Articles by Herschel Smith

Joefour, this one is for you.  It’s you and me, Stoner versus Kalashnikov. Eugene wins every time.  Stoner rules, Kalashnikov drools.

Why anyone would want to penetrate cinder blocks with small bore ammunition I don’t know, but for no other reason than interest, here it is.

I’ve always thought that 22LR was a little underpowered for a varmint round.  I’m not sure I’d keep the 5.7X28 by my bed either.  I prefer PD ammunition because of things like walls, people, and neighbors.

He seems to think it’s okay, whereas for me, being unable to shoot anything I want to put in it is a deal-breaker for me.

He also seems to like Colt, whereas I prefer my Dan Wesson and Smith & Wesson 1911s.  I’ve never had a single malfunction with either of them, and neither has had a hiccup of any sort regardless of what ammunition I feed it (including and up to 450 SMC).

I don’t do FTF/FTE drills with my 1911s because I’ve never had a failure in many thousands of rounds.  But as always, I learn something from Paul (watch his demonstration of the safety feature on the Colt that isn’t there with the RIA, another deal-breaker for me).

Vice quotes David Codrea on the rush to purchase guns.  It’s interesting to see what they’re buying.  As for MSRs, here’s the list.

1. Ruger AR-556
2. Smith & Wesson M&P Sport II
3. Smith & Wesson M&P15
4. Springfield Saint
5. Kel-Tec Sub-2000

The real telling statistic is shotguns.

1. IWI TS12
2. Benelli M4 Tactical
3. Armscor/Rock Island Armory VR80
4. Franchi Affinity
5. Kalashnikov USA KS-12

One legitimate bird gun in the bunch.  You think this says something about what people are thinking and why they’re buying?

David Codrea.

“I was just standing up for the Constitution, and I did it in a professional manner that did not delay the bill,” Massie told Fox News. “This is the biggest transfer of wealth in human history.”

“The Constitution requires that a quorum of members be present to conduct business in the House,” he elaborated on Twitter. “Right now, millions of essential, working-class Americans are still required to go to work during this pandemic such as manufacturing line workers, healthcare professionals, pilots, grocery clerks, cooks/chefs, delivery drivers, auto mechanics, and janitors (to name just a few). Is it too much to ask that the House do its job, just like the Senate did?”

“Massie has now become the most hated person on Capitol Hill,” New York Rep. Peter King …

Oh, I think I could name a lot of people who are much more hated than Massie.  Like maybe Peter King, gun controller.

Look, a quick Google search will find that I have been a defender of Thomas Massie, and I will continue to be so regardless of what orange man says.

My wife heard that the congress voted without a quorum, and looked at me and rolled her eyes.  She’s not one to overreact, but this one galled her.  They can’t even follow the rules, things you learn to do as children when you’re playing dodge ball (or for me in my gym class, “murder ball”).

Men who can’t follow the rules can’t be trusted with anything.

From NYT.

It would be an interesting thing to integrate the area under the curve, but with the spikes that would involve use of the trapezoidal rule, or else very small step functions.  I just don’t want to invest the time.

But suffice it to say, this is a lot.  I assume this also involves use of the NICS, and for states that don’t use it (like N.C. where a CHP suffices in lieu of the NICS), that will underestimate the total number of sales, by not a trivial amount.

Guns.com.

The CZ 1012 line of gas-less semi-automatic shotguns is not only new to the company but fairly new to the market at such a reasonable price point, with MSRP on our test CZ 1012 All-Weather set at only $690.

Rather than cycling the action using dirty gases, CZ uses a spring within the bolt assembly to harness energy during the shotgun’s recoil motion, and then essentially re-uses this energy a split second later to both rotate and unlock the twin lugs from the barrel extension. This withdraws the spent shell and feeds the next round.

While the majority of semi-automatic shotguns are cycled with the gases generated through the gas system, the 1012 takes a page brought to popularity by Benelli and their Inertia Drive. Inertia scatterguns have been around for years, but that technology generally comes at a much higher cost.

[ … ]

If you’re still thinking the system may be too good to be true, especially for the price, the proof is in the pudding—or in this case—in the Guinness Book of World Records. For reference, the new 1012 action was the one used by competitive shooter David Miller and his hand-selection team of four youngsters to break the Guinness world record.

Together, they fired 20,425 Aguila shotguns shells through nine guns over 12 hours. They smashed the previous record by busting 14,167 clays, with one shooter using the same shotgun for the span of the event. The others only switched once.

I really like the cammo gun they’ve built.  If I heard her correctly, she said the patent on the intertial system expired and CZ apparently took advantage of that.

It’s nice to see a moderately priced auto-loader.  This gun might be in my plans for the future.

PJM.

So where did the virus-carrying bats come from? The paper says this, quote: “We screened the area around the market and identified two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus.” Within a few hundred yards of the wet market was something called the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention. According to public reports, the center used Intermediate Horseshoe Bats for research. About seven miles away was another facility, called the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The virology institute also conducted research on Intermediate Horseshoe Bats.

South China University scientists concluded that the Coronavirus pandemic likely came from one of these two labs. They noted that a scientist at the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention had been exposed to the blood and urine of bats. They also suggested that infected tissue samples from research animals may have wound up in the Wuhan wet market. They ended their paper this way. Quote: “The killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. Safety levels may need to be reinforced in high risk, bio-hazardous laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from city center and other densely populated places.” End quote.

That’s what I have believed from the beginning, it is what I believe today, and it’s what I will always believe unless someone presents clear and convincing evidence that persuades me to relinquish my belief.

I’ve updated my Covid-19 graph.  I’ve started tracking active cases as well as confirmed cases.  Active cases are in red.  It’s as close to perfect as I can get it, and the fit hasn’t changed since my last post of the curve.