Articles by Herschel Smith

AllOutdoor.

Here is more description.

We do a lot of talking around here about the sadness of passing of legacy and heirloom firearms made of fine Walnut with beautiful contour lines and craftsmanship.

Over/Under shotguns are the exception.  Winchester makes a beautiful shotgun too, as does Browning.

I’d love to have a new 694 to test at my local sporting clays range and report back to you, but unfortunately Beretta didn’t send me a gun to review.

If any enterprising reader gets one, report back over these pages after testing.

Source.

The rate of the rifling twist inside a rifle barrel would seem to be mostly a gun thing as opposed to an ammunition thing. However, for ammunition to shoot accurately, the bullet must be stabilized, and for a bullet to be stabilized, the rifling rate-of-twist must be compatible with the bullet’s length and velocity. This means that twist rate is very important to ammunition, and it is why the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI) establishes standards for twist rates as they relate to arms and ammunition.

This is a good thing. It’s why when you purchase ammunition for your firearm, you can expect that ammunition to shoot at least reasonably well. Most ammunition manufacturers make ammunition to SAAMI specifications, which means the bullets—at their launch velocity—will mesh well with the rifling-twist rate of the gun for which you bought them. It can, however, be a bad thing, as history has shown.

In 1955, Remington introduced the .244 Rem. cartridge. It fired a .244-caliber bullet and had a stipulated rifling-twist rate of one turn in 12 inches (1:12). The cartridge worked great with bullets in the 55- to 90-grain weight range. However, that same year Winchester introduced the .243 Win. (I’m betting Winchester had a spy inside Remington.) The .243 Win. also fired a .244-caliber bullet, but Winchester very wisely specified a 1:10-inch twist rate for the rifling. This meant Winchester’s 6 mm cartridge could handle heavier—longer—bullets of 100 grains. Both cartridges became popular, but the .243 Win. won the battle even though it was not quite as fast as the .244. Why? Twist rate. Eight years later Remington tried to save its .244 by reintroducing it as the 6 mm Rem. and tightening the twist rate from 1:12- to 1:9-inch. This allowed the cartridge to better compete with the .243 Win. But, it was too late.

Remington has always seemed a bit late to the game.

Almost the exact same thing happened to Remington again in 2008. That’s the year Hornady introduced the 6.5 Creedmoor, which fired a .264-caliber bullet out of a cartridge case similar in size to the .260 Rem. Remington had introduced the .260 in 1997 and it had become a very popular cartridge for long-range target shooting and hunting. However, Remington stipulated a 1:9-inch twist rate for the .260, while Hornady stipulated a 1:8-inch twist for the Creedmoor. Because of the Creedmoor’s ability to handle longer, more aerodynamic bullets, Remington got twisted out of the conversation again.

I’m not really sure that’s completely why – I think free bore had something to do with it too, maybe a lot more things.  The folks at Hornady don’t appear to like free bore at all and want the bullet as close to the leade as possible, just at the rifling, in order to avoid bullet deformation.  That’s one reason they don’t like the 300 Win Mag (stock ammo, not reloaders) and do like their own 300 PRC.

While all this was going on, developments with what is now the most popular rifle cartridge in America were struggling through another twisted situation. In 1964, the .223 Rem.—yep, here we go with Remington yet again—was introduced. It was initially famous as the cartridge of the AR-15 and, in 5.56×45 mm form (which isn’t identical) as the cartridge of the military’s M16. The .223 Rem. had a specified twist rate of 1:12 inches, which was about perfect for a 55-grain bullet at 3,200 fps.

But, in the early 1980s, the 5.56 NATO cartridge was standardized. Externally, the cartridge-case dimensions of the .223 Rem. and the 5.56 NATO are identical, but the chambers are different, and the 5.56 NATO is loaded to higher pressures. Also, it is a military cartridge for which there are no SAAMI specifications. Initially standardized with a 62-grain bullet, 5.56 NATO rifles have a much faster 1:7-inch twist rate. This allowed the 5.56 NATO to stabilize longer bullets that were heavier and shot flatter. Aficionados of the .223 Rem. caught on and started re-barreling .223 Rem. rifles with faster-twist barrels and loading their own ammo to take advantage of newer and longer bullets.

However, most ammunition for the .223 Rem. is still built to work with the original 1:12-inch twist rate. Why? Well, there are many, many thousands of .223 Rem. rifles out there with a 1:12-inch twist. If you have one of those and purchased ammo loaded with a bullet that needs a 1:8-inch twist, you’ll struggle to hit a snuff can at 100 yards. But, some ammo makers are now offering .223 Rem. ammo that needs the faster twist.

Rifle manufacturers are doing the same. For example, Savage initially used the slower twist rate for the .223 Rem., but by 1995 all Savage 110 rifles in .223 Rem. had a 1:9-inch twist. In 2007, Savage added a 1:7-inch-twist-rate barrel to several models, but when it entered the AR-15 market in 2017, the company settled on the 1:8-inch twist for its MSRs in .223 Rem. or 5.56 NATO.

Of course, factory .223 ammo designed for a 1:12-inch twist will shoot just fine in the faster 1:8- or 1:7-inch twist barrels and in 5.56 NATO rifles. (Do not shoot 5.56 NATO ammo in rifles chambered for the .223 Rem.) This is one of the reasons many modern AR-15-style rifles are chambered for the 5.56 NATO instead of the .223 Rem., and it’s also why many manufacturers now load 5.56 NATO ammo and sell it commercially. Some manufacturers also cut .223-caliber chambers to the .223 Wylde chamber to allow for the firing of both .223 Rem. and 5.56 NATO ammunition—more accurately in the case of .223 Rem. and safely in the case of 5.56 NATO.

Cartridge designers have now finally learned and are specifying fast twist rates when new cartridges are introduced. Just look at the 22 Nosler, 224 Valkyrie, 6 mm ARC, .277 SIG Fury; the list goes on. Today, longer, more aerodynamic bullets pushed through fast-twist barrels shoot flatter and hit harder at distance.

Tim Harmsen at Military Arms Channel did a video of an M-16 shooting in a 1:12 twist gun into ballistics gel, and other media, and it seemed to outperform the shorter barrels with tighter twist.

Anyway, it’s ironic that this discussion occurred the next day after we touched on these issues.  Also, in my AR-15 category there is a lot of discussion on ballistics and twist rate.  I won’t recapitulate it here.

Take all of this for what it’s worth.  He speaks it as gospel, and I suspect not much of it is.

I will remark that I very much like the performance of the 6mm ARC.  It’s a pure pleasure to shoot, without recoil noticeably stronger than the 5.56 and yet with vastly superior results.

Source.

An influx of migrants into a Texas border town killing local pets, stealing from shops, and knocking on doors late at night has prompted residents to buy more weapons to defend themselves.

The Del Rio section of the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, has seen over 376,000 migrant encounters since October 2021, according to Customs and Border Protection, which doubles the number from the previous year.

One Eagle Pass resident said she taught her children to use tasers and other weapons to defend their family business.

[ … ]

They added that they were aware of some migrants who entered one property ‘and in order to steal something, they killed the dogs.’

Do you want to have your pets killed in the middle of the night and then have your home invaded?  Or if you’re perspective is a bit bigger, do you want to terraform a society and culture, impoverish the middle class, and ruin the culture?

Just throw the borders wide open.  That’ll do it just about right.

Our friend Andy at Practical Accuracy has given us an awesome video on the use of 55 gr. bullets in a 7:1 twist barrel.

Maybe the best, virtually without fear of overpenetration and harm to people in other homes.

A 17-year-old shot and killed two armed intruders during an attempted home invasion, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies were called to the 16000 block of First St., for a shooting in progress.

According to officials, three armed men wearing a mask attempted to force their way into a home. The home was occupied by a woman, 12-year-old boy, and two 17-year-old males. Deputies say a 17-year-old got a shotgun and fired several times, striking two of the suspects. Both suspects were pronounced dead at the scene. The third suspect fled …

Wait a minute!  You mean he was a 17 year old, not a paying graduate of tacti-school training with tacti-cool instructor former JSOC-operator/Ranger/SEAL/SWAT-cop ‘Tacti-dude’?

A shotgun seems like a fine weapon for a multi-man home invasion to me.

Breitbart.

Payment processor Visa Inc. said Saturday that it plans to start separately categorizing sales at gun shops, a major win for gun control advocates who say it will help better track suspicious surges of gun sales that could be a prelude to a mass shooting.

But the decision by Visa, the world’s largest payment processor, will likely provoke the ire of gun rights advocates and gun lobbyists, who have argued that categorizing gun sales would unfairly flag an industry when most sales do not lead to mass shootings. It joins Mastercard and American Express, which also said they plan to move forward with categorizing gun shop sales.

Visa said it would adopt the International Organization for Standardization’s new merchant code for gun sales, which was announced on Friday. Until Friday, gun store sales were considered “general merchandise.”

“Following ISO’s decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will proceed with next steps, while ensuring we protect all legal commerce on the Visa network in accordance with our long-standing rules,” the payment processor said in a statement.

Visa’s adoption is significant as the largest payment network, and with Mastercard and AmeEx, will likely put pressure on the banks as the card issuers to adopt the standard as well. Visa acts as a middleman between merchants and banks, and it will be up to banks to decide whether they will allow sales at gun stores to happen on their issued cards.

Gun control advocates had gained significant wins on this front in recent weeks. New York City officials and pension funds had pressured the ISO and banks to adopt this code.

Visa was the holdout, and they buckled.

I see a lot of firearms purchases being made in cash in the future.

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit remarks.

SOCIAL CREDIT SCORING COMES TO AMERICA: Visa, Mastercard, AmEx to start categorizing gun shop sales.

Imagine if they were doing this about abortion. Or if legislatures tried to make them do so.

A reader comments: “Have you seen this yet? It sure feels like there is a very coordinated effort throughout the woke financial sector to create ‘private’ gun control. I wonder if it is being driven by interaction with the ATF, etc like the censoring of private speech by coordination between government and social media. Also, wouldn’t this enable the card companies to create a gun registry? The credit card transactions include our names and what we bought and the card company knows our addresses, etc. Seems like another example of actual fascism where government coerces private companies to do their bidding.”

Based on experience, the likelihood that this is happening without government encouragement is very low.

Government => Social Media => Censorship of speech.

Government => Financial Corporations => Censorship of products.

Government = Corporations.

Benito Mussolini would be very proud of his legacy.

If it’s determined that your gun isn’t an SBR, at least they have all of the information on it, including information on you.

If it’s determined that you are in possession of an SBR illegally, then what happens?  Do ATF agents come to your door, shoot your dogs and arrest you?  Or do they simply register your firearm, now putting that gun on a list of NFA items that cannot cross state lines without their approval?

You see, heads they win, tails you lose.

This is a gigantic buffalo jump, folks.

The Reload.

Another critic of National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre is being pushed out of the organization.

Judge Philip Journey, who has been at the center of several efforts to remove current NRA leadership, has not been renominated to appear on the ballot for next year’s board election. That makes his road back onto the board far more difficult.

“As an incumbent Director your name was submitted to the NRA Nominating Committee which met on August 27, 2022,” NRA Secretary John Frazer said in a letter to Journey on Monday. “I regret to inform you that you were not renominated.”

[ … ]

The NRA’s board members are picked by an election of the group’s voting members. Those generally include only lifetime members and those who’ve held a membership for five consecutive years. In the 2022 elections, that amounted to about half of the total membership. The NRA mails voting members ballots.

To appear on a ballot, anyone running for the board either has to get approval from the board’s nominating committee or gather enough signatures to get on by petition. The vast majority of the 76 board members make it on the ballot through the nominating committee. Only a handful of members at any given time make it on through the petition process.

Besides, as one of 76 members, how much can one man do?  How is Wayne doing these days?

A filing in the New York lawsuit shows how it began in December 2013 and steadily grew more lucrative until the last document in April 2018. This is not just a retirement golden parachute, this is one trimmed with diamonds.

2013: $1 to $1.1 million per year for five years, upon retirement. Total of $5.4 million. Good for a part-time retirement job.

2018: $1.3 to $1.5 million for seven years, total of $10.3 million of members’ money, with note that “safe lodging” (his mansion?) and “secure transportation” ( the private leased jets) are extras.

It’s all so simple.  Wayne isn’t finished looting the NRA coffers yet, and the board members aren’t finished looting the NRA firearms museum yet.

There’s more to be stolen.  No change can happen until the looting is complete.  In the meantime, stay out of their way.

Alloutdoor.

Crimson Trace has finally released the HRO or Heavy Recoil Optic that was announced during SHOT Show 2022. The HRO is intended to be used specifically on rifles chambered in bigger, heavier hitting cartridges like 308 Winchester, 300 Win Mag, 458 SOCOM, and the like. This makes the HRO specifically effective on what most people would typically call a “Hog Gun.”

It has automatic shutoff and gets 50,000 hours of run time with a battery.

This isn’t an advertisement – I do not have one.  They haven’t sent me one to test, unfortunately.

But I find this interesting for bigger bore guns.  Perhaps some enterprising reader wants to run a red dot on top of a Henry .44 magnum or Marlin 45-70.

Watch this video if needed.  BLUF: Don’t talk to the police.  That included federal police.

Crack the door open enough for them to hear you (don’t go outside, don’t invite them in).  Do not let your dogs out through the crack in the door – the ATF will shoot them dead.  They like to shoot dogs.  Say the following.  “Do you have a warrant to be on this property?”  If the answer is no, then say the following.  “Please remove yourselves from the property.  If you do not do so, I will call 911 and inform the local police that I have uninvited guests on my property and I need their assistance.”

The words uninvited guests is procedure-speak for the local police.  It means that there are trespassers, but at the moment they’re not threatening your safety and you prefer them to effect an arrest rather than use force to remove them yourself.  This is a way of informing the 911 operator that you’re not in a violent state of mind.  It de-escalates the situation with the local police before they ever show up.

Do not answer questions.  Do not engage in polite conversation.  Do not allow them to stay on your property or photograph or harass you.  Do not respond to their interrogatories.

This is all true if you did something wrong, or if you didn’t do anything wrong, or you didn’t do anything wrong and know it and intend to try to convince them of it — regardless of the specifics of the situation.

It’s not just me saying this.  Listen to lawyers say it to you yet again.

The whole affair might have been caused by moles within the gun community.  At least some people think so.

“These two scumbags are exactly the types that would happily and voluntarily turn over any customer information the ATF requested. Including exact payment method, descriptions of all transactions, shipping dates and personal information, etc. There’s no way in hell the ATF could have this information otherwise. These surprise visits to law-abiding citizens by ATF are a direct result of these inside snitches.”