Ohio-based Anderson Guncraft has been making functional Gatling Guns since 1967 and isn’t looking back.
Each Anderson Gatling takes about 1,000 hours to make. Featuring cast bronze parts, engraving, and an attention to historical detail, they have had cameos in a host of big-budget Hollywood films such as The Last Samurai and the recent remakes of The Magnificent Seven and 3:10 to Yuma.
This Model 1874 Gatling was completed last week, after nine months.
Founded 16 February 1942, the Camp Schwab, Okinawa-based Combat Assault Battalion is being phased out. Attached to the 3rd MARDIV, the “Iron Fist” operates the division’s amtracs, LAV-25 recon vehicles, and specialist engineering vehicles and is the only battalion-sized combat assault unit in the Marine Corps.
This:
After 76 years of conducting amphibious assaults, light armored reconnaissance, and combat engineer operations, CAB is set to deactivate 12 October 2018.
Formed originally as the 1st Amphibian Tractor Battalion, they became the 1st Tracked Vehicle Battalion in 1976, the 1st Armored Assault Battalion in 1988, and finally the CAB in 1994. It is one of the most storied outfits in Marine history with unit awards for Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Finschhafen, New Britain, Okinawa, The Pusan Perimeter, Inchon-Seoul, Chosin Reservoir, Da Nang, Cua Viet, the Gulf War and the War on Terrorism.
Her elements are to be scattered to the rest of the 3d Marine Division.
The unit’s motto, Sui Generis, is akin to one-of-a-kind.
A series of photos showing colored water slugs being fired from a missile tube aboard the James Madison-class ballistic missile submarine USS Daniel Boone (SSBN-629) at Mare Island in February 1964 as part of her sea trials, pre-commissioning. These are not colorized and look something like Kool Aid being launched into low Earth orbit.
USN photo # 61778-4-64, courtesy of Darryl L. Baker., via Navsource http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08629.htm
USN photo # 61779-4-64
Commissioned 23 April 1964, Boone served 30 years in the Navy, decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register, 18 February 1994 after completing an amazing 75 strategic deterrence patrols. Her primary weapon was first the 2,500nm-ranged/3-warhead Polaris SLBM then later the 3,200-nm/10 warhead Poseidon C-3 and finally the Trident I C-4 after 1980.
Gratefully, all she ever fired from her 16 tubes in anger was those waterslugs.
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off 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. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2018: Sideroxylon lanuginosum, everlasting
USCG photo by MILLER, LAIMAN B. LTJG.
Here we see the Mesquite-class buoy tender USCGC Ironwood (WAGL/WLB-297) in the summer of 1996 in Alaskan waters offloading equipment for maintenance on Eldred Rock Lighthouse. A product of WWII, she would over a half-century in U.S. maritime service and is, remarkably, still ticking in the Pacific Northwest.
In 1916 the Revenue Cutter Service and Lifesaving Service were merged to form the Coast Guard, to which the Bureau of Lighthouses was added on 1 July 1939 and as such all U.S. lighthouses, tenders, and lightships became USCG installations and ships. The thing is, the lighthouse and buoy tender fleet was a hodgepodge of antiquated single-use vessels to which the Bureau had been looking to replace with a new series of 177-foot lighthouse tenders modeled after the USLHT Juniper, the last vessel designed by the Bureau.
Taking these plans, the Coast Guard made some changes and produced a 180-foot/950-ton single-screw steel-hulled ship that incorporated some new features that the USLHS never needed (an ice-strengthened bow, search and rescue equipment and mission, allowance for armament, et.al). The first of these, USCGC Cactus (WAGL-270) was appropriated for $782,381 on 20 Jan 1941 and laid down at Marine Iron & Shipbuilding Corporation, Duluth, MN on 31 March.
Almost all of these hardy ships were built either at Marine or at Zenith Dredge Company very rapidly in three subclasses: the “A” or “Cactus” class, “B” or “Mesquite” class, and “C” or “Iris” class (with all named for trees and bushes). All ships of the three subclasses have the same general characteristics, but with slight differences, (e.g. the “A/Cactus” class tenders may be differentiated from the other two classes of 180-foot tenders by their unique “A” frame main boom support forward and their large 30,000 gal fuel tanks that allowed an economical 17,000nm cruising range on their gentle diesel suite.) The last to come off the ways was USCGC Woodbrush (WAGL-407) which commissioned 22 Sept. 1944. The building process entailed an average of 192,018 hours of labor per vessel.
USCGC Basswood through the Straits of Mackinac- 12 May 1944, a good example of the “180s.” Note the 3″/50 behind her wheelhouse facing over the stern as well as her 20mm mounts. ASW weapons, firefighting gear, and buoy tending equipment were also shoehorned into these ships as well. Further, as shown above, they could break light ice, a feature that was to serve the units headed to the Pacific well!
Unlike the other 38 of the class that was built by contractors, the hero of our story, USCGC Ironwood, was laid down at the Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay, Maryland and commissioned 275 days later on 4 August 1943 for a cost of $1,388,227 (note the difference from Cactus, above). She was the only vessel in active U.S. service named for the Sideroxylon lanuginosum, aka gum bully or ironwood, a small tree native to the Sun Belt and Midwest. According to the USCG’s office, in service, her crew nicknamed her “Ironbush” and “Ironweed” for her small size.
The Hughes Co., Photographers, Baltimore, Maryland 4 March 1943 Ironwood under construction at the U.S. Coast Guard shipyard in Curtis Bay, Maryland. Ironwood was the only 180 built by the U.S. Coast Guard. LOC HAER AK-44-1
Ironwood sailed for the War in the Pacific, arriving in Noumea, New Caledonia via Bora Bora and Pago Pago, in March 1944.
Ironwood in all of her WWII glory
She spent the next nine months in a busy but routine operation of keeping the 3rd Fleet’s vast anchorages up to snuff. This meant tending anti-torpedo nets and mooring buoys, establishing the new-fangled LORAN network, carrying cargo, mail, and servicemembers from island to island, and towing barges as needed– all while looking out for the possibility of Japanese mines, periscopes, and floatplanes on the horizon. She even came to the assistance of the stranded Liberty Ship SS John Lind.
Coast Guard Historian’s Office:
On 26 March1944 Ironwood left Noumea to assist SS John Lind grounded on a reef at 22 28 S, 166 36 E. Ironwood’s attempts to pull the vessel off being unsuccessful, she removed 65 Navy and Marine Corps personnel from the vessel on the 28th and transported them to Noumea on the next day. She remained until 2 April 1944 when she proceeded with Navy tugs USS Sioux and YT-463 to remove the reefed ship. In tandem with the tugs they successfully re-floated John Lind on 6 April.
In January 1945, she sailed for Guadalcanal’s Cape Esperance in the Solomons. There, she moved assisted in the recovery of a Japanese midget submarine. The 78-foot, 47-ton, two-man Type A Ko-hyoteki boat, was found in 30 feet of water and the cutter spent two weeks in the recovery operation as detailed by Combined Fleets:
4 January 1945:
US Coast Guard cutter IRONWOOD (W-297) begins operations to raise an unidentified Japanese two-man midget submarine from about 30 feet of water off Cape Esperance. Divers, working from a small boat, use a water pressure hose and crowbars to clear a space under the bow and stern of the submarine. By 9 Jan, a 1.5” chain sling is rigged around the bow of the midget submarine.19 January 1945:
After retiring to Gavutu for ten days, IRONWOOD again anchors off Cape Esperance. By now, divers have completed rigging the submarine for lifting, connecting the chain around its bow and stern with a chain bridal.20 January 1945 :
IRONWOOD is positioned alongside the sunken midget submarine. She lowers the main hoist over the starboard side and hooks it to the chain bridal. The cutter then raises the midget submarine to the surface and secures it alongside. IRONWOOD then tows it to Hutchinson’s Creek, Florida Island, Solomons. The next day, IRONWOOD moves to a new anchorage where the midget submarine is transferred to an unidentified USN crane barge.
Ironwood’s crew works to salvage a Japanese midget submarine found off Guadalcanal in 1945 LOC HAER AK-44-2
The identity of this 1945 salvaged midget submarine is unknown but is possibly HA-22 or HA-37. I can’t find out what happened to the craft but it was likely scrapped at some point. It is not one of the five Type A midgets preserved and on display currently (HA-8: Groton, Connecticut; HA-18: JMSDF Etajima Naval Base, Etajima, Japan; HA-19: Nimitz Museum, Fredericksburg, Texas; and HA-14/HA-21 at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra).
Ironwood went on to spend a solid year, from August 1945 to July 1946, in the Philippines reestablishing buoys and lighthouses and looking for pockets of Japanese holdouts.
Following her extended wartime service, she was stationed briefly in Monterey, California then returned to the South Pacific soon enough.
Between 19 November 1951 and 2 May 1954, Ironwood made four deployments to support Korean War operations, supplying and supporting radio stations in the region. As such, she was one of just 24 Coast Guard vessels that qualified for the Korean Service Medal.
Ironwood-1962. Note she still has her 3-inch gun aft. She would pick up her racing stripe a few years later.
In 1963, by that time stationed in Honolulu, she took some of the first scientists to return to the Marshall Islands after U.S. nuclear testing. As related by Capt. LeRoy Reinburg, Jr., U.S. Coast Guard-Retired, her skipper at the time, Ironwood spent almost two weeks inspecting radioactive and poorly charted Rongelap Atoll.
“In the course of our travels, we discovered nine uncharted islands and one large reef that bared at low tide. Dr. Held and I decided to assign names to these geographic features. The reef, appropriately, was named ‘Ironwood Reef,’” he noted.
During the mid-1960s, these boats were designated WLBs (buoy tenders) and saw all fixed armament landed in 1966, leaving them only their small arms lockers. If deployed for law enforcement missions or to war zones, 180s would be equipped with up to four Browning M2 .50-caliber heavy machine guns or a similar number of M60 7.62mm GPMGs. Lacking its naval piece, the 3-inch Gun Tub served as a lookout perch and occasional storage area for small items including crew bicycles when traveling between ports. Lockers for life jackets and exposure survival suits were later located on this deck, which is encircled by a tubular steel railing.
During the Vietnam conflict, four USCG 180s were dispatched to Southeast Asia to perform aids-to-navigation support and assist with harbor defense and maintenance– Basswood (WLB-388), Blackhaw (WLB-390) Planetree (WLB-307, and, of course, Ironwood, the latter of which deployed there in July 1967.
Vietnamese lighthouse service personnel were assigned to temporary duty on board as they worked to reactivate and automate Vietnamese lighthouses and establish new U.S.-sponsored lights. While deploying work crews, machine gun teams would have to stand by in case they came under fire from passing sampans or the shore as VC constantly shot out navigational lights and sank buoys. Her crew also provided services to the local populace such as MEDCAPS.
Sometime around this period she even clocked in on NASA support duties, helping with recovering boilerplate space capsules in the rush to the moon.
She conducted a number of rescues over the years:
*8 January 1959 Ironwood assisted thegrounded sampan Bellatrix at Molokai Beach, HI.
*6 January 1962 Ironwood rescued the crew of FV Hiroshima Maru aground at 21 17 N, 157 51 W.
*23-25 May 1963 the cutter escorted the disabled MV Dianna to Honolulu, HI.
*18 February 1969 Ironwood towed the disabled FV Widgeon from Augustine Island to Homer, AK.
*April 1969 escorted the distressed tanker Yukon, which was holed by a submerged object in Cook Inlet.
*29 April 1969 the crew fought a fire on the Shell Oil drilling platform in Cook Inlet.
*26 December 1969 she hoisted the disabled FV Arctic Fox on board at MacArthur Cove and carried her to Seward, AK
Ironwood was later given a one-year major renovation (MAJREN) in 1974, envisioned at the time to keep her in service for another 15 years. This involved removing her Cooper-Bessemer inline 8-cylinder engines and rebuilding them, new electrical wiring, piping, and sewage handling systems. She picked up a bow thruster, all-new crew spaces, new cranes, ship heaters, reefers, the works.
After her refit, she was put to work on the Alaska beat, stationed at Kodiak, in all spending the last 26 years of her Coast Guard career in Alaskan waters. During this time she escorted Soviet fishing trawlers out of U.S. waters, participated in Naval exercises, towed disabled fishing vessels to port, medevac’d injured mariners, searched for missing planes– you know, typical Coast Guard stuff.
1979
Between 1979 and 1995, she earned six Coast Guard “E” ribbons. In 1981, she received the Coast Guard Unit Commendation. In both 1989 and 1999, she picked up Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendations for her duty in the frozen and dangerous Bering Sea, in particular assisting with the cleanup operations in Prince William Sound after the grounding of the Exxon Valdez.
At the time of her decommissioning, Ironwood was the second-oldest cutter in USCG service (only surpassed at the time by the medium endurance cutter Storis) and was the only remaining US vessel in service awarded the Korean Service Medal. Then, of course, there was her WWII service, nuke sniffing, assistance to the Space program and her Vietnam tour. She served 14 Commandants of the Coast Guard, 34 commanding officers and more than 1,200 crew members in the course of her half-million miles traveled.
Kodiak, Alaska (Oct. 6 2000)– The Coast Guard Cutter Ironwood sits alongside the pier in Kodiak on the morning of the ships decommissioning. USCG photo by PA1 Keith Alholm.
But her story doesn’t end there. The old girl, after 57 years of active duty, she was to be transferred to Nigeria but instead, in 2002, was presented to the Tongue Point Seamanship Academy in Oregon which uses her as a floating classroom to train new mariners in an 18-month program to find seagoing careers.
In 2014, the center threw a 70th anniversary for Ironwood.
Turning 75 years young last month, she is still sailing strong and looking good while doing it, regularly showing up in Portland for Fleet Week.
170607-N-ZP059-167 PORTLAND Ore., (June 7, 2017) – ex-USCGC Ironwood (WLB-297) arrives in Portland for Rose Festival Fleet Week. The festival and Portland Fleet Week are a celebration of the sea services with Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guard Members from the U.S. and Canada making the city a port of call. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jacob G. Sisco/Released)
As for her sisterships, many have proven to be very long in the tooth:
*Balsam (WLB-62) was decommissioned 1975 and has been used as an Alaskan crab boat ever since. She is currently the F/V Baranof.
*Cactus (WLB-270) was seized in Kings County Washington as a derelict vessel in 2013 for dismantling.
*Cowslip (WLB-277), Firebush (WLB-393) and Sassafras (WLB-401) were transferred to Nigerian Navy 2002-2003 as NNS Nwamba, NNS Olepu and Obula respectively. All remain in service. Sedge (WLB-402) was also transferred for parts.
*Woodbine (WLB-289) was donated to be a training ship in Cleveland in 1972 and went on to be a fish processing boat in Alaska before being sold for scrap in 2012.
*Gentian (WLB-290) was transferred to Colombia as ARC San Andrés (PO-45) and is still active.
*Laurel (WLB-291) was sold at a GSA auction in 1999, ultimate fate unknown.
*Clover (WLB-292) and Evergreen (WLB-295) were decommissioned 1990 and sunk by the Navy as a targets.
*Sorrel (WLB-296) was decommissioned in 1996 and is used as SS Reliance operated by Sea Scout Ship #13 of Stockton, California, showing up in an episode of Dexter.
*Conifer (WLB-301) and Papaw (WLB-308) were decommissioned 2000 and 1999 respectively and was used for a number of years as F/V Hope and F/V Mersea, part of the disaster relief fleet of Friend Ships, but have since been removed from that organization.
*Madrona (WLB-302) transferred to El Salvador who used her as General Manuel José Arce and subsequently sunk her as a reef.
*Tupelo (WAGL/WLB-303) was decommissioned in 1975 and has spent the past 30 years as a Bering Sea fishing boat, FV Courageous.
*Mesquite (WLB-305) ran aground December 4, 1989 on a reef off the Keweenaw Peninsula in Lake Superior while in Coast Guard service and was scuttled for underwater diving preserve.
*Buttonwood (WLB-306) was decommissioned 2001 and transferred to the Dominican Republic’s Navy as Almirante Didiez Burgos, still active. USCGC Citrus (WMEC-300), also endures there as Almirante Juan Alejandro Acosta (C-456/P301)
*Sweetgum (WLB-309) was transferred in 2002 to Panama as SMN Independencia (P401).
*Basswood (WLB-388), Blackhaw (WLB-390) and Mallow (WLB-396) were scrapped in 2000.
*Bittersweet (WLB-389) was decommissioned and transferred to Estonian Border Guard, 5 September 1997 who used her until 2014– she is retained as a museum ship.
*Blackthorn (WLB-391) sank in 1980 in a collision near the Tampa Bay Sunshine Skyway Bridge, resulting in 23 crewmember fatalities. Raised, she was resunk as a reef.
*Bramble (WLB-392) was decommissioned 2003, and has been retained with a mixed degree of success as a museum ship in the Great Lakes.
*Hornbeam (WLB-394) was decommissioned 1999, and lost near Panama as M/V Rum Cay Grace in 2013.
*Iris (WLB-395) and Planetree (WLB-307) were decommissioned after helping with the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1995 and 1999, repectviely, and sit in rusting quiet in the SBRF, Suisun Bay, CA mothballs fleet.
*Mariposa (WLB-397) was decommissioned in 2000 but has been retained by the Navy as a hulk until 2009 and has been spotted in the Seattle area since then.
*Redbud (WLB-398) was transferred to the Philippines as Kalinga (AG-89) in 1972.
*Sagebrush (WLB-399) was scuttled off St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia on 28 April 1988.
*Salvia (WLB-400) was decommissioned 1991 and used as a salvage operations training vessel for U.S. Navy at Little Creek.
*Spar (WLB-403) was decommed 1997 and sunk as a reef in 2004.
*Sundew (WLB-404) was decommissioned 2004, used as a museum for a while, then sold to private interests in 2010.
*Acacia (WLB-406), the last 180 in Coast Guard service, was decommissioned 2006 after 63 years of service and is now a museum in Manistee, Michigan.
*Woodrush (WLB-407) and Sweetbrier (WLB-405) were transferred to Ghana in 2001 where she still serves as GNS Anzone (P30) and GNS Bonsu (P31) respectively, which means “shark” and “whale” in the native lingo.
For interior pics, the LOC has a great series of images from the Planetree, a Mesquite subclass sister.
Specs:
Displacement: 935 fl (1944); 1,026 fl (1966); 700 light (1966)
Length: 180-feet oa
Beam: 37 feet mb
Draft: 12 ft. max (1944); 14′ 7″ (1966)
Propulsion: 1 electric motor connected to 2 Westinghouse generators driven by 2 Cooper-Bessemer-type GND-8, 4-cycle diesels; single screw
Top speed: 13.0 kts sustained (1945); 11.9 kts sustained (1966). 28,000 gals diesel
Economic speed: 8.3 kts (1945); 8.5 kts (1966)
Complement:
6 Officers, 74 men (1944);
5 Officers, 2 warrants, 41 men (1966)
Electronics:
Radar: Bk (1943); SLa-1 (1945), SPS-64(V) 1979
Sonar: WEA-2 (1945-66)
Armament:
(1944)
1-3″/50 (single), 4-20mm/80 (single), 2 depth charge tracks, 2 Mousetraps, 4 Y-guns
(1966-2000)
Small arms
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Typically, gun makers debut new product at large firearms industry events like SHOT Show in January or the NRA Show in late April/early May. However, that leaves 7-8 months of deadtime which it is hard for makers to get a ton of easy exposure.
But then, there is September.
That’s when you have The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Conference, which caters to the LE crowd, and the NRA’s new Carry Guard Expo which is geared to the nation’s 18 million CCW holders.
While the latter got rained out due to Florence and the former still a minute away, the releases are still flowing. Remington just released a new V3 shotgun (it’s a 22-inch barrel Compact model), Savage has a new (and suppressor-ready!) Rascal, et. al.
Well, Glock drummed up the PR bandwagon and dropped the new Glock 45 on the market this week.
Short story: the G45 is a 5th Gen 9mm that basically (and stop if you have heard this before) “combines the fast handling of the GLOCK 19 compact-sized slide with the full-size frame as a compact Crossover!”
Yes, it is a G19X, but in black instead of coyote tan and with front serrations.
“After the release of the G19X, we saw a strong interest from the law enforcement community for the design in a black model,” said GLOCK, Inc. VP Josh Dorsey. “The G45 is the result of a design that meets the demanding level of reliability with distinctive Gen5 design enhancements to improve durability, accuracy, and performance to those who go into harm’s way where fractions of a second matter.”
Personally, I have put 2,500+ rds through my own G19X and I really like it (full review here) but I think they could have just dubbed a black version with serrations as the same model, but tweaked, e.g. the G19BXFS or some shit. Meh.
Feedback to the hype on the new G45 has been luke already, although I am sure Glock will sell a million of them.
Also, Glock is expanding their Gen5 MOS (Modular Optic) series to include a G19 and G17, both optic ready right from the factory to enable users to mount their preferred reflex sights to their pistol in order to improve their target acquisition.
All of the new-ish Glocks will be available for purchase starting October 5th at dealers.
This great photo by Åke Sandberg shows a thrilled Swedish UN soldier during the Congo Crisis in his fighting position. His personal weapon is the vaunted Kulsprutepistol MP45 subgun– known around the world as the “Swedish K” –while his heavy hitter is a belt-fed FN MAG.
Between May 1960 and May 1964, Sweden deployed nine rotational ONUC battalions to the Congo. A total of 6,334 Swedes served in the region, and 19 were killed.
A lot of people worry that there could be a great power naval war sometime in the next generation. As such, the “fleet you have,” which last fought a live-fire fleet engagement with a near-peer opponent in 1944, may not be the “fleet you want” but some easy fixes could help.
Marine Col. Thomas X. Hammes (Ret), now a PhD and heavy hitter on the military of the future, has an interesting take over at Task & Purpose on how to bring a lot of missiles and airframes to the naval engagement of the near-future: pick up gently used container ships for peanuts and convert them into haulers for combat-capable UAV’s and containerized missile systems. It’s a lot cheaper than risking a traditional CVBG or repackaging an LHD to use F-35s. Such a vessel could be fielded with a much smaller crew than a big-deck CVN.
As pointed out by Hammes: “a carrier and air wing alone cost $20 billion and 5,000 Americans live aboard. This is an enormous investment of eggs is a possibly fragile basket,” and that “Suggesting the use of amphibious big decks is not a different way – it’s just a very similar but much less capable basket.”
The alternative:
Thinking differently, we could envision any container ship – from inter-coastal to ocean-going as a potential aircraft carrier. It could carry from a couple dozen to thousands of cruise missiles as well as hundreds of autonomous drones ranging from short to long range and both reusable and expendable. And, of course, the containers could also be land based — with nearly unlimited basing and hide sites.
USS Sicily (CVE-118) at New York City, September 1947. Courtesy of The Marines Museum, Newport News, Va. Ted Stone Collection. Catalog #: NH 66791. Escort carriers were commercial hulls converted to flattops in WWII and proved remarkably effective. Today’s version, fitted with combat UAVs and containerized missiles could be as well
Also for your consideration is LCDR Daniel Wiltshire, USCG, and his take in the latest Proceedings that the Navy should man up and put anti-ship missiles on the new Offshore Patrol Cutters and National Security Cutters, some 35~ frigate-sized warships without frigate-equivalent weapons. A large part of his case is, since the Coast Guard often gets sent into harm’s way with the Navy, it should be able to keep its promise of being war-like.
Some will argue that cutters are not optimized for high-intensity combat. While it is true that the NSC and OPC were not designed for high-intensity combat, the distinction between high and low intensity becomes meaningless during a great power conflict. It is a distinction predicated on the luxury of being able to choose when, where, and with whom to fight and which ships are deployed to do the fighting. Great power conflict at sea affords no such luxury and typically entails a whole-of-fleet approach.
USCGC Mellon fires a Harpoon missile back in the Cold War. It used to be a thing. It can be a thing once again
I, for one, am ready for it to cool down a bit. Being in the South, with the exceptions of traveling to other parts of the country during the summer that isn’t so steamy and taking advantage of their local weather to get rounds in, I like to keep my range time in the sticky months to professional outings to perform T&E and maintain muscle memory.
However, as soon as it starts getting cooler– hello Fall!– I ramp up my MW&R time on the range and actually enjoy what I am doing sans the 100-degree temps and 99-percent humidity.
The above is a sample of a big box of rounds that I just got from Ammo-to-Go to spend some quality time with these classics for an upcoming series of articles and they are on point with the selection.
For the circa-1920 M1914 Pocket Mauser in 7.65mm Browning:
For the circa-1960s FN Browning 1910/22:
For the circa-1943 FN Browning Pistole 640 Hi-Power
Lots of Winchester White Box 124 grain FMJ
For continuing past the 2,500-round mark on my ongoing G19X and S&W M&P M.20 Compact tests, I also got a bunch of Winchester NATO 124 Grain FMJ (this is loaded slightly hotter than standard, roughly +P), Speer Gold Dot 124 Grain +P and Federal HST 147 Grain JHP
Plus, I plan on breaking out the gel on Federal’s new HST loads as well in .380 Federal HST 99 Grain JHP with an LCP etc.
The Tank Museum at Bovington had a couple of rare German WWII tanks– an early pre-production Tiger and a Jagdtiger– that need to be repainted from their incorrect schemes to a more appropriate Wehrmacht camouflage RAL color. Curator David Willey breaks it down in a very scholarly way, above.
Stick your nose up all you want. I find the classic old Smith & Wesson cloned Rossi wheelguns imported by Interarms in the 1970s-90 to be decent shooters and I have had a few cycle through my collection over the years with nary a problem from them. They are beefy, reliable, and are “point and shoot.” Decent fit & finish, trigger feels pretty good. Not quite up to S&W quality from the same era, and not quite as pretty, but close enough.
Two of the herd from the current collection: an M685 2-inch snub in .38SPL with walnut grips and a full-lug stainless M720 in .44 Special with a 3-inch barrel. They are like boat anchors but I really dig ’em. The M720 has been a hog hunting companion in days past along the Pearl River.
What’s not to love? Interarms imported these old Rossi’s from 1978-97, and both of these are from about the middle of that period
With that being said, since the late 1990s, Rossi’s revolvers have been made under contract by Taurus, and the long run recently came to an end. Rossi does not have any handguns currently listed in their 2018 catalog but does list the more recently-made BrazTech-marked revolvers as having a lifetime repair policy.
And, more importantly, BrazTech-Rossi last week issued what they term to be a “voluntary safety warning” for their newer .38 Special and .357 Magnum-caliber revolvers that may, under certain circumstances, fire if dropped.
The warning involves guns made between 2005 and 2017 and covers models R351, R352, R461, R462, R851, R971, and R972 with serial numbers beginning with the letter Y, Z, or A through K.
These are the style of the newer guns. Note the distinctive grips, BrazTech markings and big ROSSI on the barrel.
Those with a revolver that may be part of the safety warning should stop using the gun and go to www.RossiSafetyNotice.com where they can verify their serial number and find further instructions. Alternatively, consumers can call (855) 982-8787 for assistance.
