Archive for the 'Guns' Category

That’s a mighty long way to sling that large bullet, but it shows what time and ingenuity can do.

First of all, I don’t shoot Remington ammunition.  I consider it to be rather weak tea most of the time.  It isn’t awful, but there’s nothing special about it.

Second, that muzzle velocity for .45 ACP is quite low.  There is much stouter stuff around (Underwood, Double Tap, Buffalo Bore, etc.).

Third, I still think in many cases ball ammunition is a fine choice for personal defense.

Source.

A North Carolina resident named Tarika McAllister fired a gun for the first time last week and it helped put a man who broke into her home behind bars.

According to WRAL-TV, McAllister, who lives in the city of Dunn, was home alone when she awaken by loud noises and her dog barking around 6 a.m last Tuesday. After hearing the sounds coming from the rear of her house, she went to check if everything was okay. McAllister was stunned to find a man attempting to steal some of her items —including her dog. It was at that moment that she took matters into her own hands.

The 29-year-old yelled for the intruder to get out, but he was unphased. Fortunately, within her reach was the gun she kept stored. And although she had never used it before, she put her nervousness aside and grabbed it.

“All I did was turn around and grab the gun,” McAllister told WRAL. “I was fumbling with it. It’s my first time using it.”

McAllister added that she lifted the safety and did what she had to do.

“I just lifted it up, and I started shooting at him, wherever he was moving to, I just shot him out of the house,” she said.

When the police arrived to the scene, they found the thief, who has been identified as 20-year-old Malihk Giles, only about 200 yards from McAllister’s home with two gunshot wounds, one on his right lower leg and the other on his right side. After his wounds were treated at a local hospital, he was taken into custody at Harnett County Detention Center where he is being held on charges of first-degree burglary and possession of stolen property with a $75,000 bond. McAllister and Giles had no connection to each before the incident but according to McAllister, she experienced a similar incident at her home just three weeks prior. Luckily, she was able to just scare the man away.

So she lives in a neighborhood with a crime problem, and had a home invasion before this incident.  She purchased a gun and stopped this one cold.

Wait!  You mean she didn’t attend “School of the Tacticool Warrior” taught by former Navy SEAL Ranger Scout Sniper FBI SWAT Team member “Mr. Tacticool Himself?”  You mean she didn’t drop $2000 for a class and travel a 1000 miles to take classes from the best of the best?  She just picked up a gun and defended herself and her home?

Well then.  I would indeed suggest that she get some range time and maybe take some classes on proper grip technique and shooting stance to help her in the future, but this just goes to show once again that anyone can overcome their fears and nerves to effect self defense.  A bunch of hollering and screaming from Mr. Tacticool trainer wasn’t needed.

I always learn something by watching or listening to Jerry.

Now, if I can just get to the range to practice these things.

I think this will take some practice.

I just can’t find a good tactical shotgun course offered anywhere near me.

It seems to have a chance.

As you all are aware by now, Texas passed a “Texas Made Suppressor Law” last session. It is a highly specific law that says that a suppressor that is made ENTIRELY of Texas made parts and stays in Texas is legal. Representative Tom Oliverson (R-District 130) led the fight for passage on this bill and it was well crafted.

It requires anyone who wants to build these to first seek a Declaratory Judgement from the courts–thus giving Attorney General Ken Paxton legal standing to defend the law.

Good news for us! The feds tried to kill the case and Judge Pittman said their arguments were not good enough to pull the plug on the case and denied their motion.

We will have our day in court! Post-Bruen, I have high hopes that this will prevail. Further, I spoke with Representative Oliverson this morning and he said ““HB957 passed its first legal challenge yesterday.  I am glad to see the lawsuit move forward and I look forward to Judge Pittman’s evaluation of the arguments.  I believe the case against federal regulation of these Texas-made, Texan-owned firearm safety devices is solid!”

It’s going to be a long haul but the trial date has been included in the four-week docket beginning November 12, 2023 and I have high hopes for it!

Here’s the problem.  Unless this bill includes the directive for local LEOs to arrest agents of the FedGov who attempt to arrest folks who have suppressors without registering them as NFA items, the law is meaningless.

It’s a setup and trap, even if unintentional.

Do the right thing with the bill.  Connect it to protection from the FedGov by the state and then it’s good to go.  Even if the FedGov cannot be watched 24 hours per day, after arrest of innocent victims of this new law the state can decide to enter FedGov facilities to regain control of the victims and arrest said agents.

It’s all about who is willing to flex their muscle enough.  And by the way, this sort of thing is exactly why the FedGov fears the new Missouri law prohibiting the ATF from interfering with the 2A in that state.  It has teeth because it’s backed by state and local law enforcement under threat of firing and never again being able to work as a LEO in Missouri.

Guy appendix carries without a holster and shoots himself in the groin.  Link -> reddit/Firearms.

Yea I know.  Use a holster – that’ll make everything safe.

Or not.  I don’t appendix carry.  I don’t point weapons at myself regardless of how much confidence I have in trigger discipline.

It’s called redundancy, or defense in depth, which is an engineering design philosophy.

You don’t point guns at other people and then claim it’s safe because you have trigger discipline, do you?

No, I don’t either, and I don’t point weapons at myself.

But that’s just my opinion.  Carry however you wish.

Every once in a while, reddit/Firearms has a good question come up.  It isn’t often, but sometimes one will catch my eye.

Can they be cleaned or are they disposable?  Just asking so I don’t wind up buying mops every time my 22 or shotgun turns those fibers black.

To which he gets this reply.

I reuse mine. I just hose it down with canned gun cleaner or non-chlorinated brake clean.

I like bore mops and use them heavily when cleaning.  They’re far more efficient than running a patch through the bore 1800 times.

However, I would suspect that repeated application of a solvent to clean the mop would begin to disintegrate the mop fibers.

Pat always seems to have some fun shooting.  He’s sporting the Henry Long Ranger in .223 (they also make this model in at least 6.5 Creedmoor, and maybe others).

Although I confess I don’t understand why, if the rifle was zeroed at 50 yards, it would be shooting 1.5″ high at 100 yards.  It should be right on at 100 yards, while if it had been zeroed at 25 yards, it should be on at 200 – 250 yards.

Housekeeping Note: Herschel is offline this week. We’re certain that the quality of the posts will suffer, but the quality of the discussion in the comments doesn’t have to!

Source:

…After the American experience in Korea, where servicemen faced massed assault from Chinese forces, it was decided that the World War II workhorse M1 Garand rifle was no longer adequate; its low capacity and lack of full automatic fire hamstrung U.S. troops.

The Pentagon wanted a new rifle. Around the same time, there was a push among NATO members to standardize a rifle caliber to simplify wartime logistics. American design philosophies dominated both, and the Army’s parochial Ordnance Corps dominated the discussion on design. Ordnance Corps officers clung to the popular myth of the heroic American rifleman, who wins the day with a few well-aimed, long-ranged shots from a full-power rifle.

Thus, the M14 was born, as well as the new NATO bullet, 7.62x51mm. But everyone soon discovered the difficulty of controlling full-caliber rifles on full-auto; 7.62 NATO weapons quickly turned into anti-aircraft guns in longer automatic bursts, rendering the feature ineffective. These experiences were supported by the results of Project SALVO, a Pentagon research project to develop next-generation infantry weapons. SALVO concluded that a smaller bullet traveling at high velocity would be as lethal, if not more so, than big calibers like 7.62 NATO; the SALVO report recommended that the Pentagon should adopt a little-known gun called the AR-15, designed by ArmaLite engineer Eugene Stoner, and based off his earlier file design for the AR-10.

The AR-15 was unlike anything seen before: It was constructed of forged aluminum and plastics, used a direct impingement gas operating system, and was chambered in the new 5.56X45mm cartridge. It was the antithesis of the M14. Naturally, the Ordnance Corps hated it, and moved to kill the project by resorting to testing practices and emulation that were ultimately unfair to the AR-15. The weapon languished in design committee as Army traditionalists butted heads with Robert McNamara and his RAND Corporation  “whiz kids.”

The article goes on to discuss the interesting history of the AR-15 type platform.