Tour of Duty: Stories and Provocation (40 page)

John Moses Browning is the patron saint of shooters and weapon designers. This was a man so manly that his sole purpose in life was to create weapons to kill tasty animals and the enemies of our nation in job lots. These weapons were so successful that both sides used the Hi Power in WWII, and the U.S. Army is fixing its unmanly error of the 9mm by calling for bids on a new .45, while the Marine Recon units and certain other Special Operations units are STILL using the Model 1911A1 with a few improvements, now well over a century after it was first fielded.

There are many versions of the 1911. The patent is expired, and dozens of companies produce a version. What can you expect? Real warriors know a good gun, and this gun is the most popular for that reason. This is a pistol so manly that during WWII, it was even made by Singer Sewing Machine, and collectors prize that version for its rarity. The 1911 is
the
pistol people think of when the word is invoked. In fact, when I am World Dictator, the only pistols that will be allowed to be produced will be the 1911 and the GLOCK.

The 1911 is available in long slide, standard, short, bobbed, officer’s models (slightly more compact), with dozens of accessories and custom shapes, in chrome, nickel, stainless, blued steel, Damascus, aluminum, titanium and plastics. All are good. The one caution is that some effete wimps have persuaded makers to produce some
non
.45 versions, in .38 Super, 9mm and other inferior chamberings. A real man may carry a more powerful 10mm version, but he’d better have a .45 ACP slide and barrel at home as backup.

1: Barrett M82 .50 caliber rifle

Ronnie Barrett is a true modern Viking. He hunts big game. He plays with guns. One day in the late 70s, he thought to himself, “Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a
rifle
that fired the same .50 BMG cartridge as Saint John Browning’s Heavy Machine Gun?” So he built it. That’s manly.

When the metrosexual Kalifornia wusses were wetting their pants over “assault rifles,” he got dragged into the argument. You see, Ronnie sells many weapons to police departments, for use in stopping bad guys, so they claim. By “bad” guy they sometimes mean tattooed gangbanger. They also sometimes mean balding, pony-tailed, pot-smoking hippie, though. After all, this IS Cretinfornia.

But that wasn’t enough for Commiefornia. They had a ban on “assault weapons” (An “assault weapon” is a semantically null political term that means “It can be used to hurt people.”) As the
real
commies in Russia, who were men descended from Vikings (at least the ones in charge) would note, “Of course hurts people. Is weapon.” You may as well refer to your “house home.” The wussy definition of “Assault weapon” bears no resemblance to the U.S. military’s definition. It comes down to, “It’s black and makes us poopoo in our panties!”

So, even with a ban on “assault weapons” that included most self-loading rifles, including Barrett’s M82 Light Fifty, the People’s Republic of Kalifornija wanted more. They dragged one of his rifles from the L.A. SWAT armory and used it (Illegal for civilians to own, mind you), as a horrible example of weapons that Must Be Banned Lest They Pollute Our Precious, Bodily Fluids.

They got their ban, because their voters are the type of trilling limpwrists one sees portrayed in movies as stereotypes . . . only in Californica they’re not stereotypes, they’re typical. It must suck to be a real man on the Left Coast.

Now, Ronnie is not a metrosexual wuss. Ronnie is, in fact, a real testosterone-laden Viking
man
. He warned them then, then he told them, he would oppose them in their pursuit. And Ronnie does not make idle threats. He is a man of his word.

A few weeks later, LA SWAT sent one of these rifles that they use for shooting fleeing mopeds back to Barrett for maintenance . . . and Ronnie sent it right back to them, untouched, contract cancelled, with polite instructions to stick it somewhere dark and smelly and ride it straight to hell. Not only that, he publicly and proudly announces in all his advertising that he
will not
sell to or deal with
any
government entity in communist third world Kali.

And
that
, ladies and gentleman, is a
man
. While not everyone can afford or make use of his wonderful toys, it’s certainly an honor and privilege to promote a real modern Viking who understands the application of bowel-emptying terror, and how to tell friend from foe.

And there’s more! After securing military contracts for antimateriel sniping (Generators, vehicles, radars, etc), and facing the wrath of Sarah Brady and her Gun-Grabbing Sideshow (which wrath he snickered at, it having all the intimidation of an angry kitten and Ronnie, as we noted, being a Viking), he gave the ultimate middle finger gesture and redesigned the weapon into 25 mm, or TWICE as big. This is a man so cool even his sperm smoke unfiltered Camels. And that makes this gun the manliest gun on Earth.

Ten More Manly Firearms

The hilarious thing about the list of the ten manliest firearms was the hate mail. I must have received a hundred letters informing me that if XX firearm wasn’t on the Top Ten list, I was not a man. So apparently there are 100 Top Ten firearms. Or more. As I noted up front: Make your own list. It’s all good.

In fact, it’s so good, I did it again
.

Previously
I compiled a list of the Ten Manliest Firearms. I noted that variations on the list were certainly acceptable, but still ran into a bunch of grief from non-men who were unable to read, nor to grasp that real men don’t care if other real men disagree with them. Still, there are a
lot
of guns out there, so I figured it was time to compile another list. You should own all of these guns before they’re illegal, then buy more until the politicians wet pants and blubber like the wusses they are. And if you don’t like this list, compile your own, or wait for the next one.

10 1895 Nagant Revolver

This is the revolver used to invent the game of Russian Roulette, and not that pansy one round in a cylinder version. The original version was to remove one round and play with six in the seven round cylinder. That tells you what Imperial Russians thought of the Bullshiviks. Yes, I spelled it that way on purpose. Imagine the balls it takes to raise that to your head, knowing there’s almost an 86% chance (85.7%, and you gain a
slight
edge from the weight of the other cartridges tending to improve the odds of the empty chamber*) you’re going to blow your brains out.

The trigger pull is also manly—seventeen pounds in double action. That’s because the cylinder actually moves forward to seal the breech, making this the only revolver you can effectively silence. Not that a man should use a silencer, of course. If you kill someone, everyone should know about it. Still, that sealed breech does add a slight improvement in velocity.

The downside is that 7.62 Nagant is not the most robust of rounds. However, it is currently in production. You can also get a conversion cylinder that fires .32ACP, and a gunsmith can ream it out to fire .32 Smith and Wesson and .32 H&R magnum as well.

This gun holds the record for largest body count, having dispatched almost two million people. Granted, most of them were kneeling six inches from the muzzle.

*And if you can do that calculation while spinning and pointing, you’re a man among men.

9 1893 Turkish Mauser

An odd choice, you might think. However, you may not have all the facts. It fires common 8mm Mauser, the preferred German round from 1888 through the 1950s in various loadings. That’s a little bigger than .30-06 and about as powerful. It served to kill Frenchmen in WWI and Commies and Frenchmen in WWII, among others. It’s reliable and cheap (both the ammo and the platform).

It’s also legally an antique. Weapons manufactured before 1899 (and some other categories we won’t discuss) are not firearms. Yes, they shoot ammo and kill people, but due to one of the many, many, many, many, many stupid, irrelevant and cowardly gun control laws by whiny statist slime, such rifles and revolvers are not considered to be firearms. This means you can send them through the mail. Yes, really. A Federal Firearms Licensee (Gun dealer) can’t even enter it into his books as a firearm, because it’s not. These are one of the last bastions of freedom. You should own several.

8 Colt Python

There are revolvers, and then there are revolvers, and then there’s the Python. One of, if not the, best fit and most accurate revolvers, and in .357 Magnum. The Python is all that, and elegant and classy as well. This is the kind of gun you wear to dinner, in a well-tooled leather holster cut to show off its lines. It’s jewelry, if real men wore jewelry, which they do not. Except things like this.

7 98K Mauser

The rifle used by German Bastards! as Patton called them. The 98 action was copied for the 1903 Springfield (and the poor Mauser brothers sued, won, and then had the settlement seized as part of WWI. Why? It wasn’t their fault), and is still used for the best hunting rifles, either directly, or as a CZ or Winchester, among other brands. It’s accurate, durable and reliable, and a neat piece of history. I have one in my collection that was used to kill Commies on the Eastern Front, then was captured by the Commies, rearsenaled and used to kill Nazis. It’s twice as cool.

6 FAL

The Fusil Automatique Legere is a heavy bitch. Battle rifles generally are. It was called, “The right arm of the Free World” and was NATO standard for decades. It was used by most of the former British Empire, most of South America, Japan and other nations. It’s still used by a few. It manages what the M14 failed to do, which is to be a rifle and a squad weapon, and carbine. It’s reliable, simple and shits all over that HundK clone of the CETME, the G3. Rainbow Six players like HundKs. Real warriors would go for the FAL.

5 CZ550 in .600 Overkill

One day, an American scientist from Nevada decided to pack the biggest, most powerful cartridge possible into a Mauser action. The result was the .600 Overkill. This is not just an advertising name. This is a gun so insanely powerful it can put a solid bronze bullet
six feet
into an oak log. The bullet going through the rifling can twist the barrel right out of the shooter’s hand, and recoil is “manageable” in a fourteen pound gun with three mercury recoil reducers. Sure, you could get a fancy double Eurorifle . . . if you sold your house. This is more affordable, more powerful, cruder, more atavistic . . . in short, more
American
. And manlier.

4 Martini-Henry