Today was cold and blustery, which seems to be the norm for Range Day.
Every year, I'm excited to go, but my excitement quickly diminishes once I'm around people. It only takes one group of self-important media to take the excitement right out of me.
My list of guns I wanted to see/try was pretty small, but Mez's list was a bit longer. (I'll let him talk about what he shot in his own post.) I did follow him into the KelTec booth to try the P57. Color me not impressed. We were given five rounds, loaded manually, not using the stripper clip, which was the first red flag for me. I specifically asked for a demonstration of the stipper clip, and just got an explanation of it. I really wanted to see it in action, but the guy working the line prefered to load the gun manually. The second red flag, and nail in the coffin, for me was that I had THREE failures to go into battery. 3/5 rounds FAILED TO LOAD. If it happened only once, I would have chalked it up to user error, but three times (after checking my grip, and recoil management to make sure I wasn't limp-wristing it) was a 60% failure rate. I will say that Mez had a 0% failure rate, and he shot the same gun immediately before me.
I was excited about shooting the Ruger RXM, because, well Dave Spaulding is pretty excited about it and I respect the hell out of him. I handled it at my logal gun shop right before I left, I was pretty underwhelmed with it, but was still optimistic about shooting it. After shooting it, I'm still pretty underwhelmed. I had high hopes for it, thinking that it would be a good entry-level gun for new shooters. I like that it accepts Glock magazines and that it'll fit a Glock holster, so it is a good starter gun for people who want to go in the Glock direction. The price is also right, about $450. I don't hate it, but I'm not in love with it.
The gun that I can't get out of my mind was one that wasn't even on my radar. Mez pointed it out. He saw "biofire" and said he wanted to check it out, so I tagged along. I'm glad I did, because the gun mostly horrifies me, and I'm ashamed to say it was developed in Colorado. It's a "smart" gun, operates only by the owner, identified either by fingerprint or facial recognition. The owner can authorize four other users by adding them to their account. Because the gun only works for up to five authorized users, it is exempt from the Colorado safe storage laws, according to the manufacturer. I understand that they're wanting to fill a very specific self-defense niche and I respect them for that.
However, I see way more drawbacks to the gun than advantages:
-it's bulky
-the battery life is only 1 week - 1 month, depending on use, therefore it is recommended that owners keep it plugged in at all times to keep the battery topped up. What happens if the electricity goes out? We live rurally, and extended electrical outages are not uncommon.
-should the owner injure their shooting hand in an attack, unless they've set up a second profile for their off hand, the backup verification is via facial recognition. That seems like a great idea, unless the owner's face has also been beaten.
- since it's dependent on all of the electrical components to work, what happens in the case of an EMP?
- It's expensive, about $1400. GunDude Jay summarized it nicely when he said that it's a $400 gun with $1000 of electronics.
We did see/shoot a few other guns, but we were pretty over the cold and wind and cut the day short.
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