Tag Archives: Strike One

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.