Weapons and Armour Discussion

Cool design.

The main issue I can see with a back scabbard is that you have something hard strapped right against your spine.  There's a danger that you could fall on it and badly injure yourself, possibly even paralyze yourself.  This is something that has occurred with pistol holsters that are in the small of the back. 

This type of carry is discouraged since people have broken their spine falling back on it. 

If it was just a large flat surface it wouldn't pose a risk, but if you look at 12:15 when he has it off there appears to be a block of wood where the strap is attached to the scabbard.  This would be a dangerous pressure point if he fell on his back. 

People have actually gotten paralyzed by falling on their gun.  I know of at least one police officer who did it.  Carrying at your back is okay, but only as long as it isn't in line with your spine.

If you fell on this it wouldn't be in contact with any bones.  Any injury you might suffer from a blow in this area you probably would have suffered anyway even if you weren't carrying it. 

So I've got two new toys to show off.

The first is the Ruger Blackhawk;

It's a real beast, it's a lot bigger than I expected, but it handles nicely, I can see why people love that style of grip. The first few rounds I fired were very high and left, I gave the adjustment screws on the rear sight and random crank and it was hitting centre. It does seem to be more accurate than my Taurus, that's for sure, the grouping I got was tighter at any rate, and somehow it seems easier to shoot, not sure if it's the grip or the balance of the pistol or what, it's not like it's any lighter.

The "new model" Blackhawk has an interesting feature; it doesn't have a half-cock position, opening the loading gate lets you advance the cylinder manually and locks the hammer, and cocking the hammer locks the loading gate.  

A single-action is definitely a better fit for me. The grip took a little getting used to at first, it seemed a little too short for my hand, I wasn't choking up on it like I should have. Need a set of wood grip panels for it now.

I also got a really good deal on a 6.5x55mm m/96B, in more or less original configuration (the other m/96 I've got is sort of done up as a target rifle, the other Swedish Mauser I have is a target rifle).

Crappy photo, I'll take some better ones tomorrow.

I got a good deal on it because it's not mint, at least not in the right way. Everything is matching except the bolt and (of all things) the rear sight leaf. The receiver is marked 1900, and the bore is very good, not sure what year the bolt is since only the receivers on these have the full serial number. Someone put a tall front post on it (which saves me having to order one), and it's an excellent shot, though I have to use a hold under at 100yds since the stepped rear sight base doesn't allow for precise elevation adjustment (didn't stop me from nailing water bottles with it).

The stock needs some work, it's got a lot of scratches and dents, and a small chip at the toe of the stock (you can see that in the above photo), it looks like it might have been refinished at some point, but it's going to need to be stripped down and oiled again. The wood itself, ignoring the handling marks, looks pretty nice. I think someone had target sights on it; the bluing on the barrel has some wear, except for the last little bit around the front sight, where a Swedish globe sight would have mounted, and the receiver bridge has two threaded holes where the dioptre was (though the receiver ring has two holes that were soldered over, so that target dioptre may have been mounted forward of the ejection port first, for some reason).

The muzzle is threaded for a muzzle device that's supposed to shred the wooden bullets used in training, though I can get a flash hider for it, which is certainly more interesting than just putting a cap over the threads. They're a little deformed in one spot so I'll have to run a die over them first.

The rear sight is something a bit odd though;

You can see the sight base is stepped, it's actually made for a 300-600m sight leaf;

As you can see, the lowest position on that one is when you have the slider right at the front, my rear sight leaf is numbered the other way around. The Swedes had a few versions of sight leaf that increased in elevation when you moved the slider forward, used on flat sight bases rather than stepped, but most only went out to 600m, apparently Husqvarna made something like 4000-5000 rifles that used these 100-800m sights before switching to a different one. 

I think the Blackhawks always used a frame-mounted firing pin, though with the old model the hammer rested directly on the firing pin when it wasn't cocked, which is why they went to the new model in the early '70s. It's certainly a good idea to do away with having to use a half-cock position to load and unload, and having it so it can't be cocked while the loading gate is open seems like another good idea, though I'm sure some purists would disagree.

I'm tempted to see how it performs at longer range, I was able to shoot clays with my Taurus fairly reliably, I'd love to see what sort of grouping I can get with this fired off a rest. I'll have to do that on a day when there's no one else on the range, we're not allowed to use pistols beyond 25yds.