A Quickie Before "When Good Pets Go Bad II"

Okay, not the greatest picture in the world, but I wanted to get a first look out to you. This is the new S&W M&P Compact 9mm...seriously cool! Three-and-a-half inch barrel and a super concealable butt. I don't have the specs in front of me, but I was really really impressed with the ergonomics of the little gun. My biggest problem with most small semis of the double-stack variety is they're fat little piggies! What makes a gun really concealable is the width, not the length of the slide or even, within reason, the length of the grip.

The M&P series of autos is surprisingly svelte for a double stack, which makes it a better handler than a fatter semi. This is perfect for a small carry gun. Hopefully, I'll shoot the little guy some tomorrow. Figure availability in a month or so, and a .40 and eventually a .357 Sig will follow.

We spent all day running drills after a morning of armorer info on the S&W. From my standpoint, the M&P has held up very well as we increased the pace. Part of that reason is the 18 percent grip angle...S&W says they spent a million bucks studying grip angles and eventually concluded that Saint John the Divine was right. So, for a class full of old 1911 hands, the M&P is an easy transition. It doesn't hurt that the guns have an extremely well designed beavertail, that contributes to spreading out the mild 9mm recoil.

Gotta go to sleep now...Buzz Mills, GUNSITE's owner, hosted a dinner for us at his spectacular home with a sweeping overlook of the whole of Prescott Valley. I ended up swapping lies with GUNSITE Rangemaster Ed Stock, Sheriff Jim Wilson from SHOOTING TIMES and my friend Dick Williams from SureFire and/or SHOOTING ILLUSTRATED...the BS was, in fact, deep enough to drown in.

Got some very cool new developments from the holstermeisters at Blade-Tech, which I'll try to get up tomorrow. You already know that I'm a huge fan of Blade-Tech's kydex holsters...I probably have one or more for all of my "working" guns, especially range and competition guns. Blade-Tech founder Tim Wegner, who started out making holsters in his kitchen, I think has some paradigm-rattling stuff coming up. Tim also knows I have a real jones for knives, so he bought me one of his Wegner Pro Hunter folders with my name engraved on the blade. OFFICIALLY TOO COOL FOR SKOL! Pixs tomorrow...now I gotta finish watching "When Good ets Go Bad II..." and sleep...