Gun Nuts

88mm German anti-aircraft gun, used during various air raids in WW2.

I don’t enjoy competition shooting that much these days. Sure, I still like to shoot matches, but for me the juice isn’t really worth the squeeze. See, the problem is that I like winning more than I like getting better. You’d think those two things would go hand in hand, but they really don’t. Sadly, it’s an easy trap to fall into.

The term “1911” gets used a lot to describe a particular style of firearm that is nominally similar to the handgun designed by a collaboration of John Moses Browning and the U.S. War department for military adoption in 1911. It’s really an inaccurate term because the 1911, the gun that the US military adopted back then was a highly specific spec  for a pistol made to very exacting standards and doesn’t really exist anymore. Today US military small arms are made according to what is known as a Technical Data Package that dictates the manufacture with highly specific requirements in materials, tolerances, and quality control measures that weapons have to meet in order to be accepted on the contract between the DOD and the manufacturer. The same sort of thing applied back when the 1911 was being manufactured for the US military. The War department had a very detailed spec that the pistols and the ammunition had to meet.

How are my boys?

Yesterday, much to the joy of Beretta fanboys (like me) Beretta USA announced the latest update to the venerable M9 pistol line, the M9A3. This pistol represents Beretta’s answer to the requirements for the Army’s proposed Modular Handgun System (or whatever they’re calling it this time around) and I am willing to bet that the Beretta M9A3 will absolutely be our nation’s next service pistol. But first, here’s what Beretta has to say about the new gun:

As we wrap up 2014’s publishing season, we’re looking back at some of the guns, events, and other things that made this such an interesting year. We saw gun sales and ammo prices finally return to normal levels, much to the consternation of some manufacturers. We had political wins and loses, and great debate around some of those events. Today we’re talking politics, looking at the biggest win and loss for gun rights in 2014. It was an interesting year, and there were no shortage of candidates to choose from. The GOP taking a majority in the House and the Senate are “wins” for gun rights, there were numerous state level wins as well. In the loss column, we had some choice ones to look at, with I-594 in Washington fresh in everyone’s minds. We’re going to look a two winners and losers each – one for state level wins and losses and one for national level wins and loses. Here we go, starting first with the wins.

When I use the term “good guy” what picture pops into your mind? In my brain those words bring a couple of pictures to mind, either a Gary Cooper type figure facing down a pack of hardened criminals or Superman facing down a major threat to mankind. I’d wager that you probably have similar pictures in your mind when you hear the term “good guy” and for similar reasons. Every story you’ve ever heard in your life has a “good guy” as the foundation of it. The “good guy” could be a cowboy armed only with a six gun against a pack of thugs, a moisture-farming orphan who turns out to be the last of an ancient order of warriors who can move things with their mind, the product of a radioactive bug bite, you name it. The archetype is sufficiently broad to comfortably house George Bailey using kindness and honesty to make a major difference in the lives of people in his community and Hit Girl using swords and machine guns to shred mobbed up gangsters into kibble. The story is always pretty much the same: The “good guy” is confronted by some evil or injustice, fights it, and prevails. The “good guy” may suffer quite a bit in the fight and may even lose his/her life in the process, but in the end their...

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE-RGR) announces that the popular Gunsite Scout Rifle is now available with a lightweight, black composite stock. The composite stock reduces the rifle weight to 6.25 pounds, ¾ pounds less than the popular laminate wood stock version. This new version features a forward aluminum bedding block and rear aluminum pillar that positively locate the receiver and free float the 16.1″ barrel for outstanding accuracy.

We see a lot of guns here in the office every year. Guns come through here for T&E all the time, some are great, some are okay, and some are terrible. A few each year are really good and interesting, but fail to catch the attention of the market at large. An example of a great, underrated gun would be the Walther PPQ. When the HK VP9 launched this year to all the fanfare, PPQ owners were over in the corner going “hey, that gun looks really familiar.”

Reader mail is a great way to generate content when I don’t really have anything good to write about. Today I’m going to answer three questions I’ve gotten that aren’t really long enough to do posts of their own, but put together will hopefully give you guys some stuff to talk about in the comments. I’m also going to really interact with the comments on this post, so any follow-up questions I’ll be happy to answer.

If you pay attention to Gunbroker or to the inventory of various shops and distributors you might have noticed that there’s been a sudden uptick in relatively inexpensive Smith & Wesson 3rd generation semi-automatic pistols available for sale. Many of these are trade-in guns from various police departments who issued the weapons for a number of years.

A lot of people on the internet have this idea in their heads that AR15s are these finicky, maintenance queens that need to be constantly cleaned and scraped free of any bit of debris lest they suffer a catastrophic malfunction. There are lot of reasons why people think this, but suffice to say it’s not true. Our buddy John from Ballistic Radio, with the help of Knight’s Armament and Freedom Munitions decided to show you how not true that was, so he shot 15,000 rounds through an AR15 without cleaning it, then dumped an entire bag of sand on it. (some NSFW language, so use your headphones)

“Why didn’t the cop just shoot him in the arm, or the leg?”

We’re going to open with a quote:

If there’s one stupid gun-myth that seems to go on living forever that I’d like to destroy, it’s that direct impingement AR15s aren’t reliable. Just keep lube on the gun and it’s fine.

There are guns that are truly great and will stand the test of time. The 1911, the Glock 17, the AR15, the M1 Garand. Legends, and rightfully so because they’ve earned their place in history. Some guns served on the wrong side of wars, but represented innovations like the Walther P38 or the STG44. But what about guns that everyone says are great, but are actually kind of terrible? Some are propped up by lingering nostalgia, others are popular because of their price point, but for whatever reason, people love them…even if they’re not very good. So get out your stadium hats and start chanting with me: “OVER-RATED! OVER-RATED!” as we look at the 5 Most Overrated Guns of All Time.

If you remember back to March of this year, we brought you the announcement that purveyors of 1911 excellence, Wilson Combat, had teamed up with Ernie Langdon to begin offering gunsmithing services on the Beretta 92 family of auto pistols. Bill Wilson, the founder of Wilson Combat, has apparently been a fan of the Beretta 92 pistol for quite some time and wasn’t content to offer gunsmithing services on the 92 family…he wanted a Beretta built to his specifications. So he called up Beretta and ordered 1,000 pistols built his way, including using parts Wilson manufactures for the 92 series pistols.

Man walks down the street in that shirt, people know he’s not afraid of anything.

Rifle is a Colt MARC 901 in .308, topped with a Leupold scope.

I find it annoying when people insist on opening their mouth on a topic where they have clearly not spent an iota of time and effort to educate themselves properly. I ranted some time ago about self-styled gunstore lawyers who hand out stupid and counterproductive “legal” advice to vulnerable people who need solid information. We’ve now come upon a whole new manifestation of this kind of idiocy.