Who is Pau Ferro? And why can't he spell "Paul"?

When the boss lady at the gun shop where I work ordered a Sig Sauer P229 SAS Gen 2 .357 Sig pistol for me, I asked her to see if the Sig factory rep would get me a pair of those nice Rosewood grips that Sig put on the SAS Gen 1. He said he'd try to get me a set. It's been about two months now and no Rosewood grips have yet appeared and I got tired of looking at those black plastic grips on my P229. That's it in the top photo at right.

So I googled around online a bit and found some nice Hogue wood grips I liked and could afford called Pau Ferro. Which raised my curiousity. Who is Pau Ferro? Some grip designer who can't spell Paul? Not really. Wikipedia sez:

"Pao ferro" or "pau ferro" (Caesalpinia ferrea or Machaerium scleroxylum Tul.) is an exotic tree found in Brazil and Bolivia. Its wood is often used for making fingerboards for electric basses and guitars. It has a similar feel and similar tonal attributes to rosewood, but is harder and has a slightly lighter colour. The wood may also be used for flooring, fancy furniture, and handgun grips. It is also known by the names morado, palo santos, caviuna, Brazilian ironwood, and Bolivian rosewood, though it is not actually rosewood.

I read a little further and found that "Stevie Ray Vaughan's Signature Fender Stratocaster comes with a Pao Ferro fingerboard."

Hey, if it's good enough for the best rock guitar picker since Jimi Hendrix, surely Pau Ferro is good 'nuf for me. They're quite lovely on my new Sig and I'll give them their baptism of fire at the range tomorrow.

Another candidate for blasting tomorrow is my new-to-me EAA Witness P-Compact, which I purchased as a .45 ACP. The previous owner glued some Mahogany panels to the grip, so it looks OK. But I've been wanting a .38 Super pistol for some time, so I ordered a .38 Super conversion slide and mag from EAA last week. I ordered a blue-steel slide to match the frame, but they sent me a matte-stainless-finish slide instead. Hey, it's even better looking than a blue one for the same price. I'll take it gladly.

So I've rounded up some .38 Super ammo and the Witness P-Compact will get its baptism of fire tomorrow, too. And if it is shoots .38 Super good, then I'll order some 9x23mm ammo in FMJs and hollow-points and that will be my carry load in the Witness P-Compact. IMHO, faster ammo with more foot-lbs. of energy delivered is better than slower ammo with less foot-lbs. of energy put on target. And .38 Super is about identical to 9mm +P while 9x23mm is right there with .357 Sig, if not a bit ahead of it in both departments.

Caliber	Grains	Type	Mfg.	FPS Muzzle	Ft.Lbs. Muzzle
357 Sig	125	JHP	Gold Dot DoubleTap	1450	584
9mm	124	JHP	Gold Dot DoubleTap	1301	473
.38 Super	125	JHP	Winchester	1240	427
9x23	124	JHP	Winchester	1460	587
10mm	180	JHP	Gold Dot DoubleTap	1300	676
.45 ACP	230	JHP	Gold Dot DoubleTap	1010	521

Here's a little comparison table I put together of my favorite pistol calibers with the hottest loads I could find data on, trying to keep the grain weights as close as possible for comparison purposes.

I had an "experiental" .38 Super barrel from Lone Wolf briefly for my Glock 20 10mm. I shoulda known a guy who can't spell experimental is not a good candidate for trying out a new product. It was experiential indeed, as it jammed about half the time with .38 Super and about a third of the time with 9x23. The two rounds are virtually identical in dimensions except that .38 Super has a small rim, called semi-rimmed, while 9x23 is a true rimless. And that semi-rim does tend to cause feeding problems with .38 Super. But 9x23 not only feeds smoother, it's also hotter.

My daddy always said I lived by the philosophy that if a little bit was good, a whole lot was more better. He was right. I guess that's why I have a love for all those oddball pistol calibers like 10mm, .357 Sig, .38 Super, 9x23 and also the true 9mm Magnum, 9x25mm. I swapped the "experiental" .38 Super barrel for a 9x25 barrel from Lone Wolf and lived happily ever after.

Range report coming tomorrow if the Good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise.

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.