Building on the classic 1911 design of John Moses Browning, the Bobcut is the latest entry by the MAC company into the semi-custom carry market. A single-action .45ACP built entirely of 4140 steel in both the slide and frame, the Bobcut is both shorter and, true to its name, has a smooth bobbed tail on the grip.
Read the rest in my column at Top Gun review
One of the fastest growing names in the black rifle industry, Del-Ton, has announced that they are shipping their new DTI Evolution series AR-15 starting in the spring of 2013.
The Evolution is, as its name implies, the next step in logical AR platform progression by Del-Ton. A step up from its legacy Alpha, Echo, and Sierra series, it utilizes almost every big name accessory that is commercially marketed, giving a decent and semi-custom build in a factory platform. It is available with either black or dark earth furniture.
Read the rest in my column at Top Gun Review
In 1895, the new Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, approved an innovative revolver for his enormous army. At the time Imperial Russia was the only country in the world who mustered a military of more than a million men in peacetime. Once war was declared, the Tsar could count on another 14 million reservists to answer his call. They needed arms, and the Nagant M1895 revolver was their standard sidearm.
An enterprising pair of Belgian firearms inventors, Emil and Leon Nagant, has patented and sold, from their factory in Liege, a number of revolvers to the armies of Sweden, Norway, and Greece in the 1880s and 90s. When word came that the Tsar was eager to update the 1870s era Smith and Wesson .44 revolvers they carried with something more modern, the pair proposed an interesting design. Whereas most revolvers of the time offered either five or six shots, the Nagant brothers proposed a 7-shooter (take that Smith and Wesson!).
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.
– Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Here we see the old “C-class” light cruiser HMS Caroline steaming with a bone in her mouth.
The Caroline, at 4700-tons when fully loaded and some 446-feet overall length is about the size of today’s Oliver Hazard Perry Class frigates, but when she was designed in the 1900s, she was a pretty fierce fast cruiser. Capable of over 28-knots, her pair of 6-inch guns and 8 smaller 4-inchers could make mincemeat of attacking destroyers and torpedo boats of the day. Her job was to keep these wolverines at bay from the battleships of the line while being available for scouting and shadowing the bad guy’s battle line. Detached from fleet service she was also capable of showing the flag round the world anywhere the water was more than 16-feet deep.
Commissioned just four months after the start of WWI, Caroline served with the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron and famously led a torpedo attack during the Battle of Jutland. After the war she was sent to the East Indies Station based at Colombo where she patrolled the Indian coastline. In 1924 she became a drill ship for the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in April 1924 at Alexandra Dock, Belfast. There she remained as a dockside trainer and depot ship. Still officially in commission but never leaving port, she still had a reserve ‘crew’ as late as 2009. Not bad when you consider she was built in less than nine months.
In India post WWI
Of her class of 28 cruisers, one was sunk in 1918 by a mine, six were lost during WWII, and the remainder were all broken up by 1948, leaving Caroline in Irish waters as the sole survivor of her group.
Finally, with her hull right at 98-years old, HMS Caroline was decommissioned on 31 March 2011. Her ensign was laid up in St Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast. It is envisioned that she, the last survivor of Jutland and the last WWI-era Royal Navy cruiser afloat, will become a museum.
Today, disarmed, decommed, but still proud
The Brits sure got a lot of use out of her.
Specs:
Displacement: Nominal: 3,750 tons
Loaded: 4,219 tons
Deep: 4,733 tons
Length: 420 ft (128.0 m) (446 ft (135.9 m) overall)
Beam: 41.5 ft (12.6 m)
Draught: 16 ft (5 m) maximum
Propulsion: 4 shaft Parsons turbines
Power: 40,000 shp
Speed: 28.5 knots (53 km/h) (largely immobile after 1924)
Range: carried 405 tons (772 tons maximum) of fuel oil
Complement: 325
Armament: As built:
2 × BL 6 in (152 mm) /45 Mk XII guns (2 × 1),
8 × QF 4 in (102 mm) /45 Mk V guns[1]
1 × 6 pounder,
4 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Later:
4 × 6 in (152 mm) /45 Mk XII
2 × 3 in (76 mm) anti-aircraft
4 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes.
Today: None
Armour: Belt: 3 to 1 in
Decks: 1 inch
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO)
They have one of the largest collections of ships photos from avid martial art enthusiasts around the world, many never before seen. Some of the collection online is at http://www.warship.org/ship.htm
The International Naval Research Organization is a non-profit corporation dedicated to the encouragement of the study of naval vessels and their histories, principally in the era of iron and steel warships (about 1860 to date). Its purpose is to provide information and a means of contact for those interested in warships.
Nearing their 50th Anniversary, Warship International, the written tome of the INRO has published hundreds of articles, most of which are unique in their sweep and subject.
I’m a member, so should you be!
Had to go and do some training around Louisville.
(Got Gold?)
However, if you ever get to the Louisville area, be sure to check out the Patton Museum (before it all gets moved to Benning!)
Yes, its Patton’s Colt Peacemaker, and no those are not pearl handles. Only a pimp from a cheap New Orleans whorehouse would carry a pearl-handled pistol. For now this gun is at the Patton Museum aboard Fort Knox.
With its polymer frame, space age looks, and modern design, the Glock has become one of the most recognizable firearms in films for the past twenty years. When the Glock first appeared on the scene in the mid-1980s in the United States, it was strange and seemed foreign. This is probably because, when compared to the traditional single action Colt 1911 with its long slide and wood grips and the S&W wondernines with their stainless steel frames and double-action/single action hammers, the Glock had almost none of these traits.
It was striker fired with no exposed hammer and thus no external safety lever or decocks, giving it a streamlined look. Its ‘safe-action’ trigger lever was totally new and different to those who used any other handgun. Its magazine capacity, with 18 shots in the Glock 17 model, was the largest at the time with the closest contemporaries being the 13-shot Browning Hi Power and the 15-round CZ75. Even the name, “Glock,” after its Austrian inventor, had never been heard of before.
It was new. It was from Europe. It was plastic. Lucky for the Glock, all of these helped carve its role out in Hollywood.
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk
Actress Adrianne Palicki of Red Dawn, GI Joe, and Legion fame, seen here with a Glock 17…and rare for Hollywood: proper trigger discipline!
Great old CNET documentary about Italian Pig Boats, the Kreigsmarine’s Bieber, and others
One of the most popular rifles of the World War 2 era was the M-1 carbine. The short and handy little .30 caliber rifle, with its short length of pull, one-piece wooden stock, and abbreviated barrel, was standard issue to thousands of troops across Europe and the Pacific. Marlin capitalized on the mystique of this popular rifle when it came out with its own version in .22LR, the 99M1.
Read the rest in my column at Marlin Forums
ATLANTIC OCEAN (Dec. 7, 2012) Sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75)
and personnel from the Navy Unmanned Combat Air System program integrated test team prepare an X-
47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator aircraft for testing. The X-47B Unmanned
Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator aircraft is transported on an aircraft elevator aboard the aircraft
carrier Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman by Alan Radecki/Released)
You hear words like enormous, huge, immense, monstrous, mammoth, and colossal, but they are just words until you have a Magnum Research BFR revolver in your hands. This .45-70 buffalo gun-sized revolver is so big it looks like a prop in a science fiction movie (it was featured in the flick Looper), but it also has the niche following only a serious lead-slinger can command.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
