De Fenestra

Walk into any gun store in this country and you can't swing a proverbial dead cat without hitting some flavor of 1911. The Cult of Colt has kept the ancient .45 alive well past its centennial. However, another John Browning-designed* pistol improved on the 1911 (he said trollishly) and achieved equally-lasting international regard despite never gaining more than lukewarm acceptance in the U.S. I refer, of course, to the Browning Hi-Power, otherwise variously known as the Grande Puissance, HP-35, and GP-35. Licensed production and quasi-legal copies and derivatives proliferated internationally, and some have made it to our shores, but there hasn't been an American-built Hi-Power clone.

Until now.

Springfield Armory announced this week the SA-35, their take on the Hi-Power. From their own advertising and, more importantly, early pistolsmith reports, it is a faithful copy with full parts compatibility and a few key differences. Those differences include the factory omission of the magazine disconnect (a French military requirement in the original spec that contributes to the Hi-Power's greatest weakness, its mediocre trigger), a less-bitey hammer (never a problem for me, personally, but I don't have strangler's hands), a slight bevel to the magazine well for more reliable loading, and a more accessible factory safety. In short, Springfield's factory-spec pistol includes many of the improvements that the Hi-Power enthusiast community considers necessary for a reliable defensive pistol.

Springfield has a mixed reputation in firearms circles but their higher-end 1911s seem to be pretty well-regarded. Combine this with the fact that their own web page for the new gun is titled "SA-35 Series Handguns" (emphasis mine), and there's a certain implication that the initial release will be followed by additional variations. Possibly just different finishes, which still would not be bad... but I'm crossing my fingers for an optics-ready version or an SA-35 TRP. There are also a couple of Hi-Power variants that Springfield might decide to delve into, such as the "artillery" model with a detachable stock (have fun with that one, ATF) and the shorter-barreled "Detective" model from Argentina's FM.

This has my attention. The only development in pistol-world that could make me happier would be someone stepping up to release a lightly-modernized H&K P7...

* Technically, Browning did the initial design work before passing away. Dieudonné Saive of FN picked up the torch and finished the Hi-Power. Saive later designed the most beautiful battle rifle of the 20th Century, the FN-49, as well as the later and much more famous FAL. Dude doesn't get nearly enough name recognition.

Dammit, Hollywood, stop producing movie posters depicting shitty trigger discipline.

Over the years, regular readers will have figured out that I am licensed for concealed carry (since early 2001). I don't typically discuss the specifics of firearm selection or holster placement or tactics and decision processes in public because of the potential for misuse of that information by other parties. So this isn't going to be about those topics - not quite.

I'm also a firm believer that if you are carrying a tool to make people bleed, you should also carry the tools to stop people from bleeding - and have the skills to use them effectively. In 2011, I took the excellent three-day medical course offered by Kerry at Dark Angel Medical (when it was still Magpul Dynamic Shooter Aid). Subsequently, I spent several years going between imperfect solutions for incorporating a minimal gunshot medical kit into my concealed carry rig and hanging far too much crap off my belt. In the process, I amassed a nice collection of tourniquet carriers that will never see use again.

A little over a year ago, a thread on one of my preferred forums led me to what is, for me, the perfect answer. Tactical Medical Solutions offers an ingenious ankle wrap that holds a tourniquet, a chest seal, and a pack of hemostatic gauze (and, as this video shows, the wrap itself can be used as a pressure bandage). I am not a fan of ankle carry for a firearm but it's turned out to be amazing for ancillary equipment that needs to remain low-profile. I've worn it with everything from jeans to a suit without raising comment.

Finally back on a regular running schedule. For the last four weeks, I've gotten three runs a week logged. Not great. I've lost a lot of cardio. Did 3 miles today but 0.25 of that was a walk, so it doesn't really count as a 5k. But it's more than I've accomplished since December.

( Also accomplished today: )

Whew. And now it's flake o'clock.

elalyr and I have been working our way through Top Gear on Netflix. A couple of nights ago, we watched the Winter Olympics special, which was eighteen shades of hilarious. The biathlon event that substituted SUVs for skis got me thinking, though. America loves guns. America loves motor sports. Why haven't we combined the two?

I'm thinking... the obvious answer is to combine rally racing with 3-gun. Picture this...

Shooter begins seated at conference table, pistol in holster, car keys in pocket. Rifle and shotgun are secured in the shooter's vehicle. Upon the start buzzer, the shooter must stand, draw, and engage hostile targets while moving to his vehicle. He drives the first half of the course, stopping at a position overlooking a roadblock. He must exit his vehicle with his rifle, take cover (using vehicle or terrain as appropriate), and engage hostile targets at the roadblock. Upon clearing all targets, he re-enters his vehicle, drives past the roadblock and through the rest of the course, and stops at a final shoot house. He then exits the vehicle with his shotgun and clears the shoot house, engaging hostile targets while on the move. Penalty time is added for misses, hitting no-shoot targets, and leaving the course.

Call it the Wheelman Games. Because Spycraft.

So we have some folks who want to flag any purchase of a thousand rounds of ammo as an indicator of an incipient mass shooting.

Bullshit.

Buying a thousand rounds at once means that someone found a good deal online, or that he's planning to take a shooting class (most of those I've attended have had a 500 round/day minimum), or that he trains at a high volume but doesn't own a reloading press, or that he trains at a lower volume but wants to build a backlog to get him through times of ammo shortage like the current one, or that he just got a new collectible gun in a rare caliber and wants a lifetime supply for taking it out to the range once a year. It doesn't mean he's going to go dump a thousand rounds into a mall.

(Also, from a practical perspective, carrying a thousand rounds to a gunfight is stupid unless your gun is a belt-fed support weapon and you have a few friends to help you carry the load. Even with standard-capacity AR-15 mags, you'd be waddling around with roughly 45 pounds of lead and powder.)

Since 2006, I think I've bought ammo at retail prices twice. Both times, I was at a range teaching friends or relatives to shoot and they were having so much fun they went through the several hundred rounds I'd brought to start them off. Except for a couple of small quantities of odd calibers for some of my C&R guns, all my other purchases since then have been online... and in excess of a thousand rounds each. Why? Not pure evil - pure economy. Buying a kiloround at a time at online prices, even with shipping, saves me 25 to 50 percent over retail.

Someone tell me again how gun control isn't a major issue for the Democrats.

Huh. It's a network-ready gun safe. USB, Ethernet, and power passthroughs.

This says "semi-secure location for backup network storage device" to me.

Rather, Mare's Leg. Rossi now offers new reproductions in .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and .45 Colt.

This is marginally less practical than the M1 Carbine Enforcer - which is not to say I don't want one...

I was poking through links over breakfast and came across a suggestion from The Munchkin Wrangler: Pirate Action Shooting. This may be even more awesome than the Zoot Shooters idea I linked last month.

But wait! There's already a re-enactment group for the cold steel portion of such shenanigans: the Historical Maritime Combat Association.

Truly, we live in an age of marvels.