Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

WTSP.com:

Authorities say Long used a .45-caliber Glock 21 handgun during the attack. The weapon was purchased legally. Investigators say it had an extended chamber to hold more rounds.

Something tells me that an extended chamber would be dangerous.

Prior:

• High Magazine Clips And The Shoulder Thing That Goes Up
• The Captain’s Journal » High Ammo Clips
• The Captain’s Journal » Automatic Bullets In Rapid-Fire Magazine Clips
• The Captain’s Journal » Duck Hunting With Bullets
• The Captain’s Journal » Guns, Accoutrements And Idiots
• The Captain’s Journal » The Fully Loaded Ammunition Cartridge
• The Captain’s Journal » The High Magazine Round
• The Captain’s Journal » Mother Jones On “High-Caliber Rifles”
• The Captain’s Journal » The 40-Clip Magazine

We discussed this earlier, and a reader sends this my way.

I have been involved in shooting probably 100 bear or more in my life so I have seen what works well and what does not. You would expect that bigger is better, but I would argue against that logic. Many magnums (IE: 7mm Rem. Mag, 300 WSM, 28 Nosler, etc.) are what people show up with because of this thought. These rounds tend to penetrate through and through and then dump the rest of their remaining energy (typically a lot) into the tree or hill behind the bear. There’s a good time and place for them, but it is not hound hunting. On the other side of the coin, I have seen a bear shot with 44 Mag, 45-70 Gov. and 32 Special, to name a few. All of these do a much better job at killing these predators. Why? Because the round is so much bigger in diameter, the shock of the bullet going into the animal is much more traumatic. Also, because they are going slower, they will actually be caught within the animal, capturing 100% of the energy that the bullet left the barrel with, transferring into killing power. With this logic, I knew that the 5 rounds of Hornady 450 Bushmaster with a 250 gr bullet from the Ruger would be devastating on a black bear. If you disagree, that is okay, but personal experience has really proven this to me.

I have absolutely no doubt this round will kill any game in North America within 100-200 yards.  Beyond that I would want something with a higher BC to prevent the loss in velocity and to ensure an ethical kill.  Then again, my eyes can’t see 400 yards anyway.

But this hunter clearly likes the heavy bullet with the high exit muzzle velocity.  He also seems to like the Ruger AR 556.

Texas Monthly:

On most Sunday mornings, Willeford would have been 45 minutes away, in San Antonio, at the Church of Christ he and his family had attended since his kids were young. But on November 5, 2017, he decided to stay home and rest up. He was scheduled to be on call the upcoming week at San Antonio’s University Hospital, and he knew he’d inevitably be summoned for a middle-of-the-night plumbing emergency. He had drifted to sleep sometime before 11:30 a.m. when his oldest daughter, Stephanie, came into his bedroom and woke him up. She asked if he heard gunfire.

He did hear something, but to Willeford it sounded like someone was tapping on the window. He looked outside but didn’t see anyone. He pulled on a pair of jeans and went to the living room, where the walls were less insulated. The sound was louder there. It was definitely gunfire, he realized, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

He rushed into a back room and opened his steel gun safe, where he stows his collection of pistols, rifles, and shotguns. Without hesitation, he snatched one of his AR-15s. He’d put the rifle together himself, swapping out parts and upgrading here and there over the years. It was light, good for mobility, and could shoot quickly. It wasn’t as accurate as some of his other rifles but good enough to hit the bowling pins he and his friends used for targets. He loaded a handful of rounds into the magazine.

[ … ]

As he approached the old white chapel, he screamed as loud as he could, “Hey!” To this day, he’s not sure why—he knows that giving away your position is foolish, tactically—but friends inside the church later told him that when the gunman heard Willeford’s cry, he stopped shooting and headed for the front door. “It was the Holy Spirit calling the demon out of the church,” he tells people.

[ … ]

Willeford propped his AR-15 on the pickup’s hood and peered through the sight. He could see a holographic red dot on the man’s chest. He fired twice. He wasn’t sure he’d hit him, though he was later told that the man had contusions on his chest and abdomen consistent with getting shot while wearing body armor. Regardless, the gunman stopped shooting and ran for a white Ford Explorer that was idling outside the chapel, roughly twenty yards from where Willeford had positioned himself.

As the shooter rounded the front of the Explorer, Willeford noticed that the man’s vest didn’t cover the sides of his torso. Willeford fired twice more, striking the man once beneath the arm—in an unprotected spot—and once in the thigh.

[ … ]

Willeford believes that what happened that day was a battle between good and evil. He says he was terrified, but he thinks the calm he experienced was the Holy Spirit taking over. He tells people he thinks it was the Lord’s hand shielding him as the man doing evil fired over and over again in his direction. And looking back now, he feels like God had been shaping him every day of his life, carving him into the perfect tool for that day.

[ … ]

He’d even had discussions with a police officer friend, long before his encounter with the gunman, about where to aim on a moving target wearing body armor: the side, the hip, the leg. More preparation from God, he believes.

[ … ]

For most of the afternoon, he was convinced he’d be going to jail, despite repeated assurances from the officers interviewing him. He’s always told people: if you use your gun, even in self-defense, expect to spend a night in jail before it’s all sorted out. He talked to five different law enforcement agencies, but his worries were assuaged only after the district attorney for Wilson County, Audrey Louis, introduced herself and put him at ease. She told him she had friends in that church, and she gave him a hug.

[ … ]

When the owner of Sons of Liberty learned that the rifle Willeford had used on the morning of the shooting had been confiscated and had yet to be returned, he insisted on building him a new one. It’s painted a desert camouflage, with a brown Texas flag on one side and a passage from Romans 13:4 on the other: For he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. (Law enforcement recently returned the rifle to him in a ceremony at the church.)

[ … ]

So in those moments, when his mind is unoccupied, here is what Willeford is fated to ponder: if he’d arrived fifteen seconds sooner, Kris Workman might still be able to walk. If he had been there a minute earlier, Workman’s mother, Julie, might not have a bullet hole in her leg. If he’d gone running when he first heard the tapping on his bedroom window, maybe he could have saved some of the children.

When these thoughts start to consume him, he’s learned to remind himself he did the best he could.

There is so much there it’s difficult to mine it all, but a few things jump out.  First of all there are the tactical lessons.  Body armor, legs, hips and head.  Remember those lessons.  I will too.

Next, while I understand the need to collect firearms for forensic analysis, that firearm was Willeford’s and law enforcement had absolutely no right to keep it that long.  Not to law enforcement: be about your business.  The property you have belongs to someone else, an individual or the taxpayers.

Then there is the issue of the fact that Willeford was certain he’d be jailed for doing the right thing.  What a sad commentary on the state of America.

Finally, he did do the best he could.  There is no reason to second guess what happened.  He did God’s bidding.  I am a Calvinist.  God ordained that Willeford would be there that specific day, that he would have access to firearms to protect the community, and that he would respond.  And God made his shots true.  He was God’s tool for righteousness that day.

No regrets, no looking back, sir.  You did great.

But for God’s sake, Stephen.  Keep loaded magazines handy.

Shooting Illustrated has a good review of the Ruger AR 556 in 450 Bushmaster.

I do find this quite an interesting cartridge.  It’s also informative that Leupold came out with a scope specifically designed for this cartridge, called the VX-Freedom 3-9x40mm Bushmaster.  It’s also reasonably priced.

I’d like to know if any readers have a Ruger AR 556 (the make, form factor, materials and gunsmithing will all be about the same regardless of caliber, so any input is appreciated).

Mr. Guns and Gear thinks the make is nice but they should Melonite the barrel.

We discussed this a bit earlier, and TTAG has an informative update on it.  For a summary, see the picture below, but make sure to read the stupidity at TTAG.

Oh dear.  Am I going to have to teach some ignorant ATF agent and DoJ lawyer, who never studied geometry, the Pythagorean Theorem?  Good Lord.  I guess if you can’t get a job doing anything else, you go to work for the ATF.

Before we get to that, perhaps we ought to teach DoJ lawyers about the second amendment.

This is very interesting.  As if you needed another reason to keep your hands away from the end of the cylinder where it meets the forcing cone, watch until the end when he shoots the revolver.

The Federalist:

“I do not believe like weapons of mass destruction like the AR-15 belong in civilian hands,” she said. “I think it should be prohibited from civilian use. I have shot an AR-15, and I think you probably have too, and while it’s an amazing amount of power, it also is an amazing amount of destruction, and there is very little that can be done to protect vulnerable communities when the AR-15 is present.”

So in other words, the only people who should be able to employ destruction is the authorities.  Okay, I’ve got it.  So much for that pesky little notion of death at the hands of a corrupt state apparatus.

As for that horrible, high powered weapon of war, Charles Whitman called from hell and said you’re full of crap.

The Hill:

David Chipman, a retired Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent, on Monday said AR-15 rifles should be regulated like machine guns.

“What I support is treating them just like machine guns,” Chipman, who is now a senior policy adviser at Giffords: Courage to Fight Gun Violence, told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball on “Rising.”

“To me, if you want to have a weapon of war, the same gun that was issued to me as a member of [the] ATF SWAT team, it makes sense that you would have to pass a background check, the gun would have to be in your name, and there would be a picture and fingerprints on file,” he continued.

“To me, I don’t mind doing it if I want to buy a gun. These policies just protect the criminal. Like, I don’t think you should be able to anonymously purchase 20 AR-15s at one time, and the government shouldn’t know,” he said. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all that you have to pass a background check to own a weapon of war.”

Hmm … it’s a short hop and a skip from “weapon of war” to the Winchester Model 70 used by Carlos Hathcock, yes?  Or the Benelli shotguns used by the Marines for room clearing operations in Now Zad.  Or the venerable 1911 pistol used by John Basilone in his famous battle.

I suppose that Chapman doesn’t want people to be able to defend themselves from multiple home invaders as did Zach Peters or Stephen Bayezes.  Well, honestly, you can tack on others in that category.

So now you know what kind of people populate the ATF.  But you knew that already, didn’t you?  Instead of regulating AR-15s, I think we should regulate people who think AR-15s should be regulated.  They are a threat to liberty.

CNBC:

A landmark class action settlement involving some of Remington’s most popular firearms has officially gone into effect, after critics of the agreement declined to take their case to the Supreme Court by a Tuesday deadline, according to an attorney for the plaintiffs.

That means that millions of owners of the iconic Model 700 rifle — and a dozen Remington models with similar designs — have 18 months to file claims for a free replacement of their guns’ allegedly defective triggers. The guns have been linked in lawsuits to dozens of accidental deaths and hundreds of serious injuries, though Remington still maintains they are safe.

“Anyone with one of these guns should take advantage of this opportunity to get the trigger fixed,” said Eric D. Holland, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the class action case. “I’ve encouraged everyone to put these guns away. Don’t use these guns. Make the claims now.”

A special website has been set up with information on how to file a claim, and there is also a toll-free hotline, 1-800-876-5940.

[ … ]

The effective date of the settlement comes almost exactly eight years after CNBC first explored allegations that Remington engaged in a decades-long coverup of a defect that allows the guns to fire without the trigger being pulled.

Remington said the guns have been safe since they were first produced. But the 2010 documentary “Remington Under Fire: A CNBC Investigation” uncovered internal company documents showing engineers warning of a “theoretical unsafe condition” even before the trigger design went on the market in 1948. The company repeatedly decided against modifying the design or launching a recall, even as accidents and customer complaints continued to pile up.

It’s more complicated than simply the rifle firing when the trigger isn’t pulled.  The rifle would discharge at times when the cartridge was sent into battery, and Remington engineers knew it and had data from their own testing that showed it.

How sad.  After all of the pain, suffering, money, lawyers and loss of reputation to the company, this is apparently the end.  All of it could have been avoided by simply doing a recall when the engineers found it.  The world is almost always a worse place when people don’t listen to engineers.

Prior: Remington 700