kinds of normie tool chores will usually pick a multi-tool like a Leatherman MUT or Gerber Center-Drive. Sure, they’re big and bulky, but they can do both knife and tool stuff really well.

By now, probably half the readers are glancing at the top of this column and wondering if “HANDGUNS” is some new spelling of “POCKET KNIVES” with which they had previously been unfamiliar. Gentle reader, I have a point! (And not simply the one on the knife.)

Carry guns come in all kinds of flavors.Probably the statistically most common ones these days are one of three kinds: teeny little micro-.380 ACP semi-automatics of the Ruger LCP variety, small-frame snub-nose revolvers or itty-bitty micro 9 mm pistols like the Kahr PM9 or Glock G43. These handguns are like the Spyderco Delica. They only do one thing—serve as a defensive CCW piece against would-be human assailants at fairly close distances—very well.

Some pistols are multitools, others are single-purpose...

Hey, look!

Speedloaders are the most popular and have been for decades now. It’s important, however, to distinguish between competition- and carry-oriented loaders. HKS speedloaders, for instance, are sometimes derided for not being very speedy, but they hold on to cartridges like grim death. I once had a five-shot .44 Spl. HKS loader—the Model 44CA, intended for the Charter Arms Bulldog—roll around forgotten and neglected in the bottom of a purse for years before I fished it out, all five rounds still firmly clamped. Sure, with the HKS you need to insert the rounds and then twist a knob to release them into the cylinder, while the fastest compe-tition speedloaders literally launch the cartridges when inserted, but they can also launch the cartridges in the pouch, pocket or purse where the speedloader is carried. Save the gamer carriers for the games, where they excel.

Remember, it’s fairly unlikely that you’ll have to reload your wheelgun in a defensive scenario, but if you do, the most important thing is that the cartridges be there in your carrier. Otherwise, you’re that guy with the loose rounds in your pocket. Don’t be that guy.

A Model 19-5 with two types of speedloaders: the classic HKS 10A and an all-rubber MaxFire.

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Tab Clearing...

• The easiest way to be a rich and famous author is to be a rich and famous person who gets offered a book deal.


• "Fully Self Driving" has been a scam. Perhaps in the legal sense, even.


• Stop pointing guns at people you shouldn't be pointing guns at.

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Tab Clearing...

• Asked to write a blog post, an AI churns out glurge.


• John Hearne writes about Understanding Criminals and Their Motivations.


• Bobbi on troubleshooting a mysteriously malfunctioning door.

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