Took my carry class re-new last Saturday... funny

DPris,
The man feels that it is adequate for him, he is not raiding crack houses, nor is he walking through the ghetto with a sign on him like Bruce Willis in Die Hard 3.
If he feels that he is adequately armed with a classic firearm, let him be. Don't rain on the man's parade. This thread is not about what caliber is the be all, end all in Mall ninja/Tactical self defense. This thread is about a man who has excellant taste in classic firearms enjoying using them.

The day I see my guns as ONLY being a self defence tool, one that must be the maximum effective tool or they're not worthy, is the day I sell my guns and walk away.

Keep enjoying 'em Magnum Wheel Man
 
MPI,
As clarification, no this thread isn't about good taste or enjoying the use of classic firearms, it's about betting a life on an inferior defensive tool.
I have many guns that are here for non-defensive uses & did not say that the only reason for owning a gun is or should be defensive.

Denis
 
DPris,
Allow me to make a comparison.
Suppose somebody was posting about how they took their 1955 Chevy to take their drivers license renewal test. They mention that the old car is their daily driver in their quite little town. Everybody on the forum is admiring the old car, and mentioning how they love to take their classic car out onto the roads.
Would you tell them that they shouldn't drive that car, that it doesn't have the safety features of modern cars. That's it's underpowered and has bad gas mileage. Would you essentially call them an ignorant fool, because they were tooling around small town streets in an "inadequate, and unsafe car"? Instead of a modern, fuel efficient, ultra safe, car?
The OP is a grown man, he has experience with firearms, he is very aware of the differences between different guns and calibers. He has made his choice. He is aware that the one he has chosen may not be the top of the heap. He doesn't need you to act like he is an idiot, or a child. It is neither your responsibilty, or business, to insult his judgement and choices. And whether it was intentional or not, that is what you did.
He wasn't asking what was a good choice, he was relating a funny and unique experience of going against the grain, of not being an automaton with yet another piece of Tactical Tupperware.
If you disapprove of his choice, you are entitled to not follow his example. But don't insult his choices and judgement in a rude and condescending manner as if you were his superior.

You can attract more flies with honey than vinegar.
 
Not condescending, and more concerned with others close to making a similar choice.
He's made his & it's his life.

You keep making non-relevant comparisons. This is not a matter of simply a fondness for old technology, it's a matter of a defensive shield in a life & death situation.
I'm not talking about using a '55 Chebby to go for a Sunday afternoon drive along the coast, I'm talking about a blood & guts in-your-face, kill-or-be killed, slit-your-guts-open, stomp-your-head-in-or-blow-it-off-if-you-don't- have-the-means-to-resist occurance. One that can happen fast, with more than one assailant.

With some exposure to shootings, along with other factors, I consider myself qualified to express an opinion, and if it disagrees with yours, that doesn't make it any less valid.
Yes, he was expressing what he thought was a funny story, but funny stories can often give a newbie an erroneous impression. The immediate impression was that the old hardware was competitive with new, which isn't the case.
Denis
 
Dpris,

What is it about .38 S&W that you feel makes it a poor choice for self defense?

Are you of the opinion that a handgun round must produce a certain muzzle energy to be an effective stopper? If not, than what is it that you believe is the important concideration in choosing a self defense caliber?

On the subject of metallurgy, are you a machinist, gunsmith, or mechanical engineer? If not, what is it that leads you to believe an old firearm can fail, even when used with appropriate ammunition?
 
I'm not sure whether I consider this funny, sad, or scary.
All those inept, inexperienced, and untrained folks who passed the test are now licensed to carry a loaded firearm on their person. I'm as much concerned about that type of individual being armed as I am about a criminal attacking me. I understand that not everyone has the background or time to be trained and knowledgeable in the use of firearms. I also see the need for many folks to get more than is offered at the qualification class/test.
I am by no means an expert with a handgun nor have I attended any of the highly advertised self defense schools. What I have is 4 decades of pistol shooting, hunting, and some experience in life threatening situations to guide my actions.
I hope that the influx of poorly trained, inexperienced CCW licensees doesn't cause problems which will negate all the effort that's been invested in promoting nationwide(almost) acceptance of concealed carry.
 
Average number of shots fired in a gun fight is 2-3 shots. If the man is competent with his chosen weapon he is well armed. Now some of you who live in perilous places and require several changes of large capacity magazines or have a lack of marksmanship that requires you to spray and pray have at it but to say there is only one correct answer to what to carry is the height of hubris. The man likes his gun, he is competent with it that's all that is needed.

You don't like his choice fine but who are you to say he is wrong? From your attitude I suspect I would rather have him back me up if things got dicey because you sound a little immature to me.
 
As I said, I won't argue about it, just answering questions.

Six,
The .38 S&W is a low-velocity caliber with a round-nosed lead bullet.
A low-powered cartridge with an inefficient bullet and comparatively low "stopping power".

Velocity is not, in itself, the sole consideration to base a decision of defensive caliber on. A mild .45 Colt 250-grain lead semi-wad traveling at a sedate 750-800 FPS can be very effective. There, you have efficient bullet construction and weight/momentum working for you.
Remington's current Remington 146-grain .38 S&W RNL that lists at 685 FPS (and would be slower out of the OP's snub barrel) has both bullet type and bullet velocity distinctly not working for you.

No, I'm not of the opinion that there's a quantifiable velocity threshhold for an effective SD caliber.

Generally, slow can be effective with large, and fast with small, assuming good bullet construction, but the slow, small, and inefficient bullet combination of the .38 S&W is a far less effective one.
Rabbit hunters who've shot rabbits with .22 LR solids & .22 LR HPs have noticed a distinct difference in what happens to the rabbit. Same principle translates to larger critters in the context under discussion.

What's my personal belief on the most important consideration in choosing a defensive caliber?
There is no "most" important.
It's the package.

If you carry a small gun, make it one crafted of modern materials, with a good rep for reliability, in a configuration that you can work with, and using the most effective type of bullet in your chosen ammunition that you can find.
In the smaller calibers like the .25, .32 ACP, and .380 ACP (despite those who feel FMJ is best because it may penetrate farther), you'll get maximum tissue destruction and nervous system disruption from a good JHP traveling along in the upper velocity levels of the caliber in question.
A slow & light roundnosed lead bullet is simply at the bottom of the barrel.

If you carry a larger gun in the .38 Special & 9mm league, same applies. Modern steels, effective bullet types. Lead in a .38 Special is do-able, as long as it's a semi-wad or HP semi-wad that'll do better in terminal performance than a roundnose.

Once up in the .45 caliber area, if you can comfortably carry a big gun that shoots 'em, the classic 250/255-grain RNL Colt revolver load at about 850 FPS killed a lot of people, but again- it had weight & momentum, along with a wider travel path. A lead semi-wad or good JHP at the same or slightly higher velocity will generally be more effective.
The .45 ACP ball at about 850 FPS has also put many down, but has also over-penetrated and failed to shut a threat down as rapidly as a better JHP generally tends to do.


The closest to a definitive suggestion I'd make is a quality gun with efficient ammunition, that you can shoot effectively.
The little breaktop under discussion fits none of those. ("...shoot effectively..." does not mean hitting a bull's-eye on a static range during low-or-no-stress aimed slowfire with no time constraints. It means shooting fast, shooting under pressure, and shooting accurately, with a bullet that'll do maximum damage in defending your life.)

On the metallurgy question, I don't have to be an engineer to know that heat-treating didn't begin at Smith & Wesson till about the mid-1920s. Even when it did, it wasn't up to the standards of today's heat treatment.
Dunno exactly when the OP's gun was manufactured, but it wasn't the 1920s, or later.

The metallurgy is inferior. Not by the standards of the times, and not only with Smiths, but by the standards of today. You don't have to be an engineer either to read the warning in the Speer #14 reloading manual under the .38 S&W section about considering almost all pre-WWII hinge-breaks "unsuitable" for use with "modern" ammuntion.
The cylinders are weaker than modern counterparts, the barrel latch is another weak point.
Small parts were not hardened as well as they are today, the hammer notch could go on the next shot, a spring could break suddenly, and so on.

When that gun was made, just because it may have been one of the best in its class doesn't mean it remains viable today.
And yes- I know people shoot 100-year-old rifles and handguns without blowing them up, but the little S&W hinged pocket pistols from the late 1800s were intended more for show than go, were never built or bought to be fired regularly, and were marketed in an era when there were limited choices in small defensive packages, and metallurgy was still relatively primitive.

Grump,
Perilous places?
Some time ago an ex-boyfriend kidnapped a woman at gunpoint, from & during a church service in my neighborhood. The same year a man was severely beaten at a convenience store by a carful of kids who took unwarranted offense over the way he glanced at them while they were traveling along side by side in parallel lanes, about two blocks from that same church. A normally quiet neighborhood, a subdivision about 10 years old.

I could name numerous other examples, like the teenage girl killed by a shotgun blast from a car that pulled alongside hers on the main drag one night in the town where I worked my last PD. Killer & reason still unknown.
I spent many years cleaning up the aftermaths of sudden shootings, all of which leads me to say with what I consider a solid foundation: You don't count on the mythical 2-3-shots-fired average, and it can happen ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, and with NUMEROUS assailants.
Followed by CHOOSE YOUR DEFENSIVE TOOL WISELY!
Base it on reality, not nostalgia or "cool".

That ain't "immature", it's experience from seeing what actually goes on out there, not on a concealed carry range.
Denis
 
its a well known fact that 38 sw is still a popular cartridge for personal defense. its why i cant find a good usable terrier or victory model for under 800 dollars. true the modern ammunition companies dont load it like it should be, but that goes for most calibers.

also you cant completely rule out a gun based upon design. or age of gun itself or age of the design. many people are still using original 1930s and 1940s produced browning hi powers and 1911s and no one would even begin to insult them for their choice based upon "gee the guns to old, cant be good anymore"
 
Dpris,

I can understand your position on the .38S&W if one bases their choice on factors like energy, expansion, and overall tissue destruction. This cartridge does none of those things very well.

What it does is penetrate. Even the "weak" .38S&W load you referenced will attain almost twice the FBI's ideal penetration requirement in calibrated ordinance media. This means the round will have enough power to reach CNS structures, and sufficiently damage them when it gets there. In my opinion this is the only method one can count on to achieve a stop with a handgun. It doesn't matter the size of the attacker, their determination, or any drugs they are on. One hunk of lead through the throat into the spine, or through the sinus cavity into the brain, and its game over.

My personal ideal choice in a defensive handgun is a 1911 for various reasons, and in .45ACP because it has far more than sufficient penetrative capability using just about every bullet type. As a bonus, it also can expand a hollowpoint while still driving it sufficiently deep, and that can only help. The downside is, its a big, heavy gun.

When I want or need a smaller handgun, my choice is an Iver Johnson .38S&W break-top safety hammerless. It does have disadvantages such as capacity, speed of reload, and raw power. It can still be an effective stopper if used properly, and it has its own advantages, such as being very small and easy to conceal, having low recoil and noise, and being very reliable in function.

Speaking to the suitability of the old guns themselves, each example is a rule unto its self. Obviously an old blackpowder gun should not be used with modern smokeless ammunition, or even at all if it is worn out and the metal is in bad shape. Similarly, a smokeless capable gun in good condition should not be abused with hot loaded ammunition. Thankfully, this is not necessary because you can achieve perfectly suitable performance with low pressure smokeless rounds, and even blackpowder cartridges. Use of an old gun in good shape is no more dangerous or erroneous than using most any modern gun and taking its proper function for granted.
 
What it does is penetrate. Even the "weak" .38S&W load you referenced will attain almost twice the FBI's ideal penetration requirement in calibrated ordinance media.
Click to expand...
Yup. Even the old weak calibers would poke really deep holes. The problem is that it has become obvious that expanding ammunition is FAR superior to LRN style ammo when it comes to terminal effect. Penetration is great, but not if it can't be achieved with good quality expanding ammunition.

The .38Sp is about the bottom limit in terms of a cartridge that will meet FBI spec with good quality expanding ammunition.

Penetration alone is not really something you want to hang your hat on. It's what earned LRN bullets in .38spl police revolvers the nickname of "widowmakers". Sure, they penetrated like gangbusters, but they pushed the tissue aside instead of cutting or tearing it and left tiny little holes that didn't really even bleed much.
Use of an old gun in good shape is no more dangerous or erroneous than using most any modern gun and taking its proper function for granted.
Click to expand...
It's important to understand how much the science of firearms and metallurgy has advanced in the last century. Even as late as the 1980s, we were seeing firearm failures due to metallurgy issues--the Beretta slide breakage issue was, according to some, traced to improper amounts of a particular substance in the steel.

Go back another 5 or 6 decades and you're into the era where a failure like that might never be fully understood. Another few decades and people wouldn't even consider it to be unusual for an apparently good quality steel part to break. Because in an era without the ability to insure (or even understand) proper metallurgy that kind of thing was unavoidable.

Old guns in good condition are generally safe to shoot if the proper precautions are taken and can provide a lot of entertainment at the range or while plinking. That's not even close to the same thing as saying that they are as reliable or as safe as a modern firearm would be.

If it's all you have, make sure it's in as good as possible condition and follow all recommendations for ammunition use as well as any special precautions about that particular model and make the best of the situation. If it's not all you have, or if you can buy something newer, you'd be doing yourself a favor if you picked something more suitable.
 
First of all, that's a cool little revolver. I am occasionally tempted to pack something like that and I do carry a single action .45 often in rural areas.

When I was a kid we had a cabbie pick up a fare, late at night, for a fare to a nearby town. The fare jumped in the back seat of Junior's old Plymouth and off into the night they went. About five miles out of town, the fare slid over behind Junior and announced a robbery. Junior was reaching for a blackjack he kept for such occasions, when the first of five bullets came through the seat and started tracking around his rotundness. Junior was sorta spherical, you see.

Mr. Robber ran out of buwwets and Junior, hit all five times and with nothing to lose, did not run out of blackjack. He reached over the seat and started whaling hell out of Mr. Robber, knocking considerable fur off his noggin and fracturing several bones therein. (Junior, being a big boy, liked a big blackjack.) The robber exited the car, sprinted a short distance and smack into a barbed wire fence where he added noticeably to his miseries. Junior hailed a passing cop and the baddie was apprehended. Junior survived his ordeal but took much ribbing about being to thick for normal firearms to penetrate.

The gun used in this shooting was a little owlhead. The event sorta soured me on the 38 S&W.
 
it pushed the tissue aside instead of cutting or tearing it and left tiny little holes that didn't really even bleed much.
Click to expand...

Like I said, in my opinion based on everything Ive studied about wounding and anatomy, the most important thing is not how much tissue is destroyed along the way to the CNS, or how much tissue is slipped past on the way there. Tissue damage, pain, and "bleed out" are not nearly a sure thing when it comes to stopping aggressive action. Destroying the brains ability to move the body is.

1. Shot placement
2. Maximum penetration.

Everything else is gravy.
 
It's worth pointing out that merely hitting the CNS doesn't always produce reliable stops. There have been documented incidents of people suffering significant insults to the brain without being incapacitated. One of the most impressive was a case where a blasting accident drove a tamping rod through the forebrain of a railroad worker. He was not incapacitated in the least and survived the incident in spite of not having the benefits of modern medicine available to him.

The point being that a simple hole though the brain can certainly be survivable, even a virtual non-issue in some situations. Expanding ammunition makes that sort of thing MUCH less likely because the brain is not very elastic and the "splash" effect that expanding ammunition has on neural tissue creates a lot of damage.

Second, the CNS is quite well protected. From the front, assuming perfect placement, a bullet has to penetrate all of the torso and punch through bone to reach the spinal cord. The spinal cord is not a large target and aiming to hit it from the front on a moving target in a dynamic situation is, to say the least, difficult.

The other option is to penetrate the skull. The skull is designed not to be penetrated, especially from the front. Again, there are many documented instances of bullets, especially low-powered, round-nose bullets being deflected by the skull without doing significant damage. Even rifle bullets can sometimes fail to penetrate as the Red Baron demonstrated in WWI. He was hit in the head by a machinegun bullet during a dogfight. The bullet deflected off his skull and he not only landed safely, he survived to fly again.

It is true that tissue damage and bleed out are not a sure thing. Neither is a CNS hit even if it penetrates and does CNS damage. In addition, the chances of a CNS hit are quite small and get even smaller if you only have a few rounds to try to connect bullet with target. The point is that NOTHING is a sure thing when it comes to handgun self-defense. There's virtually no single way to assure success. But there are certainly ways you can heavily handicap yourself.

I'm strongly against the idea that any single parameter is the end-all, be-all when it comes to self-defense. There are many issues that should be considered when choosing a handgun for self-defense. Reliability, shootability, recoil, durability, capacity, energy, momentum, penetration, diameter, weight, etc. The idea is to find a good balance of all of those things. You don't want to bank everything on just one or two discriminants and say you're good. You certainly don't want to push the bottom limit in virtually every category unless there's no other option.

If you read some of my posts you will see that I am by no means a "bigger is always better" guy. I believe that one should consider the whole package when making decisions about a gun/ammo/shooter combination. But that doesn't mean that anything goes. There are certainly ways to make choices that are less than ideal and I'd say that the choice to carry an ancient, snubby, single-action, topbreak revolver chambered in 38S&W is certainly less than ideal.
 
Six,
Penetration alone is no great indicator of terminal effectiveness.
Penetration as a disabling factor is multiplied several times when combined with a more effective bullet type than a roundnose, especially in the smaller calibers.

As noted, roundnosed bullets perform relatively little tissue damage in their travel path, and have been known to push nerve bundles aside in passing.
A semi-wad, even if not an expander, causes more damage and tends to "clip", "nick", or sever nerve bundles and pathways as it passes with its sharper leading edges without the need to create a larger-than-caliber wound track.

An expanding bullet performs basic functions that neither the roundnose or the semi-wad does: The bullet in expanding creates a larger-than-caliber bullet diameter which also results in jagged edges that tear more tissue and disrupt more nerve pathways as it travels, and also dumps more of the bullet's energy inside the torso, resulting in a lesser risk of striking a bystander through overpenetration.

The ideal small-bore handgun bullet mates sufficient velocity to allow deep enough penetration to strike vital organs while still expanding reliably enough to maximize tissue damage and nervous system "shock".

While there is no "one ideal bullet", the .38 S&W is ludicrously far from it in all respects.

You then fall back on "Placement Is King".
I agree that placement is probably about 80% of the battle, in the overall and general scheme of things, but placement under stress can be difficult even with larger handguns with good hand-filling grips, 3-pound triggers, and big visible glow-in-the-dark sights. Again, none of which that little breaktop has.
As a former firearms instructor, I've seen officers who got regular training still miss the center of mass (disabling strike zone) on a B27 silhouette at 15 yards under only the stress of the timer and pressure to qualify.

You first handicap yourself with a single-action design that requires thumb cocking.
You then handicap yourself further by chosing a small one, with small grips.
You doubly handicap yourself with both which combine to cause the gun to shift in the hand from shot to shot, disrupting your sight picture and slowing you down on successive shots.
Followed by additionally handicapping yourself with poor sights, again losing time in re-acquiring them.

Given all that, and considering that while you may be able to shoot a cantelope 5 out of 5 at 5 yards on a slowfire attempt, an assailant will usually not be standing still to courteously provide you with the time to aim for a skull or other relatively small CNS strike. He, or they, will usually be moving, not necessarily slowly, and not always in a straight line directly in front of you.

If it can be hard to hit the 9-ring on a B27 (much less the X) when it's standing still using a duty-sized handgun with better handfilling grips and better eye-filling sights, what do you realistically think you'll be able to pull off with that SA snub in a dynamic scenario under the pressures of a life-threatening attack as far as your throat, spine, or sinus cavity examples go?

Placement IS important. Placement CAN provide a certain degree of compensation for an inadequate round. Conversely, though, a much more effective round CAN compensate somewhat for inadequate placement.
Here, you have a slow & inefficient round fired through a slow & inefficient launching platform. Nothing compensates, it just compounds the inadequacy of both.
This is what you'd choose to stand between you & death?

I've done simulated "head shot" drills on live humans, in a training situation. Without using live ammo, I can't say it's impossible, but it was something of an eye-opener as to how small the typical human head is, and how little it really needs to move to make it extremely difficult to achieve that "sinus cavity" strike. Or any other strike on the head, if the subject's not holding still.
That's why we teach & learn the COM hold. Bigger targets are easier to hit than smaller targets. Especially moving targets that are trying to kill you.

And John K is dead on regarding the metallurgy. People tend to think "Hey, steel's steel, good then, good now, what's the prob?"

Steel, however, may be steel by definition, but it varies widely in composition and heat treatment even today, and a hundred years ago ordnance steels were a primitive science. Some properties were known, and designs were developed with those properties in mind, including the burn characteristics of the black powders then in use.

You run smokeless pressures through a pre-heat-treated gun built around BP, you MAY eventually run into a catastrophic failure, and Murphy's Law dictates that if it does blow, it will not be at the most convenient time possible.

If it blows on a recreational outing at the range, you've most likely just destroyed a nice antique. If it blows during an attack, you may have destroyed yourself as an immediate consequence.
And that's not even considering the possibility of small parts breakage.

Denis
 
interesting discussions have resulted... butt...

no where in my posts did I say I was shooting round nose bullets...

as a matter of fact, my nickel plated cases ( my self defense ammo ) are stuffed with hard cast semi wadcutters, & as already mentioned run out about the same as a 380 acp... my brass finish practice ammo is loaded with lighter round nose & with a lighter charge & bullet weight ( so they shoot to the same point of impact ) as the heavier & hotter nickel cases...

as far as the guns... I find both of my older S&W carry guns ( my model 1.5 - 32 S&W centerfire, & my model 2 - 38 S&W ) to be much better / solid shooters that the plethera of other top breaks I've collected & also love to shoot ( at targets ) I have several barrel lengths of both of these old S&W's & all mine shoot quite nicely...

BTW... I have been known to carry a NAA mini which is a 22 lr spur trigger... I find the 38 S&W easier to shoot both in speed & in accuracy & feel it's more lethal than the 22 lr out of the snubbie
 
"On the subject of metallurgy, are you a machinist, gunsmith, or mechanical engineer? If not, what is it that leads you to believe an old firearm can fail, even when used with appropriate ammunition? "

ever hear of metal fatigue old parts i.e. springs break at the most unexpected time. Cartridge is good I have a 38S&W, I load 148 gr hollow base wad cutters upside down good at close range. The gun however was made in 1967 and I replaced the springs recently nice little S&W.

Mace

Happiness is a belt fed weapon and lots of ammo:D
 
Mag,
I may stand corrected if you waited till now to advise you're not using factory roundnosed lead, but that opens up another concern.

What data are you using for your powder charges?
The two companies that produce .38 S&W deliberately load their smokeless charges down because of people who do occasionally shoot them in older guns like yours. They don't want injuries & they don't want lawsuits.
If you're upping velocities in handloads, you're creating even more risk.
If you're putting out a hardcast semi-wad at .380 velocities through that thing, you're not asking for trouble, you're begging for it.
And if you're doing it even semi-regularly, you'll get it, sooner or later.

Even with a better semi-wad bullet, you still have a very poor choice for a life-saving tool.

Re the NAA, I've worked with about 10 of their little revolvers in various sizes & calibers. I own two, one of which I carried in a uniform shirt pocket during the last few years before I left the LE biz. I found them all (particularly the tiny ones) to be slow to fire, all but the larger BW with actual pistol sights difficult to aim, and the shortest ones very much velocity-challenged. Penetration and expansion were nowhere near the same as .22s in more standard barrel lengths. The one in my shirt pocket was the third gun I carried on duty, a very last ditch proposition. I was under no illusions that it was an adequate defensive tool, but it did have a little more bark about it than a rock, and there wasn't always a rock around if needed.

Those who carry only an NAA, and this is not dumping on the company, similarly reduce their survivability quotient if an event ever occurs where a gun's needed for defense. Tiny, light, and easy to carry, like your antique, but another poor choice in a defensive context.

And, don't ever make the make the mistake of thinking all you have to do is point a gun at somebody & they'll run screaming into the night.

Carry the thing if you're in love with it to the exclusion of common sense.
I'm involved in this because I'm concerned that new people may see your humorous lead story & decide they'll be well armed with their own "Aw, ain't it cute!" antique and decide to go the same route in ignorance.

Nostalgia's great and I have a little nickled .32 breaktop I think's cuter'n a kitten, but I would never carry the thing. I won't even fire it. Nostalgia will not prevent somebody from stomping your head in or taking an axe to it, much less shooting at it.

And for those who think I'm just raining on your parade for the fun of it, let's put this in another venue as an example. And, not a '55 Chev on a Sunday outing where if it breaks down you just roll to the shoulder, jump on your cell phone, call AAA for a tow, get a friend enroute to pick you up, and then sit back & admire the pretty cloud forms drifting by while you wait to be rescued.

If this were a skydiving forum, and somebody posted that they were using a WWI balloon observer's parachute because it was a "classic" and they just liked the idea, you think nobody would chime in and say "Hey! Are you nuts? Old fabric, old design, old rigging, old strapping, are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"Naw, it's OK, I pack it myself & I've already jumped a couple times at low altitude with it, I'm gonna take it higher, it worked when it was new so why wouldn't it work now, and it's my sweetie. It's COOL!"

And those who say "You might oughta re-consider there, those were primitive designs, the materials were greatly inferior to what's out there today, and they don't get any stronger with age" are the badguys?

Same principle.
Denis
 
In all fairness

I should have mentioned that I was a collector & very proficient handloader... along with the standard disclaimer "don't try this at home"

... & BTW... since I started practicing cowboy action shooting... I can 2 hand shoot this old gal almost as fast & as accurately as "I" can shoot a semi auto ( for at least the 1st 5 shots :)
 
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