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Old 02-11-2005, 01:16 PM
MarkL MarkL is offline
Dis-Membered
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Houston
Posts: 388
This may be a little off-topic, but...

I went to a gun show with a friend a long time ago. He became enamored with a 9mm pistol that took a 50-round rotary/helical magazine mounted on top of the gun (did I mention this was a long time ago?). I believe the rear sight was on the magazine. Empty cases ejected straight down. He bought it and also bought a similarly designed .22 by the same maker. Don't remember the make or models.

I tried to steer him toward more popular, conventional guns with good reputations, but once he saw the "wonder guns", he was hooked. He said "I'm going to love this 50-round magazine because I hate reloading." and "Those other guns are just too primitive."

Both his guns were junk. The .22 would rarely fire twice without jamming. The 9mm only worked with HP ammo. FMJ ammo couldn't "turn the corner" getting from the mag to chamber. HPs only worked because the hollow point made the nose soft enough to deform as it fed, and not get stuck. It probably could have been made to work with reloads.

Anyway, about that 50 round magazine. It had some kind of wind-up spring. To load it, you pushed a button or something to relax the spring, inserted the ammo, then turned a knob to wind up the spring. When we went to the range together, he would sit down and start loading his mag, while I stood up and started shooting. By the time he got that 50 round mag loaded, I could shoot about 4 or 5 8-rounders through my 1911 without hurrying.

I learned a couple of lessons from my friend's mistake.

First, high-cap magazines have their place, but I don't think they offer any advantage for casual shooting. Regardless of the magazine capacity, every round you fire will have to be loaded one at a time (with rare exceptions). For casual target-shooting, you don't really want to hold a gun up and shoot for 50 rounds uninterrupted. Your arms and hands get tired unless you're just spraying bullets.

Second, radical design and/or high-capacity do not necessarily mean better or more sophisticated. My "primitive guns" (his word) would outshoot his "wonder guns" (my word) any day of the week, especially in terms of reliability, and they also fit the human hand better. There's a reason most guns have the same basic shape and design: it works.
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