Kel-Tec PF9

So far: Two range trips, 168 rounds, three failures to extract (one with WWB, two with Fed 115 gr FMJ), one gratifyingly simple experience with Kel-Tec customer support, two replacement magazine followers due to arrive in seven to ten days. The mags won't drop after it's been fired. Maybe it needs a new extractor, too. The screw on the extractor spring won't go any tighter. Maybe that's just Loctite.

So, joy not quite unconfined here. But I think shooting that jumpy little gun with its DAO trigger is making me a much better shooter with my Glock, so I'll stick with it for a bit. At least until I can hit something smaller than the backstop with it.

UPDATE

120 more rounds today. Eight more failures to extract. Something is very wrong here. Contacted Kel-Tec.

UPDATE 2010-06-22

They want me to ship the gun back to them. No BS with those guys. I appreciate it.

UPDATE 2012

They "fixed" it and shipped it back to me, it still didn't work for spit, I sold it.

Quote of the Day

From Anthony "Theodore Dalrymple" Daniels:

...I was suspicious of the idea that things could get no worse. Human ingenuity in causing disaster is almost infinite, no matter how low the starting point...

Yeah, whenever anybody says "it can't get any worse", hold onto your hat, brother. Because it's about to.

Asked and Answered

CAN IT BE a coincidence that J. D. Salinger died the same day the iPad was introduced?

Yes.

"If I had been found the Germans would have shot everyone in the house."

Go read some Wonderful WWII reminiscences from Hubert Hubert's dad, with some fun facts about the Walther P38 for good measure.

"I helped them make the arm bands they wanted for their unit which was about 200 strong, stamping them and painting them with the tricolour & the Cross of Lorraine. Then they realised I was a trained armourer so they dug up all the old guns they had hidden in the church yard next to the farm house under the grave stones in the cemetery and I cleaned Lugers, German and Italian automatics and shotguns which would have blown up if they had ever been fired."

Detail-Stripping the Glock Pistol: Removing the Trigger Pin

Taking Glocks apart is (mostly) not very difficult. There are good guides online, for example at Glock Parts and topglock.com. My experience begins and ends with my 3rd Gen Glock 19, but it's my understanding that the other models are very similar. The Glock Parts guide claims that 9mm Glocks don't have a "locking block pin", and the topglock.com guide has photos of a Glock 17 which does not have that pin. Well, my (9mm) Glock 19 does have one; it's recent. I haven't looked up which generation they changed it at.

Anyhow. The only difficulty I've had is removing the trigger pin. (Update: A commenter informs me that his G17 doesn't have this issue, though his G19 does) A narrow part of that pin goes through a hole in the forward end of the slide stop lever. The slide stop spring pushes the edge of the hole downward against the pin, such that when you push the pin sideways, the edge of the narrow part of the pin catches against the edge of the hole. The directions I've linked talk about "jiggling" the catch, or "mov[ing] the slide stop lever up/down/back and forth", but that's all a bit vague. There's a wonderful variety of wrong ways you can move and jiggle, all while applying excessive force to the end of the pin and accomplishing exactly nothing.

The exact relationship in there becomes clear when you finally get the pin out: The forward end of the slide stop is pushed downward by its spring. What you need to do is hold that end of the slide stop up while you push the pin out. Given the way it's hinged and where the spring is, any kind of normal jiggling is likely to push the forward end down, not up.

So here's the trick to it: There's a tab in the middle of the slide stop lever. It extends inward. It's there so that when an empty magazine is in the pistol, the magazine follower pushes up against that tab, which engages the slide stop.

You need to get your left thumb on top of the external slide stop thing, and your left forefinger under the tab. Push down with your thumb while pulling up with your forefinger. While holding that pose, push the trigger pin out from frame left (the side the slide stop catch is on). If you've got the thumb-finger thing right, the pin will slide out like butter. If it won't budge, the slide stop is still catching on it.

Here's a look at the author's Thumb-Finger Technique:

This information is presented without warranty of any kind. The author is not your mother. Good luck. Don't lose small parts. Don't shoot yourself. Don't be an idiot. If you can't help being an idiot, don't handle firearms. DO NOT APPLY BUTTER TO FIREARMS, NOT EVEN IF IT'S UNSALTED. The butter thing was a figure of speech.

Jobs Created or Saved!

Holy Toledo, now USA Today's doing it too:

Twenty of the 47 fundraisers that Obama's campaign identified as collecting more than $500,000 have been named to government positions, the [USA Today] analysis found.

In fact, we've been seeing a smattering of actual journalism like this all along. The problem is that it's been freakishly rare compared to what you'd get in a Republican administration — or even a normal Democratic administration.

One thing I'd like to know is what percentage of top Bush II donors got jobs in his administration, ditto Clinton, Bush I, and so on back. Wouldn't surprise me too much if this is in line with standard practice. Come to think of it, why didn't the reporter check that? When anybody quotes you any number about anything, your first question should be what are you comparing it to? Sure, wrong is wrong, whether the other administrations did it or not; but is it unusually wrong, or conventionally wrong? Campaign donors have been awarded with harmless ambassadorships for many decades now.

Still, give 'em credit where it's due. At least somebody did something resembling his job.

Via SayUncle.

Blah blah blah

I just repseudonymed myself to Gordon Freece, which amuses me for obscure and moronic reasons. I think I'll keep this one. If I had a reader other than my girlfriend, I'm sure he or she would want to be in the loop on this one.