Gun Thread: St. Patrick's Day 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 Flaming Green Shitballs! It's St. Patrick's Day! OK, enough celebrating. Have you been practicing your fundamentals?

Q: Weasel, when are you ever going to shut up about fundamentals?
A: Never.

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

So here is a question I'd like you to answer in the comments. How many people went to the range this past week, and what were you thinking about while you were there? I'm not talking about while you were ogling the range babes during check-in, but rather what were you concentrating and focusing on while you were in a lane and firing at a target? Hmmm?

Were you concentrating and focusing on fundamentals or were you in some sort of sleepy Zen state with your mind blank? Please tell me you were concentrating and focusing and not letting your mind float around to thoughts of puppies and kittens and range babes and how you need to change the windshield wipers on your car.

Q:Weasel, are you suggesting letting your mind wander to puppies and kittens and range babes is a bad thing?
A: No. No, Weasel are not saying that, however Weasel typically thinks of these things during work hours, not at the range when important things are being accomplished.

I have long said not to concentrate on shooting small groups, but rather concentrate on the elements of fundamental marksmanship and just allow the small groups take care of themselves. Proper stance, grip mechanics, sight alignment, and trigger squeeze/pull/compression/whatever are what I consider the four main elements of fundamentals. What you should be doing is concentrating on one of these each and every time you execute a shot. I am not kidding.

Q: Weasel, are you kidding?
A: No, no I am not.

Each and every time I am behind a gun, I am concentrting and focusing as hard as I can on one of the four elements described above. Here is a short video I made at WeaselAcres some time ago.

In the video, I am about 20 feet from the target firing in double action, and the six rounds went into about a 2 inch group. Is that a good result? It's not terrible, and at least not embarrassing. Could the group have been better? You bet. Was I praying to the range gods for a good group? No. I was simply focusing all of my brain juices on stance, grip, sight alignment and trigger mechanics. Look, I'm not the brightest fork in the shed, and if I can do it, then you can do it too. I have practiced a lot and I focus on one element of fundamentals every time I am shooting. I promise you this works people. Next time you are at the range, please incorporate this into your routine. For one set of shots, focus on one element and then for the next group move to another element. This is the one weird trick that works. Begin to master the fundamentals and you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. Over the coming weeks I will try and offer some simple and very basic examples of the Four Elements as I think we should now call them.

Smith and Wesson Revolver, Model of 1899

Sources: "US Handguns of World War II, The Secondary Pistols and Revolvers," Charles W. Pate

"Colt .45 Service Pistols, Models of 1911 and 1911A1." Charles W. Clawson

The Spanish-American War found the US military terribly underprepared when it came to small arms. Although US regular forces were fairly well equipped with relatively modern weapons, mobilized volunteer and state "National Guard" units still had black powder weapons in their arms rooms. Colt and Springfield Armory, the two primary military arms suppliers, could not support the rapid expansion the onset of war demanded. In 1899, the US Navy turned to Smith and Wesson (S&W) for an order if 1,000 Model 1899 revolvers required to support USN expansion. The US Army followed soon thereafter with another order for 1,000 revolvers. The USN would order over a thousand more in 1902, with slight improvements from S&W.

S&W's Model 1899 is a milestone firearm for S&W in that it represents the first solid frame revolver made by S&W. Prior to the Model 1899, S&W became known for its top-break revolvers like the Model 3. But S&W saw that the top-break revolver could not take the more powerful cartridges of the era, like .45 Long Colt. These required a solid frame revolver like the Colt New Model Army.

This Model 1899 is an Army contract weapon made in 1901, as evidenced by the markings on the butt and US Army inspectors' initials on the checkered walnut grips. "J.T.T."; are the initials of then Captain John T. Thompson, who would go on to become a Brigadier General and Chief of the US Army Small Arms Division and Director of Arsenals in WWI. He's best remembered as the namesake and driving force behind the Thompson submachine gun. Thompson's initials certified final acceptance of the revolver from S&W. "K.S.M." are the initials of Kelly S. Morse, a US Army civilian serving as Captain Thompson's deputy. In addition to the grips, Morse's initials appear on the major components of the revolver, signifying acceptance of major components prior to final assembly.

Unlike the Colt New Model Army revolver, the S&W Model 1899 has "shoulders" bored in its cylinder chambers that allow it to accept the lower-powered .38 S&W cartridge, but not .38 Special or .357 Magnum. S&W had already fielded the .38 Special cartridge commercially by 1901. S&W didn't want it to get chambered into a revolver that might not accept the stresses of the higher pressures developed by the .38 Special. Although large military orders for this particular design would not come for almost forty more years, these small Army and Navy orders were enough for S&W to dub this design the "Military and Police Model", for decades. Although the Model 1899 is the first iteration of this design, features seen on this early version include the signature S&W "push forward" cylinder release and counter-clockwise rotation of the cylinder.

The Army guns were issued only to National Guard units. This revolver also includes a cross draw holster (made in 1903 at Rock Island Arsenal) worn on the right hip and a web belt with four ammo pouches. The web belt has stencils for "1A BY NY 102" and "HQ 3 NY 16." These indicate that this revolver, holster, and web belt were issued to the 1st and 3rd Artillery Batteries of the NY National Guard in its service life. Neither of these units was mobilized for the Spanish-American War. The Army pistols were discarded after WWI because of the large influx of M1911 pistols during and shortly after the war. The USN revolvers had a more interesting service life. Retained in the USN because the USN never received its desired allocations of M1911s, Model 1899s were still on USN books at the onset of WWII. 500 of them went to Britain in June 1940. The desperate need for weapons of any kind after Pearl Harbor saw the USN issue these obsolete weapons to arm security forces, couriers, and anyone else who needed a weapon stateside. The last USN Model 1899s would not leave service until the end of WWII in 1945.

And that, gals and guys, is how it is done. A bigly Gun Thread thank you to Ed L or sending in these excellent write-ups! We have very fortunate to have this caliber (ha!) of contributions!

Cigar of the Week

This week our pal rhomboid scores again with this excellent review of the Southern Draw Rose of Sharon

Southern Draw is an Austin, TX-based cigar company founded by veterans that has carved out a solid niche for itself in the large, thriving, and competitive premium cigar market. Their signature Connecticut line is named Rose of Sharon, for the wife of founder Robert Holt. I stumbled upon a limited edition version of this line, called Desert Rose, at my local brick & mortar. The whole line has a solid reputation, and I was not disappointed. The stick I smoked was the belicoso fino, a softly box-pressed short torpedo. Beautiful blondish brown wrapper, grown in the cloudy conditions of Ecuador, with Nicaraguan and Dominican filler, beautiful precise construction. Nice easy draw, abundant smoke, and overall a wonderful mild cigar. I got some spices and a citrusy tang in addition to sweet wood notes. I would say I'm going to get a 5-pack or even more - but getting this stick may not be so easy. A limited edition that goes for $10 and up online, I was not able to find any belicoso finos in stock, though a few places had other vitolas (robusto, toro, and lonsdale). So anyone who enjoys mild but flavorful cigars should definitely try this one if they come across it in the wild.

Excellent, 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
Nicks Cigar World New!

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

This week's mailbag entry is from our pal Sharon (willows apprentice). 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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