Archive for the 'Guns' Category

I find this video to be very helpful regarding 1911 lubrication.

Denver Post:

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The U.S. Marine Corps has selected Magpul Industries as the exclusive maker of ammunition magazines that Marines will use in combat.

Magpul is a private company that makes accessories for firearms, including magazines, grips, sights and slings. The company also recently started selling soft goods like hats, belts, shirts and gloves.

The operations, shipping and manufacturing portion of Magpul is based in Cheyenne, while its headquarters is located in Austin, Texas.

A press release from Magpul says the Marine Corps selected Magpul’s GEN M3 PMAG series of magazines after several years of testing.

The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports that the company had added a second shift to handle demand for its products. Magpul started with 102 employees in Cheyenne but now employs 380.

Magpul, which used to be based in Erie, pulled out of Colorado last year in protest of a gun-control bill that Gov. John Hickenlooper signed into law in 2013 prohibiting the sale of gun magazines that hold more than 15 rounds in the aftermath of the Aurora theater shooting.

I’ve seen comments to the effect that the Marine Corps has been using these for a while.  Yea, well, not so much.

Perhaps individual Marines have had these magazines shipped to them by their families while deployed, and their commanders allowed their use rather than throwing them away, but I suspect most Lt. Colonels wouldn’t want to see pictures of their men using these things, only to have the promotion board asked if there were other instances of use of unauthorized equipment.

These guys can be rather puckered when it comes to authorized equipment, especially if some Marines have it and some don’t.  This way, everyone will have the best, and they will have the same thing.

Congratulations to Magpul.

H.R. 3799 is in the top ten most viewed bills the week of December 23, 2016.  Simply put, this bill would do as follows.

… amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) eliminate the $200 transfer tax on firearm silencers, and (2) treat any person who acquires or possesses a firearm silencer as meeting any registration or licensing requirements of the National Firearms Act with respect to such silencer. Any person who pays a tax on a silencer after October 22, 2015 may receive a refund of such tax.

The bill amends the federal criminal code to preempt state or local laws that tax or regulate firearm silencers.

The equivalent bill in the Senate is S 2236.  I assume that once voted on, a committee would be assigned to work out any details if there end up being differences.

By the way, Pat Toomey was asked about his support, and he wrote an entire letter without answering the question.  Don’t wait on that wet noodle to support any bill recognizing your just liberties.  Would someone in Pennsylvania please run for his office?  No, wait.  No offense to the ladies reading this, but if he has male plumbing, I want a man in the office rather than Pat Toomey.  Ladies who support my liberties are just fine.  I don’t want any more eunuchs.

It is encouraging, though, that the interest seems to be there, and people are asking.  Note to Senate and Congress.  We’re watching and taking names.

I find that concealed appendix carry is acceptable for me while standing or even walking.  I simply cannot do it comfortably while sitting.  I must carry 3:00 or thereabout, and my carry in the small of the back advertises too much.

Of course, open carry is the most comfortable.

The Federalist:

Consider the events of the the past week. A Maryland teenager shot and killed an adult deer after it broke down the door of his house. In South Carolina, a deer smashed through the window of a Gold’s Gym and raced through the weight room as terrified humans scattered. In New York City, the beloved Harlem deer that somehow made its way into the heart of America’s largest city died after police tranquilized and captured it.

These aren’t just zany wild animal anecdotes. This is what happens when state and local governments don’t let people shoot deer. The fact is, deer populations across the country are about a hundred times what they were a century ago. The only thing that will stop the deer uprising is if Americans are allowed to kill more of them.

In his 2012 book, “Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds,” Jim Sterba chronicled a dramatic swing in the fortunes of our continent’s wild animals overt the past century. By 1900, centuries of more or less unregulated hunting and trapping had reduced wild animals populations in America to mere remnants. The conservation movement, writes Sterba, began as a response to this dire situation, and was spearheaded by public figures like then-New York governor Teddy Roosevelt. Public lands were set aside for wildlife refuges and parks, limits were set on hunting, and efforts launched nationwide to restock wildlife. It took time, but the conservationists were successful.

Too successful, it turns out. Wildlife damage to crops and infrastructure now exceeds $28 billion a year, with $1.5 billion from deer crashes alone. Chicago now has thousands of coyotes. Texas has about 3 million feral hogs (and counting), which cause an estimated half-billion dollars in damages every year.

Yes, and the cost of feral hogs in Georgia is even worse, having put entire farms out of business.  Here’s the problem.

First of all, when states began modern game management techniques, it made some sense.  This has caused herds populations to rebound to enormous sizes compared to even what they were in the days before humans and animals fought over the same land.  But as the herd size increased, the inevitable occurred.

States began to see the herds as their own property, charging for tags, huge sums of money in certain cases, and they began to put limits on the kinds of firearms that could be used, limit the hunting season, and control even what time of day or night you could hunt.  Some of this makes some sense even if it involves self policing rather than the nanny state assuming the power to themselves (i.e., caliber size to ensure an ethical kill), but the states controls are implemented for the wrong reason.

Only the king’s men may hunt in the king’s forests, they think.  The second problem is that control freaks have passed laws just about everywhere concerning if and when you can discharge a firearm.  I’ve had Coyotes coming down the road towards me, and I had to use other means besides a firearm to chase them away because, you guessed it, it’s illegal for me to discharge a firearm where I live.  Only the police can do that.  Apparently, only the police need to engage in self defense, according to the state.

Yes, we’re going to have to hunt the herds back down, but we’re going to have to be allowed to discharge firearms when we need to.  And by the way, limits on feral hogs, whether bag limit or when or how they can be shot, make no sense at all.  If your state has such a limit, then the state rulers hate you and love the money it brings in to license you to hunt and tell you how and when to do it.  They hate you because hogs are destructive to the environment and can harm you and your children, and they love money because they have no scruples.

It wasn’t a negligent discharge.

But there’s more to it than meets the eye.  It wasn’t just an equipment malfunction.  According to the reddit/r/firearms discussion thread, this modification was done to the firearm.

1. He installed an aftermarket hammer and sear that were labeled “gunsmith installation only”.
2. He disabled the firing pin block safety on his firearm for a shorter reset.

So here are the moral(s) of the story.  First, the rules of gun safety are considered “defense in depth.”  Follow all of them, all of the time.

Second, if you cannot properly do sufficiently complex modifications to your firearms, then don’t do them at all and let a gunsmith tackle the job.  That’s their job.

Tom McHale has a very good article at Ammoland on AR-15 rifle barrel lengths and whether it matters.

Remember that you have two competing effects on muzzle velocity.  First, it’s advisable to get as much work out of expanding gases as feasible in order to increase muzzle velocity.  Second, there is friction in the barrel, which is a detriment to the work being done by the expanding gases.

So there is a turnover point on the curve of barrel length versus muzzle velocity, where you no longer gain muzzle velocity with increased barrel length.  So McHale performed some testing of barrel lengths, and this is what he came up with.

The difference between the 16″ and 18″ barrel is greater than the difference between the 18″ and 20″ barrel.  But barrel lengths greater than 18″ doesn’t buy you much.  McHale also has some data on the .300 Blackout round that looks interesting.

The one thing he didn’t give us is the effects of 14.5″ barrels (as with the M4), or pistol length barrels (e.g., 10″ barrels).  I would like to see some test data on that, and unless persuaded otherwise I have to believe that the SpecOps trend to use shorter and shorter barrels lengths along with suppressors is adversely effecting muzzle velocity.

From Reddit/r/Firearms commenter:

Step 1) Elect Republicans

Step 2) Hearing Protection Act <— now here

Step 3) Show that scary NFA items aren’t inherently more dangerous and their deregulation doesn’t increase crime

Step 4) Remove SBRs from NFA

Step 5) Repeat step 3

Step 6) Allow new registration of post-86 MGs under NFA

Step 7) Repeat step 3

Step 8) Remove MGs from NFA, repeal NFA

Yep.  That’s what I’ve been trying to say.  It has to be done in stages, boys and girls.  Be patient, but diligent.  Keep pressing, never give up.  Grass roots activism is our friend.  Inch by inch, step by step.

Travis prints only a little bit with his appendix carry, and I admit that he makes a very good case for the superior tactical advantage of appendix over 3:00 carry.

But I also have to say that I cannot get comfortable with appendix carry.  My carry is more like 2:00 – 2:30.  I just can’t move it around any more and be comfortable.

How do you carry?

Manisha Krishnan:

What I learned, through the process of becoming a firearms license holder, trying out several types of shooting sports, and—for the sake of comparison—joining the National Rifle Association in the US, is that Canadian gun culture is quieter and far more anal than American gun culture. And most Canadian gun owners seem to be just fine with that.

[ … ]

The Americans I spoke with generally consider having to get a license an affront to their personal liberty, but on a practical level, unless you have a criminal record or something to hide, I don’t see the issue.

[ … ]

Not long after, I shot a long-range rifle—a beast of a gun, that I’m told is used by snipers in the military. I hated it. It felt like a literal bomb going off …

[ … ]

In late May, I headed to Louisville, Kentucky for the NRA convention after signing up to become an NRA member. I had never—and probably never will again—see that many guns (or old white men) in one place. There was an exhibition space the size of two large airplane hangars filled with every type of gun and gun accessory possible, even special bedside holsters. The NRA is an extremely slick operation with a tightly controlled message. Everywhere I looked, there were television screens showing various gun advocates who spoke about protecting the Second Amendment, and protecting themselves against “terrorists” and the other evils of the world. Inside one of the auditoriums, waiting for then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to speak, a gentleman beside me started showing me photos of all his guns on his phone. He assumed I was black and said it was “nice to see an African-American here for a change.” When I asked why he thought there weren’t many black people in the NRA, he replied: “They’ll tell you that they don’t have the money for it. But they have money for rims. They have money for Air Jordans.” With my first racist experience under my belt, I proceeded to watch Trump get the NRA’s official endorsement. Most NRA members I spoke to said Donald Trump was not their ideal choice but that they would still vote for him, because they truly believed that Hillary Clinton would take away their guns. One woman, who runs a gun school for women, asked me how I would react to being attacked if I wasn’t armed. I responded that where I’m from, it’s not really something that I often have to think about it.

To all of my Canadian readers, I’m sure you’re proud of her, as proud as we are about our MSM.  Well there you have it.  All of the money quotes in one minute.  I’m willing to bet that she has never had a real bomb “go off” in her hands.  No, I’m sure of it.

It’s nice to hear that there’s no crime in Canada.  At all.  Ever.  Otherwise she might have to thing about things like self defense.

As for Hillary Clinton taking away my guns, I’ve never worried about that in the slightest.  All she could have ever done is declare civil war, and the shooting goes both ways when that happens.  I’m certain that she wouldn’t think of us as old white men if that happened.