ModernServiceWeapons

In the 2013 December issue of Guns and Ammo, Mr. Dick Metcalf managed to kick over a hornets nest when he gave us a glimpse of his true colors.

“Many argue that any regulation at all is, by definition, an infringement. If that were true, then the authors of the Second Amendment themselves, should not have specified “well-regulated.”

I wondered whether those same people believed that just anybody should be able to buy a vehicle and take it out on public roadways without any kind of driver’s training, test or license.

I understand that driving a car is not a right protected by the Constitution, but to me the basic principle is the same. I firmly believe that all U.S. citizens have the right to bear arms, but to me the basic principal is the same“. — Dick Metcalf, Guns & Ammo

Mr. Metcalf then posted an apology of sorts, that basically stated that he should be able to write w

I recently completed a stripped Gen 2 Noveske Chainsaw Grade lower and topped it off with a BCM mid-length upper with a Centurion Arms rail.  For my optic I chose both a Trijicon ACOG (the compact 1.5 X 16S, see here) or a short base EOTech (see here).  A good looking, well set up AR with optics, Made In The USA!  For white light, I mounted a Surefire X300 Ultra.   Fits and looks good, and is lightweight  . . . I even like the way the activation switches work, except for one issue, see below.  (Prior Jerry Jones MSW post about the Surefire is here).

My particular usage presented two issues.  The first was the accidental activation of the Surefire.  Unity Tactical recently designed a product, the E

I’m not sure when that it happened.  When I was in my 20′s, I thought people in their 30′s were “Middle Aged”.  When I was in my 30′s, I thought people in their 40′s were “Middle Aged”.  Now that I am in my mid-40′s, I’m not sure who to blame now.

I’ve spent my entire career, and life, looking to running for physical fitness.  In my 20′s, and 30′s, I had many 40 or 50 mile weeks.  I kept me in pretty good shape, kept the gut off, and provided me with the mental-health-alone-me-time to solve all the worlds problems.  I often heard people say “I hate running, I’m not running unless someone is chasing me”.  That wasn’t the case for me.  Until the FIRST knee surgery.  I didn’t rehab really well.  I surely didn’t change my eating habits.  That resulted in weight gain, and a loss of overall fitness.

About a year and a half or so ago, I started doing Crossfit with a coworker.  Well, if y

I have spent some bit of time researching and tuning the S&W M&P, as those pistols have become my passion of late.  The latest model which intrigued me was the super sexy VTAC model.  It’s tan.  Come on, what more reason do we need?!  Ok, other than being a slave to fashion, I wanted to spend a little time looking at the vapor deposition finish on the slide and the merits of the 6 dot sighting system.

The slide features a flat dark earth (FDE) particle vapor deposition (PVD) finish, presumably similar to Ionbond, which has been known to have some issues rusting underneath the coating.  PVD finishes are applied at low temperature, and deposit an extremely thin ionized coating on the surface of the substrate.  The VTAC slides were known to have come out gold on some early runs, but I am happy to report that my guns are actually FDE.  The finish is quite matte, but it

Many years ago, Ernest Langdon wrote an article entitled “Fear Not, The Double Action Shot”.  If memory serves me correctly, it was written shortly after he waxed all comers at the 2003 IDPA Nationals in the CDP category with a SIG P220. It was reading that article that started me down the road to where I am today.

I give credit where credit is due to Mr. Langdon, and I must say that I owe him.  At a 2004 class, he set me on the road to improving my struggle with understanding the Double Action/Single Action pistol that made me a much better shooter, and a better instructor.  I never took the chance to thank him for it.

Much to do has been made about how much of a hindrance the double action shot is these days.  The newer generation of shooters will never likely give it a chance as they have come up in a world of “ONE CONSISTENT TRIGGER PULL ALWAYS”.  They view the double action/single action pistols as a tool of the dinosaurs, and possible one step above the Smith and Wesson Model 19.  They

Every now and then it comes up that someone asks about replacement 1911 front sights in tritium or other options.  There are relatively few aftermarket options for stake on front sights, as it is an absolutely archaic attachment method which should be abandoned by anyone willing to spend money to upgrade their 1911.  

If you decide to change out the front sight, I would recommend using the Novak style .330″ x .65 degree x .075″ dovetail, as it is extremely common and the most aftermarket options are available for it.  That design also has a cross pin, which is of great benefit to keeping the relatively massive front sight from wandering off your slide.

Dovetail sights can be drifted off and reused later if you like to experiment, and it is possible to get the necessary machining done without having to refinish the slide, so there is practically no reason to waste any money on stake on sights.

Thanks to dimensional variations that are inherent to the manufacturing process, it is possible to end up with an aftermarket dovetail sight (front or rear) which is loose in the dovetail.  Depending only on some Loctite or the set screw is not sufficient to remedy this situation, so what are your choices?

First, let’s consider the quandary of the sight manufacturers.  For full disclosure, I AM a sight manufacturer, so I have a bit of a unique insight into this problem.  Most customers expect sights to just be plug and play, to drop in to a perfect fit in their slide.  In a perfect world, this is 100% achievable and reasonable to expect.  Unfortunately, manufacturing tolerances and ever changing blueprints or tooling preclude slide dovetails from being identical.  Having done this for a bit, you will find that most quality sight manufacturers are able to hold tolerances on their sights such that they are essentially identical. It is a bit easier to cut the smaller sights all the same than it is to cut a bigger dovet

I have long accumulated different range bags and pistol cases, and my tastes and needs keep evolving.  Ever since I started building and experimenting on pistols, my pistol case needs have revolved around needing to carry a primary and backup pistol, and the associated magazines, lights, small parts, springs, and widgets that each project needs.  I have been through many different cases, but I think that I have now found the perfect setup from Tyr Tactical.

The Tyr Tactical Pistol Pouch, which retails for $74.95, is not the budget choice for casual shooters, but fits the bill for the hardcore shooter with the usual pile of accessories for each pistol.  This pouch has two separate padded removable pistol pockets with elastic straps for magazines, a center divider with a mesh pocket for accessories, and an exterior sleeve pocket.  This tank of a pouch holds everything I need for a range session of experiment

In addition to the very popular 10-8 M&P Limited Runs (more info HERE), there will be a limited number of “special project” M&P builds coming off my bench. These are my personal experiments, and won’t follow any particular format or build schedule.  The above gun was a company gun that had been used for a few projects but not shot much at all, and appears as new.  I decided that it would be a good candidate to build into something slightly less “full house” than my current Limited Run guns.

Here’s the build info:

Base Gun: M&P 9 full size, no thumb safety, circa 2011 vintage.

Slide has full ATEi 10-8 package with full top serrations, front/side serrations, 10-8 logo in front of ejection port, refinish in black QPQ (same as factory finish).

Upgrade to new OEM 1:10 twist barrel.

Trigger components upgraded with Apex parts – AEK sear and USB spring, Ultimate striker block, and RAM

Ape

Lately I have been playing a lot with a .115″ wide front sight in conjunction with a .140″ rear notch.  The .125″ width is the most common and leads in popularity, as it is a good all purpose width, most typically paired with a .140″ notch width.  Prior to the .115″, I had used the .100″ a lot with good results.  A narrower front sight covers less of the target (especially at 15 yards and out), while a wider one fills the notch more for greater potential precision.  I really did not get much of a performance deficit with the .100″, but the .115″ does allow some greater accuracy potential without any loss of speed.  When I recently trained with him, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Frank Proctor also liked the .115″ wide front.  Check it out, you may soon join me in declaring “.115″ is the new .125″!”

One of my training partners and I started exploring the idea of combining different exercises and live fire drills after trying some of the Range Fitness drills on MilitaryAthlete.com.  For anyone serious about the practical application of their firearms skills, there must come a realization that standing static on the square range when rested and relaxed is not the norm when it comes to deadly force encounters.  An extended foot chase, a fight, a long movement to the objective, can all degrade your skill with your firearm if you have not prepared for it.

The above drill with the two overlapping MGM plate racks (the red plates are no-shoot targets) was something simple I tried during the early phases of experiments.  I have since come up with a number of different workouts incorporating the Next Level Training SIRT, which can be found if you look through the archives.

As we have said many times, many in our industry are more concerned about buying or shooting the latest wazoo blaster in preparation for the zombie apocalypse, but could be better served in their survival to just take a

10-8 modified TRP Operator. Photo by Triple Bravo.

A recent inquiry from a customer prompted today’s post, which concerns the internet fable of how the Smith & Alexander magazine well is not “tactical” because when you drop or impact the gun you can pinch the horseshoe section of the well together and thereby pinch the magazine in place inside the gun.

NONSENSE.  Please show me a reliable first hand report of when this happened.  I have pondered that there are contingencies where this might be possible, but in reality not probable.

If your 1911 took a side impact so hard that it’d crush the rather substantial horseshoe of the mag well, it probably also crushed the frame in a similar manner.  Such an impact would be very difficult to experience in a holster, as the gun will move with the impact

In my previous installment on Glock trigger work, I took a look at the issues surrounding working on Glock triggers.  As I noted, the average trigger pull of the stock Glock was around 7.0 pounds.  I wanted to start my experiments with factory parts, as they are known to be the most reliable and predictable.

Above you can see the parts I chose, a Gen3 trigger bar and a factory “minus” connector.  The Gen4 trigger bars feature some minor geometry changes, one of which is a dimple which interfaces with the slide.  This dimple also adds some drag and therefore some pull weight.  Some users have gone so far as to grind this dimple off, but a faster solution is to simply revert to a Gen3 trigger bar.  In this case, dropping in the Gen3 assembly took my Gen4 Glock 19 trigger from 7.0 pounds to 6 pounds

I set the time machine back about 10 years to revisit with the very first full house custom 1911 that Hilton built for me. I carried it on duty for a few years before retiring it to range duty. Before its retirement, it got shot quite a bit. Over 20,000 rounds through it, including a fairly steady diet of my agency’s then-issue Winchester 230gr Ranger +P (RA45TP) round. Eventually it was too much for the Kart barrel, which cracked from the barrel lugs to about halfway down the barrel.

The pistol went back to Hilton, who tightened the slide to frame fit, and fit up a rare National Match barrel and bushing set produced on contract by Israeli Military Industries. These barrels look and shoot great. The pistol also wears a prototype rear sight that later became the production 10-8 sight.

The fabled New York Reload is a technique attributed often to Jim Cirillo, famed member of the NYPD Stakeout Unit and one of the most experienced LE gunfighters in history.  This technique was favored back when the revolver was the flavor of the day, and rather than deal with thumbing loose rounds into the cylinder, one would drop the first gun and simply draw the second one.  This has been perpetuated in some circles with the modern auto pistol.  After having seen some discussion on this, I thought I would offer a few of my own thoughts.

So that we are on the same page, what I have most often seen promoted in regards to carry and deployment is a primary pistol in a strong side holster, with a spare magazine on the support side, and a smaller secondary pistol in a mirror image holster on the support side behind the spare magazine.  The supposition is that it will be faster to draw the secondary weapon and fire rather than to reload the primary.  Let’s allow that dropping of the primary pistol is an

Though Mac doesn’t write for us, Hilton and I are big fans of his training philosophy of using timed performance metrics as well as competition to sharpen mechanical skills and stress management. If you haven’t had a chance to train with him, go check out the TMACS website and find a class. If he doesn’t offer one in your area, don’t be shy about traveling.

Mac’s latest drill involves moving to expose an occluded target, and of course, a timer to measure your performance. Rather than try and explain it, I’ll just say: check out the video here:

If you have been following our posts here, you’ll know that we are pretty big on maintaining some modicum of physical fitness as part of our overall survival strategy. Good physical health will not only increase your survivability in a deadly force encounter, it will increase your overall quality of life. How many times have you gone to a class and seen the student that would more likely face a cardiac arrest than a home invasion robbery in the next 24 hours? Before learning how to be a ninja with that new wunderpistol, maybe that guy should go out and walk around the block a couple times.

Years back, Hilton got heavy into CrossFit and has made some great fitness gains by training smart. Since my college years, I have been training one martial art or another, starting with traditional Japanese arts, and eventually settling with Thai Boxing and Filipino Martial Arts. About six years ago, I found Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and haven’t turned back.

I’m not saying everyone needs to start grappling. But go find a physical activity that you enjoy a

Ever buy a gun for someone else (a friend or relative who is lawfully allowed to own firearms)?  Maybe as a favor because you are at a gun show they could not attend, you have a Gunbroker account and they do not, or because you get a LEO or other discounted price?  Tread lightly, you might wind up “breaking bad.”  A criminal conviction in one such case will be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Review was granted by order of October 15, 2013.  Expect the court’s opinion in the Spring of 2014. (Abramski v. United States, Docket No. 12-1493).

Bruce James Abramski, a former Virginia police officer, purchased a Glock Model 19 from a Virginia dealer for his uncle who lived in Pennsylvania.  The uncle had sent a check to Abramski for the Glock.  Abramski was advised (incorrectly) by more than one FFL holder that the proper way to condu

If you haven’t seen it yet, we offer a free downloadable PDF of our dry fire target. Used at four yards, it has multiple circles which represent a scaled 8″ circle at distances from 7 to 25 yards.  It was developed for use with the Next Level Training SIRT, but can be used for any dry practice or even live fire at the range. Here is one of mine, stuck to the wall of my garage gym.

Get out and train!

Download the target here.

In my last post, I looked at the actual trigger pull weight of a small sample of Glocks.  I have tinkered a bit with Glock triggers before, but wanted to work a little harder at it this time.  While I know full well that putting in lightened strikers and springs will drop the pull weight, I am after a service pistol trigger, not a competition trigger.  I have seen plenty of reduced spring weight triggers fail quite miserably at matches and classes.  I will not waste my time or yours with such folly.    

Here we’ve got a Gen3 trigger bar and Glock OEM “minus” connector ready to pile into this Gen4 19.  Improvements to the Glock trigger are always limited by a few factors, to include:

1) You are cocking the striker during each trigger press, so you’re going to feel that spongy spring compression no matter what you try to do.  Remember we are not lightening this spring, as