Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

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.

Shooting Illustrated.

It’s true that the best 9 mm loads are equal in performance to many .45 ACP loads. However, if recovered-bullet diameter and penetration mean what we think they do, the best 9 mm loads are not the equal of the best .45 ACP loads. Regarding capacity, a first-grader can see a 9 mm pistol holds more ammo, but most civilian self-defense shootings are resolved with between one and eight shots. So, capacity might not be all that important after all. But what about shootability? Are 9 mm pistols that much easier to shoot more accurately and faster? To find that out, I conducted a test to get to the bottom of the 9mm vs .45 ACP debate.

[ … ]

The 6.32-cubic-inch crush cavity delivered by the Federal 230-grain +P HST load is impressive, but it comes with a cost, and that cost is an uncomfortable shooting experience and an increase in the time it takes to fire multiple shots. Measuring recoil can be subjective, but more never helps you shoot better. Everyone will have different limits, but at some point, you must decide if the terminal performance you gain is worth the reduction in shootability that comes with it.

What the information from this test—and the massive spreadsheet created to digest it—might do best is to explain why most law enforcement agencies have gone back to the 9 mm. With the best 9 mm loads, you get terminal performance similar to standard .45 ACP loads out of a gun that holds more ammunition and is easier to shoot fast and accurately. But, what this also shows is that with a .45 ACP, you can select a lesser-recoiling load and shoot nearly as fast and accurately as you can with a 9 mm pistol, while delivering similar terminal performance. If you do that, the only thing you’re giving up with the .45 is capacity.

This is an odd article by Richard Mann.  He spends most of his effort testing and discussing ordinary .45 ACP rounds, but frankly I’ve never seen PD .45 ACP rounds.  They are all +P ammunition.  Furthermore, jacketed ball rounds for dangerous game defense are certainly all +P, and some are +P+ (such as with Double Tap 450 SMC, Underwood and Buffalo Bore).

He admits as much in both the front and end of the article, and yet states that the only thing you give up by selecting the .45 ACP is capacity.  So he admits that the .45 ACP +P has more effect than the 9mm, and then discusses giving something up to carry it (like capacity).

I think this article needed an editor.

But there’s one more thing missing in this analysis beyond “recoil,” however that is felt.  The 9mm is a higher pressure round (35,000 psi chamber pressure) compared to the 45 ACP (customarily 25,000 psi, but admittedly higher with +P+ ammunition).  There is simply a difference in feel, some call it a push versus snappiness.  I would liken it to the difference between shooting the 30-30 and 5.56mm (the former being at42,000 psi, whereas the later is 62,000 psi).

For me the bottom line is purchase and practice with both.  Use whatever you feel the best shooting in the circumstance.  But I’d never liken the performance of the 9mm with 45 ACP +P+ for dangerous game.

For dangerous game, carry a big bore cartridge.

Outdoor Life.

There are some interesting takeaways from the above chart. First, the .350 Legend is by far the lightest projectile on the list at 150 grains, and it has a higher muzzle velocity than any of the others. The two 12-gauge slugs both produce 700 ft.-lb. more energy at the muzzle than the .350 Legend and 240 to nearly 400 ft./lb. more than the .45/70.

However, the ballistic advantage changes at the 200-yard mark. The .350 now has more energy than the 1-ounce rifled slug from Federal and the .45/70 impacts with more energy than any other load on the list. The .350 also shoots flatter than the slugs. At 200 yards, the .350 drops only 7.6 inches when zeroed at 100 yards. The Hornady 12-gauge sabot slug drops just under a foot at 200 yards when zeroed at 100, about the same as the .45/70. Hornady’s 20-gauge Custom Lite slug drops over 18 inches, and the 1-ounce lead 12-gauge rifled slug drops more than 2 feet at 200 yards.

As you can see from the chart, the 12-gauge slugs and .45/70 produce substantially more recoil than the .350 Legend, though Hornady’s Custom Lite 20-gauge projectile produces only slightly more recoil than the .350 Legend.

I’m not sure I’d try to take game at 200 yards with either a straight walled cartridge or a shotgun, so I’m not sure the 350 Legend ever really gives an advantage.

I see plenty of both straight walled cartridges and slug ammunition around, although slugs still seem to dominate where I am (not in a straight wall state).

Most of the guys who shoot 350 Legend seem to have problems with accuracy because of the choice of 9mm bullets they have to load.