Weapons

Colt M45 vs Apple Power Mac

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Apple Mac Destruction with Colt M45 1911 Pistol, and a SIG 1911 TACOPS. Both .45 Auto pistols. Both just as accurate, both just as powerful, and both just as reliable.
The Colt though is quite expensive. The SIG is a bargain in comparison. Between the two though… which would I buy?
A Glock 21.  For myself.  But between these two guns, I’d buy the SIG 1911 TACOPS.   If given the choice between these two guns, say as a gift, and I could pick one… I’d still pick the SIG.  Reason being is that I like the checkering and the mag well funnel.  Sure these could be added to the Colt, but the SIG doesn’t come with the pretension and attitude.  It just works.  And it does it without the drama and fanfare.

The finish on the Colt is an odd color.  It’s too damn yellow.  I don’t know what color that is supposed to be, but it’s yellow.  And while the finish is applied just fine, you can see a lot of tool marks under the coating, especially around the frame rail.  I’d think a pistol of this legacy should have a better exterior finish.  I have not yet examined the interior though.
The slide pull is nice and slick.  It’s very smooth.  As is the trigger.  Which is, well, flat out amazing.  However the SIG’s was almost as good.  One thing to note – Both of these pistols had yet to be fired until these first shots recorded.  Both guns were smooth and accurate, to the point that I couldn’t determine if either one had an advantage.

Notes on this computer… I have to admit that I very much love the Architecture of these machines. As a former computer tech, working on these is awesome. So easy to drop the side open and everything is laid out and accessible. Exactly in the way that Dell, HP, and Gateways are not. No one had a better case design.
At one point I had ever ram slot filled and it had two hard drives. It was a great computer. But it wouldn’t take OSX and after awhile all the software just became so far out of date that it rendered this machine useless. It was quite sad for me to retire it, because I loved it. The second HD with crucial data was pulled, as was the RAM, to be used in another machine.
Before I pulled this machine off line to give it this Going Away Party, I did make sure that it was running. I could have thrown Linux on it… Yeah, I know that. But I’ll get more use out of this video than I will a Mac based Linux box.

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The most horrible thing happened.

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I don’t even know how to process this…  But this happened this morning.

It got cold.  Real cold.  Early in the morning, sun has just crested.  You can see your breath.  Now, I gotta take a leak so I run into this Porta John.  As I start to relieve myself, this evil steam rises up from my stream.   This steam comes up to my face, and I’m trying to get my face away from it… and I’m mid flow so I can’t just disengage.  So I’m trying to pull my head back away from this Piss Mist, but it’s filling the Porta John now.  There’s no escape.  So all I can do is hold my breath until I finish.
Well, I finally finish so I quickly zip up and break out of there.  I bust out the door and take a deep breath.  Filling my lungs with fresh air all the sudden.  Cold air.  Causes me to cough.  I look up, and there’s a dude standing there that had been waiting to use the Porta John himself.
He just looks at me.  “Judas man, if it’s that bad maybe I don’t need to go in there.”

This cracked me up… I was laughing all morning about it.

Weapons

So I’m sitting here…

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…With this Beretta 92 in my hand.  And I’m looking at it…  It’s just gorgeous.

BerettaDTOM

It’s worn.  Well worn.  But still tight and smooth and accurate… just a great shooter.  My wife and I ran an errand real quick.  She had a Red Box video she needed to return.  Well, we get to the Red Box location, which isn’t the best spot in town for hanging out at a vending machine at night.  She’s about to bounce out… and turns and says, “Okay, you got my back.”  And then she says “How are you going to back me up?”  She hadn’t noticed I had a weapon on.  Plus 1 for the G-Code OSH Standard on a simple Paddle.  I was able to jump up, slip on the OSH+Paddle, and away we went.  No bothering with threading a holster through the belt loops or such.  Speed to Action… I like that.  I’ve become quite the fan of the paddle.
I said, “9mm, Baby.”  To which she nodded and then exited the OPC.  (Ogre Personnel Carrier) There was a couple very suspicious and thuggish looking types milling around at the corner, from which the Red Box isn’t very far away from.  I felt quite confident with the big Beretta.  Stoked up with a 17 round mag of Hornady Critical Duty.  The thug with his hands in his coat pockets and a hood up over his head would not have been able to have reached my wife before being completely ventilated.
I wasn’t even worried about that though.  The thug was more concerned about the bitter cold than my wife with her DVD of Much Ado About Nothing, as Directed by Joss.  It was a bone chilling 46 Degrees F out there.  Brrrr… I actually turned on the heated seats.  But that’s another story.
Sitting at home now, with the Beretta… I have to say, there is something about the 92.  It’s large, solid construction, it’s heft, I have to say… I really like it.  A lot.  It’s just about the only DA/SA gun that I actually like anymore.  At least, like enough to want to buy one, or to bother taking out and shooting.  The way the action feels like it’s on roller bearings… so smooth… so… creamy.  And thanks to Slipstream and a D-Spring from Beretta, the trigger feels just as smooth as well.  This old battered Beretta… It’s just gorgeous to me.

 

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10 Reasons why I hate Dr. Who.

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I hate Dr. Who.  I tried watching it, being as open minded as possible… but I’ve come to the conclusion that I really and truly just hate Dr. Who.  The whole Whovian Universe.

1.  The Daleks.  They couldn’t come up with a more interesting design than semi conical domed top thing with a toilet plunger on the end.  Just looking at them angers me.  These things are supposed to be some sort of a World Threatening menace?  If these things can threaten your world – you deserve to have them… whatever they do… plunger fuck your skull until you bleed to death.

2.  Cybermen.  Alien technology that hinges on plumbing from the local hardware store to make dumbass handles on their helmets.  They actually make the Daleks look more interesting.  But these things are just as bad when it comes to visibly threatening.  The Tin Man from Oz was more threatening… because he had a creepy smile… and an axe.  But that’s not the Cybermen.  They have masks of dire bordom and they want you to be like them.  How is this different from any trip to a Shopping Mall or Liberal Arts College?

3.  The Tardis.  The Space Ship is a freaking Phone Booth?  Every one of you who piped up “It’s a Police Call Box!” can just shut up and drink engine coolant.  A Police Call Box is just a phone booth that only dials one number. So like it or not, it’s not even that useful of a phone booth. Who came up with this idea?  No, seriously, how did this become clever?  How did this become cool?  I walked into a book store and there was a whole table of blue phone booths for people to buy.  Are you all mentally damaged?  When it flies, it spins and wobbles as if from a single string.  Because it’s dangling from a freaking string, and they didn’t even bother to stop it.  The spinning just became part of the mysterious way it flies through space – not by magic, but by the mysteries of science.  They didn’t even bother phoning it in with bad special effects.  They just made it so bad, that everyone just stopped caring about it.  Oh, that’s the Tardis.  The ReTardis.  The worst spaceship in any SciFi, and it’s in the worst of all SciFi’s.  Which makes that Stupid folded in on its self.  It’s stupidity that’s divided by zero.   But it’s bigger on the inside, some say.  Didn’t Harry Potter have Tents like that?  What is it with the Brits with so much wishing for more interior space.  Guess what, England, you can move to a less crowded place, where elbow room isn’t a Fantasy Plot Point.  Like North Dakota.

4.  The Sonic Screwdriver.  Let’s call this what it is… Dr. Who’s Magic Wand.  There’s no science to this SciFi, it’s Fantasy and Who is a wizard with a wand.  It fixes everything, in any situation, magically, with no need to a scientific reason for it doing so.  It just does.   But instead of Magic, Who wraps himself in the stupidly oversized scarf and declares it to be science, because he is smarter than everything else in the universe. Because he says so.  Because he has his magic wand.  His phallic symbol of power.  You know who else had a Magic Wand?  Voldemort.  Think about that.

5.  The acting and directing are better in a High School Play.  So are the special effects.  Every episode is like a bad SNL Skit that everyone on stage hates, but they are pushing through until the end because they are SNL.  Quite really, SNL does a better job of this because they all know they are doing comedy and it doesn’t matter.  But Whovians are rabid fans and take this shit seriously and hang on every word and wave of the Fifty Shades of Magic Sonic Vibrating Wand.

6.  Dr. Who changes bodies, but it’s the same character… just in a different body.  Another phone-in effort.  Oh, the last Dr. Who Actor quit because he can’t stand making Gene Roddenberry cry anymore… so he walks off stage left, and in from stage right walks Dr. Who, who has returned again… in a new body because that’s what he does because he’s not just a fucking wizard anymore but a TIME LORD… Dun Dun DuuunnnnN!!!

I hate it so much I can’t do a full 10 reasons… I just hate it.  I only hope at some point in the series the Time Lord opens a portal to the Warhammer universe and a Blood Raven’s Terminator pops through and shreds Dr. Who with Lightning Claws.  Because that’s an episode I could watch.

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Veteran’s Day.

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Almost every year I post this.   I wrote it some years ago when Bush was the President.  When I had a bit more pride in our Nation than I’m feeling now.  But the message is the same.  ”Thank you”.

Veterans Day: Just a word to you cake eating civilians out there… You don’t say Happy Veterans Day. You don’t say Merry Vets Day. But just because you don’t have a meaningless Seasons Greetings for it doesn’t mean you don’t say anything.

This isn’t some fat bunny in a sled passing around Jack O’Lanterns because it’s Santa’s birthday… This isn’t about some old fable-become-tradition.

Veterans Day is a day for those that are still alive, and for those who are dead… those who died for your freedom to flip soldiers the bird and to call them baby killers and spit on them in the airport.

Veterans Day is for the guys that died fighting for your personal independent liberty…

It’s for that Veteran that walks with just a slight limp and seems otherwise fine, but he doesn’t have a spleen because an enemy of our country blew it out his back with an AK-47 so you can get 15% Off that new leather fat-ass reclining couch that your going to sit on to mock the President from while watching your 42 inch plasma TV flipping through the channels trying to find some Friends rerun.

Veterans Day is for the guy that came home while all his friends didn’t.

Veterans day is for the woman who gave up the best years of her young adulthood so she could press her hands over the sucking chest wound of some guy from her own home town 6 thousand miles away from home.

Veterans day is for that old woman over there that raised 2 kids alone because when she was young she sent her handsome young husband off to fight for your freedom and came back as a flag folded into a triangle.

That’s what Veterans day is for… and what do you say to those people who served?

You just say “Thank You”.

Food, Uncategorized

Long live the King?

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Burger King, that is.   This morning I had too much blood in my caffeine and I was getting a headache from it.  Needed to fix that.  Closest joint was a BK.  So I stopped in, went inside.  I had a minute.  So I sit down with a large Coke on ice and pull out my Samsung Galaxy S4, which is awesome…   Check messages… Oh, they have free WiFi.  Well… Let’s just hop on that and use their bandwidth instead of my Verizon Miserly Minutes.  Because Verizon doesn’t do an Unlimited Data plan, I try to use WiFi whenever possible.

Check my emails.  Check my messages… Hmmm… What about any new comments on MadOgre.com?

THIS SITE IS BLOCKED.  REASON:  WEAPONS.

Burger King Blocks The Ogre.   Oh really?  So I check a few other Pro-Gun sites… and they are blocked too.  Uh huh.   Now, wait a second… If they are blocking me, undoubtedly for the children… they must be blocking – Nope… You can still pull up Miley Cyrus twerking that skinny little ass.   So Burger King thinks it’s okay for Hanna Montana to shake that flat little money maker, but I can’t check out a Pro-Second Amendment discussion site.

Really, King of Burgers?   That hurts me, King B.  That cut me.

At this point I walked out.   I don’t see myself spending any more of my money there.   Check our your local BK establishments.  See if they have free WiFi and if they are filtering guns too.  Maybe it’s just this Franchise.  Maybe it’s a Corporate thing.  I’d rather see this be a Corporate thing.  Because this Franchise was just outside of the main gates of a Marine Base.  And they are banning gun related content on their WiFi.  That’s just asinine considering all the Marines and Relatives that stop and eat there.  Just sad.   I was quite disappointed.

 

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CZ 100

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You know how some things set a standard. They become the benchmark by which all others are judged. Well, for many of my reviews I have mentioned the CZ 100 pistol as an example of what I consider to be just about the worst trigger ever made on any production handgun ever. I’ve mentioned it but until now I have never introduced it to you. That’s been rather rude of me and I apologize. Let me introduce it to you now.

The CZ 100 is a polymer framed automatic that is a radical departure from CZ’s standard 75 series based guns. It is not just a polymer framed CZ 75 clone. If that is what you are wanting, check out an IMI Desert Eagle poly in 9, .40, or .45. I reviewed a pair of them last year. Those were outstanding handguns.

One of the biggest departures from normal CZ tradition is that the 100 is a double action only pistol. The trigger mechanism is unique in that the idea behind it is simple to the point of almost being brilliant. Pulling the trigger moves a hook that grabs a bar on the striker and slingshots it back. At the farthest point of travel, the trigger hook drops off the striker allowing it to fly forward to fire the gun.

I say “almost brilliant” because it of course fails miserably at being any sort of usable trigger at all. No, I’m serious, it’s bad. It’s the stuff of nightmares. The trigger feels exactly like those old toy guns you used to be able to buy at grocery stores that shoot those little plastic disks. I’ve actually had nightmares where a large dark looming threat is advancing on me and I pull out my sidearm and pull the trigger… it feels like this and in my dream little plastic disks fly out to bounce off the menace which is of course unfazed by the plastic disks. To put it bluntly, the CZ 100 is my nightmare pistol.

Let me describe the trigger pull. A long take up pull, then heavy stacking up to a level that is off the scale. If the trigger pull was just bad, that would be one thing… but when the trigger breaks, it pulls the front sight off to the right suddenly. Trying as hard as I might, I could not pull the trigger without the sight being jerked off target. Interestingly, when I dry-fired the gun left handed, the sights stayed on target. I don’t know why that is… maybe it is the way I manipulate triggers and I just do it differently left handed. The trigger is not just bad, it’s funny how bad it is. It’s almost as if it’s a joke. How could a serious arms company release a pistol so awful?

Actually, several have. AMT’s BackUp .45, the HK VP-70, Stanley Staplers, all have bad triggers on the epic scale, but the CZ 100’s is worse. Trust me.

Now the question is this; is the 100 otherwise a decent pistol handicapped with a bad trigger? Let’s take a look at it objectively. When you first take up the 100, it feels pretty good in the hand. But the more you hold it, the more odd it feels. It gets to be downright awkward. The pistol’s styling is also interesting. They went to the trouble of making the gun as slick sided as possible, including the breaking of the slide release lever and take down pin into two separate parts instead of one combine unit. Then they hide the slide release under the frame and have the release lever sticking out an odd little window. It’s like a cross between something you might see on classic Star Trek and The Next Generation. The lines of the pistol are all wrong. Looking at it from a side view, it merely looks ugly. Change your viewing angle to look at it more from the front and it becomes absolutely hideous. This is the Pontiac Aztec of handguns.

Like the Pontiac Aztec, even for being an abomination, it does offer good utility. For example, you can sometimes fine CZ 100’s for under $300’s. They are very reliable. It has a unique belt/holster snag feature up on the top to help aid in one hand slide manipulation. They needed this because you can’t quite hook your belt on the rear sights… because as a cruel joke they topped this pistol with an adjustable rear sight as if someone with a room temperature IQ might mistake it for a target pistol. There is the hint of frame rails under the muzzle, tempting one to think it a tactical pistol. All the tactical lights I’ve tried on it either don’t fit and even if they did, they are not able to lock on to it. So it isn’t a tactical gun, or a target gun, and being a 9mm it is not an overly powerful gun… so what is it? I’m not exactly sure. I guess it is trying to be a self defense gun. Let’s see if it is.

If you can manage rowing that trigger all the way back, the gun will fire every time until you have emptied all 15 rounds. Of course you will feel like Ben Hur at the oars of a Roman galley by then, but still… the gun does work. That 15 round magazine is a decent payload for a gun so slim. The 100 is rather slick sided for being so ugly… but then again so is the Swamp Thing. All this can be yours, an easy packing, reliable, high capacity 9MM, for under $300. Like your momma told you about lima beans, it doesn’t matter how bad it tastes, it’s good for you. I’ve actually seen examples for sale for as low as $225. At that price you are at the Makarov level. I’m not sure which one I’d buy if they were side by side for the same price, but I’d probably lean to the Mak.

I don’t mean to bash the CZ 100 so completely, but I can’t help it. It is kind of like nachos… you can’t eat just one. Unless by one you mean a plate full. One plate full is a good stopping point. Those who are familiar to me, know that I am extremely fond of CZ firearms. So much so that one day I hope to make a pilgrimage to the Czech Republic to where CZ guns are made. My favorite handgun remains my CZ P-01. I especially like CZ’s magazine fed bolt action centerfire rifles. Dang near everything else from CZ I find to be excellent and most worthy. I wouldn’t hesitate to spend my own cash on anything from CZ, anything save the 100. The 100 is just awful and should be avoided as much as possible like it was mosquito borne West Nile Virus.

Unless you are a full blown CZ Freak and just have to anything and everything from CZ. That being the case, I can’t blame you. The 100 is a very interesting pistol. You can’t help but to look at it. Like a weird mole on the face of someone you are trying to talk to. There is some weird fascination about it that draws you to it. And that is the oddest thing about the CZ-100… for all it’s warts, for as ugly and utterly nasty as it is… you can’t help but to kind of like it. Like ET in a way. Shooting the 100 well is a challenge and there in is the draw. It’s like riding a GP class bike with a tight clutch and a throttle like the trigger on a detonator. Awkward and difficult… it’s fantastic. But it’s not something for everyone. Unlike the GP bike, the 100 is awkward and difficult, but it isn’t for anyone.

If this article contradicts its self, it is a good metaphor for the pistol.

CZ USA could make this a much more appealing weapon system, but it would require a completely different fire system. I would suggest they take a close hard look at a couple other good fire control systems. Kahr Arms has perhaps one of the best examples of a DAO (Double Action Only) system. Then again they could do it as a Single Action system like the Springfield XD. That would be my choice if I was the Head Honcho at CZ. I’d also do something to the looks and the size. I would clip the grip frame down to “CZ Compact” size, and then recontour the slide to something more appropriate to concealed carry. The weird way the slide overhangs the dust cover at the muzzle end… reminds me of the front end (the bow, sorry) of an Aircraft Carrier. But considering that CZ’s lineup already has better pistols for these purposes… the P-01, the PCR, really there is no point in the 100. There is no necessity for CZ to force out a polymer framed pistol before it is really ready for prime time. The only reason for using a plastic frame is to reduce weight. The only gun that this is needed in are for guns intended specifically for concealment. And CZ has already done a poly version of the RAMI. I guess the best thing for CZ to do would be to just drop the gun altogether.

Another thing about the 100 is that it has a brother. There is a .40 cal version that wasn’t imported into the USA. They called it the CZ-110. If you ever thought that the 100 was great, but it just needed a little more horsepower, well, your wrong. The 110 was just as bad as the 100 ever was but added snappier recoil. Good times. Ugly and awkward and now uncomfortable! Brilliant!

To sum up the CZ 100 quickly, if you are a CZ collector, fine, get it. If not, spend your money on a more worthy pistol.

 

Weapons

NORTH AMERICAN ARMS GUARDIAN .380.

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NORTH AMERICAN ARMS GUARDIAN .380.

The NAA Guardian has long been one of my favorite little pistols. I have no specific reason to validate that bias… there are pistols out there that are a bit smaller. Some that are lighter. Some that are more powerful. In a race for first places, the Guardian doesn’t win any category firsts. Yet when you take in all the score averages, it comes in with the most points in my book.

Some guys might not like it because they think it might be too heavy. Or the trigger pull too long and too weighty. The slide might be too hard to pull back. The sights might be too hard to see. You know what? They are right. The Guardian has a way of turning negatives into positives. Let me explain. The sights are just about useless. They are too small and narrow to be effective. But this does not matter because the intended purpose of the weapon, they are not even going to be used. The slide is hard to cycle by hand because the gun uses a blow-back action. It isn’t an elegant system, but it is very reliable. As long as the ammo works, the gun is going to work. The trigger is long because it is a double action only design… which gives the gun added safety and simplicity of use. It is as simple to run as a revolver. It doesn’t need a safety lever to worry about.

Overall the Guardian is greater than the sum of it’s parts. When you are walking from your office out to your car late at night and parking lot looks spooky, you can feel that reassuring weight in your pocket letting you know that you are prepared. As you walk, you casually slip your hands in your pockets and your right hand slides over and around the grips. The cool steel whispers a comforting voice to your mind, “you will be okay.” Should a goblin appear, the snag free profile draws quickly and easily from the pocket holster. You don’t have to think about working the action or dropping the safety because the gun is always there for you, always ready. You might be scared and under stressed. Maybe your trigger finger is already on the trigger while you cover the potential assailant… under such stress a lighter trigger might be pulled all the way resulting in a negligent discharge. This happens to members of law enforcement sometimes… it could happen to anyone. With the Guardian’s longer pull this isn’t so much of a danger.

Should you have to fire, the .380 ACP cartridge is going to bark and snap and send out a 90 grain jacketed hollow point to deliver your cease and desist order. While a .380 isn’t the most powerful round out there, the Guardian’s 6+1 capacity will certainly make a convincing argument to the goblin that it picked the wrong victim. The Guardian’s magazine release is in the standard American position on the side behind the trigger… if you practiced, you can reload the pistol quickly. But by this time the Goblin could be laying on the ground bleeding out and you could be using your other hand to call 911 on your cell phone.

Of course all the above is a worst case scenario. But that is what we are all about… we hope for the best, but plan for the worst. A concealed carry gun like the Guardian is such a simple thing, like a seatbelt or a parachute. It can only do it’s job if you strap it on before you take off.

My last gun review I mentioned the shooting at Trolley Square in Salt Lake City. Since then we have had the shooting at Virginia Tech… Unlike at Trolley Square, there was no one at the scene armed with a concealed weapon. Had there been, the outcome could have been different. The body count could have been a lot less. Here is the clincher, there were people who had the concealed carry permits, but didn’t have the weapons on them. That was because of the Virginia Tech no weapons policy. That is the thing that bothers me the most. 30 victims died after the police were already on the campus. I’m not going to disrespect the police here, but I am going to say this: Personal Security is a Personal Responsibility. Remember that.

For that purpose you have to have your weapon on you at all times. You can’t leave it at home. You can’t leave it in your vehicle. You can’t leave it in your purse back at your desk. You have to have it on your person, and where you can access it without drawing attention to yourself.

This is where the Guardian comes into play. Carried in a pocket holster, the gun is invisible and you can look cool as a jewel as you stand there with your hands in your pockets, in about as nonthreatening a pose as you can be… yet be ready to instantly respond to a threat. In an inside the waistband holster tucked in behind your hip the Guardian is easily forgotten and unnoticed… but it is always going to be there for you.

As I mentioned in the first part of this series on the Ultimate Concealed Carry Gun I laid out some reasons for our selection of the Guardian as our gun of choice. Let’s review. We wanted a gun that was small. We wanted a gun that was solid. We wanted at least a .380 caliber. We wanted the highest quality while avoiding high premiums. We wanted reliability. After filtering all the gun industry’s products, the result was the North American Arms Guardian.

Let’s take a look at the internals. The Guardian doesn’t break down in the usual way. There is a small take down button on one side. Hitting that button allows you to lift the rear of the slide up and off the frame and then slide it forward off the barrel. Here is the interesting thing about the Guardian, the frame and the barrel are both one part. So you have the frame/barrel, the slide, and the recoil springs with that little weird spring plug.

I took my example apart and was struck by the bigger hammer approach that NAA used in the design. Even in the small parts there is a large dose of rugged built in. This is a sturdy little fellow. If the Guardian was a character from Lord of the Rings, it would be Gimli the dwarf. Small, tough, and full of attitude.

It was also a little rough. I used a new product called Ultra Blue by Microlon. The color is like the blue milk that Luke Skywalker drank in episode 3. Strange or not, it’s some really slick stuff. With a little bit if that blue stuff and some hand cycling, the Guardian smoothed out a lot.

During test firing, I ran through four boxes of shells with no problems. The reliability is there. As the saying goes, “accuracy is fine, but reliability is final.” I would have no problem packing this gun as a daily carry item. Even if it isn’t my main gun, it can always ride as a backup. In a pocket or on the ankle, it can always be there for me.

There are some things about the Guardian that I would want to change. Oh sure, the gun is fine as it is… but I want it to be better. I want NAA to deck it out as the “Vee Dub” commercials say “Pimp zee Auto.” I want it to be slicker. I want the edges to be melted a bit. And as always I want there to be tritium in the front sight post. I would also like something a bit more in the looks department. Dress it up a bit for me. Nice wood grips maybe, but those don’t contribute anything but pure cosmetics… but it would still be nice.

Even if it is a concealed carry gun, I want it to look cool. I don’t care if no one ever sees it. Like a tattoo under your clothes… you know it’s there.

The Guardian is a great starting platform for The Ultimate Concealed Carry Pistol… Let’s see what we can do with it and how it turns out.

Caliber: .380 ACP

Magazine Capacity: 6+1

Operation: Double Action Only

Material: 17-4 pH stainless steel

Barrel Length: 2.49″

Height: 3.53″

Overall Length: 4.75″

Width: 0.930″

Weight: 18.72 ozs. unloaded

Suggested Retail Price: $449.00

Weapons

EAA Witness Compact 10mm:

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EAA Witness Compact 10mm:

This review was published by Concealed Carry Magazine, for the photos that go along with this article, check out Concealed Carry Magazine.

SICK OF COMPROMISE:

The one thing that has always bothered me about Concealed Carry type guns is that they are all about compromise. You give up power for smaller size. You give up accuracy for a shorter barrel. You give up everything you really want in a handgun for the ability to have it on you all the time. Maybe I’ve grown cranky. Maybe I’m just fed up. Whatever the source of my feelings, I’m tired of compromises. I’m tired of shooting tiny guns that only make small holes, or dent paper. I want some raw horse power. I want some excessive force. And I want it with some decent accuracy, control and something that could get me through a knock down, drag out gun fight. A real gun. But it can’t be a 1911, and it can’t be a .45… or Tim would string me up with my own gunbelt.

SOMETHING DIFFERENT:

I was given the chance to “pick something” from the EAA catalog for review. Anything. Then shoot the hell out of it and see if it holds up. I’ve done 9’s and I don’t like .40’s all that much, and you are all sick of my gushing on .45 ACP. So I picked a Compact Witness in 10mm. This is an all steel, double action, 10 round, 10mm pistol with a 4 inch barrel, fixed 3 dot sights, and EAA’s “Wonder Finish”. The MSRP is only $450. That’s what it is, but it doesn’t really tell you guys what it really is. The gun is rather heavy for its size. Being that it is in a caliber with such potency, that weight is not a downside. The gun is in an intermediate size for being called a compact. I guess it is smaller than the full sized gun, but it isn’t really all that compact. The gun is thick through the grip so you can really hold on to it, but the length is too short to get all your fingers aboard. Even with the magazine’s finger extension, you still cant get your pinky to join the others on the gun. This might not be an issue for you out there with knuckles that are not swollen from arthritis. The Wonder Finish is an attractive finish that feels slick to the touch. It reminds me of NP3, for those that know what that is. As good looking as the finish is, the one thing I really like about it is that it is very easy to clean. After test firing all I did was spray it down with a little Hoppe’s #9, rinse that off with a little Hornady One Shot, then wiped it off. It looked clean as new and was slick as ever. Some Hoppe’s and a bore snake cleaned inside the barrel, and I put a little Tetra Gun Oil on the rails and sear and that was it. I was done cleaning in about 2 minutes.

THE CARTRIDGE:

This little beast is chambered for is something that most shooters are not familiar with. I showed it to a few guys, and they had never seen nor heard of 10MM before. (I know I live in the sticks, but there are good people here) So let’s review a little history. The 10mm was introduced in 1983 in conjunction with the Bren Ten pistol by the well known firearms house of Dornaus & Dixon… We all know those guys, right? No, me neither. All I know about them was that they had this pistol that was an epic flop. The famous Jeff Cooper was a huge supported of the Bren Ten, and the pistol was good. It just never caught on. I don’t know why. The cartridge is brilliant. It can be chambered in guns that you can chamber .45 in, meaning 1911 type guns. It offers a wide performance spectrum from target loads to deer hunting loads. You can go from 135 grain bullets at 1600 fps, to 200 grain bullets at 1200 fps. This gives you performance like no other auto cartridge… you want this sort of versatility in a more common platform, you will have to go with a .357 magnum or a .41 magnum because the 10mm is right in between those two. That’s a lot of power and flexibility that you just don’t find in your normal automatic pistol. Especially not an auto for concealed carry purposes.

In 1986 in Dade County Florida, the FBI got into a big shootout with a couple of baddies who didn’t fall over dead like they were supposed to. The Agents hit them repeatedly, but the baddies kept fighting, and Agents got killed. The FBI reevaluated everything about their side arms. They examined the calibers and the bullets and they added it all up. The answer was the 10mm.

Unfortunately for all the lawyers and accountants the FBI hires, the 10mm was too much for them. Too much recoil. So they downloaded the cartridge to mild levels. S&W said that they could do that in a 9mm length cartridge and put it into a smaller gun… and that’s how we got the .40 S&W cartridge, called the Short and Weak by those who had become used to the 10mm.

Looking back at this development, I can see that it was a good move and now most handguns are chambered in 9mm, .40 S&W, or .45 ACP. The downside is that the 10mm just fell out of the public eye. Today, it’s almost invisible. The gun store that I work at doesn’t carry 10mm ammunition, and we don’t carry any 10mm guns either. I drove out to SLC, Utah and stopped by every gun store that I knew of. It took all day, but I hit 9 shops. Only one of them stocked ammo, and none of them had a pistol. The one place that did have some ammo, only had 4 boxes. 4 boxes in a city of 2 million. I was discouraged. Fortunately there is the internet, and more ammo was ordered.

TIME TO SHOOT:

I didn’t want to shoot this gun alone… I wanted second opinions. Shooting Buddy Ben came with me one time, then The Travis came with me another time. We are all in agreement that the gun shoots very well, accuracy is more than acceptable, and the recoil isn’t just manageable, but enjoyable. Ben made a comment worth note, “The FBI couldn’t handle this? Sissies.”

I agree. The 10mm out of an all steel gun is really not much more kick than a .45, and I once taught a little Japanese lady that weight less than two bags of dog food how to shoot a .45 and she did great with it.

Ben and I decided to shoot at steel. The base plate of an abandoned oven is made of sheet metal thicker than most desert dwelling kitchen appliances. Ben had his trusted XD Tactical .45 that we used for comparison. The 5 inch barreled .45, shooting 230 grain FMJ Blazer Brass loads, punched through the metal, but pushed in a big dent before breaking through it. The EAA Witness 10mm with its 4” tube blasted through the same metal so easily that it looked like we used a Dewalt power drill. The penetration is incredibly impressive. You don’t see this sort of power from a gun you hide on your person.

We did find an interesting problem with the gun. EAA only sent us one magazine for the pistol, so I can’t tell if it’s a mag issue or an ammo issue. American Eagle 180 grain rounds would jam the gun on the second round from the last in the magazine – every time. This was a failure to feed as the round would stand up in the magazine and the slide close on that side of the cartridge. First thought was that this is obviously a magazine issue, but it only happened with AE 180’s. Norma, Buffalo Bore, Hornady, PMC, and Winchester did not jam.

The other thing that we all agreed upon was that the gun its self still needs a little work. The slide seemed to batter the frame pretty good, especially with the hotter Norma and Winchester loads. I think the spring is a bit too light from the factory, it could be two to four pounds heavier. The gun has some sharp corners around the trigger guard and muzzle. The front sight post is formed with the slide instead of dovetailed in like it should be. This means you can’t install night sights, or different sized posts to adjust the point of impact for different loadings.

CONCLUSION:

While the gun is good as it is… especially for the money. It could easily be better. You could take it from about a 7, to a solid 9.

The gun falls in a unique category in that it is big enough to not be as easily concealable as a compact, yet too small to be a target type gun. It needs to be optimized for our concealment purposes. Here is what needs to be done. First off, the sights. I know I always bitch about the sights on a pistol or hail them as needed. Sights and trigger are two critical things that can not be skimped on. EAA should have a guy in house to grind off the front sight post, cut in a dovetail, and put in Tritium night sights. That is a must for a gun to be taken seriously by me. Target guns and Defense guns need two different kinds of sights. Different purposes. This EAA Compact Witness is supposed to be a Defensive gun. The grips. The grip panels on the gun are good and… er… grippy. They help soak up the recoil a lot and make shooting this 10MM a joy. Unfortunately they are too thick. And the soft rubber allows fabric to cling, making the gun print too much. In my attempts to conceal this gun, I found that it printed too much under just light shirts like what I like to wear in warm weather. You would have to wear a sports coat over this thing to keep it hidden. I suggest to get rid of the grips and use thin profile aluminum grips from Hogue. This would slim down the profile a great deal and make packing CCW much much easier. The finger rest on the magazine is another thing. The gun is too short for a 3 finger grip, and the finger rest doesn’t help me one bit. Go ahead and let the pinky swing free on this one, and let the gun be just that much shorter for concealment. Now for the biggie. I’ve not tested a handgun that BEGS for a Melt Job more than this Witness. It has sharp edges on its sharp edges. The front of the gun has the full length rails that extend to the muzzle, all they way past any point of being useful, straight to being irritating. If this was taken to a belt sander for about a minute and a half – it would be brilliant. A custom gunsmith should be able to do this to your gun with very little effort, but with huge returns. Of course then he would have to refinish it and you would lose the Wonder Finish – which even EAA can’t tell me what it is. One last thing. The gun needs a recoil spring about 2 pounds heavier. Wolff Gun Springs can fix that one with no problem.

Considering the price of a new EAA Witness… having this work done to it wouldn’t be out of the realm of reasonable when you take into account what you would then have in your hands. A concealed carry gun that makes no compromises.

 

Weapons

The Thirties

3 Comments

One of my least favorite things at the gun shop is when some guy who we don’t know, sends in his wife who we don’t know, to buy some “300”. We don’t know the people, so we don’t know which 300 the guy might have. 300 generally means a .30 Caliber of some sort and well, there are too many common options to just pick one. During hunting season, this happens on a regular basis. So guys, if you do send your girl into town to pick up a box of ammunition – do your wife a favor. Rip off the end tab of your last box of ammo and send that with her so the guys at the gun store know exactly what you need, and we don’t think of you in a less than flattering manner.

Let’s look at some of these 30 cal cartridges. There are 10 different common 30’s. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses.

The .30-30 Winchester. The Thirty really started as a market success with the .30-30 Winchester. This was the first serious high velocity metallic cartridge using smokeless powder. It was a hot rod back in its day. Shooters were amazed. These days, the .30-30 is often scoffed at by those that don’t get it. Personally, the .30-30 remains a favorite of mine. It’s mild, yet potent enough to take down an elk at 200 yards. Typically it fires bullets from 150 grains to 170 grains, at moderate velocities from 2250 FPS to 2400 FPS. Accuracy is average to pretty good from most rifles. Most of which are lever action rifles with open sights. The best I’ve ever seen a .30-30 do was half inch groups at 100 yards in a rifle that had about 250 bucks worth of gunsmithing to tune it for better accuracy.

The .30-06 Springfield. This is the classic .30 caliber cartridge that America has used all around the world fighting for our freedom. The Aught Six as it as loving called, has fathered more offspring cartridges than anything else. Most notable is the .270 Winchester, which has become the second most popular cartridge according to nationwide sales… but that is another story. The Aught Six fires bullets usually between 150 grains to 200 grains, but there are loads out there going lighter or heavier… I’ve seen them as low as 110 grains and as high as 225 grains. Velocity is high, but remember, this is not a Magnum cartridge. Velocities are typically centered around 2800 FPS. Accuracy is very good, but could be better because the case has a lot of wasted space in it, reducing the efficiency of cartridge and allowing for less consistent powder burn. This cartridge went to war in WWI in our bolt action Springfield 1903 rifles, then into WWII in our M1 Garands, and into Vietnam still in our 1903 Springfields that were accurized and scoped and used as sniper rifles. Because of the shear number of surplus rifles on the market, and because of the almost universal acceptance, use, and general fondness of this cartridge… it has become the Number One cartridge in America for overall sales. Still today, it remains the Top Dog. Every company that makes a rifle, makes one in .30-06. There are those that love it with a passion, and there are those that don’t really like it… but no knowledgeable shooter disrespects it.

The .308 Winchester. After WWII, the M1 Garand was altered and the action was tweaked to fire from a detachable box magazine. This needed a cartridges that was shorter for better feeding. This is where the .308 Winchester came to the spotlight. This gives us almost the same performance of the .30-06, but does so with greater efficiency and thus better overall accuracy. Again, like the Aught Six, the Three’oh’eight fires rounds from 150 grains to 180 grains like most of the .30 cals going on… but does so at about 2700 FPS, which is only about 100 FPS slower than the Aught Six.

The .300 Savage. This one goes back to 1921 and was the first “300”. It was hugely popular for a time, and chambered in Savage’s strange yet good model 99 lever action. It’s a bit shorter than the .308, and milder, pumping out 150 grain loads to a pleasant 2630. You can bump up the loads to 180 grainers, but the speed drops off a bit too much I think. So while it’s a lighter hitter than the .308 and a harder hitter than the .30-30, it occupies a comfortable place in that middle ground. It very well could be the ideal .30 caliber for light carbines. Imagine a Model 7 Remington in this cartridge… that would be great combination. The round is very accurate and just a pleasure to shoot.

The .300 Winchester Magnum. In 1963 gun makers decided to go big in terms of velocities. Winchester hit the home run with the .300 Win Mag, and its the ballistic equivellent of the Mona Lisa. A work of art. And a work by which all other .30 caliber magnums are compared to. It’s powerful and has a strong kick to it, but not too hard as to be punishing. In a full sized rifle, it is quite manageable. You can load a 180 grain bullet up to 3,000 FPS… a dramatic increase in horsepower. People just call this round “The Win Mag” and most everyone knows exactly what you are talking about.

The .300 Remington Ultra Mag. Remington had to do something big, so they came out with the .300 Remington Ultra Mag…. or the .300 RUM as I like to call it. This cranks to the same slug as the .300 Win Mag about 250 to 300 FPS faster and hitting harder by about 600 foot pounds of energy according to typical load data. This cartridge is a dragon slayer. There are some out there that are hotter, like the .30-378 Weatherby magnum, but not by much. If a scope is going to get bucked off a rifle and break mounts and rings – most likely the gun is going to be a .300 RUM. Around where I live, we call these “Elk Cannons” and we sell a ton of them. For long range knock down, this has it. The .300 RUM can body slam an Elk at a thousand yards.

The .300 Winchester Short Magnum. When this one first came out a few years ago, I scoffed at it. “Same ballistics as a .300 Win Mag? What’s the point?” Well, what it gives you is that classic Win Mag power, but it does so with greater accuracy and with about 20% less felt recoil. I set up two rifles exactly the same… Synthetic stocked Weatherby Vanguards, using the same rings and bases I mounted the same scopes on each. The only difference was that one was a Win Mag, the other a Short Mag. The Win Mag kick was tolerable, but after 10 rounds I was done shooting it for the day. I shot a sub 1 inch group with it and it was great. Reaching out with that much crushing power, that is a lot of violence to focus into a inch. Then I shot the Short Mag. I shot a one hole group, and it was actually fun to shoot. Less recoil enough to shoot all day… I ran out of bullets for it. Same speed, greater accuracy, less recoil… this round has no downsides. Marketing didn’t come up with this round like I thought… this is ballistics engineering at its finest.

The .300 Remington Short Action Ultra Mag. Remington wanted to do something in a Short Mag type platform and they came out with the Short Action Ultra Mag… and it flopped. It’s a decent round, just a tick behind the .300 WSM, but it does so in a slightly shorter length, allowing it to be able to be used in .308 length actions. This allows us to make AR-10/SR-25 type rifles that hit like a .300 Win Mag. To me, that makes it a winner. I think this is just about the perfect cartridge for military applications in GPMG’s (General Purpose Machine Guns such as the M-60 and M-240). The US Military wants more power? Here it is. Take our current crop of .308 caliber SR-25 sniper rifles and rebarrel them to .300SAUM… presto. While I think the SAUM has it’s place, it is a commercial flop. The WSM beat it, but I think this is more of a perception matter than performance. People hear “Ultra Mag” and they want a dragon slayer, not just another Win Mag Mirror. I think Hornady could lend a hand and blend some powders and do their alchemy and come up with a Heavy Mag load for the .300 SAUM and it would then enjoy a ballistic advantage… But that is neither here nor there.

The .30 T/C. With the trend for making all things short and chubby, someone had to do it… so TC did. They made a .30-06 Short Mag. This cartridge mirrors the classic .30-06 ballistics. But it is more than that. It does so in a shorter, more efficient case. It’s the same length as the .308 Winchester but a touch chunkier. It is of course more accurate thanks to the greater efficiency. It also does two things that we are going to take as a bonus. It has less felt recoil, and it’s actually faster than the Aught Six by a few FPS, and in some loads up to 100 FPS faster. Not much… and nothing to make me want to run out and buy a new rifle in this caliber. It’s a like a hot handloaded .308, and in my opinion nothing more. TC brags that it’s the first cartridge with the TC head stamp, and that’s fine. Bully for them, but I’m thinking it’s rather un-needed. Now if they had taken this chunk of brass and necked it down to a 7mm, 6.5, or a .25 caliber – maybe we would talk.

The .300 RCM. The RCM stands for Ruger Compact Magnum, and in the same 24 inch barrel, it’s a clone of the .300 WSM. The RCM uses a different powder blend and gets up to speed quicker, meaning it works in shorter 20 inch barrels. I guess that’s nice. For guys guys that want short barreled Magnum rifles… all three of those guys should be happy with the .300 RCM. I have to be honest here, these last two rounds, the .30TC and the .300 RCM… the .30 caliber market is crowded enough and good, proven, classic calibers are being pushed out by these new rounds that do things slightly different. Yes, yes, yes, it’s accurate. But so was the .300 Savage. I don’t see a place for the .300 RCM in the future, and I think the .30T/C is going to die out as well, rather sooner than later. But that’s just my prediction. Who knows. It could really take off like the .300 WSM did. Now, Ruger has a version of this cartridge in .338… the .338 RCM and that has some serious potential there. I like that idea, but in the .300 class, it’s like just another boy band. We’ve heard that tune before and looks the same as the others.

If I was to pick a new .30 caliber round for all around use, I’d pick the .300 WSM. It does everything right, and nothing wrong. As a beer commercial once said, “Tastes Great, Less Filling”.

 

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