Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

News from the world of deer hunting.

This is what happens when you don’t use a lanyard / safety rope with a prusik knot.

He doesn’t really give you a best (except to say that he still prefers bolt action), he surveys what’s out there.

Via reader Ned, who says a hunting cartridge can’t go in an ELR gun?  The trick is that it takes some time and expertise.

American Rifleman.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) released the 2020 edition of its Firearm Production Report to members this month, and among its findings is the fact that civilian interest and ownership of modern sporting rifles continues to skyrocket. Since 1990, according to the study, an estimated 19.8 million have been manufactured and put into circulation.

Forty-eight percent of all firearms produced in the United States or imported in 2018 were modern sporting rifles. Despite the manufacturing focus, inventories remained low across the nation, and this year’s firearm sales pace has left many retailers without models to sell.

There are approximately 79.2 million rifle magazines capable of holding 30 or more rounds in circulation—nearly all of them modern sporting rifle versions. The potentially lifesaving advantage of not having to reload during a criminal encounter isn’t overlooked by pistol owners, either. Roughly 71.2 million handgun magazines capable of holding more than 10 cartridges are owned by enthusiasts today.

Lots of luck trying to confiscate all of those guns.  That’s an impossible task.

However, there’s something that bears repeating, and it’s a point of second amendment logic brought up by David Codrea a couple of days ago.

And as few “gunpundits” seem to see, no matter how long you give them, “in common use” is not about popularity. It is about “every terrible implement of the soldier,” that is, “ordinary military equipment” capable of enabling citizens to prevail in “common defense” battles.  Were it otherwise, withholding new technology from We the People would be all tyrants would need to keep it forever out of “common use.”

Make sure to ponder the point he’s making, and focus on the last sentence of his paragraph.  If “common use” had to do with popularity contests, then the whole edifice of the second amendment collapses.

A tyrannical government could (illegally) keep them from being produced for or distributed to the public, and then claim in court (or the court of public opinion) that although our standing army has such weaponry, since they are not in common use among the public (from which the militia comes), the second amendment doesn’t apply to those weapons.

This becomes a “de facto” argument (which is a formal logical fallacy) by themselves nefariously ensuring the preconditions for waiving and cessation of the right.

Never forget what the founders really intended, regardless of the machinations of the lawyers – and ignore the dense gun bloggers who fail to point these things out.

This is a different sort of video for Tim, who doesn’t do revolvers.  I do, and while it technically failed his test, it did better than he thought it would.  I have to confess that I hated to see a nice wheel gun done that way.

News from Texas.

The first case testing a Trump administration edict outlawing bump stocks failed during a brief federal bench trial in Tuesday in Houston.

A federal prosecutor withdrew the unique charge before the trial began for a Houston man accused of owning the device. However, the defense was prepared to call an ATF expert to testify that bump stocks, attachments that cause a rifle to fire more rapidly, do not render a semiautomatic gun a machine gun.

Senior U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller convicted Ajay Dhingra, 44, on three remaining counts that he lied when he purchased a handgun, rifle and ammunition, and illegally possessed a weapon as a person who had been committed for mental illness.

Experts had conflicting views on the matter, said defense attorney Tom Berg. But Rick Vasquez, a retired ATF agent and firearms expert, would have told the court the bump stock did not meet the statutory definition of a machine gun. The prosecution dismissed case, he said, because the government couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt the bump stock was a machine gun.

Prosecutors don’t indiscriminately drop cases.  They do it if they think they have a bad case and a non-trivial chance of losing, coupled with high consequences of a loss.

This continues a pattern of cases where the ATF feels that continued prosecution of a case could possibly cause a loss in court and a restriction of their ability to enforce other regulations.

It’s good to see this loss, as the bump stock ruling should never have even seen the light of day.

At Ammoland.

Frankly, I like this modernized version available at Ohio Ordnance Works.

I’m just dropping this out there in case anyone was thinking Christmas presents.

Shooting Illustrated.

During a recent discussion at the gun store, the subject of headspace as it pertains to the many varieties of ammunition available for semi-automatic pistols was the primary topic. With all the variables in bullet weight and velocity in the available calibers, we could not imagine how headspace could be held to any kind of standard in a pistol. Enlighten us as to why headspace is important in a handgun and how to ensure the headspace on the ammunition we buy is correct for the gun we have.
R.R. Johnson
Meridian, MS

Headspace has nothing to do with bullet weight or the velocity of a particular cartridge. It pertains more to the chamber of the barrel and its relationship to the bolt or breechface when the action is closed. The manner in which the cartridge sits in the chamber may have an impact on the function of headspace if it is undersize or oversize.

In a semi-automatic pistol, with few exceptions, the chambered cartridge case is restricted in its forward movement into the chamber by the case mouth contacting the cartridge seat at the forward edge of the chamber. The measured distance between the cartridge seat and the breechface with the action closed is the headspace for the pistol. For every caliber commonly available, there are gauges that are used, principally by gunsmiths, to determine whether the headspace of a firearm is within specified tolerances or not. If the action closes on a GO gauge, but not on a NO-GO gauge, the gun is considered within the tolerances specified. Should the action close on a NO-GO gauge, that would be an indicator there may be excessive headspace and the gun needs the attention of a gunsmith for further analysis.

It is important to recognize there are tolerances associated with measurements of headspace involving ammunition, and necessarily so. When one considers all of the brands and types of ammunition manufactured for a specific caliber with the subtle differences in their cartridge cases alone, it might be understood why tolerances exist.

[ … ]

Guns that have excessive headspace have the potential to leave enough space between the chambered cartridge and the breechface that the firing pin may fail to reach or indent the primer sufficiently to fire the cartridge. This also presents a danger in that the cartridge could possibly fire without the full support of the chamber. In high-pressure cartridges such as the 9 mm, .40 S&W or .357 SIG, for example, the lack of support could cause a rupture in the body of the cartridge case or possibly a complete head separation. Either of these events could release uncontrolled, high-pressure gasses into the interior of the pistol that are likely to cause parts breakage or mechanical failure.

Read the rest.  I like simple, easy-to-understand explanations.

Ammoland.

The Army Ordnance folks around the beginning of the 20th Century had seen the failures of round-nosed, full-metal jacketed bullets in the British .303 rifles, and our own .30 U.S. Government (aka “.30-40 Krag”) in stopping a determined armed assailant.

They reasoned that since their .38 Long Colt Model 1892 revolvers had shown similarly poor results, and the re-issuance of the .45 SAA (Single Action Arm) into combat had added to the eventual defeat of the Philippine Moros, our military review board sought to adopt another large bore handgun. The British too paralleled this thought process, and as early as the mid-1880s they had already started issuing some of the first .455 Webley revolvers as a result.

By the middle of the first decade of the 20th Century, Colt was developing, along with the genius designer of most of their handguns, John Browning, a .45 cal. semi-automatic pistol. While the original development utilized a 200gr bullet at approximately 900 feet per second in 1906, the Ordnance Department subsequently desired a cartridge that approximated the old .45 Colt revolver cartridge in power, while being shorter in length than the substitute standard .45 S&W Schofield round.

Thus, the 230gr RN FMJ bullet at 850 fps nominal speed was created, and it found a home in the concurrently developed Colt Model 1911 pistol, the longest serving pistol of any military force to the best of my knowledge, some 75 years of official issue.

In the civilian world however, it has remained as popular as ever. Due to the existence of new generation jacketed hollow point bullets, it still retains its terminal ballistic advantages of expansion and consistent penetration compared to smaller bore diameter offerings. A recent detailed study indeed illustrated that the Federal HST 230gr standard pressure rounds offer 16” of penetration and consistent 0.85” of controlled expansion with no bullet fragmentation in an unofficial “FBI heavy clothing test” into simulated ballistic gelatin.

One other thing that is not mentioned much is that its stopping power is achieved without superior “sectional density,” high pressure, or high velocity. It operates at a very low 21,000 copper units of pressure, it has no supersonic crack, and is, therefore, nearly ideal for use with a suppressor. The recoil, while “there,” is more a push than a quick snap, while controlled-pairs shooting aimed rapid-fire are pretty easy to do out to ten yards and can usually be within an inch of each other. I’ve done it, and I’m just not that great a shot.

Moreover, the . 45 ACP cartridge has long borne the brunt of technical development as a precision target shooting round as well as being a supremely controllable defense round. In both the original 230gr RN,FMJ format for “hardball matches,” as well as reduced weight 185gr and 200g target matches, it remains one of the most accurate service pistol rounds extant.

And of course, with the hotter loads you can get from Buffalo Bore and Double Tap, you can send a 230 grain ball at around 1050 FPS, or a 450 SMC at 1120 FPS, and be okay for defense against large predators.

I like the push instead of the snap.  I love shooting the .45 ACP more than any other cartridge, pistol or rifle.

To me it’s not just a competition or self defense round.  If somebody said, “Hey we’re headed to the range, grab a gun,” the first thing I’d reach for is a 1911.