Translated into English Vierling means that “Sorry Grumpy but you will never be able to buy me!”
Author: Grumpy
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Well I liked them!
Somebody or somebody’s really rode this poor puppy hard and left it wet. But imagine the stories this piece could tell about its Army and later life! That & I bet it could still put a BIG hole in somebody or thing. Grumpy
Many good ideas have come along in the field of armaments, but some of them stand out. A few endure for decades. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on a particularly attractive style of handgun that has been a good idea since World War I.
I’m referring to the Model of 1917 revolver, as made in typical versions by Colt and Smith & Wesson and chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. Many handgunners are familiar with this model, but let’s review the details for those late to the party. In 1911, we developed and adopted the excellent Colt service semi-automatic pistol in a new caliber.
It was the now-famous .45 ACP. Rimless—in order to run smoothly through a single-column, seven-round magazine—the .45 ACP actually did have a rim. It was no wider than the body of the cartridge, but had a circumferential groove for the pistol’s extractor to pull the fired cartridge out of the chamber. This cartridge and its extractor groove positively impacted the quick development of the 1917 revolver.
There would have been no need for this type of revolver if there were enough 1911s to meet the demands of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in World War I.
Sadly, the number of handguns needed could not be met by America’s total manufacturing capability at the time. The Springfield Armory had to stop making 1911 pistols and convert the factory to produce M1903 Springfield rifles.
There is also that persistently repeated story that the 1911 magazine was made from a special imported tubing, which became unavailable as the war progressed and America entered it in 1917. We might have been able to build more, but they would have been useless without magazines—allegedly built from a special tubing made in Germany.
So, the Ordnance guys came up with a good idea. Both Colt and Smith & Wesson had working production lines, capable of spitting out thousands of large-frame revolvers in big calibers. In short order, the two legendary competitors had made a few necessary tooling changes and pressed the GO buttons on their production lines. Over the next few months, each factory produced and delivered slightly more than 150,000 rugged, rough-finished, DA/SA, six-shot revolvers.
They fired the same cartridge as the .45 semi-automatic pistol. The thing that made it work was a crescent of thin, but strong, sheet steel with three recesses, spaced to match three adjacent chambers in the revolver’s cylinder. Two of these so-called half-moon clips held a total of six rounds. Tens of thousands of these sturdy revolvers were used in the various battles of The Great War. My late father carried one—a Smith & Wesson 1917. I fondly recall him finding a half-moon clip in an old desk at the armory where he worked and patiently explaining its history to his gun-struck son.
In the inter-war years, many of the 1917-model .45 revolvers found their way into civilian hands. The Border Patrol used some of them, as did many (low-paid) peace officers of the Depression era. Both makers actually built post-World War I, civilian-finished versions of the same 5.5-inch, large-frame wheelguns.
For those who were fussy about loading the sharp-edged moon clips, Peters Cartridge created the .45 Auto Rim cartridge. This interesting round put a thick rim on the .45 ACP cartridge, so it could be used in a ’17 revolver without the clip. In the late 1930s, Auto Rim ammunition was popular enough to be loaded by Winchester, Western, Peters, Remington and U.S. Cartridge. It was another good idea for a sometimes near-forgotten type of gun.
A few of the 1917s were used to good effect in World War II, but more were relegated to use with Guard and reserve troops. After the war, Colt chose to cease production of its large-frame New Service model revolvers, including the .45 ACPs. Smith & Wesson underwent a total overhaul of its product line and came out with a series of new models. It was a period of dynamic expansion for the old-line gunmaker. In an effort to fill the demand for a bullseye target gun, Smith & Wesson created the 1950 Target model.
It was a target-sighted version of the same basic revolver as the 1917. An even fancier (and heavier) version came along in 1955. That model is still in limited production, and the company has made the same basic revolver in a number of different barrel lengths and configurations. The guns have been well-received, largely because of yet another good idea.
In the mid-1970s, a small Mid-western company called Ranch Products began making some new variations of the half-moon clip. Its first was a two-round “third-moon” clip that police officers liked. These little pairs slipped easily into the dump pouches on their duty belts. But, the small firm hit the jackpot with the full-moon clip, which holds all six rounds needed for a speedy reload.
Compared to the wide variety of speedloaders that were coming into common use at the time, the .45 ACP in full-moon clips was a superior performer. It was more compact, lighter and went into the gun faster. As the shooter needed to eject his empties, a stroke of the ejector rod forced a single object—the clip with spent cases—out of the gun as a unit.
Still, the single-biggest reason I like the Smith & Wesson .45 revolvers is because they are Smith & Wesson .45 revolvers. They have the same general trigger action as so many other wheelguns I have carried and used. The cartridge delivers all the power that I really need in a defensive firearm. Guns from the 1950s have that classic five-screw, tapered barrel, long-action style of the company’s Golden Age. My favorite is a 1950 Target out of Sam Fowler’s shop in Orange, CA. It has what I call a “hard way” action job—cycled and fired tens of thousands of times. Recently refurbished with a recut forcing cone after it began keyholing shots, it’s like a new gun.
Unknown adventures await this fine example of fightin’ iron.
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Well I thought it was funny!
Read more: https://www.ammoland.com/2021/03/nyc-queens-plea-for-unarmed-citizen-intervention-shows-elitist-arrogance/#ixzz6pdHpQ3xR
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
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U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “After ‘Defunding The Police,’ NYC First Lady Pleads For Citizens To Intervene In Violent Crimes As Assaults Spike,” The Daily Wire reported Monday. The story noted a series of tweets from Chirlane McCray, wife of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio urging citizens to place themselves at potential physical risk in the face of hostility and escalating violence.
“As attacks on Asian American communities continue, we’re asking New Yorkers to show up for their neighbors and intervene when witnessing hateful violence or harassment,” McCray pontificated. “I know that can be frightening when you aren’t sure what to do or say, but you can learn.
Intervene against who, exactly?
“Authorities” are keeping who the hate crime perpetrators are close to the vest, making it especially dangerous to get involved if for no other reason than fear of being smeared as a racist for defending against a minority aggressor.
“Fear is a normal feeling when stepping into a confrontation, but being prepared can help,” McCray continues, undeterred by anything so mundane as reality. “I’ll share @iHollaback ‘s 5 D’s, which are easy to remember tactics that we can all use to de-escalate a situation. D is for Distract, Delegate, Document, Delay, and Direct.”
Entitled sociopaths who will punch, stab or shoot you because they feel like it will justify it internally by viewing iHollaback’s wholly unqualified “street harassment” response advice with a “D” of their own, for “Disrespect.” Come to think of it, McCray should have added another “D” for “Duck.”
That’s because her advice doesn’t seem very prudent in a city marked by shootings that had “doubled in 2020 and were up 75 percent last month compared to a year prior.” Big Apple citizen disarmament edicts guarantee the “law-abiding” will be at an extreme disadvantage.
Consider the Sullivan Law, and subsequent New York State edicts and specialized New York City prohibitions. Look at what’s required just to get “permission” to own a gun in that town. Forget about carrying one “legally” unless you’re rich and connected or a celebrity.
Not that Queen Chirlane needs to concern herself with that. She doesn’t need to worry about being “street harassed” or to depend on the kindness of (unarmed) strangers should she find herself being threatened. McCray, hubby, and their royal brood are protected 24/7 by armed security details, and that includes outside the city limits.
Back when he was sticking his toe in presidential waters, de Blasio and the Mrs. were guarded by “at least 10 detectives, including two supervisors, who stayed at the same hotels and ferried the couple around Iowa, South Carolina and other early primary states.” Hizzoner even assigned one of his bodyguards to accompany their son to Yale and “ordered NYPD Executive Protection Unit to move his daughter out of a Brooklyn apartment.”
The curious thing is, between the mayor’s phony budget cuts and his wife’s wholly political pandering, information about reductions in protective detail costs appears to be as guarded as they are. Anybody hear her demand to defund her own security? Or say getting rid of that part of NYPD would be “utopia”?
As for the hapless citizens who pay for it all (and yet somehow always seem to elect elitist violence monopolists to rule over them), the demand that they be rendered defenseless yet still put themselves in harm’s way — to do the job NYPD’s gun law enforcers can’t do — is stunning in its elitist arrogance. It recalls nothing so much as Marie Antoinette’s apocryphal quote when told the people had no bread:
“Let them eat cake.”
You gotta wonder if at any point a people who have welcomed their freedom to be so abused will wake up and repurpose some of those horse-drawn carriages the mayor tried to ban as tumbrels.
Heretofore ignored by the legacy press and mainstream media, in February, federal authorities invaded a neighborhood in the Flathead Valley with militarized police and terrorized its occupants with what appears to be Waco-level tyrannical overreach
In 1992, a federal siege occurred in Boundary County, Idaho, at a location known as Ruby Ridge. The eleven-day siege lasted from August 21-31 and resulted in the deaths of one U.S. Marshall, and the wife and son of Randy Weaver, the target of the siege. This event captured the attention of the nation. To secure the land around this seven-person home composed of three adults and four children, the federal government saw fit to send in hundreds of federal agents, as well as associated vehicles and air support.
The reasons for the siege are not pertinent here, but the fact is many lessons were learned as a result. Those lessons revolved around Rules of Engagement, the use of force, and other legal concerns. One would have hoped the lessons would be applied in future encounters, but in 1993 the same FBI Hostage Rescue Team commander took part in the siege and raid of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. After fifty-one days, the compound was breached and seventy-five people were killed, including twenty-five children. Nearly thirty years after Ruby Ridge, it seems that the only real lesson federal agencies applied from Ruby Ridge and Waco is that they needed to do a better job of keeping their activities out of the eyes of the public. Why? Because a similar event occurred in Western Montana on February 2, 2021, and it’s likely you’ve not heard anything about it.
In the early Tuesday morning hours, motion sensors alerted the occupant, hereafter referred to as John Doe (names have been changed to protect the innocent) that there was movement along the driveway to his home. Given the time of day, the location of the home, and some recent history that will be discussed later, Doe knew he needed to react, but in a non-threatening manner. His decision was to put on a pair of pants, remain barefoot and shirtless, and move to the front porch with his hands raised in the air. What appeared in the driveway was the lead vehicle of three BearCat armored personnel carriers – commonly referred to as personnel tanks (pictured left) – in a convoy of over thirty total vehicles.
The BearCats are armed with a rotating turret for housing customer-specific weapon systems. Five gun ports are located on each side of the vehicle, and an additional two on the rear. The vehicle are often equipped with .50 BMG or 7.62mm rifles. It is a military-grade vehicle often used by U.S. Special Forces and the Australian military.
But on this day, they were cruising the Flathead Valley with thirty other police vehicles in tow.
Also surrounding the house were one-hundred-plus federal agents with a helicopter in support. Federal agents immediately took Doe into custody and placed him in loose-fitting flex cuffs into the back of one of the BearCat vehicles. Inside the vehicle, John was placed on the outer wall, and at his feet were loaded weapons. Doe later concluded that this had to be a setup, for if he were to try to free himself, he would likely be killed. Seemingly unbeknownst to the Feds, Doe’s 88-year-old mother (who suffers from dementia) was asleep in the house. The actual homeowner, Jane Doe, was also in the home. This is why Doe wanted to avoid confrontation and the stress of such an event by presenting himself peacefully. What looked to be a quick and peaceful resolution then took a strange turn to the worse.
Why did agents breach the house when Doe was already in custody? Counter to standard practice, the team chose to enter a window next to Doe’s basement door. That window is over three feet off the ground and thus difficult to breach and enter by a team that needs to move fast. There are many windows in the house that would have made a breach entry a lot easier. This window was different, not only in its height above ground and the resulting impact on the tactics used, but it is also right next to Doe’s bed. If Doe had not exited the house and moved to the front porch to peacefully present himself, the concussion grenade employed by the breaching team would have landed on him while he was sleeping. There’s no telling what would have happened in that instance, but John’s death is a possibility.
Federal agents obviously knew the home’s layout and they immediately entered Doe’s storage and security room and disconnected all security cameras while conducting a search. Though not included on the warrant, the federal agents searched John’s gun safes, a detached garage, and vehicles parked around the residence.
What provoked this Montana this raid? Doe’s former girlfriend from North Carolina filed a restraining order (a civil matter, not criminal) against Doe in that state claiming he was homicidal, suicidal, a threat to her, and had bomb-making materials with the intention to cause harm. She also claimed he had booby traps all over the home and the surrounding property. But none of this was true.
Doe does in fact hold a Federal Firearms License (FFL) and is licensed for all weapons, ammunition, and powders on his property. Given this fact, federal agents can request to see all his material at any time, no siege required. Circumstances brought Doe back to Montana and, despite the foregoing, a restraining order secured under false information in North Carolina caused a massive raid in Montana involving federal agents from around the country.
According to the Constitution, federal operators may not engage in law enforcement activities without the permission of the local county sheriff, something that is often overlooked and ignored, which is the case here.
Doe was not read his rights until two hours into the event. He was eventually transported to the Flathead County jail by a Deputy Sheriff who was not aware of the preceding events until well after the fact. Doe was released three days later on his own recognizance. Jane was never read her rights despite being questioned by federal agents. John, Jane, and John’s mother were not the only victims of this raid. John’s neighbor, who shares a long driveway with him, was detained in handcuffs for two hours as he left for work. A close friend of John’s heard what had happened and was detained when he went to the house to check on his well-being.
On March 5, Doe and his neighbor both received mail that contained a list of confiscated weapons, but no ammunition was listed despite it all having been confiscated. The list further contained only about twenty percent of the total number of items taken. The address listed on the paperwork was John’s neighbor’s house and it remains unclear why both homes received the notice.
As of the date of the publication of this article, there continues to be a news blackout of this event. John has not been charged with any federal crimes, gun-related or otherwise. Jane has had to pay over $4,000 in out-of-pocket repairs for property damage to her home caused by the breaching team and the subsequent search. (She has received forms to request reimbursement from the Feds). Doe has had to pay thousands of dollars for legal representation.
The Feds spent thousands of tax dollars to execute this raid with agents from around the country, even as far away as Pennsylvania, Florida, and Virginia. Now that Joe Biden is so focused on removing the 2nd Amendment from the Constitution, these actions could become the norm. Americans will be made criminals as unconstitutional measures such as H.R.8 and H.R.127 pass through the U.S. House, on to the U.S. Senate, and ultimately to Joe Biden’s desk. Let us all hold accountable the government that works for We the People, because what happened to John is not what America is supposed to be.
[Editor’s Note: The Montana Daily Gazette stands by the veracity of this report from a field reporter and we believe the Legacy Press has been intimidated into silence by the federal government. Names have been changed to protect the innocent]
Did you know that if you’ve got the know-how to assemble IKEA furniture that you can assemble a ghost gun? Did you know that gun shows go so far as to actually display ghost guns like candy?
That’s the spin pushed by proponents of two new bills introduced in the California Legislature, both aimed at shutting down gun shows (SB 264-Min/D) and the sale of so-called “ghost” guns (AB 311-Ward/D). The baloney comments about IKEA and candy are all part of the villainization of guns and their owners, and is being used as evidence that we are facing a ghost gun epidemic.
Scare tactics – pure and simple.
Last I checked, IKEA furniture doesn’t require meticulous drilling and labor with specialized hand tools, all which are required to create a working firearm component. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) has it right when they say that “GHOST GUNS ARE A GUN CONTROL BOOGEYMAN.” Ever since the foundation of our country, Americans have had the ability to legally make firearms on their own. What’s more, this legal activity is regulated by state and federal firearm statutes.
AB 311 would ban the sale of “precursor parts” at gun shows – which, according to anti-gun propaganda, leads to a proliferation of ghost guns. This is yet another attempt to close the non-existent “gun show loophole” because it would have the net effect of banning gun shows altogether since much of a show’s inventory are “gun parts.”
The word “loophole” is just another politicized term the gun controllers have invented – much like “ghost gun” and “assault weapon.” There is not, nor ever has been a gun show “loophole.” No one can just waltz into a gun show and out with a gun, because all statutory and regulatory rules apply. According to NSSF, “You must run a federal background check on any individual you sell a firearm to through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The same paperwork, recordkeeping, age restrictions, and other rules also apply, as if the sale occurred in the dealer’s place of business. Further, only a small percentage of tables at gun shows, about 20 to 25 percent, actually sell firearms. The others sell books, accessories or other items.” Plus, reporting that unlicensed dealers can sell firearms at gun shows is 100% untrue. Whoever does this is engaging in criminal activity.
Here in California, a press release by the Attorney General dated May 19, 2020, indicated that out of 400 investigations under the Armed Prohibited Persons System, 2 so-called ghost guns were found, both possessed by one individual. But Assemblyman Chris Ward – the author of AB 311 – has said the California Bureau of Firearms seized 512% more ghost guns from persons identified through the APPS database in 2019 than in 2018. That sounds alarming, right? But once we drilled down on these numbers, this percentage translates to 41 guns in 2019 versus 8 guns in 2018. Out of the DOJs 21,916 contacts with prohibited individuals, 0.002% of the cases uncovered a firearm with no serial number. And, when reading the report’s citations, ghost guns data seems to be intermingled with stats about firearms that have had their serial numbers removed. It is difficult, therefore, to make an honest evaluation of the data when the data itself is not credible.
For all the fear mongering and mischaracterization of data, neither 3D printed gun files nor unfinished receiver blanks constitute “firearms” or “handguns” because they are not “firearms.” Additionally, an unfinished receiver sold as a kit with other unregulated gun parts is not a “combination of parts from which a firearm […] can be assembled” because the unfinished frame must first be manufactured before it can be assembled. And no amount of additional unregulated parts sold alongside an unregulated unfinished receiver blank can magically transform a non-firearm into a “firearm” or a “handgun.”
There’s a lot that can be said about any legislation to rid the state of gun shows, but it’s all driven by Boogey-man type rhetoric. Bad guys don’t follow the law. That’s why they are bad guys. We have our work cut out for us here, and GOC will continue to fight the good fight.
Federally, our sister organization Gun Owners of America is working overtime as well on the ghost gun issue, recently submitting a letter to President Biden about any prospective executive actions. You can read the letter in its entirety as well as Ammoland’s commentary on this issue HERE.