Firearm of the Week - Posted for Big Mullet

Well, Liberty Lovers; once again our government is playing games. I was tired of hearing about who the winner and the loser was over the budget battle. There was only one loser, the American public. Folks, we have to hold our leadership to a higher standard. We must get these friggin’ jokers out of there and elect people who are willing to sacrifice their next term in office to effect real change.

Let’s get to some fun stuff, The Fire Arm of the Week. The only thing cooler would be to have one of BillyBob’s smoking hot beauties pose with one of these bad boys.

The Walther P38 is a 9 mm pistol that was developed by Walther as the service pistol of the Wehrmacht at the beginning of World War II. It was intended to replace the costly Luger P08. The P38 was designed in 1938 and was manufactured from 1939 until 1945.

The pistol was the first double action combat handgun and was produced during the war by Walther, Mauser, and Spreewerk. British Special Forces often used captured P-38s due to their reliability.

The P38 uses a double action trigger design similar to that of the earlier Walther PPKs, and had a loaded chamber indicator. The P38 was the first locked-breech pistol to use a double-action trigger. The shooter could load a round into the chamber, use the de-cocking lever to safely lower the hammer without firing the round, and carry the weapon loaded with the hammer down. A pull of the trigger, with the hammer down, fired the first shot and the operation of the pistol ejected the fired round and reloaded a fresh round into the chamber. These are features found on most modern semi-automatic pistols. The P38 was ahead of its time when produced nearly 70 years ago.

The P38 and its variants have been used by military and law enforcement around the world. Excellent examples of the P38 are available today for collecting. You can find P38’s in the $600 to $1,000 range. If you can find an original holster it would add much to the value of your collection. After market holsters are readily available.

My P38 was manufactured in 1941 by Walther. You can see the markings on the left side of the weapon. Look carefully at the second picture and you can see the Nazi Waffenmant marks. These are proof marks that indicated the weapon was inspected and often tells what branch of the military the weapon was designed for. You find Waffenmant marks on almost every German military weapon manufactured from the mid-1930s to mid-1940’s.

Protect your liberties, Big Mullet

Range Day - 2-17-2011

It was 75 degrees and sunny here today. Awesome! The wind was blowing pretty steady but that's ok, it was 75 degrees!

I didn't take a single picture, I wish I would have, but I was more interested in being outside with no coat.

We got to the range about 1:00 give or take a few minutes.

I started out with my Olympic Arms AR-15. I think I fired about 50 rounds from 100 yards. The first 40 I was able to put into two 6 inch targets with some nice groups. The last 10 I was doing the rapid fire thing. Most of them were in the black, but I had a couple of fliers.

I had to break out the Mosin Nagant M44 Carbine. I only fired about 8 rounds but it was a lot of fun. You know you have fired a weapon when you are done with it. My buddy says it's going to give me E.D. I don't believe it.

A rep from our security camera company, Mariah, showed up about the time I was shooting the M44. She fired one round and was done.

We moved over to the 25 yard pistol range. When we got there an old guy was packing up to leave. We started chatting with him a bit and he showed us all his cool toys. A couple of Glocks, a Ruger LCR and a Walther P22. He let Mariah shoot all of them.

After he left my buddy broke out his .38 Special revolver. Mariah and I put about 100 rounds through that thing. I have to tell you, I'm not really a revolver guy, but I fell in love with that thing. Then he pulled out his new FNP 45. We put 50 or 60 rounds through that. It is a damn fine shooter. It seemed to have less recoil than a 1911 based .45. Not that I have a problem with recoil, but it is easy to shoot.

I wanted Mariah to have a little rifle fun so I pulled out the Hi-Point 9mm Carbine. She had a lot of fun with it. We put a box of 50 rounds through it. I had my first failure to eject with it today. But before you jump to conclusions, take into consideration that I have fired close to 5,000 rounds through it and it have never been cleaned. It will be cleaned now. That tells me a hell of a lot about the reliability of this little gun. I've said this 1,000 times, this is the most awesome gun I own. The weapon itself was a bargain at $224.00 and shooting the 9mm pistol rounds is about as cheap as you can get except for .22.

Mariah wanted to shoot the AR-15 a little bit, so we fired about 60 rounds at the 25 yard range. It was a lot of fun and she did a fine job. She put together some really nice groups.

As time allowed I was picking up brass. I can't believe people just leave perfectly good brass at the range. I must have picked up a couple hundred 5.56, a couple hundred 9mm and a hundred and fifty or so of .40 and .45.

While Mariah and I were shooting the AR-15, my buddy went over to the police range and picked up at least 500 5.56 casings. We must have picked up a couple hundred dollars worth of brass.

It was a damn fine day. Any day at the range is a good day. Next time I will get pictures, I promise.