Gun Thread: Late-ish June Edition!

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be late-ish June? We're past mid-June, but not quite all the way into late-late June, so I'm going with late-ish. Next week will be too late June. Anyhoo - I was planning to head to the farm this past week and spend a few days doing some chores and shooting with pals, but the weather had other plans. It started raining on Wednesday and the sun just peeked out a wee little bit as I am writing this Saturday. I am waaaay behind on my organic tree farming chores and tick feeding and need to get down there!

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

1964 Colt 1911 National Match

Last week I posted some pictures and short review of a Colt Pre-70 National Match 1911 I own. It had come up in the comments of a previous week's thread and since I'd written about it before, I figured it'd be a clever way to re-use some content without being accused of being a low-life lazy bastard by you, the unfailingly loyal Gun Thread readership.

Little did I anticipate the veritable shitstorm of controversy which would erupt in the comments when our pal Gref posted the following highly charged and overtly provocative "question" as the mostly-peaceful thread went along into the evening. A question so loaded with divarication and innuendo it could have only been intended to spark outrage and conflict among us.

Trigger Warning!

Weasel, is your 1964 Gold Cup a Commander model or are the photos deceiving my old brain on the dimensions?
Posted by: Gref at June 18, 2023 07:56 PM

Looking through Gref's permanent record, it appears we've been having a lot of problems with him lately, and he should probably be sanctioned for such irresponsible behavior. However, since we're all about brotherly and sisterly love 'n stuff here on the Ol' Gun Thread, I think we can forgive this latest transgression.

Q: Weasel, what gives? What the heck is a Commander Model?
A: It's complicated.

Colt 1911 Government vs Commander vs Officer vs Defender
Evidently, size does matter, at least with 1911 types. Here is an article from The Broad Side explaining the differences. Here is another great article from Gun Digest on the National Match models.

In a nutshell, a pistol with a 5" barrel is a Government Model, those with a 4.25" barrel are the Commander Model, a 3.5" barrel is an Officer Model and finally those with a 3" barrel are the Defender Model. Naturally there are exceptions such as with the Concealed Carry Officer Model (also with a 4.25" barrel), as well as possibly some others but we'll pretend those don't exist to make things easy.

Hopefully someone will show up and point out that a Commander Model with a mainspring shortened by .025mm, a condition found on exactly three production guns in November 1958 after a mishap at the spring factory, are technically considered "Needlemeyer" variants thereby proving I am not only wrong but also completely full of shit, but you get the idea.

So! All that being said, is my Colt a Commander Model? Nope. It's a full size Gummint Model. See photo below of the pistol with a ruler now helpfully included.

Note ruler helpfully included for scale

To answer Gref's question, the original pictures are a bit deceiving! As far as I can tell, these pre-70 National Match guns were only produced as the full-size Government model.

For those of you who read, here are a couple of excellent reference materials, first The Standard Catalog of Colt Firearms by Rick Sapp, and also the U.S. Military Match and Marksmanship Automatic Pistols by Bill Jenkins. Good News: Both of these books are muy excellento and have lots of great pictures. Bad News: The one by Bill Jenkins is out of print, hard to find and costs muy dinero.

Thanks, Gref! Excellent question and great observation. Appreciate it!

MoMe Alerts!
All y'all take a look at the main page, left sidebar where you will find not one, not two, but three upcoming MoMe notifications! Arkansas in July, Oregon in August, and Texas in October! If that don't spell F-U-N I'm not sure what does. Listen to your ol' pal Weasel, pick one closest to you and drop the organizer a note. I really do think you will have a good time!

'03 Springfield

M1 Garand

Very nice! Thanks Scampy Dog!

Just for funsies here I am at the farm-o shooting my copies of these two wonderful rifles.

and...

New video from the Armed Attorneys. This week's video is on Fourth Amendment considerations.

Cigar of the Week

This week our pal rhomboid scores again with this excellent review of the Penn Standard

The Penn Standard line of cigars seems to be available online only at Cigar Page, one of the bigger online vendors. But as the line is very reasonably priced, this lack of consumer options doesn't seem to present a problem. The line is named for the rich dark Pennsylvania broadleaf tobacco leaves (aged 8 years) used for the wrappers. The binder is Nicaraguan habano, the fillers a mix of habano leaf from Nicaragua and Honduras. The result is a medium-bodied maduro, with excellent construction, even burn, and great mellow flavor. Probably the most distinctly identifiable cocoa or unsweetened chocolate note I've yet experienced in all the types of cigar I've burned. This stick would be a good choice for people just beginning to explore maduros, or anyone looking for a mellow flavorful maduro at a good price. The Penn Standard pictured (a "colada", a corona size, 5.6 X 46) cost just $4.50 at Cigar Page. Among the best values and consistent enjoyable sticks I've come across so far.

Rhomboid also had this to say regarding availability.

This stick is, as far as I can determine, only available at Cigar Page - even though they don't describe or tout it as an "exclusive". I did poke around a fair bit online and don't recall being able to find another source. Which is rare, but not a problem considering Cigar Page is very hard to beat on prices, and in this case it's a very good value proposition (quality/price paid).

Excellent as always, rhomboid! Thank you!

Here are some different online cigar vendors. You will find they not only carry different brands and different lines from those brands, but also varying selections of vitolas (sizes/shapes) of given lines. It's good to have options, especially if you're looking for a specific cigar.

Cigarsinternational.com
Cigarpage.com
Famous-smoke.com
Cigarsdaily.com
Neptunecigar.com
Smallbatchcigar.com
Bobalu Cigar Company
Cigarbid.com

A note about sources. The brick & mortar/online divide exists with cigars, as with guns, and most consumer products, with respect to price. As with guns - since both are "persecuted industries", basically - I make a conscious effort to source at least some of my cigars from my local store(s). It's a small thing, but the brick & mortar segment for both guns and tobacco are precious, and worth supporting where you can. And if you're lucky enough to have a good cigar store/lounge available, they're often a good social event with many dangerous people of the sort who own scary gunz, or read smart military blogs like this one. -rhomboid

Anyone have others to include? Perhaps a small local roller who makes a cigar you like? Send me your recommendation and a link to the site!

Ammo Link-O-Rama
I'm really very seriously not kidding around anymore. Buy Ammo
AmmoSeek - online ammo search tool
GunBot - online ammo search tool
SG Ammo
Palmetto State Armory
Georgia Arms
AmmoMan
Target Sports USA
Bud's Gun Shop
American Elite Ammo NEW!

This week's mailbag entry is from our pal WTM. Great one!

Please note the new and improved protonmail account gunthread at protonmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. Future expansion plans are in the works for the site Weasel Gun Thread. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!

That's it for this week - have you been to the range?

posted by Weasel at 07:00 PM

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