I Have This Old Gun

Y.E.S. 2018 Boasts Some Distinctions

In the spirit of working to preserve our Second Amendment right and other uniquely American freedoms for future generations, the NRA has long recognized the importance of introducing teens to the values we hold dear. One of the more visible ways that the Association has done that is through its Youth Education Summit (Y.E.S.) program, a summer outreach effort for high school students.

As the NRA prepares for the 22nd summer of the program, it’s worth noting that this year will include a couple of firsts. One is that the program finally has a Rhode Islander as a participant. The more noticeable is that it has been expanded to two one-week sessions, so 93 students—almost twice as many as in past years—can be served.

“This program has always been a home run for the NRA, as we introduce some of the finest young adults across the country to some of the principles we fight for,” said Joseph P. DeBergalis Jr., deputy executive director of the NRA’s General Operations Division and a vocal advocate of expanding the program. “It’s such an invigorating experience when you see these young adults—the future leaders in our country—come together to experience so many of the things that make America great.”

The week includes field trips to the Marine Corps Base at Quantico and Washington, D.C., where they get to witness the foundations of the republic in action, whether by visiting the halls of Congress, by learning the story behind the Constitution and Bill of Rights, or by taking in the monuments, museums and war memorials.

And, of course, they will get to spend time on the range and getting information so they can gain a better understanding of why we place so high an importance on our right to keep and bear arms. The goal is to groom them to be solid NRA ambassadors, DeBergalis said, with the key point being that we need future generations of Americans who will be able to conduct educated, responsible debates about such topics as preserving our freedom.

This year’s participants boast an average GPA of 3.7, with most of them taking advanced or college-level courses, and many excel in their communities as well as the classroom. The teens will visit the D.C. area in July, and soon thereafter, applications will be open for next year’s class. For more information, visit yes.nra.org.

NRA BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Joe M. Allbaugh, Oklahoma; William H. Allen, Tennessee; Thomas P. Arvas, New Mexico; Scott L. Bach, New Jersey; William A. Bachenberg, Pennsylvania; Bob Barr, Georgia; Ronnie G. Barrett, Tennessee; Clel Baudler, Iowa; J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio; Matt Blunt, Virginia; Dan Boren, Oklahoma; Robert K. Brown, Colorado; Pete R. Brownell, Iowa; Dave Butz, Illinois; Ted W. Carter, Florida; Richard R. Childress, North Carolina; Patricia A. Clark, Connecticut; Allan D. Cors, Florida; Charles L. Cotton, Texas; David G. Coy, Michigan; Larry E. Craig, Idaho; John L. Cushman, New York; Edie P. Fleeman, North Carolina; M. Carol (Bambery) Frampton, South Carolina; Joel Friedman, Nevada; Sandra S. Froman, Arizona; James S. Gilmore III, Virginia; Marion P. Hammer, Florida; Maria Heil, Pennsylvania; Graham Hill, Virginia; Susan Howard, Texas; Curtis S. Jenkins, Georgia; David A. Keene, Maryland; Tom King, New York; Timothy Knight, Tennessee; Herbert A. Lanford Jr., South Carolina; Willes K. Lee, Hawaii; Karl A. Malone, Louisiana; Sean Maloney, Ohio; Robert E. Mansell, Arizona; Carolyn D. Meadows, Georgia; Bill Miller, West Virginia; Owen Buz Mills, Arizona; Craig Morgan, Tennessee; Grover G. Norquist, Washington, D.C.; Oliver L. North, Virginia; Robert Nosler, Oregon; Johnny Nugent, Indiana; Ted Nugent, Texas; Lance Olson, Iowa; Melanie Pepper, Texas; James W. Porter II, Alabama; Peter J. Printz, Montana; Todd J. Rathner, Arizona; Kim Rhode, California; Wayne Anthony Ross, Alaska; Carl T. Rowan Jr., Washington, D.C.; Don Saba, Arizona; William H. Satterfield, Alabama; Ronald L. Schmeits, New Mexico; Esther Q. Schneider, Texas; Steven C. Schreiner, Colorado; Tom Selleck, California; John C. Sigler, Delaware; Leroy Sisco, Texas; Bart Skelton, New Mexico; Dwight D. Van Horn, Idaho; Blaine Wade, Tennessee; Linda L. Walker, Ohio; Howard J. Walter, North Carolina; Heidi E. Washington, Michigan; Allen B. West, Texas; Robert J. Wos, Florida; Donald E. Young, Alaska.

Communications intended for any member of the NRA Board of Directors should be addressed to: (Name of Board member), NRA Office of the Secretary, 11250 Waples Mill Road, Fairfax, VA 22030; or nrabod@nrahq.org; or (703) 267-1021. Please include your name, contact information and NRA membership I.D. number, as only communications from NRA members will be forwarded. 78

continued from p. 59

like a football at its front end, the splined polymer recoil spring guide rod contains the captive recoil spring and the recess for it at the slide’s front has a corresponding shape.

There is not a single chassis inside the EZ, but rather separate sub-assemblies for the re-control unit and locking block linked by the trigger bar. Slide travel is guided by 0.65" long steel guides on either side of the locking block and by a pair of 0.50" guides at the rear.

Speaking of easy, the slide lock is not under a great deal of spring tension, either, so it’s fairly easy to depress, and even those with small hands should not have to break their grip in order to depress it. For lefties, I’m sad to report that it is not bilateral. That said, the magazine release is reversible, and detailed instructions can be found in the manual.

You can have your EZ with or without a manual safety. The bilateral manual safety version tested for this article had levers on both sides that prevented the sear from being released by the disconnector. Too, the safety levers were very easy to press both up and down, again, one of the design concepts for the gun. The gun is 1.45" wide with the levers or 1.14" wide without them. Some of our shooters, though, found that, if they gripped the frame with a proper high grip, the ring-hand thumb would engage the safety under recoil. Obviously, this could be very frustrating. The solution, if you want the belt-and suspenders piece of mind provided by a manual safety, is to put the thumb overtop its fairly wide, grooved paddle. Ride it like an extended M1911 safety, just as Col. Cooper taught us. Also, Smith has increased the tension on the safety since our sample arrived to reduce unintended activation. Owners of guns made before April 4 are eligible for a voluntary, no-cost upgrade.

The magazine borrows some design aspects from rim re handgun magazines. It is a steel, eight-round-capacity, singlecolumn detachable box, but to make loading easier (are you starting to see a theme here?) there are tabs on both the left and right sides (the left protrudes a little farther) that allow the orange plastic follower to be easily pulled down.

When it comes to eldstripping, again, the EZ lives up to its moniker. Remove the magazine, retract the slide to make sure the chamber is empty, engage the slide lock, turn down the takedown lever on the frame’s left, then let the slide go forward. You don’t need to pull the trigger. Simply turn the slide upside down and remove the recoil spring and guide rod, then the barrel. Reassembly is a snap, too.

The metal-injection-molded rear sight is dovetailed into the slide, and it has two dots on its rear face. To adjust it for windage, retract the slide then loosen the set screw in the bottom, allowing the rear sight to be moved in either direction. Then simply tighten the screw, and you are in business. The front sight also has a white dot, and it has a retaining screw on the underside of the slide as well; it is replaceable but not adjustable.

Throughout this gun, Smith & Wesson designers intended to address every major concern that those without a lot of upper body strength have when it comes to manipulating a pistol. I’m not sure who gets the gold star for the name EZ but, indeed, this gun is easy to use.

Last year, American Ri eman’s Ladies Pistol Project (September 2017, p. 72) determined that many women would really prefer to use a semi-automatic pistol rather than a revolver. For many women, this pistol might reinforce that sentiment by further facilitating slide manipulation and encouraging con dence while handling. Had the EZ been available then, I think it would have placed highly on the ladies’ list.

Remember, this gun is engineered to a speci c set of design parameters. As with any defensive or carry gun, potential owners need to make sure the ammunition they intend to use works reliably in their particular gun. In the gun’s rst 200 rounds of function ring, there were four stovepipes with Inceptor 56-gr. ARX and two instances of the SIG Sauer V-Crown failing to feed. There was one failure to feed, a stovepipe, the last live round in a magazine, with 95-gr. American Eagle FMJ. After cleaning and lubrication with Lucas Extreme Duty Gun Oil, there were no further failures through more than 400 rounds of additional testing. In short, after breaking in, the EZ ran like a sewing machine, digesting everything— including the same loads in the same magazine as noted above. Accuracy results are tabulated on p. 47.

In the hand, the gun barely moved, making it especially desirable for those who are recoil-sensitive. Frankly, it felt more like a .22 WMR or .32 ACP than a .380 ACP. An NRA member I spoke to last year carries a .22 WMR S&W revolver because she could not comfortably shoot small .380s without hitting the threshold of her recoil sensitivity. This pistol, especially when combined with Inceptor’s soft-shooting ARX load, might allow her to comfortably carry a more effective defensive chambering.

Quite a few ladies in our department are very interested in the EZ. As is one older gentleman from the second oor struggling with arthritis. Smith & Wesson is really on to something here. Instead of designing a gun speci cally around the prevailing winds—smaller size and more power—Smith made the choice to offer a gun that your typical experienced pistolero might not consider. Remember that burly gunwriter? He’s not buying one for himself—but he is buying one for his mom—as am I.

The disconnector (arrow) links the trigger bar and the sear. When depressed, the grip safety and the sear. When depressed, the grip safety lifts the disconnector up, allowing movement of the trigger bar to release the sear and drop the hammer.

“During the barrage Colonel John Henry Parker, who was chie y responsible for the assembly, drove his automobile back and forth under the hail of bullets, thereby conclusively demonstrating to every man on the eld, that troops could advance with safety, under cover of a barrage laid down by machine-guns.”

By 1917, the M1914 Hotchkiss machine gun had become the standard French heavy machine gun. American troops arrived as Hotchkiss production was in full swing, and the AEF acquired more than 5,200 M1914s before the end of the war. The air-cooled M1914 was unique in an era dominated by watercooled machine guns, such as the Maxim, Vickers and Schwarzlose. The gas-operated Hotchkiss res from an open bolt, and its barrel is particularly heavy. The distinctive donut-shaped cooling rings on the barrel were noted to be particularly effective in dissipating heat.

The Hotchkiss was a relatively simple design, reliable and easy to manage. Without the tripod, the gun itself had only 32 parts—and has no screws or pins. The barrel was relatively easy to change when overheated. Reliability comes at a price, though, and with the Hotchkiss that price was its weight. The gun and its tripod totaled 111 lbs.

All told, Doughboy complaints about the Hotchkiss machine gun were few. The “Omnibus” tripod was deemed too heavy and much too tall. American units often modi ed their Hotchkiss tripods to lower them. The other big complaint focused on the ammunition feed-strip system. The loading strips came in either 24- or 30-round con gurations,

continued on p. 82

The Hotchkiss M1914 was normally used with 24- or 30-round feed strips. The gun’s maximum cyclic rate was approximately 450 rounds per minute.

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IMPORTANT SAFETY RECALL - Kel-Tec SUB-2000 Rifles

Kel-Tec CNC Industries, Inc. is voluntarily recalling a limited number of SUB-2000 rifles because of a heat treatment issue that could potentially cause the barrel to rupture when a cartridge is fired and could result in serious personal injury. The SUB-2000 rifles affected by this recall are a select number that were manufactured in 2017.

If your SUB-2000 was purchased in 2017 or 2018, do not load or fire it. Please contact Kel-Tec immediately via our website https://recalls. keltecweapons.com/, by email recalls@keltecweapons.com, or by telephone at 321-631-0068, extension 136 (M-F 9-4 EST), to see if your serial number is affected and for instructions on how to return your SUB-2000 rifle to have its barrel replaced free of charge.

and while they were simple enough to load, the system inhibited extended firing. During 1918, a 250-round, “semiarticulated” metal ammunition belt was introduced. These were predominately used with Hotchkiss guns mounted in French tanks (which were used by the Tank Corps of the AEF), or in anti-aircraft units using the Hotchkiss.

The unit history of the 101st Machine Gun Btn.—part of the 26th Yankee Division—provided some interesting details on their use of the Hotchkiss M1914 guns:

Ordnance equipment:

machine Gun:

French hotchkiss Model 1914 caliber: 8 MM

WeiGht Of equipment:

Machine gun - 53 lbs. tripod Mount - 58 lbs. aMMunition case, loaded with 12 strips (288 cartridges) - 28 lbs.

number Of rOunds machine Gun ammunitiOn fired by the battaliOn:

1,112,228

number Of machine Guns replaced: 52 number Of Guns hit in actiOn: 7

number Of barrels replaced because

Of Wear: 8

Looking at wartime reports and unit histories, the Hotchkiss machine gun is rarely mentioned. Ultimately, this is a sign of the gun’s great reliability. It was always there, ready for action, and the Doughboys trusted it.

As much as we like to celebrate John Moses Browning’s genius design—the U.S. Model of 1917 machine gun—the water-cooled, recoil-operated Browning gun spent little time in combat during World War I. The French Hotchkiss was the primary heavy machine gun employed, and the Doughboys put it to good use in some very bad situations.

Laurence Stallings’ book The Doughboys (Harper & Row 1963) provides a look at the grit and courage of the American troops, and their quickly acquired skills with machine guns. In his chapter on the “Lost Battalion”— nine companies of the 77th Division in the Argonne Forest, October 1918— Stallings describes how the German commanding officer sent a captured American corporal back to his unit with a note requesting that Maj. Charles Whittlesey surrender the battalion.

“Wrote the German: ‘[It] would be quite useless to resist anymore, in view of present conditions. The suffering of your wounded men can be heard over here in the German lines, and we are appealing to your humane sentiments to stop.’”

“Whittlesey sent no reply to the note, but the grapevine carried news of it along the foxholes of the bench road above the little brook feeding the Aisnes, and a chorus began when a wounded man rose on one elbow and shouted down the valley, ‘You Heinie bastards, come and get us!’ It was the German commander’s first news of the unknown Doughboy commander’s reaction. Scores joined in, and wounded trees on the torn slope soon rocked with obscenities.

“The German’s humane sentiments now changed. He attacked with flame throwers on the right flank where there was one remaining Hotchkiss gunner, who fired pointblank on the assault teams, kindling the Flamenwerfer men into human torches.

“Forty years afterward, Walter Baldwin, who was a corporal on the bench road that day, could recall the figure of his captain, Holderman, where he stood erect using a pair of rifles as crutches, giving the gunner cover fire with his Colt .45. The captain, suffering from his previous four wounds, the stick of a potato-masher grenade still in his back, got his fifth wound about the time he got his fifth German.”

After the war, the Hotchkiss machine guns were not retained. American troops were equipped with the Browning Model of 1917. As the M1914 was let go, so too went many of the memories of its service in American hands.

American boys had seen Paris. They had also seen the trenches, the Marne, Château-Thierry, the Meuse and the Argonne. They had met the Kaiser’s men, and fought them with American rifles and pistols, and a reliable French heavy machine gun called the Hotchkiss. They had come to Europe and fought the good fight in the Great War. They were forever changed, and America along with them.

of importance, describing the American war effort and encouraging them to aid the Continental Army. The French press printed his stories, helping sway public opinion toward the American war cause. Although others influenced the French court, Lafayette’s efforts were essential to garnering political and military support to the American Revolutionary cause, without which American victory would not have been realized.

Perhaps the depth of friendship between Washington and Lafayette can be appreciated in the letters they exchanged as Lafayette was getting ready to leave for France after the war had ended.

Washington wrote, “I owe it to your friendship and to my affectionate regard for you, my dear Marquis, not to let you leave this country without carrying with you fresh marks of my attachment to you and new expressions of the high sense I entertain of your military conduct and other important services in the course of the campaign.”

Lafayette responded, “Adieu my dear General. I know your heart so well that I am sure that no distance can alter your attachment to me. With the same candor, I assure that my love, respect, my gratitude for you are above expression. That at the moment of leaving you I felt more than ever the strength of those friendly ties that forever bind me to you … .”

At the conclusion of Lafayette’s American tour, in 1825, a huge silent crowd gathered at the White House to say goodbye to the marquis. The newly elected president, John Quincy Adams, (son of Founding Father and second president John Adams) addressed Lafayette: “We look upon you always as belonging to us, during the whole of our life, [and] as belonging to our children after us. You are ours by more than [the] patriotic self-devotion with which you flew to the aid of our fathers at the crisis of our fate; ours by that unshaken gratitude for your service which is a precious portion of our inheritance; ours by that tie of love, stronger than death, which has linked your name for endless ages of time with the name of Washington … . Speaking in the name of the whole people of the United States, and at a loss only for language to give utterance to that feeling of attachment with which the heart of the nation beats as the heart of one man, I bid you a reluctant and affectionate farewell.”

After Lafayette composed himself, he simply replied, “God bless you, sir; and all who surround you. God bless the American people, each of their states and the federal government. Accept this patriotic farewell of a heart that will overflow with gratitude until the moment it ceases to beat.”

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economical—of the eight AccuFit models that have a non-AccuFit counterpart, two have MSRPs virtually identical to those of their predecessors, and the rest are less expensive than the rifles they are replacing. The Storm, in specific, will retail for $849, a decent reduction from the $939 price tag of the 16/116 FCSS Weather Warrior that it succeeds.

The system replaces Savage’s previous method of comb-height adjustment, that of a sleeve held in place by the tension of two screws bisecting the buttstock, and, in my opinion, represents a marked improvement. AccuFit allows the gun to be altered in response to a change in shooting position, clothing type or ownership. It also makes a ton of sense for youth shooters; its adaptability allows the rifle to grow with the child, fitting him or her now, yet able to change measurements as necessary to match the growing dimensions of its shooter.

AccuFit doesn’t directly cause the rifle to be any more accurate than it already is, however, in facilitating proper fit—improving the interface between the rifle and its shooter—the system does make it easier to shoot well. That the Savage Model 110 Storm and the eight other AccuFit-equipped models accomplish this while managing to be aesthetically pleasing and priced to move will likely make them very hard for value-conscious buyers to ignore.

The rifle’s tang-mounted, three-position safety allows the gun to be fired when fully forward, locks the trigger but allows the bolt to cycle when in the middle position and secures both the bolt and the trigger when held to the rear. 87

FRENCH YEAR XIII CAVALRY PISTOL

Gun: Pistolet de cavalerie modelé an Xiii Manufacturer: Maubeuge arsenal caliber: .67 (17 MM)

Manufactured: 1813 condition: nra Very good (antique gun standards) Value: $1,000

Not content with doing away with a monarchy, establishing a republic, instituting the “Reign of Terror” and making “guillotine” a household word, the French Revolutionary government, in an effort to sweep away religious and royalist connotations, decided that a complete revamping of the calendar was also in order.

Months, consisting of three weeks of 10 days each, were given pastoral names based on items in nature (as were the days of the week), and the old Gregorian dates were jettisoned in favor of a new system whereby, from Sept. 22, 1792, years were to be started all over again at 1. This system persisted until Jan. 1, 1806, when, for political reasons, Napoleon I reinstated the old system as his empire had now replaced the Republic.

Still, many things named before the change retained their original designations, including the Pistolet de cavalerie modelé An XIII (Cavalry Pistol Model Year 13), which was adopted in 1805.

The French had a tradition of building well-thought-out longarms and handguns. Design was normally excellent, as was general quality. In fact, due to French assistance during the American Revolution when many Yankee soldiers were equipped with French arms, a fledgling United States decided to model its first handgun, the Model 1799 North & Cheney, after the French Model 1777 Cavalry Pistol, and its Model 1795 musket was based on the French Model 1763/66.

French arms development under the monarchy— and later during the revolutionary period and the empire—continued apace, with many varying arms being designed for a number of different services and purposes.

In 1786, a pistol, based on a cavalry/dragoon pistol that had been introduced some 20 years earlier, was adopted for the navy. It differed from its predecessor in having an unusual undercut fore-end and similarly configured heavy brass barrel band. Other furniture was also of brass, and the gun was equipped with a sturdy belt hook. The lockplate incorporated a reinforced cock and brass flashpan.

Eventually, other handguns were also adopted and entered the system, including a sturdy cavalry pistol that appeared in An IX (Year 9). The gun’s grip was somewhat altered from previous styles, though it retained an olderpattern double-strapped barrel band.

As good as the An IX pistol was, authorities felt they could do better and, thus, the An XIII was born, which incorporated features from its immediate predecessor, as well as the Model 1786 Navy pistol.

The Year 13 was a no-nonsense piece of work. Caliber was .67 (17 mm). Mountings involving the barrel band, sideplate, trigger guard and buttcap were brass. The lock, smoothbore 8" barrel, rear grip reinforcement, trigger and extended trigger plate were of steel. The piece weighed 2 lbs., 13 ozs., and measured 14½" overall.

Between 1806 and about 1819 some 301,690 An XIII pistols were manufactured at Maubeuge, Charleville, St. Étienne, Versailles, Mutzig, Turin and Essen arsenals. It became a mainstay of Napoleon’s cavalry troops and continued in French service, generally converted to percussion, until almost the midpoint of the 19th century.

Manufactured at Maubeuge, the Year 13 we are looking at here, though worn in spots, is complete and still in good, serviceable condition. Markings, to include an 1813 barrel date, lockplate arsenal designation and inspectors’ stamps, are sharp and readable. As such, it’s worth $1,000—not a bad price for a gun with such an interesting history.

—Garry James

American Rifleman does NOT accept submissions for the I Have This Old Gun column. Topics are assigned to Field Editors in advance. Due to the volume of mail received, our writers are not able to answer individual questions. Please consider instead sending your correspondence and questions through our Dope Bag/Q&A service, which is available to all NRA members in good standing. Details appear in the Q&A section.

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