I recently ordered 100 rounds of 9mm ammunition from an internet company. I'm planning on travelling, sleeping in my van along the roads and at trailheads rather than motel-hop. I'm thinking it might be nice to have this particular semi-automatic along. I could probably get into trouble for having it, but that would be minor compared to the trouble it just might get me out of. Though I've owned it for over 20 years, and have some hollow-point ammunition for it, I've never fired it.

I got my order and there was about a surprise and a half. That it was Russian-made, in a box with all-English labelling, was a bit of a surprise. As a kid I got a lot of foreign-made WWII surplus 9mm ammo, a penny a round, but that was 50 years ago.

An even bigger shock is that it's not brass, but steel casing. I don't know the formula for that steel, but I'm hoping it's soft. I suspect that hard steel casings in a semi-automatic pistol would chew up the action pretty fast. In fact, I had one of this model with an aluminum frame, and the brass didn't do it any good.

Surprise, surprise.

(What wasn't a surprise was the finding that a man at 67 years who has shot only 7 rounds in the last umpteen years is not nearly as proficient as a 17 year old who shoots several hundred rounds a month or one at 24 who shoots a very lot. In my hands the thing is about as effective as a firecracker might be - lots of noise, but at any distance nothing to worry about.)

Arf