O.K. So I went to the "guns" forum to talk about guns

[OffWithTheirHeads]

and my thread got locked. I guess you are not supposed to talk about guns in the gun forum, you are only supposed to talk about the 2nd amendment or something. Go figure. Anyway, I was directed here "outdoor life" to talk about guns even though the range I go to is indoors and I bought my guns primarily to use indoors for protection.

My original post asked about the 1911 and what attributes 1911 owners liked about different brands.

A got a few, very informative replies before my thread was locked for talking about guns in the gun forum.

It was suggested that my Walther P99 had similar stopping power to the 1911.

Several folks told me that gun collecting can be addictive. NO SHIT! I had not owned a gun since I was 12 years old. If AL gore had been placed in office instead of the Bush coup, I probably wouldn't own one now, at age 55. However, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, read earthquake country, and after watching the "heck of a job" little lord pissypants did in New Orleans and after realizing that I fear my government more than I fear the terrorists, I decided that some self protection was prudent. I started with a Remington 870 Express with an 18" barrel, an extended magazine and a folding stock. This is definitely an intruder stopper. A few months later, I purchased my Walther P99 which I love. I am on my way to the store today to buy a Walther P22 with a laser sight for my wife for her B-day. I am also about to order a kit to build a flintlock, Tennessee long rifle and hope to purchase an AR15 in the not too distant future.

One person suggested that I take a gun safety course. In California, prior to taking delivery of any handgun, you must pass a test and obtain a handgun safety certificate. Now, I will admit that the test is pretty stupid, questions similar to "Your 7 year old wants to take your AR15 to class for show and tell. Should you A. Allow it because your kid goes to an inner city school and all the other kids take theirs or B. Tell him or her no."

Also, in California, you must register your gun. This has similarly stupid questions like "Are you a fugitive from justice?". I suppose if you are and you answer that question truthily, someone should hand you your sign.

Additionally, I just purchased and read a book about how to own a gun and stay out of jail in California. Bottom line, lock your gun in a safe and never even look at it. Also, lock your ammunition in a different safe. If the president of the NRA wasn't such a nut case, I would join immediately.

All that being said, I consider myself to be a flaming liberal. I am so far left that my family nickname is "Comrade". Kinda gives the lie to the right wing talking point that "libruls" want to take your guns away.

Comments?

[meldroc]

1. The forums topic rules were confusing for me at first.

The Guns forum is for gun politics - RKBA, gun control discussions, etc. Fun gun stuff - talking about hunting, target shooting, the various technicalities of guns, etc. goes in the Outdoor Life forum.

As for me, I own a Glock 19 as a self-defense handgun. It's 9mm, which is certainly enough of a manstopper for most purposes, despite what some people would say, and has some virtues like enabling your gun to carry more ammo, not having too much recoil, etc.

That said, I don't know much about the Walther, though the 1911's definitely a good gun.

Shotguns are the best home-defense gun. They have a lot more firepower than any pistol, and the "ka-chak" sound they make when you rack them has been known to scare intruders away.

I live in Colorado, so I don't know very much about California's laws, but I keep my gun in a quick-open gun safe, loaded and chambered. None of this "keep the ammo seperate from the gun" crap for me. What good is a gun if it isn't loaded?

Don't worry, you're not the only pro-gun liberal out there.

[benEzra]

2. Welcome!

1911 .45's are a classic design. My wife has her eye on a Colt 1991A1 or similar, whenever she can spare the $$$ to get one. (Kimbers and such are great guns, but she likes the horse logo, so it has to be a Colt). She currently shoots a Glock 26 9mm.

As far as a handgun for defensive purposes, your P99 is an EXCELLENT choice. FWIW, I'd consider any firearm chambered for 9mm Luger (aka 9x19mm or 9mm Parabellum) or larger to be entirely sufficient for self-defense, given the right ammunition. IMHO, a 9mm using hot JHP's--jacketed hollowpoints, for non-gunnies--is as good as a .45 with JHP's. So is a .40 S&W with good JHP's. 9mm's and .40's generally have higher capacities, since the smaller rounds allow reasonably-sized double-column magazines (except you're limited to only 10 rounds in California); or, a single-column 9mm or .40 will be thinner through the grip area than a .45, a plus for those with small hands.

My personal handgun is a Smith & Wesson 3913 LadySmith, caliber 9x19mm. It's a single-stack (8-round magazine plus 1 in chamber), highly accurate, very portable, and the workmanship is first-rate. My wife's Glock is a subcompact with a double-column magazine, so a 10-round magazine fits flush with the stubby grip, and around the house she loads it with a full-length 15-round magazine from a Glock 19. I load mine with Cor-Bon +P 115-grain JHP's, since I'm limited to only 9 rounds; my wife is less comfortable with the increased blast and recoil of +P/+P+ ammunition, so she sticks with standard-pressure Federal Hydra-Shok 124-grain JHP's, but she has 15 of 'em. :)

As far as AR-15 type rifles--if you don't mind the small caliber, they are IMHO the best civilian rifles in the world, and it is with good reason that they are among the most popular civilian target and defensive rifles in the United States, bar none. As far as brand preference, I'd highly recommend Rock River Arms, followed closely by Bushmaster, and I have also shot a DPMS. Finances permitting, I have my eye on a Rock River CAR Elite A4 someday.

The bad news--you aren't allowed to have any AR-15 type rifle in California, unless you either owned it prior to the enactment of your state's Protruding Handgrip Ban in the early 1990's, or go with a California-specific lower receiver that cannot accept detachable magazines. (No, I'm not kidding. I wish I were.) Possession of a post-ban AR-15 in California is a felony, and IIRC the minimum prison sentence for mere possession of one is higher than the minimum sentence for rape.

In California, your options for a small-caliber, self-loading, detachable-magazine-fed rifle in .223 Remington/5.56x45mm are pretty much limited to the Kel-Tec SU-16 or a Ruger mini-14 with an 1800's style straight stock. Neither gun is as accurate or as durable as an AR-15 type rifle. If you step up to .308 Winchester, the Springfield Armory M1A and derivatives, particularly the 16" barreled SOCOM series rifles, are very appealing, and well thought of. SKS's with fixed magazines are also legal in California, and are very economical ($200 or less for a Yugoslavian variant, I'd expect). Or, if you really like the look, feel, and accuracy of the AR-15 type rifles, look into a California-specific lower receiver such as a FAB-10.


Here's our current collection: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1689245#1690884

[Kolesar]

3. Nothing says "I love you" like

...a Walther P22 with a laser sight. So why would a pistol have two different size magazines anyway? (I am not very well read on firearms).

[benEzra]

5. Portability...

So why would a pistol have two different size magazines anyway? (I am not very well read on firearms).

Higher capacity magazines are longer, because a stack of 10 9mm rounds is shorter than a stack of 15.

The Glock 19 was Glock's original compact 9mm pistol:



Capacity was 15 rounds. When the 1994 Feinstein ban dramatically raised prices on over-10-round magazines, Glock introduced a subcompact 9mm pistol sized to fit the itty-bitty 10-round magazines favored by Feinstein et al:



A Glock 26 is essentially the same pistol as a Glock 19, just with a shorter slide and a much shorter grip. A 10-round magazine fits flush with the bottom of the grip; a 15-round magazine sticks out a bit:



My wife has been licensed to carry a gun on her person, and the shorty 10-round Feinstein magazine is easier to conceal under certain circumstances (tight-fitting garment, for example). BUT, when she's at home or in any other circumstance where concealability is less of an issue, she'd rather have the full-capacity magazine, hence the two different sizes.

FWIW, for my all-around rifle, I have magazines of capacity 5, 10, 20, 30, and 40 rounds. The only difference is weight and how far they stick out.

[Kolesar]

6. thanks

I had imagined that the longer magazine would stick out (like the third pic). Not very elegant, but it is functional. Probably a bit harder to keep clean, too.

[krispos42]

7. Well, they are working with magazine limitations

Many handguns, especially 9mm handguns, are designed with a double-stack magazine that holds between 13 and 17 rounds. In states like the People's Republic of California the magazine limit is 10 rounds, so often times people either opt for larger calibers like the .40 or .45, operating on the "if I can only have 10 rounds they're gonna be ten BIG ones!" theory.

Many high-capacity guns, like the Glock 19 mentioned above, have a double-stack magazine with plug that keeps it from acceptiong more than ten rounds.

A new thing that is starting to occur are guns designed with the 10-round magazine limit in place. Wilson Combat's new KZ-45 has a 10-round magazine. It is not a full double-stack with limited capacity, and it is not simply a long single-stack, either. The cartridges are staggered in the magazine enough to fit ten rounds in, then enclosed in a molded polymer frame. The magazine is a little wider but the grip stays the same as a regular single-stack 1911, with the formally unused spaced between the grip surface and magazine filled in with ammunition.

In other words, in conventional double-stack magazine, all cartridges touch three others, except for the 1st and last ones. In conventional single-stackers, all cartridges touch only two others except for the 1st and last ones, and they are all in a straight line. In the Wilson KZ-45, the cartridges still only touch two other cartridges, but they are not in a straight line, but "wavy", so more fit in the same amount of space. I guess you can call this a 'staggered' single-stack.

[Kolesar]

9. in conventional double-stack magazine, all cartridges touch 3 others-or 4?

I am drawing notes on the back of an envelope here. I can certainly visualize the "wavy" "zig zag" Staggered single stack. If it were a bolt, I would say it has a coarser pitch.

[krispos42]

10. yes, exactly!

Yeah, that works.  I tried to figure out a way to draw it...



Standard double-stack magazine, 13 rounds:

|O\
\OO\
 \OO\
  \OO\
   \OO\
    \OO\
     \OO\
      \OO\

Standard single-stack magazine, 7 rounds (standard 1911
capacity):

\O\
 \O\
  \O\
   \O\
    \O\
     \O\
      \O\

Staggered single-stack magazine, 10 rounds:

\O\
 \OO
  \O\
   \00
    \O\
     \OO
      \O\

If you can image the right-hard bullets on the 2nd, 4th, and
6th lines are spaced down a half-line, you'de have a magazine
where each cartridge only touchers two others, yet there are
10 rounds in the space of seven.

<edit> had to play with the formatting to get it to come
out right

[Deep13]

12. My wife has one of those.

It is very light. I prefer the Ruger .22 pistols myself. Laser sight, hmm? Got me thinking now.

Beyond the overboard legislation limiting magazine size, some pistol magazines can also be used in carbines (short rifles.) Ruger and Beretta each have pistol-caliber carbines that use the same magazines as their brand of pistols. Long, 20-round mags are available for those and can be used in pistols with the extra length sticking out the bottom.

Personally, I think 13 rounds of 0.380 is a lot less dangerous to ones neighbors than six rounds of 0.357 magnum.

[Redneck Socialist]

4. Boy are you in trouble

if you go ahead and buy that flintlock kit that is. You're about to discover a whole new level of addiction. Have fun blowing smoke. Bet'cha can't buy just one. :D

[krispos42]

8. The 1911 world is rich and diverse

Most of the owners like to debate things like "flat or arched mainspring housing?", "light rail or no light rail?", "standard or full-length guide rod?", "internal or external extractor?", and "bushinged or bushingless barrel?".

Everybody loves the accuracy, the trigger pull, and the natural pointability of the gun,if you read the articles in the gun magazines.

While I would love to get a 1911, it is not the gun I would like to depend on, simply because I don't want to have to deal with cocking hammers, external safies, and a lot of precision gun holding techniques when I'm roused from bed in the wee hours of the morning, confused and trying to shake the sleep from my brain. It seems that with the 1911, if you don't hold your gun right you stand a good chance of either getting "hammer bite" in the web of your hand or accidently hitting the safety on while the gun is recoiling. This is not a problem at the range, but not something I want to deal with when there's a crisis afoot.

I would like to have a Springfield Armory tactical-length 9mm or a Ruger P345 .45 ACP in decock-only for that. Revolver simplicity with a light rail for both guns, and 15-round capacity in the XD and 8 in the Ruger. And the grip angle on both guns mimics that of the 1911, which I found quite comfortable and naturally pointed to the target I was shooting at.

[Deep13]

11. Don't know that 9mm is similar to 0.45acp in performance.

Still, the P99 really should be more than enough, especially with hollow points.