Posted on 09/25/2015 6:22:52 AM PDT by marktwain
My brother recounted this interesting incident with gear that had been hanging in a closet for 30 years:
Back in the late 70's Revolvers and leather duty gear was the norm. When I took my first LEO job it was with a rural department with 6 road deputies.
I brought Bianchi leather duty gear, which I wore until I left that department and moved onward and upwards to a 500 man state LE agency.
The state agency supplied all the necessary gear that they thought an officer needed. I went from revolver to a semi auto.
In the last few months I have been moving from a house I lived in for 34 plus years to another.
I was packing one of closets up when I found my old duty belt. In the speed holder pouches were 3 Safariland comp two speed loaders. I carried HKS before that, the HKS are good tough and reliable loaders. I found them to be a bit slower than the comp twos.
During my first police recruit school where I took top shot, one of the older instructors took exception to my use of speed loaders, saying it was cheating.
He didn't want to give me credit for the perfect 300 of 300 score.
The leather and ammo had been hanging around for around 30 years.
The leather looked really good and still functions as it should.
The nickel plated 357 magnum handloads are 125 grain jacketed hollow points that I shot and carried with the small Department. They were a little tarnished but other wise looked just fine.
Back in those days, there was less concern about liability, and one carried what one wanted.
I buckled on the old leather after letting it out a couple of notches. I am not a 150lb 20-something any more.
I dropped my stainless security six into its old holster and walked out the door to my range 100 feet away.
I drew the revolver, grabbed a speed loader, and proceeded to shoot all 18 rounds into the target. My speed loader skills have diminished some after decades of carrying an auto. I don't do 1 second reloads any more.
The leather, ammo, speed loaders and revolver all functioned as they should.
The group on the paper was shot with 30 year old ammo, double action.
Some of the best values in gear can be found on the used market. Do not ignore it just because it is older. It can be an excellent value for those on a tight budget.
Duane Weingarten (pdsolutions@hotmail.com) has retired and now teaches advanced self defense and shooting skills by appointment. Facilities include a 600 yard private range and over a mile of private trails for vehicle and "jungle lane" scenarios.
©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included. Link to Gun Watch
Old leather + Mink Oil = lasts forever
I sometimes open my closet and stare wistfully at my old Sam Brown rig that I wore as a young MP at Fort Rucker in the late '70's.
I think I weighed about 150, also.
Still damned fine leather, though.
Religiously saddle-soaped, polished and cared for.
Ah, the good ol' days.
The security six was/is a great tough handgun the next Gen GP100 is a bit heavier.
I handled a Ruger GP100 match target at the shot show it felt more like a security six than the other GP100 models even being 6oz. heavier. 38 compared to 32.
70s ammo and leather is hardly “old”. Try WWII 45 ACP ball ammo and leather. Try some WWI stuff also.
Additionally, long storage for a stainless steel revolver and Bianchi or Safari holster in leather aren’t that much of a feat either.
What you really have to be careful of is buying leather holsters of unknown provenance and using them to store blued weapons. I learned this the hard way. I picked up some cheap holsters at a gun show once for $10. Perfect for my EAA Six Shooter 22LR/Magnum. Problem is that the Hunter one had been acid tanned - a bad no no for storing guns, especially anything not stainless. I now make sure about the leather used - veg tanned is inert.
Nickel plated handloads? Ha!....
What you have to look for in old rounds are any signs of pitting or oxidation, and primer bulging and corrosion. The one thing you have to remember is that some WWII rounds (this is particularly true for 45 ACP) the slugs were actually sealed with a sealant to keep moisture out. [I wrote an article for KTOG about this a year or so ago].
But with age now, it takes a herculean effort to dislodge the slugs from the case - very much increased pressure, and I wouldn’t shoot them in anything but an all steel weapon.
The operating word being "conserve" which, if I understand correctly, means ...
It works just fine in spite of age, bandaids, bubble gum and duct tape
Kind'a like my love affair with 98SE
I have dads off duty and duty leather he had as an NYPD officer. They date back to 1946 when he joined up. He carried a pre model 10 .38 special S&W M&P. As NY is a PITA to keep handguns in, Dad handed his in, though he was more than welcome to get a full concealed carry license. I have some of his nickleplated Ammo circa 1968 when he retired. I have fired it out of a model 19 Smith. Some of it splits when fired. He kept it in a damp basement.
As far as old guns that ‘shoot’. I regularly fire an 1882 circa Model 73 Winchester an 1891 circa trapdoor Springfield and a 1943 made Remington Rand 1911a1. They shoot as if they were just made.
I’m 69. My great-grandfather worked as a lights-keeper along the Tennessee River back in the early 1900’s. He had to carry a gun as the river back then was a rough hangout. He carried a Smith & Wesson that we inherited from my father. - It has always worked when it was needed; Daddy used to make his own bullets for that gun.
I feel the same when I put on the old tie down and the Peacemaker.
I’ve shot 100 year old ammo out of my Mosin-Nagant. Ammo worked fine but it left the gun pretty nasty. Black and corrosive.
Yeah, just as long as you get to it before the finish starts cracking heavily.
After that, the water’s gonna seep in, no matter what you use.
My dad shot some WW1 military ammo and it worked just fine.
I have my great, great, maybe great uncles 1892 Winchester and Colt Police positive from the early 1900’s. .32-20
He was a U.S Marshall in the Oklahoma territory. .32-20 seems like kinda a weak cartridge for that type work. But it must have been o.k. cause he died of old age.
Have the Colt in a drawer right beside my bed. The rifle shoots sweet and is very accurate.
Back in 1936 Blues Legend Robert Johnson performed a song about the benefits of a 32-20 over a .38 special when used on a cheating girlfriend. Things haven’t changed much with the ferals. Good blues though
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh5zTCdNH_0
Me too. However, I was a tank gunner, so it was a GI shoulder rig.
And instead of polish, it generally got the mud scraped off, followed by a treatment with Diesel fuel or hydraulic oil, whichever was handy. We were not much for MP spit-and-polish
But our shooters worked.
If it looks stupid but it works, it's not all that stupid.
Yep, I have preferences, based on my experience in serious wartime conflict for the most part [depends a bit on how you count 'em, but about eight now] and that which I've found works- found out THE HARD WAy- tends to be that with which I stick.
Which is not to say I won't try something new; there can be good reasons for change. But in case it doesn't work out, it's good to have the old equipment/methods as a fallback plan.
See, that’s what’s wrong with relationships these days.
You can’t just shoot’em anymore.
I’m kidding. Really.
Remember too that during WWII, the Chrysler Corporation plant at Evansville, Indiana loaded some 3,264,281,914 rounds of .45 ACP ammunition with wartime emergency steel-jacketed bullets, into steel cartridge cases. Chrysler’s Evansville arsenal produced 96 percent of the military’s .45 caliber cartridges. After fifty, sixty years, some of that *EC* headstamped military ammo has had the case and projectile rust internally, fusing the two together.
It's really a collectors item now, so save yourself the nasty surprise that results when the pressure developing in one of those old rounds has no where to go but out the primer end. It can be pretty spectacular.
Long ago, in my youth in Southern Illinois/Indiana the stuff was around in massive quantities, available in sealed cans for a penny or two per round. Those days are now long gone, but I still have happy memories of cleaning up my fired cases at the local range with a large shop magnet, and having curious onlookers ask me what was going on.
*Oh, I invented a brass magnet* I'd smugly respond. It was an early beginning of a long career I've had as a troublemaker and general wiseass.
Some of the imported *Wolf* brand ammo nowadays imported from Russia is steelcased, including their .45 ACP handgun ammo. I expect that four or five decades down the road, users of it may see similar problems.
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Several years ago, I purchased a sealed Engine Transport box, contents unknown, through the DRMO (Defense Reutilization, etc...etc.) or what you may remember was called Property Disposal.
Anyway, it had tanker unit markings all over it and I was hoping it to be full of tools and such goodies as one might find in a tanker motor pool or similar unit.
It had some goodies in it, which made it worth the money, but it also had five of the tanker shoulder holster rigs and two pair of tanker boots.
The boots were near immaculate...the holsters were serviceable, but I couldn't figure out what was all over them, that had soaked into the leather and made them about twice as heavy as they should have been.
I later talked to an old 2AD buddy and he said it was most likely diesel.
He said it was a common practice , particularly with tank troops stationed in Germany, when it would get so cold and wet that a piece of leather would be disintegrated pretty quickly.
To tell the truth, it didn't smell like diesel, but I think it had been on them so long that it had soaked in so much that the smell was pretty much gone.
I sold them to a surplus store in Killeen for 20 bucks each, a princely sum for diesel soaked holsters and boots back then.
But you guys were slobs...I mean, c'mon...that stuff stinks and putting your feet in diesel soaked boots?
That picture looks like my old duty rig when I was a deputy. I found most of it in a “price as marked” box in a gun store. A little saddle soap and polish brought it back to life. Damn i looked good at Academy graduation!
CC
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