of baby eagles and years

As you all are probably aware, I currently own a Baby Eagle, produced by the Israeli Military Industries, and imported to the United States by Magnum Research (a company made popular, or at least well-known, by the Desert Eagle).  I have explained my reasonings for purchasing this firearm in the past, so I will not delve too deeply into them at the moment.  However, this particular one is somewhat unique to its field.  After some consideration, I decided that a 9mm pistol would be the best option for me, a complete newbie at firearms.  The recoil on those rounds is significantly less than others, and the rounds themselves are relatively cheap to come by (hell, even Wal-Mart sells them in their sporting goods department).  However, they are 9mm in diameter, and thus their stopping/damaging power is not exactly considerable, and thus most people tend to overlook this caliber when it comes to personal/home defense, and since the rounds are not as cheap as .22 caliber rounds, it is not the ideal plinking round either.  9mm, at least so far as I have seen, tends to kind of fall between the hefty calibers necessary to drop a person on their arse, and the cheapie calibers used by children the world around to terrorize squirrels.  Something of a bastard child, though this does not diminish its popularity among the concealed-carry crowd, or others.  Regardless, not wanting the relative pointlessness of a .22 caliber pistol, while still not seeing the need for a veritable handcannon, I figured that a 9mm pistol would fit the bill relatively well.  (For the record, though, when it comes to shooting things other than targets, I am definitely a fan of "the biggest hole possible" train of reasoning.) 

So why the Baby Eagle, when there are so many other more popular, lighter choices out there?  Well, I have fired the Beretta 9mm before, and was terribly unimpressed with the way it felt in my hand.  I swear the gun felt like it was just going to fall apart in my hands if I looked at it funny, and the general construction did not appeal to me in the slightest bit.  So that rules out one of the most popular choices right there.  As for Glocks, I have never been particularly enamoured of the idea of a firearm being constructed predominantly of plastic.  Special, high-strength polymer, admittedly, but still effectively the same stuff that comprised my LEGOs of yore.  (Ok, I  am not fooling anyone, I still play with LEGOs, but that is a topic for another post at another time.)  And that decision rules out yet another of the most popular choices.  So I started looking at all of the other options out there.  Of somewhat sizeable concern to me was a firearm with a considerable amount of intrinsic durability – I am far from gentle on the objects I own, and I fully realize that and plan accordingly.  I look for things that will stand the test of me dropping them, forgetting to clean them, spilling things on them, and so many other horrible fates I somehow tend to inflict upon the products I own.  Well, the one name that consistently came up in relation to high levels of durability and construction was Israeli Military Industries.  I had never really heard of them before, and did a little more poking around to see what the deal was, and turned up the more-familiar name of their American importers – Magnum Research.  As I mentioned previously, they are more widely known for their enormous, .50 caliber Desert Eagle handguns, but it appears they also make some smaller varieties as well – including the full-metal (since MR seems to be making some metal/polymer hybrids these days as well) Baby Eagle I ended up with. 

Originally known as the Jericho, this little gun screams durability.  A matte black finish covers every metal piece of the firearm, save the barrel, and seems completely impervious to all the wear and tear I can inflict upon it.  And by "every metal piece", I mean "every piece except the hand grips".  Everything on this gun is metal, from the trigger, to the slide, to the sights – the only concession to ergonomics and weight are the polymer grips (stamped with an effective gripping pattern, and the IMI seal), and I do not think I could hurt those if I tried.  As for the weight of this firearm…  well, as I said, everything is metal.  Additionally, its slide is not a skeletal-half-slide as found on the Berettas, but is instead a full, and rather hefty thing that actually seems to draw some stylistic elements from its enormously bigger brothers (or vice versa).  To put it simply, this firearm could easily be used as a blunt-force instrument with considerable success, and it would not show even a scratch afterwards.  This is unusual in a realm when firearm manufacturers are trying to make their weapons lighter and lighter, which only makes sense as more and more people are carrying their pistols on their persons.  But it was something I was looking for, as I mentioned before.  An additional, unexpected, though not unwelcome, side-effect of purchasing a heavier-than-average firearm is that it is actually a work-out to shoot it.  You cannot just one-hand this thing and blaze your way down-range… well, you could, but that arm would get very, very tired.  While the increased weight of the frame tends to dampen the already-weak recoil of the 9mm round, it makes the weapon that much more difficult to keep on-target for extended periods of time.  Your entire arm can be exercised when firing this pistol, and after putting 2-300 rounds down range, you do start to feel it.  As for the general design, I have no complaints whatsoever.  It uses a full-length guide rod, which all-but eliminates the possibility of the slide spring binding up.  The grips fit my hands perfectly, but they do seem a little large against the frame and slide…  This is definitely a tool you will want to handle and fit before you purchase it, as I did.  The top of the slide is longitudinally grooved, eliminating the possibility of glare… not as tough the matte black finish would really allow it to begin with.  The sights are standard, fixed, three-white-dot ones, and can probably be adjusted by a gunsmith, but not by the average user.  It has a positive safety lever and an external hammer, but no grip safety like some pistols.  Everything is in nice thumb-reach of the user, and the hammer gives you a nice choice between double and single actions.  The only real difficulty I have with the design is that the slide-release catch is borderline impossible to get out of the frame when trying to clean it. 

Alright, so it is durable, you get the point.  What about shooting it?  First, it is heavy, as I have made abundantly clear previously, so stand by for that when you first bring the firearm up. Second, sometimes it can feel a little top-heavy, and when the magazine starts emptying out, it definitely feels a little nose heavy (yours would too if it were solid metal).  But shooting it… shooting it is a breeze.  The increased weight gobbles up the force of the 9mm recoil like it was a ham sandwich, and lets you drop the pistol right back on range, and on-target, in a heartbeat.  Unfortunately, I am not a paragon of accuracy (as I mentioned, this gun was purchased with me being a complete newbie, so it has also served as a means for me to improve my skills and accuracy), so I cannot really comment on the firearm’s accuracy, not knowing whether it is my fault or its.  However, even I have no problems plugging the occasional bull’s-eye at 20 yards, and most clusters, even for me, stay within the 3-inch range.  One particular problem I have noticed with it is that it tends to pull down and left, but, again, that is probably the fault of the user, and not the tool.  Any suggestions on how to correct that, by the by, would be greatly appreciated.  Unfortunately, I only have 10-round magazines (15-round ones are made for it now that the ban on them has been lifted), so I have to reload more often than I would otherwise like, but that is a small thing.  Reloading takes almost no time at all, what with the easily-reached magazine release, slide release, and the fact that the slide slams home without even a second’s hesitation.  This gun has jammed on me three times, unfortunately, but they were all ejection jams…  Just rack it back, and away you keep on going.  Not entirely sure what could have caused the jams, but considering the fact that I use Winchester ammunition almost exclusively, it might be the quality of rounds.  Unfortunately, not many accessories are made for this particular firearm, and since the all-metal version lacks an accessory rail, you are pretty much up the creek on that count. 

So, yes, you could say that I am quite happy with the firearm I currently own, there is no doubt about that.  Barring catastrophic disaster, this thing strikes me that it could keep happily plugging rounds away for many, many years to come, and I will probably hold onto it that long. 

However…  (and there is always a "however") I had the pleasure of firing a .45 caliber 1911 pistol a few days ago at the range I frequent.  Just a standard, full-size Springfield, though it did have laser grips, which made the shooting experience a little more interesting (more on lasers in a later post).  Anywise, the range has more than a few rental guns available for you to take advantage of, should you so desire, and after grabbing the 1911 and fifty rounds of .45 caliber rounds, I headed out to the range.  Well, my first impression was that the 1911 was actually lighter than my Baby Eagle… yes, I just said that a full-size .45 caliber pistol weighed less than my full-ish-size 9mm pistol.  Just goes to show how heavy mine really is.  Well, I was not going to complain, though the thought of the recoil concerned me slightly.  Anywise, I slid the bullets out of their box, marvelled at their increased size, and slid them into the magazine.  Popping the magazine in was not remarkably hard, though reaching the slide release with my thumb was a bit of a stretch.  Once the slide was forward, though, I encountered a slight problem…  the complication of both a positive safety and a grip safety.  Kind of confused me at first, but once I figured it out, it seemed perfectly natural and easy to use, as well as a secondary means of securing your firearm.  Basically, it will not fire without the primary safety off, and your hand gripping the frame entirely such that the secondary, grip safety is disengaged as well.  Certainly decreases the odds of accidental firings.  Well, at any rate, I figured it all out, got it all lined up, set myself on the range, pointed the barrel at the target, and pulled the trigger. 

Interestingly enough, the recoil was barely worse than my 9mm, if at all… maybe I was just used to the recoil after spending an hour shooting my 9mm.  I guess the diffence might be that the 9mm kicks, whereas the .45 pushes, which is a subtle difference, to be sure, but still something to be noticed and considered.  However, what was considerably larger was both the noise and the flash.  Due to the size of the frame of the Baby Eagle, as well as the relatively smaller round, the muzzle flash is barely visible when shooting, and the pop is loud, but not enormously so.  As for the 1911…  well, to put it simply, it is loud and bright.  Very bright.  You definitely get the impression of a handcannon while firing it.  The other sizeable difference between the 9mm and the .45?  The size of the holes in the target – much bigger.  It was a little easier to control than the Baby Eagle, both due to the difference in weight and different kind of recoil, though my unfamiliarity with it resulted in a lower overall accuracy. 

But the big thing?  It was a blast to shoot.  It was honestly a lot of fun to fire, between the noise, the flash, the recoil, the really big holes it could make, and probably some unquantifiable feature I cannot really explain.  Do not misunderstand me… the Baby Eagle is entertaining to fire, there is no doubt about that.  But the 1911 was just fun…  And can serve as a self-defense pistol in a pinch, whereas the 9mm would probably more annoy the person you were shooting than actually incapacitate him.  Granted, I am still not too sure aobut the whole self-defense concept, but I am warming up to it more and more, the more I think about it.  I am still not likely to try for a concealed carry, but home defense is certainly plausible.  Now that I have been bitten with the 1911 bug, I definitely know what I want for Christmas…  if I can convince Better Half, which seems somewhat dubious .  At least the Springfield variants are not terribly expensive… unless you go way up the scale.  Of course, if Michael Moore and his compatriots have their way, maybe I should go ahead and grab the 1911 before he successfully takes away one of my basic human rights…. 

Anywise, here is my enormous post for the day…  and the hundredth post for this blog.  Go me!  End summation:  Baby Eagles – robust as hell.  1911s – fun as hell.  All good.