Click here to download the catalog as a PDF file. To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. HANDGUNS • MASSAD AYOOB • dUMMy HaNdGUNS for dUMMieS Inert, realistic duplicates of handguns have a number of valid uses. orgive the title. Those F “For Dummies” books you see all over the place seem A Lindell aluminum dummy of the HK P7 (left) with a real one. vaguely insulting, don’t they? They bothered me until I got a “Computers for Dummies” book and realized I didn’t understand it … sigh. Dummy guns have been around for a while. In the early ’50s, for just a few bucks you could get a cast metal duplicate of a Luger, a Walther P38, and Colts ranging from the GI 1911 to the snub-nose Cobra to the great old Single Action Army. Kids back then used them to play with and didn’t like them because they wouldn’t shoot caps, darts or those little plastic bullets. Today, such relics are collector’s items. Dummy handguns made a return to the scene in the latter 20th Century, when Jim Lindell and his firm Odin Press started manufacturing them. Jim was the creator of the famed Kansas City handgun retention and disarming system and wanted unshootable “drones” to train with because it was possible for a live round to get into a real gun used in that sort of training setting. Such tragedies have happened. Jim’s concept of the dummy gun kept it from happening. His firm, Odin Press, is still the largest purveyor of metal dummy guns, with a wide variety available. Another firm, Dummy guns enhance safety during handgun retention and disarming training. Here advanced LFI student (left foreground) completes dynamic disarm and finishes holding the Ring’s Blue Gun of his “attacker” as others observe. Duncan Customs, produces high quality dummies intended originally for use by holster makers, which work fine for training. There are also “plastic guns” acceptable as duplicates of the real deal. I’m not talking about the toys you can buy in the kiddies’ section of the big box store or toy emporium. Those will tear apart under the sort of force exerted in a full-power struggle for the gun, and the resulting sharp edges will lacerate hands. The usable ones are produced by firms like Ring’s and ASP. BLACKHAWK! recently brought out a very nice, very affordable series of non-metallic dummy guns. Lindell’s resurrection of the dummy training gun has doubtless saved more lives and prevented more tragedy than we’ll ever know. They also have other uses for the serious pistolero. Teaching basic safe handling. When you have a nervous new shooter, it never hurts to start showing them the basics of grasp, stance, etc. with a dummy gun. It is possible in the early stages they’ll get a little careless and “cross” you with the muzzle. Realizing they’ve pointed a 18 WWW.GUNSMAGAZINE.COM • MAY 2009