Article. (note: Ed did not choose the title, the editorial staff of SWAT did)
Nicely done, Ed.
Article. (note: Ed did not choose the title, the editorial staff of SWAT did)
Nicely done, Ed.
#RESIST
Kudos for an honest report, Ed!
Nice Job!
Scott
Only Hits Count - The Faster the Hit the more it Counts!!!!!!; DELIVER THE SHOT!
Stephen Hillier - "An amateur practices until he can do it right, a professional practices until he can't do it wrong."
Yes indeed, I also found his article on the MSAR and FN rifle to be refreshing. To actually hear of issues with a platform in a review article was excellent to read besides the "everything is better then sliced bread" mantra that we are exposed to.
Kudos sir, Kudos.
Thanks, LL, and thanks guys for the comments.
I try to write the type of articles that I have always been interested in reading. From my first article SWAT's editor told me he wanted warts and all, which is the only way I would want to write. The article on the issues with the MSAR seemed to upset some fans of that gun.
The Caracals did pretty well, especially for guns made by a company that had never before produced a gun from a country that had never before produced a gun.
I was skeptical going into it. They were designed by W. Bubits, who previously worked for Glock and designed the Steyr m. Designing a gun is one thing; producing it is another.
The guns seem to be a quality product and feels good in the hand; the latter is certainly a factor, but far from the most important one.
The guns performed pretty well from the reliability standpoint for the 1500+ rounds that we fired through each gun. The full sized had 2 failures to extract at the 800 & 900 round mark, then no further ones after I cleaned it. The compact had one failure to feed with an HP--which may have been the result of a weak grip of the shooter since it did not repeat it after I fired another 200 rounds of the same ammo through the same mag that had the malfunction.
The Caracal was produced specifically to have a doemestically made handgun for the United Arab Emirates armed forces, as well as for export to those of Gulf countries. It is kind of an "Arab pride" type thing. If you looked closely at some footage of unrest in the UAE, you could see Caracals in holsters of some of the military and security forces.
The United States is a tough market to introduce a brand new high cap 9mm from a new company. It's a very competitive market with more info available than ever before.
The Aug 2011 Issue of SWAT will feature my article on Jason Falla & his carbine & handgun course.
Last edited by Ed L; 06-11-2011 at 11:54 PM.
Great article, Ed. Your candor is a breath of fresh air in regards to the popular gun press.
Very well-written... far better than the average gun magazine fare.
Thanks, Michael & German Synergy.
I think shooters as a whole have gotten more sophisiticated over the last decade or two, and the participants of forums like this tend to representative of the more sophisticated shooters. In that I mean they tend to practice more, research their choices of firearms, accessories, and training more, and attend more training classes. Also, there is a lot more available to choose from.
I try to mention a rough roundcounts in my articles, though I confess I am not as nearly good as Todd at keeping it to the precise number. Usually I run at least a thousand rounds through the gun and my count is to the nearest hundred rounds.
I also point out what malfunctions, if any, occurred, and a cause if I can pinpoint it, as I did with the FN FS2000. In some cases, like the MSAR before it went back to the factory for repair, I use a descriptive word like "plagued," as I lost track of the exact number and they were happening once every 10 or 20 rounds with every mag that came with the gun.
Last edited by Ed L; 06-13-2011 at 08:03 PM.
LAV posted a three-line prelim impression elsewhere, alluding that slide stop on Caracals is a stop only, and not a slide release. If that's the case, my interest in this pistol is next to zero.
I read Larry's post and am wondering if they changed the slide release from the ones that I was sent to review to a lower profile one, because the ones I received defenitely had an extension to serve as a slide release.
Here are some quick pictures that I just snapped of the Compact Caracal.
First from the side view:
Then from the top:
While this might not represent everyone's idealized slide release, there is definitly something to hit with your finger to release the slide and I had no issues with this aspect.
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