{"id":4081,"date":"2006-11-02T06:27:20","date_gmt":"2006-11-02T12:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2006\/11\/02\/the-gun-ive-never-owned-until-now\/"},"modified":"2022-01-30T21:27:11","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T03:27:11","slug":"the-gun-ive-never-owned-until-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2006\/11\/02\/the-gun-ive-never-owned-until-now\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gun I’ve Never Owned (Until Now)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had despaired of ever finding my preferred firearm locally, until Tuesday afternoon when I received a phone call.<\/p>\n

“Hey, did you ever find one of those Springfield’s you were looking for?”<\/p>\n

“Nope. Nobody in town has one, and no one can tell me where to find one.”<\/p>\n

“Well, I’m at Between the Walls, and they’ve got a new one and<\/em> a used one!”<\/p>\n

To make a long story shorter, say hello to…well, you know:<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/div>\n

It’s a Springfield XD Sub-Compact, 3″ barrel, .40 cal S&W<\/a>. It’s shown here with the 9 round magazine; it also has an 11 round magazine that extends the grip about an inch, making it fit larger hands more comfortably.<\/p>\n

This is the first semi-auto I’ve ever owned; my handgun background is strictly revolvers. It took me a while to get comfortable with the cocking, slide locking, and disassembly processes, and to fully understand the safety features and safe handling requirements. I have yet to actually chamber a round, but I hope MLB<\/acronym> and I can get to the range this weekend and shoot a couple of boxes of practice ammo.<\/p>\n

That is, if I don’t cripple myself first. Since I have very little experience loading ammo magazines, I started shoving rounds into the holders and quickly determined that I apparently wasn’t man enough to completely fill them. I just about gave myself a hernia and still could get only 10 rounds into one magazine and 8 into the other. “What a weenie,” I thought.<\/p>\n

Later, as I was going over the items in the case the gun was packaged in, I noticed an oddly-shaped piece of plastic inset in the cushioning foam. I pulled it free and turned it over in my hands, trying to discern its function. You’re ahead of me, aren’t you? Sure enough, it turned out to be — drumroll — a magazine loader, designed specifically to allow one to top off the ammo holders without a self-inflicted stroke.<\/p>\n

And, frankly, even with the loader, getting that last round into each magazine was a chore, and I had to pat myself on the back, very gingerly of course, for getting as far as I did without mechanical assistance.<\/p>\n

I’m looking forward to shooting the gun; I’ve heard a lot of good things about Springfields. I’ll let you know if I’ll be adding my voice to the choir.<\/p>\n

The post title is a movie reference. You did<\/em> catch it, didn’t you? I thought so.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I would never compare getting a new gun to getting a new toy, but some of the feelings are similar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-firearms","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6837,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081\/revisions\/6837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}