revolvers/Rhino

Chiappa Rhino

Posted on by Caleb

You know, when the Chiappa Rhino was first announced, I wasn’t really enthusiastic.  We haven’t seen the

Chiappa Rhino

revolver advance significantly in terms of function for 150 years, and I honestly couldn’t see how the Rhino was going to change that.  Then at SHOT SHOW Media Day, I actually shot one and all of a sudden bells went off in my head.  The lower bore axis really does reduce, and by a lot.  Because of the way the gun is set up, the bore axis is actually lower than the top of the shooter’s hand.  Unlike a traditional revolver like my 686, that means that the majority of the recoil impulse is driven straight back, instead of torquing the mass of the cylinder and barrel back and up.

The trigger on the Rhino I shot was actually pretty nice; I understand from speaking to the Rhino guys that it was their competition trigger, and was set up for lighter work.  According to Mr. Chiappa himself, the Rhino will also be available soon in a .40 S&W chambering that uses moonclips.  I immediately thought “USPSA” when I heard that, and here at Gun Nuts we’re going to be trying to get one of the .40 S&W Rhinos as well as a standard .38 Special Rhino as soon as possible.  Actually shooting the gun at SHOT took me from skeptical to curious, and I’d like to spend some serious trigger time on a Rhino and see how it shakes out vs. my traditional revolvers.

revolvers

Theory

Posted on by Caleb

I mentioned that one of my goals for 2011 was to shoot the Pistol-Training.Com FAST Drill in less than 5 seconds with a revolver.  At SHOT, I had the chance to sit down with Todd (and others) to talk about the FAST and where to pick up speed to make it possible.  So for each practice session, I’m going to shoot FAST three times (the max allowed in a day) and then break it down into chunks to practice.  Here are my three runs from yesterday:

8.25 (total) – 1.71/.52/3.20/.28/.25/.29 1 head miss (which adds 2 seconds to the raw time of 6.25)

6.81 – 1.58/.40/4.08/.26/.25/.24 – I totally barfed the reload here.  A 4 second reload is just terrible.

5.61 – 1.46/.40/2.99/.25/.26/.26 – the last run was my best run of the day.  I really focused on my press out and keeping the trigger in constant motion.

What I learned from practice is that the reload is where this thing is going to be won and lost.  I can get both 3×5 card shots pretty consistently in around 2.00 seconds, and I can keep my splits pretty consistently around 0.25, which is where they need to be.  To practice for this, I’m going to split the FAST drill in two parts; the first is the draw from concealment to two hits on a 3×5 card.  I have to be able to do this on command in 2 seconds or less every time.  The hard part is going to be the reload.  I actually emailed Craig Buckland of Team S&W to ask if he thought it was even possible to trim a speedloader reload down to 2 seconds.  I know have some wasted motion in my reload, which is why part two of my practice will be the reload to a bill drill.  With the gun indexed on target and full of empty rounds, on the buzzer I’ll reload the gun and fire six shots at an 8 inch target at 7 or 10 yards.  The total time for the drill should be right around 3.25 IF I’m getting a 2 second reload, which is the obvious goal.

The last run made me feel pretty good though; 5.61 clean is actually very close to my goal.  It is worth noting that just like the IDPA classifier, my goal here isn’t to be able to do it once, but rather to do it on command.  I want to be able to pick up my 686, gas it up and go.  I do think that it’s theoretically possible to shoot a sub 5 second FAST with a revo, but since I’m not Jerry Miculek, it’s going to take a lot of practice to get there.

Saiga/Shot Show/shotguns

SHOT Show Shotgun update

Posted on by Caleb

Looks like the BATFE have killed two of the guns on display at SHOT, the Taurus 28 Gauge Raging Judge and a really neat little gun, the Rossi Trail Judge. I talked a little bit about the Trail Judge in my coverage of SHOT over at Shooting Illustrated.

A little more on the Kel-Tec KSG – after we detailed a dangerous malfunction in the gun’s design, a lot of people have asked a couple of questions, so I want to clear those up.  First off, the gun does not slamfire, and it SHOULD NOT slamfire.  The Remington 870 and Mossberg 500 operate in such a way that if you hold the trigger to the rear while running the slide, it will chamber another round and the trigger will reset when you let it go.  If you do that with the Kel-Tec KSG, the trigger goes dead.  This is bad.  However, the really, really hilariously bad part is that when asked about this, Kel-Tec reps have said that the “LEO Models” (which are presently vaporware) will slamfire and the “civilian” models are the ones at the show.  So, yes you read that correctly: Kel-Tec is saying that a slamfiring shotgun is a “feature” that will be marketed to LEOs.  Meanwhile, the “civilian” version will apparently retain its functionally broken trigger.

We’ve gotten a ton of questions about the Kel-Tec shotgun since we published that video.  I cannot in its present form recommend it for any sort of serious defensive or competition use.  The trigger issue is troubleing, the fact that you have to break your firing grip to change mag tubes is also a problem.  If you are in the market for a defensive shotgun, we live in a wonderful world of Mossbergs and Remingtons that are tried and proven in battlefield and law enforcement use.  You might even want to get a Saiga, since there’s a chance the ATF is going to make them go away.

gun stuff/Magpul/Shot Show/Uncategorized

Spotlight: Magpul Booth

Posted on by Shelley

This year Magpul decided not to bring any of their new items to SHOT Show, choosing instead to reveal items when they’re ready for production.  Since I am not a huge fan of wanting things I can’t have I think this is a fantastic idea.  I did snap a few pictures of the different displays they had at the booth and Caleb and I both picked up Magpul’s new iPhone cases which just started shipping on Tuesday.  They make the cases for the iPhone 3G/3GS and iPhone 4, but they won’t be available with the new Verizon iPhone so I guess we have to stick with AT&T now.








gun stuff/Shot Show/shotguns

Mossberg Shotguns

Posted on by Shelley

I really like shotguns and Mossberg makes cool shotguns.  Naturally, I had a great time looking around their booth, to the extent I went back for a second helping and to acquire a little more information.  They had some really fun (and practical) stuff out on display.

First of all their Tactical .22 now comes with 25 round mags.  Thank God, because 5 rounds of .22 just does not last too long.  For those of you who may not be familiar with their Tactical .22 it’s a nice little plinking AR and is comfortable to hold and easy to manage.  I think the 25 round mags are really going to help the popularity of this gun, because, again, 5 rounds of .22 just does not last long.

The next thing I took a look at was their Maverick.  This is a small, light break action over/under that looks like far too much fun.  It’s new, it’s awesome, and I need one.


Mossberg has also started a couple of joint ventures.  The most well known of which is the Blackwater partnership they announced back in 2008.  This partnership has resulted in a couple really awesome versions of their guns.  They actually appended Blackwater’s logo to a couple.  One thing to note on these firearms is Mossberg’s movement toward a tri-rail system.  You can look for these on a lot of their up and coming guns and personally I think it’s a nice touch.  It doesn’t add a whole lot of weight and you have a convenient way to attach a light or anything else your shotgun may need.

Mossberg makes quality shotguns at reasonable prices and it was a great opportunity to see what they’re doing right now.  I would love to see more from Mossberg and hope they never lose sight of offering awesome firearms at a great value.

Uncategorized

Kel-Tec KSG Shotgun video

Posted on by Caleb

When Kel-Tec announced the KSG shotgun, I was skeptical. I didn’t think the gun would work right, and I really had my reservations about the gun. I did have a chance to play with one yesterday and today at SHOT, and I discovered something that I really don’t like that makes the gun a poor choice for home defense – in fact, it’s something that could get you killed if you used this gun. The trigger doesn’t reset. If you pull the trigger, and then run the slide while still holding the trigger to the rear like you would on a Remington 870 or a Mossberg, the trigger will simply go dead. We actually tried this on several models and it was the same on each demo gun. Here’s video of me demonstrating what happens.

To bring the gun back online after this malfunction, you’d have to run the action again, which would eject a perfectly good round in an action combat situation. Imagine that in a home defense situation – you shoot one shot, run the action on your gun, and nothing happens. This is actually a major design flaw, and I’m really surprised that Kel-Tec would let something like that slip by.

Because of this defect in the design of the Kel-Tec shotgun, I cannot recommend this to anyone who would consider it seriously for home defense. Yes, it’s a neat toy, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it when there are plenty of proven shotguns that don’t have a dangerous design flaw built in to them.