Название: The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery
Автор: Massad Ayoob
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Спорт, фитнес
isbn: 9781440218255
isbn:
“New wave” combat handguns deliver accuracy users of some of the classics could only dream about. Here are three five-shot groups at 25 yards with different .45 ACP rounds from SIG P220 stainless double-action.
With the early P226 and P220, the springs on the side-mounted magazine release tended to be too light, resulting in an occasional unintended drop of a magazine. This was fixed some time ago. One runs across the occasional cracked frame, but SIG is good about fixing them, and the guns are so well designed they keep running even if the frame is cracked. The most annoying problem is a tendency for the grip screws to work loose.
SIGs tend to be very accurate pistols. I’ve seen more than one P220 group five shots inside an inch at 25 yards with Federal Match 185-grain .45 JHP, and the P226 will go around 1-1/2 inches with Federal 9BP or Winchester’s OSM (Olin Super Match) 147-grain subsonic. The side-mounted decocking lever is easy to manipulate, and the SIG-Sauer design is more southpaw-friendly than a lot of shooters realize. Your experience, if you buy a SIG, is unlikely to be sour.
Smith & Wesson
The company that introduced the American-made “double-action automatic” took a while to get it right. There were a lot of feed failures and breakages in early Model 39, 39-2, and 59 pistols. Moreover, those guns were not drop-safe unless the thumb safety was engaged. Illinois State Police made them work by having their Ordnance Unit throat the feed ramp areas of all 1,700 or so pistols in inventory.
The second generation was drop-safe, and designed to feed hollow-points. These were characterized by three-digit model numbers without hyphens: the 9mm Model 459, for example, the Model 469 compact 9mm that the company called the “Mini-Gun,” and the first of the long-awaited S&W .45 autos, the Model 645.
Ergonomics, however, still weren’t great. The trigger pull suffered by comparison to the SIG, and the grips felt boxy and square. The introduction in 1988 of the third-generation guns with four-digit model numbers (5906, 4506, etc.) cured those problems. The only remaining source of irritation on S&W’s “conventional style” defense autos is the occasional badly placed sharp edge.
From CHP to the Alaska Highway Patrol, S&W’s 12-shot .40 caliber Model 4006 is the choice. S&W .40s are also worn by the troopers of Iowa, Michigan and Mississippi, while Idaho has the double-action only S&W .45 and Kentucky State Police issue the 10mm S&W Model 1076. A number of S&W autos are found in the holsters of FBI agents and Chicago and New York coppers, and S&W 9mm and .45 pistols are the only approved brand in addition to the Beretta for LAPD officers. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police use the S&W 9mm auto exclusively, in DAO models.
In concealed carry, two S&W autos stand out above all others. One is the accurate, super-compact, utterly reliable Model 3913 9mm. Endorsed by every leading female firearms instructor from Lyn Bates to Gila Hayes to Paxton Quigley, the 3913 works well in small hands and its safety features, like those of its big brother, make it ideal for those at risk of disarming attempts. Not only does the standard 3913 have a slide-mounted manual safety, but like the Browning Hi-Power and its own traditional siblings, it has a magazine-disconnector safety. This means that if someone is getting the gun away from you, you can press the release button and drop the magazine; this will render the cartridge in the chamber “unshootable” unless pressure was consistently applied to the trigger from before the magazine was dropped. This feature has saved a number of police officers in struggles over service pistols. It makes sense to security-minded private citizens, too.
The double-action-only version of SIG P226 (note absence of de-cocking lever) is in wide use by Chicago PD, NYPD, and numerous other agencies.
The other standout, a genuine “best buy” in the compact .45 auto class, is the Model 457. Compact and light in weight, this 8-shot .45 auto has controllable recoil, delivers every shot into about 2.5 inches at 25 yards, and is a stone bargain because it has S&W’s economy-grade flat gray finish. The action is as smooth as that of its pricier big brothers. A whole run of these were made in DAO for the Chicago cops, and they were snapped up immediately. Cops know bargains.
Taurus
In the last two decades of the 20th Century, the Brazilian gunmaker Forjas Taurus doggedly rose from an also-ran maker of cheap guns to establish a well-earned reputation in the upper tiers of reliability and quality. Much of the credit belongs to their PT series of auto pistols. Originally these were simply licensed copies of the early model Beretta 9mm. Over the years, Taurus brought in some design features of their own, notably a frame-mounted combination safety catch and de-cocking lever similar to the one that would later be employed on the HK USP.
John Hall, right, then head of the Firearms Training Unit of FBI, shows the author the Bureau’s new S&W Model 1076 10mm in Hall’s office at the FBI Academy, Quantico. The year is 1990. Photo courtesy Federal Bureau of Investigation.
We see a lot of Taurus pistols at Lethal Force Institute. The PT-92 through PT-100 models in 9mm and .40 S&W come in, shoot several hundred rounds, and leave without a malfunction or a breakage. Accuracy is comparable to the Beretta, but cost is hundreds of dollars less. Finish may not be quite so nice, nor double-action pull quite so smooth, but these guns are definitely good values. Some find the frame-mounted safety of the Taurus easier and faster to use than the slide mounted lever of the modern Beretta, particularly shooters who come to the double-action gun after long experience with Colt/Browning pattern single-action autos whose thumb safeties are mounted at the same point on the frame.
Taurus has also introduced a high-tech polymer series called the Millennium, aimed at the concealed carry market. This gun has not yet established the excellent and enviable reputation for reliability that the Taurus PT series has earned.
There are many other double-action autos on the market. These listed above, however, constitute the great majority of what American armed citizens carry, and almost the totality of what American police carry. These were the guns that shaped the double-action auto cornerstone of the new combat handgun paradigm.
Super-Light Revolvers
Combat handguns with lightweight aluminum frames have been with us for more than half a century. Smith & Wesson’s Airweights immediately followed the introduction, circa 1950, of the Colt Cobra and lightweight Commander. The aluminum frame became standard a few years later on S&W’s 9mm. The 1970s would see Beretta and SIG follow S&W’s lead with aluminum-framed duty autos, and of course, Glock popularized the polymer frame in the 1980s.
Great leaps were made in the latter 1990s, however, as Smith & Wesson introduced Titanium and then, at the turn of the century, Scandium to create a generation of light and strong revolvers unseen СКАЧАТЬ