Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

I like what I see.  The price seems reasonable, and the accuracy good.  Bergara is doing good things, and it hosts the popular 6.5 Creedmoor round.

The Washington Post.

Paul Penzone is the sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz.

I am not fearful of firearms. I believe the Second Amendment was written with purpose and with sensitivity to generational circumstances. But what I am extremely concerned about is who has access to firearms and the devastation firearms are capable of in the wrong hands.

Imagine a world in which anyone — including terrorists, convicted felons and domestic abusers — has immediate access to untraceable guns. Now imagine that many of these guns are made entirely of plastic or other materials not recognized by traditional metal detectors.

Idiot.

As for The Washington Post, just consider: layers upon layers upon layers of “fact checkers” believe we’re soon going to have plastic chambers and barrels.  I wonder if SAAMI knows about this?

Remember I said this?

Now.  Go back, re-engineer it for the 5.7X28, knock $400 off the price, and you may have something there.

Well, they’re too late.  CMMG has now come out with one of their AR pistols in 5.7X28, using the radial delayed blowback system.  It’s a little more pricey than I would like, but their products are very good.

Readers know I have an FN5.7 and like it.  I like the 5.7X28 round, for certain applications and under certain conditions.  I also like the idea of minimizing calibers in your gun safe, meaning having pistols and PDW of the same caliber.

This meets that criteria.  CMMG is doing some magnificent R&D work.  In order to hire the best engineers and mechanics you have to pay them well.  But they have to make that money back somehow.

American Rifleman:

It appears to be a sturdy and aesthetically pleasing gun.  But honestly, for the money I would have expected a sub-MOA gun.

The Outdoor Wire:

Ethologist Dr.Valerius Geist in British Columbia is the former program director of Environmental Sciences at U. Calgary, and he is known world-wide for his studies and writings about large game animals. Val recently sent me an e-mail about something that hunters should be aware of.

What prompted Val’s e-mail is that he had just received a newspaper article from Germany http://wolfeducationinternational.com/wolfe-am-hochstand-auf-der-lauer-wolfe-at-the-high-stand-in-wait/ reporting that German researchers, analyzing photographs of traps, animal feces, tracks, and other traces, found 60 wolf packs are now living across the country,13 more packs than a year ago. Overall, there are now between 150-160 adult wolves in Germany.

In Val’s research on wolves and their relationship with people, which I described in an earlier article, http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/features/230658 he found that in countries where most people don’t hunt with guns or own them – Siberia, India, Kazakhstan, etc.– wolves are more likely to attack people. Whereas in North America, where firearms ownership is greater, when people fire shots toward wolves, typically they keep their distance.

The German article, however, reports something different.

German hunters are reporting that when they’re out in the woods, and they shoot a red deer, fallow deer, roe deer or wild boar, wolves immediately show up. It’s common knowledge that predators like wolves, coyotes, and bears will feed on the remains of game animals. However, in Germany the wolves don’t seem to want to wait until the downed animals have been dressed, they aggressively approach the carcass and the hunters.

[ … ]

According to Val, “This is the first report I have ever heard about wolves being drawn to hunter’s gunshots. However, that bears can and do attack hunters is definitely known in North America.” A number of those we contacted agree.

These are some of the responses.

Jim Low, a retired Alaskan game warden, says, “A gunshot on Kodiak Island attracts bears.  Many deer hunters have killed deer on Kodiak Island only to have a Kodiak brown bear show up and want to dine on venison.”

Joe Hosmer, former Pres. of the SCI Foundation, agrees. Joe says: “I have seen this black tail hunting on Kodiak Island. When a deer is shot the bears come running!  The hunter needs to give up the deer and move on,” unless you also have a bear license.

And then there’s this.

Hunters approaching a kill or a blood-trail with their single tracking dog are in danger of losing their dog to a wolf pack. In 2016 in Wisconsin, wolves killed 41 hunting dogs. https://www.wpr.org/record-number-hunting-dogs-killed-wolves-2016

Be careful out there.  A good dog will give his or her life for you.  And I’ll give mine for my dog.  After all, a man can’t live forever, and it matters how he dies.

Around these parts, a Coywolf doesn’t howl.  When I’ve been out with my dog at times, I just see their eyes.  They don’t announce their presence.  That’s why I carry a gun with me wherever I go.  I intend to make sure neither of us has to give our lives for the other.  I think General Patton had something or other to say about that.

Gaston Gazette:

Public access to an outdoor pistol range near Rankin Lake Park has officially been shot down after a five-year run.

Gastonia leaders say low interest in the amenity, combined with the cost of staffing the facility, led to the decision at the city’s Firearms and Tactical Training Center. Cutting off public use of the pistol range will maximize the use of all the amenities there, including a neighboring rifle range, said City Councilman David Humphries.

Humphries chairs a public safety committee that reviewed recent trends at the range before making the recommendation to do away with public pistol range access. City Council members voted unanimously in favor of that decision this month.

The facility at 1000 Tulip Drive features a public skeet and trap range, as well as a pistol and rifle range that are heavily used by law enforcement officers for training purposes. In 2013, the city opened things up and began allowing residents to fire handguns on the range from 8 a.m. to noon, and rifles from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays. The fee for 30 minutes of handgun time was $5 for Gastonia residents and $10 for non-residents. Rifle rates were the same, though on an hourly basis.

The public access to the pistol and rifle ranges has never been advertised on the city’s website, relying mostly on word of mouth for people to know about it.

Minimal public use of the pistol range prompted the city to cut back the hours of operation there beginning in 2017. Humphries said at the time that maintaining time for public use of the range had taken away opportunities for law enforcement officers to train on the grounds. And Gastonia Police Chief Robert Helton said keeping track of handgun users requires more oversight, because it’s easier for a careless person to inadvertently point a loaded handgun in an unsafe direction.

After the cutback, the pistol range was generally only open to the public for four hours a month – generally on the first Saturday of each month. Humphries and Councilman Jim Gallagher said at least two city staff members had to man the pistol range during those times, and few people ever showed up.

“I think the average was one to two (people) per session,” said Humphries. “With rifle shooters, a lot more of them show up at different times of the year.”

The change will enhance the more popular public use of the rifle range, he said. Because of the 90-degree configuration of the training center, the rifle and pistol ranges cannot safely be used at the same time.

Maybe if the ranges were open more often than they are – both of them – and maybe if the folks who run them weren’t jerks, both would be more popular and well used.

Here’s the thing, officer.  I’ve shot at so many ranges I’ve lost count and couldn’t name them all.  At every one of them, folks managed to shoot pistols without pointing them in an unsafe direction, whether we had ROs with us or not.  Some of the safest shooting I’ve ever done is when shooters were self-policing.  I don’t buy your argument.

As for your rifle range, the folks who run it are obnoxious.  I won’t go back there again.  And I’ll have to say that South Carolina has North Carolina beat by ten miles on this front.  South Carolina has free ranges associated with the DNR.  North Carolina doesn’t.

Shooting Illustrated:

To see how illustrative a small sampling might be, I decided to fire 100 rounds of the same ammo, out of the same rifle, during identical shooting and atmospheric conditions. My thinking was 100 carefully fired and recorded shots should provide a more practical picture of performance. The results changed the way I look at performance testing results, and might explain some of the misses we sometimes experience.

[ … ]

If we accept this 100-shot accuracy test as being representative, it’s clear simply firing and chronographing a couple three- or five-shot groups is not illustrative of how any rifle/load combination will perform over time. If you want to know what you can really expect from your rifle, every time you pull the trigger on a certain load, you need to evaluate more than one box of ammo.

In this article he deals only with those pseudo-random variables like velocity due to differences in loading, bullet weight, etc.  While it is well beyond the scope of this post, there are also things like stochastic vibration propagation along grain boundaries and crystalline structures of the gun barrel, which gets very complicated.  That subject cannot be given justice here.

When you fire a 3-shot group and claim that the gun shoots “__” MOA, or a 5-shot group and that the gun is capable of “__” MOA, that’s only marginally useful.  That data doesn’t meet the Central Limit Theorem (CLT) for convergence and presence of  at least three moments (a mean, fractional standard deviation of < 5% and a Variance of the Variance that is acceptable to an analyst).

But 3-shot and 5-shot groups is all you’ll ever see from a gun manufacturer.  Just realize that this is essentially meaningless and much more is needed to yield a standard distribution with proper variance.

Readers know that I not only open carry (sometimes) because I hate the feel of concealed carry and find it highly uncomfortable, but also because I believe we need to normalize this behavior.  As I’ve said before, I believe that opposition to open carry is about shaming gun owners.  I’ve also observed that “there is no prima facie reason that open carry cannot be legitimately for the reason of making a statement or for education purposes.”  I believe in open carry “For the peace, good and dignity of the country and the welfare of its people.”

If you do not choose to open carry for whatever reason, I’m okay with that.  I’m also okay with a gun carrier not feeling comfortable with doing something in an attempt to normalize acceptance.  I’m okay with these things as long as concealed carriers are okay with my choices and don’t criticize me for mine.  I do not open carry all of the time, but when I do, I expect acceptance from the gun community.  No, I demand acceptance from the gun community.

This all stipulates that open carriers don’t act like a jerk.  I was with an open carrier tonight waiting in a fast food line (I ended up getting a chicken salad), and he acted like a prick.  He was resting his hand on his firearm much of the time.  You’re as much of a goober if you touch your weapon as a cop is.  Get your damn hand off your gun.

He was dressed poorly and sloppily.  He then proceeded to act like a prick to the lady behind the counter about something, said hey to no one and offered no greetings, and as he sat with his family after he got his food, he blurted out obnoxious comments to his children wanting to know where they were going and what they were doing in a manner that everyone could hear him.  His poor daughter was simply going to the drink fountain.

If you openly carry, you are an ambassador for our cause.  Don’t be an ass.  Please.  Just stay home.  Dress appropriately, be nice, be respectful, observe proper rules (don’t play with your gun), and don’t leave retention straps hanging down from your holster.  Work on your holster to make it look like a gentleman is carrying a gun.

Do more than just look like a gentleman.  Become a gentleman.  Or stay home.

Outdoor Life has an interesting article up on their tests of new hunting and long range rifles of 2018.  As I’ve come to expect for new chassis long range rifles now, they are all rather pricey.  But one thing that jumped out at me was the Savage M10 Stealth.

It’s an accurate rifle (0.5 MOA) and shoots 6mm Creedmoor, which is what most long range precision shooters are using now.  So if you want an accurate rifle out of the box for competition shooting without the process of building, this might be a good choice.

Via correspondent Fred Tippens.

Uh oh.  Queue up The Alaskan on this .357 Magnum focus.  I’m sure he’ll consider that too small.  I’m neither advocating nor denying what the author says.  I’m dropping it out there for your take.  In the mean time, that’s one mean, bad looking critter, yes?