American Handgunner articles from May 2000

American Handgunner archives from May 2000

SPEAKOUT.
May 1, 2000... MAIL CALL "Long" On Handguns Being no lover of petty regulations, I was greatly offended by United Parcel Service's requirement to ship handguns through Red Label service. Since UPS went on record saying handgun thefts by their own...

It Matches The Gold Lame Disco Pants.
May 1, 2000... Chatting with Mitch Rosen, I mentioned the controversy over who made the original Miami Vice holster and then also happened to mention that a friend of mine, a police lieutenant no less, owned a gold plated Walther PPK. Thanks to CheckMate...

Dillon Dabbles In Leather.
May 1, 2000... Check out the leather in Dillon's catalog. I did and I came away impressed. It's a real value for the money. The designs are clean, classic, well executed and the quality of the materials used is well up to the job at hand, Anytime a product...

THAT'S WHY THEY INVENTED SANS-A-BELT SLACKS.
May 1, 2000... Epiphany can strike at the strangest times. I had one of those monumental revelations the other day when it suddenly dawned on me that none of the miscreants I had ever arrested for illegally carrying a gun had worn a holster. In slightly over...

Concealable Is As Concealable Does.
May 1, 2000... Holster practicality was a divisive issue in IPSC. It was, I believe, one of the factors that led some of the original IPSC founders such as Bill Wilson and Ken Hackathorn to found the International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA). The...

The Number One Holster.
May 1, 2000... In 1981 Ross Seyfried won the IPSC World Championship using a 5" 1911 autopistol and a practical holster worn behind the hip. This was long before Limited class. Compensated pistols were just starting to appear. Muzzle-forward fast draw...

WHO PROTECTS YOUR RIGHTS? YOU, AS A MEMBER OF A JURY.
May 1, 2000... If the government has the power to define what your rights are, do you really have any rights? The Holy Grail of many gun rights activists is a Supreme Court ruling affirming that individuals have the right to keep and bear arms. This, it is...

And Now, For Our Rube Goldberg Award[ldots].
May 1, 2000... Now the green giant, RCBS, steps to the plate with the Pro 2000 progressive, a reloading press that certainly looks like a challenger to Dillon's king of the hill, the RL 550. Competition is a good thing. The Pro 2000 builds on some of the...

Reloading As We Know It.
May 1, 2000... Reloading as we know it came into being in the last 50 years, but it has only been within the last 20 or so that the great variety of components began to come on the market. Mike Dillon is usually credited with bringing progressive reloading to...

The Enlightenment Of Denver.
May 1, 2000... The "hub" of the Rockies, Denver is a major city whose police department has earned a reputation for progressiveness. Nowhere is this more evident than in its firearms authorization and training policies. Denver prides itself on...

SIXGUNS RULE!
May 1, 2000... Approximately 210 Denver officers carry a Colt, Ruger or S&W service revolver by their own choice. Most are S&W .357s. Only 125 gr. +P .38 Special Gold Dot may be carried in them. A handful of sixgun aficionadoes in Denver carry the big Smith...

An Assault Rifle In Every Car.
May 1, 2000... Well before the tragedy at nearby Columbine High School, Denver had become one of the first big cities to issue the Colt AR-15 as a patrol rifle, loaded with Federal 55 gr. .223, the Premium version using the Sierra Game King bullet. Training...

Sailing On Lake Earie.
May 1, 2000... My friend Jerry Knapp, a certified audiologist, is a hunter and competitor who last year fired over 5,000 rounds at sporting clays. He explained to me some of the causes, effects and symptoms of hearing loss, and ways to minimize further...

WE TRY HARDER.
May 1, 2000... The pitch, or frequency of sound vibrations, is measured in units called hertz (hz). Humans can hear sounds over a range of about 20 hz to, in exceptional cases, about 20,000 hz. Most human speech occurs in the range of 200 to 4,000 hz. An...

HEARING TOSS IS IMMERSIBLE.
May 1, 2000... Hearing loss is irreversible. Although hearing aids help, they are not a panacea. If you have noticed symptoms of loss, you should consult an audiologist or physician to have your hearing tested. Your first priority should be to protect the...

O'DARK THIRTY.
May 1, 2000... Far too many individuals purchase night sights far their sidearm and assume that they have taken care of law light shooting requirements. They think that if they need to defend themselves in the dark, the night sights will make shooting as easy...

THE COLD, HARD FACTS.
May 1, 2000... Just how well do night sights really work? Some individuals argue that they can shoot just fine in low light without the aid of night sights. Under ideal circumstances, they may be correct. But, like most things in life, self-defense scenarios...

THE GREEN GLOW.
May 1, 2000... One of the hot issues in defensive and tactical handgun use is the utility of glow-in-the-dark night sights. The first really popular use of this concept was by Julio Santiago of Rosemont, Minn. As a deputy sheriff, Santiago realized the need...

URBAN ASSAULT: THE ELAINE WINGREN INCIDENT.
May 1, 2000... Situation: You spot an intruder in your house. He sees you, and takes the initiative. Lesson: Alertness is a life-saver. A .380 on your person beats a bigger caliber that's out of reach. It was late on the night of February 4, 1994,...

UPGRADING COWBOY SIXGUNS IS A JOB FOR SPECIALISTS.
May 1, 2000... One common attribute that most handgunners possess is the desire to take a good handgun and make it even better. We have discussed this many times in these pages as we highlighted good guns made better through custom work. This attitude of...

GUNSITE: NEW BEGINNINGS.
May 1, 2000... There's a new sheriff in town, boys. Owen Mills, a multi-millionaire retired Marine, bought Jeff Cooper's fabled shooting school and aims to set things right. In the early 1970s in an effort to provide shooters the resources to improve...

TAURUS Ti AND CRIMSON TRACE LASER GRIP MAKE FOR A GREAT SELF-DEFENCE COMBO.
May 1, 2000... Traditional is the best adjective to describe my taste in guns, although some would go so far as to call me a dinosaur. Saurian I am not, however. I normally prefer my sixguns to be constructed of blued steel, stainless if I must, wood grips,...

SMITH & WESSON TACTICAL PISTOLS.
May 1, 2000... With upgraded features formerly found only on custom Performance Center guns, the new Tactical Pistols are a step above. Smith & Wesson has added considerably to its line of Third Generation pistols with a Tactical Series that includes guns...

SEECAMP .380.
May 1, 2000... The world's most sought-after pocket pistol just got better without getting bigger. The late Louis Seecamp manufactured precisely two products in 1984: a double-action conversion for the 1911 Government Model and a tiny little stainless...

SMITH & WESSON SAFETY HAMMERLESS.
May 1, 2000... More than 100 years ago, S&W was selling small, .38 caliber revolvers for self-defense. They still are. Historians in recent decades have referred to the years 1890 through 1914 as the "Era of Good Feeling." The major western nations were...

A TOTALLY TACTICAL 1911 FROM CUSTOM GUNSMITH MARC KREBS.
May 1, 2000... For several years, Marc Krebs has been well known and well respected among the cognoscenti as one of those craftsmen who builds custom 1911 pistols. They all know The Drill: you wait for a considerable period of time. You pay $2,600 or more....

Open Mouth, Insert Slug?
May 1, 2000... Ulises Reynoso says he wasn't upset with anyone, and can't remember cutting anybody off, so it probably wasn't road rage. Ulises and some pals were cool-cruisin' the boulevard in San Mateo, Calif., when he coasted up to a red light, turned his...

Forget The Nine-Iron, Gimme The .458!
May 1, 2000... Hey, if you're playing the back nine at Australia's exclusive Sheraton Mirage in north Queensland, forget the sand traps. It's the water hazards you want to watch out for. Well, not so much the water hazards, but what's in 'em. The pro hands...

Forget The Guns And Guards, Bring On Bing!
May 1, 2000... The conventional methods of security at the Warrawong Mall in New South Wales, Australia, just weren't cutting it. Authorities finally admitted they couldn't seem to make a dent in the onslaught of dopers, vandals and thugs. In desperation,...

IPSC WORLD SHOOT.
May 1, 2000... A 19-year-old French lad wins the world's most prestigious IPSC match, the first non-American to win in 20 years. Rising from the western Pacific, sidesaddle on the equator, the "Pearl of the Orient," as Filipino national hero Dr. Jose...

CIMARRON CARTRIDGE CONVERSIONS.
May 1, 2000... Replica sixguns that harken back to the percussion conversions from Colt. Cartridge-firing sixguns did not evolve overnight. Of the three major manufacturers in the last century, Colt and Remington started with cap-n-ball, later switching...

The Resurgence Of The .32 ACP.
May 1, 2000... There was a time when the .32 ACP (7.65 Browning) was the primary cartridge of European law enforcement, and American manufacturers such as Colt, H&R, Savage and Remington, to name most of them, manufactured pistols chambered for the diminutive...

IT'S A GAS.
May 1, 2000... Network Custom Guns transforms the 1911 into gas operation. John Browning patented the basic idea of a tilting barrel in automatic pistols in 1895. That feature is one of the great strengths of the 1911 pistol; it is also one of the...

SAPPHIRE WEARABLE LIGHT.
May 1, 2000... The biggest problem with flashlights is that you never seem to have one nearby when you need it. Let's look at the Sapphire "Wearable Light." It's a tiny thing, 2.7" long, 0.97" wide and 0.32" thick. It weighs a mere 0.4 ozs. The shape is...

MICHAELS BRIEFCASE.
May 1, 2000... Michaels of Oregon is synonymous with sling swivels and nylon holsters, but that only scratches the surface of their evergrowing line of compelling products. As an example, let's look at their new Modular Briefcase And Laptop Carrier. The...

DILLON PISTOL CLEANING KIT.
May 1, 2000... Gun cleaning kits can be a great convenience item, but many of them are made with cheap components that don't last very long or simply aren't very handy. Dillon's new Deluxe Cleaning Kit combines good stuff from some other manufacturers with...

REMINGTON ELECTRONIC MUFFS.
May 1, 2000... Electronic earmuffs that amplify normal speech and sounds, but shut down when they detect loud noises like gunshots are a welcome improvement for most shooters' "ears." I positively cringe at the thought of how many times in my youth I shot...

The Worse It Gets, The Better We Like It.
May 1, 2000... Landoffice business was conducted at the recent S.H.O.T.(r) Show in Las Vegas with over 11,000 buyers from the industry placing substantial orders for guns and accessories. Many manufacturers reported record sales for the annual four-day trade...

Bonus Points For Yelling "Geronimo!".
May 1, 2000... Folks, we're not making this up. The fourth annual "Chute-n-Shoot" competition will be held at the Sherman Hills Public Shooting Center in Jackson, Miss., April 8 and 9. "The event is unique in that it combines parachute accuracy skills and...

Westworld.
May 1, 2000... Tin Star Ranch is an ambitious project underway in Texas to construct a cowboy shooting fantasy park on 370 acres near Fredericksburg. Cimarron Arms owner Mike Harvey is the driving force behind the multi-million dollar development that will...

THE ART OF THE 9MM.
May 1, 2000... Charges against a New York City art dealer who displayed a glass vase full of 9mm ammo in her gallery have been dropped. Mary Boone had been arrested for "disposal of live ammunition" and "possession of an exposed rifle." Boone asserted the...

Beretta Buys sako.
May 1, 2000... The world's oldest gunmaker, Beretta of Italy, has purchased Sako of Finland for an undisclosed sum, according to a Beretta press release. The Sako acquisition will enable Beretta to add a viable rifle line to its stable of firearms, which...

Ocean Front Property in Oklahoma.
May 1, 2000... Maybe that should read, "Flood Plain Office Space In Washington." The U.S. Practical Shooting Association recently paid $66,000 for land to build a new office only to discover after the sale that the parcel is located in a flood plain. USPSA...

SIG On The Block.
May 1, 2000... Citing a need for strategic restructuring, the board of directors of the Swiss Industrial Group (SIG) of Neuhausen, Switzerland, recently voted to divest the company of its arms division. SIG owns several high-end European gun makers: Blaser...

DENIAL RESPONSE AND THE GUN BUSINESS.
May 1, 2000... There is a tendency to deny reality when reality hurts. Denial is the mind's immediate reaction to adverse conditions that one simply does not want to acknowledge. In tactical situations, it can be a killer. In business, it can be equally...

THE MID CAP 1911.
May 1, 2000... More than seven but less than 14, the new KZ-45 from Wilson Combat bridges the gap between single and double stackers with a 10 round dedicated magazine. Bill Wilson just keeps coming up with good stuff. While it would be hard to describe...

ADD IT UP.
May 1, 2000... 82 Percent of New Jersey State Policemen who voted to retain their HK P-7 "squeeze cocker" pistols rather than switch 3 Prominent pistolsmiths who entered the rifle business in 2000 (Les Baer and Bill Wilson, both with high-end ARs, and Ed...