Back To Normalcy

What passes for it here, anyway. No nekkid chicks or guns or sports or guy stuff at all yesterday, as we remembered 9/11 and in particular Marianne MacFarlane.

Now I'm on to deciding upon the .357 Sig. Modern ammunition is as important as caliber...yes, you wouldn't know it from listening to the gun rags...and I find myself in a quandry. Federal manufactures their incredible HST in 9 mm, 40 S&W, 45 GAP, and 45 AUTO, but no .357 Sig. And the pundits had sworn the GAP to be stillborn, so what gives. Methinks they know something or are banking on the GAP taking off and the Sig going nowhere.

BUT...Winchester has made the 357 SIG for it's new Ranger-Bonded line, and guess what kids? The "new" Ranger-T's look an awful lot like the Federal HST's. Now, for me, bonded-schmonded. I believe the Federal guy who has long told me that bonded bullets expand less than the run of the mill variety, and this is born out by looking at the king of all bonded rounds, the Speer Gold Dot. Can hardly sell range ammo to LE if it isn't bonded the guy tells me, and since our boys in blue are bandwagon-jumpers par excellance, that sounds about right.

You, me, and lots of other civvies buy most of the non-military ammunition, and that's a fact. Hells bells but there are 4 million licensed concealed-weapon-licensees in the country and only 1 and a half million cops. And our ranks include aficianado's, like Texans for example, who may not carry a lot but shoot the dickens out of their privately owned firearms. Add it all up and the numbers are staggeringly civilian when it comes to buying power. Many of the ammo makers treat us like crap with their LE-ONLY product lines, but that's okay. Police are at the head of the class because they write a lot of speeding tickets and shoot almost as many bad guys as us, and so what if the Founding Father's felt that the private citizen should own and bear guns on a par with those on a government payroll. Can't be having Mexicans or some other minority member toting around full-auto 16's now can we?

'Course not. Anyway's, Winchester has copied the HST but made it smaller, and who needs that noise. Remington doesn't offer either the SIG or GAP in Golden Sabers, but of course Speer has Gold Dots in both flavors.

How about the specialty boys, the boutique shops? Well, Gold Dots and old dots is what they have on the shelf and little else. Fast as lighting old-fashioned bullets might be just the ticket for a .357 Magnum, or it's big brother the .44, but to Double-Tap and Buffalo Bore, the word "new" means what you call the first day of every year. You CAN get the Eldorado Starfire line in .357 Sig, and just for that alone I'd buy drop-in barrels for my Glock 40's when I felt like going light and fast with something that spread like a Lewinsky, but try and find someone stocking such ammo and then let me know.

Such a barrel can be had for as low as $70 or so, and with Gold Dots, Ranger-T's, and PMC (when it can be had) it might just be worth it.

For a very cool bullet comparison click here

Then click Launch Testing Comparison Tool.