Post by Jäger on Jun 20, 2017 13:53:09 GMT -5
The "defensive battery" requirements of Schloss Jäger are a little bit different than the norm.
On the one hand, Montana doesn't have a whole lot of violent crime. The murder rate, for example, is about the same as the Canadian provinces just a short drive to the North - even though Montana doesn't have the enlightened gun prohibitions that Canada (Democrats/Chicago?) favors. You can stroll right down Main Street openly carrying a legally purchased belt fed machine gun with a handgun on either hip if you want, and get nothing more than a citation for jaywalking. But even Montana has it's share of scrots. One thing we do have a real problem with is meth. We have more than our fair share of tweakers, and they tend to set up their squats and meth cooks on trails and roads just outside the urban areas. These people have a high potential to be dangerous - one of Mrs. Jäger's colleagues was sexually assaulted a few years ago while doing a preliminary survey of a property after she stumbled into a bunch of tweakers and their meth cook. It could have well ended much worse than it did, except she broke free and they weren't athletic enough to catch her.
So there's the usual requirements for two footed predator defense.
On the other hand, unlike most other places, grizzlies, black bears, and cougars regularly grace us with their presence by wandering through the property. The cougars are rarely seen, but they're here thanks to all the deer, and the bears are ubiquitous. No surprise really, considering we're about 20 minutes from the entry to Glacier National Park. Memorial Day, we had a bear rummaging through the open garage while I had the dogs on stakeouts on the other side of the house, doing some training with a client's Brittany pup. She disappeared around the house at the dead run as soon as she was unchained for her turn, and just about the time I was ready to use the e-collar to get her back, she reappeared with a grizzly hot on her tail. She's field trials stock so she was holding her own, but I had our two Griffs on stakeouts who couldn't run anywhere, never mind a dog coming back to me with a bear on her ass. Anyways, there was some excitement and adrenaline for a few seconds before the bear decided he really was a wilderness bear, not a garbage bear, and no shots were fired and no animals were injured in this story.
But that adds the requirements for four footed defense. So, we have a bit of an evolution in "the battery" over the last 40 years:
The C series HP at the top was the first handgun I ever bought or owned - had no interest in handguns prior to becoming a cop. Critters weren't a problem around the house in the towns and cities I worked in, I carried it for a long time afterwards, and with the evolution I am back to carrying it again. The MMC sights it sports have to be replaced, however - while they looked razor blade sharp to me in my 20's, now they take a lot of extra time and effort in my 60's. I think something like Novaks are on the horizon...
Along came the questions about the reliability of 9mm ammunition in the mid-80's, and now I was living in a small town where we did have a black bear problem in town. This nicely coincided with FN deciding to build the 40 S&W variant - all the excuse I needed. And so I bought a 40 S&W HP (but not this Practical, another one not in the picture). With 200 gr WFN bullets that the fish cops were carrying in their duty Glocks, it appeared to fit the bill. When headed out into the sticks flyfishing or backpacking, the S&W .357 with heavy WFN handloads went along for the trip.
I carried the .40 for a fair while. After we bought our current place outside of town, I took to wearing the revolver around the property.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago when the military decided it was time for the regularly scheduled review of the kit used by the Close Protection Teams. I got a chance to look at that, and it was pretty obvious that there was little real world difference between calibers and bullet weights in quality service ammunition as far as terminal performance went. And about the same time, a local cop dying to raise the money to buy a classic muscle car asked me if I wanted to buy his Dan Wesson CBOB, complete with both 10mm and 40 S&W barrels. Well, a 10mm firing 220 grain bullets at 1150 fps is a hell of a lot better than anything from a 40 S&W, and the original classic HP is much nicer to carry and shoot than the Mk II/Mk III HPs... and lots more rounds.
So the circle completed, it was the 9mm HP for urban carry, and the Dan Wesson for bear wrench duties around the house, mountain biking, flyfishing, etc. Mrs. Jäger could never warm to pistols, preferring revolvers instead, so the .357 saw lots of time outside the safe. It all leads to very different ammunition requirements... standard pressure 9mm police ammunition moving along at sedate velocities, versus rhino roller heavy lead WFN ammunition loaded right to the edge of SAAMI pressure limitations.
But as you may have noticed, polymer has managed to creep into the Schloss Jäger battery.
Yes, there are times when carrying a HP is a bit more work than I want to do during the summer, or when dressed out in business finery. I am not a believer in having a "defense rotation" of various makes and models of handguns with different triggers and control locations, but there are also times... After several years of contemplating a mini-pistol, a local store had that S&W Performance Center Shield for sale at a ridiculous mark-down price... the box and the stuff in it went missing in the store. At much less than $300, out the door with a new gun, I gave in to the temptation.
Yes, it has a safety - remarkably like the original HP safety in how to properly operate it i.e. not with the ball of the thumb, but with the inside of the knuckle. This means many will hate it and whine about it of course, and I assume this is probably why so many Shield owners either buy the models without the safety or simply leave it switched off safe all the time. I like safeties on pistols, and I like this one.
I don't think the porting will make any real difference if it ever gets used to cash in our scrot insurance, but neither is the porting all the terrible, evil things we are constantly warned will happen. I have fired it in retention drills while teaching locally: I did not suffer 3d degree burns, I did not catch on fire, I did not put an eye out, etc. What it did have that was attractive was the nicer trigger and the Hi-Viz sights. I may even go full polymer radical one day and buy the Streamlight laser/light for it. They have a very nice trigger indeed, and it is easy to see why they are so popular in the compact CCW pistol market. I compared them to the competition from Glock, Ruger, Springfield Armory, Walther, Beretta et al... for me, in my opinion, none of the others came close.
Unfortunately for me, Mrs. Jäger discovered that it also fit her cello-playing hands perfectly, and she pronounced that it was fun to shoot, unlike the 10mm bear wrench, and not as heavy as the HP (don't ask my why a 4" K frame is not too heavy, but a 9mm High Power is).
And so, the Shield is now officially Mrs. Jäger's pistol, and if and when I decide I don't want to carry a HP, I now have to ask her if she'll cough it up for a while so I can use it.
Anyways, that's the story of the local "battery" for daily wear.
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On the one hand, Montana doesn't have a whole lot of violent crime. The murder rate, for example, is about the same as the Canadian provinces just a short drive to the North - even though Montana doesn't have the enlightened gun prohibitions that Canada (Democrats/Chicago?) favors. You can stroll right down Main Street openly carrying a legally purchased belt fed machine gun with a handgun on either hip if you want, and get nothing more than a citation for jaywalking. But even Montana has it's share of scrots. One thing we do have a real problem with is meth. We have more than our fair share of tweakers, and they tend to set up their squats and meth cooks on trails and roads just outside the urban areas. These people have a high potential to be dangerous - one of Mrs. Jäger's colleagues was sexually assaulted a few years ago while doing a preliminary survey of a property after she stumbled into a bunch of tweakers and their meth cook. It could have well ended much worse than it did, except she broke free and they weren't athletic enough to catch her.
So there's the usual requirements for two footed predator defense.
On the other hand, unlike most other places, grizzlies, black bears, and cougars regularly grace us with their presence by wandering through the property. The cougars are rarely seen, but they're here thanks to all the deer, and the bears are ubiquitous. No surprise really, considering we're about 20 minutes from the entry to Glacier National Park. Memorial Day, we had a bear rummaging through the open garage while I had the dogs on stakeouts on the other side of the house, doing some training with a client's Brittany pup. She disappeared around the house at the dead run as soon as she was unchained for her turn, and just about the time I was ready to use the e-collar to get her back, she reappeared with a grizzly hot on her tail. She's field trials stock so she was holding her own, but I had our two Griffs on stakeouts who couldn't run anywhere, never mind a dog coming back to me with a bear on her ass. Anyways, there was some excitement and adrenaline for a few seconds before the bear decided he really was a wilderness bear, not a garbage bear, and no shots were fired and no animals were injured in this story.
But that adds the requirements for four footed defense. So, we have a bit of an evolution in "the battery" over the last 40 years:
The C series HP at the top was the first handgun I ever bought or owned - had no interest in handguns prior to becoming a cop. Critters weren't a problem around the house in the towns and cities I worked in, I carried it for a long time afterwards, and with the evolution I am back to carrying it again. The MMC sights it sports have to be replaced, however - while they looked razor blade sharp to me in my 20's, now they take a lot of extra time and effort in my 60's. I think something like Novaks are on the horizon...
Along came the questions about the reliability of 9mm ammunition in the mid-80's, and now I was living in a small town where we did have a black bear problem in town. This nicely coincided with FN deciding to build the 40 S&W variant - all the excuse I needed. And so I bought a 40 S&W HP (but not this Practical, another one not in the picture). With 200 gr WFN bullets that the fish cops were carrying in their duty Glocks, it appeared to fit the bill. When headed out into the sticks flyfishing or backpacking, the S&W .357 with heavy WFN handloads went along for the trip.
I carried the .40 for a fair while. After we bought our current place outside of town, I took to wearing the revolver around the property.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago when the military decided it was time for the regularly scheduled review of the kit used by the Close Protection Teams. I got a chance to look at that, and it was pretty obvious that there was little real world difference between calibers and bullet weights in quality service ammunition as far as terminal performance went. And about the same time, a local cop dying to raise the money to buy a classic muscle car asked me if I wanted to buy his Dan Wesson CBOB, complete with both 10mm and 40 S&W barrels. Well, a 10mm firing 220 grain bullets at 1150 fps is a hell of a lot better than anything from a 40 S&W, and the original classic HP is much nicer to carry and shoot than the Mk II/Mk III HPs... and lots more rounds.
So the circle completed, it was the 9mm HP for urban carry, and the Dan Wesson for bear wrench duties around the house, mountain biking, flyfishing, etc. Mrs. Jäger could never warm to pistols, preferring revolvers instead, so the .357 saw lots of time outside the safe. It all leads to very different ammunition requirements... standard pressure 9mm police ammunition moving along at sedate velocities, versus rhino roller heavy lead WFN ammunition loaded right to the edge of SAAMI pressure limitations.
But as you may have noticed, polymer has managed to creep into the Schloss Jäger battery.
Yes, there are times when carrying a HP is a bit more work than I want to do during the summer, or when dressed out in business finery. I am not a believer in having a "defense rotation" of various makes and models of handguns with different triggers and control locations, but there are also times... After several years of contemplating a mini-pistol, a local store had that S&W Performance Center Shield for sale at a ridiculous mark-down price... the box and the stuff in it went missing in the store. At much less than $300, out the door with a new gun, I gave in to the temptation.
Yes, it has a safety - remarkably like the original HP safety in how to properly operate it i.e. not with the ball of the thumb, but with the inside of the knuckle. This means many will hate it and whine about it of course, and I assume this is probably why so many Shield owners either buy the models without the safety or simply leave it switched off safe all the time. I like safeties on pistols, and I like this one.
I don't think the porting will make any real difference if it ever gets used to cash in our scrot insurance, but neither is the porting all the terrible, evil things we are constantly warned will happen. I have fired it in retention drills while teaching locally: I did not suffer 3d degree burns, I did not catch on fire, I did not put an eye out, etc. What it did have that was attractive was the nicer trigger and the Hi-Viz sights. I may even go full polymer radical one day and buy the Streamlight laser/light for it. They have a very nice trigger indeed, and it is easy to see why they are so popular in the compact CCW pistol market. I compared them to the competition from Glock, Ruger, Springfield Armory, Walther, Beretta et al... for me, in my opinion, none of the others came close.
Unfortunately for me, Mrs. Jäger discovered that it also fit her cello-playing hands perfectly, and she pronounced that it was fun to shoot, unlike the 10mm bear wrench, and not as heavy as the HP (don't ask my why a 4" K frame is not too heavy, but a 9mm High Power is).
And so, the Shield is now officially Mrs. Jäger's pistol, and if and when I decide I don't want to carry a HP, I now have to ask her if she'll cough it up for a while so I can use it.
Anyways, that's the story of the local "battery" for daily wear.
