Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

Shooting Illustrated.

Often recognized as being a success story of small-arms design and development, the .45 ACP M3 submachine gun was born of the exigent circumstances of industrial mass production during the Second World War. It had the enormous virtue of low manufacturing costs that made it cheaper to produce than all other American submachine guns.

At peak production, M3s were a bargain at $20.94 each—less than half the cost of the mass-production version of the Thompson submachine gun (which was itself cheaper than the pre-war model). Although low cost was a major factor in the M3’s success, so too was the speed of its development and adoption.

The project went from a concept on paper, to the T20 prototype, to adoption and production within just seven months—a record that no other firearm in U.S. military history has ever rivaled. When it went into production in May 1943 at GM’s Guide Lamp Division plant in Anderson, IN, the M3 was a reliable open-bolt submachine gun weighing slightly more than 8 pounds with a fully loaded, 30-round, detachable-box magazine.

Its design made extensive use of sheet-metal stampings to include the two halves of the receiver assembly, the trigger, the rear sight, and a crank handle on the right side of the gun used to retract the bolt before firing. Not only did the M3’s sheet-metal construction make it lighter and cheaper, it also gave the gun an appearance resembling one of the most-ubiquitous tools of the auto-repair shop: the mechanic’s grease gun.

On Tuesday, June 6, 1944, U.S. troops used the M3 Grease Gun in action for the first time. During the weeks that followed, it fought a vigorous campaign stretching from Normandy through to the liberation of Paris and the push to the Siegfried Line. Soldiers carried it up hills and down valleys through the adversity of dust, rain and, eventually, even snow. M3s fought the Battle of the Bulge, crossed the Rhine River by boat, parachute and glider, and they eventually even blew the locks off of the front gate of OFLAG XIII-B.

Concentration camps were liberated by men carrying them, and islands in the Pacific were captured by men fighting with them. Although Gen. Patton described the John Garand’s M1 as “the greatest battle implement ever devised,” perhaps the same can be said about George Hyde’s M3. When you consider how quickly this paragon o of rugged dependability went from drawings on paper to the gates of the prisoner of war camp at Hammelburg, it certainly seems like Patton’s endorsement fits the M3 just as nicely as it does the M1.

I wish someone would sell me an M3 for $21.  America was a better place then, yes?

This reminds me of something Tim Lynch told me one time.  Tim blogged when he was a contractor in Afghanistan, and he said when he went into villages carrying the M3, no one messed with him, including the Taliban.  One villager told him, “We’re all scared of that thing.”  Tim replied, “Yes, I understand.  I would be too.”

Uh oh.  There is war between the manufacturers.

I don’t have a dog in this fight.

I guess ultimately it depends upon exactly how the patent paperwork reads and exactly what they took credit for.  I know a patent and copyright attorney.  It gets really complicated, very quickly.

NSSF on Firearms sales.

• The estimated total number of firearms in civilian possession from 1986-2018 is 422.9 million, according to data reported in the ATF’s Firearms Commerce Report in the United States 2019 report and including the preliminary 2018 Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Exportation Report (AFMER) figures.
• 17,740,000 Modern Sporting Rifles are in private ownership today.
• More than half (54%) of all rifles produced in 2017 were modern sporting rifles.
• In 2017, 7,901,218 total firearms were produced and imported. Of those, 4,411,923 were pistols and revolvers, 2,821,945 were rifles and 667,350 were shotguns.
• An interim 2018 estimate showed a total 7,660,772 total firearms were produced and imported. Of those 4,277,971 were pistols and revolvers, 2,846,757 were rifles and 535,994 were shotguns. Those are interim reports and will be updated as complete information becomes available.
• Firearms-ammunition manufacturing accounted for nearly 12,000 employees producing over $4.1 billion in goods shipped in 2017. An estimated 8.1 billion rounds, of all calibers and gauges, were produced in 2018 for the U.S. market.

So how’s that plan to confiscate 18 million MSRs going, controllers?  You think you’ll get them all?

Here is a useful graph from Ammoland.

There has been a general trend upwards for a very long time.  Excel or TableCurve-2D could easily fit a smoothed curve with that data with a decent correlation coefficient.  Do you see that increase right at the end of 2019?  It’s seasonal, no doubt, like the rest of the repeatable perturbations.

But I don’t expect to see it go back down very far or fast in 2020.  I think 2020 is the year you want to be in the firearms manufacturing and sales business.

Tribunist.

According to the FBI, over 200,000 background check requests associated with the purchase of a firearm were submitted to the agency on Black Friday, marking the second highest gun sales day ever. The previous record was set on the day after Thanksgiving in 2016. In both 2017 and 2016, enough guns were potentially purchased on Black Friday to arm every active duty United States Marine.

That makes me happy, everything except the NICS part.

But that’s nothing compared to what we witnessed at the time of Obama, when Larry Hyatt at Hyatt Gun Shop in Charlotte sold 1000 AR-15s in a single day, enough to arm a Marine Corps Battalion.  That’s from one single store.

For fans (like me, and many of you) of the 1911, there is a newcomer to the scene called the 2011.  It’s a shiny new variant of the 1911 design, with a double-stack 9mm magazine.  It’s usually designed for competition shooting, and there is no reason a law enforcement organization which exists on the public dollar needs something like this.

Today the latest version of American Rifleman (paper copy) came out, and on page 28 under “U.S. Marshals Get Trendy New Rig,” it says this.

The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) recently announced the adoption of some interesting and illustrative new gear for its Special Operations Group (SOG).  The heart of the operators’ new service sidearm is STI’s Staccato-P pistol … topping the slide is Leupold’s DeltaPoint Pro red-dot sight, backed up by the Universal Optic System from Dawson Precision – co-witnessing iron sights pairing a black notch rear with a fiber optic front.

I’m covering this because I hadn’t seen it before now.  Guns.com has further information on the procurement of the STI Staccato-P.

Price?  MSRP is a cool $2500 for this model.  A competition pistol, $2500, for the U.S. Marshals Service, ahem, “Special Operations Group.”

Because SpecOps.  It’s not just for real operators who sign up and do it across the pond.  And big dollars.  It’s  not just for rich people.  It’s for FedGov who gets to tax and spend until their heart is content.

Perhaps you feel safer because of this.

This is certainly of value to the folks at Springfield armory.  I’m not a fan of striker fired pistols, but if I was in the market for a striker fired concealed carry pistol, I would consider this gun.