Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

I know someone who has the Bergara rifle and he likes it a lot.

Texas Plinking has spent a lot of money on rifles and optics.

Shooting Illustrated.

My first fighting lever action happened to be a Marlin. Back in the early 1970s, I got a Marlin 1894 in .44 Magnum, and cut it down to Trapper size. Even with the 16-inch barrel, it held 9 rounds of 240-grain hollowpoints and was just a handy little carbine. But, I’m clearly not the only one who likes lever actions because checking the 2021 Gun Digest Annual, I find that some 10 to 12 companies are building the guns. And I think that there are a number of reasons to consider the lever-action carbine for personal defense.

The first would be the fact that many models are chambered for standard handgun cartridges. The shooter who carries a revolver may very well find that a carbine chambered in the same caliber is mighty handy if for no other reason than the fact that only one kind of ammo needs to be carried and stocked. Carbines in pistol calibers will certainly take care of business out to 100 yards, and possibly beyond. And folks who live where dangerous four-legged game are known to roam can just select a gun chambered for .308 Win., .444 Marlin, .45-70 Govt. and others. Lever guns come in calibers that will take care of all of the ornery critters that one might have to deal with.

[ … ]

… there are those who simply have grown up shooting the lever-action carbines. The guns feel natural and the shooter understands them. There is no reason to switch to something else. A .30-30, which has essentially the same performance as the 7.62×39 mm, will do as good a job of protecting home and family as it does bringing in the venison.

The lever-action carbine, in one form or another, has been around since the 1860s, and it is still around because it gets the job done.

Mirroring some of the same comments seen here at TCJ.

One thing you’ll notice as you look around at the availability of firearms and ammunition is that, while ammo is virtually unavailable at reasonable prices, there are two types of long guns that are the same (they cannot be found): AR-15s and lever guns.

Ruger, in its purchase of Marlin assets, knows what Americans want.  Revolvers will be around forever.  Lever guns will be around forever.  AR-15s will be around forever.  1911s will be around forever, whether called 1911s or 2011s and given boutique names and calibers.  Good designs are like that.

Ruger.

Sturm, Ruger and Company, Inc. (NYSE: RGR) announced today that its offer to purchase substantially all of the Marlin Firearms assets was accepted by Remington Outdoor Company, Inc. and approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The Company will pay the $30 million purchase price from cash on hand at the time of closing, which is expected to occur in October.

“The value of Marlin and its 150-year legacy was too great of an opportunity for us to pass up,” said Ruger President and CEO Chris Killoy. “The brand aligns perfectly with ours and the Marlin product portfolio will help us widen our already diverse product offerings.”

The transaction is exclusively for the Marlin Firearms assets. Remington firearms, ammunition, other Remington Outdoor brands, and all facilities and real estate are excluded from the Ruger purchase. Once the purchase is completed, the Company will begin the process of relocating the Marlin Firearms assets to existing Ruger manufacturing facilities.

“The important thing for consumers, retailers and distributors to know at this point in time,” continued Killoy, “is that the Marlin brand and its great products will live on. Long Live the Lever Gun.”

It sounds like they have their finger on the pulse of the American gun-buying public.  This is good news.  I’m sure Ruger will do a good job with Marlin designs, maybe bringing it back to original quality.

Maybe they’ll also be more competitive with lever gun prices.

This is a very informative video.  In it he gives us good tips on making sure that the parallax has been properly set on our scopes.

Of course, if you have a second focal plane scope with fixed parallax this won’t work, but then, you don’t usually purchase SFP scopes for long distance shooting.

But he does give a pointer towards the end for making sure parallax won’t effect your shot if you cannot adjust it.

Dean Weingarten.

The female victim began to yell for help. A male victim, in his 30s, who rents the basement, heard the commotion and went upstairs with a loaded semi-automatic pistol. The male victim then confronts the Tenorio brothers and shoots Christian.

At this point, Jimmy retrieved the loaded revolver handgun and began to drag Christian out of the home. The male victim retreated and then returned with a loaded assault style rifle. The male victim and Jimmy exchange gunfire.

Both brothers were pronounced dead on the scene, by apparent gunfire, in the front yard of the home.

I love happy stories.  They make me feel all warm inside.

But make sure to note the communists on this point.  No one needs an AR-15, not even people facing a multi-man home invasion.

News from Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Superior Court, in a strongly worded decision, ruled Monday that a lawsuit filed by the parents of a 13-year-old Mount Pleasant boy who was killed accidentally when his friend fired a gun at him can move forward.

It is the first appeals court in the country to find that the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act is unconstitutional and could, ultimately, have sweeping ramifications on suits brought against gun manufacturers.

“It is a huge deal,” said Jonathan Lowy, chief counsel for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, who argued the case on behalf of Mark and Leah Gustafson.

The Gustafsons filed the complaint against Springfield Arms (sic) and Saloom Department Store in 2018, alleging negligence and strict liability for the manufacture and sale of a defective handgun.

J.R. was at a home in Westmoreland County on March 20, 2016, when his 14-year-old friend obtained the homeowner’s handgun and removed the clip. Believing the gun was unloaded, the friend, John Burnsworth III, pulled the trigger and shot J.R.

Burnsworth ultimately pleaded delinquent in juvenile court to involuntary manslaughter and served more than a year at a Cambria County reform school before his release.

In their lawsuit, the Gustafsons argued that the gun that killed their son had a design defect because it lacked a safety feature that would disable it from firing without a clip inserted.

However, the defendants filed preliminary objections and asserted immunity under the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.

Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Harry F. Smail threw the case out, agreeing with the defendants that the act prohibited the lawsuit.

The Gustafsons appealed, arguing that the act is unconstitutional.

In a 63-page opinion filed Monday in Superior Court, a three-judge panel of the court agreed that it is.

“[T]he Act is unconstitutional in its entirety,” Judge Deborah A. Kunselman wrote. “The only portions of the [act] that do not offend the Constitution are its findings and purposes … and a few definitions.”

Instead, she said, it was an act of “constitutional overreach” and a violation of the Tenth Amendment, which gives power, such as the tort reform intended by the act, to individual states.

According to the court, the act in question says that a “’qualified-civil-liability action may not be brought in any federal or state court” against members of the gun industry. Such a lawsuit ‘shall be immediately dismissed by the court in which the action was brought or is currently pending.’”

There are enumerated exceptions in the act, which did not apply in the Gustafson case.

Instead, the Superior Court chose to address the constitutionality of the act, which was passed in 2005 after intense lobbying in Congress by the gun industry. Kunselman noted in the opinion that guns kill approximately 30,000 people annually.

“The act immunizes the gun industry from every conceivable type of joint and comparable liability known to the common law,” the court wrote, even if a product is faulty and causes harm.

The act, the opinion continued, is unsustainable, because “it grants the gun industry immunity regardless of how far removed from interstate commerce the harm arises.”

The decision can be found here.  This paragraph struck me as presumptuous.

We find the logic of the Supreme Court of Alaska in Kim unpersuasive. That court erroneously believed that allowing claims for ordinary negligence (or any other cause of action based in negligence) would render the PLCAA’s exception for claims of negligence per se and negligent entrustment surplusage. That court and the trial court misunderstood the PLCAA’s goal, which is to protect only those members of the gun industry who obey state or federal statutes from common-law liability. As we will explain below, Congress passed the PLCAA to immunize what they considered to be law-abiding members of the industry — in Congress’s mind, those who follow federal and state statutes.

And this court happens to know better.  And that “better” includes protection only of “law-abiding” manufacturers.  The trick is to know that law, which in this case is decided by a court, i.e., that Springfield Armory designed an unsafe weapon.

So it’s left up to a court who has probably never used weapons to decide what’s safe and unsafe.  Springfield Armory didn’t violate a single law in the design of this weapon, and Smith & Wesson (in the design of their M&P) and Glock also manufacture pistols that will discharge without a magazine being inserted.

There was nothing at all defective about this handgun, and nothing defective about the design.  Don’t point guns at other people and pull the trigger.  This case is remarkably different than the case against Remington 700, in that Remington had repeatable test cases where a rifle falling over, even with the safety on, caused a round to discharge, or the simple act of closing the bolt caused a round to discharge.  Remington made a defective product.  Springfield Armory did not.

Perhaps some users want that feature.  It’s there for very good reason (e.g., tactical reloads where a previously unseen assailant is approaching and you need that round still left in the chamber before you get the reload accomplished).

Never mind training, never mind user desires for features, never mind the rules of gun safety, which if they had been followed would have prevented this event.  The court knows better, that court being completely ignorant of gun designs.

This is why the law was passed to begin with.  So their presumptuous attack on prior applications ends up hoisting them on their own petard.

But watch and see and heed this warning.  I suspect Bloomberg money was behind this lawsuit, but in any case, yet another manufacturer will have to defend itself in endless court appearances, demands for discovery, and on and on the circus goes.  Springfield Armory won’t be the last manufacturer to be hit with lawsuits like this one, and in the end, the controllers will demand a federal law for firearms design.

Court behavior most of the time would be amusing if it wasn’t so sad and farcical.

I’ve always though that the .22LR was a bit of an underpowered cartridge, and I like the .22 magnum.  This video documents a very interesting .22 magnum project.  He begins with a Ruger Precision rifle in .22 magnum, does some modifications to it, but most of his work focuses on the cartridge itself.

See if you enjoy it as much as I did.

From Sniper’s Hide.

As to how this sort of thing can happen, one commenter notes:

Lawsuits
Unions
RP9 Pistols
R51 Pistols
Ho Hum AR’s
Ruger, Howa, Tikka, Bergara, and the rise of “production class” customs eating your lunch in the bolt action segment
Hornady

Bad decisions.  True enough, being in a collective bargaining state rather than a right to work state harmed them, as it will any company.  They should have relocated as should any firearms manufacturer located in the Northeast.

But they have made some extremely bad business and financial decisions like waiting far too long to acknowledge the problems associated with the 700, failures they even duplicated in non-trivial numbers by their own testing.

Other firearms manufacturers have been smarter and faster, and the firearms-buying public has too many very good options to settle for mediocre products these days.

There is also the issue of the fact that Cerberus / Freedom Group was essentially a company of “financial engineers” (I loath that term for reasons that would send me off on a rant) who worked hard to squeeze every last drop of money out of the company and leave it bankrupt.

This serves as an object lesson to firearms manufacturers everywhere.  [1] Don’t sell out to financial engineers who want to rape the company, [2] admit and fix flaws in guns, and do it fast, [3] get out of union states, [4] give the public what they want by being innovative, cost effective and smart, but don’t make trash, and finally, [5] hire good engineers.

We’re all watching the remaining firearms manufacturers located in the Northeast.  If you are one of them, why are you still there?

Prior: Gun Valley Moves South

Yea it’s slow compared to today’s standards, but I want one.  I’ve always wanted one since I was a kid.