“Bear” is our family pet. On Sundays, after going to the shooting range, we give her a “Frosty Paws” frozen dog treat – it’s like ice cream, but without stuff that might be bad for dogs. When she finishes her treat, she often strikes this relaxed, happy pose.
A little over a year ago, we got a pair of Smith & Wesson 908 9mm pistols: a 908s for Damsel and a black 908 for me. I took a photo at that time similar to this one that Damsel took today after cleaning the guns.
The interesting thing about this picture (to me) is that the apparently smaller of the two is a .45 caliber compact Para Ordinance Warthog with a 10-round magazine capacity, while the 908 is a 9mm, 8-round magazine capacity pistol. When Para claims this is the “most compact 1911,” I tend to believe them.
A wadcutter is a bullet specially designed for shooting paper targets, usually at close range and with significantly subsonic velocities under 800 ft/s (244 m/s) such as are found in handgun and airgun competitions. A wadcutter has a flat or nearly flat front, which acts to cut a very clean hole through the target, making it easier to score and ideally reducing errors in scoring to the favor of the shooter. Because the flat nosed bullet is not well suited for feeding out of a firearm’s magazine, wadcutters are normally used in revolvers or specially designed semi-automatic pistols. Wadcutters are also sometimes known as the Devil’s Suppository.
Text and title stolen from WikiPedia. Click the image for big.
Again.
On Tuesday evening, we finally were able to take delivery of our new .45 ACP pistols. Damsel got her new Para Warthog and I got my Glock 30. We went into the range and put about fifty rounds through each of our new guns.
The Glock 30 performed about like my Glock 26, but with a more robust kick and a louder report. It was a little difficult for me to get the last couple of rounds in the magazines, but I managed to do so without using the loader tool. The magazine springs will eventually break in and loading should be easier in the future.
My accuracy using this pistol will need some improvement, but first shots generally were in the black with a couple outside the outer ring and maybe one on the red bull. I’ll keep trying.
Damsel’s Warthog magazines were a little easier to load, but there is no indicator to let you know how many rounds are inside. It seemed best to count out ten rounds and then load them into the magazine.
When shooting, the pistol performed pretty well, but a couple of times the action jammed. When that happened, we removed the magazine and cleared the action back which kicked out the stuck round. At this point, we don’t know why it jammed and the rest of the time it performed flawlessly.
In my mind, the acquisition of the .45s was to have been our last. Over the past year and a half, we purchased firearms that we wanted for entertainment and for home protection. I thought these two pistols were the last on the list. But then Damsel saw this . . .
For us, Halloween is for the little kids. These are a few of the many colorful, cute and entertaining costumes we saw last night. We had a caveman, a little blue-eyed red critter(?), Spidey, Tigger and a sleepy teddy bear. Cute!
My new Glock 30 .45ACP Pistol sits on a spooky table tapestry that shows up around this time each year. You can click on the image for a close-up view.
Once again, the leaves are falling and the pumpkins in the patch are ripe. It’s the time that all restless spirits set forth in their annual ritual of calling on the living – and demanding treats. Since the fifth century BC, Halloween has been celebrated as a cross-quarter day, a day halfway between an equinox (equal day / equal night) and a solstice (minimum day / maximum night in the northern hemisphere). With our modern calendar, however, the real cross-quarter day will occur next week. Visit Astronomy Picture of the Day for a spooky Ghost Nebula and more about Halloween.
We’re looking forward to the visitations of all the little goblins and spirits at our door tonight. We plan on posting some spooky pictures here tomorrow.
The lighting was just right last Sunday when I took this shot of one of the Cherie Hibiscus blossoms. Evidently, this bush likes the warm weather we had last week and is still delivering these nice flowers daily. This one was especially pretty and had no visible flaws or blemishes.
Found on the Internet from an old Sunset Magazine article:
A warm tropical paradise with gentle ocean breezes is what hibiscus (H. rosasinensis) brings to mind. The state flower of Hawaii, this evergreen hibiscus has long been a symbol of the beauty and lushness of the tropics. If you live in a mild-winter area of the West, you can bring a bit of paradise to your garden by planting hibiscus.