No New Decent Guns

The striker concept had already been in use in rifles before pistols, and currently the Borchardt C93 - 1893 - is considered one of the first to use it handguns. Browning made quite a few designs which his brother turned into actual guns, they worked as a highly skilled team in creating new designs. When the low pressure .45 came out the 9mm was a contemporary competitor even then - it is usually a matter of fabrication and economics whether to go low or high pressure in handguns and it would seem to also be based on the sophistication of their corresponding infrastructure ie who can make better alloys for barrels and locking mechanisms.

By WWII it was already recognized the .45ACP was aging and the fleet of 1911's were rapidly becoming obsolete - it didn't make much difference as the handgun isn't a primary weapon in combat. Rifles are - and the only reason the Garand came in .30-06 was developement and fielding time for the .276 Pedersen was on hold with an impending war. By 1949 Army command was already looking to change their weapons and the 1954 Army Pistol trials specified a 4" + barrel, SA/DA, 9mm, and light weight. Colt got Alcoa involved making alloy lowers, Smith jumped in late in the game, and the only two viable models to come out of the competition after it was cancelled were the Combat Commander and Smiths 1Gen M9's. Of the two, the Smith radically changed handguns carried in police holsters and was the dominant handgun of the late 1980s - in 9mm. The interesting part is that it was based in the Walther P38. If someone had taken up the Hipower and cut it down we may have had another Browning - but it didn't happen. No, Army had 2.5 million 1911s and square miles filled with bunkers of .45. Low priority firearms just get "kick the can down the road."

Browning himself made the 1911 obsolete with the Hipower, along with the Walther and a few others, the new pattern pistols aren't so much Browning at all now. And by the time SIG patented the barrel hood/slide lockup, about all we have left is the camming ramp on the barrel. Guns designs since 1980 make up the newer features, and the P320 with FCU along with a new short doublestack arrangement created the P365. That's so incredibly new that over 1 million have sold already. It was forecast as the future of handguns and we are now seeing the entire market gravitate toward that design the same as battle rifles have adopted many of the M16's groundbreaking features. If anything, handguns have once again finally caught up to rifles again. If anything, reticence to change is what is hurting Glocks sales.

Battle rifle cartridges have a different purpose in war vs hunting - there, stopping return fire is the goal, and the more rounds put down range, the sooner it stops. Studies in combat have shown a significant number of soldiers are hit by unaimed fire - a bullet that missed striking a soldier at 125m hits someone moving up at 250m. And low recoil is a well known improver of repeat fire - those .30-06 and 8mm bolt guns weren't especially known for getting rounds down range - but a MG would, and it became the bane of warfare then, not rifles. Put all three of the desired features together - stopping return fire, low recoil, and high capacity with rapid fire, and the M16 has become the dominant battle weapon over the last 45 years. I don't see things improving with the 6.8x51 as a replacement. I see it as a response to move away from massed engagements - much like our Patriots vs Brits in the 1770s'.

Overall our new designs and features are right there under our nose, the issue is - will it sell? Bond bullpup, Chiappa, etc have all brought new designs, the tradition bound American gun buyer is who is balking. Many have concepts of use and technology which aren't based in current methods and fabrication. We don't have a tinkerer's or hot rodders mindset in this generation - until you look at garage built guns based on the M16, and that includes 3D printing. There is plenty of progress in those quarters, if it's searched for.

We can build a P300 series handgun in a lot of cartridges not using a factory grip - in aluminum like the 65 year old Commander - with custom slide and red dot. I see a lot of innovation out there - Im trying to obtain a .375 SOCOM barrel for my latest AR15 build. I expect it has plenty of power for hunting. No, I would not care to dump a mag at the range with it -

The 7.5FK is pretty revolutionary.

You can get rifle grade terminal effects from a large pistol.

A MP7 style subgun chambered in 7.5 with say an 8-9" barrel would be great.

If I had my way, I would love to see a Luago Arms Alien scaled up and chambered in 7.5FK.

Of course, that would only be practical in a full size configuration.

I think the new 30SC round is interesting but nobody has tried to harness the high pressure of that round to drive a higher performance gun.

With that much pressure a compensator would have a tremendous effect. Likewise you could use gas operation like the Sig MPX much more reliably.

Which reminds me. A scaled up 10mm sized MPX chambered in 7.5FK would also be freaking awesome.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Bitter Clinger said:

Right now I'm at the end of the handgun road and I do not forsee going any farther.

• My evolution into preferred handguns stopped with hammer-fired classic Sigs
• My evolution into preferred chambering stopped at .357 Sig
• My evolution into preferred action configuration stopped when I converted my three favorite handguns (P239, P229, P226) to double action only

That's it. Journey fini unless they invent a ray gun.

Click to expand...

Line for "ray gun"

That "no new decent guns" extends all the way to the new .22lr pistols - at least for me. I have been looking for one more and so far just hate every new one I've looked at and dry fired in the stores. I have S7W M&P .22 compact which is a fun very basic range toy, and a very nice Browning Black Label .22lr that I really enjoy a lot. No, I'm not forced to carry just a .22 yet and hope that day will not come. I'd just like one more that suits me. -- BTW I also have/had a Ruger Mark IV Lite but after all the time and money it took to make it work properly I "divorced" it. Hubby is having a lot of fun with it now, but I want nothing more to do with it.

My friends and I are going out of town to go to a couple rental ranges sometime in July. They are looking at 9mm's and I'm going to continue looking at .22's...........not expecting to find one that appeals to me, but willing to keep looking. Others rave about this or that new-ish .22. So far I have not found any of them even close to acceptable for myself. Of course I won't be able to look at or try anything these places don't have, so I do not have high expectations.

My goal here wasn't too upset anybody. Strictly an observation of modern Firearms technology not being so modern other than manufacturing processes, materials, and techniques. I have bought sold and traded more firearms than I care to remember, some good choices, some not so good choices, and some extremely horrible choices. I have and still put extraordinary amounts of lead down range over the course of 40 years. I've been reloading for around 30 years, and have pushed the limits on almost every caliber that I load. Not to the point of being dangerous, just to the point of getting the maximum out of what particular firearm I am using. It's for that reason I decided 9 mm just did not work for me. I don't know what the issue is with it, the paper math looks good, the ballistics gel penetration looks good, but my real world experience with it leaves a lot to be desired. As far as 223 is concerned the only one I've ever owned was a 180 series Ruger Mini-14, beautiful weapon I wish I still had it! But I've always felt there's much better ways to send a 40 to 60 grain 22 caliber bullet down range then 5.56 or 223.