Re: optics, this did not age well...

[pointblank4445]

This place slow AF... Throwing some content out for y'all.

Decided to go back through my collection of old Gunsite Gossip books and came across this nugget. Even despite decades passing, there are some timeless and insightful comments and there's no shortage of highlighter marks and dog-eared pages. Some things aged not so well (plenty of 9mm and AR15 hating still remains), this one in particular amused me:

From #2, p74 from Autumn of 1990

We said it often in the past and will repeat it now: "The variable power telescope sight is a step backwards." It serves no useful purpose. It increases bulk and weight. It decreases eye relief, and it tends to shift point of aim between magnifications. What it does best is sell well to the unenlightened.

While technology has progressed rapidly (especially in the last 15-20 years) and a valid stance of the day, sad he could not see the "scope" of possibility for the future.

 

[Sidneyious]

I always revert back to "the future is now old man".

People that write articles like that are probably antigunners to begin with

 

[pointblank4445]

I always revert back to "the future is now old man".

People that write articles like that are probably antigunners to begin with

One could call Jeff Cooper a lot of nasty things but “anti gunner” (hoplophobe to use his preferred term) isn’t one of them

 

[shoobe01]

I spent a ton of time in my early shooting career with true Gunsite afficionados, some mentioned in Cooper's books etc. So I got a lot of this. Much good procedure and policy but by the late 80s there was some loosing touch with technology among many, not just Col. Cooper himself. We see a lot of that in blue steel and walnut turning up their nose at plastic guns even today.

So, in 1990 it was actually pretty not-great to say variable scopes "serves no useful purpose" etc. They'd been improved year over year since the early 1950s, and by then were getting pretty solid. If you couldn't suggest one yet (and it's long enough ago I am not sure when exactly specific models came out) the writing was clearly on the wall, and they could be a thing in the future.

The broad brush of the "crunchenticker" was another not very helpful generalization.

 

[pointblank4445]

The broad brush of the "crunchenticker" was another not very helpful generalization.

Yeah, I had forgotten about the actual taught methodology of "cocking" a DA/SA gun by just getting the first one out and done and doing actual work in SA mode.


I'm a little too young and wasn't getting into the game of optics until the mid 90's in the form of Burris, Leupold, and Swaro. I suspected they weren't terrible, but by the PMII's of the 2000's we, were off!

 

[shoobe01]

OMG, I had almost forgotten about the actual honest suggestions to throw a round downrange anywhere to make the gun reset to cocked. In case anyone thinks trainers today say dangerous stuff.

 

[pointblank4445]

OMG, I had almost forgotten about the actual honest suggestions to throw a round downrange anywhere to make the gun reset to cocked. In case anyone thinks trainers today say dangerous stuff.

Yeah, there was a name for it "shot cocking?" or something of that sort as one of the prescribed methods they teach as well as hammer-thumbing it every time. I remember reading it in a few excerpts and there is some consideration to the danger of writing the first round off, it is not done with the level of seriousness one would need (even then). I'll see if I can find it as it's not far from the above quote.