A Snub-nose and a Snake

For a good back up nothing beats a small snub-nosed revolver. I know that small semi-autos are very popular right now but I prefer the reliability of a revolver. Too often small equates to cheap when it comes to semi-autos. A lot of guys will spend a princely sum on their main gun but go cheap on a back-up. Well if your back-up fails to feed or stove-pipes a round what good is it? This early Smith and Wesson Model 36 only holds five rounds of 38 special but that is a lot more wallop than a .380 or a .25 ACP automatic. Having only a 1.5 inch barrel and small fixed sights does not prevent this handgun from being sufficiently accurate out to 10 yards, even in my hands. If you are down to your back-up, things are happening at close range, or your primary weapon is down for some reason. For commonality of ammo, this gun can be paired with any of my 357 magnums since they can shoot .38 special in place of .357 magnum rounds. If you pack any of the popular 9mm, then your primary weapon does not have a lot more muzzle energy than your back up, and maybe less than this snub nose.

The knife would be a good one to take to a gun fight. It is an early Blackjack Mamba modified by Wayne Goddard in an attempt to streamline the original Mike Stewart design. I rather like this version, it being sleeker and more sinuous than the hard lines found on the original recipe. I thought these two looked good together, sharing similar textures. The S&W is wearing its new Hogue grips, that I wrote about a few blogs ago. The Mamba is decked out in its original kraton with snake scale texture. The handle scales are held in place by six screws. The original versions had glued on scales that quickly fell off. This caused no end of grief for Blackjack knives and the terrible publicity nearly destroyed the company. The simple addition of the screws quickly fixed the problem but the design was so maligned as to never recover its popularity. I always felt Blackjack was dealt with unfairly by the staff of Fighting Knives magazine. So enjoy this Chief’s Special and Mamba. Like the old song about John Henry the coal miner; “One fist of iron, the other of steel, If the right one don’t get you then the left one will.”

TAX BS

The senate and congress cannot figure out how to compromise on tax cuts so Obama appoints who else but a tax CHEAT, Geitner to help sort it out. Maybe if we all paid our taxes when it was convenient like Geitner or Rangle then it would solve the problem. Only a liberal could view reduced taxes as "giving money to the wealthy." This is like a crook saying, by not robbing you I have gifted you. Seriously, and how can obama say that maintaining the taxes as they are is costing the american people Trillions? His spending is costing us trillions, not maintaining the taxes status quo. We all have to live within our budget and so should the govt. Maybe if he parked airforce one for a few weeks and stayed at home where he belongs, he could reduce the debt! I hope the republicans stand their ground and do not give in. When ever was it right to give some Americans tax breaks and not others, this is nothing less than class warfare.

Fox Knives Panga XL

Panga XL:

After a very long wait, I finally received my Fox Panga XL. I am not a patient man by any means, but it was worth the wait. Now if I had been shipping out to Borneo or Haiti and I had to wait over two months for a commercially made knife I would be less enthused. Hopefully they will be shipping on a more regular basis henceforth. First impressions are very important, or that’s what my mother said when I went on my first date. Well it wasn’t exactly a date, but anyway, first impressions are important. Out of the box the Panga seemed a bit too light. I had expected something more like my native-made Barong, which in today’s economy probably isn’t going to happen. Does a Panga need to have a blade as hefty as my 3/8 inch thick Barong? Maybe not, it depends on how much chopping you are going to do and how heavy the undergrowth is. Still the overall blade shape and size is very nice and could be easily packed on the side of a backpack.

Some extra meat in the blade would have been handy for splitting firewood or batoning it through if necessary. It’s all a trade-off. The lighter machete-weight blade will make it a formidable, fast handling, fighting blade. I was disappointed that the handle material is a hard plastic, not the nice material Fox Knives used on the Kukri. Also the screw holes in the handle slabs have sharp little burrs around them that will need sanded off to prevent raising blisters. Not a BIG deal, and I would suggest wearing gloves for any serious chopping anyway.

The sheath is similar to the one that came with the Kukri, made of Cordura and other miscellaneous synthetic materials. Not bad, but if I were going off to a third world country somewhere I’d have a kydex replacement made for it. Unfortunately since it took so long to get here I will most likely not be using this Panga XL for camping chores until next Spring. I am getting too soft for Winter camping.

Dimensions: OAL 17 inches
Blade length: 10.5 inches
Blade Width:2.25 inches widest part
Blade thickness: just over 1/8 inch