Category: Weapons

Pat Cascio’s Product Review: Springfield Armory’s Loaded Operator 1911

Over the years, I’ve owned more 1911 handguns than any other type of handguns. No matter what new type of polymer handguns that come into my hands, I always turn back to the grand ol’ 1911 as my favorite handgun. It’s just hard to argue with success. The 1911 was first made in, well, 1911, and it celebrated more than 100 years of age a few years ago. To be sure, I honestly can’t keep track of all the gun companies that are making 1911s these days. If a person could sit down and start counting all the different companies …


Street Combat – This Ain’t No Game! – Part 6a of 9, by Pat Cascio

[Street Combat – This Ain’t No Game is a SurvivalBlog exclusive.] Chapter Four Close Quarters Combat Shooting No book or single chapter of a book can adequately teach a person gunfighting skills. In this chapter, I’m going to give you the basic concepts of close quarters combat shooting, or CQB as it’s commonly called. It is my sincere belief that there is no better method of deploying a handgun in a close quarters, self-defense situation than with the method known as Point Shooting. If you’ll recall, in many of the war stories I have related to you, the distances involved …


Street Combat – This Ain’t No Game! – Part 5b of 9, by Pat Cascio

[Street Combat – This Ain’t No Game is a SurvivalBlog exclusive.] Chapter Three (continued) CASE STUDY: Three Determined Power Plant Thieves At one time or another, both Ralph (who we called Lo-Lo for some reason that I don’t recall) and Rudy worked for me when I was a supervisor at a detective agency. This story deals with Ralph. At this point in time, Ralph hadn’t completed his 30-hour training course in order to be an armed security officer in Illinois. So, Ralph was working unarmed at a very remote location. He was supposed to protect an old Commonwealth Edison power …


Letter Re: Knives

HJL, I travel via motorcycle. I always carry a cheap $20 Cold Steel Kukhri. I’ve carried it in Mexico, Canada, and in several countries in southern Africa and South America. As it is seen around the world as a utility knife used by many of the locals, its presence has never been questioned. I carry the cheap one just in case it gets confiscated. Because weight is always an issue, I cut a hex hole in the blade that fits the big hex nut on my rear axle. Because of this I don’t need to carry another big heavy wrench …


Survival Blades – Part 2, by R.H.

Glass-breaking is a function about which I keep hearing but don’t fully understand outside a military situation. I assume it refers to evacuating a car after an accident or other emergency. My problem with this is that almost nobody wears their survival knife on the way to and from work. If the knife is in the trunk with your BOB, how is it going to help? In a military scenario, I can see rescuing aircrew from a downed chopper; however, that situation is very different from what we’re likely to face. In the military, you have your gear on your …


Letter Re: Survival Blades

HJL, As far as using (and abusing) knives go, there is at least one company that provides an unconditional guarantee (beyond warranty) on their knives. Busse knives advertises this, and I’ve not heard anywhere that they’ve refused to replace or repair one of their knives regardless of how or under what conditions it failed. I was introduced to their product by a couple of infantry sergeants out on patrol while in Iraq, and they made me a believer. Busse does not have a statement to the effect that they will void the guarantee on their products for any reason. – …


Survival Blades – Part 1, by R.H.

I have noticed quite a bit of confusion and hype surrounding the subject of survival blades lately. I have also noted people new to survival and prepping often cannot get simple questions answered due to lack of accurate information from sales clerks and others. I have written this so that newcomers can get some balanced information. Let’s define our terms before we begin. While many readers are preparing for an end of the world scenario, survival situations as I will consider them here happen every day. As I am writing this, most of the nation has been brutalized by a …


Pat Cascio’s Product Review: CRKT Hunt ‘n Fisch Knife

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I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of hearing about people dying from cancer. We’ve all been touched by this deadly disease; we all know someone who has passed away after a fight with cancer. We keep hearing encouraging reports that “they” are close to finding a cure for cancer, but there are so many different types of cancer that I wonder if we’ll ever get a leg up on it. Still, we all continue to hope and pray. Just last week, my oldest daughter lost one of her German Shepherds to cancer. It was a fast-moving …


Pat Cascio’s Product Review: Kershaw – Siege Tomahawk

Please indulge me for a few minutes, with some of my past. I was raised by my grandparents from the time I was 6-weeks old. The sad thing is that my grandparents had already raised nine kids of their own, and it sure wasn’t fair to them to have to raise me, but that’s the way it was. I had a good life though; I have no complaints. I didn’t realize it, but back then, in the 1950s, my grandparents were dirt poor. When I was younger, they both worked in the same factory on different shifts so one could …


Letter Re: Pat Cascio’s Product Review: Inter Ordnance “AK-47″

Hugh/JR: I own the same rifle; I just bought it last fall. Full concurrence with all Pat’s observations, but the plastic furniture can be a drawback. During repeat (not full auto) firing, the hand guard failed (melted) at the forward-most position, welding the heat-softened material to the increasingly-hot barrel. I recommend owners of this otherwise fine product consider either increasing the gap between the plastic hand guard and the barrel or swapping it for one of different material. V/R


Street Combat – This Ain’t No Game! – Part 4 of 9, by Pat Cascio

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[Street Combat – This Ain’t No Game is a SurvivalBlog exclusive.] Chapter Two DIRTY FIGHTING TECHNIQUES Growing up, most of us have witnessed school yard fights. These usually amounted to a shoving or wrestling match. However, every once in a while, things got serious and punches flew. In some instances, one opponent will do something “dirty” to win the battle. In the eyes of school children, this is a “no-no”. In real-life, it’s another story. Remember, this is Street Combat – This Ain’t No Game. Also, as mentioned in the last chapter, there is no “second place winner” in this …


Pat Cascio’s Product Review: Inter Ordnance “AK-47”

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As many SurvivalBlog readers will remember, I’ve reviewed several AK-47 type rifles in the past; some were better than others. To be sure, when we are talking about an AK-47 in civilian terms, we really aren’t discussing genuine AK-47s, rather we’re talking about a mixed bag of semiauto-only rifles that resemble the real McCoy, which is made in Russia. I did have the opportunity to fire a genuine AK when I worked for the late Col. Rex Applegate. It was part of his collection of more than 20 select-fire weapons, from his more than 850-gun collection. As I recall, his …


Two Letters Re: Choices, Choices, Choices

Hugh, In response to Choices, Choices by KC, I would like to comment: In the interest of education and operational challenges I once did a show-and-tell to my teenagers and wife of different kinds of rifles. Of the various platforms, my family chose the Ruger Mini-14 (.223) as their rifle of choice. While I personally dislike the tilt in nature of the magazine, they all felt that this was less important to them compared with other operational issues. They practiced the mag insertion and felt most comfortable with this rifle. This might be a good option to consider for non-gun …


Scot’s Product Review: Horseshoe Leather Products

Horseshoe Leather Products http://www.holsters.org/index.htm isn’t one of the best known holster makers, but that doesn’t really matter. What is important is that it is one of the best holster makers on the planet. Horseshoe holsters are of impeccable quality and superbly designed for the concealed carry of handguns. One of the keys to this high level of quality is that Horseshoe is a one man shop and each holster is handmade for each customer by Horseshoe’s owner, Andy Arratoonian. If he made it, it bears the distinctive Horseshoe symbol he hand stamps on every item. The quality of Arratoonian’s work …


Pat Cascio’s Review: Magnum Research, Desert Eagle 1911s Siblings

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Whenever anyone finds out that I’m a gun/knife/outdoor writer, the first question out of their mouth is “What’s your favorite gun…?” Quite often, when I’m hanging out at the local gun shop, a customer will ask about a certain handgun, and one of the sales guys will point them to me, and I get this same question over and over again “What’s your favorite handgun?” I don’t try to side-step the question, but it’s just impossible to answer, for many reasons. If I’m going out big game hunting with a handgun, I’ll probably grab a revolver in .44 Magnum. If …