Here, I will provide reviews of any and all firearms that I can get my hands on, as well as those that I cannot (but will eventually I can assure you!) We will also discuss methodology and philosophy regarding firearms as an integral part of American culture and history.
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Many people, including myself, like to think about getting that perfect concealed carry handgun. We go over and over the manufacturers, models, calibers, sizes, features, colors, et cetera. But one thing that can be overlooked, in some cases, is the holster. I had just such an issue. When I first got my Bersa (which is the firearm that the above holster is for), I was satisfied to carry it in the Quick Duck pocket inside my Carhartt. With the temperature slowly climbing back up to the proper level for the season, that Carhartt is going to find its way into storage, but I still need to carry my pistol. That's where a trip to Gander Mountain helped introduce me to a good, affordable holster system.
Enter Uncle Mike's holsters. The one that I have is the Inside-The-Pant Holster size 1 for 3"-4" Barrel Medium Automatics, shown below.
Like A Glove... a pistol glove
The holster is very well made despite its $15.99 price tag at Gander Mountain. It is made of ultra thin laminate which simulates suede leather with a smooth nylon interior to allow for easier drawing. The suede-like exterior helps to hold the holster in place inside the pant. The material also helps prevent perspiration from reaching the firearm and causing corrosion. The polymer belt/waistband hook helps to hold the holster firmly in place.
Everything is stitched tightly in place to ensure comfort while being a very strong holster.
Now you see it...
Now you don't. Do bullets make YOU happy??
As you can see in the above pictures, even with a gut, this gun is concealed under my shirt nicely. The holster can be carried any way you like. I prefer the "appendix" carry, but it does well with "kidney" carry too.
Now you see me...
Now you still see me... This is a job for a button up shirt. lol
You can even comfortably carry the gun in your pocket and, depending on your pockets and your shirts, can conceal it fairly well.
My shirt is pulled up slightly but the only thing you see is the hook when concealed.
Uncle Mike's has several sizes of Inside-The-Pant holsters, up to 5" barrel automatics, to accommodate whatever your carry needs. They also have a full range of other common types including shoulder holsters, kydex and paddle holsters. Additionally, they carry gun cases, slings, and competition bags.
That concludes this bit on the Uncle Mike's Inside-The-Pant holster system. I have carried my Bersa in this little guy for about 3 months and I haven't regretted it. If you want a good holster and don't have much more than pocket money, this is an excellent choice. If you want to take a peek at the rest of the products, visit http://www.unclemikes.com
Until the next time, Remember: Speak up about your rights. If you remain silent, you have no one to blame but yourself when there are those who try to take those rights away! God Bless our America!
Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a particular fan of Glock or even polymer frame pistols. I don't like the balance of weight and the feeling of the plastic. However, I am surprised every once in a while. That was the case with the Springfield XD series. It first happened not long after I bought my Hi Point C9. My good friend (who owns the gun in the picture) and I went shooting with a coworker of ours. Up to this point we only had experience with a Hi Point but the guy brought his Romanian AK and Springfield XD9 to the party. Out at the cold, snowy range in New Castle, IN, my buddy and I got a taste of the XD.
Compared to the Hi Point, which jammed every other round, the XD was a sweet piece. While, I was dead set on obtaining a Beretta 92, my buddy wanted to purchase an XD. The subject of this post is the Springfield XD40 that ended up in my friends hands. Let's do it to it.
The Springfield Armory, Inc. is not the actual designer of this pistol. If you jump across the ocean and next door to Italy, you will land in the country of Croatia. This is the home of the XD, or as it is known at home, the HS2000. Originally designed by the industrial company, I.M. Metal, as the PHP or Prvi Hrvatski Pištolj, translated as First Croatian Pistol. The initial design, despite being a solid one, had many quality control issues due to the Yugoslavian War and manufacturing difficulties. This did not stop Marko Vuković and his team from updating and improving the design, leading to the introduction of the HS95 in 1995 and later the HS2000 in 1999.
The HS2000 was found to be a very reliable sidearm and was thus adopted by the Croatian military and law enforcement, a role it still fills to this day. HS stands for Hrvatski Samokres or Croatian Pistol and the 2000 is, of course, celebrating the new millennium. The pistol found a following in the U.S. thanks to the importing efforts of HSAmerica and Intrac. It didnt last long though, as the U.S. arms company, Sprinfield Armory Inc., bought the rights to the imported pistols and rebranded them the XD series. XD is short for eXtreme Duty.
Initially the pistol was only available in the 9x19 Parabellum round, thus the designation "XD9". Since then, the gun has been designed for 3 calibers and 5 different cartridges with several lengths, colors and features. In this review, I will focus on the XD40 Service Model with the 4" barrel.
The Sprinfield Armory XD40 is a striker fired, short recoil operated, semiautomatic pistol in the mid-range .40 S&W cartridge. Striker fired means that, unlike traditional firearms, it has no actual hammer. The firing system is entirely internal and has a simpler mechanism compared to exposed or even internal hammer systems. Another benefit (or drawback, depending on how you look at it) of the striker fire action is the consistent weight of the trigger pull. With a double/single action, you have a very heavy initial pull and a very light pull every shot afterwards. In a crisis situation, consistency can be beneficial when the change in trigger weight can cause accuracy problems. The XD doesn't have a bad trigger, roughly a 5.5-7.7 pound pull according to factory specifications. I have linked a video from GlockWorld.com of a Glock striker fire action in action below. I apologize as I couldn't find an XD animation but this is as close as it gets.
The XD40 takes a 12 round stainless steel box magazine plus 1 round in the chamber. The gun has good ergonomics. The slide lock is easy to reach from a shooting stanceThere is checkering on the front and back of the grip, as well as the fore-end of the trigger guard for those with large hands. The grip also has contours for your thumb and index fingers as well as a very nice curve on the upper rear portion of the grip which protects your thumb web from slide bite. The slide has serrations on the front and back to satisfy any method of slide actuation. The frame also features an accessory rail to accommodate most underslung lights and lasers. You can even purchase bayonets for this kind of rail. You know, in case you want to go all Wesley Snipes in Blade and gut some vampires like a fish. Before I go off on a nerd tangent, the pistol features the ever popular dovetail, 3 dot sights which provide for good accuracy. It is easy to upgrade these sights to night sights if desired. The finish of the gun is excellent, with HS Produkt (the Croatian company that currently designs and builds the pistols) utilizing the Melonite finish which is a very hard (almost industrial created diamond hard) and very corrosion resistant material. For this reason, the XD series is a great weapon for carrying as the perspiration doesn't affect it. The gun comes in several colors, including black melonite, OD green, FDE and bi-tones as well with a nickel plated slide.
As for the safety features, despite not having manual safeties, the XD utilizes several active safeties to prevent accidental discharge. The first safety measures are the loaded chamber and striker pin cocked safety. In both cases, you can verify both visually and by feel. The top picture, below, shows the striker cocked indicator. It is the silver nub protruding out of the hole in the back of the slide. You can compare it with the photo of the sights above where the gun is not cocked. You can also see, in the bottom photo below, the chamber loaded indicator with the tab tilted up. Don't worry, I was using a snap cap for this demonstration.
Two more of the external safeties that you might notice are the grip and trigger safeties. The grip safety is very 1911A1-esque and the trigger safety is similar to what you see on a Glock. Both of these levers must be depressed to allow the weapon to be fired. These make the gun somewhat safer to carry with a loaded chamber as numerous pressure points must be pressed along with the trigger pulled to accidentally discharge the firearm. You can see both of these levers in the below images.
The last of the safeties is internal with the striker fire action. There is a firing pin block that prevents the gun from discharging accidentally when dropped or impacted. The block is removed only when the trigger is pulled.
Now, personally, I prefer a positive, manual safety. But all of this should definitely make you feel better about utilizing this firearm as a concealable weapon, particularly the XD(S) series. In fact, I almost passed up the Bersa Thunder 380 for a XD(S) in 45 ACP but I didn't have $500 and my preference lies in double/single actions with manual safeties.
Anyhow, moving along, before another tangent, I wanted to bring up another cool, and little known, feature of the XD series. This gun was designed, with this feature, to be a good scuffle gun or jam-it-in-someone's-gut gun. If you look at the front of the guide rod in the picture below, you will see the large, flat head that protrudes. This is a "muzzle protector" and it is meant to protect the slide from being unlocked when pressed against someone or something. The design of the gun does not allow the round to be fired unless full battery is achieved. Full battery means that the breech and slide are locked together to prevent any backfire and allow the gun to function properly. When the protector is pressed against, say, the back of a man becoming violent, it helps to keep the slide in place and allow for proper function. A note about the image: the barrel is farther back from the muzzle protector than in actuality due to the slide being locked. When the slide is in place, the protector still protrudes, just not as far.
The last thing we will go over is how to break the gun down for maintenance and cleaning. Before doing so, make sure that the gun is without a magazine and UNLOADED to prevent any accidental discharges. Taking the gun down is a very simple process, similar to a Sig Sauer P220 in some aspects. With the gun in the position shown above, with the slide locked back, find the takedown lever. It will be the lever just above and forward of the trigger. Rotate it counterclockwise to the 12 o'clock position. You will see the gap in the slide bevel that allows it to go through. I will show you how it should look in the pictures below.
Next, with the takedown lever in the up position, unlock the slide and let it move forward. The slide will not come off of the frame until the trigger is pulled to "decock" the firearm. Once you've pulled the trigger, the slide should come free of the frame.
From this position, you can separate the captive recoil spring from the slide. Simply press the guide rod forward, toward the muzzle, and lift it away from the slide. The barrel should also come free from the slide at this point. The pistol is now completely field stripped and ready to be cleaned after a long day at the range. If you want to see what that looks like, check it out below. You can see the striker mechanism in the bottom most picture.
The barrel in the top left picture. You can see the large locking lug on the bottom of the chamber, as well as the feed ramp. The recoil spring is a two spring, captive system that helps reduce muzzle climb and felt recoil, particularly towards the back end of the slide movement.
I'd say that this is near the end of the road for this edition of Blued Barrel. I have to say that the XD has appealed to my interests which is difficult for most polymer frame pistols. In addition to the XD40 Service model that I reviewed today, there are numerous other models to choose from. There is also the line of XD(S) pistols, a deep concealment "Slim" pistol in 9mm and 45. ACP, that I mentioned before as well as the XD(M) series, M is short for Match, built for competition shooting. In addition to these product lines, Springfield Armory runs a very popular Custom Shop that allows operators to outfit their firearms with all sorts of extra upgrades and features.
The XD is a very popular line of firearms for a reason. It is rugged, accurate and reliable; giving the revered Glock a run for its money. If you want an alternate choice for your polymer carry or duty pistol, I strongly suggest the Springfield XD40. You will not regret it!
Until next time, Remember: Don't go for the biggest, baddest gun in the grizzliest caliber available for self defense. When the chips are down, you want control just as much as power. Just another reason the humble 9mm is one of the most popular defense rounds, NOT the .500 S&W Magnum. (Even if it is fun as hell to shoot :) ) God Bless our America!
Being half Italian, I guess I am a sucker for Italian designs just as much as good ol' 'Merika. Bersa is no exception. Some of you who are in the know are probably saying: "Bersa is made in Argentina, dumbass". True that may be, Bersa was started up, as an offshoot of the old Ballester Molina Argentinian arms company, by three Italian fellows: Benso Bonadimani, Savino Caselli and Ercole Montini (who was also employed by Beretta at one point). Since the mid-1950's, Bersa has dipped their toe in several different firearm designs, including rifles and shotguns, but the Thunder series is by far one of their most well known and successful series' of firearms. Today's episode is centered around the Bersa Thunder .380.
A small frame pistol with plenty of attitude and features, the Thunder 380 is my first "conceal carry" firearm that I have ever owned. Up until this point, I have carried my Beretta 92FS in a shoulder rig that was everything BUT concealed unless I was wearing a heavy coat during this crazy winter. After all, it is a full size pistol meant to be worn outside the waistband so it did alright. But, the weather is looking to warm up so I did some research and decided to pick up this little guy.
Of course, this isn't my first experience with a .380 Auto caliber pistol; A good friend of mine carries a Ruger LCP on her. We went to the range and I tried it out. I quickly decided that, despite being an EXCELLENT conceal carry piece, the micro pistol wasn't for me. The grip was just too short and left my pinky to hang out and look like an Englishman sipping on a cup of explosive tea. As a result, shooting for my medium sized hands was awkward at best.
A couple years later, I decided to shop for a small pistol in .380 that had the right features, a full size grip being one of them. I ended up at the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife Show with a Bersa 380 in hand and loving the grip and how it felt in my palm. Here is a breakdown of the gun that I ended up shelling out $300 for.
Essentially, The Thunder 380 takes design ques from the Beretta Cheetah and Walther PPK at about half the price of the Walther. It is a double/single action pistol so you have that strong first trigger pull and a lighter trigger each shot following. It is blowback operated and takes a 7 round magazine with an 8th round in the chamber. I have already said how much I love the grip, and that is because of two things. The magazine has a pinky extension which gives your hand a full grip on the firearm and thus full control. There is also a bit of a beaver tail on the upper rear end of the grip which allows your hand to ride high without worrying about painful slide bite or hammer bite in the your thumb web. The grip has serrations on the front and back and checkering on the side panels to help with maintaining a firm grip. The trigger guard has serrations as well for those with larger hands. As far as the controls are concerned, the magazine release and slide release are in slightly awkward spots for my hands but not too too bad. The safety lever is perfectly placed on the slide and easily accessible which is ideal for a gun that I often conceal.
The gun has easy to pick up 3 dot, dove tailed sights, which are an improvement over most small frame and concealed carry pistols. They are low profile so they don't easily catch on clothing when drawing from a concealed position. The rear sight is adjustable for windage using a small flat head screwdriver.
The great thing about the Thunder series, for the safety conscious buyer, is the amount of safety features. There are a few of the usual suspect. The Thunder 380 features an inertial firing pin which prevents the gun from going off if dropped on its rear. It also uses the long, heavy double action trigger pull which makes the gun safer to carry with the slide safety disengaged.
The Thunder 380 has a safety selector with a Beretta-esque decocker. If you see red the gun is ready to fire. If the red dot is covered, the gun is safe. Typically, the gun would be carried with the safety on and a round in the chamber, ready to go. Also, if the hammer is cocked and ready to fire, you can rotate the safety lever down to decock the hammer safely without discharging.
A second safety feature of the gun is the key lock safety. In the top picture, you can see the key and the keyhole just above the trigger. To lock the gun up, simply insert and turn the key clockwise to lock the action and make the gun safe. In this mode, everything is locked up. You cannot pull the trigger or move the slide. I personally don't utilize this feature, but this is good if you are worried about children or family members getting ahold of the gun. If you need this as a nightstand gun, I would avoid this feature and use the third safety feature, pictured below.
The third safety feature is the magazine disconnect which prevents firing of the weapon without a magazine. In the picture, you can see a notch in the left side of the magazine well. This is essentially the key hole and on the magazine, just above the pinky extension, is a nob that presses into the key hole when the magazine is locked into the gun. Using this method allows you to leave a round in the chamber safely and it cannot be fired until a magazine is inserted. This is good if you want to have a pistol readily available and don't have a GunVault or another quick-open safe. You can leave the gun out and hide the magazine safely so that children cannot get hurt or, in the event of a break in, it wont be used against you. The only downside to that is, if you need it quick, fast and in a hurry, you need to practice how to find your gun and magazine in the dark in order to be effective in defending yourself. If you don't, you could find yourself needing your gun but are stuck searching in a drawer for the magazine.
Stripping the gun for cleaning is simple.
As you can see in the above photo, there is a lever on the right side of the pistol. In order to strip the slide, you must rotate it to the bottom of the gun. While you have the lever rotated, it is a good idea to hold the gun with your hand cupping the trigger and front of the grip with your thumb holding the lever down.
You can see my hand positioning here. With the gun firmly in hand and the lever down, pull the slide all the way back and up to release the slide from the frame.
Let the slide slowly move forward until it clears the barrel and recoil spring. Be careful with the spring as you don't want to let it get bent or straightened which could cause malfunctions while firing. The spring will slide free from the barrel.
You can reach some of the inner mechanisms by using a flathead screwdriver to remove the polymer grip panels. Here, you can see how the trigger, magazine release and magazine disconnect work.
You can also see that the barrel, unlike the those such as the Beretta 92 series or Browning Hi Powers, is fixed to the frame. This is reported to improve accuracy by reducing the movement of the barrel during firing. The barrel is also very close to the frame and allows the cartridge to easily slide into the chamber, which increases reliability of feeding.
That about does it for the Bersa Thunder 380. Many people dislike the .380 cartridge because it is seen as vastly inferior to other, larger rounds. That may be true, but if the nutritionally depleted excrement hits the rapidly moving oscillator, a .380 pistol is better than just your fists. The Thunder 380 is a fantastic little pistol that is perfect, in my opinion, to carry in self defense. It is small, with a great grip that you don't often see with smaller guns, and very reliable. It also makes a great small gun to train ladies, children, and others who have minimal experience with handguns. For $300 out the door, not much can beat it.
Until next time, Remember to Practice, Practice, Practice. Just having a gun isn't enough. If SHTF, and you are struggling to unholster and utilize your weapon, you could find yourself not regretting your lack of training very long. Protect yourself! God Bless our America!
Join a Gun Rights Advocacy group. I am a member of several, including NAGR. (The gun was safety checked before letting my finger touch the trigger.)
Good Day All. I was sitting around trying to think of a good topic to discuss this week and I was thinking about the places that I carry and why I purchased my first firearm. I really try to carry at all times, since, those that seek to do harm never rest. Some people carry every once in a while and some carry at all times, I am sitting right in the middle and only because my place of work has a metal detector when going in. But, before I go off on a tangent, I will share a few stories of where having a gun available, even when not used, has made me and those I live with safer, or at least be reassured.
When I first picked up my Hi Point C9 handgun for the cheap $125 new in box price, it was on the coattails of a few break ins at the apartment complex I lived in near Noblesville. A friend of the friends that I was staying with was at home when a man came to the door asking weird questions. Asking what they were doing, if they were going to be home later, etc. Of course, being good trusting people that they were, they thought nothing of it. When they came home later that evening, the entire place had been ransacked. The thieves stole a tv, video games and consoles, a cell phone, stereo, and various other items, including a handgun. Needless to say, they were devastated. And for the rest of the tenants, including us in our apartment, there was a gun in the hands of some bad men. The idea drove me to pick up my first gun.
Like many first time gun buyers, I knew next to nothing about guns; not the difference between calibers, not how a blow-back operated pistol worked, not even the difference between a pistol and a revolver. I grabbed a box of 9mm at the guidance of a friend of mine and I felt nervous, but safer being at home. And for good reason. A few weeks after buying the gun, I was cleaning the apartment (two young men and a poor young woman lived there, poor girl) and I had the front door open so I could take the trash out. I was down the hall and heard a noise; thinking it was my roommates, I went to say "hi" but I stood looking at two young men, who I didnt know, who started to step into the apartment. I yelled "Hey!" and they turned and ran. Meanwhile, I went and grabbed my gun out of its hiding place and pocketed it. (as well as you can pocket a Hi Point pistol) For the next several minutes I continued to collect the trash and take it outside, with one eye on the door at all times.
Since that day, I have been more diligent about not leaving my home open to any prying eyes. I also practice as often as I can for the case of home invasions. I can have a gun in hand anywhere in the house within a few seconds. Which is good considering what happened not long after we moved into the house will currently live in.
My buddy bought a house off of 38th street in Indianapolis, not the greatest of neighborhoods but he was from the neighborhood nearby and used to the types of people that come and go. My girlfriend also moved in with me so we now had a young lady in the house to look after. So, 3 months after we moved in, my buddy got a call from the security company saying that the motion detectors at the house had gone off. Of course we all went home to see what had happened. It appeared that someone had gotten the back kitchen window open and came into the house through it (which is amazing considering the window is 7 feet off the ground). It also appeared that when they set off the alarm, they ran off, the only thing bothered was a bunch of empty liquor bottles on the counter near the window. When the police arrived, they had a K9 search the house to ensure that noone was there before we went in. Thankfully, the only thing that the K9 found was, apparently, a VERY tasty pillow from my room.
Of course, this helped us to rethink how we did things at the house. Everything is locked and checked before going to sleep and we even turn on the alarm when we go to bed. My roommate and I also have gotten creative with how we hide/ready our guns for defense. We have both practiced doing a sweep of the house from the front door and our bedrooms in the case of a break-in. Since the first break-in, we have had other attempts, unruly neighbors who started fights with people in the neighborhood, random people walking around behind the house at night. Basically, not the nicest place to live. The crazy neighbors have moved out (after the property owner evicted all 30 of them from the duplex), so that is a plus but we still have random, suspicious folks around.
My latest story involves my girlfriend: On Christmas Eve 2012, she was working the fine jewelry counter when a young man came in asking about a ring for his fiancee. For an hour she showed him around the rings, all kinds of shapes, sizes... and prices. She ended up showing him a $16,000 diamond ring. He looked at it for a while then turned tail and ran with the ring in hand. Of course, my girlfriend was understandably freaked out, even more so when, upon identification by police, she was told that he was wanted for armed robbery. We thanked our lucky stars that the man just ran instead of sticking around and bringing out a gun. Because of that episode, I have started to show my girlfriend how to use a handgun, despite her protests. (She is from California so that should explain a few things)
I don't say any of this to whine or cry about the state of things in the neighborhood. But I say it to show, exactly, why I own a firearm. Those that know me know that I am no street fighter. I would do my best to fight someone trying to harm my home and friends/girlfriend, but a 9mm Beretta pointed at someone's face just entertains a whole new level of seriousness that fists don't. As the quote goes, "God made Men, Sam Colt made 'em equal". It doesn't matter who your adversary is, a firearm puts you on equal terms with someone who intends to do you and your family harm. A bullet is as deadly to a body builder, as it is to a gangster, as it is to a computer nerd.
That is why, in a nutshell, I own and carry a gun. I haven't had to use my gun, thankfully, I haven't even had to pull it out of its holster. That doesn't remove the chance that I may have to use it in the future. I hope that time never comes, but should it come, I will be as ready and prepared as I can be. I will not be a victim if I can help it.
This wraps up this episode of Blued Barrel. If any of you read this and have a story for why you carry a gun, please share! Until next time, Don't hide your guns in between your clothes in the closet/dresser, it is one of the first places that thieves check during a break in. God Bless our America!
