Recent content by poledorus

The bit below is from the movie "Hope and Glory" (1987).

I fired my first shot from my Dad's H&R 900 .22 revolver when I was five years old. Sometimes, my Dad did use his cigarette butts as plugs. But I didn't wear hearing protection until I entered the army. Until then, I thought that high-pitched wine in my ears was just part of shooting. And, yes...

Style counts, too. S&W 49 in a Bianchi CD123 holster.

Quite

I appreciate the sentiment on Beta testing. I passed on the P320 after my LGD failed to properly demonstrate its reassembly after several tries. There is so much static on the issue, it's hard to tell what is truth here. But I do sense...I stress that I sense, and do not know...that...

I like the look and feel of the FN HP-DA, and own the HP-DAO/BDAO version. It is a very accurate handgun, but the trigger slap I get from mine is barely tolerable. I had wondered if it was due to shooting heavier 9mm loads than the 115 gr that was in use back then.

Sadly, no...I never had many from that time, and most everything was lost over multiple moves.

My only complaint with the M9: desert moon dust could seize the slide. Absolutely agree that proper field maintenance is a must in austere environments. But it is easily accomplished with attention to detail -- like maintaining the slide rails.

Of possible interest, during the Gulf War we had some replacement MPs assigned to us who arrived in country with M1911A1s. The CIF issued the older pieces because they had run out of M9 Berettas. Unfortunately, these soldiers arrived without ammo, and so we were forced to do some blanket trading...

My first Smith was a 686-no dash with a 4-inch barrel, which I still use. Very handy piece.

Notwithstanding those slide defects on the early batches of Berettas, nostalgia for the M1911A1 explained much of the alleged 'hate' for the M9 back in the late 1980s. I loved the 1911A1, and still do. And like just about everyone else back then, I complained mightily about the new sidearm...

Army MPs in the 1980s, of course, mainly carried the 1911A1. But female MPs were issued the S&W Model 10 in .38 Special, with 4"-barrels and round frames. Smaller hand size and lower recoil tolerance were the reasons given at the time for the disparity. Needless to say, women did generally shoot...

As it happens, I just had a range outing last week. I tried out the Buffalo Bore Heavy .44 Special Outdoorsman. The load features a 255 grain Keith-type SWC bullet traveling at 1,000 fps. The round still is stout, but very manageable in this revolver, with little muzzle flip. Accuracy was good...

I agree the absence of a maker's mark is interesting, especially given the conversion is quite well executed. The reason it appealed to me was that the piece was a bit Buck Rogers/Blade Runner, but in a subtler way than some of those early examples. Thanks much.

Thanks very much, for that. The pictures are so much clearer.