Saturday, August 4, 2018

M105 and M205, the Ultrastar

A key reason Americans still don't trust diesel cars is that (among other reasons) GM after the '79 oil embargo era rushed to market a diesel engine. Or rather, a "diesel engine." They were gas engines converted to diesel. But diesel is not just different fuel; it operates at much higher pressure. Once out on the road, they began performing very badly right away. 
Back in the early 1990s, a whole bunch of manufacturers suddenly made .40 S&W pistols with not much effort. The P7 and High Power in 40 were just stupid, with huge amounts of extra mass added to otherwise lovely guns. Things like the Star M31, and Daewoo service pistols simply were awful, and horribly unreliable. Don't buy a .40 caliber M31 in the rare event you find one. 
To materials, aluminum is not steel and plastic is not aluminum. Yet we see people build things all the time where the same shape is made in a different material and just doesn't work. Aluminum FAL receivers are a good example of this, but others abound. 
Handguns especially are very dynamic systems so aside from straight up strength,  the frame flex in plastic is critical to them working properly and it took some folks a while to get the gist of how to make a plastic pistol of any value. 
With that in mind, let me introduce you to the Star M205 Ultrastar
A plastic framed, single stack, closed-campath, browning lock, selective DA, decocker mid-caliber pistol. 
Except it wasn't designed to be a plastic framed gun. There was an alloy-framed M105, that got advanced enough in design it was cataloged, in the Jane's annual back then as In Production, and even was loaned to gun writers for review. This photo and the one on the page in the site are from an old European market gun magazine article, otherwise long since lost. 
But look at it! It's the same gun as the M205! 
And most interestingly, the Ultrastar was a brilliant gun. Nice size, weight, etc. and scrupulously reliable. If you find an Ultrastar on a shelf, it will be dirt cheap and you should think about buying it. 
But I have to ask, how the hell did they do that? How did a couple guys in Eibar, within about a year, make their first plastic framed handgun, by modifying nothing else, and not totally screw it up? I'd love to know. 

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