Tag Archives: Pistols

Crusader, Weapons

Ordered a .40 Magnum today.

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I wanted a gun with more power and longer reach.  So I ordered a Glock 20SF today.  That’s a 10mm, Sports Fans.
Should be here Friday or Monday.  Some have said all pistols suck.  10mm… sucks a lot less.

The Glock 20SF was my pick because I just don’t dig the Gen 4’s and the SF is a lot like the Gen 4 with no backstrap attached.  The only one I could find with any of the distributors were only coming with the 10 round mags, so I ordered some 15 rounders.

I’ll need a holster for it.  I need to pick out some good sights.  And I need to get it to Joe at Crusader HQ for the Full Tilt Crusader Conversion.

This is all because of Nightcrawler.

Weapons

More .40 thoughts again.

75 Comments

I’ve had some discussions at the Gun Counter where I work, about the .40.  Most of my Co-Workers are Die Hard .45 fans.  And that’s fine.  I’m a .45 fan myself.  But the .40 is no slouch when comes to the Defensive Power Factor.  The Defensive Power Factor gives some more insight into why I like the .40.    Looking at the Winchester PDX1 loads to give a more even playing field… going heavy for caliber.

.40 PDX1 180 Grains at 968 FPS =  DPF:  69.69.

.45 PDX1 230 Grains at 882 FPS =  DPF: 91.2.

9mm PDX1 147 Grains at 954 FPS = DPF: 49.78.

Looking at the Defensive Power Factor, it shows the .45 is indeed the potent one.  As we all knew.  And the .40 falls in line where we thought.  Now here’s the deal… the .45 advocates insist that the average defensive shooting is 2 rounds.  1.5 to be precise.  So to them, the shorter round count is not a problem.  Well, that’s not me.  The US Army taught me to prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.  So I’m going to pack more rounds when I have that option. I’m not planning on getting into a shooting.  But I’m also not planning on firing twice and then stopping and then waiting to see what happens.  I’m going to shoot to stop the threat.  And that might mean giving them a whole magazine.

A typical .45 Mag with 8+1 rounds gives a .45 pistol a total DPF load of 820.8.

A typical .40 mag… Glock 22, 15+1, gives your .40 a total of 1115.04.

Typical 9mm Glock 17 magazine, 17+1 gives that 9mm a total of 896.04.  That’s actually even better than the .45!  I can see why the 9mm is popular with shooters… But even the vaunted “more shots in the magazine” argument kinda feels stale now.

These numbers paint a different picture in my mind.  I am looking at these figures and I see that .40 is no longer just the Middle Man… but a jack of all trades, Multi-Role Fighter.  This is one of the reasons the .40 enjoys so much popularity with Johnny Law.  And with Ogres.  You can keep your .45 Autos… and your 9mm’s.  I’ll stick with my .40 calibers… thanks.

 

Weapons

CZ vs The High Power

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Don’t get me wrong here… I love the CZ 75, and clones.  The P-01 and SP-01’s are fantastic.   CZ does indeed deserve much love.

But not matter how good the CZ is… it’s a mere shadow of the awesomeness that is the High Power.   The High Power is the original design that the CZ apes.  The High Power, even in 9mm, is one of the greatest handguns of all time.  I know that Colonel Jeff Cooper spoke very highly of the CZ, laying on it much accolades… but I am going to go out on a limb here and say that Cooper was mistaken and he should have named the High Power as the advanced handgun that could unseat the 1911 as the next greatest thing ever.

Look at it… Similar single action function to the 1911.  High capacity.  Low recoil.  Attributes that many of the top shooters are advocating.  So many shooters are going for expensive custom 1911’s chambered in 9mm.  Efforts to regain what was there all along… in the High Power.

If I was sitting at a chair around the board table at CZ USA, a company that has listened to my suggestions before… I’d strongly suggest that they take the CZ75 platform, and not just many a single action only version for competition… But make a new High Power of it, suitable for Duty use. No magazine disconnect or brake, night sights, lock and load carry, and a higher capacity than the original.  Make it look like a High Power.  And put it out with those awesome grips that are on the SP-01 and P-01 pistols.

Weapons

SIG’s 1911 .22

8 Comments

My buddy Fenris purchased a SIG 1911 in .22.  It’s not really made by SIG like their other 1911 pistols, but it’s made by GSG for them.  The other GSG’s are imported by ATI and are otherwise identical to the SIG, save for Grips and other Markings.

Well, Fenris and I took it out for the first time and we had a mixed box of random bulk rimfire rounds.  We fired 250 rounds through it. The accuracy was remarkable and the reliability was flawless.  Impressive for any rimfire…

Now SIG has a new version…  One I like a bit more.

Oh baby… That’s a good looking .22 Rimfire pistol right there!  Yes, t really is green… OD Green with simple walnut wood grips.

Weapons

Kahr vs Solo

15 Comments

Kimber’s new little Solo sub-compact is developing into quite the nice little carry package. While the main competitor, the Kahr sub-compacts are just not measuring up anymore.
The best selling Kahrs are the CW series guns. These have a cast slide, polymer frame, and come with just one magazine… but they are only 400 bucks. The nicer forged steel P series guns are right up there in Kimber Solo price territory, but they do come with an extra mag. They are good little guns and I am quite fond of them… but the ones people buy are the CW series and we’ve had some issues with them lately. The new ones from the factory are real notchy, sticky, and sharp. Very unpleasant guns to hold and operate. They are hard to pull the slide back and even more difficult to drop the slide again… the fit an finish look fine on the outside, but the way they work… just very poorly. These CW guns are actually hurting the Kahr brand. Had to take a return on one this week on one I sold, and that’s just not cool. A CW45. Those folks are never going to look at buying another Kahr for the rest of their lives. And I can’t blame them.  At that point you can’t try to talk them into the upper end Kahr pistol – because they look damn near the same.  They just got turned off one to spend more on another that looks the same?  Doesn’t work.
Then you pick up that Kimber solo. Whole other world. It’s like going from a Flinstones Kahr Car, sorry… to a Mercedes Benz.  Smooth action like melted chocolate.  None of the Kahrs can come close to that feeling.  They could – but they don’t.  Kahr persists in their sharp edged slide lock levers and sharp frames textures.  It’s like you reward yourself with buying a Solo, and punish yourself with a Kahr… and I have to say that I hate saying that.  Because I really do like Kahr! They are accurate, reliable, with great triggers… but they feel sharp and rough and are a hard sell.

Kahr needs to revamp their lines.  New cosmetic lines, a more agreeable texture on the grips.  The actions need to feel smooth and when someone – specifically women – try to press the slide release lever, that slide needs to drop with little effort instead of making their thumbs bleed.   Round off the sharp corners on everything.  Make it something you want to hold on to.    You do that… simple reworking of existing stuff without any reengineering… then Kahr would dominate the CCW market and we could price those at 499 instead of 399. The upper end P-series… would be redundant.    Kahr could dominate… they seriously could.

Weapons

Retextured Glock: Done

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Sanding, grinding, filing, and then stippling… I reshaped and retextured the gripframe of my Glock.  Let me explain this from square one. I wanted to make my Glock 23 fit my hand better, and I wanted a new texture that would be grippy, yet not snag on my clothes like the RTF2 finish can sometimes do.

The first of the process was to identify just what I wanted to change to make it fit better.  These areas got attention with some very careful application of a rotory hand tool that is normally the bane of all would be weaponsmiths.  Then I used a hand file and some sandpaper to make it feel better in my hand.  This is where I have to warn those that would follow my example – I’m a Professional Ogre, so don’t try this at home unless you are prepared to deal with the consequences.  “Hello, Glock?  Yeah, I pooched my pistol.”

After the prep work, it was time to do the stippling.  I used a sharp pointed soldering iron that I used to use for repairing laptops back when I could tolerate doing such work.  I don’t do that anymore so don’t ask.  This soldering iron gets pretty damn hot, and probably a lot hotter than is necessary or a good idea for this purpose, because it could easily go straight through the frame.  “Hello, Glock?”  So I had to be extremely careful and use a light touch.   The resulting grip shape and texture accomplished my goal perfectly.  It might not be pretty, but it feels a lot better in my hand than the original.

If you want this work done to your Glock, but you don’t want to do it yourself… This can be arranged through Crusader Weaponry.  Send your gun to Joe, so he can do his magic to it… slick it up, trigger work, maybe even refinish into a new color… and if you want the grip frame retexured by the Ogre, I would be happy to do it at a very reasonable price.

Training, Weapons

The Glock 23 in School

14 Comments

The MAG-40 class is a subject unto its self.  And will be.  My thoughts at the moment are about the Glock 23 .40 caliber pistol that is on my hip right now, and was with me through the course.  Riding of course, in my Sharkhide rig from Adams Holsters, which was asked about all the time through the course.  Sharp looking rig, good rig, and it worked great through the class.

I will make this point as clear as I can.  The Crusader Modified Glock 23 RTF2 performed flawlessly. It shot point of aim, point of impact when I did my job right.  The gun was digesting some horrid ammunition.  I did what I had sworn that I would never do… I used steel cased ammo for the class.  500 rounds of Tulammo, 180 grains.  Let me tell you, this stuff is complete crap.  I could feel the differences in pressure from one shot to the next.  Some rounds felt like 10mm loads, others felt like they were damn near squibs. But it was cheap. 14 bucks a box, so I snagged it.  I am impressed with the Glock in that it shot all of that very well.  I had zero malfunctions of any sort.  Period.

I do believe that my groups could have been better with some better ammo, but I can’t make any excuses.  Just before the course, Gundoc gave my Glock a Trigger Job, which caused me some stumble at first – all the sudden I had a different trigger than I was used to!  But I quickly adapted to the new pull and I was well pleased with the result.  The same weight, but it was crisper and there is no over-travel.  Very nice.  Using this combination, I shot a 298 out of 300.  I’ll take that. I’ll happily take that.  I wanted 300.  I wanted it bad.  But the shots I dropped, high and left, were not the fault of the gun or the ammunition.  Those were my mistakes and I’ll own those.

I’ve taken other guns to other courses and sometimes I come away unhappy with the gun or pleased, depending on things.  I was less than satisfied with Beretta and CZ in some shoots… HK and SIG has pleased me… and now this Glock has pleased me a great deal.  I am very confident with this pistol and I am more and more impressed with it.

I think I’d like to change up the Warren Tacticals.  I like the straight 8 configuration, but I wish the front sight had a white ring around the tritium insert.  There was a couple instances where I lost the front sight post…. totally my fault, but I think some more visibility would have been a help.

Other pistols in the course I observed had some issues.  I observed a couple XD’s with light primer strikes, and one that had a trigger return spring that failed and the shooter, Gail Pepin, had to change to another weapon.  Kimber’s had some issues after the first day… one just didn’t want to run.  Others had failures to eject.  S&W M&P’s ran gun, only a couple failures to feed a couple times.  I saw no failures with any of the Glocks on the range.  Now, my Glock did give me some trouble with failing to lock back on an empty mag.  Reason being, Gundoc also gave me an extended slide release and my Ogreish thumb kept riding it.  This didn’t slow me down though and my mag changes were just fine.  It’s easy to count 6 Shots when you only load 6 rounds n the magazine every time.

The solid reputation for accuracy and reliability of Glock handguns is well earned.

If I was going to take the MAG-40 class again, I think I would bring a 4″ revolver.