Tag: General Hardware

Say Hello to the Dumb Gun

Here’s a bad idea in motion. It’s a $10,000 .22 “smart” gun. The principal is simple, the gun only fires when it’s close enough to a watch that the owner would need to wear.

Of course one would inquire about the usefulness of a gun that fails to function because the battery in a watch died. Furthermore the designers put a nice bright LED on the guns that is green when the gun is activated and red when it’s not. Of course in the middle of the night when you don’t want to give away your position you’re rather fucked. Speaking of the night what happens if somebody breaks into your home and you have to act fast? Grab the watch, throw it on, and fire?

This gun looks like failure incarnate.

The iPad

My friend Chris summed up my thoughts on the new iPad as well:

Its perfect, I was just thinking the other day: Wouldn’t it be great if I had an iPhone that didn’t fit in my pocket and couldn’t make phone calls? Or a netbook with no keyboard and 50% glass.

Yeah I’m not impressed. I’ll also add wouldn’t it be great to have an e-reader with an LCD screen so I can replicate the experience of reading books on my laptop. I really don’t see where Apple is going with this thing.

MacBook Air USB Ethernet Adapter Works on All Macs

Just a heads up to a question I had for a while but never found a definitive answer to. Apple has a USB Ethernet adapter for the MacBook Air which lacks any Ethernet interface. They advertise it as only working with the MacBook Air and if you ask an Apple Store employee they will tell you the adapter doesn’t work with any other Apple computer.

This made little sense to me since I assumed the driver for their adapter is included in their operating system. Anyways I purchased one because I need access to two separate networks at work. Anyways I’m happy to report the adapter works perfectly with my MacBook Pro laptop.

The adapter works very well. Being it plugs into a USB port (The theoretical maximum data rate of which is 480 Mbps) the adapter only runs at 10/100, so no gigabit for you. The data rate is good enough for the purposes I have at work but I wouldn’t want it for home use due to speed issues. Every application on the Mac, included my beloved and needed Wireshark, see the adapter as a standard Ethernet port and interact with it accordingly. That was my primary and honestly only requirement.

On the downside there are now status lights on the adapter. This is very annoying as I often use the status lights to determine if a port has gone dead or if data is flowing. Either way it works and that’s what I cared about most.

Sonny Crocket Will Be Proud

I’m sure many people reading this can figured out what I’m going to be talking about in this post by the title. The Firearm Blog has some information about the Vltor Fortis pistol.

First it’s going to be released in limited numbers. Only 700 of the Vice model and 500 of the Spec Ops model. Second the gun will use EAA Witness magazines, not actual Bren Ten magazines as they are more rare than unicorns. Finally, as I’ve mentioned before, the Fortis pistol will be officially called the Bren Ten as Vltor purchased the rights to the name.

Sadly the price will range between $1,099 and $1,299. That’s a lot of money to own a reproduction of an ’80’s legend (And by legend I’m talking about the magazines because as far as anybody is concerned they don’t exist).

Smith and Wesson Enter .380 Market

Well it seems Smith and Wesson are following the crowd and have introduced a .380 pocket pistol of their own. Much like all the rest it seems to be a double-action only pocket pistol. Unlike all the others Smith and Wesson decided to toss on a manual safety.

They also introduced a new pocket revolved. Nothing too fancy.

Both guns are produced under the moniker Bodyguard. Likewise both have integrated laser pointers.

Shot Show Extravaganza

Thankfully The Firearm Blog is covering this year’s SHOT show because I sure am not. I’m going to pull a Leo Laporte here and meta cover the SHOT show. In other words I’m going to be posting about stuff I think is cool or interesting.

First up Bushmaster has officially launched their ACR platform. There isn’t much to say about it really besides the price tag hovers between $2,685 and $3,061. Ouch! For that price the rifle better make breakfast for me in the morning.

The next interesting thing I seen is Beretta’s evolved 92A1 and 96A1. These two are 9mm and .40 S&W evolutions of the well known 92SF and 96. What new things are brought to the table? Higher magazine capacity, some ergonomics, and of course RAILS! That’s right this isn’t your Daddy’s Beretta this gun can mount the combination laser, light, and bayonet!

Anyways more posts as I find them and pretend I’m some kind of journalist.

ABC News “Discovers” “Secret Bible Code” on Military Equipment

Here is an interesting e-mail I just received. Apparently ABC News just “discovered” super secret Jesus Bible code on some of our military equipment. From the article:

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

The Michigan company, as you can guess, is Trijicon. Trijicon has been putting Bible verse references on their equipment from day one as far as I know. But of course according ABC News this is some great pushing of Christianity. Oh but this is classic:

“This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country,” said Weinstein. “It’s literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we’re fighting. We’re emboldening an enemy.”

I call bullshit.

This entire thing is stupid. First of all this isn’t some mysterious “Bible code” it’s printed in plain sight. It’s always been there and Trijicon has never been shy about it. Second I doubt any enemy combatants can see that tiny print while they’re being shot at and hence aren’t going to know they were shot by a “Jesus gun.” Those of us big into guns have known about this for a long time meanwhile ABC News reports this as if they discovered it and it’s some kind of grand conspiracy.

Don’t like the fact that Bible versus are printed on your optic equipment? Here are two options. First file it off. Second buy something else. I understand military personnel generally don’t have a choice in the equipment they are issued but for us private citizens it’s a right we enjoy, voting with our dollar. If you’re in the military and it offends you so dearly that your equipment has a Bible verse printed on it realize you probably have other equipment with similar “secret” markings.

This isn’t a separation of church and state issue. This is an issue of a private company making a product. It’s not military officials making soldiers pray to a Christian god, or forcing soldiers to carry a copy of the Catholic Bible. It’s some markings on a gun put there by the manufacturer because the founder believes in Christianity. Quite a few companies do things like this.

Meet the Glock 21SF and CMMG’s .22 AR-15 Conversion Kit

So the gun show this weekend ended up being very fruitful. My friend obtained a CMMG .22 conversion kit for his AR-15 for the cost of a song and dance. That thing is wicked fun. All the conversion kit does is replace the bolt and magazine, installation takes roughly 30 seconds. Once installed you get the have fun with cheap .22LR rounds.

We tested it out by shooting steel plates. The kit operated very well once he found the ammunition it liked. It’s strange firing an AR where there is literally no recoil. Anyways some of the plates were rather stubborn and wouldn’t go down with a single strike, but they went down after a good ten strikes in rapid succession. Seriously I can not emphasis how much fun the kit was.

For myself I ended up getting a Glock 21SF at the show. The one I got had the standard 3rd generation frame, ambidextrous magazine release, and the standard Glock rail. The dealer also had one with a picatinny rail but finding holsters for that particular model can be a nightmare. Anyways I obtained the gun because I want to start IPSC this year. I didn’t really want to use my 30SF due to the fact it’s just not a great competition gun (Small and heavy on the recoil). On the other hand I wanted to practice with my carry gun. The 21SF allows the best of both worlds in that it’s a larger and therefore heavier gun while having the exact same controls as my carry gun.

We took it to the show as well and I ran 100 rounds through it. As expected it worked like a dream. It shoots very nice and I really like how a full sized gun feels in the hands. Have an ambidextrous magazine release is also nice in that it makes shooting it left handed easier. I know a lot of people simply say to hit the magazine release with your middle or trigger finger but being my fingers are quite long I have to completely change my grip (Most to push the gun forward) so I can move my finger back far enough to hit the release. This is uncomfortable and time consuming so I prefer to hit the release with my thumb.

As with my 30SF there is one thing I don’t like. Slamming in a fully loaded magazine when the slide is forward is difficult (Not nearly as bad as the 30SF though). I expected this and since I’ll be doing limited 10 I won’t have to concern myself with having a full 13 rounds in the magazine.

Otherwise the gun seems pretty great. I’m going to reserve final judgement until I get more trigger time with it but so far I love it. As a bonus it fits perfectly into my 30SF carry holster. That saves some time having to find a whole new holster for it.

.50 BMG Goes Boom

We’ve all ready stories about Glock, XD, AR-15, and various other gun kabooms. But rarely have I seen one involving a .50 BMG rifle. Well here one is. The rifle doesn’t look to banged up but by God the aftermath looked pretty bad.

It sounds like the shooter used a hammer to close his bolt. Pro tip, if the bolt isn’t closing properly that’s the rifle’s way of telling you there is something wrong.

Glock New York 1 Trigger Spring

After a rant I thought I’d post some actual content that is worth reading. I purchase and installed a Glock New York 1 (Known most commonly as the NY1) trigger spring into my 30SF.

For those who aren’t familiar with Glock pistols or their various factory trigger the NY1 spring replaces the standard s-shaped trigger spring in Glock pistols. It does two things. First is makes the trigger pull more consistent. But more importantly, in my case, it increases the trigger pull weight. A stock Glock trigger pull is about 5.5 pounds depending on where you measure it. Installing the NY1 spring bumps that weight to roughly 8 pounds.

Increasing the trigger pull weight may seem strange, most people try to lighten their trigger. For those of you who read my previous post Two Schools of Carry Permit Holders you probably already know why I dropped in the NY1 trigger. For those who didn’t the reason is to avoid a charge of accidental discharge in a self defense situation.

I like taking advice from people who have experience and knowledge greater than mine (In other words almost everybody). I’m reading Combat Handgunnery by Massad Ayoob. In the beginning on the book he talks about various popular guns. In the section about Glock pistols he mentions he has and often carries at Glock 30 with the NY1 trigger spring in it. The justification made sense to me. It increases the weight of the trigger pull to such a point that a lawyer is going to have a hard time claiming you accidentally shot a person.

This is an argument that has been used before when a police officer had to use his gun in self defense. In the case the officer was accused of pulling back the hammer of his revolver making the trigger pull weight almost nothing. The lawyer then continued to argue that the police officer most likely didn’t mean to pull the trigger but accidentally set it off during the excitement.

Well I really don’t want that kind of trouble. Increasing the trigger weight isn’t a problem for me either. My first handgun was a Smith and Wesson 686 .357 magnum. Although it has a hammer I almost always shot it in double action. Likewise my Ruger LCP is double action only. I’m used to heavy triggers and my accuracy (What little I have) isn’t hampered by them. So long as the trigger is consistent I’m pretty much set.

Installation of the trigger also reaffirmed how simple Glock pistols are. I’m not going to write out how to do it because it’s something best put in video form. Luckily Eric Shelton from the Handgun Podcast already made a video about doing exactly this. So here it is:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p52Z75UAKC8]

Anyways with the NY1 trigger spring installed there is a noticeable difference. The trigger is heavier and requires more force. With that said it’s still comfortable to pull back. I think increasing the weight much further wouldn’t gain much benefit as the NY1 trigger spring adds enough weight where I feel a negligent discharge is doing to be unlikely. Furthermore the NY1 trigger spring is built heavier than the factory spring (Which is just a spring) so it will probably last longer. Overall it’s a good, cheap (The part is under $3.00), and easy modification to make.

The trigger also lacks the various pull weight. The factory Glock trigger seems to get heavier as you’re pulling it back (I’m not referring to the slack at the beginning of the pull but when the trigger starts exerting pressure). I know quite a few people put in a NY1 trigger spring with a 3.5 pound connector to gain a more consistent trigger without increasing the weight. I can definitely see why that is done, although I don’t see the gain being worth the cost of the 3.5 pound connector (Which is actually fairly expensive for a Glock trigger part).