PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Senate lawmakers approved bills Monday that would allow guns in the state Capitol and let people carry concealed handguns without a permit despite Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s threat to veto both proposals.
Daugaard’s opposition is a steep obstacle for lawmakers pushing the bills, neither of which received the two-thirds support required for a potential veto override.
The Senate voted 19-15 to send the Capitol carry bill to the governor’s desk. It would allow people who have an enhanced permit to bring concealed handguns into the Capitol if they register beforehand with security.
In 2016, 1,460 new enhanced permits were issued. Republican Sen. Jim Stalzer, the bill’s main Senate sponsor, said most active shooter situations occur in gun-free zones such as the state Capitol.
[ … ]
The chamber also voted 23-11 to allow people who can legally carry a concealed handgun in South Dakota to do so without a permit. Right now, it’s a misdemeanor for someone to carry a concealed pistol or to have one concealed in a vehicle without a permit.
I like the proliferation of constitutional carry bills across the nation. These are good things regardless of whether they end up as laws.
The upshot is that it causes all parties, from senators and members of the house to the governor and law enforcement, to go public with their views.
Then gun rights activists know who to target in the next election. Here’s a note to politicians. We’re watching you. No, I’m not talking about the NRA, although they should be scoring each and every vote in cases like this. The “we” is us, the gun-owning voters. And we never forget.
“LGBTQ people must fight for their safety against the epidemic of gun violence, just as hard as they have fought for equality,” they insist, citing a Southern Poverty Law Center anecdotal “report” on alleged harassment that says nothing about guns, but instead quotes from a handful of unsubstantiated and subjective accounts to smear Donald Trump supporters as intimidating haters.
These folks (SPLC, Everytown) and their ilk throw in virtually every progressive cause they can think of, and throw in gun control in order to connect it to the communities they are courting. It’s their bread and butter. They use people and then throw them away.
This particular community had better understand that their best bet is to buy guns, learn to use them, and oppose any and all connection with people and groups who would use them for gain.
And in that same vein, they should ask some Donald Trump supporters to teach them the proper use of guns. My bet is that there would be many willing teachers. Don’t disparage instruction. Everyone needs it, regardless of how it feels to have to go to someone else for help.
In the gun community if you just avoid the know-it-alls who think they are God’s gift to tacticool, most folks are more than glad to help out new gunners.
Eugene Volokh responds to the recent Florida Supreme Court decision on open carry. He first cites part of the ruling.
Before the Fourth District, the State argued that by restricting how firearms are carried in public so that they may only be carried in a concealed manner under a shall-issue licensing scheme, deranged persons and criminals would be less likely to gain control of firearms in public because concealed firearms — as opposed to openly carried firearms — could not be viewed by ordinary sight.
Norman contends that the State has not produced evidence that Florida’s Open Carry Law reasonably fits the State’s important government interest. However, under intermediate scrutiny review, the State is not required to produce evidence in a manner akin to strict scrutiny review….
[W]hen reviewing under intermediate scrutiny Second Amendment challenges to laws regulating the manner of how firearms are borne, “courts have traditionally been more deferential to the legislature in this area.” This is especially so when considering that “[r]eliable scientific proof regarding the efficacy of prohibiting open carry is difficult to obtain.”
Therefore, we agree with the Fourth District and are satisfied that the State’s prohibition on openly carrying firearms in public with specified exceptions — such as authorizing the open carrying of guns to and from and during lawful recreational activities — while still permitting those guns to be carried, albeit in a concealed manner, reasonably fits the State’s important government interests of public safety and reducing gun-related violence.
He then responds with this.
Really? Open carry is being banned because, by being visibly lethally armed, open carriers are putting themselves at more risk of crime? Would a reasonable person, deciding whether to openly carry a gun, think, “I probably shouldn’t do that, since people will be more likely to target me because they see I have a gun”?
This strikes me as quite implausible. To be sure, we can imagine some situations in which open carry could make a person more vulnerable. Indeed, as the court points out, in some situations, an attacker “might be more likely to target an open carrier” because the “visibly armed citizen poses a more obvious danger to the attacker.” In others, open-carrying by a gang member onto another gang’s turf might be seen as especially provocative and might therefore lead to a shoot-out.
But those would be relatively rare instances, no? On balance, wouldn’t there be many more situations where a would-be attacker would try to steer clear of a visibly armed person than where the attacker would deliberately target that person first? And given that the government interest is in preventing crime generally, the question is whether the law would on balance reduce crime, not whether it could in some rare circumstances reduce crime but in more common circumstances increase crime.
True, I know of no empirical studies one way or another. But even under “intermediate scrutiny” (as opposed to the highly deferential “rational basis” scrutiny), one should have either empirical studies or at least an inherently plausible theory, rather than mere hypothetical and unlikely speculation. And here the theory that, on balance, being visibly lethal will draw attackers rather than deterring them doesn’t strike me as plausible.
Now perhaps open carry bans might be justifiable on other grounds, such as that open carry (even holstered, rather than brandished) causes law-abiding passersby to feel uneasy. The two dissenting justices discussed that theory, and here’s what they had to say:
[The majority’s] reasons may not be totally irrational, but they do not provide any substantial justification for the ban on open carrying. Such “speculative claims of harm to public health and safety” are “not nearly enough to survive the heightened scrutiny that applies to burdens on Second Amendment rights.” There is no substantial link between the ban and public safety, and the State’s speculation is no substitute for such a link.
The suggestion that someone committing a crime “might be more likely to target an open carrier than a concealed carrier” is subject to the rejoinder that a criminal confronted with the presence of an open carrier may be more likely to leave the scene rather than face the uncertain outcome of exchanging gunfire with an armed citizen. In hostile encounters between armed individuals, the outcome is seldom certain, and even criminals can understand that fact.
Many — admittedly not all — armed criminals will give a wide berth to someone they know to be armed. Likewise, speculating about the disarming of individuals who are openly carrying firearms by “deranged persons and criminals,” is a grasping-at-straws justification.
The reality is that it is highly unlikely that these feeble proffered justifications had anything to do with the adoption of the statute banning open carrying…. The ban on open carrying is best understood as the Legislature’s response to the public concerns swirling around adoption of the concealed-carry law…. [T]he Legislature decided that the sacrifice of open carrying was a necessary and appropriate response to the public opposition generated by the passage of the concealed-carry law. But the legal landscape has now dramatically shifted. Heller has settled that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. And Heller‘s historical analysis points strongly to the conclusion that the individual right includes the right to carry arms openly in public.
This truth should be acknowledged: opposition to open carrying stems not from concrete public safety concerns but from the fact that many people “are (sensibly or not) made uncomfortable by the visible presence of a deadly weapon.”
Of course, many people are made uncomfortable by the fact that others are permitted to keep and bear arms at all. But contemporary sensibilities cannot be the test. Such sensibilities are no more a basis for defeating the historic right to open carrying than for defeating the understanding that the Second Amendment recognizes the right of individuals to keep and bear arms.
This is a tangled web, yes? So let’s break it down. The Supreme Court deferred to the legislature on what keeps folks safe, having relegated this question to intermediate scrutiny. They found plausible (or said they did) the notion that someone could snatch a gun from an open carrier and thus make the public less safe.
But here they leave unaddressed the question why the legislature doesn’t prohibit LEOs from openly carrying weapons as it merely provides opportunity for gun theft. And if the answer to that is the function they expect LEOs to perform, the obvious answer must be that according to Tennessee v. Garner, LEOs cannot do any more with weapons than you or I, to wit, self defense. If the open carry of guns is unsafe, then prohibit LEOs from doing it.
Furthermore, why must we conclude that the public is less safe with open carriers just because the possibility exists that open carriers might be targeted first in any confrontation or mass shooting? Wouldn’t that make the public safer? That’s been my argument all along. That an open carrier is the first target is an awful, terrible, cowardly reason not to open carry.
There might be good reasons, but that you don’t want to be the first target is not among those reasons. I would rather I face an attacker than any women and children who might be around me. Otherwise, what use am I? Why am I here on earth if I cannot honor God in this way (John 15:13)? If openly carrying a gun makes you the first target, and if there are people willing to be that target, then it stands to reason that this is advantageous to public safety and health.
Finally, the dissent make clear the real issue, and it was legal concealed carry is a compromise for squeamish and childlike people who think that the lack of visible presence of a gun on your hip means that you’re not armed. Truth telling by the justices is a good thing. In other words, it’s an appeal to myth and fairy tale. Few criminals are going to advertise their intentions in this manner, which is the reason that concealed carry at one time in history was considered ungentlemanly and boorish.
A California man is in custody after unsuccessfully trying to light a gun owner and his home on fire Wednesday.
Maurilio Miranda, 48, is being charged with trespassing, attempted arson, and assault with a deadly weapon, Lt. Joe Gomez of the Fresno Police Department told the Fresno Bee. The charges stem from Miranda trying to burn down a house in the city. When the homeowner discovered Miranda pouring gasoline around the perimeter of the home, he confronted him with his semi-automatic handgun.
That’s when Miranda threw gasoline at the homeowner and flicked a lighter. In response, the homeowner fired a shot into the ground. That didn’t deter Miranda, the Fresno Bee reports. He then grabbed a board and threatened to hit the homeowner with it. The homeowner fired a second shot into the ground and threatened to shoot him which prompted Miranda to give up. Police then arrived on the scene and arrested Miranda.
Do not unholster your weapon unless your life is in danger. Do not point in the direction of anything you aren’t willing to kill, and if your life is legitimately in danger, shoot the person or animal who is causing that danger.
Do not fire warning shots. To the attacker, warning shots means you aren’t willing to use your weapon to defend your life. Tactically, it delays the very response that could save your life.
NEWTOWN – The 10 families whose lawsuit against the world’s largest dealer of AR-15 rifles was dismissed last year say their case should be reinstated, arguing that the Sandy Hook massacre was no accident.
“The notion that what happened at Sandy Hook on December 14, 2012, was unimaginable is a lie,” argues the families’ lawyer, Josh Koskoff, in 50-page brief submitted to state Supreme Court this week. “Sandy Hook was simply gratuitous, senseless proof of what was already known: preparation is no match for an AR-15.”
The families’ argument that Remington is liable for the massacre of 26 first-graders and educators by an AR-15-wielding 20-year-old named Adam Lanza was thrown out of Superior Court in October. The judge ruled that Remington is protected by federal law against claims when people misuse firearms.
The families are sticking to their argument that Remington was liable, saying the company ssly marketed the semi-automatic rifle to civilians.
Remington has until May 1 to respond to the brief. A court date to hear both sides of the appeal has not been set.
The families argue that the Remington rifle used by Lanza was developed “as a weapon of war so powerful, so accurate and so destructive to the human body, it vanquished the need for skilled hands or forgiving terrain.”
I’ll bet you didn’t know you were that good at close quarters battle just because you own an AR-15, did you? Your purchase of an AR-15 has literally “vanquished the need for skilled hands.” There is no need to go to the range and practice. Your gun is magic.
Okay, let’s play this game one more time. Here’s a note to attorney Koskoff. Let’s start the discovery process by you producing all of the death certificates resulting from the Sandy Hook event.
The Fourth Circuit made a very good decision in the case of Nathaniel Black. They didn’t seem to care about that decision and specifically violated their own precedents and showed they couldn’t care less about consistency in the case of U.S. Versus Robinson. Now they have gone off the deep end.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Maryland’s ban on semiautomatic guns with certain military-style features that the state passed after the 2012 mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.
The 10-to-4 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit vacates an earlier panel decision that cast doubt on the constitutionality of the ban that is similar to laws in seven states, including California, Connecticut and New Jersey.
The ruling from the Richmond-based court goes further than other appellate courts that have reviewed similar laws in stating clearly that “assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are not protected by the Second Amendment.” The majority opinion, written by Judge Robert B. King, refers to the banned firearms as “weapons of war” that the court says are most useful in the military.
In a strongly worded dissent, Judge William B. Traxler Jr. said his colleagues have “gone to greater lengths than any other court to eviscerate the constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms.”
That they have, and they have also added language to both the second amendment and Heller that isn’t there.
“It’s unthinkable that people could say that those weapons of war are protected by the Second Amendment,” Frosh said Tuesday. “Especially when you look at the carnage at Newtown and elsewhere around the country.”
[ … ]
Like Maryland, Connecticut’s ban was expanded after a gunman used a military-style semiautomatic weapon to kill 20 students and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
The 81-page opinion issued Tuesday opens with a detailed description of that day, including the number of rounds of ammunition fired, and goes on to describe mass shootings involving similar military-style firearms in a long list of other U.S. cities.
“We have no power to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war that the Heller decision explicitly excluded from such coverage,” King wrote in the 4th Circuit opinion, referring to the Supreme Court case known as District of Columbia v. Heller.
The court also found that Maryland lawmakers were justified in passing the ban in the interest of public safety because magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition “enable shooters to inflict mass casualties while depriving victims and law enforcement officers of opportunities to escape or overwhelm the shooters while they reload their weapons.”
Forget the fact that Charles Whitman used a bolt action long gun (Remington 700), that storied Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock used a Winchester Model 70 .30-06, that Marines initially in Iraq during the push to Baghdad used the same rifle for long distance shooting, and that Marines in Now Zad, Afghanistan, used 12 gauge shotguns for room clearing operations. Left unsaid is why the laws don’t regulate assault hammers. This is what happens when idiots try to make legal decisions who have no knowledge of the facts.
It’s also what happens when men and women who have no moral compunction about violating their oath of office get to make judgments that affect the rest of the country. Recognizing the right of every citizen to have the weapon that best allows him to defend his own family isn’t an expansion of the second amendment. And Heller said nothing about forbidding semi-automatic firearms from its scope, semi-automatic firearms having been around for more than a century when Heller was decided, in use by both civilians and the military.
This neat, clean bifurcation between civilian and military weapons is non-existent, an imaginary phantom concocted by judges to make themselves feel better for depriving citizens of their rights, pretend sociology wrapped up in legal language. These are God-given rights, not subject to the whims or vicissitudes of judicial political leanings.
Here is the ruling. Frosh said “It’s unthinkable that people could say that those weapons of war are protected by the Second Amendment … Especially when you look at the carnage at Newtown and elsewhere around the country.” Well think it, collectivist hack. I’m telling you flat out that weapons of war are protected by God, and included within the scope of the second amendment.
Whether citizens of Maryland choose to stay and fight or move to a free state, remember Matt Bracken’s advice. “If you have eighteen guns and twelve of them are declared illegal, how many do you have? Eighteen. Your move.”
STOP USING YOUR RIFLE. Any unintended discharge has the potential for causing injury or death. Immediately stop using your rifle until Remington can inspect it to determine if the XMP trigger has excess bonding agent used in the assembly process, which could cause an unintentional discharge and, if so, replace the trigger mechanism. If you own a rifle subject to this recall, Remington will provide shipping, inspection, replacement of the trigger mechanism if necessary, and return at no cost to you. DO NOT attempt to diagnose or repair your rifle yourself.
Contact Remington
For the safety of you and those around you, Remington strongly encourages you to STOP USING YOUR RIFLE immediately and contact Remington for inspection and repair. To participate in this recall, visit the Remington Recall Center at xmprecall.remington.com. Or call Remington on its toll-free XMP-Recall Hotline at 1-800-243-9700 (Prompt #3 then Prompt #1) Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EDT. You will be asked to provide your name, address, telephone number, and the serial number of your rifle.
E-mail: ucamdn28@prodigy.net.mx
We apologize for this inconvenience. We want our customers to enjoy the shooting sports safely. It is imperative that owners of Model 700™ and Model Seven™ rifles subject to this recall do not use their rifles until they have been inspected as part of this recall program.”
So this is the right way to do a recall, unlike what they did with the Walker Fire Control System. Remington should be commended for accepting responsibility right up front and getting out ahead of this problem, whatever it is.
Speaking of which, what is it? What can’t Remington get right about their trigger systems? I just don’t understand why this is a recurring theme with Remington. Their engineering department needs to do a serious gut check on what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.
I’m not likely to buy a Remington anyway, since they’re owned by Freedom Group, which is owned by Cerberus, which is owned by Steve Feinberg, who owns DynCorp, which – along with the CIA – is involved in nation toppling in North Africa for the purpose of trafficking in money, oil, weapons and children.
There are a lot of articles and discussion forum threads on barrel twist rate for AR-15s. So why am I writing one? Well, some of the information on the web is very wrong. Additionally, this closes out comment threads we’ve had here touching on this topic, EMail exchanges I’ve had with readers, and personal conversations I’ve had with shooters and friends about this subject. It’s natural to put this down in case anyone else can benefit from the information. Or you may not benefit at all. That’s up to you.
This is a discussion about 5.56mm ammunition and barrel twist rates (and later, about the shooter and ammunition quality). If you wish to debate the effectiveness of the 5.56mm round generally, or wish to disparage the choice of the Eugene Stoner system, I’m sure there are forums for you. This is not it.
In the real world, ammunition isn’t concentric, and even if it is almost precisely concentric, pour density can be slightly different throughout the ball, and voids can develop. This causes gyroscopic stability problems with bullets, even in the best manufactured ammunition. But much ammunition would not be considered the “best manufactured ammunition.” Ammunition will only be as good as the QA under which it was made.
When center of gravity is off-axis it can cause bullet lateral throwoff, yaw and a host of other problems with bullet trajectory. In order to overcome these problems, rifling twist achieves this gyroscopic stability for the bullet, thus negating the effects of the manufacturing process (at least in part).
Conventional wisdom taught us that slower twist rates wouldn’t properly-stabilize a bullet, causing it to yaw. On the other hand, faster rates could over-stabilize lighter bullets, causing similar problems. This is correct in theory—however, modern ballisticians have pretty much de-bunked the over-stabilization theory as a practical matter. All things being equal, it is better to have too much twist than not enough.
While his statement is a bit imprecise, there is something very precise about it. It is precisely wrong. Yet there are much cleaner and simpler explanations of why high twist rate is not always good. One commenter at this discussion thread summed it up well.
You can certainly overstablilze (sic) a bullet if you spin it so fast it doesn’t nose over at the top of its trajectory … Best thing to do is not spin bullets any faster than what’s needed for best accuracy.
Correct. If a bullet is overstabilized, it tends to stay pointed along its axis of rotation, even on the final (downward) part of its trajectory. This can cause keyholing, odd aerodynamic effects (flying sideways through the air) and even bullets to wildly spin off trajectory.
Bullets from rifled barrels eventually achieve stability by yawing back and forth, while undergoing a larger revolution about the major axis of the trajectory. So quite obviously, it’s necessary to spin the bullet, and to spin it enough to give it stability, while protecting the need to nose over on the final part of its trajectory. Getting this twist rate and spin right has been a matter of much testing, internet fights, and lot of engineering study and heavy spending by the taxpayers. I know that my guns perform well, and so I decided to contact my manufacturer for his opinion on the matter.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have two Rock River Arms rifles, one Elite CAR A4 with a 16″ Barrel, twist 1:9, Quad Rail, and another competition gun with a muzzle brake and 18″ SS barrel with a twist rate = 1:8. I have recommended RRA rifles to my readers before, but there are many good guns on the market. Your probably have one. I sent a list of three questions to RRA, and Steve gave me these responses (the question isn’t included because it wasn’t forwarded back to me, but it’s apparent what I asked except for the first question, which was basically does RRA warranty their 1 MOA for both M193 and M855. This is Steve’s response.
Herschel,
Thanks for your questions. I’m going to take them in reverse order.
3. 1:9 is adequate for many, but not all rounds typically used in an AR platform. Between .223 Remington and 5.56mm NATO, there are rounds from 45 to 90 grains (that I am familiar with) and I know of, but have never shot, lighter and heavier rounds. No single twist is going to handle all of them. 1:9 is adequate for a sizable number of them, however…including the two most commonly available, in bulk and at reasonable prices…55gr FMJ (M193)and 62/63gr FMJ (M855). It is not ideal for rounds lighter than 50gr nor those over 68 or 69 grains, which is why there are other twist rates commonly available…including from RRA. We offer a 1:12 24” bull barrel for our Varmint hunters who prefer to use the lighter bullets for prairie dogs and other targets, and both 1:7 and 1:8 barrels in a variety of configurations for those who want to shoot heavier bullets…up to and including the newer 77gr loads and 80gr VLDs. We’ve also run custom twists for a limited number of contracted purchases.
2. Yes. 1:9 does well with both M193 and M855. Different barrels perform differently, but 1:9 generally stabilizes both weight/length bullets fairly well, It neither over nor under spins either and does not produce key holing.
1. The hardest question to answer. Neither M193 nor M855 are notoriously accurate rounds. They meet military, not match, requirements. Our accuracy claims are the rifle’s capability…but the shooter and ammo have to do their parts. There are loads that are commercially available and claimed to be “M193” and “M855” equivalents that clearly aren’t, and they aren’t capable of ”minute of bad guy” at 100 yards, let alone the .75 to 1.5 MOA claims that we make for our different rifles. That is no reflection on our rifles or barrels, or the shooters…unfortunately there is some real crappy ammo on the market today, which will not perform well out of any barrel, of any twist rate.
Thanks.
Steve/RRA
This is a good response, but let’s not stop here. While perhaps not recalled by some, American Rifleman has given us a fairly comprehensive look at 5.56mm ammunition and barrel twist rates in an article entitled Testing The Army’s M855A1 Standard Ball Cartridge. It is rich with history on how the Army fielded the M855A1. Ignore the issue of the M855 versus the M855A1 for a moment and consider the background.
Accuracy cannot be assessed without addressing the rifle barrels’ twist-rates. In the early 1980s the M855’s 62-grain bullet was developed for the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW). For purposes of interoperability, the same load was adopted as the M16A2 rifle’s standard ball as well. A February 1986 U.S. Army study noted that the M855’s bullet required a “1:9 twist [which] would be more appropriate for the M16A2 rifle, improving accuracy and reliability.” Multiple studies confirmed the 1:9-inch twist requirement.
But then a problem arose. The U.S. military’s standard M856 5.56 mm tracer round was longer, heavier (63.7 grains) and slower than the M855 ball, and simply would not stabilize with a 1:9-inch twist barrel. Thus, despite it doubling M855 group sizes, the M16A2 (and later, the M4) specified a 1:7-inch rate-of-twist barrel to stabilize the tracer round. It remains so to this day. Therefore, M855A1 was test-fired with both 1:7- and 1:9-inch twist barrels, and it was verified that this new cartridge is consistently more accurate in the latter barrels-as was its predecessor.
Don’t slip past these paragraphs, because they explain why “Milspec” is 1:7. It isn’t because 1:7 shoots M193 or M855 more accurately. It’s because of the weight of tracer rounds. As we’ve discussed before, the term Milspec doesn’t mean better, or worse, or anything at all except that it precisely meets the specifications outlined in the purchase order(s), excepting whatever variance notifications they might make on a given batch of guns.
The M855A1’s developers have described it as yielding “match-like” accuracy, which most rifle shooters would define as one minute-of-angle (m.o.a.), or groups measuring no more than 1 inch at 100 yards. While the new ammunition has proved more accurate than the green-tipped load it replaced, testing did not yield match-like accuracy, especially in the standard 1:7-inch twist-rate found in today’s M4s and M16s. At 100 yards, the best group with a 1:7-inch barrel was 1.62 inches (1.6 m.o.a.). At 300 yards. it similarly fired 1.6 m.o.a. (4.9 inches) and widened to 1.8 m.o.a. (7.5 inches) at 400 yards. At these same distances, firing the M855A1 through a 1:9-inch twist barrel reduced group sizes by approximately half.
The tests demonstrated that 1:9 twist produced better accuracy, approximately twice as accurate. Now take note what the testers found with the newer M855A1 regarding repeatability.
On average, the new ammunition produced one flyer in roughly each five rounds, which, it can be argued, exaggerated the group sizes. Since the Army announced that, “On average, 95 percent of the [M855A1] rounds will hit an 8×8-inch target at 600 meters,” each group’s most errant bullet impact was discarded and group sizes recalculated. Statistically they improved, but not enough to place 95 percent of rounds so close at 600 meters, at least when using the standard 1:7-inch barrel-which may explain why accuracy was less than expected.
There is one “flyer” in every five rounds. This seems to me to be a significant problem with this ammunition combined with the barrel twist, and the commenters don’t seem to like it very much either. Finally, this.
When U.S. Army shooters twice fired public demonstrations of the new round, they did not employ standard 1:7-inch twist M16A2s or M4s, but accurized, match-grade, stainless-barreled rifles from the Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU). I contacted the AMU and learned that these rifles did not have standard-issue 1:7-inch barrels, but most likely 1:8-inch twist, which probably accounts for their “match-like” accuracy.
Isn’t that rich? The Army made claims of “match-like accuracy,” and proved the rounds shooting out of different barrels than are deployed with Soldiers, using 1:8 twist, not 1:7 twist.
The American Rifleman article goes on to discuss in some detail the performance of the M855A1 with slim-profiled targets like malnourished tribal fighters in Afghanistan (so-called “ice picking” the target without fragmentation), performance at barrier penetration (concluding that it is better than its predecessor), and its lethality once it does penetrate barriers. I recommend this reading to you. It’s well worth the time.
So to summarize what we know, remember some basic things. First, the bullet has to be spun to give it gyroscopic stability. This spin needs to match the bullet (including mass and length), and care must be taken not to over-stabilize the bullet. If you shoot typical .223 ammunition (55 gr.), or M193 or M855, a twist rate of 1:9 is probably just about ideal. You’ll probably lose some accuracy with a higher twist rate.
This loss of accuracy is likely not significant for a lot of shooters. If you shoot much heavier ammunition (and there is a lot on the market), you probably need to consider a twist rate of 1:8. Finally, none of this matches the value of good ammunition or good shooting.
That’s the good news. Most guns can outperform the shooter, and I know that’s the case with me. I’m a decent shooter. Not great, but decent. I’ve taken my Tikka T3 .270 bolt action rifle and literally put rounds through the same hole at 100 yards (with slightly more tearing of the same hole in the paper). On the other hand, this is with a good scope, no wind, a cool and comfortable day, all day to work my craft and thus no time pressure, no one else to be concerned about, lots of coffee to wake up, and a full belly.
But if I had kept records, it wouldn’t have happened again exactly like that since, theoretically, even with perfect ammunition, considering barrel harmonics and that physical processes like this are a heuristic phenomenon, if I had continued to log my shots this way, it would have doubtless shown a standard distribution (distance between each shot and mean).
But regardless of the details, you’ve done it before. Control breathing … get good sight picture … back out of the shot if you’re not mentally right … know where your trigger breaks … and so on. You know the drill, since you’ve done it many times. It’s perhaps the purest pleasure a shooter can have.
Now throw in simple annoyances like a whining partner at the range, losing daylight and time pressures, hunger, and any of the other 100 possible nuisances that can sap your accuracy. Then your accuracy goes to hell, doesn’t it? Now, combine that with wearing heavy gear and being shot at, and I’m sure it diminishes your control over your weapon. Thankfully, I only have the experiences of my former Marine son conveyed to me.
The good part of this is that regardless of your barrel twist rate, if your AR-15 is reliable, even if it’s not top of the line, it can probably outperform you. That means getting better isn’t a matter of getting a new rifle or barrel with a different twist. It means practicing with your rifle, sometimes under duress. It also means buying good ammunition. Steve at RRA is right. The shooter and ammo have to do their part. I object to cheap ammunition just like I object to cheap engine oil. I’m trying to develop the discipline at the store or online to buy better ammunition.
Right, I’ve got it. I feel your objection. Good ammunition (e.g., Hornady $2 per round .270 for my Tikka) hurts. This is my wealth, and it’s hard to part ways with it since it’s hard to earn it. But using bad ammunition at the range makes it hard to impossible to assess your practice. Use of my value pack Federal .223 at the range means that my accuracy is irrelevant if I’m using the same reticle holdovers I would for 5.56mm since the muzzle velocity is different (and very slightly lower than the 5.56mm). You’ve got the picture.
The best way to get better accuracy is probably not to get a better gun. It’s to practice with the one you’ve got.
Here is a related video I found interesting on gyroscopic stability. He’s wrong about the math being incomprehensible, but it is rather difficult if you’re involved with partial differentials or worse, the Navier-Stokes equations in CFD. You need some specialized training in mathematics in order to tackle that. You don’t have to know any of that in order to understand the basics of shooting.
This discussion probably won’t end the debate on barrel twist rate, and it certainly won’t end the fight between the Army and Marine Corps (who doesn’t want to deploy the M855A1). But I hope it was helpful to you.
One way to look at a 60-year-old, battle-worn M1 U.S. service rifle is as a cherished historical relic unfit for any duty more rigorous than color guard. Another way is as a military-grade firearm likely to be snatched up by street toughs and used for common crime. Over the past six years, the Obama administration has seen the gun both ways, leading to a saga that has incensed legislators and gun collectors alike.
Helpfully for the executive branch, Republican Rep. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming filed the “Collectible Firearms Protection Act.” While Lummis’s bill sounds wide-ranging, it actually targets a strange and singular quandary that’s given the State Department fits since 2009: What to do with almost a million vintage, American-made M1 Garand and Carbine rifles now moldering in the arsenals of their custodian, South Korea.
“Legislation shouldn’t even be needed for U.S. citizens to purchase perfectly legal and regulated firearms, especially in this case, with storied, American-made rifles that are pieces of U.S. military history,” Rep. Lummis said in a statement. In fact, legislation wouldn’t be necessary if President Obama were okay with the purchase, which in this case, his administration was in favor of. Until it wasn’t.
There was never any quandry for the State Department, and the Obama administration has never been in favor of this.
I was unaware of this proposed legislation. It’s about time. This is something else President Trump can do for liberty in America. To call the M1 obsolete is ridiculous. Depending upon price, every one will get bought in the states.
I can see the market supporting $400 – $1000, depending upon condition, and even higher for collectibles in very good condition. But if the typical price is several thousand dollars even for well-worn rifles, you’re entering the range where you can buy a precision chassis rifle for that kind of money.
The South Koreans will have to be smart about this, or if not, the market will tell them how to be smart about it. Let them know your support for this bill.
8 years, 8 months ago
