Y’know, I think it’s finally starting to grow on me.

There are many (many many) like it, but this one is mine.

There are many (many many) like it, but this one is mine.


I’ve never really had a reason to hate it, except pure bigotry against Communists. It’s really a much better pistol than it has any right to be. It’s completely reliable and – given it’s basically a Walther PP ripoff* with a fixed barrel – surprisingly accurate if you can find those bitsy sights. My dislike for the Mak was visceral, it was never based on reason. Odd that I never behaved that way toward AKs.

Anyway – since I just bought ammo for the thing for the first time in several years, I guess it was on my mind. The Mak is lighter than the .44, less in the way, and when you fire it the sky doesn’t fall down – like it does when you fire the .44. So when I came out of the cabin in the evening and found a running rabbit that had been snooping around underneath, and I decided that some old-fashioned Gun Violence must occur forthwith, I went inside and got the Mak. It was already loaded with those little (relatively) cheap FMJ round nose bullets. Went outside, carefully walked around the small shed where I last saw him hippity hopping, and then something happened that, if I told you, would sound like one of those stories.

It involved multiple rabbits, now deceased. Funny: I’ve had that gun for almost ten years, and only just now noticed how nicely it points one-handed.

Thing is, since Ghost moved out LB doesn’t want to spend time alone in the yard. I can throw him out, but he won’t do his business – he just sits and mopes until I let him back in. So the damned rabbits are taking over the yard, and despite my distaste for killing animals I don’t plan to eat (and I’ve tried wild rabbit, yes, and really don’t consider it worth the bother of butchery in normal times) I’m going to have to start killing them until they remember that I’m the human and therefore dangerous to live near. Otherwise I’ll have them under every building in the place. One of them already died under the cabin and stank me out a couple of weeks ago. Not going through that again.

It’s just funny that I chose to start the jihad with what I would have considered the least appropriate handgun I own. No, of course I’m not throwing over the .44 in its favor; that way lies hubris with a bear or something as nemesis. No. But I don’t dislike the Mak as much as I used to. Truth is, it’s quite a good gun for the money.

ETA:

*One of my favorite Neal Stephenson quotes goes approximately “Ask a Soviet engineer to design a pair of shoes, and you’ll get something that looks like the box they came in. Ask him for something to kill Nazis with, and he’ll become Thomas Alva Edison.” In this case the Soviet engineer(s) just took a good thing and made it heavier and uglier. They didn’t screw with it in any of the usual American ways that would have ruined it.

I still want a better front sight, though.

About Joel

You shouldn't ask these questions of a paranoid recluse, you know.
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One Response to Y’know, I think it’s finally starting to grow on me.

  1. Kentucky says:

    I have a good friend who holds an FFL and owns a considerable variety of the “kewl” handguns. What does he carry every day? A Mak in his hip pocket. It’s light, flat, virtually indestructible and not any kind of a collectible snowflake that requires pampering. With the right ammo, it’s good for just about anything he’s liable to run into, not living in the true boonies.

    🙂

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