Tuesday, May 19, 2009

May 16 2009 – Part 3

May 16 2009 – Part 3
Ok, you can stop panting as we have now made it to part 3. Sharon, the men she attracts and her new love. This all rolls together, of course.

Sharon is beautiful and looks even better when shooting. On this last shooting, we had two lanes. I turn around from shooting to see a man INSIDE the lane WITH Sharon, admiring her shooting. I was about to pop over there and give him a beating, but he was bigger than me and I might have tripped on his walking cane he left in MY lane while talking to her. OK, so the guy was half senile and all the way old… he was still hitting on my girl.





What he was admiring was her shot pattern with the rented Nighthawk Talon 5” .45 ACP 1911. Sharon was shooting a magazine full of holes at 50 feet that was VERY impressive. Was it the $2500 gun, Sharon’s prowess with the handguns or both. Who knows. All I know is that she really liked that gun. Oh, I shot it too, but not as well as she did. Take a look at her grouping at 20 feet!!


8 rounds at 20 ft and then 50 ft

We shot 78 rounds of Remington 230 gr. JHP through this beauty without a single hiccup. The grip was great, the sights were great, the shots were great. There was very little recoil and the noise was less than we expected, although it is still a .45. I couldn’t take it apart or anything, so there isn’t much to tell.

The Bad: You must be joking.

The Summary: If you have an extra $2500 to plop down for a full sized pistol, there’s a good one. I don’t think it will be in our inventory, but I wouldn’t pass up a deal on one.

May 16 2009 – Part 2 (Kahr PM9)

May 16 2009 – Part 2
Thanks for staying with me for the second installment of the Gun Blog. This one is the Kahr PM9. After seeing reviews in magazines, reading satisfied owner threads online and noticing that the Gunbroker.com has almost NO PM9’s for sale, I assumed this to be a fantastic gun. Well, the jury is still out on that.



Weighing in at 16.5 oz loaded, this is a VERY good size for a concealed carry. Definitely bigger than the P3AT (see today’s Part 1), it is still a small gun. The things that hit you with this gun; the trigger and the “look” of the gun.
The trigger is glassy smooth on the finger and has no jump, bind or catching in the draw. Just smooth to the touch and smooth all the way back to the “bang”. The slide is VERY hard to pull back and lock, but I have been told by multiple people that it will get easier. Possible. This borrowed gun wasn’t even two weeks old when we took it through the paces and the manual considers 200 rounds the break-in.

The weighted “feel” of the guns announces METAL and the “look” of the gun says precision. It is a fine, fine looking gun. Just hold it in your hands and you think quality. (Can you tell that I liked the way this gun looks?)

OK, back to fact. The PM9 shoots very well, although I wasn’t getting the kind of groupings I would normally get. The sights are good, the trigger smooth and the “bang” is loud. In fact, it seemed to be louder than our other 9mm (the Walther PPS) but firing ammo from the same box. Not only was it louder, but it felt like you were firing +P rounds. However, the recoil was not that great and easily returned to target quickly. We also encountered numerous problems when chambering the first round of a new magazine. The bullet would actually get trapped against the barrel ramp and refuse to go in by normal means. This lip is polished but at an extremely sharp angle. You can pull back on the slide numerous times and the bullet won’t budge. You have to give the slide a GREAT BIG PULL and the nose will then jump up to the barrel. No rounds ever failed during normal semi-automatic operation.

Disassembly is more difficult on the Kahr PM9 than any other gun I have dealt with. Not really HARD, but awkward for field stripping. You hold the slide back, aligning two marks on the slide and the base, then (while holding it there) turn it over and drive the pin flush with a solid plastic object. At that point, you turn it back over and you can pull the slide-lock lever/pin out of the gun. After that, it is a normal take-down. When re-assembling, you have to ensure a small spring is in place or you will cripple the gun.


Wearability: While not really any skinnier than our PPS, the shorter barrel length does make it more comfortable to wear. Wearing this at the 3:30 position keeps it close to the body and the muzzle barely reaches below my 1 1/2 inch belt. No gun poking you in the leg.





The Bad: Yes, there are bad things. The slide tension rules out Sharon ever being able to lock the PM9 open. The first-round jamming is a concern but may go away after the break-in period. Perhaps a cleaning of the magazine might help if the spring tension is at fault. If this were normal functioning, then you would definitely have to keep “one in the pipe” for self defense purposes.



Kel-Tec P3AT vs Kahr PM9 for size

The Summary: Jury is still out. I LIKE this gun and I WANT to like this gun, but it didn’t just fit like a glove. Conceal-ability is not much better than our PPS by width and just an inch shorter. If you could get this gun and use it for a while, I am willing to bet you will like it. It’s made better, feels better and looks better, but is it BETTER than other sub-compacts??

May 16 2009 – Part 1 (Kel-Tec P3AT)

May 16 2009 – Part 1
My Gun-Blog will have to be split up into 3 parts today because there is a lot of information to record. Here in the first part will be the discussion of the Kel-Tec P3AT. Part 2 will be the Kahr PM9. Part 3 will be about my wife, the men she attracts and her new love. (You’ll just have to wait for it)

We have shot the Kel-Tec P3AT before but it went through a deeper exam this time. This is great .380 gun IF your only concerns are size and weight. Weighing in at 9.5 oz loaded, the P3AT is the lightest gun we have evaluated and, of course, the smallest. The size easily permits a pocket or purse holster as well as the traditional carry holsters. I don’t believe that anyone should ignore the .380 guns as self-defense guns either. Six rounds of SPEER GOLD DOT 90gr. .380 should stop any danger that an average person will encounter. There aren’t that many bears roaming our neighborhoods and few robbers are wearing body armor. The P3AT fires a fairly accurate pattern at 25 feet that would poke some serious holes in the center of an aggressor. This model we borrowed also has a laser mounted on it for quick “target acquisition”. The sights are a strange crescent where the front site finishes the pattern but I found I was better using the sights than using the laser. The sites would be completely useless in low light situations, giving the laser the +1 in those instances.

Shooting the P3AT is something akin to getting a flu shot. You know it is going to hurt but it is all worth it in the end. The trigger stroke is extremely long and that final “bang” just rips your finger to shreds. You actually get used to it and it isn’t so bad with a quick recovery to target. It is not uncontrollable and some practice would get a good shot groupings.
Disassembly is rather simple if you have a very strong grip in your left hand. Since this slide does not lock back, you must HOLD it back while removing the appropriate pin using the groove on one of the bullets. It is simple to take down and put back together. The barrel is different that most guns and looks more like a whistle than a gun barrel. It is thin and oddly shaped, but performs admirably. There was never a failure when shooting.



The Bad: I won’t rule out owning one of these as a “carry this because you can’t hide anything else with what you are wearing” type of gun. However, this gun is NOT pleasant to shoot or aim. I don’t think I would mind recoil if the choice were a knife in my belly, but I would MUCH rather carry something else. Sharon won’t even shoot this gun because it hurts.


The Summary: I would highly recommend buying one of these to have when there is absolutely no other way to carry a gun. A finger-killing .380 in your pocket beats a .45 1911 on the dresser ANY day.