Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

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.

Outdoor Hub:

I am a big fan of compact carbines and a companion pistol that can share the same caliber of ammo and magazine. What a great approach for a survival/hunting package. Some folks may not realize that Kel-Tec offers what I consider to be a great duo of guns in the 22 WMR (Winchester Magnum Rimfire); the CMR-30 and its companion the Kel-Tec PMR-30 pistol also in 22 Magnum. Aside from survival and hunting applications either of these two guns have practicality in defensive and target shooting uses. Additionally the 22 magnum cartridge has been time tested for hunting small to medium size game (there has also been more than just a few deer taken with the 22 magnum). Most outdoorsmen are acutely aware of the 22 WMR and its inherent accuracy. When you consider this compact carbine and a its companion pistol has magazine capacities of 30 rounds each and total weight for the two combined is about 5 lbs., well its makes any survivalist sit up and take notice.

Yea, I’m a fan of that concept too.  But given my review of the PMR-30, which problems have not yet been remedied by a new magazine design based on Aluminum rather than polymer (among other possible fixes), I’d think a better combination would be the FN 5.7 and the CMMG Mk57.

Danish resistance fighters disarming Germans.

The picture appears to be legitimate.  I’m reminded of two things.  First, a comment on TCJ.

At the end of WWII, a German prisoner who knew English quite well asked my father if he could just see a .45 acp cartridge. He asked why they exploded when they hit. My father explained that they didn’t. The guy then showed him a large exit wound on his leg from a .45 slug the German took during the retreat from Paris.

Second, while I can’t seem to locate it at the moment, Mike Vanderboegh had a very good writeup on the utility of a mere pistol.  I’m sure some enterprising reader will find and link it for us in the comments.  After all, I have the best readers on the interwebz.

Smokey Merkley:

Anyone who has spent time at the range shooting high-powered rifles knows that sustained fire or continuously shooting without letting the barrel cool down between strings of shots will get the barrel so hot that accuracy will suffer and shots can be thrown off a couple of inches. It isn’t hard to fire a military-style rifle in semi-auto mode at 100 rounds a minute, and many owners of these rifles do just that at times when shooting at the range.

Even when shooting a semi-auto rifle in rapid fire mode, an enormous amount of heat is generated, which can quickly ruin a rifle barrel .

The leade, which is the unrifled portion of the barrel just forward of the chamber as well as the first few inches of rifling, are subjected to enormous temperatures approaching those on the surface of the sun as well as pressures exceeding 50,000 PSI during rapid-fire exercises.

During slow-fire conditions, this area is allowed to cool sufficiently between strings of fire.

Under sustained rapid fire, however, there is no time for the heat to dissipate and temperatures soar into the thousands of degrees Fahrenheit.

Currently there are four very different methods used by shooters to protect and extend the service life of their barrels.

Those who participate in bench-rest and long-range completion use very heavy and long barrels which can last much longer than the barrels found on most sporting and hunting rifles. Still, those big heavy barrels have to be replaced when accuracy begins to deteriorate.

Currently, the military hard chrome lines the barrels of their rifles to protect them from the excess erosion that occurs during sustained fire. This greatly extends the barrel life of rifles that are fired for prolonged periods in full auto or semi-auto mode. It takes a very knowledgeable professional person to evenly apply the hard chrome lining to the inside of a barrel, but the barrel will have approximately twice the service life of an unprotected barrel. Both the military and civilians who shoot semi-auto versions of military style rifles swear by the hard chrome lining of the barrels.

Some claim that hard chrome lined barrels aren’t as accurate as unprotected barrels because the rifling of hard chrome lined barrels is not as sharp as in unprotected barrels. This is true, but the difference in accuracy will never be notice by the majority of shooters. One MOA is pretty common in most of the military rifles and their semi-auto counterparts being built with hard chrome lined barrels today.

Another method of dealing with the heat and pressure that rifle barrels can be subjected to is a process where the un-blued barrel is immersed in a very hot liquid nitride salt bath for a period of time. The process is known as “ferritic nitrocarburizing.” This is not a new technology but has recently been applied to rifle barrels to protect them from the heat and pressure from sustained fire.

Most people will recognize terms like Melonite, Tennifer, Ni-Corr, Blacknitride or Salt Bath Nitride. They are all variations of the same process …

Read the rest.  I always like to catch everything that Smokey writes.  I’ve exchanged email with him and find him to be a very nice guy, and always very knowledgeable.

From what I understand it’s a good idea to keep muzzle velocity under the 3000 FPS – 3200 FPS threshold, and that guys who shoot the .243 in competition approach 4000 FPS with the lighter loads and have to change out barrels every several hundred rounds.

Those folks would have to be sponsored.