Pau Ferro and .38 Super go to the range and have fun

Pau Ferro and .38 Super went to the range and (stop me if you're heard this one) had a fine old time. That's Pau Ferro on the right, my new grips for my Sig P229, center is my CZ P07 9mm and left is my EAA Witness-P Compact with its new .38 Super slide.

Actually the range is closed until August because it's at at Millstone 4-H Camp which is overrun with kids. How inconsiderate, that kids would want to use their 4-H camp and shut us old farts out of the firing range. I mean why wouldn't a bunch of kids want bullets flying around all over the place while they have fun camping and boating and hiking and riding horses and doing kid stuff at 4-H camp? What is this younger generation coming to!

Where was I? Oh yeah, since the range was closed I went to my fallback spot nearby, an area known to locals as "the claybank." It's a 10-12-foot-high bank of clay alongside the highway. I have no idea what's on the other side of the claybank, but it's been used for a free shooting range for a long time and the only folks who seem to object are hunters who lease the land and don't want the deer scared off during hunting season. It's out of season here in the by-God-it's-hot-already! South, so today was no problem, other than being 97 in the shade and there won't no shade at the claybank.

So I shot my three pistols for the day and got out of there and came back home to the air-conditioning. First up was my EAA Witness P-Compact with its new .38 Super slide, which shoots great. The first target is about 65 rds. of .38 Super FMJs, all I had with me. At first I thought it was shooting pretty far right, but the more I shot it the more the pattern seemed to move toward the center, as you can see from where the ragged hole appeared. Close enough.

Now to order some more mags, a smooth trigger and an ambi safety from EAA. The milled trigger surface is still slapping my left trigger finger just as it did with .45 ACP, which was the original slide that came with the pistol. It's not slapping as hard as it did with .45 ACP, but still an irritation. I'm hopeful EAA has a smooth trigger I can get to replace it but haven't checked yet. Maybe that will make it a pleasure to shoot in .45 ACP, which at present it ain't.

The EAA did fail to lock the slide today with an empty magazine, but it the slide did lock when shooting .45 ACP, so it's probably just the magazine. Not a really big deal but another irritation. Hopefully when I get some new mags, that problem will go away. Generally speaking 12 rds. of .38 Super or 9x23mm ought to be sufficient to solve most problems I could get myself into that need percussion to end. But slides are supposed to lock when the pistol is empty. In a deadly situation, that could cause a really bad day.

Lastly I shot my CZ P07 9mm and the P229 .357 Sig to check the grips of the latter and some more hollowpoints with the former. I was shooting both rapid fire just to check function. And the Sig P229 did something unexpected. It has the Short Reset Trigger and I've shot it fast before, but today I had an unintentional double-tap. The trigger reset so fast I squeezed off a second round right on the heels of the first, bam, bam! It surprised me. I think the hole in the bottom edge of the black is the double-tap but I didn't stop to check at the time, I just kept on shooting to slide lock.

The Pau Ferro Sig grips shoot great and I ran a mag of hollow-points through the P07 in rapid fire, also just to check function. The last three holes in the upper left of the bottom target are three rounds of the new Winchester Bonded PDX1 147-grain loads which I bought after I did the initial JHP testing with the P07. I was aiming at the small cross at upper left. Close enough for standing at 7 yards, which is how I shot today.

Did mention how much fun it is to shoot holes in stuff on a hot Saturday the day before the official start of summer? Life is good.

CZ P-07 begins beautiful relationship; EAA Witness-P .45 stumbles

One outa two is superlative if you're at the plate in baseball swinging a bat. It's the only sport where you can fail three times out of 10 and be a sure shot for the Hall of Fame, assuming you can play average defense and not make your teammates lose the game.

But as King James would say, one of two kinda sucketh with pistol purchases. First the good news.

My new CZ P-07 9mm is a great little pistol (at right in top photo), a 3.7"-barrel polymer-frame compact with 16 rounds in the mag and best of all, it's a great shooter. I put 100+ rounds through her today without a bobble, flub or error of any type. Her sights are pretty much right on the money at 50 feet, where I was shooting from at the range today. She's batting 1000 so far.

I also tested a couple of new magazines for my Sig P229 SAS Gen2 .357 Sig (at left in the top photo), which of course were flawless. They're factory mags, but as Reagan said, trust but verify. Sixteen of the holes in and around the head of the full-size Blueman target (second photo) are from the CZ P-07 and the other 12 are from the Sig P229. The big majority of the holes in center mass are from the P-07 with one magazine of 12 from the P229 in the same area. So that's really two out of three, a good launch for the P-07 and continued excellence from my P229 and a pair of new mags.

Now the bad news. The holes in the Blueman's left arm are almost all from the new-to-me EAA Witness-P Compact .45 ACP for which I traded a full-size .45 ACP, a GKK-45 FEG Hungarian-made Browning Hi-Power clone. I'm not going to ship it back and demand my FEG be returned, but its days as a .45 ACP will be brief.

The rear sight is drift-adjustable but the front sight is fixed so there's nothing I can do about the problem of it shooting about 6 inches low, other than use a bit of Kentucky elevation. I can tap the rear sight to the left and fix the left-right problem, but that's not its only problem.

It's a polymer-frame compact with a 3.6" barrel and it is quite snappy with recoil. Plus the milled surface of the trigger was slapping my trigger finger with each shot, just as my S&W 29 .44 Magnum did when I first got it. I replaced the trigger on the Smith 29 with a smooth combat trigger and solved that problem and I may do that with the Witness-P also.

But what I will most definitely do sooner rather than later with the Witness-P is order a .38 Super conversion slide and magazine. I'm hopeful the .38 Super sights will be a bit closer to point of aim and I'm also hopeful it will be a much better shooter in a different caliber. To make it a hat trick in .45 ACP, the Witness-P choked twice, once on each mag load, which only holds eight rounds. If it can't digest .45 ACP 230-gr. FMJs, it probably won't be any better with hollow points, more likely worse.

Perhaps the slimmer .38 Super or 9x23 rounds will be more to its digestability. I'll be ordering that conversion slide next week, so I shall see. The third photo shows a lineup of pistol rounds I've shot, from left, 9x19mm, .38 Super, 9x23mm, .357 Sig, 10mm, .45 ACP and .44 Magnum.

And if the Witness-P doesn't improve dramatically with .38 Super/9x23, then I'll do what any good football player would do. Drop back and punt. I do work in a gun store and it turns out not to meet my expectations, I can put whole kit and kabooble up for sale and move right along.

Two full-size pistols depart, two compacts arrive

The new small guys are in the house and the old big guys are almost all gone.

At right is my new-to-me EAA Witness-P Compact .45 ACP, which arrived today. It has a 3.6" barrel with a polymer frame and a set of mahogany grips cut and glued on with something called Gorilla Glue by the previous owner. It's not the neatest glue job I ever saw, but the wood does look nice. And it's definitely better looking than the plastic polymer grips underneath, plus the wood grips fill my hand pretty nicely.

Best of all, it's an EAA so I can buy a .38 Super slide for it and shoot not only .38 Super but 9x23mm in it. I shot both in my briefly owned Lone Wolf G20 "experiential" conversion barrel, that wouldn't feed right. That's another story that didn't end well. But both .38 Super and 9x23mm are improvements over standard 9x19mm and I'm a guy who believes more speed and longer bullets are better than slower, shorter bullets. That's why I love .357 Sig and 10mm as well as .45 ACP and 9mm. IMHO, .357 Sig is a really fast 9mm and 10mm is a really fast .45 ACP. Kinda sorta.

I know 10mm is not a .45, it's really a long .40, or more accurately the current .40 S&W is a short 10mm. But what I'm driving at is that 10mm was initially developed as an alternative to .45 ACP, a larger than 9mm round that had faster ballistics than .45 ACP. The "experts" thought it would replace .45 ACP. Shows how wrong "experts" can be. But I still love 10mm for the same reason I love .357 Sig. It's faster than .45 ACP with close to the same grain weight slugs and the foot-pounds of energy delivered are higher. Same is true with .357 Sig over 9mm, it's faster with same grain weight slugs and the foot-pounds of energy delivered is way higher. Plus both 10mm and .357 Sig are flatter shooting at longer ranges than .45 or 9mm.

And I like .38 Super and 9x23mm for the same reasons, speed and energy.

So I have carry pistols in all my favorite calibers, 9x19mm, .357 Sig, 10mm and .45 ACP and as soon as I can afford a new slide, .38 Super or 9x23mm.

I've got a Lone Wolf barrel in 9x25mm for my G20 and I could get one for my G29 too, but even I gotta admit 9x25 is way too much overkill for a carry pistol. It's so freaking loud I'd be deaf to shoot it in self defense without hearing protection. Walking around with ear muffs ain't an option.

Over at gtalk, one poster reported using 9x25mm on a deer and he said the round literally exploded inside the critter. I can see me sitting on the stand in court trying to explain why I used such a huge overkill round in defense.

So I acquired the EAA .45 ACP/.38 Super/9x23mm as a swap for my formerly owned GKK-45, the next photo. It's a great shooter, but being all steel with a 5" barrel, it's not a good candidate for daily carry unless you're big as Godzilla. I'm a pretty large guy, 6' 3" and 265 lbs., but I ain't big enough to carry that monster around.

Next photo is my new CZ 75 P-07 Duty, showing off its replacement ambi-safety levers. The gun shop guru changed out the decockers for safeties so now I can carry the P-07 cocked and locked, which is my personal preference over using a decocker.

Essentially I purchased the P-07 with the money I got for the sale of my Steyr M357-A1 .357 Sig pistol, but it's more accurately the replacement for my soon-to-be-formerly-owned CZ 75 SP-01 Custom, which is the last photo.

The SP-01 Custom has been sold through gunbroker with payment scheduled to arrive Thursday, upon which I will ship it out. It's a full-size pistol like the GKK-45, with a 4.7" barrel, being replaced by the 3.6" barrel P-07, both being 9mm.

And technically speaking the aforementioned Steyr M357-A1 has already been replaced with another .357 Sig, a Sig Sauer P229 Custom Shop Sig-Anti-Snag Generation 2, next photo.

The Steyr MA1 has a 4" barrel and the Sig P229 has a 3.9" barrel so both are compacts, but the issue here is reliability. As good as my Steyr M357-A1 was and still is for its new owner, it was not 100% reliable. More like 98 or 99%. Not bad until you compare it to 100%.

And that's what my formerly owned Sig P226 .357 Sig was for me and what the new Sig P229 has been so far. The Sig P226 was the first of my full-size pistols to be sold and the CZ SP01 will be the last to leave. And that's what my other two .357 Sig pistols have also been, 100% reliable, a 4.25" barrel S&W M&P and a 3.5" barrel M&P. So that made the Steyr M357-A1 my fourth-most-reliable .357 Sig pistol and it had to go.

So all the swapping and selling is done, or will be done on Thursday when the payment for the SP-01 arrives and it ships out.

So come Saturday, I'll be shooting my new-to-me EAA .45 ACP compact and my brand-new-in-the-box CZ 75 P-01 Duty 9mm. C'mon Saturday!

10mm Pistol's Demise 'Greatly Exaggerated'

In addition to being gun nut in general and a pistol nut in particular, I'm even more peculiar than that. I'm a weird caliber lover. Love .357 Sig. Love .44 Special. Love 9x25mm (DoubleTap only).

Had a brief fling with .38 Super and 9x23mm Winchester, but they didn't work out. Not due to the calibers but because the barrel to convert my Glock 20 was "experiental" and it wouldn't feed properly. I'm still hopeful of a conversion barrel for my G20 that will actually work.

But until then, I am also a certified 10mm nut. First pistol I bought after 9/11 was a S&W 1076, the FBI duty weapon from 1990-95 until the feds wimped out and went with .40 S&W. I traded it straight up for a highly customized G29, the "baby" Glock in 10mm with a 3.76" barrel. Can you say pocket rocket? And of course, I also bought a G20 which is fine full-size 10mm pistol. (See my pair of 10's above, G29 and G20.)

And lo and behold, after being written off as dead, 10mm caliber is making a comeback, almost as if it's quoting Mark Twain, saying "Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."

One of my gun-nut buddies says:

10mm is making a little bit of a comeback:

Glock is supposed to release the G20SF and G29SF this month.

Colt is making a new 1911 Delta Elite 10mm that should be out soon.

EAA has a bunch of 10mm options.

The latter refers to European-American Armory, which imports the full line of Italian Tangfolio pistols which are available in compact, full-size and even long slide with scope mounts in 10mm, as well as .38 Super, 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP. Swap a slide and you got any caliber you want.

And now in other 10mm comeback news, the daddy rabbit of all the 10mm pistols, the very first one which was almost still-born, the Bren Ten, may be resurrected soon under a new name!

Quote:

Tucson, AZ - Feb 01, 2008 - Vltor Weapon Systems today announced the launch of the Fortis Pistol Project, a modern version of the famous Bren Ten style pistol. Originally released in 1982, the Bren Ten pistol was designed to advance the state of the art in handgun technology. Designed to fill the need for a full size, full power, double action pistol, the Bren Ten created immense interest as a potent choice for law enforcement and military use. Developed as a pistol and cartridge combination, the Bren Ten was the first production pistol to chamber the powerful 10mm Auto cartridge. In its original loading, the 10mm Auto was capable of launching a 170gr buller at 1,300 fps - generating over 600ft/lb of muzzle energy. Unfortunately, the original Bren Ten and its successor fell victim to business management and financial problems - but the demand for a high quality American made, full size, double action pistol has still not been filled. According to Eric Kincel, the General Manager for Vltor, the Bren Ten may have truly been a design that was ahead of its time; "Now is the time to make this pistol. With today's precision manufacturing techniques and the superior materials available, the Fortis will be a pistol line that is everything people hoped previous attempts would be." Eric pointed out that the Fortis is nearly identical to the original Bren Ten in exterior appearance and ergonomics, but that some changes have been made to improve reliability, safety and strength. "The Fortis, while based on a twwnty-five year old idea, is very unique. It offers a high tech, high quality pistol that more than fills the demands for a full size, magnum power auto loader." The first released Fortis will be a "duty gun", a full size, all steel, high capacity 10mm Auto that will reliably answer the call of professionals and sportsmen that rely on a good pistol. However, Eric is quick to point out that the Fortis Project is a line of pistols based on one common design. "There will be other versions of the Fortis...different calibers, sizes and options specific to certain applications." When asked if they intend on releasing a faithful reproduction of the original Bren Ten, Eric's answer was simply "We sure want to". Fortis Pistol Proposed Specifications (subject to change in final production) * Manufacturer - Vltor Weapon Systems * Model - Fortis (original release) * Type - autoloading pistol * Operation - Semi-automatic, Double/single action * Caliber - 10mm Auto (others to follow) * Barrel length - 5.00" * Overall length - 8.75" * Height - 5.75" * Width - 1.30" * Weight - 38 ounces * Safety - reversible thumb and firing pin block * Sight radius - 6.88" * Sights - Adjustable, 3-Dot combat style * Rifling - 5 Groove, radiused, RH twist * Stocks - Engraved polymer panels * Capacity 0 12 rounds * Finish - Black Steel Slide and Subdued Finish Stainless Frame" http://www.vltor.com/ and http://vltor.wordpress.com/

From the most recent entry on the Vltor-Fortis Pistol blog, Dec. 10, 08:

Quote:

Fortis Pistol receivers after undergoing final QC inspection and waiting for the machine operations -- by the time you read this, they will be being made into the last run of pre-production guns, the next round will be for delivery!

Last word is they're shooting for SHOT '09 for the unveiling of the new Fortis/Bren Ten II, which is Jan. 15-18 in Orlando, Fl.

No photos of the complete Fortis pistol on their site except this thumbnail.

Here's what some of the originals look like from Bren-Ten.com, the definitive source:




Sounds like a good plan to me.