“Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons…Pick up a rifle–a really good rifle–and if you know how to use it well, you change instantly from a mouse to a man, from a peon to a caballero, and― most significantly―from a subject to a citizen.” — Jeff Cooper
And I thought this was some bullshit put out by the Coast Gaurd or Space Force. But No!!!!!
The “Squad Push-Up” was a product of years of illegal experiments on Marines, culminating in the obscene workout in which you stick your face up the butthole of your friends and pushup together. As one.
A… Human centipede, of sorts.
Terminal Lance
Enlist today
Compared to our rugged forebears who domesticated the continent, invented lots of cool stuff, won scads of wars and quite literally freed an enslaved world, we seem an awfully fragile lot these days.
Americans are not quite so durable as was once the case. As such, I thought it might be a fun exercise to see if I could offend every single person in the country in a single weekly column. All I’m really doing is packaging facts — here goes.
Men are Stupid
Testosterone is the primary sex hormone in males; an anabolic steroid from the androstane class. Testosterone begins life as cholesterol before being synthesized into its active form in the liver. This complex chemical combination of Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen is arguably the most powerful force for chaos the universe has ever seen. Plutonium is mere baby formula compared to a proper surge of testosterone in a 13-year-old male.
As a physician, I have seen guys shot, set on fire, blown up and dismembered as a direct result of the deleterious effect of this mysterious toxin. In concert with alcohol, the synergy can be simply epic. By contrast, I have not once attended a woman professionally after she poured gasoline over a barbecue grill because she was, “Getting really hungry.”
By the numbers, 93.3% of the incarcerated population in America is male. Let the significance of that number sink in for a minute. Guys run the world and look at the shape it is in. Men are clearly idiots.
Women are Crazy
Ask any radical feminist to define a hysterectomy and they will rightly say it is the procedure wherein the female reproductive organs are surgically removed. However, I dare say very few radical feminists have dissected the etymological origins of the term. Hysterectomy is derived from the Latin hystericus meaning, “of the womb.”
Back in the day, hystericus was viewed as a neurotic condition unique to women involving emotional outbursts, unpredictability and outright madness. Medical practitioners in centuries past believed this condition somehow originated in the uterus. As a result, the term hysterectomy literally translates, “the surgical excision of the crazy from the woman.”
“Lunacy” is also an oblique antiquated reference to the woman’s monthly menstrual cycle.
It seems at some point in the distant past, the entire planet was tropical.
(Source: Mandy Choi, Unsplash)
Youth are Ignorant
Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg first embarked on a career in climate activism at the age of 15. Hers has since become a household name around the globe, thrice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize — something for which I have yet to be considered a single time. She carries a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome and refers to it as her “Superpower.” I think that’s legitimately awesome.
Greta inspired “Fridays for Future,” also known as the “School Strike for Climate.” This is an international movement wherein students skip Friday classes to participate in demonstrations demanding action on climate change. On March 15, 2019, one of these events attracted more than a million strikers worldwide.
When I was Greta’s age, I would have marched in support of invading space aliens if it got me out of school and into a crowd with girls. The argument could be made if you can’t be trusted with a handgun, you also shouldn’t be able to vote. Let Greta pay taxes for a few decades and then we’ll talk.
Climates Change
In February 2017, scientists retrieved a core sample drilled from the ocean floor in the Amundsen Sea off the coast of Western Antarctica. This sample, recovered a mere 560 miles from the South Pole, was fraught with fossilized plant spores, pollen and a mass of preserved fossilized plant roots. There have been ample fern and palm fossils discovered on all seven continents, as well as the North Pole. At some point in the past, long before men mucked with anything, the entire planet was actually tropical.
I don’t doubt the climate is changing, I’m just not convinced anything we do at this point is going to substantively change that fact. The upside is global warming should open up vast areas in places like Canada, Alaska and Russia to both habitation and agriculture.
When life gives you lemons, why not just grow some more lemons?
There are literally countless other examples of woke low-hanging fruit ripe for ridicule. For now, just send all your hate mail and parcel bombs to me in care of FMG Publications. We’ll be expecting them.
William Boyd (above, l.), as Hopalong Cassidy, carried two 5½”-barreled, nickeled Colts in an elaborate double rig designed by the late Bob Brown. Hoppy’s sixguns were actually in mismatched .45 and .44-40 chamberings—but that didn’t matter, as only 5-in-1 blanks were fired in them. Richard Boone (above, r.), as Paladin in “Have Gun—Will Travel,” carried a Stembridge-rented re-blued SAA with black painted stocks.
For many of us, our first exposure to the Single Action Army wasn’t on the shooting range—it was on the silver screen at Saturday matinees, and, later, on television. After all, you can’t film a Western movie or TV Western without sixguns. Before the advent of mass-produced replicas, they were all original First and Second Generation Colt single-actions—many of which, in Hollywood’s early years, had actually “been there, done that” in the real West but were now eagerly corralled by studios and prop houses such as Stembridge Gun Rentals and Ellis Mercantile.
The first Western movie, “The Great Train Robbery,” was filmed in 1903 and featured Colt single-actions used by both good guys and bad, and set the stage, so to speak, for every Western that came after it. Multiple shots without reloading soon became Tinseltown’s contribution to the many other attributes of the Model P. In the 1930s and ‘40s, fancy Colts and gun rigs became the norm for romanticized riders of the silver screen such as Tom Mix, Buck Jones and Bob Steele. Later, in films such as “Shane,” “High Noon” and the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone, single-actions often had co-starring roles with the actors. In fact, many of the earliest motion-picture performers, producers and directors were real-life fans of the SAA, so it is not surprising that when the Peacemaker was brought back in 1955, the first two consecutively numbered SAAs were purchased by famed producer-director Cecil B. DeMille.
Hollywood fast-draw coach Arvo Ojala (l.) instructs Frank Sinatra on the use of his SAA on the set of the 1963 movie, “4 For Texas.”
But nothing propelled the Single Action Army into stardom so dramatically as the television Westerns that ran from the 1950s through the ‘70s. The fancy double rigs of home-screen heroes such as “Hopalong Cassidy” (whose nickel-plated sixguns were actually mismatched .45- and .44-40-chambered guns—a fact of little consequence when only 5-in-1 blanks were being fired) evolved into James Arness, portraying Marshal Matt Dillon, thrusting his 7½”-barreled SAA into a close-up during every opening sequence of “Gunsmoke.” Meanwhile, Richard Boone’s “Paladin” added mesmerizing drama to the otherwise simple act of holstering his SAA in every prologue to “Have Gun—Will Travel.”
Not only was the TV Western responsible for introducing the SAA to a whole new generation of shooters, it turned at least one legend into reality—that of the Buntline Special. Colt archives confirm that approximately 19 Peacemakers with longer-than-standard-length barrels were made between 1876 and 1884—all within the 28801-28830 serial range. They were called “Buggy rifles” by the company. But Stuart N. Lake’s 1931 semi-fictionalized book, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, conjured up five “Buntline Specials” commissioned from Colt by dime novelist Edward Zane Carroll Judson, whose pen name was Ned Buntline. These 12″-barreled SAAs were allegedly presented to five Dodge City lawmen, including Wyatt Earp. Decades of research have concluded this probably never happened, but for Hollywood, it was too good a story to ignore.
Consequently, in the TV series, “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp,” which ran on ABC from 1955 to 1961, an early episode depicted Marshal Earp (played by Hugh O’Brian) being presented with a 12″ Buntline Special. Worn by O’Brian in a long-holstered double rig along with a standard 4¾” SAA, the Buntline Special was featured throughout the rest of the six-season series and created so much viewer demand that Colt was compelled to bring out a 12″ Buntline Special in 1957. It remained in the line until 1975, outlasting the TV series by decades. Thanks to reruns, DVDs and cable TV, in 1981, Colt again made a short run of Third Generation Buntlines. Although the Buntline is no longer in production, the legend lives on, as does Hollywood’s fascination with the Single Action Army.
Imagine you’re a World War II British SOE operative. After months of intensive training, you parachute into Nazi-occupied Denmark and link up with a Resistance group. Friendly aircraft occasionally drop goodies like weapons and explosives so you can create merry mayhem among the enemy. Resistance fighters are not as effective as legend would eventually claim, but an
interrupted rail line, disabled locomotive, or blown-up power station causes headaches and ties down troops who could otherwise be at the fighting front.
Sabotage missions are dangerous. The enemy knows valuable targets just as you do, so they post sentries and other defenses. Your latest supply drop included an odd-looking weapon to help deal with those sentries: the Welrod pistol. The Special Operations Executive (SOE) developed the Welrod for just this purpose: killing enemy sentries or high value personnel silently at close range.
Officially designated the Mark I Hand Firing Device, the Welrod was the brainchild of Major Hugh Q.A. Reeves. Reeves was an engineer with SOE’s “Station IX,” which provided specialized weapons and gear for field operatives. Ian Fleming’s “Q Branch” was partially based on Station IX, though the character “Q” does not represent Major Reeves. The code name “Welrod” came from Station IX’s proximity to the village of Welwyn, north of London.
A Simple but Ingenious Design
The Welrod looks ungainly, but the design is elegantly simple. A single stack detachable magazine feeds the bolt action firing mechanism. A rubber sheath encases the magazine since it doubles as the Welrod’s grip when inserted into the rudimentary mag well. The gun uses 8-round Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless magazines for the .32 ACP cartridges. The shooter operates the action via the knurled knob behind the chamber.
The trigger is a simple steel wire that moves straight back on a sliding plate, releasing the striker. The shooter must engage the grip safety to unblock the trigger plate.
The barrel is only 3.25 inches long but has 16 to 20 ports that bleed gas into the surrounding expansion chamber. The integral suppressor makes up the rest of the firearm. The suppressor section contains a series of metal baffles and three rubber wipes. The wipes were initially solid rubber, so the first bullet fired through them punched a hole that sealed up behind it.
The Welrod’s plans and manufacturing history are still officially classified, though blueprints have leaked out. The guns were almost certainly made by the United Kingdom’s Birmingham Small Arms (BSA), though the firm denies it. Just how many Welrods were made is also a secret. Estimates range from 2,800 to 14,000. The varied serial numbers and classified records
fuel the discrepancy.
Interestingly, the first Welrods were the .32 ACP Mark II and Mark IIA. The later 9mm Parabellum Welrod was designated Mark I and Mark IA. No idea why. The Mark I added a trigger guard and moved the front sight back to the halfway point. Again, no idea why they shortened the sight radius on an already accuracy challenged pistol. The Mark I had a 6-round magazine capacity.
The Welrod was designed for covert activity and is easily concealed with the magazine removed. Unless you know what it is, a Welrod without an inserted magazine doesn’t even look like a pistol. Many said it resembled a bicycle pump.
Welrod Specifications
- Caliber: .32 ACP (Mark II and Mark IIA) or 9mm Parabellum (Mark I)
- Capacity: 8 rounds (.32 ACP) or 6 rounds (9mm Parabellum)
- Weight: 42 ounces (empty)
- Overall Length: 14.57 inches
- Barrel Length: 3.25 inches
- Suppressor Length: 11.97 inches
- Action: Manually operated bolt action
Using the Welrod
The Welrod’s first four or five shots were the most effective. The action didn’t cycle since it was manually operated. The gun was perhaps even better than Hollywood quiet beyond 15 feet. Its report was impossible to identify as a weapon discharge. This was helped by the initial chambering in the subsonic .32 ACP cartridge, which has been recorded at only 73 decibels. Later models were also made in 9mm Parabellum but are reportedly almost as quiet as the .32 ACP guns.
After ten or fifteen rounds, the wipes no longer sealed and the Welrod sounded similar to a standard suppressed pistol, if perhaps a bit quieter since there was no action noise. The baffles and wipes were easily replaced by unscrewing the muzzle cap, assuming you had extras on hand.
The end cap itself is indented and the muzzle recessed so SOE operatives could place it right up against a Nazi target and fire. Of course, getting that close to a sentry or assassination target might be another matter entirely.
The sights are a simple but effective rear notch and post. They originally had tritium inserts for night use. The Welrod’s effective range is 7 or 8 yards at night and up to 25 yards in daylight. After that, the short barrel and slowed bullet significantly impact the gun’s performance.
A Modern Welrod
Brügger & Thomet (B&T) produces a veterinary pistol, the VP9, based on the Welrod. Chambered in 9mm Parabellum, B&T says the gun is for dispatching injured horses and such in a manner that won’t startle other nearby animals. The gun operates just like the Welrod and is reportedly just as quiet. But the VP9 is much nicer than the Welrod.
The gun probably does a great job not frightening horses or cattle. You, however, do you. The B&T VP9 no doubt requires an NFA tax stamp. Do not confuse this pistol for the H&K VP9, which is something else entirely.
The Welrod in Entertainment
You’d think Hollywood might use and abuse the Welrod in their various spy and war movies, but that hasn’t been the case. I suppose it isn’t surprising since all suppressed Hollywood guns are Welrod quiet and look much cooler in the process. The gun has appeared in a few movies and television shows, most notably, a 2011 episode of Person of Interest.
The Welrod fares better in video games. As one might expect, players of combat shooter games can take the Welrod for a spin and it features prominently in several such games. The Mark II appears in Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, Day of Infamy, and World of Guns: Gun Disassembly, while the Mark I shows up in Sniper Elite V2, Sniper Elite III, and Sniper Elite 4.
Battlefield V added a Mark I/Mark II hybrid in its June 2020 update. The Mark II also shows up in Insurgency: Sandstorm’s June 2020 update, though it’s mistakenly chambered in 9mm. There are a few other game appearances as well.
A Long Service Life
Extraordinary times demand extraordinary solutions. The Welrod entered service in 1943, which counts as a most extraordinary time, considering the entire globe was immersed in history’s most destructive war. It was a niche weapon, but that niche was important and long-lasting.
The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which operated much as the SOE and later became the CIA, soon adopted the Welrod. US special forces and intelligence operatives used the Welrod throughout the Cold War, and the British SAS used it in the 1982 Falklands War. The last reported use was in the 1991 Gulf War.
The weapon’s simplicity and effectiveness make it easy to believe the Welrod is still in service today. And why not? The Welrod is simple and reliable. It goes “bang” when you press the trigger. Well, maybe not “bang.” More like “phffft.” Either way, the sentry never knows what hits him.
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Have a GREAT Weekend! Grumpy
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