December 2018 – The Backyardsman

December 17, 2018December 17, 2018

Glock – best pistol for the Backyardsman?

One of my friends is a gunsmith. One of my shooting buddies is in law enforcement. A couple other friends shoot IDPA. Thanks to my friends, I get to handle and shoot a lot of guns I wouldn’t be able to if I had to buy them all myself. If I could have only one handgun it would be a Glock. I can make a pretty good case that a Glock is the best pistol for the Backyardsman.

Glock vs. whatever…

Like I said, I get to try lots of different guns thanks to my friends. I also own a couple of handguns myself. I’m not close to having tried every handgun on the market, but I have tried a few. Charter Arms Bulldog. Colt 1911 (Series 70, Series 80, Commander) and clones. CZ-75 and clones. Kel-Tec P32. Ruger GP-100, Super Blackhawk (30 Carbine and 44 magnum), LCP, and LC9s Pro. Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special, K22, M57 (41 Magnum), 4006, and M&P Shield. Taurus G2C. Uberti Colt Walker replica. And of course, Glocks.

A Glock isn’t the best looking (1911 has that) or most accurate handgun (my S&W Victory holds that title) I’ve shot. Some people don’t like the grip angle (I don’t have a problem with it). It’s not as “safe” as some other guns IF you don’t practice good trigger discipline. Still, I think there are some good reasons why a Glock is the best pistol for the Backyardsman.

Popularity

First of all, Glocks are very popular. Being popular doesn’t make one thing better than another but when it comes to guns, popularity has its advantages. Being popular means that other companies like to get in on the action. I have a Charter Arms Bulldog. I love it, but it’s not a very popular gun. That might be why it’s almost impossible to find a holster for it. I’m guessing that holster makers only make holsters if they think they can sell a lot of them.

Compare that to Glock. Just about every holster maker on the planet makes holsters for Glocks. And not just holsters – sights, magazines, upgraded triggers, spare parts – you name it. Glock’s popularity also means that lots of gunsmiths know how to work on them, so in the unlikely event your Glock breaks it will be easy to find someone to fix it for you. Unless you decide to fix it yourself…

Simplicity

The Glock pistol is a really simple design with less than 40 parts (at least up to Gen 3). You only need one tool – the “Glock Tool” – to do just about anything that needs to be done. It’s also really easy to work on. I can detail strip a Glock faster than I can get the slide and barrel off a 1911. When I decided to upgrade the trigger on my IDPA Glock, I did it myself. It onle took about 5 minutes and no special tools. Try that with a 1911…

In fact, Glocks are so easy to work on that I put one together from a pile of parts. I just finished a Gen 3 Glock 35 based on a G17 RTF2 stripped frame. The entire “build” took about an hour. In fact I spent more time finding and ordering all the parts then I did putting them together. If you don’t want a factory frame, you can even build a Glock-like pistol with an 80% frame from Polymer80. It’s a little more involved than using a factory frame, but not by much.

Shootability

Lots of people criticize Glocks grip angle, I guess because it’s different than the 1911. Personally I don’t have a problem with it – for me, the Glock points more naturally than most handguns I’ve tried. The polymer frame and low bore axis makes the Glock really easy to shoot well, at least for me. I also like the rear outline/front dot sight picture – works better for my old eyes than 3 dot sights.

Glock Perfection

Yep, a Glock is the perfect handgun. OK, maybe it’s not. It would be nice if they would put steel sights on their guns instead of the polymer junk they use. The Gen 3 doesn’t hold up all that well with high pressure rounds like 40 Smith and Wesson. They fixed that with Gen 4, but the Gen 4 triggers aren’t as smooth as the Gen 3. The slide finish they went to sometime during Gen 3 isn’t as durable as the Tennifer finish they used before that. The Gen 5 slides have a finish that’s supposedly even better than the original Tennifer, but it’s to dark and too d@mn shiny IMO.

So maybe Glocks aren’t perfect. But with their simplicity, ease of repair, parts availability, and ergonomics, they make a great pistol for the Backyardsman. In fact, I think a Glock just could be the best pistol for the Backyardsman. What do you think?

Peace out,
porcupine

What did you do to prep this week?

This weeks preps – December 16, 2018

My prepping group met this past week. We talked about what to carry in your vehicle during winter months and alternative methods of heating if there’s a utility outage. One way that looked interesting is using two clay pots and a candle to make a small heater. I’ve got the stuff now so I hope to experiment with that this week. Next month we’re going to talk about home power generation so I’m also looking into solar panels.

Yesterday I took John Mosby’s advice and ground my own wheat to bake homemade bread. My mom has a wheat grinder so I borrowed that instead of buying one. The bread turned out OK considering it was my first try. The flavor was great, but the dough had too much water (or not enough flour) so the finished loaf was too doughy. To console myself I made a batch of homemade beef jerky.

I spent a lot of time cleaning and organizing my garage and the family room. My kid wants a punching bag for Christmas and I don’t have room, hence the cleanup. I also bought a floor standing drill press for some projects I have coming up, and a small band saw so I can start making handgun grips and knife scales.

Besides that, I’ve been looking pretty seriously into moving to a different state next year. What did you do to prep this week?

Peace out,
porcupine

December 10, 2018December 10, 2018

Finally decided to test the new WP editor

I never really understood why organizations take a perfectly good product and eff it up. For example the old Word Press editor. It worked fine. If I wanted to write “visually” I’d just pick the “Visual” tab in the editor. If I preferred typing in straight text and manually adjusting markup I’d select the “Text” tab. If I wanted to add a picture, it was really easy. All I had to do was put the cursor where I wanted the picture, click the “Add Media” button, and select my image. A very simple, 2 step process.

The new editor SUCKS…

Now it’s different. First I have to type my text into a paragraph “block.” If I decided later to add an image, I have to add an image “block.” Since “blocks” are added at the bottom of the edit window, I then have to position my newly added image “block” above the paragraph I want it inserted into, then tell the image block where to position itself in the paragraph and “OH GEE WHIZ it’s like MAGIC how the text of the paragraph magically wraps itself around the image. Except it’s not magic, it sucks. Why? Because what used to take only 2 steps now takes 4 – and the marketing geniuses at WP tout this as a “feature.” Yeah, right… So what about adding headings between paragraphs?

Yeah, what about adding a heading? In the old editor, it was really easy. Just put my cursor where I wanted the heading, type it, highlight it, click a drop down, and pick the format I wanted for that text (header and style or paragraph) and BAM!!! My new header positioned just where I want it. No fuss, no hassle. In the new editor though, same problem as adding pictures. I have to add my header block at the bottom of the post, then manually re-position it to where I want it. STUPID!!! So what about line breaks?

Line breaks…

Is it even possible to add a simple line break in the new editor? With the old editor, inserting a line break was easy – just make sure you’re in Text mode (by clicking the “Text” tab in the editor), put the cursor where you want the line break, hit “Enter” on your keyboard, and VIOLA!!! The editor would auto-magically put in a line break for you. It worked the same way in Visual mode, except you’d get a new paragraph instead of a line break. The new editor is different. You can still edit in raw text (now they call it “Code” instead of “Text”), but typing a return (or enter) character gets you nothing – you have to manually enter the </br> tag where you want it. I guess it’s OK if you know HTML (even though it’s an extra step you DIDN’T HAVE TO DO in the old editor), but if you don’t know HTML you’re screwed. Well, at least if you want a line break and not a new paragraph.

Other gripes, esp. Text (Code) editing…

In the old editor, switching between text and visual editing was easy – just click on the Visual or Text tab at the top of the editing field. In the new editor, you have to select the “more tools and options” icon in the top right, then pick what editing mode you want. Just another thing that used to be an easy, intuitive ONE STEP process that now requires two steps.

My other gripe about the new Text… sorry, “Code” editing mode is you lose EVERYTHING that makes adding elements easy. In the old editor – even in text mode – you could highlight text and format it by clicking a button above the editing field. In the new editor – NO. You have to be in block~~-head~~ mode if you want to have the text formatting tools available. If it was easier to switch between modes (like it was in the old editor) it wouldn’t be as big a deal. As it stands, it’s just another DOWN-grade being touted as an upgrade.

Peace out (with manually added line break),
porcupine

Month: December 2018