First Barbecue Gun of 2023

I had an urge to resume completing my gun collection, so I acted on it.

The main reason I love shooting is that as my grandfather’s favorite grandchild, I shot his guns with him when I was a kid. Then he died, and someone who won’t step up and admit the truth swept all the good ones up without going through the legal process. I ended up inheriting an aluminum .22 pistol and a rusty flintlock shotgun no one else would take. I also got his Browning Sweet Sixteen, but I didn’t get that from his estate. My grandmother gave it to my dad, and I inherited it from him. Good thing, because the aluminum pistol and the rusty shotgun aren’t much to remember Gramps by, and there is no way I would have gotten the Sweet Sixteen if my dad hadn’t owned it.

I didn’t get the Colt Woodsman we shot together. I didn’t get the Hi Standard .22 semiauto pistol we shot. I didn’t get the Remington 550-1 .22 rifle we shot. I certainly didn’t get either of his Smith & Wesson .357 revolvers or his lever gun or his M1 Enforcer pistol. I didn’t get his commemorative nickel-plated Colt 1911, but that shouldn’t have gone to me, because my uncle bought it for him.

I’m the best shot in the family, far and away, and the only one who has any idea how to work a reloading press. I’m the only one who has any precision rifle training. It would have been nice if I had gotten one more decent gun, but estates are like buffets. They bring out the worst in people. You find out what your relatives are really like when someone dies. People you love will write you off for the rest of your life in exchange for a bowl or pitcher that should have gone to you.

I never took one thing I was not legally and morally entitled to, I didn’t sue or turn in anyone who mistreated me, and I never took a penny for doing anything for the family, so at least I can say I didn’t sink into the mire.

My grandfather had a Browning Hi-Power pistol. The “Hi-Power” name is a reference to the gun’s high capacity for its time. The design was started by John Moses Browning and completed by a Frenchman. It’s a 9mm gun that holds 14 rounds. It was released in 1935. Until a few years ago, it was manufactured by FN.

I’m not sure we shot this gun together, but it would have been a nice thing to inherit.

It’s not a great pistol. The Hi-Power has a weak frame, so if you use +P rounds in it, you are likely to damage it. It runs fine with old-fashioned ammunition, which means inferior, less effective ammunition. It looks nice and handles well, and it’s a John Moses Browning design, so even if it’s not a good gun, it has a lot of appeal.

A Glock 17 is 10 times the gun a Hi-Power is. It will last longer, run better, weigh less, and shoot anything you put in it. But Glocks are ugly. A Glock is like a homely wife who keeps a great house and looks after the kids well.

I decided to get a Hi-Power about 15 minutes after FN quit making them. A sad coincidence. A gun that should cost maybe $750 suddenly cost $1500, if it could be found at all. I wasn’t paying that. I waited.

Springfield Armory came out with a clone called the SA-35. Of course, I found out about three days after it was released, and they were all gone. I figured I would wait till the next bunch shipped. That didn’t happen for a very long time, and when you can find one now, it’s around $800. That’s a lot for a gun which is basically a low-budget descendant of the 1911.

The other day, I got a wild hair and decided to search, and I learned that a Turkish company named Girsan was selling a clone through EAA, the Florida company that imports the Tanfoglio Witness. I started reading up.

You may wonder why I would buy a Turkish gun to replace an FN. Well, there is always the price difference, and also, the Girsan is better.

The FN came with a really dumb feature. The gun will not fire unless there is a magazine in it. The French insisted on this. The mechanism that prevents firing somehow involves the trigger group, so a Hi-Power with this pointless extra safety will have a bad trigger. A gun with a bad trigger is an abomination. My understanding is that you can have the safety bypassed somehow, but that doesn’t appeal to me. The Girsan, in one of its configurations, has no magazine disconnect safety, so it has a better trigger than the FN.

Springfield’s gun has no extra safety, but they charge too much. Interesting fact: Springfield’s gun is also Turkish.

Most people don’t know this, because Springfield dishonestly says the SA-35 is made in the USA, but the SA-35 is made from Turkish parts made by a company called Tisa. The parts are shipped here, and then Springfield assembles the guns.

Tisa also makes a Hi-Power clone. Reviewers don’t seem to think much of it, and I feel like a Tisa Springfield would be a second-tier clone for a top-tier price.

Reviewers really like the Girsan, and it’s not terribly pricey. You can get their “Match” model for $620. Maybe less. It takes aftermarket parts that fit the original FN, so if there is anything you don’t like, you should be able to put a better part in.

I like the Turkish connection. I’m not a fan of the government of Turkey, but I really liked the people when I visited. Apart from the two individuals who tried to rip me off with debit card scanners, everyone was great. Very warm and helpful. I felt bad for them, because they are crippled by superstition and the cult of Islam. The area we call Turkey now is where the seven churches of the Revelation were. It was apparently the biggest concentration of charismatics on Earth. Then Mohammed and Satan had their way.

Turkey has a terrible economy right now. Buying a pistol is a gesture of sympathy.

Later this week, I’ll pick the gun up, and after that, I may look into cute grips and a holster. Then I’ll shoot it a few times and put it away.

I still want a nice lever gun and a good 12 gauge semiauto designed for hunting. I have been considering a Turkish shotgun called the Masai Mara. I don’t know if I would ever use it for anything other than skeet and squirrels, but it would be nice to have.

When it comes to manufacturing and all-around competence, Turkey isn’t a mess like Mexico or Greece. There are a lot of very sharp people there. They make some top-notch products. My wife and I made a big mistake, not buying more leather goods in Turkey. Turks kept dragging us into stores and showing us knockoffs. My wife got a Vuitton backpack for $35, which we thought was pretty funny. The quality was excellent. I would not hesitate to buy her Turkish purses.

Actually, I did get her several Turkish purses, but they were cheap junk for tourists, sold in the Grand Bazaar. She liked them. They have since fallen apart. They were very different from the stuff the knockoff shops sold.

The Turks have several good gun manufacturers, and it’s not like buying a Chinese milsurp or some awful thing made in France.

Getting something reminiscent of the M1 Enforcer pistol is a problem. Original M1 carbines have shot up in price, to the point where the smart thing for an owner to do is to put his gun in a safe and never shoot it. There are some clones, but reviewers cite a lot of problems.

I would not want a pistol, because an M1 pistol is kind of silly. I wouldn’t mind a paratrooper model, which has a folding wire stock. Maybe it can be fired as a pistol, like a Vz58.

I thought about getting a lever action rifle in .45-70. Before covid, I thought I might get a chance to hunt deer, and .45-70 is supposed to be excellent for deer at short range in thick woods. I don’t know if I’ll ever get one in the post-covid era.

I can’t get my grandfather’s guns, so I buy better guns and shoot them better than anyone else in the family. That’s good enough. Both Rhodah and I have been treated badly by relatives, so these days, I pray the punishment for people who sin against us will be that God blesses us more than they harmed us, and that they will see it. That’s way better than revenge. Of course, we also pray God will help our enemies to repent and to be blessed. And then I tell him we only ask this for the ones who will listen. I tell him I’m not asking him to chase anyone.

I have better 1911’s than the one my grandfather had. Better .22 pistols and rifles. Better this and that. I have a great rifle with which I can hit a nickel at 100 yards, consistently.

If I get the remaining guns I mentioned, I’ll be content. After that, my main interest will be in keeping my few self-defense guns current. If I decide what I’m using is obsolete, I’ll make changes.

I look forward to trying the Girsan out.