...the NAACP wants to push the U.S. Department of Justice, run by that Black Panther protecting piece of shit Holder, to file a civil rights action against him. It is amazing how a group that purportedly is fighting against racism would keep trying to perpetrate it through this case where the only known racial remarks, between the two players, were made by Trayvon Martin. Of course, should the NAACP admit that there was no racism in this case, except for that caused Mr. Martin, by them and by Mr. Martin's supporters, and that race for the most part is not an issue in this country with a half white and half black president (who ironically enough considers himself black thus playing the race card himself), they would crumble and be no more. They won't do that though, too much money in it for them and too many idiots out there buying it all.
As it is, the jury has spoken and George Zimmerman is a free man, at least until the feds try to rail road him. You can almost bet they will try, what can we expect under the auspices of a half-breed who in essence refuses to accept he is half white and his ethically deficient henchman Holder. Hmm, maybe there should be an NAAWP but I digress, this is about justice, and Justice is truly blind when it comes to the color of one's skin or at least it was in this case.
All the best,
Glenn B.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Transparency in Government - But Obama's Glass House Still Opaque
Really amazing but certainly quite true, no doubt about it. Yet, so absurd and not right that it almost boggles the mind.
All the best,
Glenn B
The Kentucky Gun Co. - A Class Act
I had never heard of the Kentucky Gun Company prior to the assassination of Bardstown, KY Police Officer Jason Ellis on May 25th of this year. You may recall reading about him in the news; he was shot after stopping to remove some debris from an exit ramp off of a highway. The killer had evidently left it there and called it in and had pre-planned the assassination, if not of Ellis then of any officer who would have responded.
Then somewhere, I do not remember where, maybe on a firearms forum or on a gun blog, or on Facebook, I read that the Kentucky Gun Company (http://KYGunCo.com) was holding a fund raising raffle event for the family of officer Ellis. As I recall, the tickets were $5.00 each and the prize was a Henry rifle. I was really amazed, and I use that word literally, to have received an email from the president of KYGunCo yesterday with an attached video announcing the winner of the rifle. No, I did not win; I received the email because I had bought a few raffle tickets from them and thus made a donation. While the video was part of my amazement, what amazed me was not so much that they sent out a video to make the announcement but the content of it. That content reflected what I am sure must be the nature of all those involved with the fund raiser and the making of the video. That nature and the outcome were beyond my expectation. You have to watch the video to understand what I mean.
The folks at KYGunCo are a class act. The dedication of a small company, its owner and its employees, to do something nice for the family of the fallen officer, and the response coming from what assuredly was mostly the firearms owning community, was impressive. Together they raised a substantial amount of money for the fallen officers family and showed me that all is not lost in America.
All the best,
Glenn B
Then somewhere, I do not remember where, maybe on a firearms forum or on a gun blog, or on Facebook, I read that the Kentucky Gun Company (http://KYGunCo.com) was holding a fund raising raffle event for the family of officer Ellis. As I recall, the tickets were $5.00 each and the prize was a Henry rifle. I was really amazed, and I use that word literally, to have received an email from the president of KYGunCo yesterday with an attached video announcing the winner of the rifle. No, I did not win; I received the email because I had bought a few raffle tickets from them and thus made a donation. While the video was part of my amazement, what amazed me was not so much that they sent out a video to make the announcement but the content of it. That content reflected what I am sure must be the nature of all those involved with the fund raiser and the making of the video. That nature and the outcome were beyond my expectation. You have to watch the video to understand what I mean.
The folks at KYGunCo are a class act. The dedication of a small company, its owner and its employees, to do something nice for the family of the fallen officer, and the response coming from what assuredly was mostly the firearms owning community, was impressive. Together they raised a substantial amount of money for the fallen officers family and showed me that all is not lost in America.
All the best,
Glenn B
Ray Kelly As The New Head of DHS - Oh No!
So, Senator Chucky-cheese Scummer Charles Schumer is saying there is no doubt that the current NYPD commissioner, Ray Kelly, would be excellent as the replacement for Janet Napolitano as head of DHS (source1, source2). He quotes Kelly's leadership of the NYPD, mentions how Kelly as thwarted terrorists, and even that Kelly has equipped the NYPD with the capability to shoot planes from the sky (remember Bloomberg calls the NYPD his army). Well, based on my recollections of Kelly as my boss and based on my opinion of Kelly, I have my doubts. I would bet so too does Schumer and the media. You see, there is no mention of any statements by Schumer that Kelly already headed up a federal agency and no other mention of it in the news reports I have seen. Do you wonder why that could be?
Kelly was, as I recall, the commissioner of the United States Customs Service when morale in that agency hit rock bottom. If you are wondering why, let me give you a few examples: He apparently believed that there was a very high degree of corruption in the Customs Service. Yet, despite his statements to that effect, there were not large scale numbers of corruption arrests in much higher percentage during his reign than before he was the boss there. Why not? Moist likely because, like in any law enforcement agency, corruption existed - but it was nowhere nearly as bad as he seemingly believed or fantasized it to be.
Then there was the case of a black Jamaican woman who was searched by Customs Inspectors after arriving at JFK airport aboard a Jamaica Airlines flight. She claimed she was stopped because of racism and racial profiling. Kelly, as I recall, immediately agreed with her, seemingly without checking into the facts of her case and she was suing the government over it. Indeed there had been profiling, but not of her due to her race. The profiling was routine and legal. You see, the flight had been profiled, as were many other flights targeted that were coming from known narcotics transfer and source countries and as for having had transported many a smuggler in the past. Jamaica was both a source country and transfer point for illegal narcotics that would be smuggled in the US. The flight was a choice flight for smugglers to use. People on that flight were often subjected to Customs searches based on that knowledge as well as over considerations.
In addition, as I remember, there was the legal blooper of the century made by Kelly when he in essence said that Customs officials were illegally searching people at the border because they were doing so absent probable cause and that he was going to eliminate that illegal practice. Had he even done one tiny little bit of research on the subject of Customs search authority and border searches he would have realized that Customs searches, at the border or its equivalent, do not require probable cause and can be performed on as little as a hunch on the part of a Customs official. He would also have learned that such searches had been upheld as legal by SCOTUS many years before Ray Kelly was born. Customs searches, at the border (or its equivalent) are very different in scope of authority that are most other searches conducted by law enforcement officials. Kelly though, barged right into the Customs Service, with preconceived legal notions and with his prior hang-ups over the amount of corruption he perceived in the NYPD and he weighed down Customs with them. Add to that the fact that almost every other memo, signed by him, for about his first 6 months or so in charge, to reach field personnel (at least those I saw) had to do with integrity problems that he perceived and you can understand how morale plummeted under his reign in Customs.
To be quite frank, he was in my opinion the biggest asshole in charge of any government agency that I have ever seen except maybe for Janet Napolitano but if he takes her slot he is, I think, sure to surpass her ineptness. When he was in Customs, it was rumored that he was supposedly gunning to get the directors spot in the FBI. In fact he was in the running for it: "Kelly, who has been leading the city’s police department for more than a decade, was considered a one-time contender to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the Clinton administration" (source). He did not get that position but left Customs and returned to the NYPD. Many Customs personnel, whom I knew, were happy to see him go and many NYPD officers seemed none too happy to be saddled with him again. I imagine it was his inability to adjust to federal service and his apparent misunderstandings about legal issues (in my estimation also his ego driven overall piss poor performance and his seeming paranoia about corruption) in the Customs Service, under Clinton, that assured he would never sit in the seat of power at the FBI. Funny how Schumer is not quoted as telling us anything about Ray Kelly as the Commissioner of Customs and how he was passed over in the selection process to lead the FBI - isn't it! And no that's not George W. Bush's fault.
In my opinion, and I am nowhere near being alone on this point, Kelly is a super ego maniac. He evidently does not give a rat's ass about the rights of people he is supposed to be serving nor about the Constitution he has sworn to protect and is supposed to uphold. He instead seemingly acts as if he is the puppet henchman of a despot (take your pick of either Clinton or Bloomberg or both) and that he is mostly employed to see their will is done without regard for the law unless such concern is politically beneficent to his bosses or himself. Just take a look at his number one pet project on the streets of NY - Stop and Frisk. I think it is a racist system of profiling black, Hispanic and even white people. Just ask any white guy who has had the nerve to let the cops see him walk through a black neighborhood at night. Strange though, you hear little or nothing about that in the media but if you are a white guy traversing a black neighborhood you seemingly are a likely target of the NYPD stop and frisk program based only on your race.
As noted above, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has bragged that his army is the third or fourth largest in the world- he made it quite clear that he was referring to the NYPD as an army. Mr. Kelly never once corrected Bloomberg to tell him that he is in charge of a police department and not an army nor that it would be illegal for Bloomberg to be running an army in NYC. Kelly apparently just kisses the asses of those with whom he is in favor and with those whose ultra leftist politics he agrees in order to advance his own power hungry agenda.
In my opinion, Ray Kelly would be about the worst possible candidate for the job of running the Department of Homeland Security under any administration that would be mindful of the Constitution and of the rights of the People. Under the current administration though - he might fit in perfectly and I have little to no doubt he would be willing to pull the trigger (or order his personnel to do so) when aimed in law abiding and patriotic citizens of the United States of America to promote his bosses political agenda.
Of course, I guess to be absolutely fair, I should mention that I think he would, in all likelihood, be a step up from Janet Napolitano as the head man (yes that pun was intentional) at DHS. So, instead of being the ground on which the dog has shit and pissed, he would be the shit itself. If you want to see another petty tyrant in charge of a department in Washington, then do nothing. If you want someone in charge of DHS who is actually qualified for the job and who will support the Constitution, then I think you need let your elected officials know, immediately, that you oppose Ray Kelly as the head of DHS.
All the best,
Glenn B
Kelly was, as I recall, the commissioner of the United States Customs Service when morale in that agency hit rock bottom. If you are wondering why, let me give you a few examples: He apparently believed that there was a very high degree of corruption in the Customs Service. Yet, despite his statements to that effect, there were not large scale numbers of corruption arrests in much higher percentage during his reign than before he was the boss there. Why not? Moist likely because, like in any law enforcement agency, corruption existed - but it was nowhere nearly as bad as he seemingly believed or fantasized it to be.
Then there was the case of a black Jamaican woman who was searched by Customs Inspectors after arriving at JFK airport aboard a Jamaica Airlines flight. She claimed she was stopped because of racism and racial profiling. Kelly, as I recall, immediately agreed with her, seemingly without checking into the facts of her case and she was suing the government over it. Indeed there had been profiling, but not of her due to her race. The profiling was routine and legal. You see, the flight had been profiled, as were many other flights targeted that were coming from known narcotics transfer and source countries and as for having had transported many a smuggler in the past. Jamaica was both a source country and transfer point for illegal narcotics that would be smuggled in the US. The flight was a choice flight for smugglers to use. People on that flight were often subjected to Customs searches based on that knowledge as well as over considerations.
In addition, as I remember, there was the legal blooper of the century made by Kelly when he in essence said that Customs officials were illegally searching people at the border because they were doing so absent probable cause and that he was going to eliminate that illegal practice. Had he even done one tiny little bit of research on the subject of Customs search authority and border searches he would have realized that Customs searches, at the border or its equivalent, do not require probable cause and can be performed on as little as a hunch on the part of a Customs official. He would also have learned that such searches had been upheld as legal by SCOTUS many years before Ray Kelly was born. Customs searches, at the border (or its equivalent) are very different in scope of authority that are most other searches conducted by law enforcement officials. Kelly though, barged right into the Customs Service, with preconceived legal notions and with his prior hang-ups over the amount of corruption he perceived in the NYPD and he weighed down Customs with them. Add to that the fact that almost every other memo, signed by him, for about his first 6 months or so in charge, to reach field personnel (at least those I saw) had to do with integrity problems that he perceived and you can understand how morale plummeted under his reign in Customs.
To be quite frank, he was in my opinion the biggest asshole in charge of any government agency that I have ever seen except maybe for Janet Napolitano but if he takes her slot he is, I think, sure to surpass her ineptness. When he was in Customs, it was rumored that he was supposedly gunning to get the directors spot in the FBI. In fact he was in the running for it: "Kelly, who has been leading the city’s police department for more than a decade, was considered a one-time contender to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the Clinton administration" (source). He did not get that position but left Customs and returned to the NYPD. Many Customs personnel, whom I knew, were happy to see him go and many NYPD officers seemed none too happy to be saddled with him again. I imagine it was his inability to adjust to federal service and his apparent misunderstandings about legal issues (in my estimation also his ego driven overall piss poor performance and his seeming paranoia about corruption) in the Customs Service, under Clinton, that assured he would never sit in the seat of power at the FBI. Funny how Schumer is not quoted as telling us anything about Ray Kelly as the Commissioner of Customs and how he was passed over in the selection process to lead the FBI - isn't it! And no that's not George W. Bush's fault.
In my opinion, and I am nowhere near being alone on this point, Kelly is a super ego maniac. He evidently does not give a rat's ass about the rights of people he is supposed to be serving nor about the Constitution he has sworn to protect and is supposed to uphold. He instead seemingly acts as if he is the puppet henchman of a despot (take your pick of either Clinton or Bloomberg or both) and that he is mostly employed to see their will is done without regard for the law unless such concern is politically beneficent to his bosses or himself. Just take a look at his number one pet project on the streets of NY - Stop and Frisk. I think it is a racist system of profiling black, Hispanic and even white people. Just ask any white guy who has had the nerve to let the cops see him walk through a black neighborhood at night. Strange though, you hear little or nothing about that in the media but if you are a white guy traversing a black neighborhood you seemingly are a likely target of the NYPD stop and frisk program based only on your race.
As noted above, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has bragged that his army is the third or fourth largest in the world- he made it quite clear that he was referring to the NYPD as an army. Mr. Kelly never once corrected Bloomberg to tell him that he is in charge of a police department and not an army nor that it would be illegal for Bloomberg to be running an army in NYC. Kelly apparently just kisses the asses of those with whom he is in favor and with those whose ultra leftist politics he agrees in order to advance his own power hungry agenda.
In my opinion, Ray Kelly would be about the worst possible candidate for the job of running the Department of Homeland Security under any administration that would be mindful of the Constitution and of the rights of the People. Under the current administration though - he might fit in perfectly and I have little to no doubt he would be willing to pull the trigger (or order his personnel to do so) when aimed in law abiding and patriotic citizens of the United States of America to promote his bosses political agenda.
Of course, I guess to be absolutely fair, I should mention that I think he would, in all likelihood, be a step up from Janet Napolitano as the head man (yes that pun was intentional) at DHS. So, instead of being the ground on which the dog has shit and pissed, he would be the shit itself. If you want to see another petty tyrant in charge of a department in Washington, then do nothing. If you want someone in charge of DHS who is actually qualified for the job and who will support the Constitution, then I think you need let your elected officials know, immediately, that you oppose Ray Kelly as the head of DHS.
All the best,
Glenn B
What Was The Worst Gun You Have Ever Owned...
...as in the unmitigated most poorly
constructed or designed piece of junk that you have ever shot a bullet,
shot or slug through. While I have owned several guns that I have really liked,
others that were okay, and a fair amount of others with which I was not pleased,
you might think it would be really easy for me to select which among them was the
worst clunker. Yet, it is sort of a tossup between two or three of
them and I thought each a piece of junk for different reasons.
The first real piece of garbage gun I ever owned was in fact the very first gun I ever owned. I should have thrown my money into the trash can for all it was worth. It was an RG 25 auto, a diminutive pocket pistol that I bought while living in Las Vegas. I would have been very lucky indeed to have been able to have gotten off 5 or 6 shots in a row without it having a failure to feed or to extract or to eject. Being I was a newcomer to buying guns, I did not know what to look for and the guy behind the counter who sold it to me was no help there. Live and learn. I wound up taking the gun apart and disposing of its pieces fairly far apart by throwing them into a deep channel, in salt water, far from Nevada. By the way, in case you were wondering what the initials RG stood for, I think they meant Rotten Gun.
My next firearms purchase did not come for a few years after that but as I recall it was a either a Beretta 70S or a Beretta 950BS (one was followed shortly by the other). At least my second purchase was made with some forethought; I studied up on what to buy and bought quality guns made by a world renowned gun manufacturer. No problems with them, in fact they were great and the 70S still is great. (Well, I have my 2nd one that replaced the first when it was stolen back in the early 1980s.) After that first piece of junk, the RG 25 auto, I had made up my mind to become more knowledgeable before buying any more guns and I pretty much have stuck to that for almost all of the guns I have bought in later years. There were a few bought on impulse but I have to point out I already knew the reputation of the manufacturer if not the specific gun I was buying. After reading that last sentence you might think that I would never again have bought another clunker but you would be wrong.
I guess the next piece of junk gun I bought was actually two of them since I bought two different versions of the same model revolver. When I was in the Border Patrol, we got a deal offered to us by Smith & Wesson for a direct sale from the manufacturer on S&W Model 66 revolvers with 2.5 and 4 inch barrels. How could I resist, bought one of each. My anticipation while waiting for them was pretty intense and I was full of excitement as I opened the boxes for each. I took out one of them, checked it over, made sure it was unloaded, pointed it in a safe direction and dry fired it. The clinking noise it made, when the hammer fell, was almost as high pitched as a sonar ping. It had also made a grating noise as the trigger traveled rearward. Something fell out of it when I opened the cylinder to check it again. That something landed in my hand and had apparently fallen out of the opening in the frame through which the trigger goes; the something was metal shavings. A quick shaking of the pistol revealed more shavings still inside the works. The 4 inch model was somewhat better but also contained metal shavings, made grating noises until the shavings were cleaned out of it and also made two twangy pings each time the hammer traveled rearward. In other revolvers, that twangy ping would have been a set of a low pitched clicks. I sold both of them. I am not two sure those were worse than the RG 25 that I had owned previously but they were just as disappointing if not more so. Smith & Wesson was supposed to have been a manufacturer of high quality firearms but they were junk as far as I am concerned. I was not the only one with those problems; as I recall, every one of my coworkers who bought them had the same issues with them to one extent or another.
Sometime after getting back to NY after my Border Patrol days, I decided to buy a Ruger Mini 14. I used them at work often and was a fairly good shot with them. I liked just about everything about them, in fact I liked then more than an AR. So, I got myself one. I could not hit paper at 50 yards and believe me I was shooting at a big target. I adjusted the sights over and over again and finally was shooting a widespread group of about 15 inches or more at 50 yards. I sold it to someone by way of either GunBroker.com or AuctionArms.com. I warned the guy to whom I was selling it about me not being able to hit the target with it. He shot it and got back to me telling me it was a virtual tack driver! I did not get it then and am not sure I get it yet but think that maybe it was the ammo I was using - which may have been the wrong grain weight for the Mini-14. I have shot others since, all with no problems, in fact was an excellent shot with them. So, I am not sure it was the gun that was a clunker but for me, at the time I sold it, I sure thought it was one.
Then there was the Marlin 9mm Camp Carbine (commonly called the Camp 9). It was a 9mm carbine that was advertised as being a great defensive weapon. I read review after review about it being an excellent firearm. It had a number of features I liked such as being fairly short, using the same caliber that my then work issued pistol fired, it also used the same magazines that the S&W 6906 (which was our work issued pistol at the time), the safety was at the forward area of the trigger guard, and as I remember - it was not too expensive. Again, it was touted, by the gun gurus, as an excellent choice for self and home defense. How could I not buy one and yes, I bought one. As soon as I took it apart for a thorough cleaning I came to hate it and realized one of its design features was one of the poorest I have ever seen in any firearm. It had a pivoting feed ramp. I guess the fact that the ramp pivoted was not too bad, it probably assured good feeding although I have never see a pivoting ramp in any other firearm I had handled. It seems that this novel design required something else that was novel in the form of a tiny coil spring that had to be set under the feed ramp just right in order to assure that it pivoted into place properly each time it fed a round. The spring gave a small amount of upward pressure on the ramp. Why it was designed like that is beyond me, you would think there would be no need for the ramp to pivot if it had been designed properly in the first place but there it was and there was no getting rid of it. What was easy to get rid of, although not intentionally, was the little spring I just mentioned. The first time I cleaned it the spring fell out of the nook in which it was seated and it took me hours to find it. Yes there it was, shown on the diagram of the rifle but there was no notation explaining that it was not permanently seated or held in place by anything and that it would just fall right out if you were not extremely careful. Once I found it, subsequent to a lengthy search after it had fallen out, I realized that getting it back into place just exactly right was no joy either. If you decided to clean this gun while afield and dropped that spring in leaf litter, forget about finding it unless you had a good magnet with you or had as much luck as a group of at least 14 Leprechauns. That one design feature alone made the Marlin 9mm Camp Carbine worthless to me as something upon which I would depend to defend myself. I sold it and do not miss it in the least. Since I had mine, I have heard several complaints from other owners of them about that same dratted spring.
When I think of it, I do not know which of the above, excluding the Ruger, were the worse pieces of junk, it is a difficult decision to make. The two S&W revolvers, the RG25 and the Marlin 9mm Camp Carbine each had pretty bad flaws. Considering that the S&W revolvers and the Marlin carbine had great reputations as being very good to excellent firearms, I can easily say that they were much more disappointing to me than was the RG 25. I paid all of about $40 to $45 for the RG, out the door and brand new. It was a fine example of getting what you pay for. As for the others, I paid decent amount of money for each and should have gotten a much higher amount of quality than I got with the RG. So, while quality was lacking in the RG, I have to say it was also pretty much absent from those S&W revolvers too. The Marlin Camp 9 seemed to be of fairly high quality but had that tiny disappearing spring and that was one heck of a terrible design feature as I see it. I guess when it comes down to it, the RG 25 and those two specific S&W Model 66 revolvers (note I have owned another since then and it was greatly improved) tie for the worst guns I have owned. The Marlin 9mm Camp Carbine edges them out as a better gun just by a tiny bit, an edge smaller even than that pesky little spring.
Then there were the guns that I almost owned but avoided after a little bit of checking them out before taking the plunge. Some of them were the not so fine pieces as a: Jennings 22, Erma KGP-69 (a .22LR Luger look alike), a High Standard Sentinel (steel framed combination gun with cylinders for .22LR and .22 WMR), High Standard Derringer, Marlin Camp 45, but I suppose I am getting away from the original topic.
So tell us, what was the worst gun you have ever owned?
All the best,
Glenn B
The first real piece of garbage gun I ever owned was in fact the very first gun I ever owned. I should have thrown my money into the trash can for all it was worth. It was an RG 25 auto, a diminutive pocket pistol that I bought while living in Las Vegas. I would have been very lucky indeed to have been able to have gotten off 5 or 6 shots in a row without it having a failure to feed or to extract or to eject. Being I was a newcomer to buying guns, I did not know what to look for and the guy behind the counter who sold it to me was no help there. Live and learn. I wound up taking the gun apart and disposing of its pieces fairly far apart by throwing them into a deep channel, in salt water, far from Nevada. By the way, in case you were wondering what the initials RG stood for, I think they meant Rotten Gun.
My next firearms purchase did not come for a few years after that but as I recall it was a either a Beretta 70S or a Beretta 950BS (one was followed shortly by the other). At least my second purchase was made with some forethought; I studied up on what to buy and bought quality guns made by a world renowned gun manufacturer. No problems with them, in fact they were great and the 70S still is great. (Well, I have my 2nd one that replaced the first when it was stolen back in the early 1980s.) After that first piece of junk, the RG 25 auto, I had made up my mind to become more knowledgeable before buying any more guns and I pretty much have stuck to that for almost all of the guns I have bought in later years. There were a few bought on impulse but I have to point out I already knew the reputation of the manufacturer if not the specific gun I was buying. After reading that last sentence you might think that I would never again have bought another clunker but you would be wrong.
I guess the next piece of junk gun I bought was actually two of them since I bought two different versions of the same model revolver. When I was in the Border Patrol, we got a deal offered to us by Smith & Wesson for a direct sale from the manufacturer on S&W Model 66 revolvers with 2.5 and 4 inch barrels. How could I resist, bought one of each. My anticipation while waiting for them was pretty intense and I was full of excitement as I opened the boxes for each. I took out one of them, checked it over, made sure it was unloaded, pointed it in a safe direction and dry fired it. The clinking noise it made, when the hammer fell, was almost as high pitched as a sonar ping. It had also made a grating noise as the trigger traveled rearward. Something fell out of it when I opened the cylinder to check it again. That something landed in my hand and had apparently fallen out of the opening in the frame through which the trigger goes; the something was metal shavings. A quick shaking of the pistol revealed more shavings still inside the works. The 4 inch model was somewhat better but also contained metal shavings, made grating noises until the shavings were cleaned out of it and also made two twangy pings each time the hammer traveled rearward. In other revolvers, that twangy ping would have been a set of a low pitched clicks. I sold both of them. I am not two sure those were worse than the RG 25 that I had owned previously but they were just as disappointing if not more so. Smith & Wesson was supposed to have been a manufacturer of high quality firearms but they were junk as far as I am concerned. I was not the only one with those problems; as I recall, every one of my coworkers who bought them had the same issues with them to one extent or another.
Sometime after getting back to NY after my Border Patrol days, I decided to buy a Ruger Mini 14. I used them at work often and was a fairly good shot with them. I liked just about everything about them, in fact I liked then more than an AR. So, I got myself one. I could not hit paper at 50 yards and believe me I was shooting at a big target. I adjusted the sights over and over again and finally was shooting a widespread group of about 15 inches or more at 50 yards. I sold it to someone by way of either GunBroker.com or AuctionArms.com. I warned the guy to whom I was selling it about me not being able to hit the target with it. He shot it and got back to me telling me it was a virtual tack driver! I did not get it then and am not sure I get it yet but think that maybe it was the ammo I was using - which may have been the wrong grain weight for the Mini-14. I have shot others since, all with no problems, in fact was an excellent shot with them. So, I am not sure it was the gun that was a clunker but for me, at the time I sold it, I sure thought it was one.
Then there was the Marlin 9mm Camp Carbine (commonly called the Camp 9). It was a 9mm carbine that was advertised as being a great defensive weapon. I read review after review about it being an excellent firearm. It had a number of features I liked such as being fairly short, using the same caliber that my then work issued pistol fired, it also used the same magazines that the S&W 6906 (which was our work issued pistol at the time), the safety was at the forward area of the trigger guard, and as I remember - it was not too expensive. Again, it was touted, by the gun gurus, as an excellent choice for self and home defense. How could I not buy one and yes, I bought one. As soon as I took it apart for a thorough cleaning I came to hate it and realized one of its design features was one of the poorest I have ever seen in any firearm. It had a pivoting feed ramp. I guess the fact that the ramp pivoted was not too bad, it probably assured good feeding although I have never see a pivoting ramp in any other firearm I had handled. It seems that this novel design required something else that was novel in the form of a tiny coil spring that had to be set under the feed ramp just right in order to assure that it pivoted into place properly each time it fed a round. The spring gave a small amount of upward pressure on the ramp. Why it was designed like that is beyond me, you would think there would be no need for the ramp to pivot if it had been designed properly in the first place but there it was and there was no getting rid of it. What was easy to get rid of, although not intentionally, was the little spring I just mentioned. The first time I cleaned it the spring fell out of the nook in which it was seated and it took me hours to find it. Yes there it was, shown on the diagram of the rifle but there was no notation explaining that it was not permanently seated or held in place by anything and that it would just fall right out if you were not extremely careful. Once I found it, subsequent to a lengthy search after it had fallen out, I realized that getting it back into place just exactly right was no joy either. If you decided to clean this gun while afield and dropped that spring in leaf litter, forget about finding it unless you had a good magnet with you or had as much luck as a group of at least 14 Leprechauns. That one design feature alone made the Marlin 9mm Camp Carbine worthless to me as something upon which I would depend to defend myself. I sold it and do not miss it in the least. Since I had mine, I have heard several complaints from other owners of them about that same dratted spring.
When I think of it, I do not know which of the above, excluding the Ruger, were the worse pieces of junk, it is a difficult decision to make. The two S&W revolvers, the RG25 and the Marlin 9mm Camp Carbine each had pretty bad flaws. Considering that the S&W revolvers and the Marlin carbine had great reputations as being very good to excellent firearms, I can easily say that they were much more disappointing to me than was the RG 25. I paid all of about $40 to $45 for the RG, out the door and brand new. It was a fine example of getting what you pay for. As for the others, I paid decent amount of money for each and should have gotten a much higher amount of quality than I got with the RG. So, while quality was lacking in the RG, I have to say it was also pretty much absent from those S&W revolvers too. The Marlin Camp 9 seemed to be of fairly high quality but had that tiny disappearing spring and that was one heck of a terrible design feature as I see it. I guess when it comes down to it, the RG 25 and those two specific S&W Model 66 revolvers (note I have owned another since then and it was greatly improved) tie for the worst guns I have owned. The Marlin 9mm Camp Carbine edges them out as a better gun just by a tiny bit, an edge smaller even than that pesky little spring.
Then there were the guns that I almost owned but avoided after a little bit of checking them out before taking the plunge. Some of them were the not so fine pieces as a: Jennings 22, Erma KGP-69 (a .22LR Luger look alike), a High Standard Sentinel (steel framed combination gun with cylinders for .22LR and .22 WMR), High Standard Derringer, Marlin Camp 45, but I suppose I am getting away from the original topic.
So tell us, what was the worst gun you have ever owned?
All the best,
Glenn B
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