Less is More?

There are two pistols in 9mm that I actually want.  As of right now, everything on the market on most gun store shelves… I don’t want.  I just don’t… they don’t do anything for me.  I’ve no interest in them.  But coming soon, we’ve got a couple that have made me raise my Ogrish Eyebrow in interest.

First is the Strike One pistol from Arsenal Arms.

The second is the Caracal pistol.

 
The Strike One, to me, just seems really interesting and I really dig the super low bore axis and full 5 inch barrel. I’d like to see some accuracy tests. I’d like to do some accuracy tests. The new action and some innovations in this gun make it most interesting.
The Caracal has been tested by our friend Rob Pincus and he is all over this handgun… If Rob really likes something like this, it’s worth taking a look at. I’ve read what’s out there, seen the pics and vids…. But I want to get one and shoot it.
Now, none of these handguns are any revolution in hand held weaponry… both are firing the same 9mm rounds that everything else is, and as a result, we’re going to have the same terminal ballistics, effective ranges, and ammunition supply as everything else. So why do I want these guns? Because I’m looking for something other than the same routine. For the last several years I’ve become painfully jaded about the handguns on the market… there are no perfect handguns out there. Maybe there is something here that is getting us closer to that. Both of these pistols have something in common, other than in caliber… Simplicity. They are both very simple pistols in design and mechanics and that’s something I truly appreciate… when Less can be More.
Take my new Motorcycle for instance… the Superhawk really is a very simple bike. It’s a simple V-Twin with very little technology going on in there… other bikes of it’s type are using computers and electronic fuel injection… The Superhawk has a pair oversized carburetors and a choke lever. But everyone how has ridden one as almost universally agreed its one of the best rides – in the world. It gets there not just by being simple, but by doing simple very well. So simple, it smacks of elegance.
The Glock Pistol illustrated this beautifully when it took the world by storm. Yet the Glock is not perfect at all. Rob Pincus has pointed out his distaste for the requirement of Dry Firing the weapon to disassemble it. Springfield has corrected this from the XD series in the XDM series. The M guns don’t require it and the mechanism is about as complicated as a Slingshot. Maybe that’s what I am looking for… the simplicity of design, distilled down the it’s most basic form that interfaces with the shooter like it was coded in the very DNA.
Until we achieve a completely Matter-Energy Conversion power source that can feed the energy requirements of hand-held Directed Energy weapons or Electro-Magnetic Mass Drivers… we are going to be forced to continue to use cartridges as we know them today… and Simple Elegance is the best we can aspire to.

24 thoughts on “Less is More?”

  1. Is it just me, or do both those pistols seem to have a LOT of travel to trigger reset?

    ….or is the slapfest I watched twice some sort of high-speed competition thing?

  2. Stryker looks interesting.

    Pass in the muslim gun. Awful sloppy looking trigger, even when they tried to hide it with truck photography. Besides, I hate the thought of buying oil from the middle east, I dont want to buy anything more than I have to, except Isreali made products.

    1. “truck photography” I did that when I worked for a car dealership, its tougher than you think.

        1. I gave up on auto correct when I sent a client a message that was to read
          “I will pick you up at the airport” but was sent ” I will punch you at the airport”

  3. George, George, George, repeat after me 9x19mm is a POCKET PISTOL ROUND if you are gonna carry a gun the size of a 1911 at least get it in .45 or 10mm.
    Geoff
    Who doesn’t know what this young pups are getting into grumble, grumble, grumble!

  4. Both look interesting, but not enough so for me to buy another 9mm. Incremental improvements in the case of the strikefire, true, but I’m not sure what’s different about the Caracal. It seems like the product of locking a Glock and a Steyr M-1A in a safe with a bottle of tequila. Ought to be interesting to see how they stack up.

  5. Can’t get the audio to work on those videos, so maybe this has been answered, but what’s the actual height of the bore? They claim it’s the lowest ever, but it looks higher than my P7M13…

  6. Well the Strike One is quite interesting with its breech lock system.
    Apparently it is also going to be available in .40, Sig 357, and 9 X 21 IMI also and it will be a single action trigger. If I understand correctly you can drop longer barrels into it with no problem because the barrels don’t drop. It looks like they are going for the race gun crowd and military/police. I’d almost bet they have a “machine Pistol” version for sale to governments and agencies.
    Hmmm they have a 5.7 X 28 and a 4.6 X 30 under development for the Caracal…..eh, pass.
    http://gunsgunsguns.net/caracal-f/

  7. Look, get real- if the Glock did not have to be dry fired to dis-assemble, we would not have all those cool you tube doofus videos!
    Seriously, folks, this could be looked at as a Darwinian selection device. And, it could come with stickers for the lawn mower! “Reach in while running to clear wet grass !”

    Reminds me of the time I saw a guy up to his elbows underneath, and inside, a powered up 20′ long edge bander, a woodworking machine with about 10 motors and cutterheads, all controlled with remote limit switches, air switches, etc, cleaning the rollers with acetone while smoking his 40th cigarette of the day.

  8. OK ya got me curious. Why the interest in the 5.7 x 28? Unless you can get a hold of the evil armor piercing rounds for it I’d be leary of it out of a pistol.

      1. The 5.7 would be a dead sexy choice for zombies though. 20 rounds in regular sized mags, low recoil for quick headshots, small bore good for suppression, might even work with .22 suppressors. Only problem would be ammo availability.

  9. We were thinking of sending you our Mauser Hi Power for your birthday, but we see now you’d be put off by it.

    Good that you clarified you position on 9mms before we made such a mistake!

  10. I was interested in the caracal until the strike one was announced the SO looks very interesting while the Caracal doesn’t have much going for it besides the possibility of 5.7 chambering. But I’m not terribley interested in the 5.7 anymore.

  11. Check out the Walther PPQ. Beautiful trigger for a striker fired handgun with a very short reset..I mean short and crisp.

  12. The Caracal is made by the same dude that designed the Steyr M. I think he worked at Glock before that.

    Man, somebody really needs to help Strike One with their marketing. First off, having a strike is usually a bad thing. The Strike 2 will raise the pressure, and the Strike 3 explodes when you open the box.

    And the video… Dum dum dum dum DUM! (gun turns slowly). Dumdum DUM DUM DUM! (gun turns slowly as camera zooms in and out). With the music and the turning of the pistol for a minute I was waiting for it to suddenly battle a Power Ranger or something.

  13. My guess is that if enough people in the US want the Caracal they will set up a factory in the US to avoid some import/trans costs (though some parts will doubtlessly be fabricated abroad).

    I did find it interesting that while the Caracal firer did not work from the holster, he made the round chambering action part of his move to fire. That indicates that silly no round in the chamber affectation that is mostly used anymore to sell people “Israeli” combat shooting classes. Israelis do it so it must instantly be awesome.

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