The Infamous Saturday Night Special Comes of Age

(Note - to read the end of my "perfect small pistol" quest click this LINK.)

For over a year, I struggled with the defacto modern state-of-the-art backup/pocket/concealed carry pistol, the KelTec P11 9mm.  It took a chunk out of my thumb once.  It left my hand sore every time I fired it. But worst of all I could never hit squat with it.  I was all over the paper with no rhyme or reason.  I couldn't even fire enough of a pattern to figure out what to correct.

So, I went to a much larger and more expensive weapon for regular carry, a Glock 19, which, after a reasonable amount of practice, I am able to fire fairly accurately.  The 19 is the defacto weapon of choice for probably the majority of plainclothes law enforcement these days and the military forces around the world are increasingly standardizing on Glocks, particularly the 19's slightly bigger brother the 17.  The British Army has adopted the Glock and is retiring its Brownings.  But, the Glock is a larger weapon, summer is coming and I really wanted something small to just stick in my pocket in the yard, around the farm, etc. My non negotiable selection critiera were (1) it had to be dead on accurate, (2) it had to be well mannered enough that you can fire it regularly without pain, (3) it had to have excellent second and third shot recovery characteristics and (4) it needed to be small enough to hide under a shirt tail.  After a ton of research on the internet, I found something startling. Probably the most accurate pocket pistol around for non expert shooters is a less than hundred and fifty dollar Saturday Night Special, the Phoenix Arms, HP22A. Yes, it is a .22.  I was willing to pay a lot more and would have preferred a larger caliber.  But, I ordered one figuring I could always get most of my money back out of it if it didn't work out.

The target above was shot at ten yards.  Nine out of ten rounds are in the kill zone.  The tenth was a flyer. The headshot was aimed as a headshot.  I have since adjusted the sights to correct the left side error in pattern. After a year of work, I never got anywhere close to that kind of accuracy with KelTec 9mm. Granted, as target shooting goes, the pattern above is nothing to write home about.  I expect to keep my rounds within a four to six inch circle after I have gotten used to the weapon. But, for the first time out after having fired approximately a hundred rounds with the little guy, I have to say that 90% in the kill zone at 10 yards is not a bad start with a 3 inch barrel pocket pistol.  Further, the little gun fired flawlessly right out of the box.  I had one FTF and FTE out of a hundred rounds.  Not bad for a brand new gun.

The downside of the gun is that the "California" safeties on it are ridiculous and it is a royal pain to field strip. It took me an hour to take it apart, wipe off the excess oil from the factory and put it back together again. The same operation with a Glock would take about a minute.

But, all in all, I am very pleased with the little gun and am glad to have a pocket gun again.  The gun comes in either brushed aluminum or blued finish.  It also
comes in a number of different combinations.  The basic gun with a 3 in. barrel costs about $130.00.  The Rangemaster kit comes with a 5 inch barrel, an extended magazine and a cleaning kit all packed in a lockable hard plastic case.  These sell for around $160.00.  The Rangemaster Deluxe kit includes a 3 inch barrel, a 5 inch barrel, two magazines, the cleaning kit and and the lockable case.  It costs around $199.00.  It's a great value.

Granted, the .22 long rifle is nowhere near the most effective round of choice for personal defense.  However, if you can shoot well enough to place your shots properly it can be deadly.  And, .22 ammo has come a long way.  The video below shows a high powered hollowpoint .22 lr round penetrating ballistic gel, a compound which is similar to human flesh for ballistics purposes.  As you can see, the round is moving fast and creating an amazing wound channel for a bullet its size.  Don't forget that the standard rifle round for U.S. military, the .223,  is only slightly larger.



I wouldn't recommend one of these little guys as the primary self defense weapon for the average person. But, the gun you will carry even when wearing shorts and a tee shirt is far better than the larger weapon you won't carry.  And, if you do practice regularly and can hit what you aim at, a .22 can be quite effective.

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Postcript:  The reason the Phoenix is more accurate than the more expensive KelTec goes back to basics. The KelTec has no safeties and relies upon the striker fire mechanism and a long, hard trigger pull to avoid misfires.  Compromises in accuracy are a natural result of this combination.  The long trigger pull makes real accuracy impossible and the light weight combined with a powerful round make it a weapon nobody is going to fire enough to get accustomed to it.  

The Phoenix is an old fashioned, single action, hammer fired weapon.  It relies on too many safeties to prevent misfires but the trigger pull is short and relatively crisp for an inexpensive weapon.  The annoying safeties can be modified leaving a small, old fashioned, little pocket pistol that shoots quite well and is still safe enough to carry if you know what you are doing.  BTW it will half cock.  Anyone who has ever carried a 1911 or a Browning would be at home with it.  Half an hour with a Dremel tool, a tiny shim or two and some luminous sight paint to make the tiny sights light up and you have a fairly nice little weapon with a lifetime warranty.

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A later note.  Yesterday, I decided to practice drawing this little guy from Condition 3 (no round in the chamber).  This is commonly known as the "Israeli Carrry" method.  It requires you to quickly rack the slide to load a round into the chamber after the draw.  If done right it adds only half a second to the time it takes to get your first shot off and is a much safer way to carry the weapon.  This is important in Israel where it is common for citizen soldiers to carry handguns.  It also has the advantage of working on any semi auto without requiring intensive drills on the safeties of that particular weapon.  The first time I tried a "combat draw" with the HP22 I ripped a chunk out of left forefinger.  I naturally went looking for the problem and saw it immediately.  The top of the hammer drop safety had not been finished completely and was razor sharp. So, if you are following this saga while considering buying an HP22 be advised you will probably need to spend an hour or so with a Dremel tool or a piece of emery paper to take the sharp edges off some of the roughly finished parts on the weapon.

The New Dark Ages

In coffee shops, diners, churches and living rooms, many men and women of deep religious and political conviction are having the most serious conversations of their lives.  The conversations all seem to reach the same conclusions even though different words may be used.  These common conclusions are:

1.  The United States of America has been the subject of a coup de etat affected through abuse of the electoral system.

2.  The current President of the United States has no legal basis to govern because of both his failure to meet the constitutional citizenship requirements for the office and his illegal actions while in office.

3. The institutions of government are being illegally used to further the socialist goals of the coup de etat and both political parties are complicit.

4.  The President of the United States is now serving as a dictator by ignoring both the constitution and the other branches of government designed to offset his power.

5. Due to the complicity of both political parties, the normal legal and political remedies such as impeachment and de-funding by congress are unlikely to succeed.

These five common conclusions leave the American Christian and devout Jew in a very difficult place. Armed rebellion is inappropriate.  But, further cooperation with the system is unconscionable. The hard question then is "What are we supposed to do now?"

The first question that comes to my mind is should we do anything political at all?  The Book of Jeremiah teaches that there are times when God's judgment has been pronounced and it is sin to oppose it.  Jeremiah was imprisoned and nearly killed for refusing to go along with Israel's continued war against its enemies when God's judgment had already been pronounced.  America's current sins are at least as bad as ancient Israels. One preacher friend of mine regularly quips, "If God doesn't judge America now, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology."  Increasingly, I wonder if America hasn't crossed the line of God's judgment and we are simply waiting for the cup of his wrath to be poured out.

In his prophetic little book "Against the Night, Living In The New Dark Ages" Charles Colson wrote:  "God has ordained three institutions for the ordering of society: the family for the propagation of life, the state for the preservation of life, and the church for the proclamation of the gospel. These are not just voluntary associations that people can join or not as they see fit; they are organic sources of authority for restraining evil and humanizing society. And the family, state, and church, as well as the closely related institution of education, have all been assaulted and penetrated by the new barbarians." (p. 69 - emphasis added)

If the institution of the State is lost as some believe it is in America, then perhaps the biblical model from Jeremiah is timely again.   If that is the case, perhaps we should be training our people and marshaling our resources for a time of captivity. Perhaps it is time to concentrate on those institutions that are left where we can have more influence, faith and family.  History has taught us that these institutions are remarkably durable and are capable of functioning effectively almost indefinitely even in a hostile state.  But, it would be a mistake to assume that a simple retreat from the political arena would be all that is involved.  The practice of the faith and the preservation of the family in a hostile state almost always involves bitter and costly conflict with that state.  In America circa 2014, such a retreat would not be a simple laying down of arms but rather a strategic retreat designed to let the completely corrupted political system run its inevitable course without the assistance and complicity of the faithful.

In his "Letters and Papers from Prison" Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself." This is a profound strategy in one sentence. First, we are called to rescue the victims of the state, to do everything in our power to help and sustain them. But second, we are called to refuse to allow the crushing wheel of state to continue rolling over them with our assistance.

What does this mean in practical terms? Here a few examples. Christian doctors and nurses should refuse to participate in abortions and refuse to serve with doctors who perform abortions or euthanasia. Christian pastors should refuse en masse to either perform homosexual marriages or allow them to be performed in their churches. Christian business people should refuse to do business under circumstances that violate their faith and conscience. Christian school teachers should refuse to teach the theory of evolution unless discussion and presentation of other theories of creation are allowed as well. They should also refuse outright to participate in "sex education" programs that advocate pre-marital sex and homosexuality. Christian delivery drives should refuse to deliver to abortion clinics and other businesses that violate their faith and conscience. Christian leaders should be quietly organizing underground institutions to continue training pastors, elders and deacons in the true faith. They should also be organizing escape networks and safe houses for the persecuted.

In the past, American Christians have substituted what they believed to be political opposition to these inherent evils for personal and practical opposition. This seemed to work well because there was never any personal cost involved. Voting for a so-called "pro-life" politician (the sum of whom have managed to do absolutely nothing to stop abortion in over forty years of political wrangling) is a lot less costly than actually defying the system and refusing to be complicit by silence in its evils. This so called "retreat" from politics would grind the wheels of the already overburdened "justice system" to a halt by the sheer number of cases involved and send a strong message to politicians as well.

Political participation by the church on social issues has been a miserable failure. We have lost on every issue. It was a powerful pain killer fed to the patient to mask the true symptoms that were being left untreated. It is time to realize that and do what we should have done to start with, quietly and peacefully refuse to play their game anymore.