Steyr S9A1 goes to work in DeSantis holster on DeSantis gun belt

My new Steyr S9-A1 subcompact 9mm went to work with me yesterday at the gun shop in a rig I haven't worn in a while, a DeSantis Speed Scabbard.

I'm not really ambidextrous, which is equally skilled with either hand, more like ambiguous. My right hand is my "strong hand" meaning I throw right-handed.

But my left eye is my master eye, so I have to shoot a long gun from my left shoulder.

I eat and write left-handed, but almost everything else I do right-handed.

The gun term for oddballs like me is cross-dominant, in my case left eye/right hand.

But it comes in pretty handy if you want to wear two handguns, one main and one backup, which is what I habitually do at the gun shop, along with some of the other workers there.

We've had one midnight burglary and one attempted armed robbery during the less than two years that I've worked there, so it behooves us to be ready for anything. In addition to what we carry, there's always a loaded shotgun in easy reach in the gun shop.

So the new carry combo I tried out has the DeSantis rig with S9-A1 in a forward-cant position over my right hip pocket with cell phone on a DeSantis belt and pocket knife clipped in my right-side pocket.



On the left side is my Bianchi Accumold paddle holster with my S&W 396 Night Guard .44 Special revolver.

My new DeSantis gun belt held the gear very comfortably all day. It's the first genuine gun belt I've tried, 1-3/4" wide vs. the 1-1/2" belts I've been wearing. I gotta say after only two days of wearing the DeSantis gun belt I will have more genuine gun belts in my future.

I have read that a good gun belt is better than any off-the-rack belt and now that I've tried it, I found it's true.

I've been buying belts at the local Western wear store, but this plain-Jane DeSantis belt is much more comfortable for all-day wear than any of my other belts.

Ethel arrives from Alabama just in time to take her shooting Saturday

I recently ordered a new Steyr S9-A1 subcompact 9mm pistol from Steyr Arms, the Alabama importer for Steyr Mannlicher of Austria, and when it arrived it had black spots on the left side of the slide. I shipped it back to Trussville, AL, after talking to their salesman. He said the new Mannox finish on the Steyr pistols occasionally had that problem and they would fix it.

I got a call yesterday from a very German sounding gent named Herbert in Trussville who said he had removed the spots with some very fine steel wool and it was now ready for prime time. Did I want the same one back or another new one? Do I want to pay another $20 for the FFL transfer fee, or just get my original pistol back for no extra charge? Duh! I voted for the same pistol and it arrived today. Obviously it was over-nighted from Alabama and here she is, spotless and bright and shiny. The slide is a shade lighter also, which I think makes it look even spiffier.

Only one thing left to do now. Take her out for a spin and see how she shoots. I think I'll call her Ethel. I've got a concealed-carry class Saturday, so I'll get a chance to shoot Ethel at the armory indoor range. Range report to come later.

Steyr returning pistols to U.S. market with MA1 and SA1 9mm & .40

Great news from one of my favorite pistol manufacturers, Steyr-Mannlicher of Steyr, Austria. The U.S. distributor is Steyr Arms of Trussville, Alabama.

Steyr Arms Importing Additional Pistols!

We are pleased to announce that Steyr Arms will again import the Steyr MA-1 and SA-1 line of pistols starting in August.  SAI will import additional quantities of both models in both a 9mm version as well as a .40 S&W.  The MA-1 and the SA-1 were two of Steyr's best selling models, but the fall of the dollar versus the euro over the last several years caused the price point to escalate far too high to import.  Internationally, the pistols sell for 610 Euro or over $800 at a 1.4 exchange rate.  However, SAI felt the price point needed to be much lower to truly compete in the US market.  Due to a bulk buying agreement with Austria and the recent rise of the dollar against the Euro, it became much more economical to import some additional pistols into the USA.  Starting in August, SAI will be re-releasing both the MA-1 and SA-1 versions at a suggested retail price of $649.  We are very excited to be able to offer these items again to the Steyr fanatics out there.  Thank you for all of the emails and feedback over the last two years encouraging us to bring back the pistol!  For more information about the pistol series, see your local Steyr retailer or call us at 205-655-8299. To see specs on the SA-1pistol click here.  To see specs on the MA-1 pistol click here.

I've got a Steyr M9-A1 and used to have a very rare Steyr M357-A1 that I sold when it got more valuable to others than me. 

That's the .357 Sig at left and the 9mm at right.

Steyr makes a better pistol than Glock, but most people have never heard of them. I am really looking forward to getting my hands on a Steyr S9-A1, of which only a few have ever been imported to the U.S. thus far.

The grip angle is not as steep as the Glock and more natural pointing to everybody who's ever held my Steyrs.
It also has a better trigger than Glock, lighter and smoother, and the trapezoidal sights are superior to any combat-type quick-acquisition sight I've ever seen. It's just a better pistol than most manufacturers, not just Glock.

I am really delighted to see Steyr get back into the U.S. market. Welcome back to America, Steyr!

Big Taco's Sta-Tite Guide-Rod-Assembly stays tight in G20 under fire

My buddy Big Taco at Steyrclub.com has been making stainless-steel black-oxide guiderods with and without captured springs for the Steyr M and MA1 series pistols for quite some time. If you don't know what a Steyr pistol is, I'm not surprised. It's the best kept secret in the industry, that other pistol manufacturer in Austria. When Glock was still a yet-uninvented word in the 14th century, Steyr, Austria already had a worldwide reputation for forging the finest weapons of the day. The company now called Steyr-Mannlicher began making fine firearms in Steyr, Austria in 1864.

But enough history. Back to BT and his guide rods. In addition to Steyr guide rods, now he's expanded his fine work to include guide rods for Glock and S&W M&P and has plans to add other makes as time allows. I just got back from a trip to Pittsburgh and picked up a G20 captured-spring guide-rod assembly from Big Taco. It's his new Sta-Tite 2-Piece assembly and it's prettier than a speckled pup.

The stock G20 plastic rod and spring is at left in the photos and BT's Sta-Tite rod-spring assembly is at right in the first photo, then installed in the second in my G20 slide. Third photo is the rod installed with the slide jacked back.

Shortly after installing BT's rod, I took it out for a function test and his Sta-Tite stayed tight as expected. I've got my G20 loaded up with 17 rds. of Winchester JHPs ready to go to work at the gun shop with my G29 as backup. If I need more firepower than that at the gun shop, it'll be time to call in the Marines.

If you want more info about BT's Guiderods, go to his site. He's even got a video explaining how the Sta-Tite series works. Works for me.

I wonder why more manufacturers don't give you a stainless-steel guide rod instead of plastic? They aren't that expensive and it's one of the best as well as cheapest upgrades you can make for your pistol to improve its reliability and function.

I just bought a .38 Super slide for my EAA Witness-Polymer (fourth and fifth photos) and the Wonder-finish slide came with a stainless-steel barrel and stainless-steel guide rod. I've heard some bad raps about EAA being cheap, but if they can afford to offer stainless rods, why can't every pistol maker?

I got a new Sig P229 SAS Generation 2 just recently with all the bells and whistles: Night Sights, Short Reset Trigger, Sig-Anti-Snag melt treatment on the slide and frame, stainless-steel slide with two-tone frame. But for my nearly $1K pistol, I got a plastic guide rod! What's up widdat?

I'm hoping Big Taco will find the time to add Sig guide rods to his line-up of offerings soon. And I need one for my CZ 75 P-07 too. At least my two M&Ps came with stainless rods, but not captured springs, so I'll be upgrading with BT's Sta-Tite assemblies for those two as well.

BTW, Big Taco's a friend of mine and a shooting buddy, but I paid for my Sta-Tite rod and this is my unpaid endorsement of his fine products. Give his fine work a try and you'll be glad you did.

Pittsburgh Shootout with Steyroids: 1 Redneck and 3 Yankee gun nuts

Four of us Steyroids (no, it's not a disease of the hinder parts, it's lovers of Steyr weapons) gathered at the Wexford state wildlife range outside Pittsburgh on June 28 and I'm just now getting a round tuit to finding time to upload the photos of the fun.

At the firing line blamming away with my S&W 29 .44 Magnum is the new guy at the shootout, Cheney at Steyrclub. He's an old fart like me and the other two guys in the group are young farts, Big Taco and OffArtist, the guy grinning in the background. He's a former Marine, so he's gotta be a good guy. There ain't no ex-Marines except for John Murtha and Lee Harvey Oswald.

Next photo is OffArtist blamming away with my EAA Witness-P in .38 Super mode. That's Big Taco in the background with the cool orange shooting glasses on and Cheney in the middle. It was the second outing for the .38 Super slide on the former EAA Witness .45 ACP and I like it a lot. Shoots much better and the sights are pretty much dead on. Now I gotta find me some 9x23 ammo for it.

Then you have Big Taco in the third photo, blamming away with my Sig P229 .357 Sig gangsta style one-handed and whoppy-jawed sideways. He says that's the way you're supposed to shoot one-handed and he's a better shot than me, so who am I to criticize? But it still looks weird. I don't have no trouble shooting straight up one-handed, but one-handed or two-handed, BT blows me away so I'll shut up about his gangsta style.

I brought five of my pistols in 9mm, .44, .357 Sig and .38 Super, BT had his 9mm and .40 Steyr Ms and OffArtist had his Steyr too, I forget what flavor.

I also brought my Marlin 1894 .44 Magnum lever rifle and after we got through 10-yard pistol shooting, we moved down to the 50-yard range for some more pistol and rifle shooting. BT and Cheney were shooting Steyr pistols at 50 and doing pretty good.

Speaking of sideways, that first target photo is a 50-yard group I shot with the Marlin lever gun. I had a nice group about 12 o'clock with .44 holes. Those two holes low and to the left was BT poaching on my target with a Steyr pistol. The one hole in the orange is his too, of course.

So I figured if BT and Cheney could hit with a pistol at 50 yards, I'd try it with my Smith 29, which has a 4" barrel. I was shooting .44 Specials, which are a lot more user friendly than .44 Magnums. The last target is another sideways rendition with all of the holes in the black except the bottom two on the edge of the orange 8" bull.

Now if I could get a bad guy to hold real still at 50 yards and let me take my time drawing a bead from a steady rest (plus not be shooting back at me) I might be able to handle the situation. Whatever. It was a lot of fun anyway.

And afterward, BT, Cheney and me went into town and got a bite to eat and some excellent brews at Fathead's Bar & Grill on the south side of Pittsburgh. Much fun was had by all. Let's do it all again next year.

Steyr handgun in the movies -- again: Bladerunner Redux

Whatizit?

If you're a sci-fi fan, you'll know it's the 2019 Detective Special from the cult classic Bladerunner, starring a very young Harrison Ford, who grew up to be Indiana Jones. Or did he grow backward from 2019? But I digress.

The above strange-looking movie prop is indeed a Steyr firearm, sorta.

The Firearm Blog reports:

Quote:

The “2019 Detective Special” prop gun from the movie Blade Runner has been auctioned off for $270,000! At first glance the gun looks to be some sort of auto-revolver. It is in fact a Steyr Mannlicher .222 Model SL rifle action and trigger group with some revolver parts tacked on. Note the double set trigger and Steyr’s iconic “butter knife” style bolt handle. It even retains the Steyr serial number. Phil Steinschneider has a website detailing how be built a replica of the prop using a Steyr Mannlicher .222 Model SL action and a Charter Arms .44 Special Police Bulldog revolver. Phil’s replica

As has been chronicled at Steyrclub.com numerous times, (I'm too lazy to run a search for the threads) Steyr pistols have been in movies before, probably many times. Certainly the M and MA1 and I would imagine the GB also. If you're not a Steyr nut like me, they're great pistols made by that other Austrian arms manufacturer that hardly anybody in the U.S. knows about. Hint, it ain't Glock, it's Steyr-Mannlicher of Steyr, Austria.

Hollywood may be full of baloney on practically everything, but prop guys do know a cool gun when they see one. And Steyr guns were cool before cool was invented. How cool would Indiana Jones look with one of these in hand?

Model 1905 Steyr-Mannlicher semi-auto Pistol, cal. 7.63mm Mannlicher

And in case you don't know, and most Americans don't, the man whose name is the second half of the modern arms company, Ferdinand Mannlicher, is the one who designed that famous bolt-action design used in the Bladerunner pistol as well as the above real pistol, the Model 1905.

He was designing semi-automatic and fully automatic pistols and rifles before the famed American arms inventor John M. Browning, father of the 1911 .45 pistol, got out of knee pants.

If you'd like a quick education in early modern firearms history, read Ferdinand Mannlicher: Austria's John M. Browning

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!

CZ P-07 Safeties, Ruger LCR dreams and a Steyr carbine

I had a pleasant surprise with my new CZ P-07 today. The trigger guard isn't as big as it looks. I tried out my holsters to see what would fit and lo and behold, it fits my JMG OWB-4 leather holster that was made for my Steyr MA1s. It also fits perfectly and locks into the Bianchi paddle holster I got for my Sig P229 SAS Generation 2. I love it when a plan comes together. Well actually, I didn't plan it at all but it all came together anyway. The Good Lord helps fools and drunks.

I also upgraded the P-07 from decocker to ambi safeties. I'm a klutz and I know it so I took it back to work and got the young man who runs the gun shop to remove the ambi decocker levers and install the ambi safeties. I'll post some photos later this week. I left my camera at work until tomorrow.

I had a bad case of feeling like the southern end of a northbound mule this weekend so I didn't get a chance to take my new P-07 out for a spin. But next weekend, surely. And I've got another trade under way with a .45 ACP Witness P-Compact that's supposed to arrive tomorrow. If it is as promised, I'll ship out my GKK-45, a Browning Hi-Power 45 from Hungary.

And that will complete my trading and sales. My Sig P226 .357 Sig was sold and turned into a Sig P229 .357 Sig (eventually after a tangenital trip for a Marlin 1894 .44 Magnum lever-action rifle). My Steyr M357-A1 was sold and financed the purchase of the CZ P-07.

And lo and behold, on Sunday my CZ SP-01 Custom was purchased by one of Angus Hobdell's range buddies in Mesa, Arizona, who is adding it to his CZ collection. I will be able to pay off my credit-card debt incurred for the unexpected early arrival of the Sig P229! If you were anywhere on the eastern seaboard Sunday afternoon when I saw the sale on gunbroker, you woulda heard me holler.

And there will be a small surplus left over for my next acquisition, which I expect to be a .38 Super slide to convert the EAA Witness .45 P-Compact.

But I've also got my eyes on the new Ruger Light Compact Revolver. We've got them in the shop and it really is an improvement over the Smith .38s.

The trigger really has to be experienced to believe. It'll make a great backup and is worthy of me breaking my rule about no .38 Specials. It's as light as a Smith & Wesson Airweight but one gun writer reported he fired 500+ rounds of .38 +Ps without a stop and the rubber grip and polymer frame soaked up the recoil so well his hand wasn't even sore after that marathon firing session.

But guess what happened today? Some guy sold the gun shop a Steyr 1895 8x56R straight-pull bolt action that looks to be in perfect condition, very nice wood, even has five boxes of ammo with the stripper clips and a couple of boxes of modern Hornady ammo without the stripper clips. And it's only $175. Damn. There goes my next pistol plan. It looks just like this Steyr Model 1895 Budapest Stutzen carbine at J&G Sales. And they got ammo too.

A Steyr departs the fold and a new CZ comes home

Working in a gun shop is so much fun I almost feel guilty about getting paid to talk about guns all day, show folks how they work and sell them whatever they want and need.

But as it sayeth in the King James Version, when it comes to exercising fiscal responsibility with my money, it sucketh. As soon as I get some free cash in hand, zoom, out it goes and another new firearm comes home.

This was a really good week. I sold my Steyr MA1 in .357 Sig, which if I was a fiscally responsible person, would have meant I could use the cash to pay off a good chunk of the credit-card debt I ran up buying a new Sig P229 SAS .357 Sig that I special ordered.

It was supposed to take weeks if not months to arrive from the Sig Sauer Custom Shop, but instead it came in on the Friday following the order going in on Monday. That has to be a record for a Sig Custom Shop order. They musta had some free time on their hands or had one already built waiting.

So I had to use a credit card to pay for the Sig. But the same week I sold the Steyr, lo and behold what comes in the shop but the newest product from CZ, the new P-07 Duty compact 9mm.

It's a traditional Double-Action/Single Action pistol, which I prefer over Double-Action-Only, though I own and carry both. And it has ambi-decockers, which works well for me, being a lefty. It's small but not too small, it's light, but not too light. It's just the perfect balance of size and weight to make it a good shooter and a good carry pistol. It's a bit ugly but...

I took photos of this nasty, brutish-looking critter for gunbroker so I could post it for the shop and got the page up on Wednesday. Then today I bought it myself and brought it home.

It may be ugly the way a Glock is ugly, but it's pure CZ engineering, which IMHO is the best grip angle in the industry and truly great all-around ergonomics. If it shoots as good as my CZ 75 SP-01 Custom (which cost more than twice as much) I'll not really be surprised at all.

The P-07 has only a 3.7" barrel vs. the 4.7" barrel in the SP-01 and it has a polymer frame vs. the steel frame of the SP-01, so it may not be quite as sweet a shooter. But I fully expect it to be a very good one and it's a whole lot lighter and more compact, which it's supposed to be as a carry pistol.

I've never heard anyone describe the SP-01 as a carry pistol, but it's not designed to be one. But that's exactly what the P-07 is designed for, daily duty, hence its name, the CZ 75 P-01 Duty. It's a CZ 75 under the skin, one of the most copied pistol designs in the world, second only to the John Browning's 1911 .45 ACP. And it's a 9mm, so it doesn't need a heavy steel frame to be a good shooter. And the best part is the price. I brought it home for well under half what I shelled out for the SP-01, nearly $1K, that I'm now trying to sell.

And the P-07 has one design feature that allows it to be set up like the SP-01 Custom. The P-07 comes with dual decocking levers installed, but the good folks at CZ also include dual-safety parts in the box so you can swap out the decockers for genuine ambi safeties. That allows you to carry the P-07 like John M. Browning's 1911, cocked and locked. How sweet it is!

Maybe when the SP-01 Custom sells, I'll pay off that credit card balance. And maybe not... Who knows what will come along to tempt me next? This job may sucketh when it comes to being responsible about where my money goes. But in ever other way possible, I love it!

If the Good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise, I'll post a P-07 range report tomorrow evening. Is there anything better than a Saturday at the range with a new pistol in hand?

P.S. Feeling like I been rode hard and put up muddy today. No range trip. Maybe next Saturday. I sure hope this ain't a bug that's got me feeling like the south end of a northbound mule. I hope it's just being 61 years ancient and struck with B.B. King Disease. I'm T-I-D-E! Say it out loud and you'll get it.

Three .44s plus .45, 327 Mag and .357 Sig Compact

What's better than shooting holes in stuff? Shooting holes in stuff with friends. I couldn't find anybody to go to the range with on Saturday, so I called up an old buddy from way back and went out to his farm to shoot my new .44 rifle and other assorted pistols. At top is my new Marlin 1984SS, a stainless-steel .44 Magnum/.44 Special lever gun.

And I took two other .44 pistols, a Hy Hunter .44 Magnum single-action I borrowed from the gun shop where I work for a test run and my S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum. Also in that pistol pile is my S&W M&P Compact .357 Sig and my Llama IX-C .45 ACP. Not shown is my Charter Arms .327 Federal Magnum, which I was wearing at the time.

I don't have a single-action pistol and was considering whether the Hy Hunter was going to be my first.

The first target, the fullsize Blueman, was shot with the lever gun at 25 yards and the Cowboy pistol at 15 yards. Lever gun was shooting high, which I corrected, but a tad to the right, which I didn't try to correct. Of course I didn't read the manual first, so I found out afterward the rear sight is drift adjustable. I've got a sight pusher, so I'll fiddle with that next time out with the Marlin.

The Hy Hunter didn't need any sight correction, thank God, as I didn't want to even think about what adjusting it would require with its fixed sights. It shoots dead on, as a couple of holes in the center will attest.

With .44 Magnum loads, it's a hand cannon but shoots dead on. With .44 Special loads, it's a pussycat.

It was a lot of fun to shoot, but after slowwwwwwly reloading it a few times, I figured out why all the old cowboys are dead. They got shot while reloading.

I think I've cured my itch for a single-action pistol. This one is beautiful, black steel finish throughout and beautiful pearl grips. Handles well with its 6.5" barrel, great trigger that couldn't be more than about 2 lbs. It's even a good buy at only $350 which is a steal for a well-made carbon-steel pistol. This one was made by J.P. Sauer & Sohn back in the '80s in what was then West Germany. That's the Sauer that has since merged with Sig to create Sig Sauer. Those Germans make fine pistols.

But it's a range toy and I've got enough of those already. Back to the shop it will go. I've finally found a pistol I don't want to buy. Unbelievable I know, but true.

The second target is shot with my S&W 29. Lordy is that one fine-shooting pistol. It makes the single-action .44 seem a century out of date, which it is. I love shooting .44 Specials and I can see with this new lever gun and my Smith 29, I'm gonna have to buy more .44 ammo. A lot more.

My buddy, his wife and I went through more than 100 rds. of .44 Special and about 25 rds. of .44 Magnum. My gun shop is one of the few I've seen that stocks .44 Special ammo so that will be my next objective, stocking up while it's available. We've got several different brands of range ammo and hollow-points to choose from.

Next up after the .44s was a few magazines of .45 ACP for my favorite full-size pistol, my Llama IX-C 1911. I bought some Canadian-made 15-rd. magazines for it and had shot them once and had a jam or two, so I needed more work with them.

Target is a 11x17" Redman shot at 15 yards with four 15-rd. mags shot at center mass and at the head.

The first time I shot the Canadian-made mags, I found they will hold 16 rds. instead of the 15 marked, so I had to try that. One jammed a time or two, the other didn't. So this time I loaded both to only 15 and both of them worked perfectly. Lesson learned. Fifteen rounds is enough, specially when it's .45 ACP.

Next up was my fairly new S&W M&P Compact .357 Sig. I'm now up to about 250 or 300 rounds and have yet to have a bobble. Performance-wise, it's just as reliable as my S&W M&P full-size .357 Sig, which has yet to jam at about 1K round-count. S&W's so-called full-size M&P has a .4.25" barrel, which is compact in every other maker's book, and the M&P "Compact" with it's 3.5" barrel is subcompact size for all other pistol makers.

The small Redman target with the M&P Compact is shot with two 10-rd. mags and two 15-rd. mags. It's nice to have a compact pistol that takes full-size mags.

I've been carrying the compact but the more I shoot it, the higher my confidence grows that it will perform in the clutch when it really counts. And if your self-defense pistol isn't reliable, why carry it?

I'm in the process of down-sizing my pistols from full-size to carry size and so far have sold my full-size .357 Sig, a P226 Sig Sauer, and have my full-size 9mm CZ SP01 Custom and my full-size .45 ACP FEG Browning Hi-Power clone up for sale.

The Llama has earned a permanent job as my car gun, riding on the seat beside me, and I'll let my S&W 29 go right after I auction off one of my grandkids, so both of those are definite keepers.

I've only got one other candidate I'm considering for sale, my Steyr M357-A1. I never thought I'd let it go, but frankly, it's my least-reliable .357 Sig.

That's not to say it's unreliable. But I never had a jam with my P226 and I've never had a jam with either of my two S&W M&P .357 Sigs. I have one every now and then with the M357-A1, maybe one ever 100-200 rds., so that's makes it the least reliable of the four. It's a fine compact carry pistol with 4" barrel, almost identical in size to my so-called full-size M&P .357 Sig. They even share the same holsters. But as good as my Steyr is, and I love it, the M&Ps are more reliable.

And when I compare my M357-A1 to my Steyr M9-A1, it comes in second again. So far I have yet to have any jams with my M9-A1 with somewhere near 1K in its round count. Maybe the lower-powered 9mm rounds just don't create as much stress as .357 Sig and are less jam prone.

I really haven't made a decision on whether the M357-A1 stays or goes, but I'm considering it. I'll wait until after the CZ and the FEG are sold and then make a reassessment once I've added another carry pistol or two as their replacements to see where I'm standing.