.25 FIE Titan semi-automatic pistol

This is another firearm I inherited from my father. It is junk. Okay, okay, you get what you pay for, and in most cases these little semi-autos go for about a hundred bucks at many pawn shops. Sometimes you can even pick one up for forty for fifty bucks. So, you can't beat that price.

And what do you get for that price?

You get a little pocket pistol that has very little power and a barrel so short that, if you're like me, you couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with it.

Really, this is what I think of as a table gun, meaning it's only good for shooting at someone on the other side of a table from me. And when I say "someone," I do not mean to be morbid, for yes, I understand firearms can be used for other purposes than shooting people. But not this gun. There is no way you could use this weapon for hunting. Oh, a lucky shot might take out a squirrel, but so will a rock.

The .25 caliber is known as a weak round, so this little pistol doesn't have much "oomph" to it. In fact, if you peruse the Web for a bit, you can find horror stories of people being murdered after they had shot their assailant multiple times with such a small weapon or something similar.

It's even a bear to strip down. Hell, I had to break out some pliers just to pull out the recoil spring assembly, and returning the slide the proper position is a monster of a chore.

Also, I'm not a big fan of the magazine release's placement beneath the handle, down by my pinky finger.

So, as you can tell, I'm not a big fan of this firearm.

That being said, there are a few things I like about it. For instance, despite its smallness, this little thing actually does fit pretty well in my large hands, and the smooth wooden grips don't bother me nearly as much as such do on other firearms I've fired.

Then there's the "bang" factor. I have to admit, this .25 Titan was a lot louder than I expected, probably because of the short barrel. I didn't even wear ear protection the first few times I fired it, figuring it wouldn't be any louder than a .22, but I was quickly proven wrong. It is just about as loud as a .38.

But really, the only real positive I can think of concerning this firearm is the intimidation factor. If one absolutely had to pull a firearm in hopes of scaring off a potential threat, this little gun might do the job. But all the while you're likely to be praying that you don't get attacked, because to be honest, as close as I'd have to be to hit my target, I'd rather have a good tactical knife. Hell, I'd rather have a solid butcher knife.

The .25 Titan and a number of similar weapons were commonly made in the 1960s and early '70s, and they flooded the market, so it's not too hard to find an old, used one today.

Collectors might want one of these just to have it for their stash, and I suppose it can be fun to pop out into the woods and blaze away with the old .25, but I don't see much practical use for the weapon. Even the ammo isn't all that common nowadays.

Yet, I'll keep this one. It came from my dad, after all, and every once in a while I can go out to the woods behind my place and get off a few shots while thinking of him.

Books read in 2014: No. 27 -- Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Volume 1

by Josh McDowell

Started: June 30
Finished: July 13

Notes: Some of my readings of Tolstoy and C.S. Lewis have drawn me to an interest in Christian apologetics, and after speaking with my mother's pastor, he suggested a number of books for me. This is one such book, and volume 2 will soon follow. This pair of books goes back more than a few decades, so I fear it might be somewhat outdated with current thought, but that might be a good thing, so I'll give it a chance.

Minie review: Quite intriguing. Some of the evidence I found quite compelling, but some of it not so much. It was refreshing to study such material without much of the oft-heated language and tactics of today's debates. There's not so much a scientific approach here as a historical one, even anthropological. I'm not going to go into all the individual arguments here, nor my thoughts about them, because that would take a lot of time, but for those seeking an intellectual approach to Christianity, I can suggest this book. Be warned, however, that this material is told in an extended outline form, and it takes some getting used to. Of the two volumes, this one is supposed to be more for laymen while the second book is supposedly more deep and aligned with a scholarly and intellectual approach, but I have to say, this first book was pretty deep and pretty heavy, so I have to wonder about the second volume, which I will be starting soon enough.

Practice paintings of old

I have not touched a paint brush in almost a year, and I have not posted anything here about my painting in quite a while, yet I have been feeling the itch again lately and am preparing to start up again.

To those ends, I recently cleaned out the building where I used to paint back in the woods behind my house, and I ran across a number of small practice pieces I thought worth posting here. All of these were done in order to test out a new brush and/or a new technique. None of them are great, but I find them of interest for one reason or another, and they are different than the direction I'm thinking of heading with my next painting sessions.

Anyway, here they are.