THE RUGER LC-9

     About a year ago my local Arms Dealer was touting how great of a gun that he had in the Sturm Ruger LCP with Veridian Laser.  Took me a few months but I finally decided to buy one.  He had no LCPs in stock that day so I settled on the LC-9 which is the same as the LCP except that it is a little larger and is chambered in 9mm vs the .380 (Hence the LC-9 I am figuring).  It came with a Green Veridian laser.  I have had this pistol for about 5 months and it is not my gun of choice.

First I will address the laser.  The laser is either in the "ON" or Off" position steady beam or blinking beam to give someone an epileptic seizure.  There is no grip switch or anything to turn the laser on or off while sneaking up on someone that shouldn't be in your house, or turning it on to engage a target.  The ingenious thing about it is the holster provided with the LC-9 has a metal strip in it and with a magnetic switch that turns the laser off once it enters the provided holster.  Also if purchasing a belt holster for this weapon you have to get a holster made for the LC-9.

(Notice strip on left side of holster)

As I already stated the laser is a green Veridian laser.  It is a very strong and bright beam vs an average red laser.  However the intensity of the beam comes with a cost.  The batteries run out real quick and they are expensive VS CR2032 and other batteries.  Another cost to this laser is night vision.  If you use this laser at night, you might as well use a white lens flash light too.  It will rob your night vision instantly.  Then there is a fact that I like to bring up in a laser conversation.  I personally do not like a visible laser.  I have used the ILS (Invisible laser system on the M-4 and the PAQ-4 on the M-4 and Car-15)  Its a great system when going against an enemy with no night vision capabilities.  However once a Laser can be seen like the Veridian here it works both ways they have a target designated by a laser.

After the laser I have to get to magazine capacity.  The mag cap is 7 Rounds and one in the chamber for 8.  Again I have a problem with this.  If I want to carry a pistol with 8 rounds that is easily concealable, why don't I just carry an M-1911 based pistol. 

The trigger cannot be squeezed to drop the hammer unless the magazine is in it.  Also this pistol is single action only.

I have to go back to an earlier post about grip as far as the 8 fundamentals of pistol Marksmanship.  Grip is at a disadvantage here.  Admittedly I got a big meathook for a hand.  I just cannot get a good grip on this pistol and when I fire I can feel the pistol rotating in my hand.  To actually see and compare the effect that this has I took the LC-9, an M-9, and a SIG 229R and fired 7 rounds out of each at 10 yards at a 3 inch dot.  Below are the results.  With the LC-9 I was all over the place and this comes from the twisting in my hand while firing. (Only one in the black)

Next I fired the M-9.  A double stack magazine weapon which in my case  results in a better grip.  Though I did have 2 rounds high here they are basically in line with the other shots and no twisting of the weapon.

Here is the SIG 229 again a much better shot group vs the LC-9.

Personally I am not very happy with this pistol however in a pinch I guess it would be able to be utilized in self / family protection.  Also it might be an excellent choice for people with small hands or more flexibility in there fingers.  Also while surfing the internet and items in Shotgun News everything seems pretty critical of the pistol.

I do believe there is one saving grace to the pistol it fits in any pocket nicely and doesn't pattern as a pistol but looks like a wallet or a note pad.

The P-38: Owning some history

A few years ago a tragedy befell a friend of mine.  Mike’s Aunt had passed and he was the recipient of her estate because she had no children.  In years past Mike told me about his uncle’s captured P-38 and Nazi battle flag.  Once Mike and his wife and Linda started going through his aunt’s house he came upon the P-38 and the battle flag.  

     I have never been squeamish about Nazi items.  Having been to Germany, England, France and Czechoslovakia I have visited many museums here and there with examples of Nazi items and they have never bothered me.  While holding that flag it started to freak me out like I could feel the evil from the flag.  I gave him the flag back real quick.

     Mike then handed me the P-38.  This P-38 was taken from a German Officer that Mike’s uncle captured during the battle of the bulge.  He also took his boots which the officer was more apprehensive about surrendering vs the surrendering of his pistol.  He then asked me to take it and shoot it and tell him what I thought of it.  I then took it home, took it apart, reassembled it and shot it.

     I was very impressed by the piece of history that I was encharged with.  Upon getting home with said weapon I played with it for a bit and figured out how to take it apart.  According to mike his uncle had only put a few rounds through it, and kept it clean and oiled.  This was very evident during disassembly and from my judgement it looked like there was less than 500 rounds through this 60+ year old weapon.  There was hardly any receiver wear on the bluing, very little holster wear, and the parts looked like they just came from the factory.

     Surprisingly the operating system of the P-38 is basically a scaled down version of the beretta M-9/92 operating system. it also utilizes a breach block as the locking system.  Sights are a blade front and dovetail rear sight and can be fired either double or single action.  When I took it on the range I fired from 15 yards and was able to shoot a approximately a 3 inch group on a 6 inch dot.  I must also state because of the age of the weapon I utilized a 110g bullet.

After returning this pistol to Mike I wanted one!!!! Before returning it to mike I had texted him some pics of his pistol on my wall with other members of my collection.  The actual reason was that I was building him a presentation case for the pistol and was biding for time to finish under the cover that I was stealing it.

I started searching for a P-38 at the local gun shows and shops.  Also surfing on-line through various C&R shops until I got an E-mail notice from J&G sales (jgsales.com) on their new items and there it was.  $500+ and it was mine.

Of course I had to compare it to Mikes.

Above is Mike's P-38, and below is mine from J&G Sales.  The only differences that I could find was the hammers are different, and the grip coloration are different.  The captured pistol is in better shape as far as wear on the parts.  Other than the importation information inscribed on the front of the pistol grip on the J&G sales pistol they have all the same markings.  A minor difference should be noted.  On the slide there are 3 proof marks. First is a german eagle over a 165, then a german eagle over a swastika then on the right is another eagle over another 165.  The difference below instead of 165 the numbers are 88.

One other thing that made me quite happy was the fact that the pistol that I bought had matching numbers on the Barrell, Slide and Receiver.  I could have picked up one at a gun show a lot sooner but the pistol had 3 different serial numbers, or basically parts from 3 different weapons.

I have taken this pistol out and shot it a few times.  Starting with 110g bullets and working to 124gr Hydrashoks.  However I have not been able to replicate a 3 inch shot group at 15 yards with 100gr ball.  The best I have been able to do is 4 with an average of 4.5.

NEW TACTICS BEING EMPLOYED BY ISRAEL AGAINST HAMAS

As we have all heard Hamas terrorists are hiding behind everything, Hospitals, Mosques, Churches, Civilian homes etc.  To get the Hamas terrorists the israelis are deploying a simple but effective plan. They yell out Hey Abdul.  5-10 terrorists come out of the wood work and get popped by the Israelis.

Hamas has tried to counter this by coming up with their own counter plan by yelling Reuben is that you?

The Israelis immediately countered this by yelling back Yes its me Reuben is that you Abdul, and again 5-10 hamas terrorists pop out saying yes it is I.  Then they get capped by the Israelis.

BACK TO THE BASICS: RECOVERY

In the past posts of back to the basics I have been discussing the 8 fundamentals of marksmanship.  Previously I covered:

Stance
Grip
Sight alignment
Sight Picture
Trigger squeeze
Breathing
Follow Through

Today we are at  #8 Recovery.  What I will cover here in recovery is Immediate action, remedial action and magazine changes

Your firing away at the range, or at a burglar and your weapon stops firing.  You squeeze the trigger again and nothing.  Your pistol looks like this:

You have had a misfire so as the word means you have to pull immediate action.  The key to immediate action is the word SPORTS

Slap up on the magazine
Pull back on the slide
Observe if a round comes out
Release the slide so it goes forward and picks up another round
Tap the slide to ensure it is seated forward properly
Squeeze the trigger and get back in the fight or hitting your paper terrorist

You have done SPORTS and squeezed the trigger and again misfire nothing happens now we have to go to remedial action.  If in a "Situation" you may have to transition to another sidearm.  If you are at the range go through SPORTS till the "O".  Pick up the round and look at the primer (The usually silver circle on the back of the round)  If it is dented it means that the round has not gone off and that the primer is or weapon is bad.  I would like to note that this is not always the case.  I had an Automag III that I couldn't fire military .30 carbine through and the primers were dented, however if I put them in my 30 cal carbine they would fire.  If I used commercial .30 carbine it wasn't a problem.  If there is no dent then more than likely you have a broken firing pin.  Other reasons for a misfire or non-fire are double feeds, failure to extract and failure to feed.

Next I will cover magazine changes.  Your blasting away, your pistol stops firing and looks like this:

You have ran out of ammo, so you have to do a magazine change.  Engage the magazine release, slide your non firing had down the pistol grip ensuring the magazine has fallen free.  Bring your non firing hand to your chest down to your belt buckle and slide to your non firing side till you hit your magazine pouch, pull a mag out (Have them arranged so that when rotated up the magazine will go right into the magazine well of the pistol), load the magazine into the magazine well hit the slide catch and re-engage.

Just to summarize this posting we have covered the final Fundamental of pistol marksmanship and covered Immediate action, Remedial Action, and Magazine changes.