Happy Birthday, John Moses Browning!

Colt Model 1902 Military, an early short-recoil pistol design from JMB.

So, the problem with a self-loading pistol is keeping the action closed until the bullet has left the muzzle and pressure in the chamber has dropped low enough that the brass case will be ejected neatly, as opposed to being transformed into a spray of shrapnel in the shooter's face.

Early autopistols relied on complex mechanical setups, like the well-known Borchardt/Luger mechanism derived from Maxim's toggle joint, to provide mechanical disadvantage against which the recoil had to work.

Beautiful, but complex.

It would not shock me to learn that the two main parts of that toggle required more separate machining steps than an entire modern pistol slide. Further, the entire works were exposed to the great outdoors. Friend Marko once jokingly called it "The perfect handgun for a gunfight in a computer clean room."

So, what are our choices to hold the breech closed for that crucial fraction of a second? Well, there's spring pressure, but you can only add so much of that before the action can't be worked by human hands. You can also add weight to the breechblock.

The three locking lug cutouts on the inside of the slide.

It is John Browning who actually patented the idea of extending the breechblock forward and wrapping the forward end around the barrel; this adds weight without adding a huge bulk at the back of the gun. In other words, JMB patented the one-piece slide and breechblock, which is to modern firearms what the wheel is to modern automobiles.

The barrel in battery. Note how the muzzle protrudes slightly beyond the front of the frame. The little metal key is all that keeps the slide from activating the shooter's dental plan, by the way.

This slide was locked to the barrel at the moment of firing by means of mortises on the underside of the slide into which fit matching lugs on the top of the barrel. The slide and barrel would travel rearward together for a fraction of an inch until a downward camming force, originally applied by a pair of swinging links one at the front and one at the rear, pulled the barrel down and arrested its progress, letting the slide continue rearward, extracting the the spent case from the chamber.

The barrel is now fully to the rear and dropped down.

Modern pistols usually dispense with complexity of separate links and locking mortises in the slide, instead just using a camming lug on the bottom of the barrel and a shoulder on the chamber that locks into the ejection port, but the principle is the same one Browning came up with in the closing days of the 19th Century.

Cynicism

They were probably burning the midnight oil at State Department last night, trying to figure out who the president's supposed to bow to now.
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 23, 2015

I was going to offer a wager as to whether we'd send somebody bigger than the ambassador, but I see that Biden's already on his way to Saudi Arabia.

In many ways, this really is the most transparent administration ever.
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The difference...

A staple of my blog is snapshots of cars, as opposed to photographs of automobiles.

My game has a long way to step up.
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Wet streets and baked treats.

Downtown Indy on Christmas Eve. This is from the second roll of film I shot through the Leica R4, some past-its-best-by-date Kodak BW400CN [EDIT: Wrong roll. This was Ilford XP2.] Still getting the hang of shifting gears on the camera.

Pastries in Starbucks. After dinner that night, Shootin' Buddy and I walked around downtown a bit, and stopped in the Starbucks there on the circle for some coffee.
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Automotif LXIII...

I have no idea how many Teslas I've seen running around the north side of Indianapolis, because up 'til yesterday all the ones I've seen were either white, black, or silver. It could have been dozens, or just the same three over and over. With the sighting of this red 85kw Model S in the Marsh parking lot yesterday, I now know it's at least four.
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Automotif LXII...

Spotted this unusual denizen of the Fresh Market parking lot, a Ford Maverick sedan of uncertain vintage, while out perambulating with my Nikon EM. Presumably it arrived and departed under its own power and, given the basic mechanicals under all that rust, could theoretically continue to do so until the body oxidized to nothingness.

(Oh, the first three rolls of film I sent off to The Darkroom have been processed. What a neat service!)
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D'oh!

Sigh.

Shame.

All the way up through the first half of December I was at the range at least once a week, usually more. Since Christmas? Nothing.

But the Zed Drei's tire is freshly patched and it needs a good drive and it's supposed to be above freezing today and we're in the part of the year when anything above 32°F feels like sunbathing weather, and so it's time to go bust some caps and blow the rust off.
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One Caliber To Rule Them All...

Dear SIG, If you had done a 10mm P220 ten years ago, I'd have been on it like white on rice. Where were you when I was still a gun hipster?
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 20, 2015

And Now A Word From Our Sponsors...

I didn't pay much attention to the Robert Scales Atlantic hit piece on the M4 initially. "OMG, teh AR sux!" is kind of the cosmic background radiation of the gunternet and you have to filter it out if you want to pick up any meaningful signals. It wasn't 'til I saw it referenced (favorably, I might add) here that I went and read it.

This led to Facebook discussion about it, and then to one of my 'net friends doing a bit of Googling of Scales' history of editorializing on military topics, and that led to... Well, here, without further ado, let me present the first and maybe only ever guest post at VFTP, because it needs to be read. Take it away, Terence Nelan:

"In the final days of 2014, The Atlantic magazine published an article by Major General Robert H. Scales (retired) which called the U.S. Army's main infantry weapon, the M-4 carbine, "badly flawed."

General Scales begins with President Lincoln and his famous test of the 7-shot Spencer repeater, hoping to show that the right rifle can bring decisive advantage on the battlefield. Skipping a few hundred years, he then blames the finicky M-16 -- the precursor to today's M-4 -- for the death of three of his men in a night attack on his artillery positions at Firebase Berchtesgaden in 1969. This was part of the famous battle for Hamburger Hill.

With his bona-fides thus established, Scales -- sorry, General Scales -- pauses to invoke the troubled F-35 program as an example of military mismanagement, then proceeds to recycle nearly every boneheaded piece of gun-store drivel there is in his attempted indictment of the M-4.

Far more qualified writers than I have taken General Scales' critique of the M-4 apart. Our hostess Tamara Keel delivered an excellent primer and also linked to WeaponsMan's 2-part evisceration of General Scales here and here.  The guys at Firearm Blog got in on the action too. 

If you need more, you can mine the comments on those articles or wander over to Ballistic Radio's torture test in which an (admittedly expensive) AR-15 fired 20,000 round without cleanings or malfunctions. It shot nice groups, too.

After all that, there's nothing fiskable left of the General's original Atlantic article, but there's still a big question still outstanding:  why? Why did he take every rusted-out half truth, lie, and cliché he could find on the M-4,  and package them as journalism and himself as a Noble Reformer? As Tam herself pointed out, the Atlantic piece results in calls to the Diane Rehm show by well-intentioned listeners wondering  "why our soldiers weren't being given the best guns?"

You can't really blame the editors of The Atlantic, who couldn't tell an M-4 from an harquebus. After all, their chosen illustration for the article was a civilian AR-15, tricked out with a Slidefire stock, which is about as useful on a select-fire rifle as a screen door on the space shuttle.  That leaves General Scales himself. He hasn't commented anywhere that I can find on the substance of his work or his motivation for writing it, but a review of his other recent work provides some clues.

On December 6, 2013, he wrote a rebuttal of Dana Milbank's opinion piece in the WaPo that called for the reinstatement of the draft.  The article is mostly tepid, prosaic stuff, but includes a rather astonishing claim.

"Thus, it should surprise no one that better trained and acculturated German soldiers had a field day killing Americans with great skill in the hedgerows of Normandy."

Setting aside for the moment that the Wehrmacht was also a draftee army, the US actually won the battle of Normandy, and drove the Germans out of the bocage. In fact, it was the Allied  drive deep into France that  pushed desperate German generals into the failed plot to kill Hitler.  It's true that the Allies took heavy casualties, but any army attacking into prepared defenses in the Normandy hedgerows would have been bloodied.

We now start to wonder, will General Scales say anything at all to make his point?

Another article, dated October 8, 2013, is pegged to the Medal of Honor award ceremony for Captain William Swenson, who was ambushed by the Taliban in Kunar Province on Sept 8, 2009 . Scales tells us that he broke down in tears during the ceremony. He believes the ambush and the subsequent US casualties could have been avoided  if "some soldier-saving technologies" had been in the field with Swenson and his unit.

He begins with the cell phone. First he scornfully points out the bulky radio shown in Capt. Swenson's helmet cam video, and asks "Why can’t our fighting men and women have cell phones in combat?"

At this point, it is important to note that General Scales bills himself as an intellectual, a thinker, technologist and a 'military futurist.'

It's astonishing then, that he considers cell phone communications a valid choice for military communications, as they are fragile,  insecure, and utterly unreliable. Does General Scales imagine that the US would set up cell towers all over Afghanistan, and that the Taliban would leave them alone?

Police departments, fire departments, military units, hell, even power companies all use radios because they deliver superior range, security and reliability. Although anyone who has seen Lone Survivor knows that even the radios can fail.

The shopping list that follows is even more bizarre.

Although Captain Swenson did have a helmet cam, General Scales wonders why he didn't have a helmet cam capable of sending live video back to the screens in the operations center. Surely that would have convinced the command authority that Swenson's pleas for supporting artillery were valid?

Maybe General Scales -- although he says he was present at the award ceremony -- didn't hear President Obama say "as he returns fire, Will calls for air support. But his initial requests are denied – Will and his team are too close to the village."

Let's assume for a moment there was no village. What sort of infrastructure does General Scales (military futurist!) imagine is required to wirelessly transmit live video streams from the battlefields of Kunar province to the operations center? How much might that equipment weigh? He does not share this with us, as he's too eager to report that one can buy helmet cams at Walmart. This prompts the question "would you go to war and depend on a helmet cam you bought at Walmart -- even if it could broadcast a video stream?"  We are not favored with an answer.

General Scales goes on to complain that Captain Swenson's unit didn't have any drone coverage. He speculates that "had a drone been overhead the Taliban would never have dared to open fire." Drones are slow, lightly armored, and not particularly maneuverable. That's why they fly so high that they are almost invisible and inaudible to people on the ground. Even if there had been one, the Taliban would never have known it, which is of course, the whole point.

General Scales further suggests that the army should have seen fit to equip Captain Swenson with a "sensor that detected movement or the metabolic presence of humans nearby." The military should have this, because such devices have "been in use by civilian security companies for years." Maybe there's a difference between locking down a warehouse in Passaic, NJ and walking a trail up a mountain in Afghanistan. Maybe this is the sort of distinction that falls away when one becomes a military futurist.

The last of General Scales' articles is a long and passionate argument for the creation of special instruction and curriculum focused on strategy and strategic leadership at the new Army University. AU is an Army initiative intended to "build an education enterprise that brings all schools from basic training to the staff college under single management."

This is the sort of thing that a former head of the Army War College might really groove on. Scales gets right down into the weeds in this lengthy article and puts a big emphasis on the creation of distance learning and the creation of new standardized testing, which he compares to the GRE.  He says that a " key assessment would be a 'GRE'- like test of verbal and writing skills provided perhaps by a civilian testing service like ETS in Princeton."

This sounds pretty innocuous. Scales is recommending a technology solution here, but unlike his blithe suggestion that the Army magically transmit live video across Afghanistan, distance learning in offices is a Real Thing that People Do.

So why make an issue out of it?

Because General Scales was made president and CEO of Walden University  -- a private, for profit institution -- in the year 2000, and  promoted to Senior Vice President of Sylvan Learning Systems in December of 2002.  (Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Robert_H._Scales,_Jr.) This is not mentioned in the article.

Suddenly, his enthusiasm for distance learning and civilian testing services seems less selfless. Does he also consult for any other companies that make, say, cell phones, or helmet cams, or rifles?

What else has General Scales been up to?

Back in 2008, he was the president of a consulting company named Colgen, which described itself somewhat immodestly as "America's Premier Landpower Advocate."   The Colgen.net site is no longer available, unless you go dig for it at web.archive.org (Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20120622230733/http://www.colgen.net/products.html).

On the site back in 2008, Colgen's business was to assist "landpower Services in creating future warfighting doctrine and operational concepts" and it "translates these concepts into useful strategies and actions for industry, the media, and the congressional and executive branches of government."
 Colgen's "products targeted to these marketing elements including: media commentary, congressional testimony, advice to the executive branch, published works, seminars and conferences."  [emphasis mine] Colgen's "growing list of satisfied clients" includes defense contractors such as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin.

Note that Colgen clearly states that published works are a marketing product.

If that weren't enough, General Scales played a minor role in a controversial Pentagon program where former military consultants were given preferential access and briefings with the likely expectation that they'd carry water for the Pentagon during their media appearances. How you feel about that program -- described in great detail here -- probably depends on how you feel about the war.

The program was called "psyops" by its detractors, and after it garnered too much attention, it was quietly closed down. The NYT coverage of the program stated that "most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air. Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. "

The NYT coverage included an email exchange from 2008 which the Times claimed was an implicit trade of good access for favorable coverage. "Robert H. Scales Jr., a retired Army general and analyst for Fox News and National Public Radio whose consulting company advises several military firms on weapons and tactics used in Iraq, wanted the Pentagon to approve high-level briefings for him inside Iraq in 2006. 'Recall the stuff I did after my last visit," he wrote. 'I will do the same this time.'"

Scales says his email was taken out of context and it just meant he'd continue to do a good job as an analyst and consultant.

Was General Scales caught red-handed trading access for positive spin? He claims he never "drank the Koolaid" and he pointed out that he didn't always agree with the administration, or the other analysts.

Maybe so, but when there's money involved, he seems to agree just often enough."

(We were not the only ones to wonder about advertorials, either.)
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#butthurt

Seth Rogen's just butthurt because #AmericanSniper did more domestic box office in its opening weekend than any of his movies have, total.
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 20, 2015

Jealousy's an ugly thing, there, Seth.

(This is not, strictly speaking, factual. I mean, Superbad did do $121 million domestic gross over its entire run, as opposed to American Sniper's $90M opening weekend total.)

Speaking of entertainment...

...what Bobbi said about The Man in the High Castle is fact. You should watch it; it's free if you have Amazon Prime. The production values are outstanding, which is unsurprising, given who produced it.

Given enough positive feedback, Amazon will make a series out of it. They should get that feedback. Because I want to binge watch this series.
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Can they really be that dumb?

The TV screen in the next room is full of yammerheads in a studio, sitting behind a desk, and positively agonizing over whether the movie American Sniper was "pro-war" or "anti-war". In other words, "Is it okay for me to like this movie?" What team is it on? Is it Red or Blue? Which Value Meal does it come with?

"Be a good little talking head and open your opinion cave! Here comes a big spoonful of viewpoint! Vroooom ! Oh, num-num! Good anchorperson!"

Morons.
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Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #119...

Steyr Pieper 1908 6.35mm pistol.

Note how the barrel assembly looks like an over/under shotgun? The recoil spring is in the top tube and the barrel is in the bottom one. When you tip the barrels up, that hook on the rear of the recoil spring assembly goes with them and so the breechblock is free to cycle without being under spring tension. A variant of this setup appeared on the Belgian Clement pistols that Smith & Wesson licensed for their original .35 Self Loader.
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Home again, home again...

Out early to breakfast at Good Morning Mama's, and then on to the Fun Show. Lunch afterwards and then the 4:00 showing of American Sniper and finally home.

My dogs are barkin' after two good laps of the Indy 1500, let me tell you, but it was not at all a fruitless venture:

Happy Slightly Early Birthday To Me

Left: Steyr Pieper 1908 6.35mm
Right: Harrington & Richardson Self-Loading .25

Note that the H&R is completely devoid of anything resembling sights. Gun derp has been around for a long, long time. There was no derp-free Golden Age.

Fun Show Time!

Yay! Fun Show Day! 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 cheated and went on a reconnaissance run with Bobbi and Turk Turon yesterday. I've got my eye on a brace of totally adorable little .25s. It they're still there today, it was meant to be.
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Blah...

The calendar says this is the new year, but the dead of winter always feels more like the dog-end of the old one.

I haven't busted a single cap since before Christmas. Dry-fire is good, but it's no substitute. I need to get to the range, if only for therapeutic reasons. I've got enough .22LR on hand that I think it would absolutely be worth taking the M&P15-22.

The Zed Drei's sitting on a flat driver's side front tire in the garage, but that's okay because there's no way the summer sport tires would handle the skating rink of the alley right now anyway, not after Sunday's ice storm. The Subie's still toodling around okay, although I wouldn't trust it for a road trip.

Here's the dead camera:

Don't want the lens to go to waste, so there's an OM-4 on the way. Because reasons.

Fun Show coming up tomorrow, so that's usually a pick-me-up in the mood department.
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Dear fellow Broad Riparian...

The blanket of snow on the ground makes two things painfully obvious:

1. That a large dog has grunted out a steamer right in the middle of our front yard, and...


2. That it was your dog, what with the trail of incriminating paw prints leading straight to and from your front door.

Unfortunately, I had already used the facilities this morning, or I would have cheerfully returned the favor.

Okay, that's kinda cool...

You know how Amazon Prime works, right? Pay an annual membership fee and get (among other bennies) free 2-day shipping?

Well, Brownells is doing something similar with their new "Brownells EDGE" program. A $49.95 annual membership fee looks to cover all standard shipping fees, give you a discount on expedited shipping, and other benefits like free return shipping and members-only sales and discounts.

I'm sold.
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Anti-imperialism as the Prime Directive?

Men Are Not Potatoes references Jon Stewart's skewering of the Obama administration's complete and egregious no-show at the big shindig in Paris.

Meanwhile, an interesting theory on why the White House preferred to show a naked flagpole in the City of Lights:

"It’s not that Obama is saying, pace Malcolm X—a movie whose influence on the president has been noted by more than one close observer—last week’s murderous rampage in Paris is nothing more than France’s chickens coming home to roost. Nor does Obama have any imaginable interest in showing up in Paris for what could have easily been misconstrued as an anti-Muslim immigrant rally, or a rally in support of some racist cartoonists. At the very least, the rally no doubt at first struck him as politically naïve, as though France thought it could wash its hands of colonialism and everyone else would play along. Let the Europeans, each with their own sordid histories of racism, colonialism, and mass murder, extend their sympathies to the French. In the president’s apparent estimation, a violent Muslim backlash against French colonialism and racism is on the French."

It doesn't require any Huckabee-esque allegations of secret Mau Mau connections to understand that, in the circles Barry has always moved in, "imperialism" and "colonialism" are among the dirtiest of words.