About six weeks ago I bought a LNIB SIG P245 - loosing yet another bout with fiscal restraint to low impulse control. I didn’t wander into my local gun store intent on buying anything, certainly not a P245. I had done some research on the P245 and handled a used one once or twice, but at that time I was in mid-1911-buying-rapture mode and felt that the P245 wasn’t greatly different enough from my P239 or my P220 to warrant owning one. In the store, the empty pistol felt a bit nose heavy, a perception reinforced by the shortness of the grip. I also found the grips themselves to be a bit thick for my hand with a fair amount of palm swell. The double-action trigger pull was a bit long and heavy, but it broke cleanly. The reset too felt a bit long, but to be fair, I am rarely completely satisfied with production pistols. I also reminded myself that I wasn’t a big fan of the P245’s larger sibling the P220. I had purchased my stainless P220 for the sole purpose of having Gray Guns in California convert it to 10mm.

At the range, with a round in the chamber and a magazine full of 230 grain FMJ the P245 in the hand has a similar weight and balance to that of a 1911 Concealed Carry Officer (CCO). According to Fjestad’s Blue Book a CCO (which is based on the lightweight version of the Officer receiver) weighs approximately 26 ozs, while the P245 weighs in at approximately 30 ozs. This forum discussion reaches a similar conclusion in terms of the P245’s balance and tangentially examines capacity as a limiting factor in low sales and the lackluster popularity of the P245. Reasonable people can disagree about calibers and capacity particularly for a carry gun and it’s a subject on which most gunnies have a opinion.

I found that the P245 easy to shoot. In double-action and single-action usage the trigger was consistent, broke cleanly and had a nice happy ending. That ‘extra’ weight forward at the muzzle helped tame the recoil for follow ups and required a little less grip leverage than some of my other pistols (thinking my Kahr PM40 here). The trigger reset is what you’d expect on a factory side arm - which is to say that it is unobjectionable, but not perfect. In fact I found that the reset, more than recoil, influenced my ability to make quick follow up shots. The trigger group (reset et al) would benefit from some custom attention, (I am thinking Gray Guns here) but it is by no means unusable. The P245 I purchased came with the standard contrast ‘dot the eye’ type sights, which I found very usable and generally easy to acquire.

I found the factory P245 to be at least as accurate, possibly more accurate than my P239 - which has been (prior to the P245), the standard against which I judged all of my non-1911 type pistols. Whether it is truly more accurate or simply my ability to shoot the pistol well is up for debate. What I can say is that I am able to shoot smaller groups with the P245 than I can with it’s larger sibling, the P220, using the same ammunition (Double Tap 230 grain Match Grade FMJ) and with the same sights.. As far as ammunition goes, the P245 was 100% reliable with everything I fed it. I shot several hundred rounds of range-quality ammunition (FMJ) and maybe one hundred rounds of mixed self-defense rounds (JHP). All of it fed and extracted perfectly

The P245 has a few idiosyncratic physical factors that that are worth noting. First, the grip is short. It feels shorter than my 1911 Nighthawk Talon IV which is based on an Officer-sized receiver. The Talon’s grip feels longer, but this may be because it has had work done to the front strap and trigger guard. After putting two hundred rounds downrange in a single session, I found that the P245’s trigger guard chewed on my middle finger. The wider your hand, the more I suspect this will be a factor. Second, the grip is thick and the the grips have a fair amount of swell. I have short fingers and the P245 really feels like a handful. Replacing the factory grips will be the first modification I make.

Since my initial trip to the range, I have made two purchases for the P245. First I bought a Comp-Tac Minotaur Gladiator holster for the P245 an have become reacquainted with the joy and comfort of carrying a side arm in and outside the waistband holster. And, as a happy byproduct of sending my P220 in for 10mm conversion, I have two P220 magazines that I have converted into two 8 round P245 magazines using the xGrip. This combination of the P245 6+1 tucked in the Minotaur Gladiator with an extra 8-round magazine in my pocket is both comforting and comfortable. Concealed by a lightweight shell or sports jacket, it has found it’s way into my weekend carry rotation this fall.

The P245 is probably a pistol without a lot of middle ground - it will either fit your hand, or it won’t. If you’re looking for a reliable and accurate carry side arm in a caliber that you can believe in, you could do much worse than the Sig P245.

I like the pistol that much.

The Kahr’s DA trigger is smooth and the moderate pull length is just right for me: it’s not too long or too short and the trigger resets where I expect it to. The PM40 is completely accurate at normal self-defense ranges (<25 feet) and acceptably accurate at much greater distances. With Federals 165 grain Expanding Point Full Metal Jacket ammuntion - which my Kahr will feed reliably 100% of the time - the recoil is stout, but not completely unpleasant. It is not unusual for me to shoot 100 rounds through the PM40 at the range once or twice a month.

The PM40 may be the perfect concealed carry hand gun - at least for me. I have two IWB and three pocket holsters (Pocket Concealment Systems, Tomahawk and Harpoon and a DeSantis Nemesis) for the Kahr. In my experience even the polymer framed PM40 is too heavy and the pocket holsters to bulky to be an every day carry combination.

I could see how it might work for someone tall, with larger and wider pockets than myself. Being only 5’9” I find my kaki pants pockets to deep and my jeans a little too tight to effectivly carry every day like this. Maybe I just need to loose some weight.

The two IWB holsters (a Milt Sparks Summer Special II and the Comp-Tac Infidel) are both excellent. They are both easy to conceal and the Kahr is thin enough where I don’t require the next size larger pants or slacks to use them. Combined with a high-quality gun belt - I have and like both Milt Sparks and Tucker gun belts - the little Kahr dissppears easily covered by a sweater, sport coat or jacket. The PM40 has, over the last eight months, become my every day carry.

The Kahr PM40 is a modern, high powered knuckle duster on par with small wheel guns in .357 Magnum. These pistols pack a considerable amount of ‘ouch’ on each end of the gun and as always, it’s better to give than to receive. The Kahr PM40 not a perfect pistol - a $700 dollar pistol should be 100% reliable out of the box with JHP ammo.

Would I recommend this pistol? Yes, with two large caveats: find ammo that it will feed with 100% reliability and stick with it. If you can’t do that, then accept the fact that you’ll be sending it out to Cylinder and Slide before you’ll trust your life to it.

That being said: I have my eye on a second Kahr right now, a stainless MK40 Elite.

This family from the North Carolina seems to have spent half of their weekly budget on fast food. The photo features prominently their pizzas, soft drinks and snack foods and I suspect this isn’t too far from the ‘average’ American’s diet, where convenience and fast food are common. It also shows how much it costs to pay for the convenience of fast food. 

Compare this to say the photo of the family from Ecuador and the contrasts are startling. It seems obvious that as a nation we are spending more money on food that is less healthy than the food our “third world” neighbors are eating. Are we deluding ourselves when we think that America is the greatest and most advanced country in the world? Look at the photos; you be the judge.

The story begins with the Jarvis family living off the land and off-the-grid in West Virginia on 140 acres of land. The parents are children of the sixties, minimalists and raising their children to be the same. The middle of the story occurs right across the peninsula from where I was living in West River, MD—at the same time the Jarvis family was living “on the hard” (as boat folk like to say) at Backyard Boats in Shadyside, MD. This family was literally rock-throwing distance from where my office was located at Parish Creek Marina. The candid actualities with the parents and children provide some amazing insight into how their family survived and the effect it had on all of them. This may be the best individual ‘act’ I have listened to on This American Life:

Act One. The Family That Flees Together, Trees Together. The Jarvis family, a group of eight, goes on the run from the law — for seven years. They live on a boat, in a treehouse in a swamp. They escape capture time after time. And how do the kids turn out, living a life outside of society, as fugitives? Surprisingly great. (22 minutes)

So, I turned off my radio, turned on my computer, fired up iTunes and found some real radio programming. I fully understand that I am way behind the curve on this. Something as good as “This American Life“ cannot possibly be a secret to most people. I downloaded and have listened to three of these shows and will probably never again listen to Kornheiser or Czaban. The first thing that struck me about these programs is the quality of the program; the subject matter is often quirky but always approachable, the style of storytelling is totally engaging and the production values are really excellent. In short, they are a pleasure to listen to. The “Image Makers” program on the Michigan State library system’s re-branding effort is absolutely hysterical, clever, educational and one of the best things I’ve listened to in a long, long time. Farewell, Steve, vio con dios Tony and AMF. Do yourself a favor and check out This American Life on iTunes. For the cost of your Starbucks morning fill up, you can get some interesting, thought-provoking listening material. I can’t recommend TAL enough!

Web Worker Daily and John Gruber at Daring Fireball talk mobile technology:

• Mobile Web Browsers Have No Where To Go But Up «
• Daring Fireball: The Unsatisfying State of Twitter Web Clients for the iPhone

Expression Engine 2.0 due out this summer:

• EE Sneak Preview Video

Last week I twittered about the Harry Potter Lexicon hub-bub. These two posts look at big picture publishing issues:

• Industry Questions Raised by “Potter” Encyclopedia Suit
• Tim O’Reilly: Amazon Has Publishers in its Sights

Infosthetics, graphically examines the relationship of high-profile mukety-mucks to each other and Lost Remote talks about the growth of web-video:

• muckety interactive news graphs
• Web video views up 66%

If you happen to be in or near the D of C, Go to National Geographic Explorer’s Hall, drink Italian beer, have a dangerous encounter and pass out worrying about climate change. Sounds like my kind of day.

• Italian Beer Renaissance
• Dangerous Encounters
• National Geographic Reports: the Challenge of Climate Change

Last but not least: The folks in Jackson Hole wave goodbye to the Griz. We just don’t have that kind of connections to the wildlife here in DC, but then, it’s hard to get attached to rats.

• Photogenic grizzly family

I’m going to continue to evaluate iGTD for the remainder of the week. Right now, I’d say that I like the application, but I don’t love it. And, I’d have to say that either I’m not really grokking the point of the ‘contexts’ or there flat out not very helpful to me. I’m going to poke around the 43 Folders sight and the forums at iGTD and see if I can turn on the ‘ah-ha’ light. In the meantime, I found this review helpful.