Maybe there are at least a few intelligent people left!
This is from a friend in upstate NY:
"Two weeks ago our county legislature was discussing a bill that proposed 'mandatory trigger locks.' We went to the meeting and brought an unloaded gun and a trigger lock, and proceeded to show them just how 'effective' such devices are. We showed them how trigger locks are a veritable invitation to an AD."
"By some miracle they actually got the message and 'determined to study the issue further.' At the next meeting we were also there and pointed out how the proposed new law (like most gun laws) was self-contradictory, impossibly vague, and so poorly written that none of the lawyers in the group were able to say for sure what the law specifically required."
"Apparently there are still some politicians with at least half a brain. We won! The bill is dead."
/John
This from a police range officer in Wisconsin:
"The Wisconsin State Patrol recently got a whole bunch of surplus M-16s from the government's North Star program, and quite a few troopers now have them in their patrol cars. A number of local departments, including the Madison PD, have done likewise. It's becoming more difficult, however, as the supply of North Star M-16s has now mostly dried up. A few departments have opted for Mini-14s."
"The point is that now that the WSP has broken the ice, shotguns are quietly being replaced with rifles in beat cars statewide. Interesting how rapidly trends like this can take hold. As you might imagine, there has been zero publicity!"
/John
24 Mar 00
Did you see this in the "mainstream" media?
This from a friend in the US Border Patrol:
"Just last week in El Paso, two of our horse-mounted officers were chased by nine Mexican soldiers in jeeps. The incident took place three miles inside the US. They shot at our guys more or less continuously for nearly an hour. We're extremely lucky they're such bad shots, as none of our guys were hurt. We finally got some help on scene, and we took them all into custody at gunpoint."
"What a surprise! Next day Janet Reno ordered us to send them all back to Mexico, with their weapons, ammunition, and vehicles. No charges. No detention. All they did was try to murder federal officers on US soil, nothing really serious! As you can imagine, morale here is something to behold."
/John
24 Mar 00
This just in from a friend who is a range officer with a large, metro PD.
Did you see any of this in the media?
"I had a chance to see one of those locking magazines that Glock has produced. Our idiot governor has forced the State Park Police to adopt them (the governor's own bodyguard detail is apparently exempt; what a surprise!)."
"During the televised news conference where the locking magazine was first shown to the public, no one, not the governor nor any of the police officials present, including the chief, could figure out how to unlock the damn thing and render a gun which was capable of firing. This was all despite the fact that during the various attempts the gun was pointed at everyone on the room several times as well as in every other conceivable unsafe direction."
"None of them were being shot at. There was plenty of light to see what they were doing, and they had presumably rehearsed the act many times in preparation for the press event. Still, none of them could get the pistol to where it could be fired."
"Amazingly, instead of expressing concern for the safety of his troopers, the governor and his assembled gallery of yes-men all commented on how well the device obviously works!"
"We tested the device here at the PD range last night. After much practice, it took the best of us a minimum of ten seconds to get our Glocks unlocked and ready to fire, and that was with enough light to see well enough to operate the lock. In the dark, it took much longer, and many of us were unable to make it work at all."
"In addition, we found that the magazine can easily be bumped and inadvertently locked without the officer being aware of it."
"Perhaps it is just me, but the problem of safety locks is like the dilemma of Descartes and the mind/body issue. No matter where you say the intersection of the mind and body is, you still have to explain how they can interact. No matter how deep in the mechanism you put the safety lock, if the gun can be made to fire, it can be made to fire at the wrong time. But maybe it is just me who doesn't get it."
"An additional concern is that officers, instead of securing their guns within a locked container, will simply flip a switch on the magazine and then leave them lying around."
Lesson: Public officials don't care about the safety of their officers any more than they care about the safety of citizens. As always, you're on your own!
/John
24 Mar 00
This just in from a friend in a position to know:
"Look for the US military to dump the M9 (9mm Beretta 92F) at their next opportunity and go back to the 45 ACP, probably an H&K."
/John
24 Mar 00
"It's tough taking sides in an argument between Charlton Heston and Bill Clinton. On one side you have a classic actor trained to fake emotion for the camera, trained to win you over with a well rehearsed script and then on the other side you have Charlton Heston."
-- Allyson Smith, San Diego Tribune, 3/22/00
/John
21 Mar 00
Are subguns as intimidating as shotguns?
This is from a friend in a Midwest PD:
"During a drug raid at a local flop house last week, two suspects were located in the living room. Terry was the first one through the door. He leveled his pistol on the suspects and ordered them to the ground. To his amazement they just stood there and stared at me.'
"His partner then came through from behind and leveled the subgun (Steyr 9mm) on them, simultaneously repeating the command. They dropped so fast that they nearly put dents in the floor!"
"No shots were fired"
/John
21 Mar 00
This from a friend who just returned from a trip to Disney World in Florida:
"A 'fanny pack' is an excellent concealment option for tourist attractions such as Disney World, blending in to that habitat perfectly. Even my large Bianchi in black nylon generated not so much as a second look, and the Mickey Mouse patch I attached to the front was perfect camouflage."
"'Safari vests' are sold there in the gift shop, so they are therefore quite common on the park grounds. They also don't generate any particular scrutiny"
/John
21 Mar 00
From a friend with a PD on the East Coast:
"It's in vogue for everybody to carry some type of big knife. Last week, while running a qualification course, I watched one of our officers, who is no amateur with a pistol, swiftly speed load his Buck 110 folding knife into the magazine well of his SIG 228! He had placed his knife pouch in front of his magazine carrier. The two apparently felt the same, and he withdrew the knife, indexed properly I might add, and shoved it into the gun."
Lessons: Don't put things of less importance than your spare magazine in front of it!
/John
21 Mar 00
I just finished an Advanced Defensive Handgun Course with several friends form the intelligence community in the Washington, DC area. Of the twenty people there, most had 1911s (Kimbers, Wilsons, and Para-Ordiances). There were several Glocks, and one Beretta 96 Compact.
It's interesting to see the perennial popularity of the 1911 among those who work in unwholesome environments. When working with police departments on the East Coast, one usually sees Glocks and Berettas, but not with these folks.
Carry ammunition for the 1911 was mostly 230gr Federal Hydra-Shok.
/John
21 Jan 00
More SHOT Show news:
"I went passed the Mossberg booth and inspected their new double-action trigger/pump shotgun. It is just a 500/590 with a new trigger group. The safety switch is still intact, creating an absurd redundancy. I tried the trigger. It is so heavy and gritty that I believe accurate work with slugs will be impossible.
As is the case with every SHOT Show, I was amazed by the huge selection of useless gadgets whose prime function (and really their ONLY function!) is to separate gullible gun neophytes from their money. One example was an enormous, plastic holster intended for carrying an autoloading pistol with an empty chamber 'for safety,' of course. I'm surprised it wasn't 'for the children!' It allows the user to push down on the grip, cycling the slide and thus loading the pistol as a part of the draw stroke. I asked the salesman, 'If one feels the need to wear a pistol, shouldn't one wear a loaded one?' He rolled his eyes and waked away.
There were a great many defense rifles on display. It seems that every third booth was showing a new variant of the Stoner system. There were also G3 and FAL copies.
The industry is uniting in a new, proactive defense of itself. At least one entity is raising money to fund counter law suits against those cities that would sue the industry for frivolous reasons."
/John
20 Jan 00
What are they teaching at Quantico? This from a friend who just returned from the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, NV:
"We just returned from the SHOT Show... two things really caught my eye:
First, BATF had a booth right by the exit, with lots of agents milling about. What were they doing there? Perhaps photography?
Second, while we were at the S&W booth, a well-dressed young girl (yes, girl) flitted by, fondling each semiauto on display. Every time she grasped a weapon, her index finger immediately contacted the trigger, and stayed there throughout her inspection, even when she racked the slide (with her thumb and first finger). She put on quite a show and tried to impress us with comments like "You know, 45s are usually heavier than 9mms". What 'impressed' me most, though, was that finger on the trigger. It never left. I checked listed affiliation on her show badge. It said 'FBI.'"
Your tax dollars at play?
/John
19 Jan 00
Defensive firearms training in south Florida:
I attended and participated in "Tac-Night" here in Naples, FL earlier this week. Tac-Night is organized and conducted by Nick Dickson, a local businessman who is eminently successful and surely doesn't need "something else to do." As with all great endeavors, Tac-Night is a labor of love for Nick. It is entirely local, and there is no affiliation with IPSC or IDPA.
I watched the forty-odd participants go through the three, live-fire exercises, two handgun challenges and one involving shotguns. Targets were IPSC cardboard and a few pepper-poppers. Ranges were two to fifteen meters. Cover and movement were involved, as was reloading and rapid movement with gun in hand. Scoring was calculated with credit given for accuracy and speed of problem completion.
With the time element in place, many contestants treated the whole event like a track meet! On the other hand, for those, like me, who have no interest in "scores," several important tactical skills were exercised.
One must give these people credit for coming out and attempting to simulate a lethal confrontation. Most are just beginners with regard to legitimate survival skills, but they used real guns and real ammunition and carried concealed, although there were still a doleful few with their play guns, play holsters, and wimpified loads. Some learning does actually take place for those with eyes to see and ears to hear!
The most common tactical errors I saw were:
These are all things which can be corrected when they are pointed out. Some of the participants actually wanted to know how they could improve their own survivability. That is encouraging, as it is not commonly seen or even discussed at most ostensibly "practical" firearms competitions.
Florida is wonderful this time of year. Lunch at Chrissy's with friends and fellow warriors is, as always, the best part of the day. Life is good!
/John
11 Jan 00
The Battle of Trenton:
I watched A&E's excellent presentation last night. It was the story of George Washington's brilliant and daring attack of the British Garrison at Trenton, NJ during the Revolutionary War. At the time the garrison was manned by a contingent of German mercenaries (called Hessians). Like all acts of genius in war, the attack's utter failure was predicted by nearly everyone of Washington's colleagues. Stark confirmation of the paradoxical axiom, "It is impossible. Therefore, it is assured!"
The Battle of Trenton was Washington's first victory. Many more would follow, and the rest is, of course, history.
I was struck by the fact that, shortly after the attack commenced, Hessian resistance was instantly terminated by a single rifle shot from an American soldier, whose name will never be known, which struck and killed Colonel Ralls, commander of the Hessian garrison.
Most of Washington's soldiers were issued muskets. However, a number of frontiersman who found themselves in the Continental Army brought their rifles with them. Both rifles and muskets of the period were flintlocks, but muskets were preferred by officers, because they reloaded fast, but were conspicuously inaccurate beyond fifty meters. That suited many officers just fine, because it discouraged individual action by soldiers.
By contrast, rifles of the period were slow to reload, but were deadly accurate out to two hundred meters and beyond in some cases. However, the entire concept of one soldier shooting another was not even considered by those in charge of armies at the time. At that time, a soldier's target was an entire rank of enemy soldiers, usually at close range, and no soldier would dare fire until given the order. When the order was given, all would fire at once in a volley. This tactic was still widely accepted even at the start of the American Civil War seventy years later.
At the battle of Trenton, one American soldier, a frontiersman armed with a rifle, saw the enemy colonel mounted on a horse and barking orders. On his own imitative and in the absence of any specific order, he mounted his rifle, picked up his target in his sights (just as we teach today), and pressed the trigger carefully. His bullet struck the colonel in the chest. Everyone, including the colonel himself, knew at once that the shot was fatal. As the colonel slumped on his horse, the entire Hessian defense precipitously collapsed. Over nine hundred prisoners were taken that morning without one more shot being fired.
What struck me as I watched was how, once again, one skillful and courageous person, armed with a rifle and acting on his own initiative, turned the tide of an entire battle, indeed of an entire war!
Like most true heroes, we don't even know his name. However, in his honor we must never forget the importance of every, single, trained rifleman and what a stunning difference each one can make. The importance of trained rifleman can never be underestimated, particularly in a foolish and arrogant age where glamorous machines of war purport to take the place of dedicated and trained warriors exercising their own initiative.
/John
3 Jan 00
This from an LE friend who lives nearby:
"Bought a new Colt 1911 in 38 Super. This is from a well known custom shop. Top of the line, and quite pricey too. Imagine my surprise when I took it to the range over the weekend and discovered :
(1) It shot eighteen inches high and a foot right at eight meters, and
(2) It failed to fire three times out of four.
As it turns out, the firing pin safety block is defective, and it was obviously never tested for accuracy at the factory. All that is easy enough to fix I suppose, but one would expect better from any new firearm, especially from a major manufacturer. Actually, this is the second new Colt I've had that wouldn't work out of the box, the first being a Detective Special that had a burr in the firing pin hole. They'll be getting a nastygram about all this in the next few days.
My point is that one would be well advised to test his equipment, all of it, before he undertakes to carry it for defensive purposes. In my situation this entire experience was simply aggravating and annoying. In a real defensive situation, it may well have been fatal. I would never carry any firearm that didn't have at least five hundred, failure-free rounds through it. My experience just reinforced what common sense already dictates."
I received a second note today, this one from another friend in Ohio who just bought a $195.00 Keltec 32ACP. It shot three-inch holes at eight meters, dead center, right out of the box. It also went through several hundred rounds from three different manufacturers without a hiccup. This from a gun retailing for less than $200.00!
Lessons:
Colt has really lost it. I don't recommend anything they make these days. Their attitude seems to mirror AT&T's, "We don't care. We don't have to."
My friends who work for The Agency often mention that the old Soviet KGB "left nothing to chance." That is why very few of their operations were ever bungled. That was their reputation. We need to have the same attitude. Things don't often go in the toilet when all the bases are covered to begin with.
/John
2 Jan 00
This from a friend in the Midwest:
"I just participated in a local IPSC match. The pistol match was nothing remarkable, but there was a 'side shoot,' a 'close range' rifle match. I had not planned to shoot a second match, but since there WAS a rifle in my car........
The course of fire consisted of nine, paper targets from one meter to sixteen meters in range. None of the targets were fully available, with either 'no shoots' or articles of cover obscuring some or most of each target. Thus, even at this relatively close range, some of the targets were challenging. No movement or use of cover was required, and one started the match with the rifle already mounted. I used a Mini-14 with a forward-mounted, Trijicon/Reflex sight. There was one other Mini-14 with factory, iron sights, two SKSs with factory, iron sights, and several 'match-modified' ARs with, large, close-eye-relief, high-mounted, telescopic sights (mounted on top of the carrying handle). The telescopic sights were variable in power, but had 4x as the lowest, possible setting.
I won the match easily, scoring two hits on each target in just under seven seconds. The SKSs, with the their factory, pistol sights finished in sequence right behind me in ten seconds. The iron-sighted Mini-14 got off to a good start but went down and was not able to finish.
The guys shooting the scoped ARs muffed it completely! THEY WERE ASTONISHED TO FIND THEIR WEAPONS ALL BUT UNUSABLE AT CLOSE RANGE. Like me, on the closest targets they made no attempt to look through their scopes and instead used a chin weld, however their scopes were so big and were mounted so high, they got in the way. On the far targets (ten to sixteen meters), they really went in the toilet. The high magnification of their scopes would not allow them either (1) the ability to focus clearly on the targets, or (2) the ability to orient themselves correctly and differentiate one target from another. They ended up missing all together or hitting the wrong target with most of their shots.
I am now more convinced than ever that I do not want any species of high-magnification, bulky scope on a defensive rifle! I can walk away from long shots. FROM CLOSE-RANGE THREATS THAT I CAN'T WALK AWAY FROM, THE LAST THING I WANT IS A RIFLE EQUIPPED WITH A BULKY, DELICATE, HIGH-MAGNIFICATION SCOPE THAT DOES LITTLE MORE THAN GET IN THE WAY!"
Well said and well done!
/John
A follow-up from a friend in the federal system:
"I had something similar happen to me during a student demonstration on the subject of pistol reloading. I was using a Browning Hi-Power, and this was overseas, so all the equipment we were using was old and poorly maintained.
In this case, the problem magazine was already in the pistol when the base plate broke off. We finally had to use pliers to pry the magazine out of the Browning, because the magazine safety kept the magazine from falling free. Browning HP magazines have no butt plate to speak of, and, when a magazine sticks in the gun, there is nothing to grab."
Lessons:
Some complications are so egregious they take the gun out of action, at least in the short term. That is what back-up guns are for.
If you habitually use old and poorly maintained equipment, you stand a very good chance of paying a high price.
I won't own a gun with a magazine safety.
/John
This is from a friend who is one of my range officers in a Midwest police Department:
"Last week, one of our officers was shooting our qualification course with his Beretta 92F. During a reload, he popped the flap on his magazine carrier and, when he went to pull the magazine out, the magazine base butt plate fell off! Naturally, the magazine spring and follower instantly hurtled sideways, and the rounds formally contained therein dribbled out on the floor. Being a well-trained and seasoned officer, with minimal vacillation he reloaded with the second magazine in the carrier and finished the course.
Upon examination of the magazine, I initially concluded that the base plate must not have been fully seated. However, closer examination revealed that the retainer lips on the base plate had sheared off through, as near as I could tell, representative (but not excessive) use.
This catastrophic failure was the result of several years of 'normal' use. The magazine in question was, of course, junked on the spot and replaced with a new one. The Department subsequently issued a directive for all our officer to examine their magazines for similar problems. None were found. This magazine involved in the incident was apparently an old one which should have been retired long ago. Thank heaven the incident took place on the range!"
Lessons:
Regular inspection of one's firearm is something which goes with the territory for those of us who call ourselves professional gunmen. The above-described weakness should have been detected by the gun's owner before it was discovered inadvertently.
No matter how well trained or equipped we are, "complications" are an inseparable component of most emergencies. Few go "smoothly." We must therefore train to work through unexpected glitches, as did the officer in the incident described above.
/John
This is from a LEO friend on the East Coast. It shows that rational behavior on the part of erstwhile normal people is something upon which you can never depend:
"While working in _______ Maryland, we got a call that an individual in the back of a pickup truck was waving a handgun around, pointing it at other motorists.
I was the second of five, marked vehicles to participate in the vehicle stop. I pulled to the left of the first marked unit and held the people in the vehicle at gunpoint. Other officers stopped traffic in all directions. One at a time, we extracted the people from the pickup and then sent a dog in to check for anyone else who might have been hidden.
During this whole time, there were six officers with guns out, all pointed at the people in the pickup. The stop took place next to a very popular ice cream store and beach bar. There were several HUNDRED people watching, and it struck me that all you hear anymore is people are afraid of guns and don't want to be near violence.
You could have fooled me! As we pointed our guns at the people in the pickup, a crowd of at least fifty bystanders formed behind the suspect vehicle, directly in our line of fire! My 'backstop' was several babies and many adults! They all had a mesmerized, carnival disposition and displayed no fear at all, nor did they pay the slightest attention to our repeated verbal commands for them to get out of the way. It was obvious none of them thought any of what they were seeing was real.
Luckily, the 'gun' in question was a replica, but it looked real enough to get Goofy shot. We finished up and got out of there quickly.
We talked about it afterward and really wondered if we would have been able to return fire."
Lesson: "Common" sense is actually a rare commodity. Never assume it to be a common virtue.
/John
Good individual tactics work! This is from a friend in the Northwest who just completed one of our Courses:
"I was at an intercity gun shop. As I stepped outside the building, I noticed two men slovenly dressed and grimy, nonchalantly leaning up against the building. As I walked past them and to my car, one approached me from the front, and the other from behind. Because I was looking around (per my training), I saw both, and they knew it.
One of them had a pair of pliers in his hand. The other had his hands buried in his pockets. They both approached within twenty-five feet and stopped. One asked, "Do you have some cash for a fella down on his luck?"
I immediately stepped back toward my car, creating another six feet of distance and went into my Interview Stance, with my left hand slightly out in front, holding onto a can of OC (that I had retrieved from my vest pocket). I can't believe how quickly and automatically I went into the stance, and I did it all without thinking about it, just as I was trained.
I paused in that position for few seconds, then moved laterally getting closer to my car, all the while continuing look around.
I politely but assertively said "Gentlemen, I can't help you. I'm asking you to step away from me and move on your way. So, please gentlemen . . . MOVE ALONG!"
The appearance and assertive stance stopped both of them cold in their tracks. Their entire posture and demeanor changed. I saw them transformed from predator to crybaby, right before my eyes! The aggressive body language displayed by both men instantly withered as they stumbled backward.
I scanned the area once again and confidently walked back inside the building.
The store owners witnessed the entire event. They said these guys had been hanging out around the store for a while had hassled several other customers. I was puzzled that they had not warned me or run these people off themselves.
But I realized these kinds of individuals are in this area all the time. So, I guess the morale of this story is:
DON'T EXPECT SOMEONE ELSE TO TAKE CARE OF LIFE'S PROBLEM FOR YOU, BECAUSE SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO DO FOR OURSELVES WHAT NO ONE ELSE IS WILLING TO DO!"
Well said and well done!
/John
I have a chance to work with the S&W P99 pistol. The copy I have is a significant improvement over the Walther model upon which I commented earlier in the year.
Most notably, the link is much shallower, now very similar to that of a Glock. I think this pistol may have some merit. I really like the interchangeable back panels. The same gun can be made to fit a number of different hand sizes.
The decocking "button" is still going to take some getting used to, but I'll work with it. My initial criticism may have been overly harsh. More later after we've had a chance to work with it.
I do like the way if flows around the hand. No magazine safety, thank heaven!
/John
More on titanium parts from a friend who is into pistol competition:
"What we have learned about titanium gun parts while playing IPSC:
1. Titanium firing pins are very short-lived. Without exception, they promptly peen down until they are underlength, causing endless misfires.
2. Titanium hammers dimple at the point where hammer face meets firing pins. This also causes one misfire after another.
I analyze all proposed equipment changes with one very simple measure: WHAT WILL DO ME THE MOST GOOD, THIS GADGET, OR THE SAME DOLLAR AMOUT OF PRACTICE AMMO? Using that standard, there have been few fundamental changes to my equipment in quite some time."
/John
This just in from a friend in Manila:
"Two armed robbery suspects were flagging down and subsequently robbing produce trucks on the highway that leads into the capitol.
An elite police team, tasked with handling such serious crimes, confronted the two as they plied their trade on an isolated stretch of highway. A two-man police team, armed with pistols and one M16 rifle, approached and challenged the suspects. The police were standing in the open several yards from the suspects when the incident went down.
Without hesitation, the suspects both turned and fired (pistols) immediately, fatally wounding the officer with the rifle and seriously wounding his partner. Neither officer returned fire. The two criminals then, again without vacillation, fired on a police vehicle, parked a short distance away, which contained the back-up team (four officers).
Three of the four officers were hit, and none returned fire.
Twenty minutes later, the two criminals were apprehended by the perimeter team, which had been alerted. Caught in an untenable position, they surrendered and were taken into custody without further incident.
Pretty rough news from my neck of the woods but well, it's still home."
Lessons:
1 Criminal suspects believed to be dangerous should never be confronted and challenged by officers standing in the open. Such confrontations should only take place from adequate distance and with officers in strong (covered) positions.
2 The outcome of most hostile encounters is determined before the fight ever starts. Poor positioning, inadequate strength, inadequate firepower, lack of alertness, and confusion of purpose all contribute to negative outcomes, as we see in this case.
3 Just because you arrive with superior armament doesn't mean the other side will be impressed. The world is full of people who are not afraid of the police and have no respect whatever for their authority. Criminal suspects surrender usually meekly. It happens so often, we sometimes forget about the exception that proves the rule. COMPETENT GUNMEN KNOW THAT AN UNEXPECTED AND EXPLOSIVE COUNTERATTACK IS THE SUREST WAY TO BREAK OUT OF AN AMBUSH, PARTICULARLY WHEN THE OTHER SIDE IS COMPLACENT AND CARELESS. In this case, both officers were caught by surprise by two suspects who were (a) competent gunmen, (b) determined to make good their escape, and (c) had no compunction about shooting uniformed police officers. So violent and precise was their counterattack that the M-16 rifle carried by the officers never came into play.
4 Positioning in depth often saves the day, as was the case here. Concentric perimeters will contain even the most violent criminal suspects, so long as it is in place before hostilities start. This, at least, they did right.
/John
Some follow-up from friends on after-market gun parts, particularly those made of titanium:
"The whole idea of a titanium striker, supposedly to shorten lock time and thus improve accuracy, is fantasy anyway. Lock time might be of some consequence to a benchrest rifle shooter, but not to a defensive handgun shooter.
If these people spent the same time and money on practice ammunition or on shooting instruction that they spend on titanium firing pins, extended slide stop levers, weighted magazine floorplates, and similar rubbish, they'd be far better off."
"The salient features of titanium are:
Thus, the benefit of any titanium gun part that is not enhanced by at least two of those features is little more than wishful thinking."
/John
From a friend who is a Glock enthusiast:
"Both Ralph and myself have experienced the same titanium striker failure in our Glock 22s: The part of the striker that is exposed on the underside of the slide (and which catches when the slide cycles, setting the trigger) has sheared off during a manual cycle of the slide, rendering the gun inoperable. The Lightning Strike folks (makers of the part) replaced mine at no charge and said that my experience was unique.
Then Ralph had the same experience. Maybe Mr. Glock knew what he was doing when he put steel strikers in his pistols!"
Lesson: Be real skeptical of all that after-market stuff, particularly on a carry gun.
/John
At a Defensive Handgun Course last weekend on the East Coast, we used a local Sheriff's Dept Range. The Department Training Officer assisted us during the program.
His Department uses SIG 229s in 357SIG caliber. He showed me a new slide modification SIG has quietly invoked, as the result of at least one accident which occurred at this department.
During a training exercise, a department SIG experienced a round going off while half chambered. The cause was traced to the primer being unintentionally dented by the lower part of the bolt face. The bullet apparently nose-dove during feeding, froze in place, and part of the bolt face subsequently dented the primer sufficiently for detonation.
The case (factory hardball) ruptured and blew out the ejection port. The shooter was startled but uninjured. The gun was damaged slightly and out of action in the short term but was later returned to service.
As a result, SIG modified the lower part of the bolt face to preclude such a thing from happening again. The modification consisted of a beveling of the offending edge.
In addition, SIG has modified the left grip panel, so that shooters can use the thumbs-up grip ("flying thumb grip") without inadvertently pushing upward on the slide-lock lever and prematurely locking the slide to the rear. This was also done as a result of customer input.
I mention this, because it strikes me that, unlike so many other manufactures, SIG didn't quibble or blame everyone else. They simply fixed the problem, quickly and quietly. If more gun companies simply fixed problems, as SIG did in these cases, instead of insisting that they are perfect and therefor there that couldn't possibly be a problem, there would be a lot fewer hard feeling on the part of customers. SIG deserves a pat on the back for its responsiveness in these cases.
/John
7 Nov 99
This is from "The German Parachutist's Creed" dating from WWII. This is put very well. This is from people who had a very clear conception of their purpose in life:
"Never surrender. To you, death or victory must be a point of honor"
"Your weapons must be well cared for. Submit yourself to this law: 'First my weapons, then myself.'"
"Your most precious commodity, when in the midst of the enemy, is ammunition. He who shoots uselessly, merely to comfort himself, is a man of straw who merits not the title of parachutist."
"You are the chosen ones. You will seek contact with the enemy and train yourself prevail in any circumstance. To you, battle and victory shall be fulfillment."
Why isn't this what our soldiers are being taught?
/John
Copyright © 1999, 2000 by DTI, Inc. All rights
reserved.
last modified: March 27, 2000