Author Archives: parvusimperator

Glock Trigger Pull Mods

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I have an awesome and heavily customized Glock 19. It’s awesome. And it would get even awesomer if I had an improved trigger. One of the things I noticed at the high level pistol class I took was that I was the only one running a stock Glock trigger. There were lots of tuned Glock and tuned M&P triggers, plus a PPQ (which has a great stock trigger, something like a tuned Glock). So let’s play around a bit.

First, let’s talk what the trigger pull actually has to do. When you pull the trigger, you finish cocking the striker (at rest, it’s partially cocked). This is done by pulling against the striker spring, of course. Your pull is assisted by the trigger spring, which provides some extra pulling force to help you.1 The path of the sear is controlled by a little bit of bent metal called the connector. At the appropriate time, the connector guides the sear down, the striker is released, and a bullet comes flying out of the muzzle.

Second, let’s talk safeties. Actual, mechanical safeties. The Glock has three things that perform safety functions. First, is the little lever in the trigger. You have to depress this for the trigger to move. And there’s a certain amount of minimum forward travel the trigger has to go through to let the little lever redeploy. Second is the firing pin block. It’s a plunger. When you pull the trigger, a vertical tab on the trigger bar pushes the plunger out of the way. The rest of the time, the plunger will prevent the firing pin from going forward. Finally, the cruciform tab (it’s horizontal) on the trigger bar sits in a slot in the fire control housing. It has to move backwards far enough for the slot to widen. At rest, the narrow part of the slot prevents the trigger bar from dropping away and releasing the sear if the pistol is dropped.

I am not willing to compromise any of these safeties for obvious reasons. Note also that this means there’s a certain required amount of trigger travel before the break if we do not want to disable the safeties. A Glock is not a 1911, and it’s not possible to get an actually 1911-like trigger out of a Glock. Not possible. Well, not without being dumb. We can reduce some of this travel if we’re careful.

There are other things we can do as well. We can reduce the weight of the striker spring. The risk here is that the striker spring is what’s driving the striker into the primer. Too little force means the primer will fail to fire. That’s bad.

We can reduce the weight of the spring holding the safety plunger down. This makes it easier to push out of the way. We’re no longer holding it in place as firmly though.

We can also increase the assistance provided by the trigger spring. Too much and the gun may have issues resetting.

Trivially, we can change the trigger bar from the current ‘Gen4’ design to the older ‘Gen3’ design. This removes a nub which can rub on the frame and add drag to the pull. The nub was added to deal with issues if you reverse the magazine release. Fortunately, I’m right handed.

Finally we can mess with the trigger ‘shoe’ itself, to change the feel, and maybe remove some pretravel and overtravel.

Glocks are very plug and play. No fitting should be needed with most parts out there. It’s very easy to spend a fortune on trigger kits. We’re going to try to avoid that. If you’d prefer not to mess around with parts yourself, go check out DK Custom Triggers. You won’t regret it.

Anyway, you’ll need a punch to disassemble your Glock. If you’re a little rusty on the details, plenty of youtube videos exist to help. Let’s review what I tried. A lot of the following will be a very mix and match sort of nature. That is to be expected. I am not you. I may like different things than you. I may have different preferences as to trigger pull weight than you. That’s ok. Most of these parts are pretty cheap.

To start, I bought a Glock 17 type smooth-face trigger on a Gen 3 bar. Glock makes two kinds of trigger shoes, one with ridges for more Gun Control Act of 1968 points on the import system and one without. The one with is used on smaller guns. I’m not a fan of the feel of the ridged trigger shoe. So this change felt better, and made it a little less likely to pull in a not-straight back direction, but didn’t do much for trigger pull. Well, it took out some of the grit from that nub.

Part set two is the TTI Grandmaster trigger kit. Yes, I know this will not make me a GM-class shooter (alas, I’m not one already). But it comes with a lot of neat parts at a great price. It’s got an increased power trigger spring, a reduced power striker spring, a reduced power plunger spring, and the TTI connector. Score. Price is pretty good too. It uses all stock parts. I found that the connector and plunger spring smoothed out the pull. I’ll have to experiment to see if I get any light strikes with a reduced power striker spring. It made some improvement to the weight though. Definitely noticeable.

I also found that with the 3rd gen trigger bar and the increased power trigger spring on my Glock, that if I let the slide go home gently, the trigger wouldn’t reset all the way. I probably should take a look at it and see if it’s hanging up on something there. But I decided not to bother. I was happy enough with the pull with the standard trigger spring, and I had one more part on the way.

That part was the Overwatch Precision Tac Trigger. It’s the most expensive part, being a machined aluminum trigger shoe. Now I can experiment with a flat-face trigger design. I probably wouldn’t have bought it had I not played around with a buddy’s flat face Glock trigger at a class. On the other hand, it’s pretty easy to resell if you end up not liking it. I chose the Overwatch flat face trigger because they’re recommended by more of my friends who like flat face triggers than any other brand. They also have a bunch of great videos to demonstrate that even though they remove some pretravel by playing with the geometry of how the trigger shoe interfaces with the trigger bar, they don’t disable any of the safeties.

Fittingly, the Tac Trigger also made the biggest difference in pull. Way shorter, with less of a perceptible trigger wall. I immediately noticed in dryfire that I could get on the trigger hard and fast with a lot less perceptible movement of the red dot. The flat trigger and reduced overtravel really made it hard to not pull the trigger straight back to the rear. I varied finger position. I tried to pour on the speed. Didn’t matter. I like this trigger a lot.

Pulling the trigger slowly, I found the lighter feel of the wall to be nice. Again, it’s easier to keep the sights on target. But the creep in the trigger is more readily apparent. Is it creepier than a stock Glock trigger? I think so. I think some mush has been added to the ‘wall’ that also makes it lighter. That said, both Fishbreath and I agree that this is a big improvement over stock, creep or no.

Let’s make another comparison: to the Walther PPQ. Which has a phenomenal stock trigger, and some complicated internals to make that happen. Is this as good as a PPQ? No. The PPQ has a really clever internal system to get the trigger characteristics, plus a fully cocked striker at rest. The Glock has a partially cocked striker at rest. Pulled slowly, the PPQ trigger is longer, and has less creep to it. This is still a good trigger though, and I’d give it the nod if you’re looking to improve your Glock trigger.

Interestingly, I tried swapping back to the dot connector. This made the wall a lot more noticeable again, but it also got rid of a bunch of creep, and masked most of what was left with the wall. I decided I preferred the more ‘rolling’ break of the TTI minus connector, so I stuck with that. I think the minus connector always makes the break more of a roll with some creep, and the Overwatch Trigger just makes this more obvious.

So let’s review. Things that made a big change in my trigger pull, and might be worth tinkering with: connector, striker spring, and trigger shoe. I didn’t think the rest of the parts provided that big a difference. Clearly, if you swapped to a NY1/NY2 trigger return spring, that would change stuff. I do know several guys, including one of my instructors, who like the feel of an NY1 spring and a minus connector. Also, note that if you use a reduced power striker spring, test your ammo with it and consider a lightened striker, especially if you shoot Wolf ammo.

Oh, one more thing. You’ll notice that I haven’t provided any trigger pull measurements. Most of that is from not having an NRA weight set with which to measure trigger pull. But also I think too much emphasis is placed on poundage and not enough on the less tangible things like distance and creep and abruptness of wall. And also what you feel comfortable with. Everyone’s different in that regard. Also, note that Glocks aren’t the most tightly toleranced of pistols.

  1. Unless you have an NY1 or NY2 trigger spring, which fight your trigger press rather than help it to meet NYPD pull weight mandates. ↩

Borgundy Modular Aerial Bomb Family

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And now, time to develop some native industry. Our specific impetus is that we think cluster bombs are highly useful things. While the Dublin Convention bans them for signatories, plenty of nations didn’t sign on. Including arch-nemesis Russia. And likely troublemaker China. And frankly, why should they? Yes, war is horrible. Yes, the effect on the civilian population really sucks. But there are tons of unexploded shells in Northern France from World War I and tons of unexploded bombs throughout Europe from World War II. Let’s ban those too! Really, let’s just ban war. Oh wait, we tried that. Didn’t work1. Additionally, the Obama administration wouldn’t sell new customers any cluster munitions. So, we really can’t trust the United States to supply our needs, though Trump might change that in the near term. And neither can all of those middle eastern countries who have bought western aircraft/artillery. Time to fill a market void. And if we’re building cluster bombs, why not build some regular unitary-warhead bombs too?

Our goal is to reduce costs as much as possible by building a complete modular family. We’re going to have two sizes of cluster bomb dispensers: one in the 500ish kg size class, and one in the 1,000ish kg size class. We’ll then have various submunitions packages that we can put in the dispensers. We’ll review these packages first, then go over what we can attach to a dispenser (or a unitary warhead for that matter).

Package one is a bit of a mouthful, because it’s our analogue for the BLU-97/B. It’s a triple-threat, HEAT/Frag/Incendiary submunition. It’s got a shaped charge warhead to provide some anti-armor effect. This will necessitate an integral ballute to orient the shaped charge correctly so it will work if it hits armor. We don’t need a ton of penetration, since we’re hitting the roof. So we can make the charge rather small. This shaped charge warhead has a fragmentation casing to provide anti-infantry capability. It is also equipped with incendiary sustainer: material that burns hot for a while like magnesium that can be scattered by the explosion of the shaped charge to start fires. Three ways to do its job. Very cool. Total weight is about 1.55 kg, with explosive content of 290 g of cyclotol. These are cylindrical, with a diameter of 64 mm and a length of 17 cm. Really nice general purpose munitions.

Our second package is somewhat larger. These are thermobaric submunitions, also known as fuel-air explosives. For maximum safety, it actually uses a solid fuel air explosive warhead, weighing 33 kg. The idea here is to create a massive firestorm, which has a significant pressure wave secondary effect. It’s about 70 cm long and 34 cm in diameter, with an overall weight of 58 kg. It works with a dual fuse mechanism: the first releases the SFAE at an altitude of about 9 m and extends a probe, the second detonates everything when the probe hits the ground. The significant overpressure wave can be used for mine clearing, in addition to the obvious destructive uses.

Package three is a dual purpose mine. It uses an explosively-formed penetrator to provide anti armor capability, and it’s also equipped with a fragmentation casing for antipersonnel work. It has a parachute to slow it’s fall and a spring-loaded mechanism to right itself once it lands. This part is important since the explosively-formed penetrator must be pointing up to work. The self righting mechanism triggers after impact plus a time delay. There’s an additional delay before the mine is armed. It contains about 0.6 kg of explosive, has an overall weight of 2.4 kg, a diameter of 10 cm and a height of 15 cm.

Since the mines from package three are so small, they can be used alone or combined with other things. One such example is package four, which combines a bunch of our dual purpose mines with runway-destroying boosted penetrators. These are about 1.1 meters long and 10.2 cm wide, with a weight of 20.4 kg. A parachute delays the fall and orients them downward, at which point the parachute is jettisoned and a rocket drives them deep into the runway before a 3 kg warhead detonates. The mines are added to complicate reopening the runway.

Package five is some more dedicated anti-armor kit. These are submunitions, again equipped with an explosively-formed penetrator warhead, plus a ranging laser and an infrared sensor to determine if a tank is below the submunition. There’s also a self destruct mechanism so that if the submunition hits the ground without finding a tank, it will detonate anyway. There are drag flaps to induce a bit of oscillation in the fall so that the submunition can scan an area, while keeping the warhead pointed earthward. Diameter of the submunition is 13 cm, height is 9.5 cm, and weight is 3.4 kg. This is an analogue of the BLU-109. While in the 80s this was state of the art, by now the electronics industry has caught up, and the result isn’t too hard to duplicate. Offhand, Germany and Sweden both make similar submunitions.

That should cover most submunition needs that we can think of right now, but more can be added later. We also have a series of unitary bomb bodies. These are low-drag bodies in the 250, 500, 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000 kg size classes. There are also 1,000 and 2,000 kg class reinforced-case penetrator bodies. All unitary bombs have nose and tail fuse wells, and can accept a bunch of fuses, including contact, mechanical delay, and radar altimeter.

Both the unitary bomb bodies and the cluster bomb canisters can interface with a comprehensive set of accessory kits. There’s a basic tailfin kit for stability. A variant of this kit allows fin angles to be adjusted, in order to scatter bomblets for the cluster bombs by means of rotational inertia. There are a couple different fall delaying options, including parachute kits and ballute kits. In terms of guidance packages, there’s a GPS/INS equipped tail kit. This can be used alone or with a nose guidance kit. Laser guidance and IIR guidance nose kits are available. These may also be used with a conventional tail kit if a laser-guided bomb is desired, for example, instead of a Laser/GPS guided bomb. The IIR guidance kits are capable of transmitting back to a human operator or performing stand-alone automatic target recognition on a preloaded target. We can also add a wing kit if a standoff glide capability is desired.

  1. No really. Cf. the Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928. If you think any such notion can actually work, or that this war will actually be the last war, then I have some bridges to sell you. ↩

NATO Rants

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Unlike a lot of my other posts, this will not be from the perspective of my fictional country, Borgundy. This is Parvusimperator the American talking. -Ed

During the Cold War, NATO was a damned good idea. A more permanent alliance. Get interoperability right before war begins. Get joint exercises done. Get experience working together. Get units (especially American units) forward based, where they can be ready for trouble.

All well and good. But the Soviet Union is no more.

So what do we think of Russia? Well, Putin likes his saber rattling and his little wars. Well and good.

And most of Western Europe does not like defense spending. Fine. Neither do I. I’d rather pay less taxes, personally.

Here’s what I hate. Freeloaders. And that’s what the vast majority of NATO members are. FREELOADERS.

To hell with defense welfare. Germany and Italy and the rest can sure afford two stupid percent of GDP per annum on defense.

We shouldn’t have to support you all. We oughtn’t have to support you all. We increasingly can’t afford to support you all.

Finally I can write what I’ve wanted to say for years. Pull your damned weight or we’ll leave.

It’s simple, really. If Russia is worth losing sleep over, then spending 2% GDP per year is something that’s worthwhile. And if they aren’t a threat, if y’all have got this, then fine. We’ll take our army and go home. And you shouldn’t have a problem with that, right?

You don’t need our armed forces. No, the Libya intervention went fine without us. We were called for help purely for sentimental reasons. Serbia wouldn’t have been any trouble at all. And those Russian tanks, they’re rusted out. Going nowhere. Probably not even loaded with ammunition.

Don’t like the 2% GDP per year target? Okay, fine. That’s just the median level of spending from the end of the Cold War until 2003. It’s not enough, good point. Name some other benchmark and meet it. Any way you cut it, our European allies are a bunch of useless freeloaders, who couldn’t stop a paper brigade of dummy tanks. ISAF sucked in the ‘Stan against a bunch of underequipped terrorist scum. They’ll do worse against an actual army with materiel.

Were it up to me, I think y’all should have a year to get your act together. And then, since we all know you won’t, we’ll take our stuff and move it elsewhere. Maybe back to the States. Maybe to Korea and Japan. They actually spend money on defense. Make the pivot to Asia real.

And I would then hand Vladimir Putin a ceremonial blank check. He’s your problem now, useless socialists.

MMQB: MHS Decision Analysis

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Last week, we reported that the US DoD chose the SiG P320 as its new handgun. So let’s take it apart Monday Morning Quarterback style.

First, is this an improvement? Yes, but with caveats. From a shooters perspective, given the choice between a new M9 and a new P320, I’ll take the SiG every day of the week. I like the ergonomics of the P320 better. I like the trigger better. The P320 is one of the new crop of striker-fired pistols that’s been designed to try to compete with Glocks and M&Ps, both notorious for mediocre to lousy trigger pulls by having a good trigger. Plus, it’s a striker fired trigger, and I prefer that to a double action trigger. Also the P320 doesn’t have a slide-mounted safety/decocker. I would prefer one control or the other (i.e. a safety or a decocker, but not both) mounted on the frame. Plus, the P320 is a modern, polymer-framed design, so it’ll require less lubrication and maintenance. The P320 is also equipped with sight dovetails, and comes with decent night sights out of the box. In any case, it’s a lot easier to order/mount tritium sights on the P320. The M9 does not have sight dovetails for the front sight, limiting the changes you can make. Well, without drilling, and I doubt the DoD is going to do that.

There are two caveats here. First, I’ve tried to be as kind to the M9 as I can. The ones in the inventory are mostly ill-maintained and worn out. They’re in need of spring replacements, locking block replacements, and a bunch of TLC. The M9s in inventory are pretty much EOL.

Second, in the grand scheme of things, pistols are relatively unimportant arms. So I might like some more cost analysis, but I think the M9s are too abused to be salvageable in a cost-effective way. Which means the alternative to this sort of winner is rolling in M9A3s to the existing contract. And I don’t think ignoring more recent developments is in any way a good idea. Plus, the DoD wanted a striker-fired design, and wrote the rules accordingly. Good for them.

Okay. So let’s look at the chosen P320 itself, viz.

There’s a few things I like, and one thing I really don’t. Let’s start with the positives: it’s a good design. The DoD wanted modularity, and even though I’m not sold on this being all that useful, they did and got it. And it is cool from an engineering standpoint. I like that the pistols are finished in something FDE colored: guns are a pretty good spoiler of camouflage if they’re colored black as they usually are. So that’s a small thing, but a nice one. The full-size pistol has an installed factory extended mag, and that’s good too. Not a lot of extra length for five more bullets. That’s a tradeoff I’m cool with in a service/duty pistol. And there are flush fit ones for when you don’t want the extra length. Finally, if we look closely at the rear sight, we’ll note that it’s mounted to a large plate. This is removable, and can be replaced with a SIG Romeo 1 mini red dot, or something else with the same footprint. That looks like some planning ahead for once. Red dots are a much nicer sighting system than irons, and it’s really good to see the idea getting traction out of the box in a big contract.

Now, the negative. You guessed it: that manual safety. I don’t like it. I don’t think factory standard striker-fired triggers benefit from one, and it’s one more thing to screw up. If you think otherwise, well, at least it’s ambidextrous and sensibly mounted to the frame. Still. Not needed.

Finally, the thing everyone’s probably wondering: Why not Glock? By all accounts they were part of the downselect.

Well I don’t know. Rampant speculation time. First, that safety I don’t like. If the DoD required one, or wanted one enough to give more points to the design with one, that’d be a good reason. The manual safety on the MHS winning P320 looks reasonably well thought out, if you like such things. I haven’t seen the guts though. Historically, adding a manual safety to Glocks hasn’t ever worked out well. The designs have been awkward. So that’s a possible reason.

Possibility two is a lower bid. Either SiG wanted the contract more, and was willing to go lower, or maybe they had production capacity to deliver faster. I don’t know. But economics is something else that’s good.

Finally, modularity. The P320 is modular, and the DoD really wanted that. The P320 is more modular than the Glock. Those are points in its favor.

So, did the DoD do badly by not picking Glock? Nope. Setting aside any particulars, both Glocks and P320s are good designs. Bet between the two, you can’t go wrong. I’d probably decide based on who could bid lower and deliver faster anyway.

Finally, what does this mean for shooters? Will SiG dethrone Glock in terms of popularity? Well, the future’s hard to figure. So…maybe? But probably not anytime soon, if ever. We can expect some Glock design improvements, to take care of things like that trigger, because competition drives innovation. Plus, we can expect SiG to gain a lot more aftermarket support, which is always great. So this is nothing but good for us shooters.

Also, the pistol the US Military issues doesn’t have any bearing on what pistols I buy, like, or carry. It didn’t before, it won’t now.

Modular Handgun Winner: P320

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It’s official, per the US DoD’s press release. The massive contract for an M9 replacement has been awarded, and the winner is SiG with their P320.

I guess this shows you how good my prediction was. Oh well. It happens. You can’t get all the analyses right, and I read too much into the deep-sixing of their competition team.

I would like to congratulate SiG on winning the contract. They could use some good news of late, and it appears they’ve got it. I would also like to congratulate the US Military on their new pistol. They wanted modular, and the P320 is the ultimate in modularity.

While the P320 isn’t my top choice for new 9mm pistols, it’s still a fine firearm. It would make a great project gun. And I like it a lot better than the M9.

Way to join the striker fired future, US Army.

Perhaps I should get one of the customized Bruce Gray P320s. He’s got a great trigger package for them.

Borgundian Mechanized Infantry Loadout

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Let’s get this started. I’m following my own challenge rules, which you can find here. We’ve made a bunch of decisions so far, so let’s get those out of the way. Oh, and all weights are going to be in pounds, because I’m an American. Divide by 2.2 to get weights in commie kilos.

Carbine: HK 416. I didn’t specify a barrel length preference then, but we’ll go with 14.5 inches. Comes to 7.69 lbs empty. We’ll also need ammo in that gun. Thirty rounds of 62 grain M855A1 or similar in an aluminum, 30 round magazine comes to 1.06 lbs. Per doctrine, we’ll need a suppressor and an optic. We’ll take an Aimpoint Comp M4 red dot (0.74 lbs with mount and killflash) and a Surefire 556RC2 suppressor (1.06 lbs.). Also, we’ll need an IR laser/illuminator, because battles don’t stop at night. My choice there would be the B.E. Meyers MAWL-DA. I don’t have a weight for this, so I’m going to guesstimate 0.5 lbs based on other, similar devices. Plus a sling, which is going to set us back about another quarter pound. All of that adds up to 11.3 lbs, which is kinda sucky, actually. Oh well. Lots of capability there, not much to be done about it. Quit complaining and drop and give me thirty.

Armor time. See here for why I picked what I picked. IOTV (and we’ll add the deltoid (fragmentation) protectors, but not the side plates) is 26.69 lbs for a size medium. Size medium ECH is three pounds. Ballistic Eyewear adds 0.15 lbs, foam earplugs add 0.1 lbs, and knee and elbow pads add another 0.4 lbs. An FM50 gas mask rounds out the protective equipment list, adding another 1.85 lbs. Total weight for protective gear is 32.19 lbs.

Ammo. Pretty straightforward. Six spare thirty round magazines. Two M67 frag grenades. And two smoke grenades. Something like the M18, but with added thermal obscurants. Six mags comes to 6.36 lbs, two M67s comes to 1.76 lbs, and two M18s comes to 2.38 lbs, for a total ammo load of 10.5 lbs. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, but remember the vehicle holds more.

On to comestibles. I’ll go into more detail on this elsewhere. Since these are mechanized infantrymen, they have a big armored vehicle to move them around and carry stuff like food and water in reasonable quantities. Only the essentials need to be carried. For the standard, temperate European operating environment, we think two liters of water is an adequate amount to carry on the person, and we can top this off as needed from the vehicle stores or resupply. For food, we really only expect the soldier to carry an iron ration with him. This will take the form of something like the US military’s First Strike Ration, which is a hot-pocket-like sandwich that supplies the calorie and nutritional needs for one battle day. A full two-liter camelbak-type1 bladder is 4.88 lbs, and a First Strike Ration is 1.95 lbs, bringing total comestible weight to 6.83 lbs.

There are a few other items we need to list out. There’s the IFAK, the Individual First Aid Kit. This is for two reasons. First, it means a soldier can perform some first aid on his buddy. Second, a medic can always find some basic supplies (tourniquet, pressure bandage, sterile gloves) when he needs them in a pinch. Add a pound. We also need to issue a knife. For knife fighting duties, I’d like a double-edged knife, like the Gerber Mk. II. However, most knife tasks are utility tasks for the modern soldier. For these, a tough single-edge knife will work better. Something like a Ka-Bar. Tough, effective, legendary. I have one and love it. Add another 1.23 lbs for a Ka-bar and sheath. And we’ll need some night vision kit. I’ve been going for the high-end, feature-rich stuff. No sense in stopping now. We’ll take the PSQ-20B, which gives us third generation image intensifying optics plus thermal optics in one rugged, two pound unit. At least the battery pack is detachable and can be affixed to the back of the helmet for balance. Finally, we’ll need a radio. The PRC-159 from Harris should do nicely. Compatible with the once and future frequencies, plenty of encryption, good battery life. With battery, it weighs 1.72 lbs.

Almost done, I swear. The standard poncho with liner is a really great piece of kit. It’s waterproof, surprisingly warm, and extremely packable. That’s my one concession to weather that might crop up unexpectedly. Obviously, coats are worn when you can expect bad weather, like say in the winter. 1.5 lbs for the poncho and liner. And we’ll add a multitool, because they are ridiculously useful little things. 0.6 lbs for that.

Let’s wrap up by looking at what we’re not issuing. Recall that this is a regular rifleman. He is not a squad leader. Therefore, he does not usually need navigation equipment so he does not have a lensatic compass, maps, or a portable GPS receiver as a matter of course. He might be given these things as part of a specific mission, and that’s fine. Spare batteries for the various electronic devices mentioned are carried aboard the vehicle normally. As a side note, just about all the devices here take AA batteries. Logistical commonality strikes again!2 Similarly, cleaning kits are generally expected to be carried aboard the vehicle. as are entrenching tools. Further, since they aren’t on soldier’s backs, we can issue full size picks and spades, not the lame folding versions.

All-up weight for our kit is 68.87 lbs. Which is on the heavy side, but about on par with other modern armies. Remember, the pack is normally left in the vehicle, so it’s not counted in the fighting load.

1.) I actually prefer the Source brand bladders.
2.) Did you expect anything different from me?

Cargo Helicopter for Borgundy

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Between the two of us, Fishbreath is the clear rotorhead. And that’s fine. He really likes flying helicopters in sims.

I, on the other hand, am coming at this from the logistican’s perspective. I’m looking for a helicopter to haul stuff. It should be cheap. It should be reasonably modern. It should be readily available in numbers. Armored thrusts need lots of fuel, ammo, and food, and we need ways to get that materiel to the front. Let’s look at some big, ugly cargo helicopters. They’re probably no fun to fly, but they’re important just the same.

The most obvious choice would be the Mi-26. The biggest helicopter in mass production. Of course, being Russian, lower initial purchasing price comes with higher maintenance costs. That’s not a big dealbreaker though. Of greater concern is the revanchist Russian bear. Can they be depended on to supply spare parts in the future? The production line is also moderate. Besides, I’m sure Fishbreath is waiting to throw politics into this. Let’s dig deeper.

We come to that big, US Army classic: the CH-47F Chinook. It’s been in production since 1962. It can carry 55 men or just under 11 tonnes of cargo. Three machine guns can be mounted to cover soldiers. It maxes out at 170 knots. Plus, the price is reasonable. Not quite Russian cheap, but the service life is better, especially as far as engines are concerned.

Compared to other Western options, the Chinook is a real bargain. It’s almost one third of the cost of the big CH-53K, but carries two thirds the payload. Also, unlike the CH-53K, it’s in full-rate production now. It’s also a pretty common helicopter. This means spares are easy to come by, the secondary market can supplement our orders, and most importantly, that someone else (namely the U.S. Army) is on the hook for funding upgrades, not us.

There’s not much out of Europe that can lift as much as a Chinook can. The NH90 can’t (it’s more of an oversized Blackhawk), and it’s more expensive to boot. Plus, it’s been plagued with all manner of difficulties. Not that the Chinook hasn’t, but any such problems are long ago. Call me when the NH90 has been through several wars.

Like most modern helicopters, the Chinook has plenty of optional extras. High end digital controls built under common architecture principles are readily available, along with midair refueling equipment and modern composite rotors. There are three pintles (left, right, and rear exit doors) for mounting machine guns. It’s got a long, proven history of good service.

There’s not much more we could ask for in a cargo helicopter.

Hudson H9 Range Report

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I’ve got some data for you from Top Men in the field. First, here’s the design overview and analysis.

Range impressions were good. In general, people were happy with the trigger. It’s nice. Of course, it will take some getting used to, like any trigger (good or not). But they seem to have delivered on their design goal of “Crisp, 1911-like trigger” in a striker-fired design.

The gun is also very low recoil and very flat shooting. Our shooters really liked it. That’s another design objective accomplished.

Further things for the plus column: while the grips are not interchangeable with existing 1911 grip panels, Hudson has contracted VZ grips to make them. So options should be available pretty quick.

One other note, this likely a negative. The patent design shows a large number of small parts. So disassembly might be a royal pain. We can’t judge reliability from that, though, so don’t.

These sorts of range expos are not good for judging a pistol, but they can help build excitement and optimism. Check and check.

One more thing. Mags appear to be based on those for the S&W 5906. Which is a strange choice for magazines, as that pistol is no longer in production. It should keep some costs down though. And for all I know those get the grip angle they wanted better than other magazines.

Avidity Arms PD10

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More fun from SHOT. The Avidity Arms PD10 is another relatively new arrival. Avidity Arms is a small outfit, who have been working with Rob Pincus.

The PD10 is a roughly Glock 19 sized, single-stack 9mm pistol. It’s polymer framed. It uses 9mm 1911 magazines. On the one hand, this was almost certainly chosen to avoid magazine development and testing costs, so the final product could meet their target price point. Magazine development (like any part of pistol development) is expensive, and a single-stack, Glock 19 sized gun isn’t going to be in the running for any police or military contracts in the 21st century. Note that this does mean the grip is going to be somewhat longer than on a Glock 19, to accommodate a standard 1911 magazine.

It also raises some objections from me. I understand 9mm 1911 magazines are relatively common. But when you hear “9mm 1911”, you don’t think “paragon of reliability”. You probably think “unreliable”. Maybe “Jam-O-Matic”. 9mm 1911s have a well-deserved reputation for being difficult to get running right. The magazine is a part of this. I’m skeptical of using these in a pistol and getting a reliable result. Good 9mm 1911 magazines are also rather expensive, which bodes badly. Part of the problem with 1911 reliability is people buying cheap, crappy mags, discovering that they jam a lot, and blaming the platform. Ol’ Slabsides has a bunch of nostalgia value to back it up. This doesn’t. Also, with a 1911, you can at least buy a known good pistol while you mess around with magazines.

Problem two with 9mm 1911 magazines is that they tend to come in ‘full size’ lengths. Why is this a problem? Because that means you’re getting a ‘full size’ pistol. It’s a lot harder to scale a design down than it is to scale a design up. Want a bigger version of your pistol? That’s easy. A smaller version takes a lot more testing. I bring this up because small single-stack 9mms are selling really well right now. The M&P Shield, Walther PPS, and Glock 43 are all extremely popular. They’re all small. Considerably smaller than a G19 as far as length and height goes. For most of the gun-buying public1, I don’t really see the appeal here.

The PD10 seems to come with decent sights out of the box. They’re metal, at least. I don’t know what the sight picture looks like. The front dovetail is an M&P type, and the rear dovetail is a Glock type. I don’t know why this wasn’t designed to take M&P sights (front and rear dovetails) or Glock sights (front screw and rear dovetail). Picking a common sight mount is a good choice, but it really should be a common sight set.

And, of course, there are all the questions of reliability and company longevity that come with something new. Like I said with the Hudson H9, probably best to wait and see how this shakes out. In the meantime, the SiG P239 is a known reliable single stack 9mm pistol. Consider that if you’re in the market for a 9mm single stack that’s bigger than the M&P Shield.

1.) Fishbreath will be along in a moment to tell you about small-handed people who need pistols too.

Some Thoughts on the 1911

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I’m a big fan of the 1911 platform. There’s a lot right in that design. And they’re super fun to shoot. Let’s spend some time talking about what to consider if you’re looking to buy one.

The 1911 has some obvious shortcomings, like a single-stack magazine and its weight. There are handgun designs that carry bullets more efficiently today. However, the 1911 fits nearly every hand as a result of the narrow, single-stack magazine, points well, absorbs recoil well, and has an excellent trigger. They are fun to shoot.

As I put this together, the 1911 design has been around for 106 years. Splendid! That does, however, mean that things have changed a lot. The basics are the same, but we’re no longer sole-sourcing parts from Colt, and we’re no longer only trying to run US Army 230 grain ball ammo through it. Be aware.

Recall that the original design had a 5″ barrel, a steel frame, was chambered in .45 ACP, had relatively loose tolerances, and held seven (7) rounds in the flush-fitting magazine. The further you diverge from this, the more you hit tolerance stacking difficulties. So the more difficult it will be to get it running well.

Now, one could get a very fancy 1911, like my Springfield Professional. That’s an excellent choice, though not customisable at all. There are, of course, many other excellent places to get semi-custom (pick from a features list) or full custom (specify everything), though expect to pay a premium and wait. If you can find one configured to your liking, a bit more of a premium will let you skip the wait. These are very, very nice guns and you can be sure they’ll run well, even if you choose some bizarre configuration. Of course, this isn’t the only way to get a nice one.

There are lots of good guns from companies like Colt, Springfield Armory, Dan Wesson, etc. out there that will be cheaper than the semicustom builds, but still offering quality and desireable features. However, it is a little harder for one to choose a pistol in this price range. At the low end, you tend to get USGI-pattern clones from various foreign companies. There is little to differentiate those. At the high end, you cannot go wrong. Choose a smith or a company you like, spend some pleasant hours on the phone with them talking about your build, pay a large fee, and wait. You will be taken care of. But what about the rest?

Jeff Cooper commented that all you needed in a 1911 was sights you could see, a good trigger, and a dehorn job. We are not as minimalist as the great Colonel, but this is an excellent place to start. For sights, you ought to be sure they’re mounted with dovetails. Avoid the USGI-pattern mounts. Dovetails will let you a qualified gunsmith fit different sights should you wish something else. There is no one standard pattern of 1911 sight dovetails, so do your homework and see that your gun has a common one. It is easy enough to have the sights changed out to something you prefer if you can’t find a gun in your price range that has what you like, so long as you have done the rest. If you do not know your sight preference, it may be expensive to ascertain it. Personally, I would suggest a high visibility front post and a plain rear, with the rear notch rather wider than the front post. Add tritium if you insist. As with many things, your tastes may differ, and I shan’t bother to argue with you.

Triggers are very important. They are one of the reasons people still love 1911s. A well set up trigger will make you look good. There’s not much I can tell you, not being a hardcore pistolsmith. Most reasonably well put together 1911s will have a decent trigger. For a good, or better still, a great trigger, you will have to pay more. Fortunately, you get what you pay for. I would not obsess too much about the weight, so long as it isn’t ludicrously heavy. The short, crisp characteristics that are so easy to come by are far more important then whether your trigger measures four or five or howevermany pounds. I should also point out that modifying the trigger on a 1911 is most certainly not something that can be done by a talentless hack, like modifying the trigger on a Glock or M&P. If you want changes to the trigger characteristics of the 1911 you bought, see a proper 1911 specialist pistolsmith. This is not something for a guy with youtube, files, and a kitchen table.

A dehorn job is definitely nice to have, though I wouldn’t obsess over some of the slick guns out there. And I probably wouldn’t send a gun off, but that’s just me. Avoid guns with obvious snag points. This is as good a time as any to segue into feel. The feel of a 1911 is pretty important if you’re picking one. They all point the same (superbly). Some thought should be given to the grips, though these are quite simple to change out. Do not hesitate to do so. I would strongly suggest using flathead grip screws, as John Moses Browning intended. If they come loose, it is easy to tighten them back up in the field with the rim of a .45 ACP cartridge. To hell with “modern” hex, torx, or whateverx bits.

Personally, I’m also a big fan of checkering on the front and backstrap. Since the backstrap is the mainspring housing, it’s easy enough to change out if you don’t like the one you’ve got. You can add checkering/texture up front by sending to a gunsmith. At a cost of course. I think it’s easier to get this from the factory. A well-stocked gun store will have many examples for you to feel, but it is how they perform on the clock that counts, so find a rental desk if you can. As an example, Fishbreath complained quite a bit about the 20 lpi checkering on Dana1, until he got some range time. And then he understood and could appreciate the checkering. Though, he still might prefer something a trifle less aggressive. Note also that while a good gunsmith can usually add checkering to the front of a well-built (i.e. not too thin) frame, he can’t often change it. Something to keep in mind.

Let’s also talk magazines. There are many manufacturers, and some are better than others. This is a rather annoying Achilles heel of the modern 1911: there is no longer a standard magazine design. There is no ‘factory standard’. I have had good experiences with Wilson Combat ETM HD magazines and Tripp Powermags. I have also heard good things about Chip McCormick magazines. I would not recommend deviating from these three brands. I would suggest buying one or two of each and seeing if your gun has any preferences, and then buying more of those. Do not cheap out on magazines. Note also that my brand recommendations do not change if you are choosing a 1911 in some not-.45 ACP caliber.

1.) My aforementioned bureau gun.