And furthermore… the DeVel 59 is not the equal of most off the shelf 59XX 3rd gen smiths despite being a full house custom gun.
And furthermore… the DeVel 59 is not the equal of most off the shelf 59XX 3rd gen smiths despite being a full house custom gun.
May be shocking to some. M1A. It had a pile of mags, scope and base, some other extras I forget. I shot it a couple times, tried carrying it around a bit in the hills....GADS!! What a heavy bulky clunker!!! I had a Colt SP1 AR at the time, it was a fine walk around gun for whatever I was doing at the time if i wanted something other than a Winchester 94, the M1A was sent down the road in about 2 weeks. I liked M1 Garands, but not the M1A.
Ive been sort of off and on about ARs. Ive had several over time, they end up getting sold, a few years later I think I missed them, get another, shoot it a bit, it sits around, i sell it..... Pretty hard for me to justify as a plinker when the cheap ammo of the early 2000s is gone. Theres other stuff id rather spend the money and energy shooting. In general id rather shoot a bolt action.
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
Another couple:
-Taurus PT-100 fotay. Like a Beretta, but fotay, amirite? Had horrible trigger slap, and got gone.
-CZ-52. Broke the trigger return spring on the second shot, but would reset if I held it upside down and shook it (we were outside in a cow pasture). The old commie milsurp would hangfire half the time, or just go click. Traded it for a Winchester 94.
-Norinco NMH-91 RPK clone. Crunched ammo like a peanut.
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
Walther PPK and PPK/S, both stainless. Shaken nor stirred fantasies notwithstanding, those pistols were painful to shoot. These also taught me how valuable a slide stop is if you have to clear a malfunction.
Traded into a BEAUTIFUL S&W Model 17-3 at a Gun show one time--8 & 3/8" Barrel, Blue, 3 T's, Box, Paperwork & Tools, the whole Shebang--Even looked unfired...
It wasn't until I got home & REALLY looked it over & started playing with it that I realized the error of my ways--There wasn't a straight line on the Gun, the Action felt like it had ROCKS in it when the Hammer was thumbed to Full Cock & the DA Trigger Pull was the roughest, grittiest thing I had ever felt...
When I pulled the Yoke & Cylinder from the Frame to examine, I found that the end of the Yoke Barrel where it contacts the inside of the Cylinder looked like it had been cut with a dull piece of BROKEN ROCK--!
It was the embodiment of all that was wrong with Bangor Punta-era Smith Revolvers wrapped up in one steaming pile of CRAP right there on my Work Bench...
I had a real bad run of new guns starting in 1977 and continuing almost without a break until about 1983. Used ones were pretty good.
Taurus 83. First gun and worst gun. Spit lead badly, barrel was totally trashed. Taurus fixed the timing, but refused TWICE to admit anything was wrong with the barrel.
FTL Auto-Nine. Extractor blew off at about the 3rd shot, FTL claimed I had too powerful ammo in it. FIxed, it blew on the second shot using the exact ammo they specified.
Colt Python. Used, but "certified", whatever that really meant. Broke the hand about 100 shots in. Repaired, but I never loved it, and didn't trust it, so I sold it.
AMT BACK-UP 45. Amazingly bad trigger, after one mag, my trigger finger was done. I had it worked on, and he was able to get the pull down to about 16 pounds. Never reliable.
S&W /Walther PPK. Hammer biting bastard that never made it more than one mag without a jam.
S&W 19. Cheese Grater Grips had to go. Insanely sharp checkering. Painful to shoot regardless of power of the ammo used. Gun was OK new, but improved tremendously with new grips and an action job. A friend toned down the cheese graters, and refinished the stock grips. Nice after that.
Any one of the little .22LR pistols I tried as a BUG, with the Erma PPK clone being the worst. Unreliable every one, and I finally gave up and bought a Beretta 950 in .25ACP. Still have it.
AMT Hardballer Longslide. Galling and tool chattering made it totally untrustworthy, unless run soaking wet. First of a bad run of 1911 type guns. Those guns are probably why I own not a single 1911 platform gun.
Home runs, all new, about the same period:
S&W 66, 4" Came with custom grips.
Dan Wesson 15-2.
Beretta 84
Browning BDA 380.
Beretta 92S
I was deeply involved in shooting "Tactical Matches" when the Smith 686 Plus first came out--Think low round count, six-shot-neutral affairs with Stages not requiring a lot of movement--Kinda' like what IDPA ended up being a few years later...
It was immediately apparent to me that a SEVEN-Shot Revolver had the potential to be a "Game-Changer", at least in the Revolver Class, so I bought the first 686 Plus that I could find in Middle Georgia--And in my haste to obtain one, I may not have examined the Gun as closely as I should have...
Turns out, that early specimen did not "Pre-Time" correctly on two of the seven Holes when shot in DA mode--Damn, THAT made me MAD--At MYSELF!
I contemplated sending it back to Smith & Wesson to have it made right under warranty, but I figured that the Gun would always be a source of annoyance to me, so I carried it over to Franklin's in Athens, GA & traded it on a Sako Rifle in 7mm Rem Mag I had had my eye on for a while...
I had a Ruger MKIII 22/45 that I sold off back in 2014. It was heavy, had terrible sights, was painful to shoot for long sessions because of the sharp edges on the grip's backstrap, and I lost count of how many times I managed to pinch my finger while releasing the slide. I got a Smith & Wesson M&P22 with the proceeds of the sale and it's been my favorite gun ever since.
A 1990 Colt Anaconda, the fucking POS.
Glock 27 in the days of Cor-Bon makes everything better. It was like hanging onto a DefTec 25.
Every HiPower I tried to love.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
Star, Ilama, Rossi, Taurus, Springfield XD, Kel-Tec, and FN pistols.
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