Ken Nelson

As some readers will know, I became concerned about the reliability of my 1911 Smith & Wesson 1911PD. Not so much that particular gun as the 1911 design itself, which is fussy and must be religiously maintained.  I’d experienced jams in recent matches with it out past 80 rounds or so without cleaning.   Now, as a carry gun that is fine I suppose. I don’t expect concealed carry situations to go beyond 2 or 3 rounds. BUT I like to compete with what I carry because it helps me get better with it. AND the jams to provide a nagging “will it work when I need it” concern. 

So I’ll be selling the 1911PD to someone more savvy with 1911’s.  And a shopping I went.

After review of guides and reviews, I narrowed the field down to the Sig P226, Glock 22, and the HK USP, all in .40. 

I liked all three guns, but the Sig and the HK felt heavy and bulky and I didn’t like their initial double action trigger.  The Sig was $750, the HK $680 and the Glock $450.

So I went with the Glock.  And later today I shot it for the first time.

It shot… like a Glock.  Compared to my race Glock and my other customized guns the trigger was long. It shot dead on, or maybe slightly left, but not enough I wanted to drift the sights over.  Without a bench to hold it super steady I couldn’t be sure, but I could hold it in a 4 inch circle freestyle at 15 to 20 yards.

And a pleasant surprise awaited me… it fits my SuperTuck holster I got for my 1911PD. So no new accessories are needed. I’m typing now with it on, and it is noticeably lighter than the Smith.  And… I don’t have to carry an extra magazine and I still get 16 rounds of .40.

All I have to do now is put some night sights on it, and skate tape for the grip and it will serve me fine for many years…. with few to no jams and very little cleaning required.

Just the ticket for a mechanically challenged fellow like me.

So the carry plan going forward is… in shorts and untucked shirt carry the Glock 22. In Sunday clothes the LCP.

The student becomes the master…

I knew it had to happen sometime. I just didn’t quite expect it so soon.  My son smacked me down. Sat on me. Owned me. In pistol shooting… that is.

In the past, he had beat me once ,by a very small percentage and only when I’d had severe jamming of my pistol.

But yesterday, he started with an early 1st stage smack down, and then turned on the heat. He finished 4th overall (of 36 shooters) , with 116 seconds, I in the middle of the pack with 157 seconds. His score was within 1.5 seconds of 2nd place.   I would have had top ten if I had not had a lot of jams on the 5th and 6th stages, but even if the gun had run, I wasn’t in his league on that day.

Which pleases me (-;

This match didn’t have a lot of movement. I can still move better than him, but in stages stressing shooting and gun handling – he has an edge…. for now.

Oh… and he’s just 12.

Doesn’t go boom                     Does go boom.

I recall reading an article about Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who owned a fancy 12 cylinder Jaguar. The article mentioned a truism that went something like if you own 5 Jaguars you will also own a mechanic.  They were, and are, fine cars but required constant love to keep running.

That is how I feel about 1911 pistols now. I love them. They feel right in my hand. And they hit where I aim.  But, for me, they don’t go boom all the time. Instead they don’t go to battery, or the magazine falls out, or the rounds feed oddly, or… shall I keep listing the maladies?

Today, in our squad of 10 or so shooters we had four 1911 shooters. One of us did not finish on the 5th of 6 stages because for some reason when he pulled the trigger, the hammer didn’t drop.   My 1911 dropped a magazine on the 1st stage, this is after I did my customary tug on it to make sure it was seated. I figured, well, maybe I didn’t check right.  But on the 5th stage, it happened again – twice.  And on the 6th stage my gun wasn’t going to battery and I had to do emergency tap bang drills on the final 10 shots.

I know people that CLAIM to keep their 1911’s running. But, frankly, I think they are also fisherman and are used to telling tall tales.

My 1911, a Smith and Wesson 1911PD, is a fine gun. I will sell it confidently that is is a quality 1911. And it will make somebody, that can keep it happy, a fine gun.

As to me… I’ll go back to Glocks. They aren’t quite the pinnacle of a perfectly running 1911, but they go boom every time – even if you haven’t cleaned them in a 1000 rounds.  And they can shoot better than me, which really is the test.

I may  hunt for a more powerful carry gun that is thinner than a Glock but as simple and reliable. But til then I’ll carry my LCP comfortably knowing that it too goes BOOM.

Afterthought…. don’t email me with tips on keeping the 1911 happy. I know them all. I run Wilson Combat magazines. I clean it religiously. No, I didn’t hit the mag release button.  Yes, the recoil spring is the correct weight and new. No I wasn’t limp wristing it….  (-:  

1911’s are fine guns for those mechanically inclined to keep them running. And I may keep this one for carry, I’m sure it will run for 20 rounds. But in competition, where I’m doing 150+ rounds rapidly and without cleaning it, it just isn’t working for me.

My son arranged for a tour of our local bullet making company.  His write up of the tour can be found here:

http://briankevinnelson.com/a-tour-to-berrys-mfg-80

Yesterday Dad and I went on a tour of the Berry’s Manufacturing factory. Berry’s, a business local to us in St. George, Utah, makes some of the finest bullets for competition and hunting. But Berry’s offers much more than just bullets, as Dad and I found out…

I suggested one minor edit, but other than that one sentence change, it is all him. As usual, feedback welcome.

My son has a goal of becoming an A class USPSA shooter before he turns 13.   I think he will be able to do it because he shoots fast and straight and the classifiers are usually just shooting, not movement.

But matches have lots of movement, so he is working on that too.

Monday, Wed, Friday, and Sunday he does SPARQ training using a rope ladder and cones. Drills like this:

and

According to the Military Channel it is the CheyTac 200:

The 408 CheyTac is an impressive round. Barrett also has its .460 Barrett with similar ballistic wonders.

I’m growing more interested in long range shooting.  We will see what the year brings. Doing it right requires more than just the rifle. You also have to build up loads to fit the rifle, the weather, and also be able to estimate conditions right. With that much to learn, it may become next years project.

A lot of folks might be shocked that the IRS buys guns:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to purchase sixty Remington Model 870 Police RAMAC #24587 12 gauge pump-action shotguns for the Criminal Investigation Division.

Having had numerous high school friends go to work for the IRS, and also being friends with a former IRS CID investigator, I’m fully aware they have armed agents. Here in Southern Utah they need them for tax raids on the polygamists that view welfare benefits as AWESOME but taxes as for gentiles.

But, when you see something this specific:

The Remington parkerized shotguns, with fourteen inch barrel, modified choke, Wilson Combat Ghost Ring rear sight and XS4 Contour Bead front sight, Knoxx Reduced Recoil Adjustable Stock, and Speedfeed ribbed black forend, are designated as the only shotguns authorized for IRS duty based on compatibility with IRS existing shotgun inventory, certified armorer and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts.

You know the RFQ is rigged for a specific vendor and you get  a little taste in the little ways government bureaucracy corruption taints, ever so slightly, everything it touches.

The “slight” taint, multiplied by the sheer size (2.15 million employees) eventually stinks pretty bad.

I don’t mind IRS armed agents getting the gun they want. But they ought to just admit “this is what we want” and not rig a procurement with bogus language and rationalizations.

Email from RM.  It is an add for GSG4Rifle.com

The boy is a blogging fool… here he reports on his Steel Challenge match from the weekend:

http://briankevinnelson.com/steel-challenge-1242010-50

Summary: Pretty good in spite of a seriously jamming gun.

The Nelson’s have a new family member today… a Glock 35 kitted up to be a USPSA Limited Class race gun…

You will recall that I have a custom STI 2011 that many consider to be the best Limited race gun available.   That pistol is now Brian’s.  We’d made an agreement that when he got better than me, he’d get the best pistol.   Right now we are about even, but he is moving up fast, so I went ahead and handed it over.

About this Glock…  It pretty much checks the box on improvements over a standard Glock 35:

• Mag well to speed up reloads
• Dawson fiber-optic front sight
• Dawson adjustable rear site
• extended magazine release button
• squared trigger guard to prevent slippage
• notched back of trigger guard to permit higher grip
• race gritty grip
• Zev trigger and connector. A smooth and crisp 2 lb trigger
• titanium striker, mainly smoothes out the trigger pull and reset
• lighter IMSI recoil spring
• T.H.E. tungsten guide rod which puts weight up front to minimize recoil
• grip backstrap plug – again for weight

The only things left to do, perhaps, would be a KKM or Bar-sto, match barrel. And perhaps more slide lightning (it already has a ported slide).

So I’ll compete with this or a Springfield XDM configured similarly going forward.  Which ever I like better, I’ll use.  The other will either be sold or used as  a backup gun.

Me & Brian doing what we do most weekends
Jan 2010
Hurricane, UT

Home schooled, practical pistol and rifle shooting, blogging, 12 year old

My 12 year old son, Brian, has a blog now. And he has learned to post to it. We reposted a couple things he wrote for my site, and then he wrote a fresh piece on the match he shot today.

http://www.briankevinnelson.com

Bookmark it today!

Competitors can teach the Army about cool and clean running M16s
Shown: The JP Rifles JP-15 AR.

The NY Times covers the Army’s attempts to build an M4 (shorter variant of the M16) that won’t jam:

Watch the video closely. After several magazines, the barrel smolders. Then it becomes red hot. After 1 minute and 20 seconds the barrel begins to droop between magazines — like a piece of warm licorice. Then comes the catastrophic ending, at 1 minute and 51 seconds and after the 535th round, when the barrel ruptures.

They Army has decided to make the barrel heavier to help avoid the problem:

The barrel gets hotter and hotter, and the heat spreads throughout the weapon. The shooter wears a heat-resistant glove even to pull the trigger. Soon the barrel smolders and glows, but it does not droop and does not rupture. At 2:22 the hand guard assembly catches fire. It burns for about two and a half minutes. But the rifle keeps firing, magazine after magazine, until it stops firing on automatic at 4 minutes and 47 seconds, after 911 rounds.

In my experience fouling, not shooting too much/too fast, causes most M16 jams.  Although I have seen M16 barrels begin to get soft from heat, this was before the introduction of the 3-shot burst automatics the soldiers of today use.

The M16 runs very dirty because the gas used to blast  the bolt back to cycle a new round comes directly back into the receiver depositing all sorts of nasties that collect quickly there.  Shoot a 100 rounds through an M16, or AR-15, then put your finger in there and it comes back black.

Competitive shooters don’t risk their lives due to jams, but they do risk losing, which motivates them to modify the guns to never jam.  Most serious competitors in multi-gun, or 3-gun, shooting (pistol, shotgun, carbine) have moved to a gas-piston system of cycling the action. In this approach the gas doesn’t go all the way back to the bolt, instead it operates a piston that moves the bolt. The action runs clean and cool. You can go a 1000 or more rounds and not have to clean the action (you should clean the barrel to extend its life however).

These systems also typically minimize the bolt slap against the back of the receiver.  Most AR-15’s come back too hard, making recoil much worse than need be.

The Army, IMHO, would be better served moving to a clean running, lower recoil, gas-piston variant of the M16/AR-15.   The guns would jam a lot less.  And valuable soldier time wouldn’t be wasted cleaning the weapons.

I’d note that soldiers given a choice, usually in Special Ops or other specialties, generally prefer the gas-piston systems. Reliability plus less maintenance and lower recoil… you can have it all!

Michelle Cornelson, owner of the Coeur D’Alene, ID “Sunshine Expresso” got a nice Christmas gift from her husband – a Kel Tec 9mm pistol. We’ve seen that piece before at KenNelson.com….

When an armed robber tried to hold her up she took advantage of a distraction and:

Cornelson quickly whipped out her 9 mm Kel-Tec firearm — a Christmas present from her husband — scaring the teen off before calling police.

I don’t know the details of why she didn’t shoot him. Using a gun to scare rather than shoot can be trouble, especially when the opponent is armed.  If the issue was lack of comfort with the new pistol, then competitive shooting in IDPA or USPSA might have helped her get an accurate shot or two off and Idaho’s future would have been more secure from this teenager’s likely future crimes.  There are IDPA and USPSA clubs in Spokane, a reasonable drive west of Coeur D’Alene (which by the way is about as hard to spell as Albuquerque) .

Anyway, well done Mrs Cornelson, let’s hope that this is the last time that Kel-Tec has to be whipped out (pun intended) (-:

I teach photography. Not as a profession, but because I like to. I teach to church groups, schools and even occasionally groups of my employees, or photographers I’m mentoring.

My first rule… SAFETY. For photographer and for subject.

This photo shoot, although the shots are cool, violates this rule from the beginning:

Now, I do think this could be done without incident, but… basically the photographer traded time and money for safety. Time… the shots could have been done, methodically, with a remote. It would take longer and be less spontaneous, but it could be done.  Money… the shoot could have been done with an NTSC / computer link, much like shooting in studio, just with longer cables and/or RF gear.

I’m going to be shooting our USPSA matches like this going forward. I’ll use a remote on my Canon 1D Mark II or Canon 50D, or both.

I’m not going to condemn the photographer who did this shoot – he knew the risks and took steps to mitigate them. I will urge all, however, to NOT TRY THIS. (-;