The Mosin Girl

In the beginning, there was the Model of 1900, designed to accommodate a more powerful .38 cartridge, the .38 S&W Special. That soon morphed into the Model of 1905. It went through several modifications, including heat-treating the cylinder, to become the Model 1905, 4th Change, otherwise known as the M&P. That gun went through a number of changes over the years and, soon after the Korean Unpleasantness, was designated as the Model 10. More changes along way ensued, but the Model 10 remained and you can still buy one today.

However, the ammunition used in the 1920s, lead round-nosed bullets, couldn’t punch through a car’s door. They didn’t know about computers and such back then, only slide rules. They couldn’t run designs through simulators, so the only way to make a car stand up to the shitty roads that existed at the time was to make them heavy.

Hence, the .38-44 round was developed. This was a hotter load, but it would beat the hell out of a standard .38 revolver, and, not to mention, the recoil was not fun. So the .38/44 revolver, also known as the Heavy Duty, came along in 1930. This was, essentially, a .38 on the frame of a .44 Special revolver.

But more power was desired. To prevent morons from shooting a much more powerful cartridge, the .38 Special cartridge was lengthened a bit and, in 1935, the .357 Magnum was introduced. A more elegant version of the .38/44 revolver was introduced in “Registered Magnum” and non-registered versions. Both were finely finished and expensive. Gunsmiths began boring out the chambers of .38/44 revolvers. Smith & Wesson responded by bringing out the Highway Patrolman, which was not as finely finished, but functioned just as well and was a lot less expensive.

But those guns were also heavy and cops who spent their careers carrying guns that were never fired, other than to kill injured deer or on a qualification range, wanted something lighter.

To be continued.

That’s about what it feels like to try and add an item to the Blogroll. “Intuitive” does not describe it in any rational meaning of the word. Whoever designed this interface hates people.

It’s not because of any fuckery that Goggle is pulling.  I’ve been blogging there for thirteen years, now, and I’ve been OK with their platform.

But this one has a little more functionality.  One of them is the ability to set up an automatically-triggered banhamer.

I’ll need to figure out how to move the rather extensive blogrolls. Many of those people are cyber-friends and I’d hate to lose ties with them.

One of the drawbacks in living is such state is magazine limits.  If all you can use is a ten-round magazine, then a full-size 9mm is overly large for the capacity.  Other than ammunition costs (9mm practice ammo is really cheap now), you might as well carry a gun that shoots bigger bullets.

The original wondernine, the Browning High Power, is a good example. The standard 9mm held 13 rounds.  The .40 S&W variant, which had a fairly short production run, held ten rounds.

The S&W 3rd generation compact 9mms held 12 rounds.  The .40s held nine.

But let’s be frank:  The old debate over caliber size is utterly passé.  There has been enough work done that shows that the difference between an expanding 9mm and a .45 is maybe one or two tenths of an inch.  Handgun bullets incapacitate by penetrating deeply enough to hit vital stuff.  A down-right-now hit requires hitting the central nervous system, which is a small target and is at the back of the body.

As an aside, Lucky Gunner compared a lot of different rounds.

Velocity, out of handguns, matters for two reasons: Pushing the bullet out fast enough so it expands and so it penetrates enough.  Clear ballistic gel tests can show impressive temporary stretch cavities, but research has pretty well proven that unless a bullet hits at over 2,000 fps, a body isn’t affected by that.  Over 2,000 fps, there is tearing and other bad stuff, which is why a 5.56mm round at combat ranges does what it does.

But to the point: If you can’t carry all of the 9mm rounds that a gun can hold, you might as well carry one that holds bigger BBs.

I’ve moved to a less-than-free state.  That meant giving up my AR-15.  What the hell, I rarely shot it.

So I replaced it with a SKS.  If there’s an issue, 10 rounds should suffice.

And I still have a Garand.

And a 12-gauge.