Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

So at the invitation of Fred and BRVTVS, I thought I would lay out a few disconnected thoughts on rifles and then open it up for a free-for-all where readers weigh in.

To begin with, I had been thinking about another semi-automatic rifle that is different in caliber from the 5.56mm/.223.  I’ve been trying to focus my ammunition purchases a little more towards the heavier end for 5.56mm, i.e., a 62 grain bullet.  Hornady makes a hot load for that weight.  Expensive, but good.

But taking a hard look at the muzzle velocity for even heavier rounds (like 77 gr.) I just don’t like the drop in performance.  It’s just a matter of choice, but for me, a heavier round requires a different cartridge.

Here there are a number of choices short of the .308 cartridge we’ve discussed before, like 6.5 Grendel, etc.  I don’t like the 6.5 Creedmoor for a semi-automatic rifle.  The recoil is too similar to the .308, and to me that negates the very purpose of the small caliber, high velocity, low recoil round that allows rapid sight picture reacquisition.

I’ve settled on the .224 Valkyrie for this next purchase, and more specifically looking hard at the Savage.  The fact that there is no loss in muzzle velocity compared to the 5.56mm 55- or 62-gr round is appealing, even shooting a 90 gr round.  I wanted to stop short of bullet masses much higher, like in the 120 gr range.  I want to be able to shoot a 90 gr. round at high muzzle velocity and low recoil.  This basically means the .224 Valkyrie.

This leaves me with the option of a bolt action for larger rounds, which I think is appropriate.  I do like my Tikka .270, Walnut Stock, as it is beautiful, well-crafted, and extremely accurate.  I’ve put two rounds through the same hole in paper before at 100 yards, and if I wasn’t shooting everything within one inch or less it was a bad day at the range.

But I’m thinking about gifting this rifle to someone.  I might replace it with another Tikka .270, as big game hunting requires .270, 7mm Magnum or 300 Win Mag in my opinion.  There are some other more exotic cartridges, and I’m not including those here.  The .270 is a 30-06 casing, and has plenty of power to take down anything in North America.

Upon thinking about bolt action rifles, I like the .270 and the 6.5 Creedmoor, both of which have a higher muzzle velocity and BC than the .308.  As for types, the following are my brief thoughts.

Wood Stocks (Pros): Walnut stocks are beautiful.  They make for a fine piece of furniture you would be proud to turn over to your children’s children.

Cons: They get dinged with use.  If they get wet, a free floated barrel becomes a poorly bedded barrel that changes everything if the swelling is severe enough.

Synthetic stocks (Pros): It doesn’t matter if it gets dirty or wet.  It can be Cerakoted, and some of the finishes are very nice and appealing.

Cons: Not fine furniture.

Caliber (Pros): The 6.5 Creedmoor and the .270 are literally ubiquitous at the moment, everywhere I turn, in every store I enter.  This is good.  For my budget, I don’t like to spend a wad of money to mail order ammunition.  Besides, from the weight considerations and mail expenses, I rarely save that much money anyway.  I mostly use mail order for ammunition I cannot find locally.  For everything else, I find that if I happen to have $50 left at the end of the month, I know just how to spend it.

Cons: I simply cannot find 6.5 Grendel anywhere around here.  If I cannot find it, that means I will have less, and it also means that few other shooters will have it.  For reasons my readers understand, it matters what other people are shooting.

I can also find .224 Valkyrie almost everywhere around here.  It has become a very popular round, and I expect it’s popularity to increase.

Savage is making some nice rifles, but so is Ruger.  The folks at Hyatt Gun Shop (near me and the best in the two-state area) are good in that they aren’t snobs.  If a person cannot afford a more expensive gun, they know what the good less expensive guns are and will steer the buyer in that direction.  They don’t like Remington 700 series.  They like Tikka, Savage, Ruger, Weatherby, and a number of other brands.

Finally, I like what I see in the chassis guns, but they are almost all prohibitively expensive for my tastes.  If I can get a good Savage or Ruger for 1/3 the price of a custom chassis gun, why not?  I’m not a competition shooter.

I want to enjoy the experience, whether sighting a rifle in, shooting it rapid fire, drills, range play time, or more serious applications.  I don’t want to beat or be better than someone else.  That has no interest for me.

Please weigh in with comments.  Frankly I hadn’t thought much about magazine type and long-action versus short action design in the Ruger American guns, which was brought up in the comments.  I learn a lot from the comments, especially from people who can say, “Been there, done that.”

At North American Whitetail.  The most visually appealing to me is the revised Ruger American.

Reuters:

Funds run by BlackRock Inc and Vanguard Group backed all directors at gunmaker Sturm Ruger & Co Inc despite the company’s rare rejection of talks with the world’s top asset managers, disclosures to regulators on Thursday showed.

The votes by the gunmaker’s largest investors stood in contrast to support BlackRock and Vanguard gave to a measure calling on Sturm Ruger to report on the safety of its products, which passed over the board’s objections at the company’s annual meeting on May 9.

Neither BlackRock nor Vanguard would discuss in detail their votes at the meeting …

Sturm Ruger declined to comment on the filings by the funds with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. BlackRock holds about 18 percent of shares outstanding, followed by Vanguard, with about 10 percent.

Both fund firms rarely vote against directors, and say critical votes may come only after companies fail to respond to shareholder concerns …

Investors and activists with a range of views about gun control said the asset managers’ split tickets seemed to reflect an approach designed to appeal to young investors concerned with social issues, without alienating clients who own guns or pushing Sturm Ruger’s board too quickly.

[ … ]

BlackRock spokeswoman Tara McDonnell said via email it takes a case-by-case approach to its engagement and voting “because doing so encourages change over time and promotes responsible business practices that align with the financial interests of our clients.”

Next up, Beth Baumann at Townhall.

A group of 11 Catholic groups came together to purchase stock in Smith & Wesson. The group purchased 200 shares, the minimum number required to for shareholders to demand reports from the company. Now, they want the gun manufacturer to provide a report that details what the company is doing to promote “gun safety measures” and “produce safer gun and gun products.”

According to an SEC filing, which is submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), here’s what the group wants to see from Smith & Wesson:

Shareholders request the Board of Directors issue a report by February 8, 2019, at reasonable expense and excluding proprietary information, on the company’s activities related to gun safety measures and the mitigation of harm associated with gun products, including the following (emphasis mine):

Shareholders request the Board of Directors issue a report by February 8, 2019, at reasonable expense and excluding proprietary information, on the company’s activities related to gun safety measures and the mitigation of harm associated with gun products, including the following:

• Evidence of monitoring of violent events associated with products produced by the company.
• Efforts underway to research and produce safer guns and gun products.
• Assessment of the corporate reputational and financial risks related to gun violence in the U.S.

The resolution asks American Outdoor Brands Company (AOBC) to report on activities underway to mitigate the risks that its products may be misused in criminal acts of gun violence. Contrary to what the company suggests, AOBC has both the responsibility and capacity to play a more active role in how its products are used; the requested assessment and reporting are the first steps towards acceptance of this responsibility.  As a result of several high profile mass shootings in the past year, most recently the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, gun violence is increasingly being seen as a public health crisis with extraordinary human and financial costs.

Importantly, events of gun violence have led to mounting public backlash against gun makers and retailers including calls for boycotts, divestment and demands for gun safety regulation at both the federal and state levels. This environment presents serious business risks which demand a meaningful response from AOBC. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights make clear the corporate responsibility to seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts.

AOBC has a responsibility to mitigate potential impacts through improved monitoring of its distribution and retail sales channels and enhanced reporting on research and development efforts to improve the safety features of its consumer products. The resolution does not request that AOBC produce smart guns or other specific products; nor does it call for the company to endorse a gun control regulatory or policy agenda. The resolution does, however, ask for reporting because existing disclosures of current risk mitigation measures are seen as insufficient for investors to assess their effectiveness.

BlackRock and Vanguard haven’t given up.  They’re playing the long game with Ruger.  Smith & Wesson has now been introduced to social justice warrioring 2.0  Version 1.0 saw them agree to Bill Clinton’s gun control and almost go out of business.

This updated version is smarter than that.  It’s an attack from the inside.  I’ve said before that any firearms manufacturer who goes public with its stock is vulnerable to this kind of pressure, unless the board of directors and employees own a majority of the stock and the corporation rules and bylaws are constructed to suppress this kind of pressure.

Ruger isn’t in the clear, no matter what the CEO says.  Smith & Wesson are at the very beginning of this new grand experiment in gun control.  The board of directors and financial folks had better get busy buying stock and amending the bylaws.

Of course, there are smaller firearms manufacturers who can build and sell firearms, but it would be a shame to see Ruger and Smith & Wesson go out of business.

This model is in 300 Win Mag, and the MSRP is apparently about $1279.

The Hunter is made in .308, 6.5mm Creedmoor and other calibers.  The price point seems right to compete with the higher end rifles given the accuracy.

I predict budget-minded shooters like these rifles.

Charleston Gazette-Mail:

“The targets we were shooting at had black circles 6.4 inches at diameter, with an inner 10-ring that’s 3.4 inches in diameter,” Fiora said. “The targets were 100 yards away.”

That sounds challenging.  Congratulations to Mr. Fiora.  I’m sure he would do better than I, and I should train harder.

John Lovell on use of a suppressor for home defense.

I would choose to use a suppressor.  Frankly, I think the decision to involve the police quickly is the most dangerous thing he could possibly do.

Shooting Sports USA:

From the standpoint of interior ballistics, the ideal match rifle bullet would be a bore-diameter, homogeneous cylinder with flat ends perfectly square to its body. Such a bullet would be cheap, easy to manufacture and have maximum bearing surface for superior accuracy.

From the standpoint of exterior ballistics, an efficient match rifle bullet would have a high length-to-diameter ration; a sharp, drag-reducing point; and a tapered base (boattail). Such a bullet would offer high retained velocity, flat trajectory and minimum wind drift.

From the standpoint of terminal ballistics, the ideal match rifle bullet would offer a center of gravity displaced toward the base, a jacket with no sidewall variations and a core with no weight variation. Such a bullet would offer consistent, reliable, sub-minute-of-angle (MOA) accuracy from lot to lot.

These requirements pull match rifle bullet designers in different, often mutually exclusive, directions. As a result, all match rifle bullets are a compromise—none are perfect.

I think it might have been clearer if the author had said “from the standpoint of gyroscopic stability, the ideal rifle bullet would be a bore-diameter, homogeneous cylinder with flat ends perfectly square to its body.”

But overall, this is an informative article and worthy of a little time.

Shooting Illustrated:

For those who may not know, the .327 Fed. Mag. operates at pressures around 45,000 psi as opposed to 17,000 to 20,000 psi of the .38 Spl. The resulting upgrade in performance is enormous with .327 Fed. Mag. ammo providing 1,400 fps using the lighter bullets and more than 1,100 fps with the heavier weights. The other bonus is the Ruger LCR .327 Fed. Mag. holds six rounds rather than the usual five typical of small-frame revolvers.

I was about to say that this article is misleading and quoting chamber pressures in a pistol rather than a revolver, but I’m wrong.  These velocities are associated with a 3.5″ wheel gun barrel length.  I see that the 5.5″ barrels are getting more than 1600 FPS muzzle velocity.

This is impressive.  How did I miss this hot little cartridge?  As I said, it’s really difficult to keep up with the cartridges nowadays.

He’s fortunate he didn’t kill someone.

The price point rather speaks for itself, and this is a very positive review.  Quick.  Take a look before some snowflake objects and the Bolsheviks at Google remove the video.