chaps pocket, a notorious dirt and sand trap infamous for tying up revolvers with sand in their guts. When WWII came along, the Luger continued to shine.
The Luger was always carried in a holster designed for maximum protection from the elements. The German officer was expected to have the pistol in prime operating condition instead of trying to do a fast draw every time an enemy popped up. For modern civilian carry, I have never found anything better than the pancake holster design. It offers the best combination of concealability, comfort, and fast draw available. I have used this design ever since it first appeared many years ago. Here are two companies’ versions:
Strong Leather Co. makes a classic molded thumb break pancake holster of the very highest quality for the Luger pistol that will meet any civilian or police needs. I have never been able to find fault with their work. Contact Strong Leather Co., P.O. Box 1195, 39 Grove St., Gloucester, Massachusetts, 01930.
A quick-draw pancake holster without a retaining strap is offered by El Paso Saddlery Co., 2025 East Yandell Dr., EI Paso, Texas, 79903. This company began in the days of the Wild West and made holsters for the deadliest old West gun-fighter of them all, John Wesley Hardin. They have the longest history of making fast-draw holsters of anyone. This is the holster to wear when action is imminent. It may not have a securing top strap for normal duty use, but, man, it is fast!
As we have seen, the Luger is one of the finest pistols ever made, and the new Krieghoff is the finest Luger ever made. As the late great Col. George Chinn, whose monumental five-volume series The Machinegun is the definitive work on machinegun mechanisms, once told me, “As long as nitrocellulose is our propellent, all possible mechanisms have already been invented. All that remains is to reconfigure existing systems into different guns.” Pistols don’t offer as many different tactical design configuration possibilities as shoulder arms, so the pistol got perfected early. Once you reach the summit, all roads lead downhill regardless of how new they are. So if you want the ultimate pistol, you get a M1911-A1 .45 automatic. If you want the best pointing, easiest to hit with, and most accurate pistol, you get a Luger.
And if you want the finest Luger, you get a new Krieghoff.
RIFLE Sights of Iron AND THEIR MANAGEMENT
BY SAM FADALA
The tang sight on this muzzleloading rifle illustrates another type of “peep” sight. The tang sight allows use of open iron sights on this rifle.
The British soldier was well-trained and immensely brave, willing to march through flames for his stalwart commanders. Then why is it that the mighty redcoats of the then greatest army in the world were slaughtered by American citizen-soldiers at the Battle of New Orleans in January of 1815? Sir Edward Michael Pakenham was one of the Queen’s best, the leader of 8,000 crack men, while our own Andrew Jackson had 3,500 to 4,000 under him. Statistics vary, but they do not depart far from 385 Brits killed, 1,186 wounded and 484 captured, while the Americans suffered 13 dead, 58 wounded and 30 captured. You may read that the British soldier fought in rank and file while Jackson’s boys sniped from trees and behind rocks. Not so, according to best records.
This blade type front sight is mounted in a dovetail slot. Drifting this sight to the right will move bullet impact to the left and vice versa. To raise point of impact, the sight is filed down. To lower point of impact, a taller front sight must be installed.
The Americans did have heavy artillery established in earthworks (bulwarks) called “Line Jackson” after the Major-General of the Tennessee Militia. That 32-pound gun, along with one 18-pounder, three 12s, three 6s, and one 6-inch howitzer, had to have a telling effect. However, the Brits knocked out several of these. Detailed specifics of the battle remain obscured in time’s dark shadow, but General Pakenham’s death by a volley of grape shot had to affect troop morale.
Regardless, I submit that the arrival of Tennessee Sharpshooters from Kentucky bode strong in the rout. These lads carried rifles with iron sights. The original Brown Bess musket I once fired weighed 11 pounds and was pole vault long, with a lump of metal at the end of the barrel pretending to be a front sight with no true rear sight for alignment.
Smoothbores had their advantages: faster to load in the heat of battle and easier to clean than rifled long guns. And the 75-caliber round ball from the Brown Bess was vicious – when that big hunk of lead found the mark. But putting that spherical bullet exactly on target was more wishful thinking than reality. The 19th century American rifle, on the other hand, “barked” tree squirrels for supper and pricked the enemy “a way off yonder.” Rifling caused round bullets to spin on their axes, promoting equalization of discrepancies as well as stabilizing conical projectiles. But without good sights, the rifle would prove no more effective than smoothbore musket. Knowing this, early rifle makers developed a multitude of iron sight designs. W.W. Greener, in the 1910 Ninth Edition of his famous book, The Gun and its Development, illustrated several.
Greener writes of one example: “A favourite back-sight with South African sportsmen is the combined leaf, and tangent sight, for it is suitable both for game-shooting and target practice.” This Cape Sight had two folding leaves along with a standard plate for ranges up to 300 yards plus an adjustable slide for shooting up to 1,000 yards.
Our own Lyman Company had a big hand in viable early iron sights, including a popular double-leaf model. Both leaves were regulated for the same elevation. But one was open V while the other was straight bar with ivory reference triangle. Lyman’s Sporting Tang Sight was joined by the company’s No. 1 aperture or “peep.” Lyman continues to offer precision micrometer aperture sights, such as the Model 66-A, friendly on the Model 94 Winchester with quarter-minute “clicks.” The dizzying variety of iron sight choices that lay before the 19th century shooter continues today.
Match rifles of the early 1900s were privy to countless options, including the Orthoptic Back-sight with Vernier Scale and Lyman’s Disc Peep for Match Shooting. Greener had his own Orthoptic Wind-gauge aperture sight plus a Miniature Cadet Sight. He also introduced a front sight that flipped to combine barleycorn and bead, barleycorn being a thick upside down V. My mentor Jack O’Connor, writing on the subject, corralled iron sights into four categories. Rear sights he noted as a notch in V or U shape “cut in a piece of iron.” Jack included the hole or peep sight, adding a flat un-notched bar with white centerline stripe (rare). Finally, he applauded the Patridge sight – not the first-day-of-Christmas bird in the pear tree but named for E.E. Patridge who developed the design in the 1880s for exhibition shooting—a square rear notch optically matched to a flat-topped blade front sight.
The simple V or U notch, still popular, works better than its simplicity suggests. Countless tons of prime game meat have been brought to table with rifles sporting this sight. I have seen O’Connor’s flat bar with white line in Africa. It is intended for close encounters of the Cape buffalo kind. It is simple and fast for bullet placement at very close range when a hunter’s starched shorts are at risk of being sullied and the target is a broad skull or hearty shoulder. The Patridge is much more precise when it has a frame of reference, as explained below, especially effective with the six o’clock hold.
Taking nothing away from any of these open sights, it is the peep (aperture) that rules the world of rifle iron sights when precise bullet placement is called for.
Last season, partly for the SCI meat donation program, I hunted big game exclusively with my Marlin 336T Texan .30-30 carbine, the one closely resembling Winchester’s famous
