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"Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
 
   LAST EDITED ON Feb-21-17 AT 03:58 PM (EST)
 
This week in Gun of the Week: a gun I couldn't have made myself, but I know at least one person who could've.

Here is a shotgun.

This is a Stevens 9478 I got from my grandfather, and it is by far the simplest cartridge-based firearm I own. Only my single-shot black powder percussion pistol is simpler than this, and then pretty much only because, being a muzzleloader, it doesn't open up or have an extractor.

There's not a lot of history to tell here. We've seen the Stevens name before, and talked a bit about the history of the company.

Information on individual Stevens products after the takeover is pretty thin on the ground, but the Model 94 shotgun appears to have debuted in the 1960s, long after Stevens had become the Squier to Savage's Fender, and was the kind of gun you used to be able to buy with Sears & Roebuck's own branding on it out of their catalog. Hordes and hordes of them were made, with various incremental changes over the years; I've seen references to versions with a letter appended (Model 94B, Model 94D, that kind of thing), and then later ones with another number tacked onto the first. The 9478 version, as we see here, debuted in the late 1970s and seems to have been produced through about 1985.

I'm not entirely sure why my grandfather would've bought one, to tell you the truth. He didn't hunt birds—by the 1980s he no longer hunted much of anything, having gotten bored with it—and he had plenty of other more suitable guns for defending the homestead if he needed to do so. He even had another shotgun, a nifty little over-under rig where the top barrel was a .22 rimfire rifle and the bottom one was a 20-gauge shotgun, which had belonged to my father as a teenager and been left behind when Dad moved out. My guess would be he just kind of wanted one, and one of the abiding virtues of the Savage-Stevens product line, then as now, was that they were cheap.

Which is not to say they're necessarily of poor quality. This is an absurdly simple shotgun, but it doesn't give the impression of being flimsy or shoddily made. It's just... incredibly basic. Almost defiantly so by modern standards. There's no polymer stock, no profusion of accessory rails, no quick-change (or slow-change, for that matter) choke (a widget in the bore that changes the pattern of shot); it barely even has sights. This shotgun is never going to be "tacti-cool".

So what's going on here? Well, this is a single-barrel, single-shot, break-open 12-gauge shotgun. Very similar weapons have been around since probably ten or fifteen minutes after the invention of the metallic cartridge. They compete with side-by-sides to be the third part of the holy trinity of cowboy firearms (along with the lever-action rifle and single-action revolver). The markings on the barrel of this one proudly specify that it will accept both 2¾" and more powerful 3" shells, and... that is the full extent of its Advanced Capabilities.

(That's also the extent of its markings. I'm not sure what the partly-worn-off boxed-12 in the lower right is; could be another indication of gauge, or a proof mark. Guessing the latter. That's some nice color case-hardening on the receiver, though, isn't it?)

Shall we open it up? That's basically the only thing it does, so we'd better, or this is going to be an even shorter post than it's already going to be.

First things first: the 9478 has a single-action trigger mechanism with an exposed hammer. To open and close it safely, the hammer should be in the half-cock position.

This is as opposed to the down/"fired" position or the fully cocked/"ready to fire" position.

This is important, because with the hammer fully down the firing pin can protrude into the chamber. This could end poorly if you were to put a shell in there and shut the action smartly. Also: the half-cock is this shotgun's only safety. Interestingly, it won't let you open the action with the hammer cocked, but doesn't seem to have a problem letting you do so with it all the way down. That seems like a bit of an oversight, but it's conceivable that this one isn't quite working properly.

Anyway, once it's in half-cock, the release is this sorta-second-trigger-like button on the front of the trigger guard.

Once that's pressed, the action unlocks and the gun breaks open.

In old paintings of, e.g., duck hunting scenes, you will often see the hunters depicted with their empty guns (single-barrel, side-by-side, or over-under) open like this and draped over one arm. This was a safety technique, sadly invalidated by the development of the repeating shotgun. You can't accidentally shoot yourself or your hunting buddies with an empty shotgun that's open and hanging over your arm. (Similarly, competitive shotgunners may only close their guns when they are immediately ready to call for a target, similarly to minimize the potential for an accidental discharge.)

Notice the bit sticking out from the barrel. That's the extractor; when the shotgun hinges open, that comes out in the manner shown and pushes the rim of the shell out, so that you can pull it easily out of the chamber and discard it. (Or turn the shotgun over and shake it out; that usually works, unless the hull is particularly sticky.) The extractor is cammed so that it automatically retracts when the shotgun is closed again.

When I said this gun barely even has any sights, I meant it. The front sight doesn't look too bad:

There's not a lot to it, but it's at least a visually distinct little bead. You may have noticed the rear sight in some of the other photos, though. If not, here's a closer look.

Yep. That looks like it's going to accomplish a lot, doesn't it?

Now, admittedly, this is a shotgun, they're not renowned for their... you know, precision. Still, they do have to be aimed at least a bit, and it seems to be that a bit of aiming is all you're going to do with this setup.

And that's... basically it! So there you go. Almost certainly the simplest firearm we'll see here until and unless I decide to do one on a muzzleloading musket. Single-bore shotguns used to be one of the gateway drugs of the shooting sports, because of their simplicity of operation—put in shell, close action, cock hammer, goes bang—and may well still be in some circles. I wasn't raised around bird hunters, though, so my own firearms education started with a bolt-action rifle and went from there. We didn't get to shotguns until later.

Oh yeah. Speaking of shotguns, kind of, want to see something silly?

"What the hell is wrong with that revolver?" I hear you cry. Well, funny story. Nothing's wrong with it, as such. It's just that it's designed to take absurdly long cartridges.

These cartridges.

Yep. It's a revolver designed to take .45 Colt (also known as .45 Long Colt, because there used to be a .45 S&W that was shorter) cartridges or .410 shotshells. Because who doesn't want a revolver with a cylinder that's longer than some entire handguns?

Even sillier, in some respects, than this gun's chambering is its name, which the manufacturers were so pleased with that they put it on the side of the barrel in large, friendly letters.

Yup. Say hello, then, to the Taurus Judge, or, I guess, technically the Taurus The Judge: a five-shot revolver with a barrel significantly shorter than its own cylinder, or an exercise in designing a handgun that looks like the result of one of those "iPhone panoramic camera" failures where you get a 20-foot-long, 18-legged catipede.

Taurus is a Brazilian company that started out with technical assistance (for which read some old machine tools and instructions on how to set them up) from Smith & Wesson and Beretta, which is why, for the first 20 or so years of the company's life, it produced exclusively revolvers that looked uncannily like Smith & Wessons and automatic pistols that looked uncannily like Beretta Model 92s. Nowadays they've branched out a bit, although the Smith design lineage is still pretty apparent in their revolver line. The Judge here started out as a mortal .45 Colt large-frame revolver, until it occurred to someone that a .45-caliber chamber would accommodate .410 shotshells if only the cylinder were long enough to hold them.

This strikes me as a pretty wacky idea, though if you believe the company's marketing department, it's caught on in some circles. They market it as being an ideal tool for home defense or use against carjackers (I think I would hesitate to fire one of these things in a space as confined as a car, personally, but don't go by me). It's a bit large to really qualify as a concealed carry piece, although allegedly, they call it The Judge because when it was first introduced (under the rather more prosaic name "Model 4410"), judges in places where it's dangerous to be a judge started buying them to pack in the courtroom. I guess concealability is a relative thing when you wear a graduation robe at work. Presumably they'd also be popular with wizards for similar reasons.

I'm... not sure I believe the "judge" thing, frankly, but it's a good story, and you could do worse for a profession to name a firearm after. No one would be particularly impressed by a pistol called The Accountant or The Insurance Adjuster. (Actually, The Insurance Adjuster would be a pretty good tongue-in-cheek name for e.g. a Mare's Leg style lever-action "rifle pistol". I mean, if I had one, that's probably what I would call it. But I digress.)

Even with that ribbed rubber (or, as Taurus's website cheerfully calls it, "ribber"—oh, you scamps!) grip, I'm guessing The Judge is a pretty unpleasant handgun to shoot. It seems to be made of a fairly lightweight alloy, and .410 might be a puny shotgun cartridge, but it's pretty frickin' big to put in a handgun. Still, there seems to be plenty of demand, enough that (in an amusing reversal) Smith & Wesson now sells an eerily similar product called "The Governor" (really, guys?).

(As an aside, I have to wonder how many people are buying these things just for the novelty value, and because (unlike, for instance, those insane .500-caliber S&Ws or .50-AE Desert Eagles) they're very reasonably priced for the sheer amount of gun you're getting. Hell, that's what I did. Spotted it in a display case while looking to see if the shop had something I was actually looking for (they didn't), said, "What the hell is that? It looks preposterous, I must have it," and left with a small artillery piece.)

Whatever the reason for it, there's enough demand that some ammunition manufacturers are now making .410 shells specifically configured to be used in this kind of combi handgun. Hornady, for instance, makes something called a "Critical Defense" round (shown above), which contains a .41-caliber bullet with a pair of 000 buckshot behind it, for optimized fusilladery. I'm not sure how, or if, they get a .41-caliber bullet to interact with the pistol's .45-caliber rifling; maybe it has a Minié-style skirt, or maybe they just don't.

It is rifled, though; it has to be, or the ATF would classify it as an Any Other Weapon under the National Firearms Act and there would be a shit-ton of paperwork. (In California, they're flatly illegal, under that state's controversial I Don't F--king Think So, Jack statute.*)

So, yeah. If you thought you'd never see a sillier firearm in these pages than the HK 416 pistol, well, so did I! But our Brazilian friends had other ideas.

"The Judge". Seriously. The last product I know of called The Judge was a special version of the Pontiac GTO that was offered in 1969, one of the musclecar era's last "like our factory hot rod, only even hot roddier!" packages. My dad bought one when I was in high school. It turned out to be a forgery (it was an ordinary GTO that someone had put a Judge deco kit on). That would be harder to do with this one, but I would believe that the name comes from a similar "more is more" philosophy sooner than that story about judges in Miami packing them. Although, then again, Miami.

--G.
* not what it's actually called
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal MoonEyes Feb-21-17 1
     RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-21-17 2
         RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal MoonEyes Feb-21-17 6
             RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-22-17 9
             BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK Gryphonadmin Mar-03-17 32
                 RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK Gryphonadmin Mar-03-17 33
                 RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK Peter Eng Mar-04-17 34
                     RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK MoonEyes Mar-06-17 37
                 RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK StClair Mar-05-17 35
                     RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK Gryphonadmin Mar-05-17 36
                 RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK MoonEyes Mar-06-17 38
                     RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK Gryphonadmin Mar-06-17 40
     RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Apr-14-17 42
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Peter Eng Feb-21-17 3
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal jonathanlennox Feb-21-17 4
     RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-21-17 5
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal rwpikul Feb-22-17 7
     RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal thorr_kan Feb-22-17 12
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Nova Floresca Feb-22-17 8
     RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-22-17 10
         RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Nova Floresca Feb-22-17 14
             RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-22-17 18
     2EDST: Shotgun Adventure Gryphonadmin Feb-24-17 21
         RE: 2EDST: Shotgun Adventure Pasha Feb-24-17 22
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Terminus Est Feb-22-17 11
     RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-22-17 19
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal thorr_kan Feb-22-17 13
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal zwol Feb-22-17 15
     RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal MoonEyes Feb-22-17 16
     RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-22-17 20
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal BobSchroeck Feb-22-17 17
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal mdg1 Feb-25-17 23
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Pasha Feb-27-17 24
     RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-27-17 25
         RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Pasha Feb-27-17 26
             RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-27-17 27
         RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal MoonEyes Feb-28-17 30
             RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-28-17 31
         RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal MoonEyes Mar-06-17 39
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal CdrMike Feb-28-17 28
     RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Feb-28-17 29
  Feeding Your Taurus The Judge Gryphonadmin Apr-04-17 41
  RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal Gryphonadmin Mar-05-20 43

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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
934 posts
Feb-21-17, 03:11 PM (EST)
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1. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Feb-21-17 AT 03:14 PM (EST)
 
>He even had another shotgun, a nifty little
>over-under rig where the top barrel was a .22 rimfire rifle and the
>bottom one was a 20-gauge shotgun, which had belonged to my father as
>a teenager and been left behind when Dad moved out.

Whee, a zwilling! (German word, essentially meaning "double-barreled gun where the barrels aren't the same calibre/type guns, from the word 'zwei', meaning two). There are also drillings(from 'drei', three') and even vierlings(of course 'four'). My sisters dad have, or at least HAD, one that I know of, in his case a drilling, a side-by-side shotgun, with an under-center-mounted...I want to say 6.5x55, which is a thoroughly Swedish round :) The model owned by your dad/grandfather is nearly a gun which the .410 reminded me of and I forgot to mention, in the shell post, namely the Air Force M6 survival rifle, which was a .410/.22 Hornet folding rifle.

>This shotgun is never
>going to be "tacti-cool".

Tacti? No. Just plain cool? Oh, yeah. Real cool people, or guns, don't need to advertise. They just ARE.


>Now, admittedly, this is a shotgun, they're not renowned for
>their... you know, precision. Still, they do have to be aimed
>at least a bit, and it seems to be that a bit of aiming is all
>you're going to do with this setup.

Yep. Rule of thumb, as *I* know it, is 1 inch of expansion for every yard. So, at 10 yards, you're at 10 inches. You can still miss by that. And even if you're doing bird-hunting, there is a LOT more empty air in a flock of water fowl than there is, well, fowl. So, you do need to aim at individual birds.

>Yep. It's a revolver designed to take .45 Colt (also known as .45
>Long Colt, because there used to be a .45 S&W that was shorter)
>cartridges or .410 shotshells. Because who doesn't want a
>revolver with a cylinder that's longer than some entire handguns?

You know, I was THIS (||) close to expand on the .410 post I made in the 'shell' thread, to include the Judge. Happy I didn't.

>Nowadays they've branched out a bit, although the Smith design lineage
>is still pretty apparent in their revolver line. The Judge here
>started out as a mortal .45 Colt large-frame revolver, until it
>occurred to someone that a .45-caliber chamber would accommodate .410
>shotshells if only the cylinder were long enough to hold them.

Taurus is primarily, today, known for the "Raging Bull", chambered for various mentally deficient calibers, like .454 Casull and .480 Ruger. And, since we're talking shotguns...they're working on a "Raging Judge" for 28 gauge. Because that's a good idea. Oy....


>Actually, The Insurance
>Adjuster would be a pretty good tongue-in-cheek name for e.g. a Mare's
>Leg style lever-action "rifle pistol". I mean, if I had one, that's
>probably what I would call it. But I digress.

Personally, it'll be my WWE wrestling name. Hey, they've had IRS...


>I'm guessing The Judge is a
>pretty unpleasant handgun to shoot. It seems to be made of a fairly
>lightweight alloy, and .410 might be a puny shotgun cartridge, but
>it's pretty frickin' big to put in a handgun.

If it's the alloy version, which I have to assume it is, with the look, as you say, it's at 24 ounces. That's not much for a long .410 OR .45 Colt. Painful would have to be my assumption.


>(As an aside, I have to wonder how many people are buying these things
>just for the novelty value, and because (unlike, for instance, those
>insane .500-caliber S&Ws or .50-AE Desert Eagles) they're very
>reasonably priced for the sheer amount of gun you're getting. Hell,
>that's what I did. Spotted it in a display case while looking
>to see if the shop had something I was actually looking for
>(they didn't), said, "What the hell is that? It looks
>preposterous, I must have it," and left with a small artillery piece.)

As good a reason as any, I suppose, but from what I understand, the shot part of the gun is really not up to it. The shell is too small(max of 5 shot) and the barrel is REALLY too short. You don't really hit anything beyond, more or less, contact range. Now, I've never shot it so I have *NO* idea, I'm just going from reviews, but...


>It is rifled, though; it has to be, or the ATF would classify it as a
>short-barrelled shotgun under the National Firearms Act and you'd have
>to pay a $200 tax to license one. (In California, they're deemed
>SBSes regardless and just flatly illegal.)

Ok, this is an interesting and weird one. Note that I am *NOT* a US citizen, but I tend to watch a lot of gun-related videos. And just recently Ian and Karl of InRange made a video about this very subject, so I looked it up a bit.
So, take this with a grain of salt, but as I understand it, this is how it works:

A smooth-bore Judge wouldn't actually be an SBS, because it's not, and have never been, a shotgun. Shotguns, legally, are required to have a stock, in its original configuration. The Judge never had a stock, so it isn't a shotgun. That lack of shotgun-ness means that it can't be an SBS. What it WOULD be is an Any Other Weapon, because the over-all length is (significantly)less than 26 inches. An AOW has a $5 stamp tax, rather than the $200.


The reason that InRange brought it up is because Mossberg have managed to make something that isn't really any sort of a gun type other than 'firearm', and used a legal loophole, and this is very specifically a loophole. They've made a gun that isn't an SBS, because it's never had a stock, but which has a weird sort of long 'hand-grip' instead of a stock, which ALSO means that they managed to cut the barrel-length down without taking the gun to under 26". THERE is a good sign, when actual gun manufacturers make firearms specifically to avoid legislation.

>
>So, yeah. If you thought you'd never see a sillier firearm in these
>pages than the HK 416 pistol, well, so did I! But our Brazilian
>friends had other ideas.

Yep! Taurus is good at that. As noted above, the Raging Bull guns firmly fall under that one.

>"The Judge". Seriously. The last product I know of called The Judge
>was a special version of the Pontiac GTO that was offered in 1969, one
>of the musclecar era's last "like our factory hot rod, only even
>hot roddier!
" packages. My dad bought one when I was in high
>school. It turned out to be a forgery (it was an ordinary GTO that
>someone had put a Judge deco kit on). That would be harder to do with
>this one, but I would believe that the name comes from a similar "more
>is more" philosophy sooner than that story about judges in Miami
>packing them. Although, then again, Miami.

Heh. Sweet car indeed, and, well, Miami indeed!


(Edit:Because spelling is hard)
...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!


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Gryphonadmin
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Feb-21-17, 03:55 PM (EST)
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2. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #1
 
   LAST EDITED ON Apr-14-17 AT 01:19 AM (EDT)
 
>Whee, a zwilling! (German word, essentially meaning "double-barreled
>gun where the barrels aren't the same calibre/type guns, from the word
>'zwei', meaning two). There are also drillings(from 'drei', three')
>and even vierlings(of course 'four').

Yeah, I've seen drillings before, at least online—Ian did a video once about an absurdly premium one that was acquired as a Luftwaffe survival gun, and in which, if memory serves, all three barrels were different from one another (one rifle, one shotgun, one... large-bore rifle, maybe? I'll have to track it down and watch it again). I liked that one because it was so obviously some Luftwaffe procurement officer's scam to get himself an extremely fine sporting arm without paying for it himself. :)

>The model owned by your dad/grandfather
>is nearly a gun which the .410 reminded me of and I forgot to mention,
>in the shell post, namely the Air Force M6 survival rifle, which was a
>.410/.22 Hornet folding rifle.

I've seen those around (or the modern non-NFA repros, anyway), never quite bought one, though they tickle my "that's weird, I need one" lobe. (Also, the AR-7, that stows-in-its-own-stock survival .22. Those are dirt cheap, too, I have no idea why I've never bought one.)

>Taurus is primarily, today, known for the "Raging Bull", chambered for
>various mentally deficient calibers, like .454 Casull and .480 Ruger.
>And, since we're talking shotguns...they're working on a "Raging
>Judge" for 28 gauge. Because that's a good idea. Oy....

Less insanely, the guy I bought The Judge from told me that he knows someone who has a carbine version that Taurus also makes. That sounds like it could be a fun shootin'-at-cans gun. You don't see revolver carbines much any more.

>As good a reason as any, I suppose, but from what I understand, the
>shot part of the gun is really not up to it. The shell is too
>small(max of 5 shot) and the barrel is REALLY too short. You don't
>really hit anything beyond, more or less, contact range. Now, I've
>never shot it so I have *NO* idea, I'm just going from reviews, but...

I think that's part of what those special defensive cartridges I mentioned are trying to address—there are only three shot in those (or, well, two shot and a bullet), but they're closer to bore-diameter and probably ballistically a little better-behaved. My guess would be that the effect is like firing .41 Special (if there were such a thing—hypothetical less-powerful-than-.41-Magnum cartridge, by analogy with .44 Special/.44 Magnum), with the two 000 shot behind it as a sort of roll for possible bonus damage, as it were.

Anyway, worst comes to worst, it's still a .45-caliber double-action revolver, which is not a thing that's ever going to be totally useless, even with a short barrel. The elongated cylinder only makes it a bit unwieldy compared with, say, a Charter Arms Bulldog (which is chambered for .44 Special, a dimensionally similar cartridge). I got mine pretty much exclusively for the novelty value, but even if the shotshell capability proved totally superfluous, it would not be an entirely worthless handgun in a pinch.

>A smooth-bore Judge wouldn't actually be an SBS, because it's not, and
>have never been, a shotgun. Shotguns, legally, are required to have a
>stock, in its original configuration. The Judge never had a stock, so
>it isn't a shotgun. That lack of shotgun-ness means that it can't be
>an SBS. What it WOULD be is an Any Other Weapon, because the over-all
>length is (significantly)less than 26 inches. An AOW has a $5 stamp
>tax, rather than the $200.

Ah yes, you are correct. Any Other Weapon is kind of a weird no man's land.

>The reason that InRange brought it up is because Mossberg have managed
>to make something that isn't really any sort of a gun type other than
>'firearm', and used a legal loophole, and this is very specifically a
>loophole.

That video is hilarious. The bathrobes. How many times Ian ended up dead. "Nobody makes me bleed my own blood!"

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
934 posts
Feb-21-17, 10:19 PM (EST)
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6. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #2
 
   LAST EDITED ON Feb-21-17 AT 10:28 PM (EST)
 
>Yeah, I've seen drillings before, at least online—Ian did a video
>once about an absurdly premium one that was acquired as a Luftwaffe
>survival gun, and in which, if memory serves, all three barrels
>were different from one another (one rifle, one shotgun, one...
>large-bore rifle, maybe? I'll have to track it down and watch it
>again). I liked that one because it was so obviously some Luftwaffe
>procurement officer's scam to get himself an extremely fine sporting
>arm without paying for it himself. :)

:D Yeah, I can see that one! I'll have to look for it.


>I've seen those around (or the modern non-NFA repros, anyway), never
>quite bought one, though they tickle my "that's weird, I need one"
>lobe. (Also, the AR-7, that stows-in-its-own-stock survival .22.
>Those are dirt cheap, too, I have no idea why I've never bought one.)

If I'd been in the US, that'd be one of the ones I'd be grabbing too. Collecting functional guns around here? Yeah, right.
Oh, and I should say...in the Nambu post, you mention 'gun like a stapler'? The M6 really, literally, IS that. There is no trigger per se, there's a lever, and it is nice and stout. "Ke-THUNK!" But I suppose in a rifle, that's a bit more excusable, and makes for something of a safety.


>Less insanely, the guy I bought The Judge from told me that he knows
>someone who has a carbine version that Taurus also makes. That sounds
>like it could be a fun shootin'-at-cans gun. You don't see revolver
>carbines much any more.

I have to agree, that DOES sound fun! Very much so.
And a lot saner than that 28-gauge revolver. I have to wonder what they were thinking. I mean, even with the MASSIVE frames that are the Taurus Raging (whatever)...ow. I mean, a .410, which as noted is a sixtyeight(and some fractions) gauge...compare to a TWENTYeight. That's a .55 shotgun. I mean, sure, it isn't a TWELVE gauge, because not even they are that stupid, but...a shotgun has a stock for a reason, mostly. All that recoil FIRMLY in your hand and wrist.


>I think that's part of what those special defensive cartridges I
>mentioned are trying to address—there are only three shot in those
>(or, well, two shot and a bullet), but they're closer to bore-diameter
>and probably ballistically a little better-behaved. My guess would be
>that the effect is like firing .41 Special (if there were such a
>thing—hypothetical less-powerful-than-.41-Magnum cartridge, by
>analogy with .44 Special/.44 Magnum), with the two 000 shot behind it
>as a sort of roll for possible bonus damage, as it were.

Yep, I would assume so! Do let us know when you shoot it, as it were? Because I'll be interested to know.

>Anyway, worst comes to worst, it's still a .45-caliber double-action
>revolver, which is not a thing that's ever going to be totally
>useless, even with a short barrel. The elongated cylinder only makes
>it a bit unwieldy compared with, say, a Charter Arms Bulldog (which is
>chambered for .44 Special, a dimensionally similar cartridge). I got
>mine pretty much exclusively for the novelty value, but even if the
>shotshell capability proved totally superfluous, it would not be an
>entirely worthless handgun in a pinch.

Well, this is true. I'd worry a bit about the weight? But as you said, not useless, and still fun in a novelty sort of way.


>Ah yes, you are correct. Any Other Weapon is kind of a weird no man's
>land.

That I KNOW this...I mean, basic legislation about gun 'types' according to the system of an entirely different country, so that I know what constitutes SBS, SBR, AOW, Destructive Device(and why some .50 are such, while others aren't)? Is slightly weird to me. Sure, personal relationships, as well as interest in guns and access to things like InRange and ForgottenWeapons, but still.

>That video is hilarious. The bathrobes. How many times Ian ended up
>dead. "Nobody makes me bleed but me!"

Yep! And then Ian's enthusiastic thumbs up. Or the 'outtakes' ending, which I REALLY liked. "And....Ian's thing just went 'bing'" followed by Ian's mumbling, "How is it Karl texting me even when he's standing right there?"
Or my ABSOLUTE two favorites, in which Ian first "have a fiddly with the thing" as their crap ammo doesn't allow for properly cycling the pump, and then let's Karl know that he, too, have to start with the PGO gun. "Yeah, embrace the suck, there!" New favorite expressions.


...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!


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9. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #6
 
   >>Yeah, I've seen drillings before, at least online—Ian did a video
>>once about an absurdly premium one that was acquired as a Luftwaffe
>>survival gun, and in which, if memory serves, all three barrels
>>were different from one another (one rifle, one shotgun, one...
>>large-bore rifle, maybe?
>
>:D Yeah, I can see that one! I'll have to look for it.
>

Found it. I had slightly misremembered. It's a big-game rifle under a 12-gauge double, but the 12-gauge barrels are choked differently (one for bird shot, the other for slugs). There's an M6 in the same video, too.

>If I'd been in the US, that'd be one of the ones I'd be grabbing too.

Yeah, I'm really not sure why I don't have an AR-7. But then I'd never had a .22 autoloading rifle at all until I bought that StG replica that kicked off Gun of the Week in the first place.

Also, as to the modern reproductions of the M-6, I just noticed that one of them (made by Chiappa, the Italian company that also makes the extremely intriguing Rhino revolver and Triple Threat break-open shotgun) is .22 Magnum over 20-gauge rather than the original .22 Hornet over .410. That's... interesting, though I'm not 100% sure the latter is a great idea. I can see the appeal of .22 Magnum over .22 Hornet, though; being a centerfire cartridge, .22 Hornet is rather more expensive than it really needs to be.

>>Less insanely, the guy I bought The Judge from told me that he knows
>>someone who has a carbine version that Taurus also makes. That sounds
>>like it could be a fun shootin'-at-cans gun. You don't see revolver
>>carbines much any more.
>
>I have to agree, that DOES sound fun! Very much so.

Sadly, the Circuit Judge (catchy name) doesn't seem to be in production any more, so I guess it wasn't the runaway success the pistol version appears to have been. Still, they must still be out there someplace. Maybe one of these days I'll chase one down. I am intrigued.

(They were in fact a collaborative venture between Taurus and Rossi, and sold under the Rossi brand, which makes sense given that Taurus doesn't have much experience or name recognition in long arms.)

>Do let us know when you shoot it, as it were?
>Because I'll be interested to know.

I think the indoor range I have access to frowns on shotshells, so it may have to wait until this summer, but I do plan to try it out when I'm able.

--G.
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32. "BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK"
In response to message #6
 
   >>Less insanely, the guy I bought The Judge from told me that he knows
>>someone who has a carbine version that Taurus also makes. That sounds
>>like it could be a fun shootin'-at-cans gun. You don't see revolver
>>carbines much any more.
>
>I have to agree, that DOES sound fun!

OK, so, funny story. I was on my way home from campus today (dropping off the midterm exam, spring break starts tomorrow, woohoo), and decided on a whim to stop off and browse my local sports shop. Their stuff is usually pretty pedestrian by my standards, but occasionally something interesting floats through. Didn't really see anything that tripped my radar in the handgun case or the regular rifle/shotgun racks (except for a really nice old Auto-5 shotgun that was just a little too rich for me after Other Recent Expenditures), but I was standing there by the counter chatting with Jim (who is either the Assistant Proprietor or a partner, I'm not sure how the business is set up), and while he was lamenting that he cannot at present get me a CZ 75B for love or money for some reason, my eye chanced to pass across the other rifle rack that they keep behind the counter.

I'm not sure what criteria they use there to decide what goes on that rack; it might just be the things they don't really think fit the theme of the ones out on the floor. The ARs and whatnot are usually back there, which I don't care too much about, but there was a nice antique-looking side-by-side shotgun I gave a look to, and next to it...

I waited for Jim to finish what he was saying, agreed that it was a darn shame but what can you do, then asked, "Is... that a Rossi Circuit Judge?"

Yeah. It was.

And yes, that's what they call it.

It's just what it says on the tin: a Taurus The Judge action, built into a handy little carbine by another Brazilian gun manufacturer, Amadeo Rossi. (I'm not 100% sure of the relationship between Rossi and Taurus; the latter bought the former's handgun operations a few years ago, and they obviously partnered on the Circuit Judge, but I don't think they have common ownership. It seems more like a variation on the old Winchester/Colt "look, we'll stay out of handguns if you stay out of long arms" arrangement.)

The frame has the standard Taurus markings, plus the imprint of Rossi's US importer. Meanwhile, Rossi's own logo appears in two more discreet places: the little rubber cap on the bottom of the semi-pistol-grip part of the stock, and the (oddly luxurious for a .410 shotgun) buttpad.

I'm not going to take the grip cap off, because those are probably wood screws and they don't really like being put in and taken out over and over again, but my guess is that it's hiding the bolt that holds the stock onto what would otherwise be the Judge's grip frame.

Note in the pic of the Taurus markings that the model number is (apart from the letters) the same as the pistol's, 4510—the Circuit Judge is literally a regular Judge handgun with a barrel long enough to meet NFA regs, a front handguard, and a shoulder stock instead of a grip.

Well, almost. It also has one nice little feature that addresses the major drawback all revolver carbines have had since Time Immemorial—namely, the problem of the cylinder gap. Long-time Gun of the Week readers may recall that this is a notorious danger zone in revolving firearms, which is not that much of a problem in a handgun if you hold it right; but in a carbine it's a significant hazard to the shooter's support arm. In the old days of blackpowder revolver carbines, the usual fix was to hold it right up close to the trigger guard, under the frame, which was awkward as hell and kind of obviated the advantage of making it a carbine in the first place.

Someone at either Taurus or Rossi (I'm guessing the latter, since they seem to have been responsible for all the other aspects of converting the Judge into a longarm) tackled the problem by adding little blast shields to the front.

(Sorry for the odd color and slight blur in the lefthand pic; the flash didn't go for some reason. I decided to leave it in order to show how they had to cut back the handguard on that side for the ejector rod.)

The shield on the right side is fixed; the one on the left swings out with the cylinder. They obviously don't protect anything that's right next to the upper part of the cylinder, by the forcing cone, but if you've got anything up there you're Doing It Wrong anyway.

Most of the markings are on the right side; the only one on the left is the caliber marking, up on the base of the barrel.

In that shot, you can also see the rear sight and the front of the built-in optic rail on the top of the frame. Leaving room for that rail makes the sight radius kind of short, since the rear iron sight is way out in front of everything on the barrel, but the sights themselves are quite nice. They've got little fiber-optic tubes in them, which, when viewed from the usual sighting position, make the dots show up brightly in normal light conditions—kind of a cool idea.

They're also in contrasting colors, which is nice; you can instantly tell if you've got them lined up in the wrong order. That sounds like a weird mistake to make, but if you're shooting in some haste (for instance, hunting birds), it could happen.

Unlike the handgun version, the carbine actually comes with a choice of choke (a screwed-in device out at the muzzle end of a shotgun that shapes the pattern of shot). You've got one exclusively for use with .410 shot, which makes a pattern the manual describes as suitable for turkey hunting, and another that protects the threads when you're shooting .45 LC. Mine came with the turkey choke installed, but I don't plan on doing much turkey hunting, so I'll probably swap it for the thread protector.

A little surprisingly for a used gun (people do seem to manage to lose this stuff with annoying regularity), it came with all the little fiddly bits—the second choke, the little spanner for swapping them out, a bore cleaner, even a little widget I eventually realized was a hammer extension. When I was a kid, my grandfather had one of those on an Ithaca Model 72 Saddlegun he had. The Saddlegun was a Winchester 1894 clone in .22 Rimfire Magnum, made for Ithaca by ERMA-Werke in (West) Germany in the '70s, and Gramp had put a scope on it. When you put a scope on a hammer-fired gun like a '94, the back of the scope overhangs the hammer and makes it inaccessible to the thumb, so you need to add a little sideways attachment to the hammer to make it get-attable again. I'm really surprised that my secondhand CJ's was still with it, that's the kind of thing that virtually always gets lost somewhere along the way.

So, the Circuit Judge. I sniffed around briefly for one of these after hearing that they existed, found that they were out of production, and more or less gave up, figuring that they'd be rare enough I would be unlikely to run across one used in any of the local gun shops... and then, randomly, ran across one in the shop nearest my house.* And the best part is, it basically didn't cost me anything!

Well, OK, I traded the Um, What The for it, but let's face it, I got most of my personal value from that just talking about the shock of seeing what it was after I ordered it. I'm likely to have a much better actual ownership experience with the CJ. Anyway, I think I actually got more in trade for it than I originally paid for it, which may be the only time I have ever made a (theoretical) profit on a gun deal.

--G.
* not counting the hardware store downtown, which only stocks a couple of shotguns and .22 rifles and doesn't deal in used stuff at all.
-><-
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Gryphonadmin
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33. "RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK"
In response to message #32
 
   LAST EDITED ON Mar-03-17 AT 09:02 PM (EST)
 
Oh yeah, an aside about the Ithaca Model 72: I went and had look around Gun eBay a while ago to see if I could find one (Gramp's went to Cousin Mike the Marine in the great divestiture, which is perfectly fine, but I have to admit I did kinda covet it). Turns out the .22 WMR version was pretty rare, and the only listings I found were for the .22 Long Rifle model, but one of the listings really struck me as funny. The description contains this sentence (pasted out of the listing, which is still live, but will end in a couple of days and then go away):

"It was not a notable rifle, nowhere near the quality of its Marlin and Winchester Competitors."

Now, is it just me, or is that a deeply strange thing to say in the course of trying to sell something? "Of course it's not a very good rifle, but still, bidding starts at $399." This may go some distance toward explaining why it's been listed for (at least) the better part of a week and, as of this writing, has zero bids.

And the thing is, I remember Gramp's Model 72 as a fine little gun. Maybe the magnum version was nicer than the regular .22LR one or something, I don't know, but still. Not junk. What a weird way to go about it...

--G.
-><-
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Peter Eng
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34. "RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK"
In response to message #32
 
   > They're also in contrasting colors, which is nice...

I'm reminded of one of Megazone's fictional creations, where the sights included a heating system in one part, and a cooling system in the other, providing a similar effect if the user happened to have the right kind of cybernetic eye.

This seems much more practical, given that it doesn't require elective surgery...


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MoonEyes
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37. "RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK"
In response to message #34
 
   That was, in fact, Gryphon, in Hopelessly Lost 3.

"The thermal sights were Gryphon's own idea; a small heating
element in the front blade and one small chillchip on each side of the
rear sight. When he was "seeing" thermographically, the dots would be
lined up in a straight line, blue-yellow-blue, when he was on target."

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


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StClair
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35. "RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK"
In response to message #32
 
   Aww, you got rid of the cyberpunk HK rifle-pistol? Well, fair enough, given that (as you say) most of the value is not in the continued ownership and/or use of the thing, more the story of its acquisition and the images. I think it's safe to say you're not about to take up shadowrunning for real...

(I still think you're right, that there should totally be a blaster that looks like that.)


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Gryphonadmin
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36. "RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK"
In response to message #35
 
   LAST EDITED ON Mar-05-17 AT 11:59 PM (EST)
 
>Aww, you got rid of the cyberpunk HK rifle-pistol?

Yup.

>Well, fair enough,
>given that (as you say) most of the value is not in the continued
>ownership and/or use of the thing, more the story of its acquisition
>and the images.

Put it this way. Today I finally got around to making a spreadsheet of everything in the little firearms museum I've more or less inadvertently been curating for the last 20-odd years. I compiled it out of a couple of old-fashioned notebooks I'd been manually keeping track of this stuff in for a couple of years now, having come belatedly but sincerely to the understanding that record-keeping is important in these matters.

Being written on paper, the notebooks included records of guns I no longer have, and a couple of times, rediscovering them and adding them to the "former" tab in the spreadsheet, I've felt stabs of significant angst. The most painful was the Browning Hi-Power I got for Christmas from my grandfather when I was in high school, which was pretty much the only Actually Valuable Thing I owned at more than one point in my life, and which I had to sell during the really lean times a few years ago. I will always, always reproach myself for that, even though I didn't feel I really had a choice at the time.

I bought another one a while ago, that's the one that appeared in the Hi-Power Gun of the Week, and it's virtually identical to the one I sold. In fact it could be argued to be somewhat superior, since it has at least one improved feature (an ambidextrous safety lever), and since the original one—despite being very rarely used and coddled whenever it was—had taken to malfunctioning for no reason I could ever diagnose. But it's not the same. It'll always be not the same. Maybe if I'd bought one with some history instead of a brand new one—a British-Canadian one by Inglis, say, or one of the ones made by FN when they picked themselves up and resumed commercial production after the war—it'd be different, but the one I have, I could sell tomorrow and regret nothing but the monetary loss I'd be taking. It's just a gun.

The 416 was like that right from the start. It was a good joke, the startlingly strange gun I ended up with because I didn't pay close enough attention to the product description, but once it was told there wasn't a lot of point in hanging onto it. I liked it, on some level I appreciate that such weird things exist, but then I appreciate that those minesweeping tanks with the chain flails on them exist too, I don't need to have one. I don't buy these things as investments, so there wasn't even the vague prospect that it might someday appreciate in value.

The punch line there is that it evidently did appreciate in value, and based on the asking price they had on the Circuit Judge, I ended up making about $50 on the deal. :)

>I think it's safe to say you're not about to take up
>shadowrunning for real...

Even if I did, the only thing an HK-416 pistol would enable me to do is flatten light ammo against body armor faster than ever before. (Or actually not even, since it's semi-auto and I could accomplish the same effect with my Ruger. :)

>(I still think you're right, that there should totally be a blaster
>that looks like that.)

Oh, I'm sure there is. And with their eye toward the nostalgia market, BlasTech has probably given it a designation that deliberately winks toward its resemblance to earlier products—DL-4400, perhaps.

--G.
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MoonEyes
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38. "RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK"
In response to message #32
 
   >OK, so, funny story.

Oh, don't tell me...

>I waited for Jim to finish what he was saying, agreed that it was a
>darn shame but what can you do, then asked, "Is... that a Rossi
>Circuit Judge?"
>
>Yeah. It was.

You UTTER LUCKY BULLER B*ST*RD! (Well, not that last, but it's part of the quote)


>And yes, that's what they call it.

Snrkt! Well, at least Taurus/Rossi has a sense of humor.

>The frame has the standard Taurus markings, plus the imprint of
>Rossi's US importer. Meanwhile, Rossi's own logo appears in two more
>discreet places: the little rubber cap on the bottom of the
>semi-pistol-grip part of the stock, and the (oddly luxurious for a
>.410 shotgun) buttpad.

Well, better than oddly luxurious than non-existant, even with .410 not exactly being 'brutalizing'.

>Well, almost. It also has one nice little feature that addresses the
>major drawback all revolver carbines have had since Time
>Immemorial—namely, the problem of the cylinder gap. Long-time Gun
>of the Week readers may recall that this is a notorious danger zone in
>revolving firearms, which is not that much of a problem in a
>handgun if you hold it right; but in a carbine it's a significant
>hazard to the shooter's support arm. In the old days of blackpowder
>revolver carbines, the usual fix was to hold it right up close to the
>trigger guard, under the frame, which was awkward as hell and kind of
>obviated the advantage of making it a carbine in the first place.
>
>Someone at either Taurus or Rossi (I'm guessing the latter, since they
>seem to have been responsible for all the other aspects of converting
>the Judge into a longarm) tackled the problem by adding little blast
>shields to the front.

OH lovely, and something that I think might be a good thing on ordinary revolvers, honestly, at least of the 'bone-crushing', as they're supposedly called, calibers(never did understand that...can't imagine that many bones stand up to any reasonable caliber round(reasonable, as in, 'not Kolibri or Lilliput')). I know several horror-stories of people essentially near-loosing thumbs when they use a modern 'wrap-around' type of grip, which is presumably habit from shooting autos.


>They're also in contrasting colors, which is nice; you can instantly
>tell if you've got them lined up in the wrong order. That sounds like
>a weird mistake to make, but if you're shooting in some haste (for
>instance, hunting birds), it could happen.

I have to agree that this DOES remind of Hopelessly Lost.

>Mine came with the turkey choke installed, but I
>don't plan on doing much turkey hunting, so I'll probably swap it for
>the thread protector.

Sounds nice, and so would I. I don't think there is any bird at all that I would go hunting with it.

>A little surprisingly for a used gun (people do seem to manage to lose
>this stuff with annoying regularity)

Things like, oh, MAGAZINES? As in Nova Floresca's fathers friend? :P


>even a little widget I eventually realized was a
>hammer extension. When I was a kid, my grandfather had one of those
>on an Ithaca Model 72 Saddlegun he had.
> When you put a scope on a hammer-fired gun like a '94, the back
>of the scope overhangs the hammer and makes it inaccessible to the
>thumb, so you need to add a little sideways attachment to the hammer
>to make it get-attable again.

Huh, wouldn't even have occurred to me, but yeah, logically...

>Well, OK, I traded the Um, What The for it, but let's face it,
>I got most of my personal value
>from that just talking about the shock of seeing what it was after I
>ordered it. I'm likely to have a much better actual ownership
>experience with the CJ.

As would I have, in your position, for just that very reason. If the Um, What The had been what you sort of THOUGHT it would be, that'd be different, but as it was? I'd be having a LOT more fun with the CJ, and it wouldn't have been a moment of thought.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


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Gryphonadmin
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40. "RE: BONUS GUN OF THE WEEK"
In response to message #38
 
   >>the (oddly luxurious for a .410 shotgun) buttpad.
>
>Well, better than oddly luxurious than non-existant, even with .410
>not exactly being 'brutalizing'.

True, as opposed to, say, the comforting two millimeters of steel on the Mosin-Nagant carbine. :)

>>Someone at either Taurus or Rossi (I'm guessing the latter, since they
>>seem to have been responsible for all the other aspects of converting
>>the Judge into a longarm) tackled the problem by adding little blast
>>shields to the front.
>
>OH lovely, and something that I think might be a good thing on
>ordinary revolvers, honestly, at least of the 'bone-crushing', as
>they're supposedly called, calibers(never did understand that...can't
>imagine that many bones stand up to any reasonable caliber
>round(reasonable, as in, 'not Kolibri or Lilliput')).

I think the allusion is to crushing the bones of the shooter, rather than the target.

>I know several
>horror-stories of people essentially near-loosing thumbs when they use
>a modern 'wrap-around' type of grip, which is presumably habit from
>shooting autos.

Ian gave a pretty definitive demonstration of the cylinder gap problem in his video on the 1895 Nagant a few years ago.

It's particularly an issue if you're of the clade of semiauto shooters who were trained to put their off hands' index fingers out on the front of the trigger guard.

(As an aside, this method appears to have gone out of fashion again—one of the features of the Beretta 92A1, which I guess is the Tactical Timmy civilian version of the M9A1, is that they rounded off the trigger guard because the squared ones for that style of shooting, as found on the original 92, no longer "conform with current pistol gripping practices.")

>>A little surprisingly for a used gun (people do seem to manage to lose
>>this stuff with annoying regularity)
>
>Things like, oh, MAGAZINES? As in Nova Floresca's fathers friend? :P

Heh. What he threw out was a loading clip for the SKS's internal magazine, and those things get lost all the time (because they were originally considered disposable, usually)—but I have bought vintage auto pistols that came without their original box mags. Sometimes that's understandable, as in ex-military pistols that were probably separated from same when they were being demobbed, but sometimes (as with the Remington 51 I picked up last year) it's entirely puzzling to me how the previous owners managed to misplace such a thing. Maybe they get broken. I guess that could theoretically happen.

>>even a little widget I eventually realized was a
>>hammer extension. When I was a kid, my grandfather had one of those
>>on an Ithaca Model 72 Saddlegun he had.
>> When you put a scope on a hammer-fired gun like a '94, the back
>>of the scope overhangs the hammer and makes it inaccessible to the
>>thumb, so you need to add a little sideways attachment to the hammer
>>to make it get-attable again.
>
>Huh, wouldn't even have occurred to me, but yeah, logically...

I put it on while I was changing out the choke yesterday:

Optimized for a right-handed shooter, as ever, but it works decently from the left as well, you just have to cross your thumb over a little bit. One gets used to that shooting autos with non-ambidexterous safeties anyway.

--G.
-><-
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Gryphonadmin
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42. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #1
 
   >>I'm guessing The Judge is a
>>pretty unpleasant handgun to shoot. It seems to be made of a fairly
>>lightweight alloy, and .410 might be a puny shotgun cartridge, but
>>it's pretty frickin' big to put in a handgun.
>
>If it's the alloy version, which I have to assume it is, with the
>look, as you say, it's at 24 ounces. That's not much for a long .410
>OR .45 Colt. Painful would have to be my assumption.

You think that's bad, I've just discovered that they make a version called the Public Defender (seriously, guys, you'll do one called The Stenographer next) that has a polymer frame. Admittedly it does have a shorter cylinder, one that will only take 2½-inch .410 shells as opposed to the three-inchers the full-size The Judge can fit, but still. And a 2-inch barrel. Yeah, that must be a real treat for the hand.

--G.
-><-
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Peter Eng
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Feb-21-17, 04:08 PM (EST)
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3. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   > I guess concealability is a relative thing when you wear a graduation robe
> at work. Presumably they'd also be popular with wizards for similar reasons.

I'm reminded of the GURPS examples of modifiers to Holdout skill. I don't remember the exact number for "Carmelite nun in full uniform," but it was pretty ridiculous. +8? +10? Something like that.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


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jonathanlennox
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Feb-21-17, 06:07 PM (EST)
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4. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
  
>The 9478 version, as
>we see here, debuted in the late 1970s and seems to have been produced
>through about 1985.

Going out on a limb here, but based on the name I'd guess it specifically debuted in 1978?


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Gryphonadmin
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5. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #4
 
   >>The 9478 version, as
>>we see here, debuted in the late 1970s and seems to have been produced
>>through about 1985.
>
>Going out on a limb here, but based on the name I'd guess it
>specifically debuted in 1978?

'79, I think (available information is pretty vague and doesn't always agree), but probably it's a reference to the year the pattern was set, yeah. No idea what they changed from previous models.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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rwpikul
Member since Jun-22-03
198 posts
Feb-22-17, 00:29 AM (EST)
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7. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   >In old paintings of, e.g., duck hunting scenes, you will often see the
>hunters depicted with their empty guns (single-barrel, side-by-side,
>or over-under) open like this and draped over one arm. This was a
>safety technique, sadly invalidated by the development of the
>repeating shotgun. You can't accidentally shoot yourself or your
>hunting buddies with an empty shotgun that's open and hanging over
>your arm. (Similarly, competitive shotgunners may only close their
>guns when they are immediately ready to call for a target, similarly
>to minimize the potential for an accidental discharge.)

Another reason people carried breakopen shotguns open was due to legal requirements. Back in the days my father hunted, it was flat-out illegal to carry a loaded shotgun across a road, waterway or fence in Ontario, (I don't know the current laws, he hasn't hunted in ages). By having the shotgun open it was technically not loaded yet but you could be ready to fire very quickly.

--
Chakat Firepaw - Inventor & Scientist (Mad)


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thorr_kan
Member since May-11-11
60 posts
Feb-22-17, 12:06 PM (EST)
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12. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #7
 
   >Another reason people carried breakopen shotguns open was due to legal
>requirements. Back in the days my father hunted, it was flat-out
>illegal to carry a loaded shotgun across a road, waterway or fence in
>Ontario, (I don't know the current laws, he hasn't hunted in ages).
>By having the shotgun open it was technically not loaded yet but you
>could be ready to fire very quickly.

Heh. Good times.

Back in the 70s/80s, Michigan state law was no loaded firearms in the passenger area of the vehicle during hunting season. And no hunting from the vehicle!

One old-timer wasn't gonna let that stop him. He had a truly ancient shotgun that broke down into three pieces. He's leave it disassembled on the seat of his truck and carry a single shell in his vest. He'd drive around, spot a bird, assemble his shotgun in under 5 seconds, and score dinner.

Local DNR (Dept. of Natural Resources) thought he was hilarious. He was frequently stopped but never cited. It supposedly became a rite of passage for new agents to stop him and see him do his assembly.


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Nova Floresca
Member since Sep-13-13
364 posts
Feb-22-17, 00:53 AM (EST)
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8. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   Oh boy, break-action shotguns and .410 gauge shotshells! This brings back memories! Mostly of the "how did this not turn out worse?" variety.

>This week in Gun of the Week: a gun I couldn't have made myself, but I
>know at least one person who could've.

As a matter of fact, my father owns a .410 break-action gun that was hand-made by his great uncle. This weapon is beautiful to look at, beautiful to shoot, but also a great argument as to why firearms should be purchased from factories specializing in the construction of firearms.

>Notice the bit sticking out from the barrel. That's the extractor;
>when the shotgun hinges open, that comes out

. . . and goes flying over your shoulder, due to the fact that Great Uncle Dale didn't have access to the right kind of steel when he was making his gun. After this tragic occurrence, the gun was cleaned and returned to the gun case, never repaired, because when are we ever going to seriously need a break-action .410 shotgun?

At which point, a surfeit* of rabid skunks turned up and started nosing around the edge of the property. However, this didn't seem to be too big a problem, as we had Men With Guns on hand. We would have benefited from a closer inspection of the situation though, as it turns out we had the following items in our inventory:
-Three (3) Homo Sapiens Redneckus;
-Two (2) SKS semi-automatic rifles;
-One (1) 5-round SKS stripper clip**;
-One (1) adolescent who was about to earn a lifelong loathing of the operation of stripper clips.

So off the adults went, firing away with great enthusiasm while I tried in vain to fill the clip fast enough to keep two rifles loaded. Fortunately, I was relieved of my duties in short order . . . but only because Dad hadn't gotten around to buying ammo for the SKS yet, and so we had been shooting through the "snack-sized" packet of 7.62 that the gun store included with the purchase.

With no other option readily available, Dad went back and grabbed the poor old .410 and the box of shells and went to work on the skunk problem, and this time, he got results- most likely because the tedium of having to get out his pocket knife and pry the shell loose after each shot forced him to actually aim this time. However, this success didn't last long- since the .410 was broken, there hadn't been a need to buy more shells, and so all we had left were the leftovers from the day the extractor broke, a total of 3.

Now completely out of ammo, the adults did the the only reasonable*** thing; declared a "tactical victory" and went back in the house. The next day, Dad went and bought a cheap 12-gauge and an ample supply of ammo, and naturally there hasn't been a single encroachment by unfriendly wildlife since, Murphy's Laws being what they are.

*apparently "surfeit" is the official collective noun for skunks, which seems entirely reasonable.

**for those of you playing at home, this is a greater than 1-to-1 ratio of guns to clips. The second SKS belonged to one of Dad's buddies, who had mistaken the clip that came with his gun for something unnecessary and discarded it. Buddy and gun were present that day so he could use Dad's clip to load the gun and try it out. IIRC, the company importing these guns was selling them for some unreasonably low price, but only included one clip per gun, and sold extras for $20+ per.

***I suggested that they should deploy their SKS' folding bayonets and charge the enemy, but that was purely out of spite since the ammunition ran out before I got a turn at shooting.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."


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Gryphonadmin
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Feb-22-17, 01:27 AM (EST)
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10. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #8
 
   LAST EDITED ON Feb-22-17 AT 01:30 AM (EST)
 
>-Two (2) SKS semi-automatic rifles;

For reference...

>-One (1) 5-round SKS stripper clip**;
>-One (1) adolescent who was about to earn a lifelong loathing of the
>operation of stripper clips.
>
>So off the adults went, firing away with great enthusiasm while I
>tried in vain to fill the clip fast enough to keep two rifles loaded.

In fairness to Comrade Simonov, that sort of real-time action is not what those things are for. But you know that. :)

>**for those of you playing at home, this is a greater than 1-to-1
>ratio of guns to clips. The second SKS belonged to one of Dad's
>buddies, who had mistaken the clip that came with his gun for
>something unnecessary and discarded it.

... (facepalm)

>Buddy and gun were present
>that day so he could use Dad's clip to load the gun and try it out.
>IIRC, the company importing these guns was selling them for some
>unreasonably low price, but only included one clip per gun, and sold
>extras for $20+ per.

Heh, mine didn't come with any at all, but I was able to track down some surplus Yugo ammo that came already loaded, 1 per 10 rounds. (So even after I've shot it all, which will be years, I'll still have the clips. Which is nice!)

Also, I'll be honest, after the, shall we say, demographic setup for that, I was really expecting Dude #2 to have a stuck-firing-pin full-auto event with his SKS somewhere along the way. Bought surplus, not sufficiently de-gunked; I'm given to understand that happens fairly regularly among the hold-my-beer set. :)

>***I suggested that they should deploy their SKS' folding bayonets and
>charge the enemy, but that was purely out of spite since the
>ammunition ran out before I got a turn at shooting.

If they'd had the Yugoslav variant, they could've tried their luck with the grenade launchers. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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Nova Floresca
Member since Sep-13-13
364 posts
Feb-22-17, 05:49 PM (EST)
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14. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #10
 
   >>**for those of you playing at home, this is a greater than 1-to-1
>>ratio of guns to clips. The second SKS belonged to one of Dad's
>>buddies, who had mistaken the clip that came with his gun for
>>something unnecessary and discarded it.

>... (facepalm)

To be completely fair, he might've thought it was just a lump of hardened cosmoline- or at least ours seemed like the packing procedure was "drop gun in crate, fill with cosmoline until covered".

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."


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Gryphonadmin
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Feb-22-17, 09:45 PM (EST)
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18. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #14
 
   >To be completely fair, he might've thought it was just a lump of
>hardened cosmoline- or at least ours seemed like the packing procedure
>was "drop gun in crate, fill with cosmoline until covered".

Well, that's because in a lot of Eastern Bloc government arsenals, that literally was the packing procedure. :)

--G.
-><-
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Gryphonadmin
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Feb-24-17, 02:35 PM (EST)
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21. "2EDST: Shotgun Adventure"
In response to message #8
 
   LAST EDITED ON Feb-24-17 AT 02:36 PM (EST)
 
By a strange coincidence, I went on a trip up north with my father to visit his father in the old folks' jail* he lives in nowadays, and in the course of the trip I learned about a Bubba Adventure my father had with a .410 shotgun. Hence:

Double Elder Days Story Time: Shotgun Adventure

Northern Maine, circa 1965. My father, age around 13, and a number of his friends were out in the backcountry, at a set of sporting camps my grandparents used to have up there, intending on a spot of bird hunting. On the morning of the first proper day of the expedition, young pre-Dad had retired to the outhouse for some preparatory activity. While sitting there tending to business, he was glancing idly around, as one does, and happened to look up at the two-by-four running along the top of the wall above the door.

Where, gazing back at him contemplatively with its eight eyes, was the biggest damn wood spider he'd ever seen in his life.

What would you do in a situation like that? I'll tell you what my father did: He grabbed his shotgun, which was leaning against the wall waiting for him to finish up operations, and engaged the enemy at point-blank range.

Yeah, that's right. My 13-year-old bubba of a one-day-to-be father took a loaded shotgun into the shitter with him, and when he saw a large spider in there, he picked up said gun and shot at it. Inside the building.

Eight years later, this man would be trusted to father a child by a woman who, if I'm being completely objective here, really ought to have known better.

In fairness to young Pete, he didn't just shoot at the spider, he hit it. Squarely. No trace of it was ever seen again. Presumably its mortal remains had been first pulverized, and then ejected through the large hole Dad had just blown in the wall of the outhouse.

Meanwhile, Dad was still sitting on the can, contemplating his future and wondering, in an abstract kind of way, whether that future would involve ever hearing anything again. Eventually, as he regarded this prospect, he did begin to regain his hearing, and when the input level reached the point where he could make sense of the outside world again, he heard his friends outside the outhouse, furtively arguing about who was going to have to open the door. He hadn't heard them come running up and yelling inquiries, so they—logically enough—concluded that he'd gone in there and (either deliberately or through incompetence) assassinated himself.

I don't think I had ever heard that story before, somehow. I tell you what, though. Between that and the various pre-adulthood exploits of his I had heard about before (which mostly involved crashing cars and having things not go according to plan on motorcycles), I'm sort of vaguely amazed I exist at all.

--G.
* OK, it's actually one of those not-quite-a-nursing-home senior housing things, but it's very minimum-security-prison-like. I quite hate it and I don't think Gramp's all that pleased either. But that's another matter.
-><-
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Pasha
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Feb-24-17, 05:47 PM (EST)
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22. "RE: 2EDST: Shotgun Adventure"
In response to message #21
 
  
>Yeah, that's right. My 13-year-old bubba of a one-day-to-be father
>took a loaded shotgun into the shitter with him, and when he saw a
>large spider in there, he picked up said gun and shot at it. Inside
>the building.

This kind of thing right here? This is why I think you should get paid more to write.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


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Terminus Est
Member since Nov-5-04
482 posts
Feb-22-17, 03:33 AM (EST)
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11. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Feb-22-17 AT 04:01 AM (EST)
 
As it happens, I own a variant of the Shotgun, Universal that is perhaps even simpler. A New England Firearms 'Pardner' 12 gauge, 32" barrel, 3" chamber. It has a hammer, a barrel release button behind the hammer, a trigger, and... that's it. So far as I'm aware it doesn't even do the half-cocked thing.

An interesting thing to note is that in spite of the half inch thick butt pad? It will completely blacken your shoulder if you happen to be firing, say, 3" nitro-mag rounds. Which was certainly not the load my brothers swapped out for my first experience with mine, when I was supposed to be firing standard squirrel shot, no, whatever might give you that impression?

And if you thing that's bad? My younger brother has a nearly identical one. Except it's four inches shorter, and consequently lighter.

EDIT: ...well, I WAS going to include a link to a pic of the gun in question, but for some reason I can't get the link forum code to work.


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Gryphonadmin
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Feb-22-17, 09:59 PM (EST)
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19. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #11
 
   >An interesting thing to note is that in spite of the half inch thick
>butt pad? It will completely blacken your shoulder if you happen to
>be firing, say, 3" nitro-mag rounds. Which was certainly not the load
>my brothers swapped out for my first experience with mine, when I was
>supposed to be firing standard squirrel shot, no, whatever might give
>you that impression?

There's supposedly a Proper Technique one can apply to the use of shoulder arms that guarantees no bruised shoulder, ever, no matter what you're shooting!

Yeah, I haven't figured it out either.

>EDIT: ...well, I WAS going to include a link to a pic of the gun in
>question, but for some reason I can't get the link forum code to work.

DCF doesn't much like linking images. It can be tricked into it (by adding a spurious CGI call to the end of the link, such as "?x"), but by default it wants so badly to inline them that seeing an image filename extension in a link: tag gets it all flustered.

--G.
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thorr_kan
Member since May-11-11
60 posts
Feb-22-17, 12:24 PM (EST)
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13. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   I have an older cousin to this: a break-action, single shot 20-gauge. Too old and lose to be safe to shoot, unfortunately.

Dad has is a bird and rabbit hunter, shoots some trap and skeet, and does some reloading. He's got a small collection of shotguns for various purposes, but he's an end-user, not a collector. But his hands-down, best beloved, mostest favoritest shotgun is the break action side-by-side 16-gauge he got as a teen from his uncle.

Dad loves it enough it's been refurbed, repaired, and refinished many times. I can see why; besides the sentimental value, it's perfect for the small game hunting we do. It's heavy enough to absorb the recoil, light enough to lug over hill and over dale, and provides enough firepower to take any game we're legal for.


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zwol
Member since Feb-24-12
242 posts
Feb-22-17, 06:17 PM (EST)
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15. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   >The 9478 has a single-action trigger mechanism with an exposed hammer.
>To open and close it safely, the hammer should be in the half-cock position.

If I understand correctly, to reload this gun after firing, you must half-cock it, open it, manually remove the spent shell case and put in a new one, close it, and then cock it fully. How tiresome does that get, either when target shooting or actually out hunting? I don't imagine one ever needs a high rate of fire out of a gun like this, but it still seems like a lot of semi-fiddly things to do with your hands in between shots.


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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
934 posts
Feb-22-17, 06:46 PM (EST)
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16. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #15
 
   >If I understand correctly, to reload this gun after firing, you must
>half-cock it,

Well, as described, no? You don't have to half-cock it to open...you just REALLY need to have it on half-cock when CLOSING, because otherwise you get an unexpected and VERY much unwanted loud BANG. Though that is noted as a potential malfunction of the gun.

> open it, manually remove the spent shell case

Or, as noted, just turn the gun over, something you can easily do one-handed while your other hand goes digging in pockets or holders for another shell.


>and put in
>a new one, close it, and then cock it fully. How tiresome does that
>get, either when target shooting or actually out hunting?

Can't speak for anyone else, but in my case? Not very. There aren't hordes of cacodemons bearing down at you when you're out with one of these. It's quite relaxing, at least to me, to do something slowly, methodically, and RIGHT.


...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!


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Gryphonadmin
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Feb-22-17, 10:07 PM (EST)
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20. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #15
 
   >>The 9478 has a single-action trigger mechanism with an exposed hammer.
>>To open and close it safely, the hammer should be in the half-cock position.
>
>If I understand correctly, to reload this gun after firing, you must
>half-cock it, open it, manually remove the spent shell case and put in
>a new one, close it, and then cock it fully. How tiresome does that
>get, either when target shooting or actually out hunting?

For target shooting, not really at all. For hunting, I don't know, I've never done it. Anyway, rapid fire is not really a thing with this kind of gun, and if you're taking your time anyway, there being a few steps in the process doesn't really make a difference. If it works right, anyway. I once spent some time with a bolt-action rifle that had a habit of tearing off the cartridge case heads instead of extracting cleanly, and that was the most annoying thing in the world. When everything's working properly, though, I tend to find the process kind of meditative.

It's worth keeping in mind, too, how jaw-droppingly swift the process of reloading, even of a non-repeating firearm like this, or a rolling-block Remington, or the like, is in comparison to what came before them. Any cartridge firearm* is, by nature, going to be so much faster and less labor-intensive to reload than its muzzle-loading ancestors that, in any non-tactical situation, finding the process onerous feels a bit like ingratitude. :)

--G.
* well, OK, except an 1895 Nagant
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BobSchroeck
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Feb-22-17, 09:09 PM (EST)
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17. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   >Yup. Say hello, then, to the Taurus Judge, or, I guess, technically
>the Taurus The Judge: a five-shot revolver with a barrel significantly
>shorter than its own cylinder, or an exercise in designing a handgun
>that looks like the result of one of those "iPhone panoramic camera"
>failures where you get a 20-foot-long, 18-legged catipede.

>Spotted it in a display case while looking
>to see if the shop had something I was actually looking for
>(they didn't), said, "What the hell is that? It looks
>preposterous, I must have it," and left with a small artillery piece.)

That is... bizarre. And bizarrely appealing. I don't even do guns, and I find myself wanting one of those for no good reason...

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.


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mdg1
Member since Aug-25-04
1201 posts
Feb-25-17, 08:54 AM (EST)
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23. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
  
>Yup. Say hello, then, to the Taurus Judge, or, I guess, technically
>the Taurus The Judge: a five-shot revolver with a barrel significantly
>shorter than its own cylinder, or an exercise in designing a handgun
>that looks like the result of one of those "iPhone panoramic camera"
>failures where you get a 20-foot-long, 18-legged catipede.
>

Makes more sense than "Lawgiver Mk. 0" ;)

Mario


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Pasha
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Feb-27-17, 05:04 PM (EST)
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24. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   >This week in Gun of the Week: a gun I couldn't have made myself, but I
>know at least one person who could've.
>

Out of curiosity, what about is it that you couldn't make?

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


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Gryphonadmin
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Feb-27-17, 05:15 PM (EST)
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25. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #24
 
   >>This week in Gun of the Week: a gun I couldn't have made myself, but I
>>know at least one person who could've.
>>
>
>Out of curiosity, what about is it that you couldn't make?

Well, if I had detailed drawings and process sheets for them, and access to a machine shop like the one I used to work in, I could probably blunder through most of the bits, but I suspect the lockwork would be beyond my fine motor skills. (There's also the case hardening on the receiver, no idea how to do that.)

At any rate, I don't think I'd be too sanguine about actually firing a shotgun I'd made myself. It's a little like that episode of Top Gear where they assemble a Caterham 7 kit, and Clarkson notes at the end of the ep that they ruined the resale value by putting a "built by Top Gear" plaque in it. "I mean, would you drive a car I'd built?" :)

(Also one of the reasons I've never gotten around to doing one of those "build your own AK" things, although that could be a bangin' GotW miniseries.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Pasha
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Feb-27-17, 05:45 PM (EST)
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26. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #25
 
   LAST EDITED ON Feb-27-17 AT 11:01 PM (EST)
 
>>>This week in Gun of the Week: a gun I couldn't have made myself, but I
>>>know at least one person who could've.
>>>
>>
>>Out of curiosity, what about is it that you couldn't make?

>(Also one of the reasons I've never gotten around to doing one of
>those "build your own AK" things, although that could be a bangin'
>GotW miniseries.)

This is exactly the same reason that I haven't pulled the trigger on one of those 80% AR-15 kits, as it were.

--
-Pasha (Happy, Gryph?)
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."


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Gryphonadmin
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Feb-27-17, 05:55 PM (EST)
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27. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #26
 
   >This is exactly the same reason that I haven't pulled the trigger on
>one of those 80% AR-15 kits.
>
>--
>-Pasha (Pun very, very intended)

You're supposed to add ", as it were." :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
934 posts
Feb-28-17, 06:06 PM (EST)
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30. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #25
 
   >(Also one of the reasons I've never gotten around to doing one of
>that could be a bangin' GotW miniseries.)

Literally.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


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Gryphonadmin
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Feb-28-17, 06:09 PM (EST)
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31. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #30
 
   >>(Also one of the reasons I've never gotten around to doing one of
>>that could be a bangin' GotW miniseries.)
>
>Literally.

Or possibly not literally, depending on how my AK-building skills end up panning out.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
934 posts
Mar-06-17, 11:08 AM (EST)
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39. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #25
 
   >(There's also the case
>hardening on the receiver, no idea how to do that.)

That, specifically? Isn't difficult. Grab an oxy-acetylene torch, heat it, dunk it in water. Done. (yes, there is a bit more to it, but not all that much). That's what you tend to see on old guns, really, that 'flamey' pattern? Is just that. Heat up, dunk in water. Or, if you're short on carbon, heat, dunk in oil, leave for a bit(the longer, the more carbon you get), then heat again and dunk in water.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


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CdrMike
Member since Feb-20-05
726 posts
Feb-28-17, 04:19 PM (EST)
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28. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   >Taurus is a Brazilian company that started out with technical
>assistance (for which read some old machine tools and instructions on
>how to set them up) from Smith & Wesson and Beretta, which is why, for
>the first 20 or so years of the company's life, it produced
>exclusively revolvers that looked uncannily like Smith & Wessons and
>automatic pistols that looked uncannily like Beretta Model 92s.

It's funny you should mention this, because when I looked at the Judge I immediately thought it looked familiar. And I was right, meet the Thunder 5:


The reason why I said it was funny is because the Thunder 5 is basically everything the Judge is and more, while predating it by over a decade. One of the "more" items is evident just by visual examination, namely an ambidextrous manual hammer block safety located right behind the cylinder. But the T5's party trick is that there are optional (read: sold separately) sleeve inserts that allowed it to fire several of the more popular self-defense rounds of the day: 9x19mm Parabellum, 38/357, and .38 Special.

Now, if you're saying "Where have I seen that gun before?," then you might have seen it years ago watching one of those semi-forgettable cult classics of the late-90s, Three Kings. Unfortunately, the screen time given to the T5 came too late, as the makers (MIL) had folded by then and taken their one product with them. You can still find these guns floating around, but most are being snapped up by collectors and becoming increasingly harder to service as MIL's implosion took the only maker of spare parts with it.

It's one of the sadly recurring stories of the firearms world: Small-time company comes up with unique firearm, goes bust trying to find a market for it, then a bigger company comes along years later with a similar gun and manages to hit it big.

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

"You know, the world could always use more heroes." - Tracer, Overwatch


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Gryphonadmin
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20131 posts
Feb-28-17, 04:40 PM (EST)
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29. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #28
 
   >Now, if you're saying "Where have I seen that gun before?," then you
>might have seen it years ago watching one of those semi-forgettable
>cult classics of the late-90s, Three Kings.

OK, so, here's the thing about Three Kings. Many years ago, a number of us went to a convention—I think it was KatsuCon in DC—and, as cash-poor twentysomethings are wont to do, we all packed into one hotel room—Zoner, me, Truss, and Rat, if memory serves. Friday night, after the long trip down there and rounding up some dinner, we were all looking forward to getting some much-needed sleep.

Or, well, three of us were. The fourth decided his preferred course of action at 2 o'clock on Saturday morning in a strange city was to buy Three Kings on the SpectraVision.

So, yeah, I've seen Three Kings, and I'm not likely to forget it. And the only reason Zoner is still alive is because the rest of us were too tired to actually bother murdering him.

(I did miss or forget the guest appearance by the Weird Revolver, though. I can't really claim to have watched most of the film; it was just unavoidably within my sphere of experience, if you follow the distinction...)

>It's one of the sadly recurring stories of the firearms world:
>Small-time company comes up with unique firearm, goes bust trying to
>find a market for it, then a bigger company comes along years later
>with a similar gun and manages to hit it big.

Indeed. Or, occasionally, the same gun, if the IP changes hands in the bankruptcy.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Gryphonadmin
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20131 posts
Apr-04-17, 08:38 PM (EST)
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41. "Feeding Your Taurus The Judge"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Apr-04-17 AT 08:40 PM (EDT)
 

>
>Yup. Say hello, then, to the Taurus Judge, or, I guess, technically
>the Taurus The Judge

Random recent discovery: they make a speedloader for the The Judge.

It only works with .45 Colt rounds; you can put .410 shotshells in it, but they're too long to load properly. The loader doesn't grip them tightly enough to keep them parallel, so they flop around and can't all be lined up on the cylinder at once—which is rather the point of speedloaders. (There are also some pretty tight clearances with that fat rubber grip on the pistol, which even longer cartridges don't help with.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Gryphonadmin
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20131 posts
Mar-05-20, 06:16 PM (EST)
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43. "RE: Gun of the Week: Shotgun, Universal"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Mar-05-20 AT 06:17 PM (EST)
 
>I'm not entirely sure why my grandfather would've bought one, to tell
>you the truth. He didn't hunt birds—by the 1980s he no longer
>hunted much of anything, having gotten bored with it—and he had
>plenty of other more suitable guns for defending the homestead if he
>needed to do so. (...) My guess would be
>he just kind of wanted one, and one of the abiding virtues of the
>Savage-Stevens product line, then as now, was that they were cheap.

Update: I ran across this photo in a box of old family pictures a little while ago. The focus is not of the best, but you should get the idea.

It's my grandfather, with that very shotgun, a long time ago. Notice that it still has a factory tag on it, down by his right hand. When my father saw this photo, he identified it as having been taken at Christmastime in 1978 or '79, which solves the mystery of why Gramp bought a single-barrel shotgun: he didn't, it was given to him as a Christmas present.

--G.
Also, I just realized that in this photo, Gramp is only maybe two or three years older than I am now. Ye gods.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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