The Best Guns for Hipsters

REPOSTED I was way too busy to do any kind of post today. Here is an oldie that has the distinction of being my most ripped-off post of all time. I’m afraid it’s starting to show its age but hopefully, it’s still good for a laugh.

Millennials.

As sad as it is, the future is theirs.

Okay I will grant (very grudgingly) that a few of them are alright but those tragic few of you, will sadly remain enslaved to the (*gag*) hipster fashions of your generation.

Cataline sneers at you while treating himself to complete amnesia about what he was dressed like in the 1980s. 

After taking the Red Pill, one of your first priorities, once you start getting laid on the regular, is to apply for your CCW (or local state equivalent).  And then it is time to take on your ultimate symbol of Red Pill freedom.  Your statement to the world that your right to defend your life IS your right and not a privilege to be granted or revoked at the whim of the state.

Your personal firearm.

How you hipsters dress and how you accessorize says a lot about and unfortunately, it mostly says you are a hipster. You are pretty much defined by this. Consequently, your firearm is going to have to pull double duty as a fashion statement.

Here are Cataline’s top nine list of Guns for Hipsters. So shut up and listen.

9. Browning Hi-Power

If you are a hipster you are absolutely not a 1911 guy.  You just aren’t.  It can’t be done and I don’t blame you for not doing it.  The good news here is that there is a hipster alt available to you.

The Browning Hi-Power was the last and arguably greatest creation of the American wizard of the gun shops, John Moses Browning.  The ones pictured above are by Nighthawk which as a red pill hipster you cannot possibly afford.

You can pick up an old Browning cheaply enough at a soon-to-be-illegal gun show or at a down-at-the-heels gun shop.   The attraction for the hipster is thrift store find status plus antique value.

Fervently swear by your Browning Hi-Power and you will be granted respect not just by your loser friends but by people who are actually useful and would have rather died than pay you that respect.  

You get points for that!

In truth, it’s not optimal for self-defense in 2019.  As it is a single-action pistol, you either have to carry it empty chamber and hope your attacker is polite enough to give you time to draw it and pull the slide. Or carry it locked and cocked with the safety on and hope you can get it flicked off in time.  Finally, you can just go Commando and await the inevitable arrest for a “negligent discharge event,” praying it is not accompanied by a manslaughter charge.  With any luck at all, you will just have a bad limp.

Not being optimal is one thing.  Being ineffective for self-defense is another.  Too many men have died on the business end of a Browning Hi-Power for anyone to say it’s not deadly.

Serious note: if you do go this route, select your ammo with care.  I wouldn’t trust an old Hi-Power with modern +P+ ammo.  My heartfelt suggestion is Cor-Bon Pow’R Ball.

8. The Chiappa Rhino

If you are a hipster with an inadequate penis size and deep pockets then this is the gun for you. Given the hipster love of all things foreign and ugly as fuck, the Rhino by Chiappa had to make the list at number 8.

The official appeal of the Rhino is its ergonomic under-barrel.   The round comes out of the bottom of the cylinder, instead of the top.  It transfers the recoil absorption into your arm rather than into your wrist.

Its unofficial appeal is its high-tech look that makes it the iPhone of the gun world.

It is nowhere near as pretty but you worked that out just by looking at the picture.

A standard Weaver Stance is not recommended with this gun. You should give C-Clamping a shot with this one. Literally.

7. Mateba

Now that I think of it, the Chiappa has recently developed a major drawback for hipsters.  It just became soooper commercial. Yes, the Chiappa just became the gun of choice for insane ex-girlfriends.

So do what hipsters do best and take a step backward.  Meet the Chiappa’s illegitimate older brother the Mateba.

This one comes with its own high-tech appeal.  It is a semi-automatic revolver.  That’s right kids, the whole upper assembly goes back and forth when the gun fires. After the first shot goes off in double action, the rest of the shots are in single action.

That is the nearly a perfect revolver in theory but in practice, you might occa-a-a-a-sionally fire more bullets than you actually planned to.  Also, it’s a little too big for standard conceal carry, you will have to go off-body and that has its own drawbacks.

But you are a hipster, so a man-purse will draw nothing but praise from your friends.

6. The Czech 75.

We have now reached the required Communist gun portion of our program.  As this is a hipster list, I understand there is a prerequisite need to venerate all things from the era of the life-destroying, God-denying Soviet Union.

Very well, I present you the completely expected CZ-75 Classic.*
Like pretty much any Eastern Block weapons platform in the 1980s, it was vastly overrated.  The Tough Metal Gun was built from steel that was forged right at the CZ factory and the alloy was “tuned” to its specific needs.  It could take (for its day) a pretty hot round.  

That is all good stuff and Americans were, perhaps, over-impressed by the recommendation of Jeff Cooper who hated all things 9mm. But sure as hell didn’t hate this one. He thought it was fantastic.

It acquired an overblown reputation for…Well, for everything because it was The Gun from Behind the Iron Curtain and no one in America could get one.

And then we did and they were all crap.   Since Czechoslovakia was a Communist country they couldn’t apply for patents in western countries, which meant that anyone could produce one.  That didn’t mean that anyone should have. In fairness to the actual Czech 75, the ones we got were cheap Spanish knockoffs but they severely tarnished the legend.

It’s easy to find a good Czech 75 Classic now but a lot of the romance is gone.
Therefore as a hipster, you may want the…

5. Makarov

The Soviet Union didn’t have a police force as there was no crime in the Soviet Union by state decree.

I’ll wait here until you stop laughing.

Still waiting

Still waiting.

Okay, look assholes this is your future you are looking at here. This is coming to an America near you sooner or later if Trump doesn’t win.  Look at how many ANTIFA rioters are facing actual charges and you will see that a lot of that future is in fact now.

Anyway. Sure there was crime in Cold War Russia but none of it was officially recognized by the state.  All crimes were an act of minor rebellion against the state and therefore were handled by “the People’s Militia”  (i.e. the actual police).

The Makarov was the gun of the People’s Militia.  It’s basically an improved ripoff of the Walther PPK just as the Czech 75 is an improved ripoff of the Browning Hi-Power (sorry I meant to mention that.)  It’s actually a fairly decent gun but good luck finding 9X18 ammo for it.**  But if you do, hey major hipster points to you, if you are at just the right coffee shop. It’ll be the one with camo netting.

4. HK P7

This is all well and good Cataline, you tell me, but I would actually like to kill whoever is trying to kill me!

Such an odd sentiment for a hipster but there is one in every crowd I suppose.

Fine then, it’s time to go German.

Meet the Heckler and Koch P7.  The “squeeze-cocker.” As a Millennial, the homosexual innuendo should please you immensely. There is also the retro-techiness of the gun, which gets you a few points with people who are proud of their Walkmans.

 When it was first introduced in Germany after the Munich Olympics massacre, it was easily the most advanced pistol design in the world.

It is still one of the few guns out there that is perfectly safe to carry with a round in the chamber.  The grip mechanism has a twenty-pound squeeze.  But once you have that down it only takes two pounds of pressure to hold it in place.  The grip is what cocks the striker mechanism.  In decock mode, the weapon simply cannot be fired accidentally.

Cocked, locked, and ready to rock, it is insanely accurate for a semi-automatic pistol.  The trigger is something that most gunsmiths today can only dream of and best of all for hipsters, it’s totes out of production.  Has been since 2008.

Its all-metal frame gives you retro-cred.  The pinned barrel lets you be a snob even if you don’t have any right to be.  And the antiquated technical innovations make it the turntable of the gun world.

It will be difficult and very expensive to find a standard capacity M13 version, they were banned under the AR Ban, which meant they weren’t imported as soon as the stupid thing went into effect. Which means you will be stuck with an M8.  That’s good news given the ludicrous magazine restrictions you face if you live in Blue states.

It’s a can’t miss for hipsters.

Moving on to something that can miss.

3.  Remington Model 51

The Dark Herald does understand that a sub-compact presents a few problems, in terms of hipster-friendly fashion statements.  However, none of them are unsolvable.  And here is one good solution, the antique Remington Model 51.

It’s pretty easily concealable, even under hipster clothing.  And it’s a functioning antique!

“An advantage of Pedersen’s design is that it allows for a lighter slide than a straight blowback operated pistol, and hence an overall lighter weapon, with the hesitation lock contributing to less felt recoil for this intuitive pointing pistol. General George S. Patton owned a Remington 51 and was thought to favor the weapon.

Despite critical praise, no government or private agency is known to have adopted the weapon for use. Some examples are seen today with inventory numbers, however, their origin is unknown.”

As you can see this pistol will allow you to play knowledgeable blowhard hipster.  It gives you sneering value at the expense of your friends.  Think of it in terms of craft beer hoppiness.  You don’t really know what you are talking about but you can feign a worldliness that you don’t deserve with this choice of pistol.

“Hey, Cataline, do I have to get the antique version?” You ask.  “I heard Remington has put the model 51 back into production.  Can’t I get the new one instead?”

Uh, no.

Also,  fuck no No! Moving along.

…

Fine, I realize that weighing only 90 pounds soaking wet and wearing skin-tight clothes makes concealment an issue.  So you want a good, cheap, sub-compact.

It is certainly cheap.  But “good” is the operative word here and this new one drastically fails to qualify as that.  The first rollout was an epic disaster for Remington.  The Gen2  is not a major improvement.  

The problem is the same one you will run into with any semi-auto gun designed in the early 20th century.  Stacking tolerances.  Cheap 1911s have the same issue but it’s nowhere near as bad.  Automatics from the turn of the last century weren’t built with modern manufacturing in mind.  They were all designed to be assembled carefully one by one by expert gunsmiths.   They just can’t be mass-produced cheaply.  

They just can’t.  When Kimber builds a model 51, I’ll be the first in line, until then forget it.

2. Walther PPK

This is pretty much Red Pill hipsterism in one small, elegant, and utterly lethal package.  James Bond’s righthand is up there with Dom Perignon 1955 and the Aston-Martin DB5.

It’s the classic.

It’s the legend.

It’s… Not really capable of living up to its rep.  A bottle of ’03 is much better than the ’55.  And as for the DB5, a modern Ford Fiesta ST leaves it tragically in the dust

When it comes to the PPK itself, it’s in the same neighborhood as the Browing Hi-Power.  It was good enough in its day but it isn’t good enough anymore.  There are just too many better options out there now.

But if you are talking fashion statement and no real plans to defend your life, then Cataline is totes behind you Dawg.  Go with it.  I actually do approve.

It ain’t optimal but it does work and thanks to Sean Connery’s Bond, it remains flat fucking, cool.

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And now we reach number one.

Since this is a hipster list we need something that is retro but is not trying to be retro.  Something that has stood the test of time yet, it still optimal.  Something that Gen X wouldn’t think was cool at all but would have the Boomers nodding their heads at the groovy edgy hipness of your choice. Something that came from the ’80s but isn’t stuck in the world of an actually talented Bill Murray.

Above all, it must be ironic.

And here it is.

The Dark Herald’s Number One Choice for the Guns of Hipsters is…

…Drum roll please…

One bone stock:

It was a tough assignment.

Also, I’m doing you guys a favor.

*Especially as The Dark Herald is a noted CZ Yuppie.
** Actually you can get 9×18 cheaply enough by mail order.  However, beware the vendor.