Nato Round

I was reading up on NATO round selection in the 1950s and 60s and cam upong this gem:

"8 solider squad with M16s can outgun 11 soldier squad with M14s"

Imagine that! 8 to 11. I wonder how they thought that up. Clearly it's a fight in each other's range. Is it merely becaue of the combat load difference, with M16s carrying more ammo? Or are they easier to swap magazines? Hmmmm...

“Fighting between the big-round and small-round groups reached a peak in the early 1960s, when test after test showed the .223 Remington round fired from the AR15 allowed an 8-soldier unit to outgun an 11-soldier unit armed with M14s. U.S. troops were able to carry more 5.56x45mm NATO ammunition which would allow them a better advantage against a typical NVA unit armed with AK-47s. In 1964, the U.S. Army started replacing their M14s with the M16, incurring another series of complaints from the British.”

Those complaints were because the Brits had developed a decent intermediary round at .280 caliber that they fought for. The US wanted to stick with .30 caliber and insisted, thanks to our bigger pull, on teh .308. A shortened .30-06.

Why were we still married to .30 caliber? Well it is a good beefy round. But we may have switched to something smalled except Old Soldiers, like MacArthur remembered our time in the Phillipines and liked a big stopper, and we were in the beginning of the Depression in the early 30's and switching our inventory over would have been an expensive PIA. So we made the Garand take the venerable 8 .30-06 instead of 10 new-then .276 Pedersen,

I sometimes wish we HAD adopted that .276 Pedersen in 1932. It would have been the NATO round in the 1950s instead of a .308 replacement for the .30-06 or the brit .280. The M14 would have been lighter to carry because of what it ate, and we might not be now saddled with .223. We might have a modernized M14 still in service. Just update the stock and it'd fit in as good or better than the competition.

Or I'd be complaining about some flaw with .276 or .280 right now that only would have come to light after extensive use in WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam, etc.

Would we even KNOW what a .308 was if that had been the case, though? The .308 was an answer to a shorter .30-06 in the 50's, but we'd have been 20 years beyond using the .30-06 by then, had we gone Pedersen in the Garand. No reason to develop a new round.

Where's the Ammo?

According to ESPN...



YOU people have MY ammo!

Pink

With all the talk about Girls with Guns on various blogs the past week.

Added to the fact the Saucy Trollop is half considering a boomstick purchase.

Plus the added detail of her being a HUGE recoil junkie...

She asked me if it was possible to get a Colt Anaconda .44 Magnum with pink furniture.

Aw, geez, what hath I wrought?

She's never FIRED a .44. I don't have one for me. I have fired them and find them to be too much gun. For my tastes. Kaboom! It's a fun big boom but... Wow!

And now 5'2" she wants a something 6'1" me is afraid of.

I got to get her to try a .44 before this bug burrows too deep, and she just impulse-buys one.

"Did Colt make a pink Anaconda? Maybe blinged-out and bedazzled with swarovski crystal? I bet if I buy one, I could do wonders with a can of spray paint and a hot glue gun."

(And you DON'T want to know what she thinks the grip shape of Ruger pistols remind her of...)

Financial Alert

Good advice!

retread

I think I have asked that previous question in a post a while back.

I must be getting old.

Or ideas are unsettled in my noggin.

Or I'm deperate for blg fodder.

How Often To Clean

How often to clean your firearms. Specifically how often should I clean my firearms.

Some never do, as a test to the funtionality of their pistol. "This Thunderboomer has gone 8732 rounds without cleaning and hasn't malfunctioned once."

Personally I do after each range session. Even if I only shot 50 rounds of relatively non-dirty ammo. Probably nothing wrong with that. It gets me familiar with my equipment. But I don't HAVE to.

Even then I don't get all the dirt when I clean with various solvents and even anti-guilding compounds. After my most thourough cleaning work, here is always a nook or cranny I can't get to, or don't want to disassemble the gun down to detail level to get to.

And there is caked on film of carbon on the revolver that is much easier to see because the gun is stainless steel. It's there on the other guns, but not seen as easily because they are matte black in color.

Now if I ever used anything with corrosive primers I'd certainly clean every sessions, and then right quick. Corrosive primers are made with potassium perchlorate, these primers are corrosive because they are a salt and that is hygroscopic, and that means it suck humidy out of the air, aiding in oxidation of iron. Your gun is made of iron, in part. But that worry is only with ammo older than 1960 or so, generally. New, domestic, production ammo doesn't have this issue, as they have some lead-based primer. Some new imports from the OTHER side of the iron curtain is questionable.

For corrosive primer it is important to clean quickly and perhaps swab some ammonia based Windex window cleaner through the barrel before the session starts to get them salts on out of there.

Black powder shooters have a dirtier ammo to deal with and it may well be salt (saltpeter is hygroscopic maybe?) filled too, so their fastiduous cleaning job is cut out for them.

I don't think I need to invest in one of those sonic cleaners. These use sound waves to agitate a pan of solvent that you put metal parts of your dissambles firearm in. If I ran a gun shop and wanted to sell squeaky clean used guns that would be a worthwhile get.

I use anti-guilding solvent on well used guns once a year. This is a VERY strong cleaner that smell of ammonia. It is there to help get rid of copper rubs on the inside of the barrel that the full metal jacket copper bullets leave behind.

Is there something else I should be doing? I use Break-Free or Tetra or RemOil cleaner, with several applications, including a period where it just sits on the dirt for some time to wet it down. I use flannel bore patches to swab out the crud. I use nylone and copper bristled bore brushes and scrub brushes. I use spare patches and cotton swabs to get the small spaces as much as possible. I use boresnakes as extra good measure down the barrel a few times.

What am I missing? What could I add to the regime?

~~~~~~~~

As for how often to clean other things, I don't NEED your advice. I take that one bath every Saturday whether I need one or not.

War is Heck

Fluffy too.

Armor Piercing

When did the military go from armor tipped .30 cal to non-armored tipped .30 cal on their way to .223?

In WWII the army was enamored with the black tipped armor piercing .30-06 round. If you shot at and hit a Nazi with your Garand you could probably would go through the quarter inch plate steel behind him. Got that tidbit from General Hatcher’s Notebook

Eventually the Army would change to the .308 round, then the .223. Somewhere in there they through the doctrine of issuing AP to fighters, routinely, over the side. When and why?

In war you don’t care about the backstop so much. AP may be expensive, but you issue full metal jacket for practice and gold tipped to war fighters if it means a better chance for victory.

Does AP work better, though? The AAR for TF Ranger in Somalia made the assertion that the tungsten tipped .223 wasn’t dropping enemy targets. Ok, fine. Maybe an AP .223 isn’t effective, especially against unarmored Somali fighters, but routine use of AP may be more advantageous than not against something like armored Chinese fighters, or Russian, or French. They wear armor.

Heck we may HAVE a whole boatload of AP rounds pre-positioned for modern military use in the event France invaded our ally, Germany.

I ask all this because I recently got Hatcher's Notebook from NRA affiliate Paladin Press. Turk had a little blurb from it on HIS blog about trigger timing.

Anyway, I had always 'known' that AP .30-06 was common in WWII, but Hatcher confirmed that fact in my head.

Hatcher was a BIG DEAL. And highly regarded by Jeff Cooper. What John Moses Browning (pbuh) was to designing guns, Julian Hatcher was to the study of firearms and such ballistics. So this should be a treat as it is CHOCK full of goodies. I'll probably crib blog entries from items of interest contained therein.

Back Strap Erosion

On revolvers there is a tiny gap between the cylinder and the barrel. No big deal, but don't put your finger near there if you are firing 2-handed. Hot gases can shoot out and severely injure you.

This hot gas will evenually erode away some of the metal on the back strap of the revolver. That is the top of the frame that the cylinder fits in and right above the barrel's back opening.

I just noticed a bit of erosion on the S&W 686. A tiny bit.

When do I need to get worried about this?

I don't have the knowledge that Tam has. I haven't inspected hundreds of used revolvers. I have no idea what a lot is or what too much is or what a piddling amount is. Any help would be appreciated.

Lies

I listen to National Public Radio on the commute home. No commercials, and for the Intel purposes. It's good to know what the bad guys are thinking and saying. Bad buys meaning Leftist Media.

Yesterday (24 March 2009) afternoon was depressing for all the lies about guns and Mexican gun cartels. Feature after feature of just plain WRONG information.

'Drug cartels are using machine guns and RPG's and getting these from America via gun shops and gun shows.'

Yeah right. RPGs in US gun shops. I've never seen an RPG and every machine gun I've seen costs at LEAST $10,000 for a $1000 item, and it takes 2 months to take possession after purchasing, MINIMUM.

'The ATF has traced 90% of cartel guns found in Mexico to US sources. '

These non-existent or unavailable machine guns and RPGs? Ok, I can go along with that. THe US Government sold/supplies the Mexican army with Colt M-16's. These Mexican Army guns get sold by deserters to the cartels, maybe. That's not a lie, then. The sourcing percentage. Just misleading.

And Senator Lieberman said it was because of, 'the gunshow loophole where gun dealers are selling guns without a background check, so that loophole legislation needs to be looked at again.'

It is already illegal, Senator, for a Gun Dealer to sell guns without a background check of the purchaser. Or do you mean you want to set it so YOU can't give a old gun to your grandson without permission of some gov't bureaucrat? If you MEAN you want to pass a law saying no private sale person to person, ANYWHERE, then come out and say that. Why won't you? Because you know your constituents wouldn't like that. That's a bit too much gov't nose in their personal business.

And there was one more, sorta in our favor, about SWAT abuse where the over zealous cops proned out an innocent family and 'held them with .50 caliber sniper rifles'

While I don't doubt the cops pointed guns at the family, I do doubt they were .50s. Not the first choice of dynamic entry teams terrorizing a family in their own yard. Probably just abusive use of 9mm MP5s or some iteration of .223 AR types. Maybe a bolt action .308. Cops just don't engage at ranges that make the use of 2000 yard .50 caliber Barrett jobs. A bunch of cops with .22LR pointed at you while you are cuffed is intimidating enough, though.

Stop lying to us, gun banners. Stop pretending to be journalists and actually fact check stuff if you do. Stop inventing horror stories, or, if you do, at least make them something a bit less easy for a slow-head like ME to debunk.

Dud

Some commenter asked "How do you extract a 'dud' round then? Long stick down the barrel?"


I'm not sure what he is referring to specifically, but I am assuming a 'squib' round. Look it up in Google or wikipedia.

A squib happens when lack of a powder charge or faulty powder causes an event that is different than expected. It's not enough to propel the bullet out fo the barrel, much less down range. The primer cap is too small a 'pop' to necessarily get the bullet itself out of the works. The shot will generally sound and feel light, and if you are paying attention you should notice this. And you should be paying attention.

This has never happened to me, but if it does, I am prepared to handle it.

First, keep the gun pointed down range as a matter of caution. In case it is a handfire or complete dud, wait 30 seconds. I'd hate to be manipulating the piece and have it go off 20 seconds late. Stay calm. Even when guns blow up entirely they rarely injure anyone. But don't let this fact make you act complacently.

NEVER in ANY circumstance try to 'shoot out' a stuck obstruction.

Next, unload all the remaining live rounds, and the fired case if it is still in battery. The light shot might not have operated the slide on an automatic to eject the spent case.

Double check that all the bullets are out.

Now, worse case scenario is you have a bullet in the barrel. Best case is the bullet left the barrel and dribble onto the ground, as impotent as a Nevada Boxing Commissioner. If you have a chamber light you can shin this light down the barrel to see if it shine through.

A bullet is not dangerous just sitting in there. A bullet, not the case cartridge. A bullet is just a piece of lead and copper metal. There are no explosive in the tip. (If you have explosive tipped bullets you are much more advanced than me and don't need this primer.) You can often just poke this bullet out with a cleaning rod without a brush or patch on the tip.

I have a chamber light and cleanign rod at home, so I'd usually do this chore after the shooting session was over. If I only brought the one, now gimped, gun then my session is over. At home I'd fully field strip the semi-auto pistol anyway.

Depending on how certain I was that I caught the one squib round and didn't luck out firing a second round after it, I might take the gun to my gunsmith for him to check out to see if there is any damage. There is no shame in doing that even if you are sure of yourself. Or if the gun is an antique or cheaply made. Err on the side of caution. Never hurts to. I'd also definitely take it to a smith if I couldn't dislodge the obstructing bullet. If all went smoothly and everything looks fine and the barrel isn't bulged.

I'd suspect the ammo from that box, too, paying extra attention to how they feel and sound, if factory ammo. If they were reloads I'd worry that a no-charge case might mean a double charge case elsewhere in the batch. A double charge is much more dangerous than a squib. Many times with a double charge you don't have to worry about disassembling the pistol after the failure. It will have disassembled itself.

Buy a Gun Day

Buy a Gun Day is coming, April 15th. To show your support for the industry and your inherent right to defend yourself against bad guy you are supposed to buy a new firearm on that day. It's the 15th, ostensibly, so you can use you tax refund money to fund the purchase.

I shant be participating this year. I bought enough guns last year to last me for this one. My buddy Frozen bought enough for both of us 2 weeks ago.

My tax refund, that I got in February, went to paying off the credit card the M1A and SIG 229 went on. Phew.

Maybe I'll order a Milt Sparks holster in April.

I'll certainly stop by my local gunstore and buy ammo and cleaning fluid. That sort of thing.

If I was in a market for a new gatt, I am leaning toward a revolver of some kind. A Smith and Wesson 617 (10 shot .22) or a Smith snubbie of some kind. Still not sure which type. Something stainless steel, yes. With no exposed hammer. But .38+p or whole hog .357? Model 642 has no internal lock and shoots .38, and is compact enough for pocket carry, but is made of the lighter alloy, weighing maybe half a pound less than the steel models. Model 649 and 640 (both 23 oz.) are 5 round .357, and are in the lead, and are all steel, I am pretty sure. 442 is on the list for consideration, but is aluminum. I think I really want the all-steel. How much more annoying is that half a pound when you carry it?

I've shot a model 60, and liked it. Don't know what the difference is between it and the 649 and 640 when you get those two with an exposed hammer option.

And one day an inexpensive used 12 gauge double barrel will follow me home.

Leaving me with few voids in the gunsafe. A 10/22 decked out like my M1A for cheap practice, yes. That might have to be the suppressed version, too.

Now I want a shrouded hammer, but, is there any disadvantage to getting the kind where you can still reach it and cock it on occasion, or will shmutz get in there from my pocket and I should get the fully enclosed hammer instead?

Diary of the Dead

Saw this Romero movie, Diary of the Dead. Decent flick. 2007. Decent effects for a low-ish budget movie. The genius from Romero is the mood and the performances he gets out of the actors. One tedious part at the end which added up to making a foolish critique of wholesome country people, people of the soil... that happen to like beer and nascar… you know, Hillbillies. He made a moral equivalence between mindless predatory flesh eaters and people that enjoy hunting and shooting. Not cool, but that is a long running theme in Romero movies. I think George might just hate Rednecks or something. Newsflash, George. It’s not the same breed of Redneck today that you had back in 1968. Ease up. They aren't society's bane.

But that’s really a minor quibble. The movie is worth the rental despite that. Sure the acting is REALLY clunky in parts, but, hey, it’s a zombie movie. Zombie movies are good.

The premise is; a film school class is making a mummy movie in the woods outside of Pittburg. The Type 4 outbreak starts in the middle of this and they decide to vamoose on back home. To Harrisburg, Scranton, and/or Philadelphia and whatnot. So a small group, unsure of what is happening in the world and what a zombie is, head off in a Winnebego. One of the students records it all with the video camera because he has some compulsion to be a documentarian. Picture Michael Moore, but this guy doesn’t make stuff up.

This type of Level 4 Zombie outbreak is the worst possible. It is even more hopeless than sprinting zombies infected by a Rage virus. In Romero style outbreaks, EVERYONE becomes a zombie when they die. Yes, if you get bitten, the bite will fester and kill you and you’ll come back to feast on the living, fine. That's typical of all zombies. But. If you die of old age you come back as a zombie. If you drown you come back as a zombie. If you starve to death in your impervious zombie shelter you come back as a zombie. Unless you die of a destroyed brain or severed head you will come back as a zombie. The film students call their documentary “The Death of Death.” No one just dies in a Romero movie. You are alive, an undead, or you have a head wound and can finally rest. These zombies have unlimited endurance, too, and don’t need food for energy to stay mobile and dangerous. Sort of a violation of the laws of thermodynamics, but… whatcha gonna do? At least they are shamblors. If it was universal undead conversion AND sprinters? Well, it’d be a very short movie. As it is, it doesn’t take long to spread such a horror, globally.

There is a little chrome gun at the beginning. It does most of the shooting in the movie. And the college kids shooting are really good shots. It looks a tiny bit like a Colt Pocket Hammerless. I say that because it is really the only small gun I am familiar with, so, my head turns to it whenever I see small guns. It was certainly in the .380 style. But the gun must have held 24 rounds in the tiny grip. And you had to rack the slide of this semi-auto randomly. Not for the function of the pistol, or because it malfunctioned, but for dramatic effect. You know how it is…

There is some M16 action. One revolver is prominent and looks cowboy style. And a very effective bow and arrow set. There is a flash of 2 boobs. 4 gallons of blood are spilt.

T-Bolt says check it out

Bonus Money

So a buddy of mine got a BIG bonus. He spent it all on a spending jag, buying rifles. He got the missus something really nice, first, actually. Jewels. Patio furniture. And a new computer. He’s no dummy. But after he made the boss happy he made himself happy.

I’ve talked about him before. He’s Frozen. The guy I shovded down the slippery slope and got him to buy his first gun. Hmmm. He must have been standing on a particularly STEEP section of that slope. At this rate he’ll have his own table at gun shows in a couple years.

So what did he get? Brace yerself:

• K31 Schmidt Rubin
• CZ52 Romanian TTC (TT-33)
• An 1895 Chilean Mauser
• Enfield #4 Mk2
• Mosin-nagant m38
• Mosin reproduction sniper
• 1899 Mosin
• Yugoslavian m64 underfolding kit
• Romanian AK kit
• Bulgarian 5.45x39 Krinkov kit
• And a 10/22
  
  

And there is an order for a Garand or two from CMP in the works

And he got his XD upgraded with a trigger job and night sights from Springfield. He reported very fast service from their shop.

He needs a new BIG gun safe now, too. I picture myself getting roped in to help move it.

Many of these ready items were purchased from a gun store with a very good reputation that I haven’t visited yet. Gun Connection. I must remedy that someday.

Too bad my buddy’s bonus for a job well done came from AIG. He wasn’t even in the division for credit default swaps and securitized bond funds and whatnot. Dang shame the Congress had to unconstitutionally and illegally punish him for being so good at his job insuring airlines, and getting a big profit for his division, and such. I’m sure he deserves it for something he did. Or something.

Safe Deposit Boxes

Someone asked me about safe storage of a firearm. As in VERY safe. As in inside a safe deposit box at a bank.

Sure, you'd need a few days lead time to prep for an emergency. Sometime emergencies give you that much warning. If you saw Katrina coming, you could go to your bank and collect your roscoe. And it is certainly safe from home burglars and the risk of a toddler getting his mitts on your gun unsupervised are nil. No good for home invasion, naturally. But your strung out drug dealing brother in law can't get to it to pawn either since he's probably out of jail for a few months. That type of storage for all my guns is not for me since all my brother in laws are serving long stretches in the pokey. Maybe I'd put one of mine in a safe deposit box. I can't put ALL.

But are you allowed to?

Well, if you don't ask the bank's permission, they'd probably never know that you have more than a deed, coin collection, and birth certificate. And I wouldn't ask them. Why expose yourself to hoplophobes. I WOULD read the leasing agreement for the box. If the box doesn't say no firearms, go ahead and store one in there. Unloaded. Most lease agreements will probably say 'no explosives'. So, don't keep a box of ammo with your piece.

If the lease says no guns, well... don't rent a box from that bank.

New

Another negative to taking a n00b to the range. I can't practice on my OWN stuff so well. I'm not there to devote time to myslf, but to the guest.

Oh sure, teaching someone else has its own reward. If I was more of an expert shooter I wouldn't even worry about the loss of my own practice time. It's not really a loss, I guess, as teaching a new shooter is usually an EXTRA range trip.

Any range time is good time. Certainly.

Six Words

JayG and Borepatch and SigBoy are floating around a meme called, SIX WORDS. I need blog fodder

This week, mine are:

"I don't mind five ayem phonecalls"

And the guy that that's about may never know I wrote that.

Shooter's Wheel

I've gone over the shooter's wheel before, but this deserves some review, as there is always new insight to discover and apply.







[Note, I am left handed so this diagram is mirrored left to right for me.]



And that whole Bullseye website has info to be mined...



So, low and right for a lefty means... what I always complain about... JERKING. They even made it bold and ALLCAPS in the diagram to highlight my great shame. Though I have also worried about tightening fingers, and, sure enough, that's there too.



Which is why I do a bit better with "tickling" the trigger. It's simply a method I use, for me, to improve a crappy trigger pull.



It could be worse. I could have a whole passle of faults. For all I know I have... But I just want to fix the bad habits I have and move my crappy groups into the middle. If JERKING was equally negated by Heeling, I'd probably be happy. If I got rid of ALL bad habits I'd be ecstatic. Time to look for more training. Maybe a few weeks of more intensive practice, twice a week.

Range Birfday

I took the Saucy Trollop shooting on Saturday. It was her birthday.

She had never tried the 1911 with .45 in the pipe, just .22 conversion pops. Nor had she tried .380 Colt Pocket Hammerless. And she loved loved LOVED the recoil of the .357 Smith last time. So those are the three that tagged along, this trip.

We went over the 4 rules ahead of time, as per usual. Though I am personally starting to think of rule #1 as "know the condition of your weapon at all times." I think that is fine, if that mindset is as careful as the traditional #1. I still teach the traditional, so as not to confuse, right now. But I am leaning toward changing my tune externally as well as internally, and deviating from Colonel Cooper's cognitive dissonance dogma.


Anyway, I've been prepping for this trip for some time. I had to squirrel away a lot of ammo is twos and threes to get enough to shoot.

She did ok. Next time she wants more autonomy. To do it all her self. With next to no input from me. I'll probably giver he the revolver, her own lane, and 100 rounds to play with.

She anticipates the shots and recoil and shoots low. That habit started to fade late in the session as she worked on it. The first shot was always pretty good. After that she was pushing.

Her shoulders got tired and she had to take breaks. New, unused, muscles.

Her thumbs were all over the place, and often sticking out in the air. She isn't comfortable with any spots of her grip. More dry fire for her to work the grip and anticipation.

One other thing... I loaded mags up to 8, and didn't lube the slides to test the failure to go into battery malf I noticed a couple sessions ago. Tam was right. That reprodued the error, and now I will avoid 8 rounds in the magazine for the 1911.

Rule #1 Safety

Rule #1 is there for your safety.

"All Guns are ALWAYS loaded."

Great tip. That way you don't become complacent and can never claim after a negligent discharge "I thought it was unloaded..." Ingrain it, and it is second nature, and you are a bit more responsible.

But what about the other way?

What if, for your safety, for you VERY LIFE... you need that gun to be loaded. You need it to go BOOM, instead of click, to save you life. Rule #1 said it was loaded. But it just went click. Not very safe in that dire emerency where you need to defend yourself...

Another reason to change Rule #1 to "KNOW the condition of your weapon at all times."

That rule covers a lot of bases. Is the mag full? How many are in it? How many in a full mag? Is there a round in the chamber? Is the safety on? Is the gun clean and lubed? Is it in good working order? Are the sights zeroed? What kind of rounds are in the weapon? Where is it if it is not in your hand? If you have a strange gun in your hand you picked up or borrowed you better know all the previous answers toot-suite...