Archive for the 'Guns' Category

The Atlantic:

During the Vietnam war era, as a newly graduated mechanical engineer, I was hired by Colt’s Firearms, the original manufacturer of the M-16, and tasked with M-16 related assignments during my employment.

There was no commercially available civilian version of the AR-15 prior to the U.S. Military’s decision to make it the default military rifle replacing the M-14, and designating it as the M16A1. I have significant personal experience with the issues experienced by the M16A1, which were the result of a combined civilian/military screw-up. [JF note: this screwup was the subject of my original article.]

The AR-15 was developed specifically as a military weapon to replace the M-14. It was probably one of the first major weapons systems to be privately developed following the DOD’s decision to privatize the design and development function. This function had heretofore been carried out by publicly funded government operations, most notably, in the case of military small arms, the Springield Arsenal.

The AR-15 derived from a design by Eugene Stoner. His original design using that architecture and operating system was the AR-10, which used the 7.62mm NATO round. Seen today, it looks like an overgrown AR-15. The Armalite Company tasked two engineers with developing a version of the AR-10 that used the 5.56mm cartridge; these engineers were Jim Sullivan and Bob Fremont.

Only after civilian manufacturers like Colt’s made boatloads of money producing M16A1’s and selling them to the government did someone (I believe it was Colt’s Firearms) decide to make and sell a semi-automatic-only version of the weapon for civilian sale. It was, of course, known as the AR-15.

Small but significant changes were made to the architecture of the lower receiver, primarily slight relocation of pivot pins and redesign of the trigger/hammer components that pivoted on them, so that it would not be possible to acquire, legally or illegally, M16 trigger/hammer and fire selector components and thus easily convert the AR-15 to possess the same full automatic capability as the M16.

Like Eugene Stoner, whose mission was producing better equipment for the military, I do not believe that there is any place in the civilian world for a family of weapons that were born as an assault rifle. I am a staunch supporter of properly equipping our nation’s military but also of effective gun control for weapons available to civilians, to include banning those which are inappropriate outside a military context.

The author of this horrible commentary, James Fallows, cites a letter from a reader with no name whatsoever and with no indication that he has done his job of vetting this information.

One thing that makes me hold it suspect is that he gives a bit too much credit to Jim Sullivan and Robert Fremont, who weren’t the “engineers” in charge of the development of the AR-15.  They were the designers, while Eugene Stoner was still the chief engineer behind the project.

But at any rate, even if this report is really from someone who worked as an engineer with Colt, so what?  His statement that “Like Eugene Stoner, whose mission was producing better equipment for the military, I do not believe that there is any place in the civilian world for a family of weapons that were born as an assault rifle” just like the title of this article which is one of the best examples of overreach I’ve ever seen, is a world too far, and even more than that, is an outright lie.

Eugene Stoner never said that.  If you think he did, prove it.  Or shut up.  I’m waiting.

The Washington Post continues with things we learn about the shooting in Sutherland Spring, Texas.

They ran outside, and that’s when they saw him: Kelley, dressed in all black, carrying a long rifle and standing across the street, beneath the tall, blue sign that reads “First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs.”

A few houses away, Kevin Jordan was changing the oil on his Ford Focus when he heard the gunshots. He stood up and turned his head, spotting a man wearing body armor, a vest and a mask walking down the sidewalk toward the church.

Jordan, 30, ran into his house and grabbed his son as he screamed to his wife to take cover. As they all hid in the bathroom, Jordan dialed 911.

[ … ]

When he reached the church, Kelley began moving rapidly around the exterior in a crouch, like a “G.I. Joe” character. For about two minutes he quickly circled the building, firing through its walls, wielding his weapon just below his chest as the horrified worshipers inside began to scream and duck beneath pews as bullets burst through sanctuary windows.

Kelley’s body shook as he sprayed the outside of the church. Smith and Flores scrambled on all fours back into the gas station, screaming to the few customers there to find cover.

Then, for a moment, the shooting stopped. Kelley walked into First Baptist. Then the gunfire started anew.

[ … ]

A single, blood-covered man emerged near the side of the church and sprinted across a grassy lot to the gas station, desperately pounding on the glass door.

“He started killing everybody,” the man blurted out, collapsing to his knees. “My family’s in there.”

They all looked out the window. No one else was leaving the church.

“All I could think about was that my friend Joann was in there with her kids,” Smith recalled. “I knew everybody in there. They were all my customers and friends.”

Smith’s friend, Joann Ward, was among those killed. She’d shoved her eldest daughter away from the shooting before throwing herself on top of her three youngest children. Two of them died there with her. The third, her 5-year-old son Ryland, was shot in the stomach, groin and arm and remains hospitalized.

From other reports we know that “investigators collected at least 15 empty magazines that held 30 rounds each at the scene, suggesting the assailant fired at least 450 rounds.”  We also know from Stephen Willeford that he shot the shooter after the shooter had retreated to his vehicle to get a pistol.  The shooter was apparently intent on doing further carnage, either at that church or elsewhere.  Willeford ended the carnage by his heroic actions.

Now from The Washington Post we learn that some of the shooting was done from the outside through windows, and only about two minutes later did he enter the building.  With an armed congregation this would have been ample time to have returned fire through windows or position someone to fire upon his entry to the building.  Entering confined spaces is very dangerous if there is someone waiting for you to return fire.

We also learn that a man in the church retreated to the gas station to pound on glass.  No help was forthcoming, I’m certain.  Moreover, the police couldn’t have been closer than ten to fifteen minutes away.  We also learn that another man heard the shooting and apparently saw the shooter, retreated to his house, hid, and called 911.  He didn’t retrieve a gun and confront the shooter.  No help was forthcoming except for Willeford.  The police couldn’t have been closer than ten to fifteen minutes away.  Let me say this again: the police couldn’t have been closer than ten to fifteen minutes away.

Where the hell were the men (excepting Willeford)?  Do men not attend worship in Texas?  Do men not carry firearms in Texas?  As I’ve said before, the shooter should have been confronted by the barrels of fifty pistols as soon as he entered the building.

Does your church have a security plan?  No, I’m not talking about calling 911 or relying on the police.  Do men in your church carry weapons?  Have the men in your congregation met and worked together to discuss, train on and execute your security plan?  Does the security plan include men stationed throughout the property and physical plant?  No, I’m not talking about police.  I’m talking about the men in your congregation.  Do the men in your congregation meet on a regular basis and train with weapons?

The American church had better wake from its coma before it’s too late.  You’re a target.  Learn and understand that.  With a confined space, men, women and children sitting with people to the front of them and people to the back of them, limited means on ingress and egress, and all attention focused in one place, we’re sitting ducks.  Wise up, folks.  Do not run to call 911.  It will be too late for the police to do any good.  You are your own protector and the protector of your own congregants.  God expects it.  He demands it.

A quick word about the interview Stephen Willeford did over YouTube with Crowder.  I’m delighted that he chose to do it this way.  How much do you think the MSM wanted this interview, and how delightful is it that they didn’t get it?  I continue to learn little bits and pieces of the horrible event, and as I do I’ll pass them on, but the most you’ll ever learn about this will come straight from Mr. Willeford.  If you haven’t already watched his interview, do so now.

Tom Nichols writing at L.A. Times:

Every disaster brings out human irrationality. When there’s a plane crash, we fear flying; when a rare disease emerges, we fear we will be infected. And when there’s a mass shooting in a church, we think we should bring more guns into churches. Or at least some people think so. This is a completely irrational response to the tragedy in Texas this week, but it’s being pushed by people for whom “more guns” is always the right answer to gun violence.

Incompetency in assessing risk is something displayed in the very article Nichols wrote, but more on that in a minute.

It’s amusing and even sad that he brought up the shooting in Walmart in Denver.  We’ve already discussed that, and in no way, shape or form did anyone interfere with anything except causing the need for the police to watch a few additional hours of video.  It’s as ridiculous to say that self defense is interfering as it was to say that the open carrier during the Dallas shooting caused police response to be delayed or impeded.  It did no such thing, as the Dallas Police Department chased the actual perpetrator until the end.  No one on scene was confused or misdirected – it was only cops watching videos hours after the event who were temporarily confused, and that was their own fault, not that of the open carrier.

Now back to the issue of risk.  Nichols conflates the concept of probability and risk.  They most certainly are not the same thing.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission explains risk as a product of probability and consequences, and this is usually determined using fault trees and Boolean Logic.  Sophomoric explanations where the likelihood of occurrence of an event is equated with risk are not helpful, and certainly don’t rise to the level of good engineering.

Similarly, the food and agricultural industries use the same model for risk.  Risk is the product of probability and consequences.  An event can be a high likelihood and yet low consequences, and involve moderate to high risk, depending upon the magnitude of the consequences.  An event can involve low likelihood and low consequences, and thus low risk.  See the risk matrix linked above.

In my line of work, we have argued upon being backfitted or told to implement some set of modifications that the risk is low.  When we argue in this manner we’ve always done our homework to substantiate those claims.  At times we’re told to implement those modifications anyway because of public perception.  But we never implement modifications without informing everyone of the cost.  For example, “Implementing that set of modifications and backfits will cost $600 million.”  Since we don’t grow money on trees, someone will pay for all of it.  The cost doesn’t disappear – it will be borne by someone.

In the case Nichols discusses above, i.e., carrying a weapon to a worship service, it might have been moderately more compelling if he had argued that probability of the event is low, consequences are low, thus risk is low, and besides, the cost is extremely high (e.g., weapons cost $100,000 each).  You always assess risk in terms of cost because if everything is free then there is no practical limit to the reduction of risk.

In his case he has argued for nothing.  He has argued that he believes risk to be low (while conflating probability with risk), and thus carrying to worship is apparently a bad thing (while ignoring the high consequences of said event).  But he hasn’t assessed the cost of this choice.  For gun owners and carriers such as myself and many of my readers, there is minimal cost to this endeavor.  Allow me to convey my personal observations.

I hate carrying things on my body.  I don’t wear jewelry (rings, etc.), watches, or anything else that weighs me down.  I even hate to carry a phone in my pocket.  So when I made the decision to carry a number of years ago, it had to become a discipline or else it wouldn’t obtain.  I had to consciously practice and rehearse the rules of gun safety, look for good belt support and holsters, spend time at the range, and on and on the carousel goes.  Many readers can identify with my travails.

Over time it becomes habit such that conducting yourself in a safe and efficient manner becomes second nature.  Now let’s suppose that I spend my whole life attending worship services carrying a weapon and no such awful event ever occurs.  I hope this is indeed the case.  If so, then I have lost nothing.  The cost to me has been minimal (the cost of a good firearm), and the time spend developing self discipline.  On the other hand, I have been prepared for an event of unknown probability but high consequence, with at least moderate and perhaps high risk.

It makes perfect sense to conduct myself in this manner.  But the strained argument Nichols put forward offers no compelling reason to adopt his approach.  One gains absolutely nothing by following his counsel, and you stand to lose big due to moderate to high risk.

Nichols is a professor at the Naval War College.  This makes the third article within one week from persons within the defense apparatus – or loosely affiliated with the defense apparatus – taking a gun controller viewpoint.  First it was Adam Routh with CNAS hyperventilating about North Korea getting night vision equipment (so we needed to put it on the prohibited list for American civilians).

Next, Phillip Carter weighed in with this formal fallacy: (1) Pistols are ineffective against vehicular attacks, (2) Vehicular attacks is terrorism, therefore, (3) Pistols are ineffective against terrorism.  It’s almost as if someone makes the call to the next Kamikaze pilot: “You’re next.  It doesn’t matter how stupid you look or how bad your case is, it’s your turn to be the controller of the day.”

Who does this?  Everytown?  Former president Obama?  Who makes these calls, and how does this go down?  There must be some sort of outside pressure to do this sort of thing in order to go public with such a knuckleheaded commentary as this.

We may never know, but for the future, Mr. Nichols, research your concepts, be precise in your definitions, and be a critic of your own work before it goes out in order to find and fix its weaknesses.  Obviously, the editors aren’t going to do it.

DFW CBS:

About 20 other people were wounded. Investigators collected at least 15 empty magazines that held 30 rounds each at the scene, suggesting the assailant fired at least 450 rounds.

Many more details emerge from this report and others.  It’s easy to second guess people in time of distress, and we certainly must feel sympathy for those poor people and keep them in our prayers.

But I simply don’t understand why some of the men of the church didn’t attack the shooter when he stopped to reload.  Were there men in the congregation or was it all women and children?

This shooter should have been met with the barrels of 50 pistols in his face the minute he walked in with a rifle.  Thankfully, a good man was on the outside and exchanged fire with him immediately outside the church as he was retrieving a pistol from his running vehicle to continue the carnage.

If you haven’t spent the time to watch and listen to all of this video, you should.  It will be the most important 30 minutes you’ll spend this month.  He said he believes that the “Holy Spirit was on him.”  I have no doubt that is true, and Steve Willeford was used by God to stop the carnage that awful morning.  Christians need to make sure this doesn’t happen again by waking from their national coma.

Via reader Richard Fuher.  Watch it all.  There are real men left in America.

After discussing the S&W 686 several days ago, the thought occurred to me that there must be a newer Performance Center 686.  Sure enough, there is.  This one is a beautiful firearm, unfluted cylinders, 7-round capacity, and an interesting speed release thumbpiece for the cylinder.  Let me know if any readers happen to have this model.  I find it very interesting.  I’ll also remark that this isn’t a bad price for a Performance Center gun.

By now you’ve heard of the horrible shooting at the small church in Texas.  Take careful note that the perpetrator was done in by an armed citizen.

Another local resident, Johnnie Langendorff, who had witnessed the gun battle, said both he and the unnamed neighbor had jumped in his truck and gave chase.

In a Facebook post, Langendorff’s girlfriend Summer Caddel described how the pair had ‘jumped in my boyfriend’s truck and they chased that sick b*****d down in pursuit until the cops could catch up. He was able to run the shooter off of the road on 539!’

Langendorff told ABC 12 that he’d been speeding at 95mph, while on the phone to dispatch, while the neighbor kept his rifle trained on the gunman’s car.

As they approached a sharp curve in the road, near the 307 and 539, he said Kelley appeared to lose control and his car swerved off the road.

‘That’s when I put the truck in park,’ he said. ‘The other gentleman jumped out, and had his rifle on him. He didn’t move after that.’

Within minutes of the reports of this hitting the air, I had two questions: (1) Why are the FBI and ATF involved, and (2) Why haven’t we heard of a motive?

There is this report discussing the shooter being a member of Antifa, and how according to his own words he intended to start a civil war by “targeting white conservative churches.”  If this report is true – and you likely won’t ever hear that in the MSM nor will the FBI or even local law enforcement ever tell you this – it would answer both of my questions.

But let’s assume for the moment that it’s not true.  It doesn’t matter why he did it for purposes of my point.  It could have been Antifa, Muslim fascists or a belligerent worker who had been fired.

I heard over the national news how some churches had even gotten “permission” to allow a concealed carrier into the facilities.  What?  Permission?  To carry a weapon for self defense?  Permission?

Listen to me, Christians everywhere.  I’ve harped on this and will continue to until Christians wake up.  If you don’t emerge from your slumber, you’ll be run over like a train hit you.  You’d better arm up and prepared to defend yourselves.  No matter what you have been taught, you are not safe in your places of worship.  Make it so.  Make it safe for yourselves, your families and your congregants.  God expects you to.  He demands it.

Reddit/r/firearms:

My cat stole a part of my revolver, Ruger replaced it free of charge, paid for shipping both ways, improved the trigger and sent me a pretty nice oiled up cleaning rag free of charge.

Here’s the rundown, after going out shooting I came home and disassembled by revolver – besides the cats I was the only one home. After I disassembled it I went to the bathroom, came back and found my cat on the table – tossed her off and then did a thorough cleaning.

My hammer dog mysteriously disappeared. I searched for that thing for an hour. It even got the point where I tried to shake it out of my cat. GONE. VAPORIZED. F***.

Well, I had heard some great things about Ruger’s customer so I gave them a call. The lady I spoke to on the phone was polite as I embarrassingly explained the situation.

What I expected: 25$ shipping there, 25$ shipping back, 25$-50$ for labor/parts.

What I got: A free of charge shipping label from ruger to send the Revolver in, no charge for labor, no charge for parts and no charge for them to send it back and a sweet cleaning rag to boot.

F***ing wow. To make things better the trigger is better than it was before, and it was pretty nice to begin with for a GP100.

I want to reiterate what just happened, because I’m still pretty stunned by how great the company treated me.

I f***ed up and they fixed it for me free of charge.

Easily one of the best customer service experiences of my life.

Now, some folks would say that this is a good way for Ruger to go out of business.  Those people have probably never run a successful business either.  I had a similar experience with my GP100.  It’s a beautiful firearm, and it’s trigger is as good as any S&W Performance Center trigger I’ve ever shot, in both single and double action.

Well, I’m not going to tell you what I did because it’s embarrassing, but Ruger handled it free of charge and I will never, ever get rid of that GP100.  I’ll keep it the rest of my life, I’ll recommend that other people buy the GP100, and I’m more inclined to get another Ruger product because of the great customer experience from them with the GP100.

So here’s a note to Ruger.  You know how to run a successful business.  Don’t ever change.

Shooting Illustrated:

High-pressure symptoms are probably the most commonly encountered stop signs our rifles provide. Inspecting spent cases whenever you try new ammo, changing a handload recipe or shooting in drastically different atmospheric conditions can help you spot potential issues. Primers warn us in the form of “blowing” completely out of the brass, cratering (a slightly raised lip around the firing pin indention), flattening out or being pierced by the firing pin. Minor flattening or cratering is not uncommon, especially when firing heavy bullets. Either condition needs to be watched, but neither is cause for alarm so long as it is minor and limited to one ammo type.

But, when multiple factory loads are showing these signs consistently, it is time to have the rifle looked at by a qualified gunsmith or the firearm’s manufacturer. The same goes for blown primers, damage to the case head with semi-automatic rifles or brass flow into a bolt’s ejector-pin hole on any gun: A minor amount is not abnormal for heavy loads, but excessive or consistent damage is cause for concern.

Consistently pierced primers warrant more immediate action. Checking your brass will reveal piercing, but sometimes you get an earlier warning from a blast of gas in your face and the contents of an external magazine littering the ground under your rifle. This is your cue that it is time to stop and find the source of the problem. Piercing can force small discs of primer material into a bolt’s firing-pin hole, eventually causing other problems. A jammed up firing-pin bore can stop pin movement and possibly fix the firing pin in the forward position. That may lead to a “runaway” machine gun, firing every time the bolt slams forward on a fresh round or worse, firing out of battery. A full-auto surprise is bad enough, but a gun that fires out of battery can be catastrophic for the shooter and anyone nearby.

At any sign of primer piercing, stop using the suspect ammunition and ensure the firing pin and bolt are closely inspected for proper function or damage. Just a few pierced primers can erode a firing-pin tip, leading to greater primer-piercing frequency, leading to more firing-pin damage, and so on.

Other harbingers of pressure trouble include bent firing-pin-retaining pins, broken extractor pins, bent or broken extractors, a sudden increase in recoil/muzzle blast/gas without a change in ammo, case-head separation or spent cases that are split or ruptured. In each case, it makes more sense to stop what you are doing and look for the source of the problem(s) than it does to just keep banging away.

Read the rest at Shooting Illustrated.  I would have thought most of this is common sense, but perhaps not.  There are the harder to find issues as well.  I once went shooting where the Range Officer was a gunsmith, and he took interest in the brass my pistol was ejecting.  Close inspection of it, along with me, showed that it was heavily charred on one side, while the rest was clean.  It turned out that my barrel was out of round and had to be replaced.  To this day I thank that man for his attention to detail (if he happens to be reading this).

The point of this is that we all have to be mechanics if we’re going to be good shooters and sportsmen.

Shooting Illustrated:

Using a barrel bushing wrench or comparable tool, depress the recoil spring plug. The plug is located directly below the barrel bushing. After depressing the plug, rotate the barrel bushing to one side. Take care with this step because the recoil spring plug holds the recoil spring back tightly. If you are not careful, the spring will eject the plug into whatever dark, impenetrable corner exists in the room you are working in. When the spring is loose, the recoil spring plug can be removed from the end of the spring and set aside. The spring itself will still be held in place within the slide.

Turn the gun right-side down. Hook your thumb against the front of the trigger guard – without touching the trigger – and wrap the fingers of the same hand over the slide. (Hooking your thumb inside the front of the trigger guard rather than around the grip safety allows you better access to the slide for the remainder of this step.)

Push the slide back and align the rearward, raised portion of the takedown lever with the disassembly notch in the slide (the first notch is the slide stop notch and the second, smaller one is the disassembly notch). Holding the slide in this position, use the fingers of your other hand to begin pushing the takedown lever pin free from the receiver. If you need a visual aid, simply continue to hold the slide back and rotate the gun so you’re looking at its right-hand side. You will see the circular, raised pin located centrally above the trigger guard.

Once the takedown lever pin has been pushed partially free of the receiver, you should be able to remove it entirely from the left-hand side of the receiver. Set the takedown lever aside and slowly release the slide.

Re-assembly tip: When replacing the takedown lever, be sure the barrel link is upright and lined up with the corresponding hole in the slide. Otherwise, the pin will not fit.

The barrel bushing is the most hazardous part for me.  If you’re not careful, you’ll put your eye out or put a hole in your ceiling.

This is a keeper along with the firearm manuals themselves for my 1911s.  It’s a good companion article to Revolver Disassembly and Cleaning.