About Me: A certified yet non-professional gunsmith learning the trade through trail and inspiration

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Best of Theme Guns: Food & Beverage

Happy Roof Korean Day everyone! Today we celebrate the fine folks in Koreatown, Los Angeles, who defended their lives, their families and their futures with firearms.








Colt 45, It works Everytime.....unlike a Hi-Point....



Since 1977, when Disco was king and Cocaine was everywhere...



My pistol has a first name it's R-U-G-E-R, my pistol has a second name it's S-R-22....







With one act this owner pissed off two companies. The anti-gun candy maker M&M-Mars and the gun maker Sig Sauer



Custom job for Donut Operator?





Monday, April 21, 2025

More Gun Myths and Legends

 This is a continuation of a post I authored in 2014, see that post here.


#1 Interchangeable Parts

This one has popped up from time to time......"you need to have the factory fit replacement parts for your revolver" this usually applies to cylinders. For instance, someone wants to install a .22 magnum cylinder into their Ruger .22 Single Six, but their gun didn't come with the extra cylinder.

Online "experts" will tell you that you have to send the gun to the manufacturer to have the cylinder "fitted" to the gun. WRONG.... 99.9% of all gun makers, build their guns on machines. Most guns have not been hand fitted since before the Civil War. That is not to say the factory does NO hand fitting, certainly there is a little shaving here or there, but the vast majority of parts bolt on and work properly without needing any fitting.

Now if you your gun has a lot of wear, there may be some issues, but those can be corrected by buying new parts such as the pawl or cylinder stop.


#2 The .22LR won't kill anyone

While it is easy to find stories of people shot with a .22 LR that survived, there is no doubt the .22 can kill. In fact, it used to be the #1 caliber used in homicides, it has since been replaced by the 9mm.

Studies show that 76% of head shots by a .22 LR were lethal, helping to prove the point that shot placement is more important than gun type or caliber.


#3 Fingerprints on guns

While older guns with smooth blued steel might pick up a fingerprint, todays polymer, aluminum or steel guns with rough finishes rarely pick up any fingerprints.


#4 Guns That Never Run Out of Ammo

This is more of a movie myth, but it applies to people who don't know guns.

Few movies bother to keep a round count. There was one that stands out in my mind that did, Dirty Harry, in the opening scene where the bank robber is laying on the ground going for his gun, Inspecter Callahan says the following: "I know what you're thinking, did he fire six shots or only five...." we all know the rest of the quote. 



While watching the TV show Hell on Wheels one character was teaching a former slave how to shoot, his instructions for a gun fight included: remain calm, aim carefully and count both his and your rounds and make sure he runs out first.

All good advice, unfortunately all too often the 6 shot revolver is shown making 8 or 10 or 12 shots without reloading. Don't even get me started on the machine guns in movies......


#5 Handguns are more dangerous than rifles

Handguns were designed as a defensive weapon, mostly for mounted troops. 

A long-known parable states that the handgun is designed to buy you time to get to your rifle. It is true that handguns are used in more homicides than rifles, but that is due to their ability to be transported and hidden within clothing. Handguns by in large are less powerful than rifles and harder to shoot accurately.


#6 Accuracy of Full Auto Machine Guns

Fact, the faster a gun cycles, the harder it is to maintain point of aim on target. This wastes ammunition, which of course is not good.
In the early days of repeating bolt action rifles, the British Army put a block off plate covering the 10-round magazine of the SMLE rifles, they feared the soldiers would waste ammo if given permission to shoot as often as they wanted. Fast forward to the 1990's...

After using full auto for decades, many armies have gone to a 3-shot burst, they have learned the full auto, while a lot of fun, is a colossal waste of ammo.
Here is an anecdote from Col. Jeff Cooper:

"Family member Dr. Werner Weissenhofer reports from Vienna. It seems that a felon armed with a 357 revolver robbed a bank. As he left the bank, he was accosted by a policeman who he murdered with one shot. Great excitement ensued, with the felon taking hostages and racing madly around from one store to another. When the forces of law and order had been mobilized and surrounded the goblin, a policeman volunteered to trade himself to the goblin for two hostages. This offer was accepted, at which time the felon fired at the policeman, seriously wounding him. The forces of law and order opened up with everything they had, which was mostly AUG and Glock fire. Shortly, the goblin killed himself with one round. He had fired three times and achieved three hits. The police, according to their official report, fired 1,261 rounds without drawing blood.
At one time we used to refer to an event of this sort as a "Chinese Fire Drill." Later we came to call it "Father's Day in Harlem". After the internment of the Ayatollah Khomeini, we began to call it "An Iranian Funeral". Now I guess we'll call it a "Viennese Bank Robbery".
As I have often stated, if someone wants to shoot at me, I sure hope it is on full-auto." 


#7 The Right to Keep and Bear Arms was invented by the NRA


Before we tell this story, it needs to be said that you can NEVER trust anything written by a Democrat. Their goal is to put their boot on your neck, and they do not care what they have to do to achieve this goal.
The individual right to keep and bear arms was protected and codified in 1787, nearly 100 years before the NRA was created. Secondly those that wrote the bill of rights, had just finished fighting a war, against the largest army in the World, with....wait for it.......individually owned firearms. 

In fact, the famous "Paul Revere's ride" (which included other lesser-known men) was to warn the colonists that the British were coming to seize weapons, powder and lead balls (bullets), which at the time were stored in an armory. The lesson learned by the Patriots was that guns needed to be in the hands of the citizenry, making it harder for any government to take them all.
Later when the Anti-Federalists refused to agree on a central government without additional safeguards, the Bill of Rights was written to limit the power of the Federal Government, one of the most important rights was that of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms, infringing upon this right is against the Constitution, the highest law in the land.
The National Rifle Association was created in 1871 to encourage marksmanship. After the Civil War it was apparent that too many Americans no longer had the ability to shoot. So, some New Yorkers (Ironic, I know) formed an association to promote shooting as a hobby.
It wasn't until the 1930s that the NRA got involved in gun rights, this was due to Democrats trying to limit the rights of Americans. 

To bring this full circle, the fact is that "NRA gun rights activism" was actually created by leftist Democrats.


#8 Without guns people wouldn't kill.

This one is so stupid and easily debunked I almost didn't include it. You may remember from Sunday School that Cain killed Able with a rock. Humans have been killing each other since we crawled from the swamp. In fact, all animal species kill each other, mostly out of survival.
Dr. Richard Gatling, inventor of the Gatling Gun thought his invention might actually end war, because facing one of his weapons was a death sentence and no army would go into battle against it. In reality it just spurned more innovation.
Humans will always find better ways to kill each other. In England they outlawed guns, so criminals switched to knives, then they outlawed knives, so they switched to acid.....now they plan to outlaw acid, see a pattern?
You simply cannot outlaw a tool and expect the criminal intent to disappear. 


#9 Guns are the leading cause of Death in America

Totally not true, #1 guns do not kill, people kill. #2 guns are used in 20,000 +/- deaths each year, while Cancer and Heart Disease kill upwards of 600,000 each. Medical Malpractice kills ten times as many, even the flu kills twice as many people as criminals with guns.

We don't include suicide in these numbers, just as stated before, suicide is an intent to do self-harm, removing the firearm does nothing about the intent.




#10 There is no such thing as the .45 Long Colt

Well-meaning purists will tell you that the correct name is 45 Colt, not "45 Long Colt" and while that is true, there was a shorter 45 Colt, shorter by 1/2". In addition, there were factory named short and long versions of the .32 Colt, .38 Colt and .41 Colt, so it stands to reason that the longer 45 Colt should be called the .45 Long Colt, even though the factory never gave it that name. This is similar to the Suppressor vs Silencer argument.













Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Firearm Factory of the Month: Mossberg

Our story begins with Oscar Frederick Mossberg was born on September 1st, 1866, in Varmland, Sweden.



At the age of 20 (1886) he emigrated to the United States and went to work for fellow Scandanavian Iver Johonson in Fitchburg, MA. From there he went to work for C.S. Shattuck Arms in Hatfield, MA., while working for Charles Shattuck, he created and patented a small pistol.




When Shattuck went under circa 1908, he went to work for J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co. in Chicopee Falls, MA. He also bought some of the machine tools from Shattuck and set them up in his barn behind his home.
Working at Stevens during the day and in his barn at night, with help from his sons they produced this little 4-shot pistol, known as the Brownie. Between 1908 and 1909 they made 500 of these guns.





Mossberg moved his family to New Haven, Connecticut in 1914 to work for Marlin-Rockwell which went out of business in 1919.

That forced Mossberg to make a decision, look for work or set out on his own. He chose the latter, that same year he and his two sons, Iver and Harold, founded O.F. Mossberg & Sons in New Haven. The team rented a loft on State Street in New Haven and reintroduced the Brownie pistol.




In 1921 they purchased a larger space on Greene Street, in the Wooster Square neighborhood.




In 1922 Mossberg began building .22 rifles.


In 1937 the company relocated a few blocks away to St. John Street in a round building that was once used to store natural gas. It was also in 1937 that Oscar passed away. 




The company had survived the depression, and the coming war meant a boom in military contracts. 
Parts for the M2, the British Lee-Enfield and special tool gauges were made by Mossberg during the war. They also sold a considerable amount of their models 42 & 44 .22 rifles to be used for training soldiers.



In 1945 Iver Mossberg passed away, leaving Harold to run the business by himself.

In 1960 the company moved most of the operations to a new modern facility in North Haven, a few miles north of New Haven. Later Marlin would join them, opening a modern facility just a mile north of Mossberg's.

In 1961 Mossberg introduced the gun that would come to define the company, the model 500 pump action shotgun.




In 1989 Mossberg opened a new facility in Eagle Pass Texas, this was also when Mossberg introduced a value priced line of shotguns under the Maverick moniker.

In 2013 nearly all production has moved to Eagle Pass.

In 2019 Mossberg introduced a new line of pistols







Timeline of Events

1866 - Oscar Frederick Mossberg is born in Sweden

1886 - Mossberg emigrates to America, goes to work at Iver Johnson

1907/08 - Mossberg begins building the Brownie pistol, He begins employment at J, Stevens Arms

1914 - Mossberg moves to New Haven, goes to work for Marlin-Rockwell

1919 - O.F. Mossberg & Sons is founded in New Haven on State Street

1921 - Mossberg moves operations to Greene Street

1922 - Mossberg introduces their .22 rifles

1937 - A new facility on St. John Street is purchased, Oscar passes away at the age of 71.

1945 - Iver Mossberg dies

1960 - Most operations moved to new facility in North Haven

1961 - The Mossberg 500 shotgun is introduced

1964 - Harold Mossberg dies

1988/89 - Mossberg introduces value priced Maverick Arms, also opens new facility in Eagle Pass Texas.

2019 - Mossberg celebrates 100 years, still family run and owned. They introduce a 9mm pistol.



What Remains:

I could not ascertain where on State Street the loft rented by the Mossbergs was located, the street parallels the railroad tracks and has for a long time been an industrial area.
There are a couple of possibilities, one is the Kellog Building on the corner of State and Elm, another is just a few doors down.



The addresses for the building they owned on Greene Street (201, 205 or 303 Greene Street), no longer exists, I believe it was on the corner of Greene Street and Hughes Place, which is now an apartment complex.


The factory on St. John Street would be impossible to locate, even if it still stands.
Two problems, one is that during the time the Mossbergs operated out of St. John Street, Interstate 91 was being built, which intersected and removed a large section of St. John Street. The second is that I found no less than six different addresses on advertising media. The following addresses: 58912, 9710, 6002, 99711, 6506 & 85011, not one of these addresses exist today. 
I believe the location was demolished for the construction of the interstate or the address system changed, and the building was demolished later.

The North Haven factory at 7 Grasso Avenue still stands, although I don't know how much manufacturing takes place there.




As always if you have more information to share, please comment below.






Sources:


http://cfnparts.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=36

https://www.americanhunter.org/articles/2016/9/20/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-mossberg/

http://gunivore.com/brands/mossberg-sons-company-overview-review/

A Look Back: Oscar F. Mossberg and O.F. Mossberg & Sons | USCCA (usconcealedcarry.com)

MOSSBERG® 500®: THE COMPLETE STORY OF AN AMERICAN ICON - WOOX (wooxstore.com)

https://www.mossberg.com/since-1919-a%E2%80%88look-at-the-storied-history-of-mossberg/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.F._Mossberg_%26_Sons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooster_Square_Historic_District

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooster_Square

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/O.F._Mossberg_%26_Sons.html

GUNS Magazine Mossberg At 100 - GUNS Magazine