Hardware Update

As promised, a quick look at the newly overhauled polymer-framed FNP pistols from FNH. Here's the AMERICAN RIFLEMAN piece on the original gun, which wasn't bad. Still, it was pretty much what one wag termed, "AFPP" — another friggin' plastic pistol. What FNH VP Rick DeMilt, a long-time shooter, did was, essentially, "de-engineer" the gun. The truth is there's a difference between a gun designed by engineers and a gun designed by shooters [a micro example of that might be double-stack pistol magazines...which is more important, minimum size and efficiency of feeding, or the magazine's ability to function when it's full of sand?].

DeMilt replaced the outsourced barrels with FN hammer-forged barrels, redesigned the hammer-drop mechanism to make it the easiest to use in the business and executed a whole series of small ergonomic changes to both the 9mms and .40 S&W vedrsions. Whhere he really hit the jackpot was revising the manufacturing process on the fire contrl system. The guns came off the line with very crisp 3 1/2 pound single-action triggers. "That was a fortuitous accident," DeMilt said Saturday. "If we had specified that, we probably couldn't have done it!"

I shot the hell out of both the 9mm and the .40s, and I would rate the news guns a solid TWO TRIGGER FINGERS UP — a light polymer-framed pistol with great trigger pull that feels like a Browning High-Power (which, of course, FN has made since the Dawn of Time). MSRP??? Less than $500. Beat that, sports fans! This is going to be a serious police contender.

Meanwhile, over at Taurus, I got a look at production line versions of the Taurus cowboy revolver, the Gaucho. Golly gee...beautiful case-hardened frame and hammer and deep bluing on the barrel, cylinder and gripframe, .45 Colt, familiar four clicks when you cock the hammer, crescent ejector button, swwwwwweeeeeetttt trigger, checkered black plastic grips, that perfect hand fit...looks and feels like...one of them Raging Pony S.A.A.s! This is a damn nice gun, and I predict it's going to rock Cowboy World...especially with an MSRP in the $650 range. Here's one of the early reviews; Tequila, host of COWBOYS and 5X World Champion cowboy action shooter, and I should have our T&E versions in a couple of weeks, and the guns should be in the retail pipeline pretty quickly.

The Taurus version of the old Colt Lightning pump action carbine, the Thunderbolt, is still a couple of months off. Tequila will be getting a first run gun, so we'll soon see how a short-pump action gun runs against a traditional lever action.

The Taurus 1911 project has been fast-tracked, and the first guns should be available late summer/early fall if everything goes smoothly. I had dinner with a top 1911 mechanic a few weeks ago, and he waxed poetic about the proto version Taurus sent him to wring out.