jamesjames
Member
I have wondered if I was crazy or if it was just me... but there are guns that I love.
Now, the word “love” gets bandied around a good bit, but I’m talking about a deep connection where the lines and curves, the feel and balance in your hand, the shape, proportions, history, legacy, and design speak to a deep sense of inner joy and provide an abiding satisfaction and fulfillment.
I’ve always wished gunwriters could somehow covey something much deeper than the stats and accuracy, function and fit/finish. Inspiration and joy are personal and poetic, literary and metaphysical, profoundly emotional and transcendent experiences that words often fail to do justice to.
We do the “just one gun” thread almost every month ad nauseum, but we never really get into depth with how a gun has a transformational power to be a beautiful extension of our hand and expression of personal power and skill.
I’m going to shock many in starting out by singing the praises of a Smith 329PD. It’s blackened scandium aluminum is just dead in terms of finish. That atomic symbol on the frame is hideous. The internal lock is terrible. But this gun somehow fits my hand and becomes a perfectly balanced extension of my arm. Other N frames are too heavy to enjoy handling. I’ve fitted it with Karl Nil walnut combat grips that are perfectly hand-filling and much better at gripping and dispersing recoil and not snagging on clothing. It rides in a Milt Sparks PMK. I carry it with Hornady Critical Defense .44 specials in town and Buffalo Bore Reduced Recoil .44 magnums in the field. It shoots like a dream. It carries like a dream. It’s my constant companion. It speaks to me with a perfection of form and function that gives me joy and pride and puts a smile on my face every time I see it or pick it up.
Maybe tapping away on a cell phone is no way to try to wax poetic about something as transcendent and spiritual as love. The love of a firearm is simple and uncomplicated. Like the love of a dog, it’s pure and unconditional (and of course, a one-sided reverence). As a vessel for containing our aspirations for a disciplined and responsible masculinity, an ordered world where we have a better control over our fate, it’s a small and self-contained symbol and tool of power, skill, and restraint. Learning to carry and use these terrible tools with great care and responsibility marks us as owners and perhsps slightly better masters of our own personal destiny.
What stories, memories , or aspirations are stirred in your very being by that favorite shooting iron?
Now, the word “love” gets bandied around a good bit, but I’m talking about a deep connection where the lines and curves, the feel and balance in your hand, the shape, proportions, history, legacy, and design speak to a deep sense of inner joy and provide an abiding satisfaction and fulfillment.
I’ve always wished gunwriters could somehow covey something much deeper than the stats and accuracy, function and fit/finish. Inspiration and joy are personal and poetic, literary and metaphysical, profoundly emotional and transcendent experiences that words often fail to do justice to.
We do the “just one gun” thread almost every month ad nauseum, but we never really get into depth with how a gun has a transformational power to be a beautiful extension of our hand and expression of personal power and skill.
I’m going to shock many in starting out by singing the praises of a Smith 329PD. It’s blackened scandium aluminum is just dead in terms of finish. That atomic symbol on the frame is hideous. The internal lock is terrible. But this gun somehow fits my hand and becomes a perfectly balanced extension of my arm. Other N frames are too heavy to enjoy handling. I’ve fitted it with Karl Nil walnut combat grips that are perfectly hand-filling and much better at gripping and dispersing recoil and not snagging on clothing. It rides in a Milt Sparks PMK. I carry it with Hornady Critical Defense .44 specials in town and Buffalo Bore Reduced Recoil .44 magnums in the field. It shoots like a dream. It carries like a dream. It’s my constant companion. It speaks to me with a perfection of form and function that gives me joy and pride and puts a smile on my face every time I see it or pick it up.
Maybe tapping away on a cell phone is no way to try to wax poetic about something as transcendent and spiritual as love. The love of a firearm is simple and uncomplicated. Like the love of a dog, it’s pure and unconditional (and of course, a one-sided reverence). As a vessel for containing our aspirations for a disciplined and responsible masculinity, an ordered world where we have a better control over our fate, it’s a small and self-contained symbol and tool of power, skill, and restraint. Learning to carry and use these terrible tools with great care and responsibility marks us as owners and perhsps slightly better masters of our own personal destiny.
What stories, memories , or aspirations are stirred in your very being by that favorite shooting iron?
