Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

From reader Jack, this is by Dean Weingarten, who writes some of the best stuff on the web.

On the Internet, and in print, many people claim that pistols lack efficacy in defending against bear attacks. Here is an example that occurred on freerepublic.com:

“Actually, there are legions of people who have been badly mauled after using a handgun on a bear. Even some of the vaunted magnums.”

OK, give us a few examples. As you claim “legions”, it should not be too hard.

I never received a response.

[ … ]

I engaged in a search for instances where  pistols were used to defend against bears.  I and my associates have found 37 instances that are fairly easily confirmed. The earliest happened in 1987, the latest mere months ago. The incidents are heavily weighted toward the present, as the ability to publish and search for these incidents has increased, along with increases in bear and human populations, and the carry of pistols.

The 37 cases include one that can fairly be described as a “failure”.

The pistol calibers, when known,  range from 9 mm to .454 Casull. The most common are .44 magnums.  Here are the cases, sorted by caliber …

To summarize, we have found 37 verified cases where pistols were used to defend against bear attacks. Included, for complete data reporting, are two cases where bears were shot at with both rifles and pistols, making it difficult to determine the efficacy of pistols alone.

Of the 35 strictly pistol defense cases, one was a clear failure. That is the use of the .357 against an Alaskan grizzly by a geologist on 20 June, 2010. It is likely the bear was not hit in that incident.

There are four successful defenses with 9 mm pistols. The three grizzly bears were killed, the black bear was wounded and ran off.

Two of the three uses of the .357 were successful. One was against a grizzly that was stopped with one shot, but then escaped. The other grizzly was killed with six shots fired.

There were three uses of .40 caliber pistols, all against black bears, all successful, all of the bears were killed.

There was one use of a 10 mm pistol against a grizzly. 4 or 5 shots were fired.  It was successful and the bear was killed.

There were two uses of .41 magnum revolvers. Both were against grizzly bears, both were successful and the bears were killed.

There were twelve uses of .44 magnum revolvers. All were successful. One was against a black bear, it was mortally wounded but finished off with shotgun slugs. Eleven were against grizzly bears.  Two were driven of with “warning shots”. One was driven off, without evidence of being wounded.  One was wounded and not recovered.  One was wounded and finished off at the scene with a shotgun slug. Six were killed without further assistance.

There were four uses of .45 caliber pistols against bears. All were successful. One was against a black bear, which was killed with additional shots, probably from another handgun. The other three were grizzly bears killed with multiple hits from the .45 caliber pistols.

There was one use of a .45 Super pistol. It was successful. The grizzly bear was killed with one shot.

I covered on of these incidents, the first such incident with a .45 ACP or any handgun at all after carry was legalized in national parks.

You can read the incisive and detailed analysis by Dean for yourself.  I recommend that you do.  Most pistols were effective, especially .44 magnum and .45 ACP (and if you’re shooting 45 SCM in your .45 ACP handgun, you’re approaching .44 magnum muzzle velocity).

So any time you hear that spray is more effective and a handgun doesn’t work, remember that the progs are engaging in myth-making and fairy tales.

NYT:

A prominent Republican political donor demanded on Saturday that the party pass legislation to restrict access to guns, and vowed not to contribute to any candidates or electioneering groups that did not support a ban on the sale of military-style firearms to civilians.

Al Hoffman Jr., a Florida-based real estate developer who was a leading fund-raiser for George W. Bush’s campaigns, said he would seek to marshal support among other Republican political donors for a renewed assault weapons ban.

“For how many years now have we been doing this — having these experiences of terrorism, mass killings — and how many years has it been that nothing’s been done?” Mr. Hoffman said in an interview. “It’s the end of the road for me.”

Mr. Hoffman announced his ultimatum in an email to half a dozen Republican leaders, including Jeb Bush and Gov. Rick Scott of Florida. He wrote in the email that he would not give money to Mr. Scott, who is considering a campaign for the Senate in 2018, or other Florida Republicans he has backed in the past, including Representative Brian Mast, if they did not support new gun legislation.

“I will not write another check unless they all support a ban on assault weapons,” he wrote. “Enough is enough!”

Mr. Hoffman, a former ambassador to Portugal, has donated millions to Republican candidates and causes over the years, including more than $1 million to Right to Rise, a “super PAC” that supported Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign in 2016.

A critic of President Trump, Mr. Hoffman has continued to donate heavily to other Republicans.

[ … ]

Peter S. Rummell, a Jacksonville-based donor who gave $125,000 to Jeb Bush’s “super PAC” in 2016, said he was on board with Mr. Hoffman’s plan and would only contribute to candidates supportive of banning assault weapons. He said the Parkland shooting was a turning point: “It has to start somewhere,” Mr. Rummell said, of controlling guns.

Even on its own, Mr. Hoffman’s money will be missed: He contributed heavily to Republican congressional candidates in 2016 and gave $25,000 last spring to the Senate Leadership Fund, a group backed by Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, that is focused on defending Republicans’ Senate majority.

I couldn’t give a rat’s ass in hell what this guy says or does.  But I have to admit that in a way I do.  I hope he succeeds.  He’s just doing what comes naturally to him, to wit, bullying people with his purse.

It’s not a lot different than, say, calls to repeal the second amendment, or “journalists” who run with that editorial and claim that if suburban moms just get involved, things will change.  As if suburban moms are ready to go door-to-door and confiscate guns, or are ready for the bloody carnage that would follow upon such an edict.

But it’s no accident and actually quite amusing that this prominent donor was significantly behind Jeb Bush’s campaign.  We know where the heart of the GOP is, and the valuable lesson in all of this is that just as it was necessary to divide the sheep from the goats, identifying and ejecting the impostors and traitors from our midst and making sure that the internecine warfare has ended is a necessary exigency in the campaign for liberty.

This is good.  At one time I argued data, endless numbers and definitions and connections and correlations.  I probably will still do that given my profession, but the important thing here is that the opposition doesn’t care any more about that than I care about whether this donor bullies people with his money.  We’re beyond that now.  We’ve gone many miles in our dance together.

You see, you can change the constitution if you wish, and I won’t change a thing about myself or what I do.  My rights come from God, not the constitution.  I’ve oft repeated that the constitution is a covenant, an agreement, just like in marriage or work.  There are blessings for those who honor that covenant, and curses for those who don’t.  Under the second amendment, the government has covenanted and contracted not to infringe.  The constitution isn’t God and cannot issue rights or duties – it’s an agreement before God and men.  As for infringe, they have many times, of course, and if not for the longsuffering nature of the American people, the curses of covenant breakage would have already obtained.

But the American people are not longsuffering forever, and what must happen will eventually happen, for it must.  So if you want to go full orbed, full on, all out covenant breakage, go right ahead and do that.  It may be the last straw.  All the opinionator is arguing for is a civil war, since he must be presupposing that gun owners will go peacefully into the night as long as enough people vote for it.

This is a dangerous presupposition, and the suburban soccer moms aren’t ready for what ensues.  So queue up your best soccer moms, or even your best SWAT teams.  We know where they live, and there aren’t anywhere nearly enough of them.  Come and get them if that’s what you want.  We’re waiting.

In the spirit of this post on precision rifle chassis from the 2017 SHOT show, the Bergara B-14, and the Diamondback AR-10 in 6.5 Creedmoor (I’ve got other articles and posts but I can’t find them at the moment), I thought I would drop the following three newly released rifles out there for you to ponder.

The Juggernaut Tactical precision rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor.

Semi-automatic, some extremely nice features, and hold your breath … MSRP $3300.

Next up, the Battle Rifle Company BR10.

Semi-automatic .308, some very nice features, and hold your breath … MSRP $2998.

Finally, there is the Weatherby Vanguard Modular Chassis Rifle.

Bolt action rifle in .223, 6.5 Creedmoor or .308, some very nice features, and MSRP $1519.  It’s strange though, because I don’t see an optic rail on the picture, and optics are not even discussed in the article.

I don’t get the impression that anyone who builds guns for >= $3000 per item thinks that there is a big market for them.  They must be marketing to law enforcement, which necessitates a huge margin and markup since quantity will be much lower.

This doesn’t impress me as a winning strategy for a company in today’s climate.  But that’s just me.  Only one of these rifles is affordable my me or many of my readers.

From several readers.

ILION, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) – One of the largest U.S. makers of firearms made in Upstate New York has filed for bankruptcy, according to a report from Reuters.

Remington Outdoor Company Inc., of Ilion, has reached out to banks and other agencies to seek financing to file for bankruptcy, according to Reuters.

The company is working with an investment bank to restructure its $950 million in debt.

Remington has not officially filed for bankruptcy yet.

There have been no immediate plans to shut down, Reuters says.

Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, who represents Herkimer County, issued the following statement:

“Remington Arms is an iconic business in our region that has employed generations of families for over two hundred years. Remington is one of our nation’s longest continuously operating manufacturing facilities. Unfortunately, economic downturns in the firearms industry and outstanding debt have forced Remington’s parent company to seek new credit options and financing through bankruptcy protection. In addition to volatility, Governor Cuomo’s anti-Second Amendment policies have negatively impacted Remington’s Ilion production facility. I have been a strong supporter of Remington Arms and its hardworking employees. My office will continue to offer support to Remington and the families impacted during this difficult time.”

This is tough.  It’s difficult to see how Remington pulls out of this.  $950M is an awful lot of money for a firearms manufacturer.

I don’t know what the future holds for Remington, but it would have been better to have dealt with the issues that were the possible root causes of this long ago: [1] reliance on government contracts, [2] ensconcing in an anti-gun state, [3] reliance on union labor, and [4] lethargy in dealing with the Walker fire control system problems.

Move South, dear people.  Move South.  But leave the progressive politics behind.

You might recall that I purchased a CMMG .45 ACP PSB, CMMG’s AR pistol in .45 ACP.  I did a brief review of it and found it to be very much to my liking, eating everything I could put in it with no FTF/FTE over 300 rounds.  It may be the best gun purchase I’ve ever made.  Well, this development increases their capital.

CMMG’s MkG Guard pistol-caliber rifle is now safety certified to shoot the potent 450 SMC cartridge, according to a recent CMMG press release.

The CMMG MkG Guard is an AR15-style rifle for chambered in .45 ACP and features a Radial Delayed Blowback operating system that works to harness the strong recoil impulse of .45 ACP.

Pistol-caliber carbines and rifles are becoming increasingly popular in the shooting community.

For those unfamiliar with 450 SMC, Triton first conceived the cartridge in 2001 and is essentially a magnum version of .45 ACP that offers ballistics comparable to 10mm.

“It is a true stopper that delivers energy capable of taking down big game,” the release states.

For example, the 450 SMC 185 grain Bonded Defense jacketed hollow point round will produce a muzzle velocity of 1,725 feet per second and 1,223 foot pounds of energy out of a 16 inch barrel, the release states.

While the 450 SMC uses a case with the same outer dimensions as .45 ACP, there are a few significant differences that allow DoubleTap Ammunition to load 450 SMC with five to six thousand pounds per square inch of pressure more than a standard .45ACP, according to the release.

First, the 450 SMC uses a small magnum rifle primer instead of the large pistol primer. This modification allows the hardened case to be thicker at the base. Second, the brass is manufactured from the ground up to handle up to 30,000 pounds of pressure. The result is a dual-purpose cartridge that is exceptional for both hunting and personal defense.

While 450 SMC can be safely run in any .45 ACP that is rated for +P ammunition, the amount of rearward force created by such a hot load would potentially be problematic from a straight blowback AR15, the release states. But the CMMG’s Radial Delayed Blowback operating system allows the Guard to handle the potent load, CMMG officials maintain.

The RDB system uses up some of the recoil impulse of the spent round to unlock the rotating bolt from the barrel extension. This mitigates the leftover rearward force that then drives the carrier back to cycle the action.

By eliminating some of this rearward force during the unlocking sequence, the Guard requires less weight in the bolt carrier group and buffer to safely cycle, which will result in less felt recoil for the shooter, CMMG officials maintain.

I won’t get 1725 FPS out of my shorter barrel, but by using the 450 SMC cartridge I should see an improvement of 200-300 FPS over the .45 ACP based on what I’ve read.  I also wrote tech support at CMMG to verify that their position holds not just for their carbine, but for the AR pistol as well.  It does.

From a reader, via American Thinker, this from Charlotte, N.C.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) — It’s been a difficult week for parents Temia Hairston and Michael Grace Sr. Their son, Michael Grace Jr., was shot and killed during an attempted robbery early Sunday morning.

Police said Grace Jr. and two other people tried to rob a Pizza Hut in the 3200 block of Freedom Drive. During the incident, an employee fired his own handgun and killed Grace Jr.

Hairston said she learned of her son’s death on social media, and only got confirmation from police after contacting them first. The grieving mother said she has been left with dozens of questions about the situation that have thus far gone unanswered.

“If there was to be a death, it was not the place of the employee at Pizza Hut. That is the place of law enforcement,” said Hairston.

Hairston and Grace Sr. acknowledged that their son was breaking the law by robbing the business, and said they definitely don’t condone what he did.

“It was an act of desperation, but I do not believe that Michael would have hurt anyone,” said Hairston.

They said Grace Jr. had fallen on hard times and resorted to crime to provide for his own child. They also said their son used to work at the same Pizza Hut restaurant where the robbery happened. They maintain he never would have physically hurt anyone during the robbery.

WBTV contacted the local restaurant and the Pizza Hut corporation public relations line. Neither have confirmed that Grace Jr. worked as an employee at the Freedom Drive Pizza Hut. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officials have not confirmed the information either.

The parents are angry that their son was shot and killed by an employee. They don’t believe the full story has been released to the public.

“Why in the hell did this guy have a gun?” questioned Hairston about the employee who shot her son.

Well, that’s right.  Criminals do indeed have rights, guaranteed under the constitution.  And Tennessee versus Garner says that police cannot discharge their weapons in order to stop a non-violent offense or to stop a fleeing suspect (as that would be an end-around of the right of due process), and only in the defense of their persons or other persons.

The problem, Ms. Hairston, is that we can only assume that your son had a gun and brandished it and used it to threaten others.  In this case, the employee was entirely within his rights of self defense in shooting the armed assailant.  Brandishing a weapon and making threats is called assault with a deadly weapon, whether the weapon is discharged or not.

You see, if there was to be a death that night, it could have been prevented by you son deciding on a wiser course of action, to wit, not assaulting someone with a deadly weapon.  It isn’t the job of the police to perform or conduct executions.  They’ve gotten too good at that already.  Let’s not feed the monster, okay?

I want to cover this ground one more time for good measure.  The lawmakers in South Carolina are toying with constitutional carry, and this is a small step forward for liberty, but the largest step has yet to be taken and is still opposed by the power brokers in South Carolina.  Open carry.

Please realize that as gun owners, you’ve been conditioned to be embarrassed and ashamed of the fact that you own and carry weapons.  What was once considered poor taste, ill-bred and even criminal, hiding your weapons, is now required of you in order to keep them out of sight of all of the offended parties.

You’ve been taught that all of your gun owning life.  You have holsters for concealed carry.  Instructors and trainers are there to teach you to draw and present from concealment.  You know all of the applicable laws on concealed carry for your state.  There are entire posts and videos on carrying in non-permissive environments.  It’s even in vogue for the gun community to criticize open carry and viciously attack open carriers, with largely irrelevant and ridiculous notions of tactical advantages on concealment.  Those advantages, as you know, cannot be demonstrated to be advantages with any statistical significance that meets the Central Limit Theorem.  Finally, the tactical advantages of open carry, which is quicker draw and presentation, is largely ignored in these conversations.

Comfort is largely irrelevant to the conversation, as is the fact that you’re sweating and dirtying your weapon with IWB carry.  All of these things are signs and symptoms of the fact that gun owners have been taught by society to respond like dogs or other pets by “operant conditioning.”  The first time you ever openly carried caused you some degree of self consciousness, didn’t it?  Just go ahead and admit it.  It’s useful to demonstrate my point.

Gun owners, and in particular open carriers, are treated like second class citizens, inferior men, uncouth savages, like those who have no etiquette, when exactly the opposite would have been true two hundred years ago.  That’s one reason I openly carry when I can.  In some small way I want to change all of this.  I open carry “For the peace, good and dignity of the country and the welfare of its people.”  So should you.

Army Times:

Early evaluations of the Army’s new handgun, the M17, last year showed test failures when the pistol was fired with the standard ball ammunition, stoppages, and double ejections.

Ridiculous.  Everyone should have a “high pistol grip.”  They are also having to do this because of the tall slide and high bore axis, and thus the muzzle flip this firearm produces because of the couple, something I pointed out when the Army selected this pistol.

As for not being able to shoot FMJ lead ball, that seems like a real problem.  Double ejections are also a big problem, and firing when dropped makes this firearm completely unacceptable.  Funny, this.  I never have any problems with any of these things or any other failures with my 1911s, or with my new CMMG .45 ACP AR pistol.  I just won’t accept failures.  It’s a machine, and it can be designed and fabricated properly (although I’ll have to say that it’s hard to beat what John Moses Browning did and I don’t think anybody has even come close yet).

Here is the right way to roll out new software.[1] Set functional requirements, [2] programmers go to work, [3] put high end users in a room with it and tell them to break it, [4] repeat parts [2] and [3] until no more breakages.  Only after this do you roll it out to the user community.

The Army should have taken this approach prior to selecting a new pistol.  This must be embarrassing for them.  It should be.

I sort of want one, but not enough to pony up the $$$.

Fox News:

The biennial report of the U.N. Secretary General on Small Arms and Light Weapons, issued in December, leaves little doubt about activists’ priority for 2018: to have ammunition included in the PoA, even though ammunition already has its own instrument, the harmless International Ammunition Technical Guidelines.

The impracticality of focusing on a consumable commodity like ammunition, of which tens of billions of rounds are produced annually, will not deter the activists.

The PoA is also likely to return to an obsession with marking and tracing modular firearms — such as the AR type of firearm popular in the U.S. — and with polymer (i.e. plastic) and 3-D printed firearms. These are, at best, niche issues, if they are issues at all.

What the PoA is guaranteed not to do is to eliminate the exemption that allows China to leave its firearms unmarked in any meaningful way, thereby making them nearly impossible to trace.

Getting rid of the Chinese exemption would be a genuinely useful step, but the PoA is not about doing useful things. The best the U.S. can do, therefore, is to try and ensure that the PoA does nothing at all. The U.S. certainly cannot agree to any obligation to do the impossible by tracing every bullet it produces.

The ATT conference in August, fortunately, should be less fraught. The treaty is now, on its own terms, an obvious failure — nations are not paying their dues or filing required reports. The only thing left for the U.S. to do is for President Trump to ‘unsign’ it, and leave those nations that wish to keep on pretending to take it seriously to pay for their meetings on their own.

But just because the ATT is accomplishing nothing useful doesn’t mean the U.N.’s efforts are having no impact on the U.S. The most disturbing thing I learned at the SHOT Show was that U.S. importers were having increasing difficulties — which they linked directly to the United Nations.

One firm which relies on imports of parts from India found that New Delhi — acting under the guidance of the International Small Arms Control Standards, yet another mischievous U.N. initiative — had impounded an entire shipment worth millions of dollars, on the grounds that these parts had to be controlled under a technical definition that India did not understand and which those who did found close to meaningless.

Other nations will no longer ship arms to the U.S. — even to the U.S. government.

Another firm that imports firearms from southeastern Europe now has only one reliable route off the continent — from Slovenia to Austria to the German port of Hamburg. Many shipping firms departing from European ports will no longer take cargoes of arms — even when all export and transit licenses are in order — and even proper licenses do not always prevent cargoes from being seized en route. These problems began to appear after the ATT, which requires controls on the transit of arms, entered into force.

Activists will no doubt celebrate these developments as victories. They should think again. As shipping by sea becomes harder, legitimate firms will be forced to turn to air freight — which offers an easier route for the unscrupulous.

If southeastern Europe does not sell its firearms to the U.S., those arms will find their way to conflicts in Africa or the Middle East.

And as it becomes harder to import parts and components, U.S. manufacturers will source domestically — as, indeed, they are already starting to do.

I’m not entirely sure I understand this commentary by Ted, whom I’ve found to be a good researcher.  If I’m not mistaken he is suggesting that the UN agreement, which apparently we’ve signed, is making it hard to import parts into America for the building of firearms.  If this happens to ammunition too, it will throttle the flow to users.

Okay, if this is the point, I’ve got it, and competition is always a good thing.  But I’ve got to believe that in the total absence of imports for parts – whether guns or ammunition – American manufacturers would step up their game.  That might in fact lead to an increase in prices too.

Bottom line: you don’t have enough ammunition, right now or in the future.  Neither do I.