Recuperating From Shoulder Surgery

I am currently recuperating from shoulder surgery and will be several weeks before there will be any new postings.  In the meantime I invite you to read or re-read some of my favorite past postings about some of my favorite handguns or other topics.  

A Gun Won't Solve All of Your Problems

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2010/01/gun-will-not-solve-all-your-problems.html

The Importance of Training

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2009/04/importance-of-training-last-summer.html

Fun Six Guns and Fighting Six Guns

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2006/07/in-this-edition-fun-six-guns-and.html

Smith & Wesson Model 15 Combat Masterpiece

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2006/10/smith-wesson-could-not-keep-up-with.html

A Good Revolver

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2007/02/good-revolver-back-in-early-80s-i.html

Colt Model 1908 .380

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2007/09/vanity-project-completed-colt-model.html

SIG P220 Carry Elite

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2007/09/sig-p220-carry-elite-firm-of.html

Browning High-Power

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2008/04/browning-hi-power-legend-has-it-that.html

Taurus OSS

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2008/05/big-boy_23.html

SIG P6

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2008/08/sig-sauer-p6-militarypolice-version-of.html

Smith & Wesson Competition Pistols

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2008/08/smith-wesson-competition-pistols-in.html

and

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2008/08/smith-wesson-competition-pistols-part.html

SIG P250

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2008/11/sig-p250-9mm-pistol-sig-model-p250-may.html

Walther PPK and PPKS

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2009/01/name-is-joe-average-joe-examination-of.html

Nighthawk Ladyhawk

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2009/03/pair-of-sexy-9s-part-i-nighthawk-lady.html

CZ 75 Polished Stainless

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2009/03/cz-75b-in-polished-stainless-part-ii-of.html

Taurus PT709

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2009/07/taurus-pt-709-slim-9mm-i-know-that-i.html

STI Rogue 9mm

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2009/08/sti-rogue-9mm-let-me-cut-to-chase.html

Glock Model 36

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2009/05/glock-model-36.html

Glock Model 38

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2009/11/glock-model-38.html

SIG 1911 RCS

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2010/04/sig-1911-rcs.html

Kimber RCP

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2010/05/kimber-ultra-rcp-ii-45-acp.html

Glock Model 39

http://averagejoeshandgunreviews.blogspot.com/2011/01/glock-model-39-45-gap.html

SHTF Holster

One of the great things about producing this blog is that I am starting to meet some really fantastic people who have interesting goods or services to offer.  Many of these folks have not yet been discovered by the mainstream gun writing media and it is my pleasure to introduce them to my readers.  Such is the case with Clay Moultrie of SHTF Gear (www.shtfgear.com).

SHTF's premiere offering is a hybrid holster made of both leather and Kydex.  When I first opened the package and laid eyes on the holster for the compact Glock frame I was concerned that maybe the holster was a little overbuilt for the task at hand.  After toting my Glock 23 around in it for two weeks my concerns were soundly abated.  This is a professional's holster in every sense of the word professional.

The holster is surprisingly comfortable!  The leather backing keeps the pistol from jabbing me in the side and it is also the first tuckable holster I have ever tried where I can easily tuck the shirt in over the holstered handgun.  I have several alleged tuckable holsters sitting in my vast drawer of unsued holsters because it is just too much of   a pain to try to get the shirt tucked in over them.  The SHTF holster now allows me to leverage this extra level of concealment.  This is facilitated by the fact that the belt clips are attached to the more flexible leather backing rather than the non-forgiving Kydex portion of the holster.

You can already see from the photographs that the Kydex is attached to the leather backing by the use of metal rivets and stitched Kevlar.  It's on there to stay and if you have any problems the holster comes with a lifetime warranty and free replacement belt clips for life if needed.  Clay is pretty sure of his product and stands behind it 100%.

About SHTF Gear

Clay Moultrie has been in business just about a year.  He decided to get into the holster industry after buying a hybrid holster that was comfortable but quickly developed problems.  The first issues concerned the design and functionality of the holster.  Clay was carrying a Glock with an extended magazine release and the leather backing of the holster kept activating the release.  This could be deadly if you had to present the pistol to meet a threat only to have the magazine fall out.  In very short order Clay had to re-install the stock mag release.  He also found that the fit of the Kydex and leather backing was so tight that he could not wrap his thumb around the pistol when attempting to draw.  In consulting the manufacturer's website he saw that their videos showed the pistols being drawn with the shooters thumb on the striker-plate or rear sight.  Obviously in the stress of responding to an actual attack there is always the chance that the shooter might pull the trigger before getting his or her thumb off the rear of the slide.  The result might be a broken thumb joint and a dropped pistol rendering the shooter defenseless.  

The next concern was regarding the construction of the holster itself. The rivets holding the Kydex to the leather began to weaken and move and eventually the Kydex began to rip.  In about six months Clay came to the conclusion that the holster was no longer usable.

Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

Clay's frustration over the quality and design of this holster gave him the motivation to build a product that overcame the weaknesses he encountered in the holster he had purchased.  

Clay has branded his product as the ACE holster which stands for "Always Combat Effective".  Clay explained to me this way "The idea is that my holsters are designed to be faster than some of the competition by allowing for a full shooting grip before the weapon is drawn.  

Also the cut of my holsters does not block the magazine release which allows the shooter to holster the pistol and perform a one-handed magazine change".  [Clay has obviously had some tactical training]  Clay also states that his holsters do not inadvertently activate extended magazine releases. 

As mentioned earlier Clay constructs his holsters using a combination of hand stitched Kevlar as well as metal rivets.  Clay told me "The Kevlar has a break strength of over 100 pounds per stitch.  This ensures that you never get a separation between the Kevlar and the leather".

The leather backing is laser cut which allows Clay to offer custom laser engraving on the holster for an extra $10.00.  Additionally Clay is working on a design for an outside the waistband holster as well as both inside the waistband and outside the waistband magazine pouches.

I am very happy with this holster and if you are interested in one please visit SHTF Gear's website and tell them that Average Joe sent you.  But wait!  Clay has offered Average Joe readers $5.00 off their purchase by entering the coupon code "AverageJoe".  This offer is good for the next 90 days from the date of this posting.  I have to tell you that I am pretty excited at being able to pass along an offer like this to my readers and I really appreciate Clay making it available to us.

Kimber Solo Revisited for the Fourth Time

I continue to have a plethora of people email me or comment on my Kimber Solo blog review that they have had no problems with their Solo and they love it to pieces.  Before I continue to relate the problems with this specimen let me go on record and state that I am a Kimber fan!  I have had many of their 1911 pistols and loved them all.  I had no reliability problems and they were all the very definition of accuracy.  To further go on the record I was awaiting the arrival of the Kimber solo with extreme anticipation.  It has the best aesthetics of any pocket 9mm.  I mean have you seen the SIG P290, Beretta Nano and others?  They are the epitome of ugly.  Even my choice for a pocket 9, the Diamondback 9mm, is hardly an attractive pistol.  The Kimber Solo is beautiful with a steel slide, aluminum frame, Kimpro finish and no polymer!  It bears a fond resemblance to my favorite pistol, the Colt pocket pistols of 1903 and 1908.  

So, after all the emails and posts I decided to try it again.  Now I've not seen one for sale other than the one at Cliff's in Boise when I was there last week and Cliff was asking $900.00 for it.  Here in Minneapolis I know of two gun shops that have received their display models from Kimber but nothing for sale so I have been shooting the display model at Bill's which they put in their rental case.  It has been back to Kimber twice, maybe three times and Kimber tells them there is nothing wrong with it.  It has been there since March 5th so it has had more than enough rounds through it for the break-in period.  

Well not much better luck this time around.  The failures to eject are still there.

You can see the nick on the right side of the shell casing where the extractor grabbed it but it did not eject the fired round.  Some of the rounds just barely dribbled out of the ejection port. Six rounds out of 50 failed to eject usually, but not always, it was the second to last round in the magazine. That's about a 12% failure rate and way too high for a pistol you're staking your life on.

I decided to switch to what I consider to be the gold standard of 9mm ammunition, the Speer Gold Dot 124 grain hollow point.

The result was worse.  13 out of 13 failures to eject and at that point I stopped; the rounds are just too expensive to fire any more of them.  As you can see from the photo above even when no other round is in the magazine the pistol still fails to eject.  In fact even when there was no magazine in  the pistol it still would not eject the fired round.

I clearly understand that every once in awhile a bad pistol makes it way out of the factory of any manufacturer but this one has been back more than once and they cannot get it to work.  I say let the buyer beware on this pistol and that is extremely disappointing from someone who is as big a Kimber fan as I am.

Caracal 9mm Compact

There are a few pistols that feel like the warm handshake of an old friend when you pick them up: the Browning Hi-Power (with the right grips), the CZ 75, and the SIG P210 (drool, drool) to name a few.  Well you can welcome the Caracal line of pistols to your list of friendly grasps as well.

I was delighted to find both the full sized and compact Caracal models on display at Bill's Gun Shop and Range in Robbinsdale, MN.  If you're not familiar with the Caracal you'll want to be.  For the record Caracal International LLC (a subsidiary of Tawazun Holding Company) manufactures semi-automatic pistols in the United Arab Emirates.

In looking over the Caracal externally you will make an immediate comparison with the Steyr Model M and S pistols and internally you will you will see a resemblance to the Glock line.

There is a good reason for the comparison; Caracal brought Austrian handgun designer Wilhelm Bubits to bring their pistol to life.  Even if you are not familiar with Bubits you will probably not be surprised to find out that he worked for Glock before joining Steyr in 1997.  There he created the Model M and S pistols before being summoned to Abu Dhabi to head Caracal's research and development team.

After the Caracal pistols were manufactured they were independently tested by the Federal German Armed Forces Technical Center for Weapons and Ammunition.  They put the pistols through an extensive examination of the strength of the metallurgy all the way through thorough endurance testing, exposure to the elements, reliability, safety, and accuracy.  The pistols passed all tests and were approved for used by NATO forces.

To get into the specifications the Caracal pistols are polymer framed with carbon steel slides.  Additionally the 9mm Compact model has a capacity of 15 +1 rounds, a 3.67 inch barrel, a slide length of 6.7 inches, a height of 4.8 inches, a width of 1.1 inches, weighs in at 26.1 ounces, sports 2-dot sights and has a trigger pull of 4.14 pounds.  All in all in a comparison with the Glock 19 it is a little smaller with a better trigger pull.

The two striking features that immediately draw your eye are the grip frame and the bore axis.  The ergonomical grip has a nicely rounded butt with a grip angle of 111 degrees.

What the grip doesn't have are the bothersome finger grooves found on Glock pistols.  While they fit some hands very well there are other hands that they don't fit, mine being two of them.  The Caracal grip has some nice sized checkering molded into the grip making the finger grooves unnecessary.  The pistol also does not have interchangeable back straps to increase or decrease the size of the grip.  While this is a welcome addition to the Glock Gen 4 pistols I don't seem to feel that the Caracal needs this feature.  

The very low bore axis (similar to the Steyr pistols) holds the barrel and slide about as close to the shooter's hand as possible which allows you to get a very high grip on the pistol.

This reduces muzzle flip which allows for faster recovery time between shots so your follow-up shots can be taken more quickly.

The trigger also contains the inner pivoting trigger safety that keeps the trigger locked until the trigger is fully acquired by the shooter's trigger finger.  The trigger pull is lighter than the Glock with just a little take up before engaging the sear and letting off at an average of 4.14 pounds of pressure.  The trigger guard is nicely rounded rather than the squared version on the Glock pistol.  The squared Glock trigger guard seems to have fallen out of favor as there is a cottage industry of gunsmiths who are making a living customizing the Glock and rounding off the trigger guard.  The portions of the frame forward of the trigger guard contains a molded-in accessory rail for mounting tactical lights, lasers, hoop earrings, car keys, holiday tree lights, health club access cards, and a host of other things I do not want hanging off my pistol.  

The Caracal sports fixed sights that feature a two-dot sighting system akin to the Heinie Straight Eight sights.  These consist of a white dot on the front sight post and a white dot on the bottom of the rear sight groove.  You simply stack the front dot on top of the rear dot; it is really quite simple.

I have several friends that don't like the straight eight sights reasoning that they are not built for accuracy.  They may have a point; they are built for fast target acquisition under stressful situations not precise "I can take as much time as I want to in order to line up my sights" scenarios.  In terms of accuracy please examine the targets posted below and see what you think.  The rear sights are an integral part of the striker back plate and thus are not adjustable for windage.  With the advances in precision CNC machining the rear sight is exactly in the middle.  If your shooting style requires any further adjustments the front sight is dovetailed into the frame and can be drifted (but remember that when adjusting the front sight you move the sight in the opposite direction as your point of impact).

One question that will take some time to answer is how durable the finish will be and can the metal treatment adequately fight off the effects of oxidation. Another hallmark of the Glock pistols is their Tennifer metal treatment.  I have seen many slightly abused Glocks for sale in the "used handgun" cases at many gun shops and while the finish may be worn off I have never seen any rust.  Obviously this was a part of the German Army testing criteria and one would assume that it passed with flying colors but we will need some time to see how the Caracal pistols age with use.  I can tell you that the finish on the frame and slide are a very attractive grayish-olive color that is applied very evenly and has a "slick" appearance to it. 

The Caracal disassembles very much like a Glock.  Remove the magazine and triple check to make sure that the pistol is empty with no round in the chamber. Pull the trigger.  Slip your thumb under the rear of the slide and wrap your hand over the top.  Move the slide about 5mm to the rear and, with your other hand, pull down on the slide take-down lever located on the frame just above the trigger.  This lever extends to both sides of the frame and you will have to pull down on both sides as you would on a Glock.

The slide then glides off of the frame rails and you can remove the recoil spring and barrel...just as you would a Glock.

While Caracal went to great extreme to remove any sharp edges they did leave three, however they should not be a problem during combat firing.  The three sharp edges are all of metal and they are a tab on the front of the magazine, the slide release lever, and the slide take-down lever.  While these originally concerned me I have found that they do not play a role during combat shooting.

My fingers and hands do not make contact with the tab on the front of the magazine while conducting combat reloads and I use the sling shot methong of releasing the slide rather than using the slide release lever when charging the pistol.

Of the three sharp edges the least sharp edge is the slide take-down lever and it will only be accessed long after the stress of the shooting has stopped so it won't be a problem either.

So, enough with all this technical blather...let's see what happened on the firing range:

ON TO THE TARGETS

Range Ammo

Two fired at 21 feet with Winchester 115 grain FMC ammo:

Winchester 115 grain FMC ammo fired at 40 feet:

Winchester 115 grain FMC ammo fired at 50 feet:

Magtech 124 grain FMC ammo fired at 75 feet:

Zombie at 25 feet hit with 35 rounds of Magtech ammo:

Defensive Ammo All Shot at 21 Feet

Remington HD Ultimate Home Defense 124 grain Bonded Jacketed Hollowpoint

Speer 124 grain Gold Dot Hollow Point

Speer 124 grain +P GDHP (the +P ammo did show the expected additional recoil but it was not too much of a problem):

HPR 124 grain Jacketed Hollow Point Ammo

Federal Guard Dog 105 grain:

The Guard Dog ammo contains a rubber filler in the cavity inside the round.  It is designed to provide maximum expansion and energy dispersal as soon as it hits the target thereby reducing the chance of over penetration or ricochet if the shooter misses their assailant.

Overall everyone who shot the Caracal was impressed including Ana

Who shot it well despite the handicap of the footwear she chose to wear to the range.

Caracal is also producing their pistols in .40 caliber if you find that you can't live with a 9mm pistol.  I would love to find one in .40 and see how the low bore axis affects the muzzle flip.

You can probably guess by now that I really like this pistol. The grip shape and angle give it excellent "point-ability". I would only have two requests:

1. Night Sights (which I would imagine will be available sometime in the near future)



2. Dish-Washer Safe (I am waiting for someone to make a pistol that can just be broken down and thrown in the dishwasher for easy cleaning)

Stay safe until next time,
Average Joe

For those who have been asking about who is distributing the pistol I now have that information.  It is OMB in Olathe, Kansas:

 Rob.Walker@ombguns.com


OMB Guns


15765 South Keeler Street

Olathe, KS 66062

(913) 322-8412