18 Months with a Mini Bull along for the ride

Posted on by Leave a comment

I’ve been living with the Taurus GX4 micro compact 9mm for a year and a half on a daily basis and put well over a thousand rounds through it. It has surprised me, for sure.

Taurus introduced the GX4 to the world in May 2021, and I was able to get an early test model from the company slightly before. A good sequel to the company’s budget line of increasingly well-made and dependable G2 and G3 series pistols, the GX4 was more of the same, only smaller and with a better trigger.

When compared to more recently introduced double-stack micro 9s with similar magazine capacity, the GX4 was smaller than a lot of the big names, seen stacked side-by-side with the Springfield Armory Hellcat Pro, SIG Sauer P365 XMacro, and Kimber R7 Mako.

Designed for personal carry, the GX4 proved such an easy carry – just 24.8 ounces when fully loaded with 14 rounds of 124-grain Gold Dot– that it has become my go-to of late. Of note, that is the same magazine capacity as on the vaunted Browning Hi-Power, my first carry gun back in the late 1980s.

I’ve been carrying the GX4 in a DeSantis Gunhide Inside Heat, a bare-bones minimum IWB holster built from black saddle leather, and it just disappears. The pistol is, realistically, just slightly taller than a pocket gun but comes ready with 13+1 rounds.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Now THAT is how you do a Recognition Test

Posted on by Leave a comment

I just love ship, aircraft, and vehicle recognition tests and flashcards, something I dug ever since I was a kid and saw the posters on the walls of Cary Grant’s cabin in the WWII Coastwatcher comedy Father Goose.

I can’t tell you how many different decks of these I have on the shelf! And don’t even get me started on how many dusty old volumes of Jane’s Fighting Ships I have.

However, as anyone can tell you from actual spotting work, those flat diagrams and silhouettes leave much to be desired when it comes to actually being able to tell things apart in real life.

Enter a recent NATO exercise in the Baltics as part of the Iron Spear armored gunnery competition saw 34 teams from 13 NATO countries deploy to Latvia to strut their stuff. With so much dissimilar equipment on hand, it seemed the perfect time to do some real-world up close and personal recognition training.  

How many can you identify?

Got $110K and want to be in a club?

Posted on by Leave a comment

Pennsylvania’s Cabot Guns has released (most) of their picks for the upcoming 2023 Gun of the Month Club Collection. Now the company, which has done this for the past three years, is the one that makes all those far-out 1911s crafted out of meteors, so keep in mind that they make above-top-shelf stuff specifically for collectors with deep pockets.

A club member, if selected, has to pay $110K but they get a limited edition 1911 shipped to their FFL each month, all with a theme. While that is a bit high– over $9,000 per gun on average– some of these actually look kind of cool.

Of course, in the words of Groucho Marx, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”

  • January – The Belligerent Rhone 9 mm – A loud yet elegantly functional bull barrel beauty
  • February – The Sandrin 1911 .45 ACP – The Fibonacci number sequence meets 1911
  • March – The Midnight Standard .45 ACP – A unique take on a favorite Commander pistol
  • April – Hunt Club .45 ACP – A collector-prized beauty with classic styling cues
  • May – The American Flair 1911 .45 ACP – An engraved collaboration with Master Engraver Otto Carter
  • June – The Bedside Demon 9 mm – An intense patterned stainless Damascus pistol
  • July – The Aristocrat .45 ACP – A class-ruling colossal 1911-style pistol.
  • August – Icon Royale .45 ACP.  Minimalism in 1911 in regal bold colors.
  • September – Apocalypse Deluxe 9 mm.  Mechanical innovation in our Vintage Classic finish.
  • October – La Arabesque .45 ACP – An engraved collaboration Master Engraver Lee Griffiths
  • November – The Hulk .45 ACP.  Hulk will smash expectations, two-tone, swooping serrations.
  • December – Top Secret.

January – Belligerent Rhone

February – Sandrin 1911

March – Midnight Standard

April – Hunt Club

May – The American Flair 1911

June – The Bedside Demon

July – The Aristocrat

August – Icon Royale

September – Apocalypse Deluxe

October – La Arabesque

Cabot November Hulk

Oh what a night!

Posted on by Leave a comment

Here’s hoping your New Year’s is off to a better start!

Official caption: “New Years’ morning, 1945, found this Douglas C-47 cargo carrier of the 14th AF on a China Road after a moonlit landing.”

“U.S. Air force Number 3A00987. Print received 16 Feb 1945 from BPR (Air Forces Group) Stamped: Passed for pub., U.S. Army Press Censor.” NARA 342-FH_000382

Fighting the battle of “the Hump” just to get into the War, the Fourteenth Air Force’s work in the China Burma India Theater (CBI), from inheriting the Flying Tigers of Claire Chennault’s American Volunteer Group just after Pearl Harbor and morphing to the China Air Task Force (CATF) before becoming the full-fledged 14th AF in March 1943, then two years fighting the Japanese across the sub-continent are largely forgotten.

Nonetheless, as noted by the National Museum of the USAF:

Despite supply problems, the 14th Air Force grew from fewer than 200 aircraft to more than 700 planes by the end of the war. American airmen in China destroyed and damaged more than 4,000 Japanese aircraft during the war. They also sank more than a million tons of shipping and destroyed hundreds of locomotives, trucks, and bridges while helping to defeat the Japanese in China.

“… I judge the operations of the 14th Air Force to have constituted between 60 percent and 75 percent of our effective opposition in China. Without the (14th) air force we could have gone anywhere we wished.” – Lt. Gen. Takahashi, Japanese Chief of Staff in China.

Who’s That Sleeping in My Bed? (Singapore Edition)

Posted on by Leave a comment

80 Years Ago Today: The Imperial Japanese Navy’s Myōkō-class heavy cruiser Ashigara pictured under refit in the King George VI (KG6) graving dock (drydock) at the occupied Royal Navy Base at Seletar, Singapore, on 31 December 1942, at the time run by the No.101 Naval Construction and Repair Department of the IJN.

The largest drydock in the world at the time, KG6 had only opened on 15 February 1938 after a decade of construction, and went 1,000 feet in length, was 130-feet wide and 35-feet deep, capable of accommodating any British battleship ever built.

The 80,000-ton, 1,004-foot (wl) ocean liner RMS Queen Mary in Singapore KG6 Graving Dock, Aug 1940. She, along with several other liners, was converted into a troopship to carry Australian and New Zealand soldiers to the United Kingdom (Australian War Memorial image 128444)

Just days after the fall of Singapore three years later, the dockyard was buzzing again with local Chinese, Malay and Indian workers, alongside impressed British POWs, all busy repairing sabotage carried out by the Royal Navy and before the year was out, the KG6 was accommodating key IJN units, with the Takao-class heavy cruiser Chokai repaired there in late February 1942– only two weeks after Singapore surrendered.

The dock soon became a target of Allied air forces as the war came back to Singapore and by February 1945 KG6 was put out of service via a 100-aircraft B-29 raid, with the IJN fleet oiler Shiretoko inside. However, like a phoenix, the dock was back in service once said tanker was cleared out within a year of VJ Day.

Today part of the Sembawang Shipyard, KG6 remains in use alongside the even larger 400,000 DWT capacity Premier Dock built in the 1970s, as well as three large floating docks.

As for Ashigara, the big Japanese cruiser shown in the top image, she was, somewhat appropriately, sunk by the British submarine HMS Trenchant in the Bangka Strait, 8 June 1945– while en route back to Singapore.

80 Years Ago: Essex, Arriving

Posted on by Leave a comment

In perhaps the most welcomed addition to any fleet, ever, some 80 years ago today on New Year’s Eve 1942, the U.S. Navy changed the status of USS Essex (CV-9) to “in commission.”

The brand-new USS Essex (CV-9) underway at 1615 hrs. during May 1943, in position 37 05’N, 74 15’E, as photographed from a blimp from squadron ZP-14. Among the aircraft parked on her flight deck are 24 SBD scout bombers (parked aft), about 11 F6F fighters (parked in after part of the midships area) and about 18 TBF/TBM torpedo planes (parked amidships). 80-G-68097

The new 27,000-ton 872-foot fleet carrier, the first of a planned 32-ship class– the numerically largest envisioned in the history of full-sized flattops– had been rushed to be sure. Laid down on 28 April 1941 at Newport News while the country was in a cautious neutrality period in the Second World War, by the time she was commissioned 20 months later the Navy had seen its pre-war carrier force whittled down from seven to just three after the loss of USS Lexington (CV-2), USS Yorktown (CV-5), USS Hornet (CV-8) and USS Wasp (CV-7), sunk in just a five-month period between May and September 1942 in action against the Japanese.

While the Navy had rushed a new class of light carriers from converted cruiser hulls and escort carriers using first fleet oilers then merchant hulls into service and even borrowed the occasional armored-deck flattop from the British, Essex and her sisters were needed for fast fleet operations of the sort the CVLs and CVEs just weren’t suited.

And Essex would be very busy over the next 31 years, fighting in two hot and one cold wars, and undergoing a radical conversion to allow her to operate aircraft of types unimagined in 1942. 

USS Essex (CV 9) during Okinawa operations, 20 May 1945. 80-G-373816

USS Essex (CV 9) underway during her first Korean War deployment, circa August 1951-March 1952. Two F2H-2 Banshees of Fighter Squadron 172 (VF-172) are flying by in the foreground, preparing to land. The nearest plane is Bureau # 124954. The other is probably Bu # 124969. NH 97270

USS Essex takes spray over the bow while steaming in heavy seas, 12 January 1960. Note S2F type airplane at the rear of the flight deck, with its engines turning. Other planes visible, amidships, including AD and F4D types. NH 98517

Before she was stricken from the Navy List in 1973, Essex received the Presidential Unit Citation and 13 battle stars for World War II service then add 4 battle stars and the Navy Unit Commendation for Korean war service, in addition to helping hold the line throughout two decades of the Cold War against the Soviets.

That kick, tho

Posted on by Leave a comment

I love both war movies and sports movies so it should come as no surprise that 1981’s “Victory,” directed by the great John Huston (shortly after he did one of my favorite films of all time, the Kipling tale, “The Man Who Would Be King”), in which a team of scratch Allied soccer players drawn from across numerous German stalags during WWII to play an elite German team, is high on my list.

Starring a number of international World Cup-level footballers with acting from the likes of Sir Michael Cain up front and Max Von Sydow’s Major Karl von Steiner adding just enough honor to the opposition, the film is very loosely based on the often over-told semi-true story of the “Death Match” between Ukrainian and German teams in occupied Ukraine in 1942.

However, the big guns on the field are brought by Brazilian football phenom, Pele, who was in his 40s when “Victory” was filmed and had retired from the sport already, with three World Cup wins in his rearview– a record not bested to this day.

Still, Pele was both funny and delivered a perfect bicycle kick photographed by English cinematographer Gerry Fisher (of “Aces High” fame.)

Truly art in sport.

When I saw the film as a kid, I was playing soccer in a Y8 league and, every time I put on my cleats for my next five years in the sport, I thought of “Victory.” Much later in life, while coaching it for my kids’ teams, watching it at team parties was required, although I will admit, it was more of an acquired taste!

Thank you, Pele,

That great shooting range in the sky

Posted on by Leave a comment

Among those lost to the gun community in 2022:

Aaron Hogue — One of the managing owners of Hogue Grips and son of Guy Hogue, the company’s founder, Aaron died when the jet he was piloting in the National Championship Races at Reno crashed. 

Peter J. “Pete” Hylenski — A gifted design engineer who left his mark with Wildey, Winchester, and Kimber, Hylenski was known as “Mr. Model 70” as he was the long-term Model 70 Rifle Design Engineer during the era that saw the return of the “pre-’64” type Model 70 control-round feed action. Hylenski passed away on March 29, 2022, aged 77.

Thomas Devine Smith — A Texas sports shooter and Air Force officer, Smith competed in the 50-meter pistol event at the 1964 Summer Olympics before winning two gold medals at the 1963 Pan American Games. He set and broke numerous pistol records in his career, some of which still stand even decades later. He also survived his plane breaking up in-flight, landing on snow-covered Mt. Helmos in Greece without a parachute, surviving the fall. Colonel Smith died in May, aged 90. 

George Trulock — Founder of the shotgun choke empire that bears his name– and is OEM for numerous manufacturers– George Trulock was a legend in the gun industry. He passed in June and is remembered by his company as “a visionary and a creative genius” as well as an “amazing human being.” 

The rest of the list is in my column at Guns.com.

Going Behind the Scenes at S&W

Posted on by Leave a comment

In the Select Fire series over at Guns.com that I host, I really dig factory tours of gunmakers as each will have a different way to run a shop. Speaking to this, I recently got to visit Smith & Wesson’s historic Springfield, Massachusetts factory to see what goes into making some of the finest revolvers in the world.

Celebrating 170 years in the firearms industry, the company gets its name from the 1852 partnership between Horace Smith and D.B. Wesson. Just two years later, the company debuted the .41 Magazine Pistol, best known as “The Volcanic” — the first repeating American firearm capable of successfully using a fully self-contained cartridge. By 1857, S&W was producing the Model 1 and Model 3 revolver, guns that soon marched off to war and one that Mark Twain carried in his early travels in the West, writing in his 1872 book, “Roughing It,” that, “I thought it was grand.”

Fast forward to the present and Smith is still rocking and rolling. While they have made moves to shift black rifle construction and headquarters to a new factory in Tennessee, the company’s legacy plant in Springfield is still working around the clock and will continue to house its traditional revolver line.

With that, I got the rundown on the process from beginning to end and cover it in detail in the above 18-minute factory tour.

One thing I noticed during our time in Springfield was that, especially when it comes to revolver work, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Check out these images of S&W workers from 1956 compared to ones on the line today. While the machines and safety equipment have been upgraded, the invaluable human factors of attention to detail and quality endure, despite the generational change.

Anyway, the 18-minute tour is here:

The longest-serving GPMG

Posted on by Leave a comment

Spotted in Ukraine near Chernihiv on Christmas Day: the ever-lasting Pulemyot Maxima PM1910.

Note the timber has been cut out to accommodate the carriage and the 250-round belt at the ready in the can to the right. Machine guns in relatively sheltered fixed positions with interlocking fire are a source of real estate control all their own.

As noted by Denis Winter in his 2014 work, Death’s Men: Soldiers Of The Great War: 
 
On its tripod the machine gun became a nerveless weapon; the human factor of chattering teeth, dripping sweat, and feces in a man’s pants was eliminated. A terror-stricken man could fire his machine gun accurately even by night.

Set up in a sustained fire role with plenty of ammo, thickly greased moving internals, and water for the jacket, such a heavy machine gun can still be as effective in a strong point as it was in 1914– at least until the bunker catches a 125mm HE round from a T-72 or a lucky hit from an RPG or three.

Developed directly from the water-cooled Vickers (Maxim) 08 .303, the Russian-made variant by Pulitov had minor changes beyond its 7.62x54r chambering and sights graduated in arshins rather than yards (the latter something the Soviets would change to meters in the 1920s).

 

The 1910 Maxim going for a drag

Fitted with a unique sled/two-wheeled shielded cart to a design by one Mr. Sokolov and often seen with an enlarged “snow” or “tractor” cap to the radiator, for obvious reasons, in all the Tsar and Soviets would make more than 175,000 PM1910s through 1945, leaving little wonder that they still pop up from time to time.

Twin-linked Maxim guns, with red dot sight, Ukrainian Conflict.

It has far outlived all of its water-cooled “Emma Gee” contemporaries, the Lewis Gun, assorted Vickers models, the various German Spandaus, and the M1917, all of which had been retired since the 1960s, even from reserve and third-world use.

With that, Jonathan Ferguson over at the Royal Armouries walks you through a PM1910 they have in the collection.

« Older Entries Recent Entries »