Media sleight of hand

ISLAMABAD — An American CIA contractor facing murder charges in Pakistan has been released after the payment of "blood money" to the relatives of the victims, local officials said Wednesday.

Raymond Allen Davis has been in jail since Jan. 27, seriously straining ties between Pakistan and the United States.

Good for him that he's been turned loose and will not die in that country. It's unfortunate that he spent a month and a half in prison in Pakistan because he had to shoot two robbers, and that the Pakistani media made him out to be the villain. Of course, Davis doesn't get a warm welcome from our media either; read that first sentence above again. Still don't see? How about this one:

Pakistani law allows murder suspects to be set free if they compensate the heirs of their victims.

This is a common tactic amongst the disingenuous hacks that make up 99% of our media, both the newspapers and TV news: calling the shootees who were killed due to their own violent actions the "victims," which makes the shooter the aggressor. And "Blood Money?" What happend to "settlement," like it is here when some coked up lesbian actor destroys some innocent person's life with the hood of her Escalade? Nice try fuckers.

I get that Pakistani people are going to be pissed regardless of what the facts are; they watch the local news just like we do, and it's apparent that word smithing and fact twisting in journalism is a global phenomenon, like a big bolus of hippie is injected into the frontal lobe of every journalism grad. The Pakistani government is between a rock and a hard ass, as even our Head of State publically called Davis a diplomat, which seals the deal, leaving the Pakistani government having to face their own angry people. Bad place to be and all. Overall it was worked out peacefully, thankfully, but I just wish the douchebags working in front of cameras here in the states would do something honest for once in their lives and call a spade a spade. How hard is that?

Big crazy in a little town

A rather large shootout in a sleepy Virginia town leads to 2 cops killed, and 2 wounded. The killer was later shot dead by police, sparing the town the financial burden of convicting him and sentencing him to death. It's stories like this that remind us that cops have a dangerous job that can turn deadly in a moment.

Political seppuku

The Obama administration has apparently decided to jump aboard the gun control train and see what kind of wreck they can make of it. I am surprised at this; I expected that they would light the torches around the gun control altar after President Obama's re-election is determined. Either way, I don't see how there can even be an agreement when the vast majority sees gun ownership as being a basic human right, and not a political gemstone that needs to be placed on a political party's ring.

There's some good stuff in there, like here where President Obama lashes out at Congress for slacking on their duties to the American people:

"Every single day, America is robbed of more futures. It has awful consequences for our society. And as a society, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to put a stop to it," he wrote.

Oh, wait, actually he was directing that statement at firearms, and not necessarily firearms used against Americans by evil people. Silly me. Here's a catch-all statement that can mean so many things as to be virtually useless:

"I'm willing to bet that responsible, law-abiding gun owners agree that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few -- dangerous criminals and fugitives, for example -- from getting their hands on a gun."

I would offer that I could agree with that statement as long as "dangerous criminals" is strictly defined as criminals that have committed the most serious of an act such as violent rape, murder, or attempted murder, and not someone who verbally distrusts the government and has faded Reagan stickers on their bumper; and I would also add that the mechanism for keeping these dangerous criminals from getting their hands on a gun is by placing them in prison forever, and not delaying millions of non-dangerous people from buying guns at Wal-Mart. I think we may have something there. Sadly, I don't believe that that's the conclusion that President Obama and his administration is shooting for:

Obama called for "sound and effective" steps to prevent lawbreakers from obtaining guns. A system of criminal background checks must be better implemented and made more efficient, he said.

Hmmmmm. Preventing violent criminals from ever seeing the light of day again would qualify as "sound and effective," no? I'm thinking his intent though is to delay the purchase of a Colt at Gander Mountain by five-time serial rapist murderers on parole to the tune of a week or so, and not finding a way to keep them behind bars.

"Most gun-control advocates know that most gun owners are responsible citizens. Most gun owners know that the word 'commonsense' isn't a code word for 'confiscation,'" he wrote.

He doesn't read gun blogs very much. This line here shows me that he doesn't have his finger on the pulse of gun owners these days. I would also add that congress has not made it apparent that confiscation is not on the top of their list, not even by a long shot. And in case you're wondering what type of people President Obama considers "dangerous criminals:"

"A man our Army rejected as unfit for service; a man one of our colleges deemed too unstable for studies; a man apparently bent on violence, was able to walk into a store and buy a gun," Obama wrote.

The Army rejects amputees, paraplegics, and people who sleepwalk as being unfit for Service, so they should be barred from buying a gun? Is that where you're heading? Sounds like it's going to be an epic train wreck.

Equipment durability check

As far as weapons and combat equipment go, US troops today are offered gear that has been thoroughly tested and tortured so that it will survive the day-to-day hell that they have to go through. For a good look at what is expected of this equipment, check out this thread (56k go somewhere else) of Marines going through the Jungle Warfare Training Course. I never got to go to that course, but I did go to some courses that really tested man and equipment, where if your stuff wasn't up to par, you would find out there because you would break it.

To give you one example, I was issued bunny boots at the Mountain Warfare Training Center in California, and snickered when they handed me those cartoonish looking things with no visible insulation. My feet always, always, always get cold in the winter time, and the day I arived as base camp the temperature was 20 degrees and dropping fast. I knew I was going to be miserable, but that didn't turn out to be the case. Those boots not only worked while dry, but when I fell through some ice while crossing a creek, and ended up nipple deep in water and mud, all I had to do to get my feet warm again was pour the water out and stuff my wet socked feet back in them. Simplicity ruled the day, and I didn't fail to notice that fifty year old rubber and wool boots worked better for me than anything I've ever bought from Rocky. I now have a pair of those boots sitting in my basement.

Going back to the Jungle Warfare Training Center pics linked above, imagine being soaked in mud and crawling through holes all day, and knowing that if your equipment breaks then you may fail the course, or if you're lucky just continue on with broken laces, watchband, sling, or whatever. The rifles that they're carrying are made of rubber, as Uncle Sam does not buy Colt rifles to beat up in training unless they are expected to be fired. Something I see often on gunny shows on the Outdoor channel or in gun rags is that a featured weapon will be dunked in water for a second or two and then fired, or covered in Mississippi mud in a tupperware container and then shot into the berm to somehow justify that the weapon is indeed reliable. There is the always present talk of the M16/M4 rifle not being able to take the talcum like sand of the Middle East, or that some new phaser-gun looking rifle from H und K standing up to the most demanding dirt North Carolina has to offer, when in fact it is much more deep than that. Here is a glimpse of the real conditions a battle rifle for the US Warfighter is subjected to for up to a year or more at a time:




But hey, its got a dust cover, right! Despite the rantings of naysayers, the M16/M4 platform has done pretty well to withstand the rigors of combat in conditions like that. You're not going to be able to duplicate those conditions in five minutes on the range either; years of fighting in all sorts of climates will tell you what works and what doesn't. The M16 may have had some teething problems when it first arrived in Vietnam, but from all I can tell they got that sorted out and it has gone on and done wonderful things.

Do you think your equipment would take abuse of this magnatude for a year or more?

Female Philippino Naval Special Operations chooses the 1911

Hell yeah! One of them even has a two tone 1911.

The 1911 continues to serve!

New powder from Alliant for AR type rifles

I can't find it on Alliant's website yet, but you can read about it here at AccurateShooter.com

It's a re-formulation of Reloder-15 that has been tested extensively to make it less affected by temperature, which sounds good to me. RL15 is one of my favorite powders for .308 Winchester, but I've always been put off by its habit of giving me different velocities in different temperatures, especially in AR type rifles where you can click off a dozen rounds or more very quickly which makes the chamber very hot. I believe this has given me inconsistency in the past, and it's nice to see powder companies like Hodgdon and Alliant addressing this.

Holster Review: Galco Tuck-N-Go

I've had the Tuck-N-Go from Galco for about a year now, and don't wear it often. The main reason behind this is the fact that a pocket holster just makes perfect sense, but also because of some other things. The Tuck-N-Go is an Inside the Waistband (IWB) holster that you can tuck your shirt over top of, making it extremely concealable. The J-hook is minimalist, making it even more likely that it will go unnoticed.

First off, this holster is high quality, very well built, which is what you would expect from Galco. It's also good looking. The rough surface of the leather it is made from faces outboard to give some purchase for when you draw.




It's a tight fit at first, so you want to keep your heater holstered in it for a few days to loosen things up a bit, maybe even put a sandwich baggie over the gun to help the leather stretch. One of the features is a steel insert at the mouth of the holster to facilitate reholstering, so that when you smoke the tangos from the door of the Blackhawk using your quick draw, you can reholster with one hand while you attach your tactical operator retention lanyard with the other.

For those of you looking for a cantable holster, this ain't it. Drop it into your waistband, hook the J-hook under your belt, tuck in the shirt, and you're good to go. It works very fast if you're taking it out of the glove box or such and want to carry into a store. There's just not a lot of fuss with putting it on, but do know that you will be loosening your belt a notch or two to make up for its width:



Keep in mind that the leather wraps up and over the steel insert in the mouth, so the width of what you see here is not what goes inside the waistband. One of the problems I have with this holster though is that even the little bit of width that this holster has with the pictured Kel-Tec P3AT, you can see the bulge of the piece on your side:



It's not a big deal once you tuck your shirt in, but it's there. I don't know how in the world people carry in their waistband over their appendix; that has to be the most uncomfortable way to carry ever devised even if you can get over having a loaded weapon pointed at your satchel all day. The rough checkering of a Kel-Tec will chafe the soft bits of your jelly roll too, so wear a wife beater or another T-shirt under the one you intend to tuck over the gun or you'll be sorry.


So overall, I would rate the Tuck-N-Go as extremely high for concealability, and low for comfort. Drawing from this holster is about as slow as it can get even if you don't tuck a shirt in over top of it, as it sits so low to your belt line that you can't get a firing grip on it. Trying to do this in a hurry can make you drop the gun. Once you tuck a shirt in on top of it, the draw time gets even worse, but remember that this is supposed to be a "deep concealment" holster to enable you to carry in places where you otherwise would not. Speed of the draw is not what was intended with this concept, for sure. I see this holster as being one of rare necessity, where you want to carry but can't, and need some sort of option.

Give me Libya, or give me death

Man, it's all out warfare there now. The Libyan government is shelling and dropping bombs on rebels, which is an indicator that they could care less about collateral damage or loss of innocent life. At least when government forces are shooting individual people with precision rifle fire, they are making an attempt at stopping the revolt with as little bloodshed as possible, but we are definitely not seeing that here.

On the other hand, the rebel forces have done a spectacular job at arming themselves with enough weaponry to take down fighter jets, or so it seems. Check out that link for some good photos of the carnage that is going down in Libya.

It amazes me that these rebel fighters started out basically throwing rocks, and then armed themselves enough to take down military bases and get heavy weapons to knock down aircraft and destroy tanks. That's motivation. I can't say I don't blame them for wanting to out Qaddafi and his entourage of women bodyguards. Forty some years of that mess is enough for anyone.

***Edit: Holy smokes! It's fun for the whole family over there!

Seeing children waving Colt Detective Specials in the air while the wimmens scream at the camera and point AK47s at their friends goes to show you that it's a full blown calamity.

Flashlight power

The other night when my kid was sick and the power was out, I dutifully passed out flashlights to all my youngins because - if you can believe it - this was the first power outage that they had ever experienced, and they didn't know how to react. We didn't have a whole lot of candles in the house, so I brought out some lights for the kids to play with and we made some shadow puppets.

Back in my day, a power outage was a relatively normal thing, and we would play board games and otherwise find alternate means of family entertainment that didn't include the TV. It's shameful, but my kids seem lost without that daggone TV. It also puts into perspective all the folks in the news paper that bitch to the power company when the lights go down for a few hours, as if they could magically control falling trees and thunderstorms.

As for the flashlights, I only gave LED lights to my kids as I didn't want them sleeping with a device that would burn them. My LED light collection has not exceeded my incandescent light collection, so one child got the Streamlight TLR-1 off my 1911. The runtime on these lights last only an hour or two, or so I thought, but the next afternoon when I got home from work my wife told me that when she picked the lights up out of the kids beds in the morning, they were all still working. Coooool.

It's comforting knowing that they won't just up and die after a short while (the flashlights; not my kids!) and will continue to put out some usable light. My old Surefire incandescents would lose power suddenly, and you had to have either a spare battery, a spare light, or a lighter or you were hosed. New flashlight technology is good stuff, and I'm really appreciating the newer companies like Fenix that offer high performance and quality at a lesser price.

Jammage

The scumbag who shot and killed two US Airman in Germany was using an FN pistol in 9mm, which jammed during the attack. Because the pistol jammed, the scumbag took off and was quickly captured by other US Airman, who hopefully got to beat the ever-livin shit out of the guy.

Hard Headed

The Army may have found a superior material to Kevlar for helmets:

"The helmet is made of a state-of-the-art plastic, but don’t let that fool you. It has stopped zero-degree rifle bullets at point-blank range, and has stopped 7.62mm rounds, as well.

“We had hoped for a 35 percent improvement over the [Advanced Combat Helmet] in terms of ballistic protection and it’s way better than that,” said Col. William Cole, project manager of Soldier Protection and Individual Equipment."

That's really good news if this helmet does produce that kind of performance. I know Marines were way more motivated to go trolling for trouble in Iraq while wearing Small Arm Protective Inserts - or SAPI for short - plates in their Kevlar vests, as it was the first time in US history that our forces had armor that would stop rifle bullets. They would still penetrate Kevlar helmets though, but just knowing that several rounds could hit you square in the chest and you would probably survive was big news in small arms warfare.

The SAPI plates are heavy as hell though; I had serious trouble with them riding around in vehicles, as the weight of 45 lbs. of armor bearing down on your spine with every bump in the road caused excruciating pain, and I had to endure it for sometimes 12 hours at a time. If this plastic helmet material can be used in body armor too, considering that it's lighter, than that would be a tremendous improvement.

Don't think though that lighter armor would mean our Warfighters would end up carrying less weight; there are lots of programs out there that would gladly put extra pounds on the backs of our troops.


Found over at Ace.

Folks with a pair who care

The DC Guardian Angels are stepping up to the challenge on protecting DC citizens in their day to day journey on the metro; and despite the fact that DC laws prevent them from being adequately armed, something tells me that when they see some thuggish creatures beating someone down they won't be the ones standing there recording the matter with their cell phone.

I've noted the Guardian Angels bravery before, and also noted that it's shameful that they do not have the proper means of protecting themselves and others due to political decree. Honestly though, good people never cease to amaze me.

**Edit to add, from comments:

Anon - " Have we completely lost the balls to help people in the need?"

It seems that most folks in DC have, but then again this post is about a group of people who have determined to protect others from this sort of violence, and they have to do it with bare hands.

Now picture you and a buddy standing guard on the Metro one night with nothing more than your hands as protection. Do you think you could stop fifteen criminals from beating one of your fellow citizens to death? There are small portable tools these days that can be readily carried that would certainly turn the tables on these criminals.

It could go either way

I hear Firefighters all the time talk about how they could find good use for flying spy cameras that are disguised as hummingbirds to keep an eye on things without being seen by the fire. Sure, the po-po probably could find use for them too, but you just know they wouldn't, as it would be unethical or something, unless it's for chemical leaks which is totally ethical. Rest assured that a flying/hovering spy camera would never ever be used for spying.

Technology is moving faster these days; it was two years ago that I saw bird sized spy planes disguised as. . . .well, birds. I'm sure nobody has put those to use in that time.

Well, come to think of it, there sure are a lot of little birds around my house now that the black helicopters have left.

The Pale Rider sleeps on my couch

Like the "guy on the couch" from Half Baked, I think my squatter has worn out his welcome, so to speak, if ever he was welcome.

My family has been in a perpetual state of sickness of one kind or the other for basically the entire winter. I missed out on catching most of it until recently, and to the day that I kicked one "flu-like bug" as the doctor described it, I ended up with another. It was repayment from CTone-the-Youngest, as I had given my sickness to him from the start; and when a baby vomits several times across your chest, you will receive his divine gift whether you want it or not.

Good thing it's a 24 hour bug.

So I get home from work yesterday to find CTone-the-Middle-Child with this 24 hour bug, and he's tossing up everything he's got at a rate of about once every ten minutes until he had nothing left to give. Just when I was able to comfort him, as dinner was just getting started, the power went out.

Puking toddlers in the dark. Think of that one for a minute.

Now I understand how the Plague spread so rapidly almost seven hundred years ago; handling sickness in low light really sucks. Thankfully our baby wipe stockpile has been well attended to, or I wouldn't have made the night. The power came back on at 2300, but by four hours later, I could feel the sickness rising in my guts. The only way last night would have sucked more is if a giant meteor crashed through the ceiling and smashed both of my legs.

I guess my immune system has to earn its pay. Life is difficult enough as it is to be sick for weeks and months on end, and with time at such a premium these days I need to be at my best.

Navy SEALs continue to kill pirates, but are making it more of a challenge

I do wonder if SEALs and Marines kill pirates in other incidents that do not make the news. Seems logical since we hear about the killings where things were extraordinary in some way shape or form, like SEAL snipers taking head shots, or Marines making pirates shite themselves. Here we have hostages murdered, and then SEALs take down the boat and make things extraordinary in their own special way:

The commandos shot and killed one pirate and stabbed another. Two other pirates were found dead, apparently killed by their comrades, and 13 surrendered to the Americans.

Too bad the 13 surviving pirates get a free ride; I am told that Sailors are competent at tying knots.

BlackBerry woes

Sorry for the lack of posting, and I know that this is not in any way gun related, but please do not mind my grumbling.

A couple of years ago my company issued me a BlackBerry so I could keep track of my emails while on travel. That phone became a dinosaur, so I gave it back to my company and just kept track of my work emails on my personal BlackBerry since I had an unlimited data plan anyways. After my BlackBerry was crushed under the weight of my truck, I got a replacement, and then got rid of it because I was not happy with all the bugs in the phone, nor with the dozens of "network@ etp. . . .RIM" messages every day. So now I have nothing to do with BlackBerry - no phones or devices, and no software, but somehow my work email is still linked in to the BlackBerry/RIM beast, so I continue to get these messages. This has been going on for several years now and it's driving me crazy.

I emailed both BlackBerry and RIM many many times to cure this problem, but they must not have any real human beings working for them because all I get is the robo response prompting me on how to fix my BlackBerry device or software. I finally resorted to saving a week or two's worth of these annoying messages and then mailing all fifty or more of them back to every BlackBerry or RIM email address that I could find. I tried to no avail to find the executive email addresses so that I could give them a glimpse into my hell.

Soon I am going to start invoicing BlackBerry for every email I receive:



Click to make bigger.

I wonder how this is going to go. I can't imagine it would take all that much time to disassociate my work email address from their stupid server or whatever. I have no idea how that shit works. And since I spend so much of time already responding to these messages, saving them in my junk folder, and fighting to keep my cell phone from locking up from all of these messages, I have no intentions of jumping through any more hoops over this. They better fix it, or I'm going to try to take it out of their ass.

Professional Obligations

We all must set priorities in life, and sometimes that means that you have stuff that is more pressing than others. Apparently to some lawyers, professional obligations is a code term meaning that they forgot about that important date that was set for them to be at a certain place to do a certain thing because they had mix-matched their priorities.

I'll be off the net today. Y'all have fun.

The speed safari

I got a kick out of this article on Virginia State Police from the General Discussion forum on ARFCOM.

As a lifelong Virginian, I can tell you without a doubt that the entire I-95 corridor, I-81, and I-64 are nothing more than high speed game trails, and the VSP and county mounties are big game hunters looking to bag your speeding ass and mount it on the wall at the courthouse. They are not in it for public safety; it is about the collection of revenue.

Now, in the link above you have some Virginia law enforcement as well as locals who defend the speeding safari by flatly telling you that if you do not speed you will not get a ticket. While one could possibly argue that point successfully, I point out that if you're the person NOT doing 85+ mph on I-95 than you're the one who is acting recklessly, and are probably the guy going home to ARFCOM to breathlessly argue in favor of VSP writing so many tickets. Getting passed on the right by pissed off drivers will get to you after a while, no doubt.

In my experience, the VSP has been a very professional organization so far, except for that one cop who blatantly and deliberately lied to the judge about my speed one night. It's all good though, hoss - I forgive you of your dishonor, but I don't think the majority of Virginians will be so nice. Lying in court to ensure a kiddie porn serial murderer doesn't get off on a technicality is something that will perhaps be forgiven from time to time, but when you make a habit out of revenue'en the good natives with fictitious affidavits and questionable statements, it's only a matter of time before the friendlies change their mind about your organization and say bad things about you on the internets. One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.

Lastly I'll say this: if you're riding down the highway at +10 mph, the radio up, and you're the only fool around, you're not endangering the public. Getting that ticket for nothing more than violating a written rule that was conjured up by people who's intention was to make it legal to siphon fundage out of your wallet does not make you a public nuisance. It would be awesome if the Johnny Law types out there who know that this is damn-well the case would stop insulting the free spirited Virginians who go foul of these speed rules and not give the high horse lecture when writing a ticket. I know exactly what you're up to sport, and it's not stopping reckless and probable terrorists from doing harm at Linda's soccer game.

Drywall test ammo

Sorry I didn't get to this over the last couple of days. I meant to, but between the flu and my kids, it was too much for me to do.

This is the full version of the test discussed earlier, and includes much more information.

There's no date on my notes, oddly enough, but I do recall it being hot and humid, as you can see:



I used my 16" barrelled DPMS AR15, and my buddy shot his 16" barrelled Ruger Mini-14 just to make sure that we were getting good data. The velocities I did record are posted, and I took pictures of the shot holes where either the bullet was keyholing or breaking apart; I generally passed on taking pictures of the 1st wall because I expected the bullets to be passing through it point first. I'm only going to link to the pictures instead of posting every one of them because there's like sixty or seventy pictures here:

Remington 55 grain FMJ handloads with 25 grains of Accurate Arms 2230
1st shot - AR15
- 3rd wall entry
- 4th wall entry
- 5th wall entry
- 5th wall exit
2nd shot - Ruger Mini-14
- 4th wall entry
- 5th wall entry
- 5th wall exit

Barnes 50 grain Varmint Grenade handloads with 26 grains of Accurate Arms 2230
3rd shot - AR15 - 3,138 fps
- 2nd wall entry
- 2nd wall exit
- 3rd wall entry
- 3rd wall exit
4th shot - Ruger Mini-14 - 3,124 fps
- 2nd wall entry
- 2nd wall exit
- 3rd wall entry
- 3rd wall exit

Black Hills Blue Box 52 grain hollow points
5th shot - AR15 - 2,955 fps
- 3rd wall entry
- 4th wall entry
- 5th wall entry
6th shot - Ruger Mini-14
- 2nd wall entry
- 3rd wall entry
- 4th wall entry

Remington 55 grain Metal Case
7th shot - AR15 - 2,949 fps
- 2nd wall exit
- 4th wall entry
- 4th wall exit
8th shot - Ruger Mini-14 - 3,005 fps
- 3rd wall entry

Wolf 55 grain FMJ
9th shot - AR15 - 2,943 fps
- 3rd wall entry
- 4th wall entry
- 4th wall exit
- 5th wall entry
10th shot - Ruger Mini-14 - 2,940 fps
- 3rd wall entry
- 4th wall entry
- 5th wall entry

Federal Premium 55 grain hollow point
11th shot - AR15 - 3,088 fps
- 3rd wall
12th shot - Ruger Mini-14 - 3,088 fps
- 3rd wall entry
- 4th wall entry
- 5th wall entry

Hornady TAP 55 grain ballistic tip #83276
13th shot - AR15 - 2,927 fps
- 2nd wall entry
- 2nd wall exit
- 3rd wall entry
- 3rd wall exit
- 4th wall entry
- 5th wall entry
14th shot - Ruger Mini-14 - 2,953 fps
- 2nd wall entry
- 3rd wall entry
- 3rd wall exit
- 4th wall entry
- 5th wall entry

Remington UMC 50 grain jacketed hollow point
15th shot - AR15
- 2nd wall exit
- 3rd wall entry
- 4th wall entry
16th shot - Ruger Mini-14

M855 62 grain ball
17th shot - AR15 - 3,005 fps
- 2nd wall entry
- 2nd wall exit
- 3rd wall entry
- 4th wall entry
18th shot - Ruger Mini-14 - 2,927 fps
- 2nd wall entry
- 4th wall exit
- 5th wall entry
- 5th wall exit

9mm Black Hills Red Box 124 grain +P
- 5th wall entry

Winchester Super X #1 buckshot
- 1st wall entry
- 5th wall entry



Here's front and back pictures of the walls after the shooting was over:

1st wall front
1st wall back
2nd wall front
2nd wall back
3rd wall front
3rd wall back
4th wall front
4th wall back
5th wall front
5th wall back

Keep in mind with the velocities that they were recorded as a single shot, and not averaged over a large sample. After we finished shooting the drywall, we put some wet phonebooks behind the first wall to see if the bullets would still expand after penetrating the drywall. We didn't do this with all of them; some of the bullets we knew we would not be using for a home defense situation, like the 55 grain handloads for example.

Also, here is what happens when you are hunched over trying to make an off hand shot on a one inch dot with iron sights and as you're shooting close to the screens on your chronograph you fail to take into consideration the sight-offset:



In the end, the Barnes Varmint Grenade got our nod as the best home defense ammo, with Black Hills Blue Box 55 grain hollowpoints coming in second. You can see in shots 3 and 4, on the 3rd wall, all the little pieces of the bullets that didn't even fully penetrate. It's comforting knowing that a bullet fired from your rifle will break up into pieces when it hits a couple of walls.

A little piece this morning

This is not my carry piece, but I can tote it whenever I wish; it's my wife's Kahr PM9. This miniature blaster is the bee's knees for pocket carry. The last time I shot it, I was astonished at how well it grouped. Stuff this puppy in a DeSantis Super Fly holster and stick it in your pocket and you're good to go.



The Super Fly is the best pocket holster I have ever encountered, and I have tried many. I think the covering of it is more sticky than the Nemesis, and the removable and reversible flap is perfect for breaking up the outline of the gun while still allowing a quick firing grip. I have several of these holsters and they have never let me down.

You can also see my replacement for the crappy Suunto Vector that failed me recently; it's a Seiko Black Monster. I went with a dive watch specifically because the ISO standards that dive watches have to undergo in order to get their "Divers" rating include three magnet challenges where the watch doesn't lose more than 30 seconds or so. Since everything electronic goes apeshit when I'm around, I figured I would try to mitigate it as much as possible. It's also made of steel, which is a hell of a lot stronger than plastic.

Lastly, there's a Microtech Scarab Executive with tanto blade that is my most spendy knife acquisition to date. It's a neat knife, very ninja, and I have carried it in the past, although I don't recommend it for EDC. It's manufactured very precise, and has moving parts like springs and such, and no matter how well it's made it is prone to failure. The lockup on it is amazing, and it works well at slicing things, and I would imagine it working well at piercing stuff, however, if you put a lot of force on it I'm sure it would break. It's just too delicate. At one point the tungsten glass breaker on the end of it stripped out the aluminum handle, and I had to fix it with a helicoil to make it well again. Microtech collectors are probably cringing right now, but it works. The blade is D2 tool steel, which is excellent steel, but rusts easily if you don't take good care of it. Having wiped your edge down with motor oil, you may not want to be cutting tomatoes with it.

That's my gun p0rn for the day.

What pen for HAHO jumps?

The tactical pen craze now includes Kydex sheaths, for when you've hit the ground after doing a terrain sketch from your chute at 10,000 feet and need to do a quick draw to take out that sentry.

TOPS makes some quality hard use knives; I would expect that their tactical pen would be good to go. The price point is above me at the moment though.

Don't mess with Malaysian women!

"A woman in a jungle region of northern Malaysia rescued her husband from a tiger attack by clubbing the beast on its head with a large wooden soup ladle and chasing it away, police said Monday."

The real moral of the story is that if you're a Malaysian man, you might want to think twice about coming home late with alcohol on your breath; the wimmins in them parts I hear are deadly with kitchen utensils.

Down with the sickness

Last night was awful. I very rarely get seriously sick; I get a cold once a year or so, but I get the flu like once every five years. I picked up the flu sometime last week, and it set in full force Saturday night, with last night being the worst. The shivering sweats with high fever I could do without, and now I know how my kids feel when I put them into a cold bath to bring the fever down. The bright side is I called into work so as to not share my gift with my colleagues, so I should be able to get some blogging done if I can appease CTone the youngest and get him off my ankles.

More drywall shooting pictures

I uploaded the rest of the photos from the drywall shoot to my Photobucket account. I need to dig up the master list that shows which rounds were fired and in what order; once I have it I'll write up a full version that tells the whole tale.

Something changed over the last couple of days

Whatever could it be?




My lowly little blog was chugga chuggin along and then BLAMMO!!

My thanks to Tam and Uncle for the linkage!

Compare and contrast

This morning the news was brimming with the developing story of three people dead and three wounded during two separate attacks in Manassas, Virginia. It appears that two families were gunned down in cold blood.

As sad as that may be, it is noted that this is the first murder in Manassas this year, and is also a rarity for multiple victims. For that I am thankful.

It's quite clear to me now that the single most profound instrument in preventing crime around here is the Potomac River; twenty miles East of Manassas it separates Prince George's county, which if you recall had fourteen murders in the first two weeks of this year, and DC, which has had ten murders this year already. Of the three locales, guess which one doesn't impede an American's right to protect themselves with a firearm?

While that may not be what makes mass violence rare on this side of the Potomac, it certainly doesn't make it common.

Like LEGOs

Committee looks at how to allocate 4,000 housing units in Stafford County

Why not just start stacking them on top of each other? That seems the only logical choice these days considering the sheer amount of homes built in the county over the last decade. So this is exactly what a county plagued with insufficient amount of schools, water, roads, and power needs: more frickin' houses to be filled with more frickin' morons with more frickin' cars.

I've got news for you retards: there ain't many more trees around here to knock over to build your Sim City. It would be wise for you to take your pipe dreams and shove them up your ass.

When unrestrained growth is allowed, you end up with a ton of people in an area that cannot support it ("ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag" - thanks dad!), and when the economy tanks, you end up with tens of thousands of people who want to work but can't. Here we have county politicos suggesting that the fix for this mess is to have more unrestricted growth to get all of the morons working again.

UDAs [Urban Development Areas] are required by state law to accommodate at least 10 years worth of population growth. Eliminating UDAs in Brooke and Widewater left Stafford’s plan with six UDAs—and 4,000 housing units short of its 14,661 requirement. The committee was tasked with finding a place for those units.

Very clever. Stafford county (my county is guilty of this too) completely ignores that "10 year accommodation" part in favor of just rapidly putting up houses and filling them with people, because it's not like they're going to stop the funding stream for one moment. Pockets are being lined, and we can't have reality stand in the way. Notice that three UDAs were eliminated, probably because there couldn't be justification to keep adding to them, and now it's recommended that there be three new one's added, conveniently.

And now there's a recommendation to add a "downtown" area? Where the hell are you going to put it? I don't suppose you are planning on building it in space and then crashing it into the dirt on top of nine subdivisions?

Here's an idea, how about taking the tens of millions of dollars in imaginary funds that you don't have and plan on fixing the nightmare of a roadway and infrastructure problem before you go about making any other plans!

The committee also approved the addition of a 600-unit UDA in Boswell’s Corner. That area had been considered for a UDA last year, but was rejected because Marine Corps Base Quantico officials were concerned that more residents in that area could adversely affect the operations of the base.

Ya think! Completely absent from this article is that 2,700 more Marines and Servicemen - complete with their families, SUVs, and need for shit like power, water, and roads to drive to work on - will be moving into Stafford county this July. I guess that their basic needs take a back seat to other more pressing needs like fresh new architecture to look at "downtown", and maybe a few more Starbucks stores and another Target to buy CDs at.

Snellings also questioned whether the Brooke area could sustain a UDA, as it has a limited road network and no access to public water and sewer.

Have no fear, the county head shed will no doubt publish an exhaustive "study" consisting of a paragraph or two stating that it can support everything as is, and that it can just keep borrowing stuff from the adjacent county.

This jackassery of fueling the overcrowded fire with more bodies is a symptom of being a Virginia politician, I wager. These idiots that the local morons elected will need to hire craftsman skilled at building skyscrapers if they intend to keep up this pace. I'm seeing that the larger picture here is not to turn what used to be a cozy hick town into a bustling place of commerce, or to settle with maintaining it's current status as a suburb of DC, but to turn it into DC.

Fantastic. Lets just hope that somewhere in this madness someone suggests building a Cabelas.

On automatic weapons

Check out these 1st person videos of a submachine gun match over at The Firearm Blog.

I think this illustrates perfectly that full-auto personal weapons are not good for "mowing down" people. They are useful for putting several rounds onto one target quickly, but still have to be transitioned skillfully from one target to the next, and not while the trigger is held down. Also, they run out of ammo fast.

Whey of the gun

Of all the stores to rob, this dude holds up a GNC. Whey protein is pretty spendy, but I believe that one would find an ABC store to hold more booty. I have been known to be a patron at both from time to time, and it's clear to me which vice brings in more income.

Only motivated people buy health food, and there aren't many of them these days.

Handy reloading tip

I have found that saving various empty boxes makes for utility later on down the road. The best ones in my opinion are plastic bullet boxes, as I have found use for them for holding small reloading parts like comparators or gauges:



One for my bullet puller inserts; another for bump gauges that are used to set up dies; one for the FAT Wrench attachments, and one for my comparator inserts for measuring bullet seating depth. The green boxes used to hold .224 caliber Sierra Match King bullets, and the red cardboard box is from Hornady. As you gain further addiction to reloading, you will acquire all sorts of tools and measuring devices that need an orderly place to stay. These boxes fit the bill perfectly, cost nothing, and will last a lifetime.

I also recommend saving cartridge boxes. Sometimes I will load up some obscure loading and don't have any MTM plastic boxes lying around, so I'll stick them in a Remington Core-Lokt box and place a mailing label over the ends and remark them with a Sharpie. Also, the used cardboard boxes are easier to carry in the field and don't make noise like the hard plastic boxes. There has never been a time when I've complained about having too many, and all of the 308 boxes in this picture have been recently re-filled and then emptied on the range:



All of the .45 ACP and .380 boxes are filled, and there aren't many 9mm boxes left in there. I really do use them all the time, and keep every factory ammo box that I empty.

DC gun ownership up

By this surprisingly non-hostile article at the Washington Post, since DC's handgun ban was ruled unconstitutional over 1,400 guns have been registered in the district. Take into account though that there is only one place for DC residents to claim ownership of their purchased firearm due to DC not having any gun stores. In order for a US citizen to lawfully purchase a firearm, they have to buy it in their state of residence; DC is no different even though it's not a state, and the one fellow who is licensed to make transfers of guns in the district charges $125.

The gist of the article is that only the more affluent residents are buying guns, and when you consider that a Glock handgun - not expensive as far as handguns go - is between $550 and $650, and on top of that you have to pay for the $125 transfer fee, you can see why it's something that only the more well off can afford.

Someone needs to tell the guy in the caption on the article to keep his finger off the trigger. Just sayin. And Alan Gura gets quoted a few times in the article, showing in one part that he's a realist:

Police said they could provide no data on registered guns being stolen, misused or used in self-defense, nor could they cite any specific incidents.

"Oh, I'm sure there's been some misuse," said lawyer Alan Gura, who successfully argued against the ban before the Supreme Court. "People steal and misuse stuff every day, whether it's guns or cars or kitchen knives. It's no surprise that people steal stuff and do bad things. That's the ordinary course of life."

Too bad the anti-gunners aren't such realists.

Home defense guns

***Update with links to more pictures***

This post at Snowflakes in Hell reminded me of a test that a friend and I did a couple of years ago shooting drywall with rifles, which I will get to in a minute. The article is about fake gun experts, and is spot on. The expert in question drops this little gem:

Our instructor further advised that shotguns are the weapon of choice for home defense. Unlike a heavy-caliber handgun, a shotgun will put an intruder out of business without a bullet passing through a wall and killing a sleeping child.

I have found this to be a common belief amongst folks at the gun counter at the local Ganderous Mountainous, and it's not even close to being true. With AR type rifles becoming so popular, I had one loaded up in my home in case the Boogey Man came, and thought that the idea that rifles were overpenetrative in a home defense scenario was bunk. A good buddy helped me find out.

I never did publish the results of the shooting test as we did not complete it; we shot five walls with rifles using various loads, and intended to do the same with handguns and shotguns. While we had the walls set up we did fire one round of Winchester Super X 00 buckshot and a few rounds from handguns just for our own edification.

The five walls were to residential spec; 1/2" drywall screwed front and back to 2x4 studs. The longest span in either one of our modest homes measured 30', so we did the shooting at 15' with the walls spaced out over 15'. We used an AR15 and a Ruger Mini-14 both chambered in .223 Remington for the test, and we shot many different types of loads from factory ammo to some handloads. The results told us both without a doubt that that cartridge is way less penetrative than buckshot or handguns.



Here is the impact on the 2nd and 3rd wall made by a Black Hills 52 grain jacketed hollow point fired from the Mini-14's 16" barrel:




Click to make bigger.

As you can see, the bullet was sideways when it hit the second wall, and was in pieces when it hit the third. This was pretty typical for most of the rounds fired, but this was the most notable example of the round breaking up so quickly. Those little pieces of the bullet may still have been lethal, but then again, they may have not. That particular round didn't make it through the fourth wall, leading me to believe that it didn't have much energy left when it hit the third wall. Also, the bullet fragments would lose velocity and energy very rapidly given a little more distance, and when applied to a home defense scenario means that if a round fired from your rifle misses the bad guy and goes through an exterior wall of your home, it will not be nearly as likely to enter your neighbor's house and harm someone.

The one round of buckshot told a completely different story. Fired into the first wall at a distance of 15' from an improved cylendar choke showed that you still have to aim:



The orange dots are one inch, making the spread from the buckshot about six inches. That busts the myth about only needing to aim in the general direction of an attacker with a shotgun. It does show why they will effectively put down a scumbag with one well placed shot; the trauma of twenty five .30 caliber holes concentrated over the vitals gives you a high probability that you won't need to shoot twice.

Here is the face of the 5th wall, and if you look closely you can see 18 shot holes marked with arrows:



That leaves seven pellets unaccounted for. Some of them may have stopped in the fourth wall, or may have gone off the 5th wall and into the woods. The bad part about launching so many projectiles with one shot is that you cannot account for each and every one of them, as they go off on their own program if given some distance. With a rifle, you are only firing one round at a time, so you have much more control.

For fun, we also shot a .38 Special MagTec frangible round, a .357 magnum Glaser Safety Slug, and a Black Hills 124 grain +P 9mm at the walls, and all of them went straight through the five walls and into the woods. High velocity small mass bullets hitting something hard like drywall makes them break up and slow down, and low velocity high mass bullets just keep going.

Food for thought.

The Swiss stick with tradition

The left wing political groups tried their hand at sensible gun laws in Switzerland and failed. Reading some of the arguments in the article shows that the crazy lefties in Switzerland think just like the crazy lefties in America.

And 300 deaths a year? As armed as that country is - 1.7 million issued military weapons - and they have 300 deaths from firearms annually, which tells me that it's not the blasted guns. I bet they would be better served taking away bleach, or swimming pools.

Compliance has no guarantees

Just because you give a scumbag your wallet doesn't mean that that's all he wants.

Doesn't make sense

Who's idea was it to have the Superbowl on a Sunday night? It makes no sense to me to hold a major festive event that is known for mass consumption of alcohol and hot wings the night before the workweek starts.

It's gonna be a long day.

Poop hunting

The company, Jaworski Jagdreisen, which organizes hunting expeditions, insists there are elephants in the area of Zimbabwe it sent the hunter, identified only as Waldemar I, the Rzeczpospolita daily newspaper said.

"From what I know, (the hunter) should have seen elephant excrement there," it quoted the company owner as saying.

There's not much more to this story, but it gave me a chuckle. I gather that going on a safari hunt costs big bucks, as well as time spent going there, so I'd be pissed too if I went on a hunt where the animal I was seeking didn't even exist.

"Wha? You didn't see any poo mate?"

I don't think I'd be game for an elephant hunt, but shooting a lion or some other dangerous critter would be cool. Or even better, go after a big cat with a spear or a knife! I'd have to be clad in kevlar to pull that off, but not too long ago there were dudes who were crazy enough to do it while basically naked and holding a shield made of grass. That's either really brave or really stupid. I'm probably more towards the latter.

**Oh, and do read the comments.

"Are the elephants armed too?" Ughhh, yeah, I'd say without a doubt that elephants are pretty well armed. You don't think Hannibal took elephants over the Alps and into Italy because he like scratching their ears and feeding them, do you? And the arguments about eating elephant are pretty stupid too; I think Americans in general don't understand that just because an animal is on another continent and doesn't have a white tail doesn't mean that it's shot and left to rot in the sun.

LEGO Black Ops

Found on the General Discussion thread at ARFCOM.





Whomever made this video has a ton of time on their hands. I'm envious.

Swimming on Florida beaches this year

Pass.




On the other hand, grab your fishing rod cos' I hear that surf fishing for sharks is gonna be epic this year!

Anger Management

So this last weekend I decided not to blow a gasket when my Competitive Edge Dynamics Millennium 2 chronograph once again gave me absolutely nothing of worth. This was my 5th range trip using it without a reading at all, or at least an accurate one. When I got my third reading of 85osomething fps from my 308, I tried my 1911 with handloads and got 600 something, so I went ahead and did myself a great big favor and calmly dismantled the device with accurate fire from my pistol.



If they weren't so expensive, I would probably buy a dozen more for this purpose as it worked pretty spectacular as a target; at least, way better than it does as a chronograph. As I had said before, from all of my research on chronographs, the sensor/screen technology is very primitive, and when you chose one brand of chronograph over another, you're not buying better electronics so much as you're buying features. The sensors are going to be the same.

Checking out this post on LongRangeHunting.com forums told me what to expect from CED's customer service, which appears to be lacking. I wasn't interested in a $72 refund check for my troubles, and I also decided that I wasn't getting duped for another $90 for the IR screens only to have to build a "black box" to make a supposed reliable piece of equipment perform as it was intended to without it. In my experience, Competitive Edge Dynamics builds their chronographs out of the finest snake oil, and perhaps I should have seen it coming. From their website:

Expanded digital chip design now gives the CED M2 the ability of reading velocities at much lower light levels. On clear days, this means the ability to chronograph from early morning till almost sunset.

Close to sunset is when my Shooting Chrony Beta and Competition Electronics ProChrono would start to give errors, so this is the line that sold me for the most part. The M2 gave me errors the first time I ever took it out, which was in the late afternoon, so the above line is bullshit.

I also did research on gun forums to find out what the general consensus was, but apparently didn't look hard enough. I also could have scrolled down on CED's information page to find an extensive list of reasons why their shit chronograph won't function. Caveat Emptor - buyer beware: if you have to do a "flashlight test" on a product that costs twice as much as the competition just to see if the fucking thing is even working, you have been shammed. I offer you evidence now about this piece of equipment with the hopes that somebody looking into chronographs will know what to expect. If my words aren't enough, take a look at what you can expect at 3 o'clock in the afternoon while out testing loads on the range:



This could be you , sports fans! See all those "e" marked down? Those are errors. Also, actually shooting these loads that I tested at range showed the velocities to be over 200 fps faster than what the chrony was reading; gravity doesn't lie. Now you know and can make your choice. For me, I'm going to buy another $80 Shooting Chrony Beta model to put in my range bag, and later buy an Oehler 35 when I have the fundage. And for the time being, I'm on a jihad to expose all the pathetic pieces of gear out there with reviews and posts like this one.

Religious nuances

All religions have their little nuances and strange pet peeves, but reading about Muslims in Russia getting their panties in a wad over alcohol makes me shake my head. Having spent a little time around Muslims from all over the Middle East, I always thought it was odd to be told that I was wrong to partake in the devil's brew by a group of men who each smoked a golf ball sized portion of opium three times a day, right after they all got done humping a thirteen year old boy in the back of a trailer. It's like Charles Manson going door to door in my neighborhood speaking against gang violence.

Resurgic Acid

A "resurging" community in DC discovers that it's not so resurgent, with two shootings in two weeks, and residents fearing for their safety. Understandably, something needs to be done. Action must be taken.

So what's the proposed answer? Lighting. More lighting is needed to thwart the "spasm of violence" that rips at the soft underbelly of this community. Oh, and abandoned houses; something needs to be done about them too.

Great job Mayor Grey! Way to step it up there and take the bull by the horns!

When DC leaders respond to crisis like this, you know what it reminds me of? Madlibs.

DC officials are concerned about (adjective) ________ violence in a South East DC community. Just last (time)_______ twelve people were (past-tense verb) _________ while on their way to (utopian place)________. DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier is considering (majestic verb)__________ with (type of people, plural)______________ in an effort to stop them from (verb)___________. DC officials have also considered installing (plural noun)_______________ and (noun)___________ to prevent (adjective)__________ (type of people, plural)______________ from destroying the very fabric of the community.

Go ahead and have some fun with that one.

I bet you a shiny new nickel that there's some government employee that works for the mayor's office who's sole job in life is to dream up words to fill in those blanks, and when the media comes hunting for some BS story, that's the dude they look for.

As for solutions to the violence problem, you know where I stand on such matters.

Why would an American feel the need to carry a gun in Pakistan?

One wonders for such an answer.

Now, you tell me if you would pick up a job working as a US government employee in that torn up country and not carry at least a pistol. That place learns pin the noose on the American in elementary school, so they're no doubt experts at it by the time they've made it to adults.

I pray for the best for Mr. Davis.

Bermuda chooses Ruger

Neat-oh!

Bermuda Soldiers in basic training using Ruger Mini-14s!

Also, a Swedish Carl Gustaf M45 and grand pappy's shotgun spotted amongst the rubble in Afghanistan.

All at MP.net

Close range gunfight

Count me out.

This is video footage with audio from the recent shootout at a Detroit police station.


Yikes!

I would have wanted to be anywhere but there at that moment. It puts it into perspective when you consider standing on a static range shooting at paper, and you are putting round after round into the target with great accuracy. From what I can see here in this video, the whole daggone ballgame changes when your paper target comes and finds you at your desk and starts blasting away with a shotgun.

As a rather large and intense Drill Instructor once told me, "when you're being shot at, I promise you that you will be so low to the dirt that your helmet will plow a trench into the earth!"

I think his statement was accurate!

Home up on the range

Twas a beautiful day on the range yesterday. I got some work done too, some bittersweet. I have poured a lot of time into perfecting handloads using IMR 8208 XBR with 155 grain Nosler J4s, and yesterday I proved that those loads shoot accurately, but sadly were too hot. This was confirmed when the ballistics of these rounds at range did not match the speeds advertised by my CED M2 chronograph a month before, and in fact was waaaaaay off.

The CED M2 did not accompany me home in the same condition it was when we arrived, which is no great loss considering it had only given me one realistic reading in five trips to the range. I'm fighting intent to send the remainder of the device back to Competitive Edge Dynamics with a smart ass letter. It's amazing the devastation that seventeen rounds of 230 grain lead round nose will do to shitty plastic.

On to happier things, I had loaded up some Reloder-17 rounds with 175 grain Nosler J4s for a ladder test, as I only had fourteen of those bullets left and I wanted to put them to the best use. At 570 yards I got a perfect reading on where the two nodes were, which confirmed my suspicions almost exactly.

A disclaimer: work up your own rounds for your own gun, and do not rely on what you see on the internet for a starting load. If you do not know what you are doing, get help from someone who does or you may wind up destroying your gun and your face. Reloading is fun and safe when done right, and can be disastrous when done wrong.

With that said, I have already done a great deal of shooting with this combination, and know where I need to be. I started out with two sighters of 47.6 grain charges: one for 100 yards, and one for longer range, which both of them printed where I wanted. You can see the second sighter in the below picture just above and to the left of the 8" bull. For the charged loads of the test, I dropped down 2 MOA from my sighter, and had marked the bullets with colored sharpies to make the impacts readable. The bottom three shot holes are 47.6, 47.8, and 48 grains of Reloder-17 under the 175 grain bullet, grouping nicely on the same horizontal plane. I anticipated the top of the lower node at 48.1 grains, so this is good data to me. After that, the 48.2 and 48.4 grain loads walked up the target, and then the 48.6, 48.8, and 49 grain charges grouped well. At the 570 yards I was shooting, I had 12 1/2 MOA of elevation dialed in on my scope. The top three charges could stand to come down 1/4 of a MOA, which would put my velocity at 2,710 fps. That's awesome from a 20" barrel, and defies the 2,560 - 2,600 fps readings that I got from that shitty CED M2 chrono.



Here is my 100 yard target which I used to zero the 8208 XBR loads. The bottom right shot hole was my first round which jammed the gun. With the DPMS/SR-25 style bolt, the cam pin can be inserted either way through the bolt carrier, and if you dont pay attention during assembly, you will have your brass cases ejecting into the left side of the receiver instead of out the ejection port. The M16 bolt can only be assembled the correct way, so I guess old habits die hard. After that I had a little zeroing and shooting position adjusting to do, evident by the bottom middle target, with the bottom left being a solid five shot group from my rifle, and what I expect from it accuracy wise. At 400 yards I was printing 3" five shot groups, but I had ejector swipe marks on all the case heads and slightly flattened primers, meaning that these loads were too hot. Also, earlier OCW testing over the shitty CED M2 chrono had given me velocities of 2,783 fps with these loads, but actual testing gave me velocities nearing 3,000 fps!!!! Waaaaay too hot!! I may back down to the other load in the near future, but for now I'm going to do some seating depth testing with the Reloder-17 loads. Also, check out the top left group from my little DPMS AR. Not bad for a 7 power scope!



The Mosin Nagant carbine that I picked up awhile ago loves PRVI ammo in the 150 grain loads, but produces some fierce recoil! It certainly beats the corrosive Russian ammo I had been shooting. Here is a three shot group at 100 yards off sandbags:



Here is a three shot 10" group at 400 yards off sandbags, shooting between the visible 3" orange dot on the right and another just outside of the picture on the left. With open sights and a short barrel, I'll take that group any day.



Other than that, I did a little shooting with the old 1911 at 100 yards for fun with my wheel weight handloads. Good stuff. Now I've got some more loading to do to reach my goal of having perfect handloads. Do you think I'll ever get there?

A modest proposal

This week in Washington, Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey introduced three very modest gun regulation bills, including one making it more difficult to sell guns to people on the terror watch list.

HMMMmmmmm. . . .lemmee get this straight Ms. Collins, you think it modest to impede millions of Americans purchasing a gun every year by having federal agents screen them against a secret list of names numbering over a million arbitrarily assembled at random by federal employees who cannot be held accountable? Sound about right?

Jeez, I would hate to see what you consider a radical proposal. Oh yeah, this:

Meanwhile, in Salt Lake City, the State Legislature is considering a bill to honor the Browning M1911 pistol by making it the official state firearm.

Gail Collins considers a law that impacts no one in any substantive way at all an absurd idea, yet thinks that a law that would impact Americans for years to come is modest. Pretty backwards if you ask me, but then again, I'm talking about a woman who is confused about the meaning of the word "terror:"

The terror of the National Rifle Association is so pervasive that President Obama did not want to poison the mood of his State of the Union address by suggesting that when somebody on the terror watch list tries to buy a gun, maybe we should do an extra check.

So a group of people who advocate the peaceable ownership of arms are terror[ists]? That puts a qualifier on exactly who she believes should be on a secret government list, no? I guess this prophetic understanding that she has in that branding non-violent people with a dark label and forever restricting or taking away their rights is "extremely mild," while ensuring a dead man who designed a bad-ass nine shot pistol is honored in his state is radical somehow leads us to want to send her nice comments on her shit article telling her about how smart she is.

The rest of the article is disgusting, and one can see right away how partisan she is.

Beretta ARX160 spotted at SHOT

Seen on this thread at MP.net.

Also, the Albanian Special Forces are killing bad guys in Afghanistan with them right now; scroll down for a pic. I don't know how I would feel about wearing a maroon beret in combat, but oh well. I wouldn't mine having the ARX as an issued weapon though. That thing is light and feels good in your hands.

I really dig the exchangeable barrel system, as well as the magazine release options. Can't wait for it to enter civilian sales, because I want to pick one up. After handling it, as well as the SCAR and ACR, I have to give the Beretta the hat tip. It doesn't weigh a metric ton, and it's really well thought out. Let's hope it doesn't cost a bazillion dollars like the ACR though.

Better to be hung by twelve than carried by six?

An American consular employee shot and killed two gunman in Pakistan in blatant self defense, and yet he may still be charged with murder just for the hell of it apparently. The Beretta pistol that he used is alleged to be illegally kept, as Pakistan does not really bless the idea of non Pakistani government types carrying weapons, and that's the only thing I can see him getting hung up on. The question I have is whether or not he would be executed for murder if he's convicted.

Time will tell if the Obama administration will come to his aid in all of this; the SOTU address might not have pandered to the unarmed victim crowd, but it's a safe bet to say that publicly supporting the actions of the consular employee in the shooting would be bad press.

Interesting to me is that the only non-scumbag to be killed/manslaughtered in the incident lost his or her life to the grill of a car. Also, the local savages are beating their poop-smeared war drums and protesting over an American who dared to "violate their sovereignty" (snicker) by carrying a pistol in that violent country, and discard entirely that he carried it in the first place because he was concerned that violent militants may just pull up next to his car on a motorcycle and point rifles at him. It's not like Pakistan is known to be a refuge of peace for Americans or anything, and the article even covers two other attacks on Americans in Pakistan.

I guess Pakistan's economy is doing well enough that we can keep the millions of dollars in monies that we've been pouring into that hellhole, and maybe spend it somewhere where it will be more useful.

The Marine Corps loves 1911s

Says Uncle links to an article saying that Marines are looking at the likes of Springfield Armory and Colt for a decent fighting piece in .45 ACP, presumably in a 1911 as that's what all the cool cats want these days. Some idiot will no doubt offer it in multicam.

I seem to recall seeing a railed Remington 1911 wearing OD green coating at the Modern Day Marine Convention, so they may intend to cast their lot into the the mix as well. Kimber I'm sure will be there also; they have a history of providing 1911s to the Marine Corps.

Slugging it out long range

The Firearm Blog has a video of a man shooting foster style slugs at 230 yards from a smooth bore shotgun offhand using the standard blade sight and compensating by guess. In the video you can see the trace of the slug as it arcs towards the target. You can't tell from the first part of the video, but the second part from the camera at the target shows that he's minute-of-scumbag for sure.

I recently fired some Brenneke slugs from a Mossberg 835 at 100 yards without as much luck, and the experience has piqued my interest. I never knew that slugs were worthy out past 100 yards; now I'll have to give it a shot (pun intended).

The ladies like to shoot too

A thread at Sniper's Hide with real live ladies and their long range rifles. I wouldn't want to piss any of them off!!!

SHOT show p0rn

MP.net has a thread on it that's pretty good, with more digital camo! Lots and lots of pictures of military belt fed goodlyness.

Crenelated bezel on a suppressor? I guess some people want to make tangos comply quietly. I like the offset iron sights that clip onto the rails of your rifle.

And what is it about multicam that makes people so damn crazy? I have some for predator hunting, and it works great, but apparently all you need to complete your cool operator ensemble these days is a pair of boots with multicam soles, and of course you have to have a brace of petite beauties with big bewbies clad in multicam swimwear on your arm. Weird.

Anyways, enjoy the pics!