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The 10 Most Expensive Guns Ever Sold At Auction | TheRichest

 

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Garand anyone?

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Comparing the Old and New Colt Anacondas

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Happy new Year!

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The Jericho 941: Cowboy Bebopin’ by TRAVIS PIKE

In light of the new and kinda terrible Cowboy Bebop live-action show on Netflix, I got my hands on a Jericho 941 pistol. This isn’t a company loaner but from a friend and fan of Cowboy Bebop, the T.V. show. IWI/IMI and the Jericho have a long and complicated history. It’s interesting for nerds like me but not that interesting for everyone. Part of that history is a variety of names used to import the pistol. For example, IWI marked this pistol Desert Eagle Pistol, and as you can see, this isn’t a magnum caliber semi-auto pistol.

In fact, it’s a DA/SA, metal-framed pistol that is essentially a clone of the famed CZ 75. IWI used the Desert Eagle moniker and very vague resemblance to sell more Jerichos. They also marketed the pistol as the Uzi Eagle and the Baby Desert Eagle. At its heart, all of these pistols are Jericho 941 designs that harken back to Israeli domestic pistol production. IWI used the CZ 75 platform because it’s proven, work well in the desert, and they could subcontract to Tangfolio to produce enough pistols for government contracts.

The Jericho is a gun of many names.

Small variations exist between Jericho pistols. Some have metal frames; some have polymer, some have frame-mounted safeties, others have slide-mounted safeties. Some have rails; some do not. This particular model features a metal frame, a rail, and a slide-mounted safety.

Hunka Hunka Burning Steel

The all-steel construction of the Jericho makes it a hammer compared to many modern pistols. It’s big, hefty, and unashamed about it. Like the CZ 75 series, the grip features fantastic ergonomics. It curves to meet your hand, and obtaining a nice high grip is easy. The beavertail at the back encourages you to choke up on the gun and get a nice high grip.

Add in a high grip with a low bore axis, and you get a gun that’s easy to control. Like the CZ-75, the Jericho uses slide rails inside the frame. This lowers the barrel and slide significantly and gives you that famed CZ low bore axis. Keeping with the CZ theme, you can use CZ mags in your Jericho. As much as everyone loves Glock mags, the CZ 75 series magazines can be found quite affordably as well. However, extended magazines are a bit tougher to find.

It’s a heavy gun, but heavy is good.

We get a standard 4.4-inch barrel, a weight of 2.3 pounds empty, an overall length of 8.2 inches, and a 16 round magazine for 9mm variants. You can find Jerichos in 40 S&W as well as 45 ACP. The slide-mounted safety on this model doubles as a de-cocker and is ambidextrous. It’s very Beretta 92 like.

Overall the Jericho is a solid pistol, although some find it outdated in a world of plastic fantastic.

The Jericho is an Israeli domestically produced pistol.

Letting Lead Fly With the Jericho

I love the CZ series guns, and the Jericho felt like I was shooting an old friend. The DA/SA trigger provides a very heavy, long, and unimpressive double-action trigger. I don’t want to gripe much because I’ve felt much worse DA triggers, but this particular experience isn’t special in one way or the other. The single-action trigger tells a different story. My finger feels a slight takeup, then the wall, and then boom. No grit, barely any travel beyond the takeup. It’s fantastic and equal to a new production CZ 75. This well-worn model excels with its single-action trigger. A light single-action helps with accuracy but also with speed, and accuracy is paired with speed.

My big hands don’t get stuck pinning down the slide lock

That short and sweet trigger delivers fast follow-up shots that have less of a human error stain to them. This means your shots are less likely to deviate under-speed as long as you remain consistent. From things like the 10-10-10 drill, you’ll find it easier to shoot it clean in well under ten seconds. With the Jericho, my first warm-up run was 7.65 seconds, and after a little practice, I dialed it down to 6.5 seconds on average. Although, this was done entirely in single action.

With the double-action trigger working, the first shot proved tricky. I could pass the drill at the cost of some speed.

Banging Steel

From an accuracy perspective, the un excels. It’s a full-sized duty pistol and performs as such. We get polygonal rifling with this model, and that helps in the accuracy department. At fifty yards, I could land 7 out of 10 rounds on a ten-inch gong and 10 out of 10 on a full-sized IPSC target. The standard 3-Dot sights aren’t fancy, but I appreciate that the front sight is rather thin and fine for longer-range shooting.

These sights don’t catch the eye all that fast but do offer plenty of air between the front and rear sights for a fast sight picture. When we mix in speed, the sights appear where you want them, as long as your presentation doesn’t suck. I would swap them for something a little higher viz, but they work fine enough.

That high beavertail gives you plenty of control.

I’m a huge fan of the ergonomics and controls. Not only does the gun sit well in hand, but the controls are also remarkably easy to reach and use. This is one of the few guns where my thumbs don’t pin down the slide lock. IWI gives us a massive slide lock that has a nice shelf for easy engagement.

The slide-mounted safety would normally be a downside to me, but it’s surprisingly easy to use. This is due to the small slide side of the Jericho. The safety also acts as wings that make charging the weapon easier, especially with its uber small slide. The magazine release is also placed in such a way to make dropping a mag easy without shifting my grip. My thumb can move from each control with ease in a downward motion.

The Jericho uses the common CZ 75 magazines

The Walls of Jericho

The Jericho 941 provides shooters with a very capable clone of the CZ 75 that still differs enough to be a distinctly different pistol. This is a big heavy gun. I’m talking heavy enough to beat a man should you run dry. It doesn’t bode well for concealed carry, but for home defense and duty use, it’s a great choice.

Accuracy, ergonomics, and reliability are all top-notch. Plus, there is something oh so attractive about something different than the millionth striker-fired polymer-framed pistol.

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Small Arms of WWI Primer 043: U.S. Colt New Army

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UBERTI 1885 Courtenay Stalking Rifle

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THE ULTIMATE SQUIRREL GUN GREAT DADS, .22 RIFLES, AND THE CIRCLE OF LIFE WRITTEN BY WILL DABBS, MD

I glanced at my buzzing phone between crises at work. There was a kid with an ear infection screaming in Room 2, and the elderly man with chest pain in 3 was very likely having a heart attack. The lady in 4 was sobbing hysterically. Her husband of three decades had moved out the night before, and she had no place else to turn. It was, in short, a fairly typical day at the office.

The message read, “Can I borrow a .22 rifle to chase squirrels? My old hunting buddy and I got access to a nice piece of woods, and we’d like to go walk around a bit. Dad.”

 

Everybody has a father. I am blessed with a dad.

Role Model, Inspiration, Hero

 

My father is an indispensable part of my success today. He and mom sacrificed when I was a kid and loved me even when I was unlovely. He lived the example of the Southern Christian gentleman and showed me what it meant to be a man. I never once heard him curse. If everybody had a dad like mine the planet would be a much more peaceful, respectful and productive place.

Dad was a football star in college and even earned a spread in Sports Illustrated. I take after my mom and apparently didn’t inherit any of that. He could have handily beat up everybody else’s dad. However, short of protecting his family I could not imagine anything provoking him to violence.

He and I split the cost of my first Daisy BB gun when I was 7. He gave me my first .22 rifle and 12-gauge shotgun. He taught me the basics of rifle marksmanship and wing shooting as well as how to talk to turkeys.

By the time I left for college, 13 wild turkeys had fallen to my Browning Auto-5 while hunting at his side. Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners were seldom without one. The musty sweet smell of the Army-issue field jacket he wore on hunting trips when I was a kid is burned indelibly into my memory. He would undoubtedly push back at the characterization, but if I took a clean piece of paper and designed the perfect dad he would look like mine.

Dad already has a splendid .22 rifle—a gorgeous Winchester 63 with a tubular magazine in the stock he got for Christmas when he was a kid. The gun shot straight enough for my mom to use it to clip sprigs of mistletoe out of towering Mississippi Delta oak trees for use as Christmas decorations back in the day. A closely held family secret was my mom was always the best shot in the family.

I borrowed his rifle for an article a couple of years ago, and, oddly, it never found its way back home. Dad could have just admonished me to give him his gun back. Instead, he just asked to scrounge one of mine. That’s the kind of guy he is.

After a literal lifetime spent squeezing triggers for fun and money I have tasted both the good stuff and the bad. However, this time was special. Here was my excuse to build my dad the ultimate Information Age counter-squirrel rifle.

A sound suppressed Ruger 10/22 rifle is the ideal Information Age counter-squirrel weapon. The stainless steel
construction combined with the indestructible carbon fiber stock from Archangel make the gun essentially weatherproof.

Foundation

 

Naturally the chassis is a Ruger 10/22. This classic, simple, ubiquitous self-loading .22 rifle is reliable and customizable unlike anything else on the market. It is also surprisingly inexpensive. Ruger makes so many of them mass production keeps the costs down. Spare parts and aftermarket cool-guy stuff are everywhere. In my dad’s competent hands, the Ruger 10/22 would be pure death to tree-dwelling rodents.

Standard Ruger 10/22 stocks are not bad, but this is for my dad. I want it to be perfect, so I looked to Archangel. Archangel produces a bewildering array of indestructible carbon fiber aftermarket stocks for an equally bewildering array of disparate weapons. For the old standby 10/22, their options run the gamut. They can transform your humble 10/22 into the spitting image of a German HK G36 combat rifle or set you up with a heavy target stock sporting multiple adjustments.

As this rifle was to be toted operationally in the field I opted for the midrange version. This stock incorporates a handy thumbwheel adjustment for length of pull yet remains sufficiently lightweight for easy carry. The stock free floats the barrel for accuracy, is festooned with sling sockets, and also includes a handy carrying compartment for a few spare .22 rounds or some emergency M&M’s.

I mounted glass on the top without a fuss. Neither Dad nor I have quite the visual acuity we once did, and a proper optical sight sure makes it easier to drop rounds on target. All Ruger 10/22 rifles come equipped with a sturdy sight rail, and the receivers are drilled and tapped from the factory.

Magazines range from standard helical feed 10-rounders up to 50-round drums with banana mags of various capacities liberally interspersed. New 10/22 rifles come standard with extended magazine release levers. Modern 10/22 fire control groups and barrel bands are polymer, but you will not wear out these components.

In a timeless tribute to the innate toxicity of testosterone, my dad and his best friend, both well into their 70’s, were recently hanging out at their hunting camp when an armadillo had the poor grace to make an unscheduled appearance. Dad produced his Ruger .22 Magnum revolver and, 6 rounds later, both my dad and his buddy were well and truly deafened. The armadillo, naturally, escaped unscathed. After some vigorous admonishment by his physician son, Dad now keeps a pair of muffs in his pickup truck.

A lifetime’s exposure to gunfire and chainsaws has already taken a toll on Dad’s hearing. You only get so much, and every time you are exposed to excessive noise you lose a little. It is imperative you safeguard every bit of it.

Hearing protection can be tough to manage when in the field hunting, particularly when there are multiple hunters involved. Sound suppressors are the obvious answer. Regrettably, however, civilian ownership requires the same onerous paperwork and $200 transfer tax fully automatic machineguns and grenade launchers might.

Sound suppressors should really be sold over the counter in blister packs at your local Shop-n-Grab. In America you are statistically at greater risk of succumbing to a shark attack or toothpick injury than a criminal assault with a suppressed weapon. (No kidding. I looked it up.) The only place Bad Guys use sound suppressors is on the screen at your local movie theater. However, there is a way to optimize this labyrinthine process.

If you transfer a sound suppressor to yourself as an individual then no one else may legally possess the item. However, if you form a trust it is possible to include more than one person as trustees. Details are available online, and the process is not particularly difficult or expensive. As such, I created a trust for both Dad and me allowing us to share legal possession of a .22 caliber can. The processing time takes about forever, but the resulting convenience makes the wait worthwhile.

The AATS1022 stock from Archangel sports an easily adjustable length of pull to accommodate different shooters.
The stock is functional and lightweight for optimal use in the field.

Practical Tactical

 

The resulting optimized squirrel rifle will easily keep its rounds within a tennis ball out to 50 meters or more in Dad’s capable hands. He used his Winchester 63 to drop swamp rabbits on the run when I was a kid. Dad’s the one who taught me to shoot, after all.

When stoked with subsonic ammo Dad’s squirrel gun is easy on the ears and even allows multiple shots at the same rat. With the can in place the bullet may agitate the squirrel, but the source of the shot is all but impossible to ascertain. The rifle is lightweight enough to tote long distances, and the Archangel stock allows the gun to be adjusted to fit your particular anatomy. While not just dirt cheap, this rig still remains within the means of most American shooters.

Solutions
There is indeed a great deal wrong with our nation today. Among our many resplendent social ills, one of our greatest shortcomings is how few American men these days are signing up to be good old-fashioned dads. The job is grueling and the pay sucks, but the unfiltered adoration from a job well done makes up for the suffering.

Dad invested his life in me. As a result, I understood the value of hard work, discipline, good citizenship, and character in a world rapidly becoming bereft of same. Everybody has a father. Lamentably, fewer modern Americans have a real dad. Dad, enjoy your new rifle. The tree rats won’t stand a chance.

Archangel
43 North 48th Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85043
(800) 438-2547
https://promagindustries.com/archangel/

Sturm, Ruger & Co.
411 Sunapee Street
Newport, NH 03773
(336) 949-5200
https://www.ruger.com/

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