The Old and the New. S&W .44 Special. Springfield XD40 .40 S&W.
Two recent Guns o' the Week were the S&W .44 Special, and the new XD40 model imported from Croatia by Springfield Armory. Each in its own way represents a high tech solution to a contemporary problem. In the case of the S&W revolver, it is hard to imagine a more effective balance of power, handling, and reliability. The .44 Special cartridge can be loaded to effective levels. An example is the CorBon 165 grain hollow point which generates around 400 foot pounds of energy. The new Springfield XD40 represents the current "state of the art" in pistols used for self protection. The XD40 has the grip angle (and grip safety) of a Colt 1911 design. The trigger is similar to the Glock's. The XD40 has grooves on the front of the slide for "chamber checks." The sights are the same as those used on the SIG Sauer (same dovetails). There are grooves for a frame mounted light. The XD40 is reliable and accurate, and available in 9 mm, .40 S&W and .357 SIG. Although there are not a lot of holsters on the market yet for the XD40, the gun's increasing popularity should ensure a wide variety of holster choices.
January 25, we had a special "Gun o' the Week" exercise called "Guns o' the Weak." The pistol on the left is a .32 caliber Colt pocket pistol popular in the 20th century. This pistol fires a .32 ACP cartridge, a puny low muzzle energy cartridge that, in spite of it's weak preformance remains popular today. At the NRA National Firearms Museum, there is a display of Colt .32 ACP pistols issued to and carried by US military general officers. Firing the Colt .32 is like firing a .22. The relative weight of the pistol dampens recoil quite a bit. The gun is very easy to shoot.
Next to the shiny Colt .32 is a flat black mean looking SIG Sauer Model 226, the preferred handgun of the Navy SEALS. The 9 mm cartridge, in relative terms, is also pretty weak, but the SIG 226 olds many, many rounds in a high capacity magazine. Cartridges for these two guns are shown side by side for a visual comparison.
Colt .32 ACP Pocket Pistol
January 4, most of us had a chance to shoot the FN "FortyNine." FN makes this gun in South Carolina to sell to law enforcement agencies. The FortyNine is a striker fired polymer framed .40 S&W pistol (9 mm is also available) with a "second strike" capability. If you pull the double action only trigger and the round does not go off, you can pull the trigger again without having to move the slide back to reset the action (as you would with some other modern striker fired guns). Although the FN's trigger is "revolver-like" and at least one of the Friday night attendees just flat didn't like it, the pistol's trigger, feel, and reliability sort of grow on you after awhile. The price for this gun is very low when compared to its competition (Walther and Glock, and the RBMFS&W "Sigma" series). Accuracy of the FN was sufficient to put 10 shots out of 10 into the upper area of a "Q" target at 25 yards. Hint, the "upper area" represents the head, ok? The only apparent weakness in the FN design is the magazine. It does not appear as though they had the good sense to get MecGar to build their magazines.
S&W Model 37 Airweight
The Model 37 has been featured before. On the evening of December 29, it was used to test different types of .38 Special +P ammunition. The normal person's hand gets a bit sore after firing over 100 rounds of +P ammunition in a lightweight revolver, but it's good to know which types of ammunition work best in a small revolver. On the target to the right in the picture above, you can see three holes labeled "MS." These were made with MagSafe 52 grain "Defender" ammunition. Lighter bullets tend to shoot lower. The rest of the holes were from a variety of ammunition. For more information on these ammunition tests, check out www.piedmont.org/page2e.html.
We've had a few more "Guns o' the Week" since August, but there hasn't been a lot of free time to update the Web site. Oh, sure, there was some spare time, but those few minutes were better spent on other activities. Friday, December 14, we got to do some comparison shopping between two .32 H&R Magnum revolvers, the Taurus UltraLite shown on the left and the older Ruger SP-101 on the right. Both fire six shots. The Taurus is much lighter than the Ruger. How much lighter? Without getting bogged down in specifics, let's just say that you would know you're carrying the Ruger, but you might forget you had the Taurus. Both guns were accurate at the distances at which they were designed to work best. The Taurus had nice groups at 7 yards, while the Ruger could take advantage of the caliber's inherent accuracy at much longer distances. The .32 H&R Magnum cartridge itself has been compared to a .38 Special in terms of energy, but the real advantage of this caliber may be the extra shot available in the same size revolvers that are limited to five shows in .38 Special.
Genuine Idaho Potato Gun
The Genuine Idaho Potato Gun was the prize awarded in the August 24 "Dunk Tank" match. The Potato Gun is capable of firing more than 300 shots from one potato. This cyclic rate of fire rivals that of many military rifles. The real guns used in this match were also considered "guns o' the week." The winning gun at 7 yards was an H&K P-7M. Here is a picture...
Oops...this is an Airsoft copy of the H&K P7M...
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This is a picture of the actual P7M8.
Nice gun. Once the chamber is loaded, the gun will not fire until the shooter squeezes the grip and cocks the pistol. At that point, there is a very crisp single action trigger pull. Releasing pressure on the grip de-cocks the pistol and makes it safe. Police officers have lost control of this pistol only to survive because the bad guy didn't know how the pistol works. Since the P7 pistol is so different from other types of pistols, some experts recommend that if you have one, you get rid of every other pistol you own and just practice with the P7 until it becomes second nature. At that point, you can draw and get the first shot as quick or quicker as you can with any other handgun.
The gun that had the best 25 yard score on August 24 was a SIG Sauer Model 229 in .357 SIG caliber. The 229/.357 SIG is the pistol issued to Secret Service agents. Here is a picture of a 229...
It was interesting to see that with a big prize like a Genuine Idaho Potato Gun at stake, how many quality firearms showed up for the competition. There is a reason law enforcement officers, including the U.S. Secret Service, like these accurate, reliable, high quality H&K and SIG Sauer pistols.
S&W Model 37 Airweight
The Gun o' the Week was supposed to be something else, a high priced 1911 clone, but the high priced 1911 clone had problems so we had reach for a back-up gun. It is always a good idea to have a back-up gun and one of the best and most reliable back-ups is a plain old S&W "Chief's Special." There are a bunch of different S&W "Chiefs" out there, with lots of Model numbers. The basic model is the 36, a blued steel revolver on the "J" frame with a 2 inch barrel. The Model 37, shown here, is the airweight model. It is lighter than the Model 36, and a little bit heavier than those titanium models that cost so much. Revolvers like the Model 37 get loaded with .38 Special 158 grain lead hollowpoint +P ammunition, put in a pocket or ankle holster, and don't get shot very much in practice. This is the revolver you use when everything else has failed or gone wrong. This raises the bar a lot in terms of reliability, and the little S&W revolvers manage to meet that standard. The Model 37 was fired with +P and standard pressure .38 Special ammunition and worked well with both. The revolver is more fun to shoot with the standard ammunition, because the gun's light weight lets you feel the recoil a little more. The Model 37 was shot at ranges of 4 to 7 yards. There's not much point in shooting at targets farther away even though the Model 37 is accurate when fired single or double action at greater distances. We spend most of our time shooting CZ-75s or Glocks or huge revolvers, and not much time with the smaller guns. The session with the Model 37 was a reminder of how well behaved and how useful the snubnosed revolvers can be when they are used as intended.
"Chiefs Specials" as well as the similar, heavier Ruger SP-101 models, are great for point shooting. You point the gun, pull the trigger, and that's where the shots will go. Most practice with a snubnose revolver should be done from a point shooting stance. Target shooting is best left to guns with longer barrels and larger sights.
Glock 31 and Ruger GP-100
Many years ago, law enforcement officers carried revolvers and the best all around revolver caliber seemed to be the .357 Magnum. The .357 Magnum, while using the same bullet weights and diameter as the .38 Special, has about three times as much power as the .38 Special. Regardless of which "experts" you believe, there is still general agreement that the .357 Magnum works pretty well most of the time and that the 125 grain jacketed hollow point bullets are very effective. In recent years, through some pretty good marketing efforts by the gun manufacturers, revolvers have been replaced by semi-automatic pistols in most law enforcement agencies. These semi-automatic pistols use 9 mm, .45 ACP, and .40 S&W cartridges. Each is effective in some loadings (9 mm +P+ with 115-124 grain jacketed hollow point bullets, .45 ACP with most bullets, and .40 S&W in 135 and 155 grain JHP bullets), but none seemed to have that old power, either perceived or real, of the .357 Magnum. Then along came SIG and Glock with a new cartridge called the .357 SIG. The quick description is that this is a .40 S&W necked down to use a 9 mm bullet, in different bullet weights. The .357 SIG cartridges fit into .40 S&W size magazines, and work in .40 and 9 mm size pistols. At the muzzle, you have a .125 grain jacketed hollow point bullet coming out at speeds near those of the older .357 Magnum cartridge - not an exact equivalent, but close. So, now that the .357 SIG is gaining in popularity (U.S. Secret Service, Texas Rangers, etc.), it seemed like a good idea to have an old fashioned unscientific subjective comparison of the two cartridges in guns that someone might use for personal protection.
As you can see, the Glock 31 (full size, same size as the Models 17 and 22 in 9 mm and .40) is pictured with a modern Ruger GP-100 .357 Magnum revolver with 3" barrel and fixed sights, an almost ideal "night stand" revolver. I took one of each to the range and tried them out. Both are accurate. Both are reliable. So, what are the differences. First, the GP-100 is LOUD and has a lot of recoil even though it is much heavier than the Glock. Second, the Glock is not so loud and has what appears to be minimal recoil; maybe the recoil seems less because the polymer frame has some flexibility and "gives" a little. At real life defensive ranges, between contact distance and maybe 5 yards, both handguns are effective when "point shooting."
Is the Glock's reduced recoil a real advantage? I don't think so. Both guns come back on target pretty quick. If one has any advantage over the other, it is worth noting that the Glock can fire 16 rounds without reloading, while the GP-100 is limited to 6 rounds. Is this a big deal? No. If you need more than 6 rounds, something is wrong and the odds are not with you. On the other hand, it is nice to have so many rounds available. Murphy's Law says if you have a 6 shot revolver, you will need more than 6 shots. This would be an unusual case, but Murphy applies to unusual "worst" cases.
S&W Model 610
The S&W Model 610 is a new offering from S&W designed for use in revolver competition. This is a heavy (over 50 oz) large ("N") frame revolver. It will handle the hottest 10 mm loads for hunting or personal protection, and it also fires the .40 S&W. With the .40s, the gun feels like you're shooting a .38 Special wadcutter in an "N" frame .357 Magnum. In fact, the sights are right on the money for 180 grain .40 S&W ammunition. This particular Model 610 has had "the works" in terms of gunsmithing from Weigand Combat in Pennsylvania. The trigger on this particular 610 is as close to perfect as you can get. The single action trigger is light as a feather while the double action trigger is smooth throughout its range of motion.
Gun o' the Week for Friday May 4 wasn't a gun at all, but an experiement with some different types of .45 and 10 mm ammunition. The night got off to a great start with some very hot (the technical term would be "Real Hot") 10 mm handloads in a Glock 29. In the movie "Wizard of Oz," either Dorothy or Toto said, "We're not in Kansas anymore." It might have been the dog, but that's not important right now. When shooting these very hot 10 mm loads, you could say we're not in ordinary 10 mm territory anymore. These loads came very close to the original Norma loads that sent a 200 grain bullet downrange at over 1,100 feet per second. All I can say is that the loads we had Friday night used Norma powder and the same bullets as the originals. The original Norma loads fall into the category of "Don't tryi this at home, kids." Current specs call for something less hot than these. As soon as the Model 610 revolver returns, it may be better suited for these loads than a Glock 29. The Glock chamber does not provide full support to the cartridge case, and the cases do bulge a little at these power levels. Was this fun? You bet?
Then we got out a box of .45 ACP "odds and ends" and fired most of those in a Springfield 1911. The session included standard pressure Winchester Silvertips, Triton Quik Shok +P, Aguila 117 grain rounds (wow), some Winchester +P truncated cone cartridges, and at least 50 standard rounds from Mag Tech. The Aguila ammunition provides the greatest flash and bang, but proved to be be a poor fit for the Springfield. The pistol wouldn't always go back into battery when shooting the Aguila rounds. The Silvertips just did fine, just as you would expect. The Tritons were about as exciting as the Aguilas, but scored much higher in reliability. The Tritons, with the bullet that comes apart as you see in the picture above, may be the best for this particular Springfield 1911. We had three of the Aguila rounds left and tried those in a SIG Model 245, a great concealed carry pistol based on the famous 220 design. There were no problems with reliability in the SIG.
Gun o' the Week for Friday April 27 was planned to be a Glock Model 35 with a C-More sight, but turned out to be a Smith and Wesson Model 640 with a Quadraported barrel. The regular 640 is a 5 shot J frame revolver beefed up to handle the .357 Magnum cartridge. When you fire a full load .357 Magnum in this small gun there is a lot of recoil and "muzzle flip" which means the muzzle goes up and the sights have to be brought back down on the target. The more flip, the longer is takes to fire the next shot. In order to reduce this effect, Chip had his Model 640 Quadraported. Take a close look at the barrel in the picture. There are two horizontal openings. You can see two and there are two more on the other side of the barrel (hence the term "quadraport"). With these ports, firing the gun causes gases to exit the ports in an upward direction, forcing the barrel back down. This can counteract the muzzle flip and allow the shooter to fire a second, aimed shot in less time.
This extraordinary (sometimes you get lucky with the camera...) digital image shows the moment of firing. You can see the shooter's arm moves a little from the blurring of the image. You can also see the bright flames from the two visible ports, along with a circular pattern caused by the muzzle blast as the bullet exits the barrel. The most significant part of this image is the direction the barrel is pointing as the bullet comes out - straight toward the target. There is some muzzle flip, but not much, and you get back on target real fast.
The downside of porting a barrel is that you now have extra openings which direct the hot gases in other directions. You feel the muzzle blast more, and the effect is pronounced when shooting at an indoor range, because the pressure waves encounter baffles, floor and ceiling.
Since a revolver like the Model 640 has no other purpose than personal protection, it may not matter if there are flames and pressure waves. It may matter more that the often critical second and third shots are fired in time to hit the target.
Which is better, regular Magnaport (2 ports) or Quadraport (4 ports)? There is not a lot of difference, but in theory if you're looking for the minimum amount of muzzle flip and are willing to trade off some velocity (not always a good idea with a short barreled gun), Quadraport seems to be the better choice.
Smith and Wesson Model 610 4" Barrel
Gun o' the Week for Friday April 13 (oh, oh, Friday the 13th...) is the new S&W Model 610 with a 4 inch barrel. This is a new stock gun which should be very popular in IDPA and IPSC revolver competition. The 610 is chambered for the 10 mm cartridge, which may be loaded to the same approximate levels as the .41 Magnum. The 610 can also chamber the smaller, lighter, less powerful .40 S&W cartridge. The 610 weighs over 50 oz. The Model 610 shows once again that while the managers at S&W are in serious need of 1) history lessons, and 2) a clue, any clue, the men and women in the factory still make the best revolvers in the world. And, Taurus fans, that's no bull.
"Loaded" Springfield 1911
Gun 'o the Week for Friday April 6 was a blued Springfield 1911. This is the basic "loaded" (with the features shown in the picture) 1911 pistol in .45 ACP caliber. For the money, the Springfield is an excellent value since it includes just about all of the features we used to pay a gunsmith to add after buying a basic Colt 1911 or 1991A1 pistol. The Springfield 1911 forms the basis of the FBI's SWAT team sidearm. There are additional custom features, including a match barrel, but the basic gun has to be pretty good or they would have picked something else for the project. You can pay a Lot of Money for a custom 1911, from Les Baer, Kimber, Wilson or others, but the "plain Jane" (sorry, Jane, wherever you are) Springfield will get the job done just as well. A pistol lets you control your immediate environment until you can get to the rifle or shotgun you should have had with you in the first place. A box stock Springfield, broken in and well maintained will work the first time every time.
Gun 'o the Week for Friday March 30 is the CZ-75 with the "Kadet" adapter. The basic CZ-75 comes in 9 mm or .40 S&W. Centerfire pistol ammunition, even good quality military surplus or handloads, is not cheap. Using .22 Long Rifle rimfire ammunition for practice costs a lot less. The Kadet adapter costs about $100 less than a regular CZ-75 and replaces the centerfire caliber slide, spring, and barrel. The adapter is not a drop in item. There are three places on the adapter where you will have to file off a little bit of metal in order to fit the adapter to the slide. When I first read about this, I figured I might need to take the gun to a gunsmith, but with just a tiny bit of courage, some forethought, and a small file, you can take off a little metal in the right places and fit the adapter yourself. This is not for the faint of heart, but if you read Blind Man's Bluff, you'll know that there is one thing a faint hearted person will never do. If you haven't read this book, go get a copy right now. You can order the book from Amazon.com. It turned out that the filing wasn't difficult at all, and the resulting fit is just about perfect.
Before letting ordinary people who come in off the street have a chance to shoot the CZ-75 .22 Kadet, I took it to BRA the night before the official unveiling and fired 100 rounds of Remington "Yellow Jacket" ammunition. There were two misfires, but the gun is new and sometimes .22 LR ammuntion doesn't work. As you can see from the picture, the gun is very accurate. This group was fired at 25 yards (25 yards!). The adapter comes with adjustable sights, but no adjustments were needed. I suspect that the tight fit which resulted from the filing has the slide, barrel, and blowback action right where each part should be, and this contributes to the gun's accuracy. The centerfire CZ-75 is ideal for IDPA or IPSC Limited or Limited 10 competition. With the Kadet adapter, you can practice, and practice, and practice with inexpensive .22 LR ammunition.
In fact, this pistol is so accurate you could carry one in a shoulder holster during hikes or fishing or camping trips and use the .22 to hunt small game. Don't forget to take a Glock 29 or S&W Model 29 along in case some big animal considers you to be small game.
[RBMF] S&W Model 625 "Mountain Gun"
The Gun O' the Week for Friday night March 16 is the Smith and Wesson Model 625 "Mountain Gun" with Miculek competition grips. This is the same grip design used by Jerry Miculek when he set World Records for fast and accurate revolver shooting. Unlike the normal Model 625 .45 ACP revolver with its 5" barrel, the "Mountain Gun" has a 4" barrel. The revolver featured on March 16 has had a trigger job at the S&W factory plus the addition of a gold dot front sight. The holster is from Kramer.
One of the advantages of the Model 625 over the Model 1911 style .45 semi-auto pistols is that the revolver is reliable with anything it can chamber, while some pistols may or may not work well with a variety of different bullet shapes and weights. The "Mountain Gun" has been fired with a variety of .45 ACP loads, ranging from .45 Auto Rim to the .45 Super "tactical" loads, with regular and +P loads in between. The Model 625 is strong enough so that at least one reputable gunsmith (Clark Custom Guns) will re-chamber the 625 for the new, and powerful, .460 Rowland cartridge. While all the other .45 ACP based cartridges, including the .45 Super, have the same case length, the .460 Rowland has a longer case which prevents it from chambering in ordinary 1911 pistols.
With a Kramer holster, and extra rimless .45 ACP rounds held in "moon clips," the "Mountain Gun" represents a powerful, versatile, and reliable handgun.
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