PRACTICAL GUIDES
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Be Prepared! Food For the Next Emergency | Episode 222
Should You Use a Custom Gun for Concealed Carry? | Episode 221
Alarm in Albuquerque | Episode 220
GUNS & GEAR
First Look: Revolutionary Chronography
What’s barely larger than an Apple Airpods case, has enough sophisticated electronics to rival the programming of the Space Shuttle auto-landing system and tells you how fast your bullets go?
Give up?
It’s the new Garmin Xero C1 Pro. That’s a fancy name for a ballistic chronograph.
READ MORE: First Look: Revolutionary Chronography – American Handgunner
Big Capacity! New EAA Witness 2311
I can’t speak for you, but I’ve always struggled with the classic 1911 debate. I love the platform, the trigger, the ergonomics, etc. I shoot a 1911 better than most any other style. But, regardless of caliber, capacity is always far less than other designs. That’s the cost of the svelte design, I suppose. Do you choose more capacity, 15 or more rounds in a similar size package, or the classic 1911 with eight or nine, depending on caliber and size?
Agonize no more. There’s a new crop of double-stack “1911” pistols on the market: Staccato, Springfield Armory and now, EAA Girsan. The new Witness 2311 family offers double-stack configurations in 9mm, .45 ACP and 10mm. Let’s take a look at the 4.25″-barrel 9mm model for starters.
READ MORE: Big Capacity! New EAA Witness2311 – American Handgunner
Basic Preparedness: Power on Demand
If you own a gun for defensive use, you’re already in the category of folks who plan ahead for unknown eventualities. Just as owning a gun is one part of a comprehensive security strategy, thinking about emergency power is a piece of the overall strategy to plan for life’s little adventures. While North Korea may or may not knock out the power grid one day (that’s a whole new realm of preparedness planning), odds are one hundred percent your family will be faced with power loss from a natural or man-made disaster of some sort. It’s not only comforting but easier than ever to plan for some basic functionality when the lights go out.
READ MORE: 4Patriots Patriot Power Sidekick – American Handgunner
How to Shoot Tiny Groups
Accuracy.
It’s the bane of the range. We read articles about the latest, greatest gob of lead flinger and how it will shoot .0027″ groups from a quarter mile using leftover ammo from the War of 1812. Then we get our hands on one, and, well, the results don’t quite live up to the expectations.
Modern Accuracy Expectations
The only thing I did showing the faintest glimmer of foresight a couple of decades ago was to start logging the results of all guns and ammo I formally tested. Not to bore you with detail, but, never able to cauterize the OCD tech geek lobe from my brain. I spent some hours building my own custom database to log guns, ammo, group sizes, velocities and a few other tidbits. Long story short: I can now look back at most every combination of gun and ammo I’ve ever shot to see how it performed.
There are some interesting and perhaps surprising insights. Keep in mind I only use this database to track formal testing results. I don’t track my recreational shooting or practice, standing freehand, plinking away at targets. For this, I record testing conditions: known distance, formal groups, bench rests, caliper-measured groups, temperature, wind conditions (for rifle shooting) and the like.
Just in case you’re wondering, the average temperature on testing days was 74.6 degrees. I would have guessed higher, but apparently, I chicken out on range days when the “feels like” is the “interior of a lobster pot.”
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SHOOTING TIPS & HOW-TO’S
How to Shoot Tiny Groups
Accuracy.
It’s the bane of the range. We read articles about the latest, greatest gob of lead flinger and how it will shoot .0027″ groups from a quarter mile using leftover ammo from the War of 1812. Then we get our hands on one, and, well, the results don’t quite live up to the expectations.
Modern Accuracy Expectations
The only thing I did showing the faintest glimmer of foresight a couple of decades ago was to start logging the results of all guns and ammo I formally tested. Not to bore you with detail, but, never able to cauterize the OCD tech geek lobe from my brain. I spent some hours building my own custom database to log guns, ammo, group sizes, velocities and a few other tidbits. Long story short: I can now look back at most every combination of gun and ammo I’ve ever shot to see how it performed.
There are some interesting and perhaps surprising insights. Keep in mind I only use this database to track formal testing results. I don’t track my recreational shooting or practice, standing freehand, plinking away at targets. For this, I record testing conditions: known distance, formal groups, bench rests, caliper-measured groups, temperature, wind conditions (for rifle shooting) and the like.
Just in case you’re wondering, the average temperature on testing days was 74.6 degrees. I would have guessed higher, but apparently, I chicken out on range days when the “feels like” is the “interior of a lobster pot.”
5 Appendix Carry Tips
Secrets That Just Might Work For You
A reader, James, recently wrote in asking some good questions about appendix carry …
“Could I see some pictures of folks who are using the appendix carry method of carrying a concealed firearm, actually sitting down? I have tested out appendix carry a few times and found it next to impossible with my evidently misshapen torso to sit down. It is not only extremely painful, but it also pushes my pistol up and outward, thereby defeating the whole purpose. Social media is full of gun bunnies and tacti-cool dudes taking selfies of their shirts lifted, showing their hidden appendix-carried firearm, smiling away. Yet not one of them was while sitting down.
I tried it with an M&P Shield, a S&W 642, and, just for the sake of argument, a GI Springfield 1911. How do these people sit down? In the meantime, I keep soldiering on with ankle holsters, holster-hip, and an ever-worsening case of tinnitus.”
All great questions, James, and when I embarked on a multi-month experiment to see what all the fuss was about with appendix carry, I encountered the exact same challenges you describe. Now, I carry a full-size, double-stack Staccato P model 2011 appendix every day, even while sitting and spending hours in the car.
The Art of Reviewing a Semi-Auto Pistol – American Handgunner
Reviewing guns is 38% objective, 54% subjective, and 93% opinion. Those of you who aced Trigonometry might have figured out we blew right past the 100% limit, but that just goes to show that evaluating a gun isn’t an entirely quantifiable exercise. Now that I think about it, there is a word for a perfectly objective gun review. Specifications.
You might have noticed we rarely regurgitate spec sheets around here. You’ll find few data tables or lists highlighting such obscura as the weight of a half-loaded magazine when affected by the gravitational influence of a shooting berm. Instead, we try to tell the story of a gun that fills in gaps not relatable by feature lists. How does it feel? Is it easy to shoot accurately? Does it work with a random collection of ammo recovered from the floorboards of your truck? But more than anything, our writers aim to convey the experience of their time spent with a given handgun. That’s the stuff you don’t get in factory brochures.
READ MORE: The Art of Reviewing a Semi-Auto Pistol – American Handgunner
The more you read, the more things you will know. — Dr. Seuss
AMMO NEWS & AMMUNITION REVIEWS
The Invention of Gunpowder
In a twist of explosive irony, gunpowder was invented, at least in part, in a search for the secret to eternal life. You read that right. Ancient alchemists concocted the explosive compound while pondering things they could ingest or perhaps smoke and inhale (who knows what they were thinking?).
Sometimes, practical inventions come from ambitious yet unrelated undertakings. The space program brought us artificial limbs, the Dustbuster, LASIK surgery, memory foam, baby formula ingredients, solar power cells, water filtration, invisible braces, and, regrettably, freeze-dried foods.
Details are sketchy, but some accounts refer to a Chinese alchemist mixing three powders, leading to violent combustion as early as 147 AD. Over the next few hundred years, saltpeter experimentation and production continued with efforts to purify other substances and create gold. You know, that old make infinite wealth from junk lying around chestnut.
Arguably, potassium nitrate is the part of gunpowder that yields the bang, and surprisingly, that ingredient has been in the experimental pot forever. The Nuniya & Labana caste in ancient India (early hundreds AD) used it to create noxious smoke and, according to legend, weaponized the fumes in battle to poison, or at least discourage, the enemy. One thing many saltpeter producers had in common was their attention to poop. Whether by bat guano, animal, or even human doo-doo, saltpeter production often relied on, well, you get the idea.
By the 9th century (give or take, remember, the history is a bit fuzzy), alchemists of the Tang Dynasty were engaged in an ambitious project to concoct an elixir of life. The experiments involved continued tinkering with potassium nitrate, also known as saltpeter. As the substance proved volatile, it may have had the effect of shortening one’s expected lifespan rather than leading to the immortality sought.
Read the rest: A Brief History of Gunpowder: The Elixir of Life?
Fizzics ‘R Us
I’m not a physicist, but I did read Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. He attempts to explain such things as how, at the moment before the Big Bang, all of the matter and energy in the known universe was contained in a space a trillionth the size of the period that ends this sentence. Now that I think about it, trying to wrap my head around stuff like that is likely why I’m not a physicist. I can’t even comprehend a miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup being packed into a wrapper that small, much less the sum total of all stuff that ever existed anywhere in the cosmos.
While the deGrasse Tysons and Hawkings of the world can ponder the great expanse in their studies, we mere mortals can make more practical use of the physical sciences for our shooting activities.
READ MORE: American Handgunner Vantage Point Fizzics ‘R Us – American Handgunner:
Gunnysack: NOVX Ammo
And now for something a little different. NOVX Pentagon ammunition uses a patented two-piece stainless steel case instead of the de facto standard “brass.” Why? Weight is a factor. I weighed an empty case and came up with 32.8 grains. A comparable brass case is about 62. So, we’re talking a weight savings of nearly half. If you’re wondering, that works out to about 1 oz. per 15-round magazine. I did check case volume, too — it’s about the same.
Read More: American Handgunner Gunnysack: NOVX Ammo – American Handgunner
