The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1245: The Pistols of the Early 20th Century w/ Karl Dahl

Episode Date: July 27, 2025

75 MinutesPG-13Karl Dahl is an author specializing in the Spanish Civil War and historical "fiction."Karl joins Pete to talk about the various pistols that were mostly used during the wars of the early 20th century.Faction: With the CrusadersKarl's SubstackKarl's MerchPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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The Piquino Show.com. Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. Carl Dahl's back. Hey, don't, girl. Doing great, Pete. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man.

We seem to be getting a very good response from your talk at the OGC conference this year that was turned into a video, a slide presentation. Have people been reaching out to you about that? They have been. You know my love of visuals. So, yeah, it's been well received. And I've gotten some invites to come meet with people and talk to. So that's great. that's the whole idea.

Yeah, I will link in the show notes to that because that is a good 20, less than 25 minutes on the power of friendship. Yes, indeed. Let's just keep at that. All right, we didn't really get together today to talk about anything too serious. So let's just jump right in. I think our, I don't know, maybe people who've listened to us can figure out our love of weapons. before, oh, let's say,

1945, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I carry more modern stuff and use more modern stuff, but the old stuff is so cool. It's just, there's a compulsion to collect it and study it and talk about it and share pictures

and send links of them to Pete so that he can buy them. Well, also the idea that just if you run out of ammo, if you brain somebody with even a pocket pistol from that period, you probably fracture their skull because it's actually made with like real materials. Yeah, absolutely. It's amazing the craftsmanship as well of those older early pistols. And sometimes they have what, what, we see as kind of cockamamie operating systems because it was all being kind of explored and

figured out in the old days and there are standards like the 1911 is basically a design from 1905 from that you know the the earliest uh big bore auto that i mean it's slightly different in the 1911 that uh john moses browning came up with but he pretty pretty much had it down. He also had it down with, you know, his blowback operating mechanism for 32 ACP and 380 and cartridges like that. But there were a lot of interesting evolutions and explorations all over the world, but especially in Europe with these very small intricately made pistols that are just fascinating to, to dig into. Well, let's be honest here. I think there's only one that you ever, you ever linked me to that I actually went out and purchased.

So, I mean, it is the, the caliber that we, both of us have a, I would say probably a fetish for. Yeah, that probably wouldn't be, that probably wouldn't be an unfair term to use. But the, the Piper Baird, is it 1908? Yeah. in my hands right now, which is one of the original pocket pistols with the low bore, with a low barrel, low bore access, low bore access. Yeah, let's start talking about 32 ACP. I remember a buddy of mine that I used to hang out with every once in a while

when I lived in the Atlanta area. He was a fanatic for 32 ACP. He would try to get every, like by every old pistol and convince people to thread barrels for them, which some, they were like, I'm not threading a barrel on that. There's no way. I'm not going to be responsible for that. Yeah, there's no meat. But yeah, I remember him telling me at one point, he's like, it's really hard to figure this out.

He said, but I'd be willing to bet in the 20th century when it came to pistol calibers, more people were killed by 32 ACP than any other caliber. That's probably not far off. When you take into account World War I, China, World War II, Interwar period, Spanish Civil War even, 32 ACP was doing it. And handguns, especially at the time handguns were more of a, well, it's like a personal defense weapon and a symbol of rank. and then frankly in the old days officers would you know often be arming themselves with non-standard but compliant weapons as long as it's in the cartridge that that is issued by your military it's a it's a good idea to just pick up an extra pistol or you know

the British for example they would even buy their own like Lee uh Lee model rifles that used the 303 cartridge, for example, but they'd get these more elaborate commercial versions that were that were like military approved. And the same thing happened with handguns, all kinds of crazy stuff. Smith and Wesson made there, is it the Model 61 that was a 22LR that was based on this mechanism? You can see it in, gosh, what's the movie? that New York shaves his head to go

assassinate a taxi driver? Yeah, a taxi driver. He uses a Model 61 pocket pistol that's based on this mechanism, 22LR. Bore right above right above the trigger. That's as low as you can get it.

Super cool pistol. There's another one that I, I was scratching my head about this, Pete, because when I was writing with the Crusaders, which is my second novel, which takes place in and around the Spanish Civil War, I was trying to think of what's the deep cover pistol that my character is going to carry? And it had to be 32 ACP, 765, Browning, but because that was what was available in that theater. But I, I didn't want to just have a Spanish pistol.

I wanted one that was in these super tiny deep cover. So I considered the Bayard because you can suppress those. And then I kind of had this thought, like he could have all this gear. And then I'm like, no, that's kind of, that's kind of stretching it as a deniable pistol that you get, you know, for self-defense when you're undercover as a journalist. If you have a suppressor, like, you're going to be treated as a spy and get executed. Like, there's no way, there's no way a journalist would have a suppressed, custom suppressed 32 automatic. But what I did was I got a Frommer baby. I gave him a Frommer baby, which is an incredibly cool pistol.

It's a, but it's not a conventional blowback. It has a very strange, like, multi-recipricating mechanism. where like the barrel and the kind of slide, but it's a, it's a tube that goes inside the receiver, and it has a basically a gas operation. It's this crazy recoil and gas combo in shorthand that. So set up on gas, am I sharing it? You are sharing it. That is a Frommer stop baby in 765.

and it's a Hungarian pistol, incredibly cool. They didn't make a ton of them, but they made a fair bit. I want to say they made around 20,000 of them. The full-sized gun was actually Hungarian military issue, and they also had a 380 version that was adopted by various militaries. I think it was an option in the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a handgun. But, you know, Austro-Hungarian Empire, hodgepodge of weapons, because there's all these kind of sub-nations beneath it.

So you can find those fromer stops, like one in good quality is not inexpensive, but it's less than $1,000. The babies are like, they used to be something that, you know, pre-internet, pre-gun broker, you could get them for $3 to $400 in pretty decent condition, but ever since they're very desirable and they go for huge amounts of money. Like I saw a beat one for 500 and it was gone instantly. So I'll get one someday.

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Finance provided by way of hire purchase agreement from Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited. Subject to lending criteria. Terms and conditions apply. Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited. Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Ready for huge savings? Well mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse sale is back. We're talking Thousands of your favourite Liddle items all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs, when the doors open, the deals go fast.

Come see for yourself. The Liddle New Bridge Warehouse Sale, 28th to 30th of November. Liddle, more to value. And now, this is over the next to Hamsher. It's leargoal to a good and not great greeing in Aondon and lay in the Gala to Gael Fada Gael to Dairn. In Ergaret,

Chaukie in Woonaha, to find out of one ofunner. There's a lot of doing to do with a lot of people and people cariff at Wainthea there are

a cooctuagin. Fullam, more, the Ergaret Pongahy. Yeah, it's the thing is when you're trying to find these, I don't know if you've experienced this,

when you get the idea to look for something that is out of the ordinary, for some reason it seems like 75% of the time it's become popular in some little circle yes and then you go to look for it and it's like oh so the price and a year ago was $500 and now it's $1,500. Exactly because they're so few also I heard 10 years ago when you could get H&K and like things in the P7 series between $1,500 and $1,500. Yeah. And now it's become

so popular because I guess maybe because you know people have figured out that die hard is a Christmas movie everyone has to have one that's hilarious yeah no absolutely it's the more that you see it on TV and in shows or in anything else you know the more desirable desirable it becomes I just sent you a picture in or excuse me a link to an image in the private chat for you to take a look out. This is the Frommer baby mechanism. It's broken down and you can see how complicated it is, which is where it got its totally over-designed reputation. It has a basically a rotating bolt. And then like I said, the barrel

and kind of like the chamber area, which is milled to be essentially the track that that bolt and kind of charging handle type piece. You can understand where they got. The barrel in the chamber, the barrel in the chamber being the same piece is insane. It's insane. And it's based on

a semi-automatic rifle that was developed in Hungary and used a military trials in like 1907 or something like it's very early maybe 1912 i think nine it might be around it might have been developed around the same time but man like just the the design and then the fact that the receiver and tube and kind of that uh the track for the the spring above it and operating mechanism reciprocation is all milled out of one piece. It's bananas, but it's really cool. Yeah, I think you know that when it comes to 32 ACP,

one of my favorites is share it right now. Oh, yeah. The 1920s Browning, FN. Which is based on 1910. It's just extendo. Yeah, I know where there's a 1910, actually for sale around here. And it's like, uh, but the, yeah, this is, I have one of these and this thing shoots.

This may be the smoothest shooting pistol I have. There's a target version. You just don't feel it. Yeah, there was a target version that was developed by FM. So it's manufactured by Fabrique Nacional in Belgium. And they made a target version of it that is shockingly accurate. It has a fixed barrel. And again, if you're shooting 32 or even 380, this is a good size gun.

There you go. It's straight blowback. So yes, it does suppress well. It was used by all kinds of players as a suppressed pistol in World War II. just a laser. It's just a laser gun because it's a real sized grip profile, but then the bore is real low in your handle. There's a lot of meat there. So it's not a heavy gun. This is the way I describe it, Pete, and you probably agree. It's not a heavy gun, but it's heavy enough that it just soaks up that recoil. Not that there's a lot of recoil in a 32, but it soaks up the mechanisms cycling to where it's just incredibly smooth. Yes. Yeah. I mean, of course, when you're shooting 32, you're, you know, you're not going to get in, you're not going to get an insane amount of, of recoil. But the, yeah, this just, there's no muzzle. There's no muzzle flip on this at all. Precisely. You can just keep it on target all. Yep. Frigan day. Which is the name of the game and controlling, like, your shooting is, is the muzzle. The, the muzzle flip determines, like, how your ability to repeat shots quickly on target.

Yeah. Yeah. It's 32 is a lot of fun to shoot. Mainly, I don't know. Why is it? It seems like I keep coming back to the word fetish. Because once you start getting into it, and why don't you talk a little bit about just how,

odd this round is that it's rimless. So, or semi-rimmed, right? Yeah, I guess it's semi-rimmed, but. So the long and the short of it is it's one of the first semi-automatic cartridges that was ever made. And I'm pretty comfortable saying it's the oldest that's still around. There were some very odd or, you know, experimental ones from the like 1890s. and people were just kind of arriving at what the profile of the, you know, of what of a reliable

auto loading cartridge would be, you know, there, there's still, they're still rimmed rifles. Like there's 762 by 54 is used in like the Drogonov Svidi sniper rifle or, you know, designated marksman's rifle is probably more accurate. You know, it's that old, you know, you know, 19th century Russian cartridge that has the big fat rim on it. It doesn't have this rebated, you know, what we call rimless, where there's a basically a milled section for an extractor to grab onto. And the 32 ACP is kind of in between where it has a wide, a rim that's wider than the base of the rest of the case.

but it is rebated to give the extractor something to grab. Interestingly, it's essentially the same diameter as a 380 ACP rim, which is a rimless cartridge, you know, completely in line, which is why conversions from 32 to 380 are so easy because they essentially have the same rim diameter. And so in an awful lot of guns like my Beretta 81, if I want to shoot 380 in it, depending in the single stack,

the 380 and the 32 can load from the same magazines, regardless of what its markings are. It just won't match up necessarily to the cartridge counter that's in the back of the magazine. The little hole that indicates how loaded it is. You get an extra cartridge typically maybe two in a 32 version over a 380, just because, again, the case diameter is lower.

But for that conversion, you change out the barrel, and then maybe the recoil spring, depending. And then again, maybe the magazine, maybe not, but you don't have to mess with, like, the extractor or the ejector or anything like that. They're the same. And there's an interesting article from 1931 in American Rifleman,

and I learned about this from, Ed Harris, who I can circle back to shortly. Let's circle back. It's called Almost the Best Small Pistol by JVK Wagar. And this guy is extolling the virtues of the Colt 1903 in 32 ACP. And he does a lot of backcountry, you know, hiking and planking and ranching. It's his favorite handgun because of its accuracy, its affordability. He talks about a lot of stuff in this article that isn't the case for us anymore in terms of being able to order another barrel and then like hand filing it until it fits in your gun and stuff like that.

But he makes the case that the 32 ACP is more popular and more reliable and more reliable. than the 380 because of that big rim. And my guess is that it's more, it's more based on the time that it was written. I can see how that's feasible. I can see that that's a feasible statement. Yeah, just an incredible pistol. It's smooth.

It has all the, it has all the features that we would see as Carrie became, like really took off in like the 1990s, where you want that kind of smooth, melted slide. It's like one of the old indicators is like you could rub the gun on your face without carving yourself up other than like the sights, right? As a as a good indicator that this is a good carry gun that's not going to be like. Oh, yeah.

Every time I nick. Every time I nick myself on one of these pistols is what the sites. Yes, exactly, exactly. So, yeah, very, very nice pistol. And it's also very cheap to reload it because it's incredibly efficient. It requires a very small powder charge. Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse sale is back.

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Atlantic surrounds. Your five-star getaway, where every detail is designed with you in mind. Give the gift of a unique experience this Christmas with vouchers from Trump-Dunbeg. Search Trump-Ireland gift vouchers. Trump on Dunbiog, Kush Farage. So if you go forward a couple years, last one I pulled up was the Browning. Oh, well, also showed the 1903 cult there. But this one, this is not the more popular version of this,

but this is the one that came out first in 1929. Let me share this here. Here we go. Yummy. You recognize that? P.P. Walthor Pee Pee Pee. Yeah, you don't even need, what most people don't realize about this is,

unless you have absolute gorilla. fans, you don't need the thumb, you don't need the, the magazine plate with the thumb, thumb rest on it. Yeah, that's more for like the PPK, which is very tiny. The grip is shortened and the barrel and slider shortened. That's coming next. There we go. And this one doesn't even have one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, those are incredible, those are incredible pistols and the, you know, the provenance is something that people enjoy. And that was funny. The first time, you know, back in the 90s when I was getting into guns, it kind of blew my mind that people wanted, you know, being young and, you know, raised by television and boomers. I was amazed that the German marked ones would command a premium and I just kind of didn't get it. And later on, I'm like, oh, I get it. It's the provenance, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And also, you don't know where it's kind of hard. What's funny is on the Walther PPs and the PPPs, you can actually tell if they went by certain serial number ranges. You can tell whether they went to like high command or not. Yes, yes. So like this one on the, this one on the screen has this PPC on the screen has the markings. You can see it on the barrel and right below the, right below the ejection chamber. And the interesting thing is there were specific variance for the NSDAP members where they would order, I want to say based on their district, they would have, you know, the party was organized nationally

and then in these kind of sub-districts. And there are all these interesting variants. I want to say there's essay variants. It's really interesting. And, of course, those things command crazy premiums, if he can associate it with anyone. Is that one kind of higher end guy? Where you got your Bayard,

was that, is it historic investments or something like that? Legacy collectibles? Legacy collectibles, yeah. the same concept totally different words uh they had a whole bunch of those with yeah the grips we'll have you know be a little more elaborate some of them are engraved that it's it's it's it's really interesting have you ever shot side by side a pk in 380 versus a ppk in 32 acp i have not no i've only ever shot 32 acp 380 is I don't want to say borderline uncomfortable.

Yeah, I'll say it's borderline uncomfortable for a lot of people. And it's just really snappy, whereas the 32 ACP is like, bam. And there isn't a real, there isn't a in real life power differential that really justifies that. Like on paper, you can come up with equations. You know, the muzzle energy equation is pretty simple. It's weight times velocity, essentially, right? And then you get an energy number, which makes sense. But 32 ACP performs way above what on paper, it seems like it should.

And some of that is probably related to the longness and aerodynamic nature of the projectile versus like a 380, which is very blunt. A 380 is the same, a cartridge, a 380 cartridge and a 32 cartridge are exactly the same length. And the cases are just as long. And so you get this as a, you know, narrower cartridge. The 32 has this taper to it. Or you can get kind of like flat-nosed lead hardcast bullets, which I, I advocate, and I know you're an enjoyer of as well. And 380 all have that kind of truncated short bullet extending out of the case. So they're a little less aerodynamic.

And when you look at penetration, 32 beats 380 pretty much across the board. It's, and then even in those kind of, you know, remember in the 90s, there would be all those, I can't think of the name of the authors that would do these, but they would constantly be doing these comparisons of like shootings and comparing cartridges and coming up with like one shot stop percentiles and things like that. And the 380 was performed much more poorly than the 32 ACP. And that could be for a variety of reasons.

My theory is that 32 was probably more in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing versus the 380. Although there's exceptions to that, I know people that would carry the absolute most powerful cartridge and the smallest gun that they could get, uh, as again, almost as like a fetish,

uh, but typically 32 ACP is just easier to shoot because it's a milder, milder recoil, muzzle flip, etc. in the same size of, of a gun, especially the tinier that you get, you know, they become less controllable,

even though we're not talking like major energy, right? So it's interesting, but that's a consistent story that you see even going back into like the teens and 20s from the people talking about them being used by police and military, is that the 32 was just as good. And I'll explain to you my, the reason I got into this cartridge, And it actually wasn't because of pocket pistols. Originally, even though I did have, you know, I had a 32 and 380 version of the Keltex that I was showing you before we started recording.

When I was looking at and thinking conceptually of like espionage type weapons, I came across this fellow named Ed Harris. Ed Harris worked for, I believe he worked for the NRA for some time doing all kinds of interesting things. He did a lot of research and hand loading. When he was with the NRA, he started doing, he got into 32 ACP because there was a CIA operative who approached the NRA headquarters and Washington. Washington, D.C. and essentially said, I need your help because there are these cartridges that we can't get anymore. And so would you be able, there we go. So would you be able to hand load a reliable cartridge that uses a hard cast flat nose lead bullet in 32 ACP that will run in European pistols? And he, He preferred the Colt 1903, but because he was operating in central Europe, he wanted to use the same kinds of guns that were being used on the ground there.

And again, at that time, even the police were still carrying 32 automatics a lot of the time. It wasn't until like the 70s and the 80s that they definitely moved the vast majority over to 9 millimeters. So Ed Harris started handloading and experimenting with these cartridges so that he could equip these guys with high-performance, 32-ACP cartridges that had been made previously. So like if you go back to the 20s, 30s, and 40s, there were these, you know, lubed, hardcast, lead bullets that were being used. and people knew what they were talking about, but modernization resulted in commercial support for those kinds of cartridges kind of going away as people started getting into, you know, full bore stuff, etc. in the civilian market in the United States and a lot of energy going in that direction. So you could only really get ball ammo, meaning, you know, full metal jacket 32 ACP. And as he was talking about this, my mind started wandering because I was also aware of the fact that like 380 ACP in a blowback pistol is a very poor platform to use for suppressors.

Same with 9x18 macarov. So even if you have a subsonic cartridge, which these are generally subsonic cartridges, these straight blowback. you know, marginal in my terminology, handgun cartridges. The problem is by the time you have a 9mm bore, like you need a 9mm like a 9 by 19 NATO sized suppressor just because the bore is so much larger. And so you need a larger bore in the suppressor. So you need a larger body to have volume. There's all these equations that tend to correspond to performance in suppressors. In shorthand, there's other stuff that you can do internally that really moves the needle. But there are these basic equations.

So by the time you get a suppressor that will work with like a 380 fairly reliably, it's very large. And you might as well have a 9 by 19 shooting 147 grain subsonics. And then the other side of the equation, Pete, as you probably remember this, is suppress 22 pistols, like, as like a spy gun where like a huge topic of conversation and people talk. Yeah. Centreal. You have to use those real close because you remember if anybody knows anything about the history of the mob. It was 22 long rifle was a number one mob caliber because they'd go right up on somebody, press the, press the. press the barrel against her head shoot, and it had enough power to penetrate, but often not enough

power to exit, so it just scrambled the brain. Yeah. And the mob was using suppressed 22s a lot in the 60s and 70s, and that this was, the speculation was that this had been learned due to, like, mob involvement in espionage type operations. World War II, you know, through Vietnam. And so if you know the history of those relationships like drug trafficking, etc, like that makes total sense that there would be this overlap. So yeah, so that's it.

That is a point blank kind of operation, especially when even with like optimized, like 40 grain subsonic out of a pistol cartridges, stuff totally optimized to just perform and have the lowest sound signature while still having the maximum energy that you can get out of a 22LR and a suppressed pistol. The energy levels are quite, quite weak. I had a friend who got shot in the face with a 22. It actually was right between the eyes, and it didn't kill him. It entered, and again, bullets do weird things. It essentially turned as it, as it, as it, as it broke through the skull and just like skipped along the edge of the interior of the skull and almost basically went around his brain and then stopped. And so he lived. He lived for another like 15, 16 years.

Um, died for other reasons. Um, but after that, I was just like, and then that was pretty much point blank range. It was within like a foot. And I was just, you know, as I was thinking for writing my first book, faction, I was like, what did they actually use? Because, you know,

when you look at the stories from Vietnam and stuff, they would use those for like taking out geese and stuff. But they even had, because the Vietnamese would use guard geese, because geese are loud as hell. So, you know,

as a little alarm on the edge of like villages and encampments. So when you looked at what they actually used, uh, for taking out dogs and sentries, they used what they called the hush puppy, which is a Smith and Wesson model 59 that was modified to be double stack and use a, you know, use espresso and everything like that. And so as I, as I was thinking about that, I was like, well, 32 ACP is dead center midpoint energy wise between a subsonic 22LR. Let's let's just, if we round up and say a thousand feet per second to just barely,

B subsonic in a 22 LR and a thousand feet per second nine millimeter, 147 grain cartridge. The 32 ACP is dead center thousand feet per second, 73 grain, 75 grain, right? Still subsonic. And so I was thinking about it and I was like, this is the only way you can actually still have a small, you know, simple technology suppressor. that is actually going to be in an effect of cartridge. Because like if you look at the penetration numbers and everything of 32 ACP, you can actually,

it'll actually do the thing that you're trying to do 100% reliably, or 99.95% reliably. There's no 100% versus a 22 without being this giant 9mm. So that's where I got into this. And as, you know, you go back in time and this story just plays out all throughout, the people that actually used these guns. They need a, they need a gun. And so having a small pistol, you know, even as a deterrent is better than than not having one. It reduces your need

to actually shoot, you know, from a defensive perspective theoretically in certain circumstances. Or it's good enough. Like you just need to be trading shots to make problems go away. Or you need to have a pistol that just meets these minimum standards of performance. And to make them more reliable, you have to jump up to a much large or much more powerful gun. When I say reliable, I mean in terms of like effectiveness on target. Because all pistols are fairly marginal, unless you're talking like 44 Magnum or something, then it has performance equal to rifles in many cases. so just harder to shoot than a rifle because it's a handgun.

So that is how I kind of arrived at it. And like I said, as you go back, that's why 32 ACP lasted for so long, is because it just checked enough of these boxes. It was effective enough to do the job that it was intended to do for a very long time until, I think honestly, until technology, evolved enough that it totally made sense to just pretty much move other than like deep cover

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Give the gift of a unique experience this Christmas with vouchers from Trump-Dunbeg. Search Trump-Ireland gift vouchers. Trump on Thunbiog, Kush Farage. So two things. So if people want to get an idea on 32, Paul Harrell, rest in peace, probably one of the greatest voices to, I mean, you could fall asleep listening to his videos. It's not that they're uninteresting. It's just he had a voice that you wanted to fall asleep to. He has many videos on 32. He's got a, is 32 ACP enough for concealed carry, 22 long rifle, 22, 25 versus 32 ACP.

He has an ammo selection. He actually, has a video with plus p buffalo boar so um that one's actually called will the gun survive so yeah rest in rest in peace uh one of the most heartbreaking farewell videos i've ever seen yeah um but um yeah paul harrell uh a legend a legend all right so let's go back in time a little bit i will uh i will share this because there's pretty much no way we're we're going to be able to get away with uh talking about pistols without bringing this one up. See that guy? Two world wars, right?

Two world wars. And what was the, I actually heard the number yesterday listening to a video, I'm just catching up on all the seg drama. Someone was saying that when they tested this against the Beretta, it was one in 137 rounds had a stove pipe or a misfired, some kind of malfunction of sorts. It was like with the barretta, it was like 10 times that. It was like one in like 60 and 100 or even higher. Yeah, yeah.

So there, you know, you and I are of close enough in age that we remember in the old days when HoloPoint cartridges were coming online, that the, every article that you read about a cool carry 1911 from some authors, they would get the barrel throated, which means that they, you know, would modify basically the chamber area a little bit to make sure that it could feed hollow points and their profile. So instead of this rounded nose bullet, the blunter, you know, edges of hollow points were catching on the, on the feed ramp. And just in general, especially as these things got shot out. My dad was saying in the, when he was in the army in the late 60s, early 70s,

every 1911 he ever fired was a rattle trap. It was just 30 years old and shot to pieces. So yet they really started having major issues with it. And even a high end, tight, accurate, reliable 1911 needs. the loving care that often doesn't happen in a military setting. So, yeah, but still a great pistol and great ergonomics. Well, the, you know, one thing I will say is that when you look at the progression of the 1911, I mean, you come all the way up till today and, you know, wider trigger, um, more,

longer tail, different hammers, smaller, have to get it throated, special magazines. I mean, okay, yeah, if you, you know, if that's what you want, because, I mean, anyone who's ever shot in 1911 knows it's an incredible experience. Oh, yeah. The trigger, just everything about it is beautiful. But, you know, he didn't stop there when it came to designing pistons. Oh, no. Oh, no. He came, you know, it got to the point where he was like, okay, yeah, we need to put this out.

The Browning High Power or the P35. And there's, I mean, I have one. There is nothing that needs to be done to this. No. And as a matter of fact, when. FN reintroduced it, did an updated version of it in recent years. Everybody was like, what are you doing? Yeah. Yeah. Why would you do that? Yeah. The only thing that you really saw, I mean, there were some minor changes, but really grips were really the only real difference that you saw.

And I think that, you know, yeah, the sites on the original ones are small. And so sure, it makes sense to have higher profile sites, you know, maybe tridium dots, et cetera, for, you know, defensive use in low light. And it's nice to have an ambidextrous thumb safety if you're left-handed. If you're not, it's not necessary or even, you know, beneficial at all. It really doesn't need very much. It's, it fits the hand marvelously. It, uh, and it took something like, I'm comfortable saying, so 1935 is when this pistol was released. It was the first double stack of any commercial success, the first double stack handgun 13 rounds of 9mm, and it took a very long time for it to be surpassed. And I'm comfortable saying maybe it hasn't

really been surpassed. It's just the compromises that need to be in place for like safety, reliability, accuracy, uh, maintenance, etc. That whole, that whole conversation. That there, there are modernizations that don't improve the operation of the gun for the end user until like parts start breaking, you know, uh, from heavyware. And so, or like in a, you know, a military kind of armory type setting. It does make more sense to have certain kinds of evolutions, but very hard pistol to surpass. Yeah. Yeah. And people, a lot of people like to say, you know, in this, I guess the boomers really did start this discussion, but I'm not going to blame it on them as the whole 45 versus 9 millimeter. You know, the 9, the 9,

millimeter will kill you, but the 45 will destroy your soul. Well, you know, the biggest problem with 9mm was ball ammo because it's high velocity. And the ball ammo, yeah, I mean, a handgun is a handgun too. Like the power, the power of the 45 is overrated. I mean, it's a great cartridge, but it really was the development of, of hollow points that where the energy of the 9mm could really reliably be harnessed in transferring that energy into a target.

And again, the other value of the 9 millimeter is that it's lower recoil and flatter shooting and it's easier to carry more of them or to fit in the gun that'll still fit your hand or a wider variety of hands. And so shooting someone to, two or three times with a nine millimeter loaded with hollow points that won't just zip right through is extremely effective and easy to do versus like a 45 kind of a setting. So it's really a lot of it is this overlap of technology in theory and practice all

kind of interacting with one another to change the way things are done. And the whole thing with the 45 is, is that, okay, carrying a 1911, you know, come on. It's a really big carry gun. I know people, I mean, and sometimes I carry really bit. I carry my high power sometimes. You know, so I'm not, but to carry that all the time. And yes, you also have this, the issue of hollow points feeding. Now, somebody who has a, you know, somebody who has a 3,500.

$1, 1911 screaming at me right now. I don't get any malfunctions out of mind. You got a $3,500. I mean, you've basically done everything you could to make this thing run when you could have bought a Glock 30. Yeah. And it's the size of a Glock 19, basically. And the arguments over as far as whether you have,

and I'm just saying Glock 30 just because I know it will piss a lot of people. people off that I mentioned clock. But I mean, you have a gun that's going to run all day and another week. And, you know, famously, I know you heard the story about the, like, it was an Arizona, I think he was an Arizona Highway Patrol guy who was like not, he wasn't the biggest gun guy, but they make them practice out there. And he had run his like Glock 22, like 12,000 rounds without cleaning it. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So, sure, you can still carry 45, but there are better weapons out there. More modern weapons are going to be better for concealment and more reliable. It's interesting. I was trying to find it. There was, there's an image that I saw in a gun magazine a long time ago, and I was just searching for it. I can't find it, but someone laid a high power on top of either Glock 17 or Glock 19. And it showed how fat the Glock 19 was in all of its dimensions versus the sleekness of the high power. And that actually makes a major difference when it comes to carryability and fitting in your hand. So this is a pretty good comparison that I just put into the chat if you want to pull this image up. Let me just blow this up first.

Yeah. Here we go. The single action nature and all metal milled action of the high power, the P35, allows for it to be a lot more compact. And again, the Glock is very economically made and that you just have this pretty basic slide with as little, you know, as few milling operations as possible. And so when you look at that, if you've never handled a high power, like it feels elegant in your hand. And the magazine is now. I think you said one time to me that it probably fits. 95% fits 95% of the male hands in the world perfectly.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it's just very, it's very nice. Yeah, and you can go out there and get them for, and not, you can get one used, not more expensive than you can get, you know, the newer, you know, glocks with all the, you know, like an MOS Glock or something like that. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Not as much. But so let me, since we're talking about nine millimeters, let me share this one, see what you have to say. Ooh, P.O8 Luger. I have a question for you.

I think you have one? I do. Okay. So that is a, that is a grip angle that works wonderfully for one hand shooting and not two hand shooting, right? Correct.

I don't, For the sake of any of my channels, I will not say why I believe that, you know, certain people liked it for one-handed shooting. Yes. That's fair. And probably aiming, probably aiming in a downward direction. Well, so here's the thing, though, is in ye olden days, shooting handguns with two hands was just not done.

It was the one handgun. And there's exceptions. So the great John Fitzgerald of Colt handgun company, he was the guy who came up with the Fitz Revolver concept, which I advocate and think is very cool. But he actually wrote in a book called, shooting, which he authored, I want to say in the 20s, he talked about shooting with two hands. And the, um, what Sykes and Fairbairn who were working for that they essentially,

they did all the combat training for that, for the British SOE special operations executive. They had come out of the Shanghai municipal police and had developed some two handed, some limited two-handed shooting techniques for longer distances, et cetera. But otherwise, it was done one-handed. And the sweep, that angle of the luger is beautiful for one-handed shooting. But what happens is you kind of break the wrist, and it makes it a very natural point of aim. but over time,

you can't shoot super high volumes because the musculature of the wrist is less engaged versus like a 1911 grip angle or a Glock or something like that. The steeper, or I should say the more vertical grip angles suit themselves really well to like a support hand I had a styre, I think it was a, I had a 40 caliber version of it because it was, hey, it was the a odds or maybe, yeah, I think I bought it in the odds. And 40 was all the rage. And you had magazine capacity limitations and stuff. So yeah, so I'll get a, you know, 10 rounds of 40 instead of 10 rounds of 9 millimeter.

And it shot beautifully, but it had a similar steep grip angle. And it wasn't. great for two-handed shooting, but it was great for one-handed shooting. And, you know, that was the style of the early 20th century. Like, even the Colt Single Action Army and the, you know, Colt 1860s, you know, all those old pistols with these kind of crazy handles, they were designed for shooting with one hand and then the Colt Single Action Army had that angle because your thumb cocking. And so the design is that you fire, it naturally kind of flips in your wrist. You open up your thumb, you know, and you cock with your thumb because you're on a horse.

And your left hand is holding reins or something like that. And so, you know, it was, that's where the kind of handgun shooting concept came from. Like it was very horseback oriented or you would just be. using one hand. So when you look at like bull's eye shooting and target shooting and military shooting, really until, you know, around Vietnam, it's all one-handed shooting. Actually, I should say post-Vietnam. It was like that modern technique of the pistol that got developed in the competitive shooting organizations and competition circuits in California by guys like Jeff Cooper and these other pistoleros.

You know, there, there were specialty guys talking about shooting with two hands or for like really long distance shooting with two hands. Otherwise, it was a one-handed thing, which is where you get that kind of wacky grip angle. Let's go. I got two more to share, two more to share with you. And we'll get out of here. All right.

So, um, let's, and I have one last thought on cartridges that I want to call out. that we can visit after we look at these other ones. All right. The natural progression. Yes. Wonderful mechanism. So the Beretta uses the same operating mechanism. It's like a tilting lock.

So Walter P38 for anybody who's listening. Beautiful. Beautiful handgun. Sinister looking. Very modern. And yeah, great pistol. The post-war, like P1s and P4s are nice.

I really like that the, is it the K? There's like a P38K where the front site is mounted to the band on the front of the slide. And then the barrels bobbed to just in front of the slide. That is an extremely cool pistol. Feels wonderful. Yeah, these were, these were steel, the P1s were, I think they were aluminum. Aluminum frames, yeah, correct. Yeah, but they're great too.

And these, again, these in the hand. I mean, just they feel like they belong there. And actually, this is one that is more apt to shooting with two hands. Because if you just look at the grip angle on it. Yes, 100%. And the really interesting things, for me, again, I love espionage type weapons and stuff. And the Germans were making suppressed versions of the,

the P38 pretty much right away. A lot of them had like massive, massive cans on them because they, they were pretty basic technology. They weren't doing like really shaped baffles like you would get in, in like a rifle cartridge. There was some degree of trying with that. But then they'd also have to like bleed off the energy because it's a supersonic round.

And so then they would have specialty subsonic heart. like way before anyone else was doing it. Very, very cool. And then the West Germans were doing the same thing because again, they had their previous iterations to go on. So you'll see a bunch of in like suppressor history books and things of that nature. You'll see some really cool P38 and descended versions with cans. And again, they run well even despite these giant cans because the operating system is different

than like the browning tilting barrel lock, you know? So the browning mechanism, as the round fires and the slide starts moving, starts reciprocating, it disengages those locking lugs and the barrel tilts up. There's a little link that sort of cams. And that means that that gun is more sensitive to the weight of a sort of a scams. suppressor, which is why you have this device that wasn't invented until, I think, the late, mid to late 80s that essentially has a spring in it that helps counteract some of the issues with the weight of the suppressor on the gun.

And so that's why you have a more complicated suppressor that'll run on like a tilting lock barrel. And the reason the P-38s and Berettas were so popular in espionage was because they don't require that because their barrel doesn't tilt. It stays closer to like, it's not a fixed barrel, but it's closer to that where the locking mechanism is elsewhere instead of the barrel tilting. So very interesting tidbit I thought I would share. I will warn anyone who wants to get one finds a P-38. Doesn't even depend on condition. Before you start shooting it, take it to a gunsmith, who knows what they're doing.

The top covers on those have a habit of popping off. You should do that with any used pistol. You're probably going to want to change out all the springs. And it's not like a Glock where any retard like me can disassemble them really easily with a guy that you find online, like you need to be very careful about what you're doing for changing out, you know, like firing pin springs and, you know, recoil spring is pretty straightforward, but like the main spring and all those things. Those are wear parts and especially in these older guns. Like there's a lot of stuff that can get worn out and just break really easily. And you

don't want to do that. So good call out, Pete. All right. I'm going to jump. I'm going to piss people off right now. and just jump over a whole bunch of guns. But I said we'll keep it in an hour. And I'm just going to jump to like my, it might be my favorite modern gun. But I know this will, jumping over some pistols will piss people off. Mm.

Mm. USP. That's a USB, right? Yeah, OK. I like USPs a lot. They're great guns. They have an aesthetic. They run really well.

They're accurate. You can have some with amazing triggers. It's an exposed hammer, non-striker-fired gun, which, in my experience, tends to correlate to a more enjoyable shooting experience in terms of trigger pull and the like. Yeah.

I like USBs a lot. In fact, you know that monstrosity, the Mark 23, 45 that was created. Don't say bad things about the Mark 23 now. I like the Mark 23, but damn is that thing huge? You can get a 45 ACP USB with a threaded barrel. And it will do what you need to do. Maybe not lock the slide, which is a feature I like, but it'll do everything else. and it's a very enjoyable experience.

Yeah, the one word that is constantly used, if you go down like a YouTube rabbit hole of USB videos, especially older ones, is overbuilt. Yes. Yeah, it's, you have a polymer frame, but when it comes to the slide, the mechanism, I mean, there's a reason these are made to basically last. There's a polymer pistol that will last 100 years or 200 years if you just take care of it.

I mean, I just don't see how you break these. So I don't know. I don't know HK's manufacturing process, but I believe that the slides on the USBs are fully milled out. SIG does this interesting thing where they essentially have three separate components. They have the top and then the two sides of the slide that are machined and then they're welded together in a fixture and then have a final like milling and then polishing. And they do that because it's very cheap to do like very simple milling processes and then weld them together. that way. I'm not aware of it ever having been an issue in terms of like the robustness

of a, when I'm talking about six, I'm talking about like this is like the 220, the 225, the 226, the 228, 229, that generation, not not the shoot your dick off 320. But the the HKUSP slides are beautifully milled. And again, it's it's not a like, high, high polish, blued pistol, but it's shockingly nice for that matte finish utilitarian look.

They're just gorgeous. I mean, you just know it was built for the military. Oh, any military in the world can use this and go to war with it, and it's going to stand up.

A military with a budget. Yeah. A military with a, I guess that. That eliminates a bunch of them. But with either less corrupt or more corrupt, you know, procurement system than other parts of the world. No shit.

All right, man. What did you, what did you want to end up talking about? You want to talk about cases? You want to talk about what do you want to talk about? So we were talking about like hollow points and hard nose lead and, you know, FMJ, ball ammo. And I just want to point this out.

So we were talking about how 9mm was made relevant by hollow points. And I stand by that. I think that if you're shooting a 9mm as a defensive and carrying it as a defensive weapon or it's your house gun or whatever, you should be using the highest quality hollow point ammunition that you can get. Like one good guideline, you know, that it kind of fits into like boomer advice, like Mossad Ayub type stuff. find out what your local police use and just buy that.

It isn't like you get an out because of that. It's just a good reference point for a quality, quality ammunition that should run well. If it runs well in your gun, keep it. If it doesn't run well in your gun, find something else that's high quality that'll work. 32ACP does not have the energy to be wasting by, by using a hollow point

because it's not going to over penetrate the way that like a 9mm ball cartridge will. It still has a fair amount of penetration like the cartridge that I recommended to Pete that I know that he carries in his P32 and that I have in my P32 and my 81 is a Buffalo Boar

hard cast flat nose lead 75 grain bullet and it the idea here is that this cartridge is too marginal to be wasting penetration you need that penetration for the for the bullet to do the thing it needs to be able to penetrate bone it needs to be able to penetrate clothing and flesh. So when you see these videos of people firing into this gelatin and they have this FBI like optimal, you know, optimal math of you want it to penetrate like this much, the idea is that when the FBI was developing that, they were using like 9mm and 10 millimeter. The ball ammo for those things would just zip right through. So the idea behind having the hollow points in that context is so that they open up. And yes, it does more damage and it creates a permanent

wound cavity and all that. And then it stops without just zipping right through and leaving no wound cavity. You don't have the benefit of all that extra energy in a 32 ACP. You want it to penetrate. 380 is the same way. If you look at the performance of the hollow points in these cartridges, they, they just don't penetrate adequately. And there's often feeding issues. And so I would say, use something that runs, use something that the flatter nose rounds will do more damage. And the reason I like hard cast flat nose lead is that it's better than ball ammo in that you tend to get slightly higher velocities versus an equivalent weight for a full metal jacket cartridge because of the drag that gets imparted from being metal versus lubricated lead.

It does require a little more cleaning, a little more fastidiousness. Usually you can use a bore cleaning solvent and just slop it in there and let it hang out for a while before you brush it out with like a brass brush or something. but don't waste your time with hollow points in 32 and 380. It's a total waste of time. Good high-quality ammunition that will run in your gun at those significant velocities. And finally, the European pressure cartridges tend to work better than American or European spec. So that means typically a 73 grain bullet.

It's going to be 900 to 950 FPS in these like three to four inch length barrels versus the like an American 60 grain jacket at Hollow Point or a 71 grain FMJ. It's going to be like 850 to 900 feet per second, just not enough and often not enough recoil impulse to operate like real guns. maybe not maybe it'll work in your gun that's great like the sea camps were optimized for these you know uh i think it's the the silver tip um hollow points but you just don't have the energy in those little tiny guns to be wasting it trying to get these things to open up um and if they do open up they don't penetrate enough so just thought i would share that um good luck finding ammo for to ACP. It's a good opportunity to become a fan of hand loading so that you can shoot it a lot. Like me.

All right, man. I appreciate it. It's always fun to do some gun autism. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Great idea for a show. Yeah, I also have to shout out your appearances on with Jay Burden on Jay Burden show talking about guns. He didn't give me the idea because, you know, you and I have talked about guns before, But he sort of gave me the idea. So yes, Mr. Bird. And you get a shout out here for this. Geeer plugs.

Thanks, Pete. Carl-Dall.substack.com. That's K-A-R-D-A-H-L dot substack.com. That's where I do my longer form effort posting. I also post on the platform, stupidly renamed X. which is how I'm always going to refer to it, not only because it's a great way to put it, but our dear departed friend Z-Man coined that phrase. And so, and I hate that platform with a passion, even though I'm an internet addict.

So I will use that terminology. I have two books out, both available on Amazon. First one is called Faction. The second is Faction with the Crusaders. Faction with the Crusaders is a nationalist. sympathetic, fictional perspective on the Spanish Civil War with lots of fun gun autism, but only when it's in service to the story. So thanks for having me, Pete, and happy Friday. Happy Friday, and we will be talking soon. All right. Take care. Thanks, Pete.