Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Carrying that thought and string of discussion on? Is there a brand of ammo you just..won’t use?
No need to name and shame!
Weirdly combining the last two subjects, not one of my father's custom loads is getting anywhere near my guns. I have no need for a shell that will either A) explode the target, or B) explode my gun. Nothing that blows a pie plate sized hole in steel can possibly be good for your shotgun.
BaronIveagh wrote: Weirdly combining the last two subjects, not one of my father's custom loads is getting anywhere near my guns. I have no need for a shell that will either A) explode the target, or B) explode my gun. Nothing that blows a pie plate sized hole in steel can possibly be good for your shotgun.
LOL, I know a guy who was shooting off the last of his father's reloads, the man having died years before.
They were...erratic, and we stood off once this became clear. The shooter seemed puzzled and disappointed, since Dad really knew guns and did precision reloading, but you see, "this was his last batch so maybe he was slipping..."
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Just watching Django Unchained whilst I work, and admiring the shooters involved.
And it’s got me wondering what your oldest shootin’ iron might be - and whether it ever sees use?
Dreyse M1907. Odd little duck, but with replacement springs it runs rather well. Nice plinker, fixed sights are a bit off, but since I replaced the firing pin spring, it's a terror to stiff primers. Stuff that other .32s won't touch off, this one will.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Just watching Django Unchained whilst I work, and admiring the shooters involved.
And it’s got me wondering what your oldest shootin’ iron might be - and whether it ever sees use?
That's... unfortunately an interesting question. The oldest that I have a firm date for is 1745. There's some other stuff that are probably older, but without a firm date it's hard to say, because they have no makers marks, nor are a particular pattern.
This has seen use off and on, mostly either deer hunting or reenactments. This state used to have weird muzzle-loading laws for hunting. The gun had to either have been made before 1803 or a reproduction thereof.
I have a 1942 Mosin. Original stock, but cutout to allow for a reproduction PU scope. I have yet to be able to get the scope mount to hold a zero, I need to figure out how to put some shims and stuff in there, but the irons can reliably hit 6 inch groups at 200 meters.
My oldest was a Hopkins & Allen Arms Co. Forehand Model 1901 .32 M&H Cal. Hammerless 5 Shot that I sold to a coworker shortly before they moved to Tennessee.
Just Tony wrote: My oldest was a Hopkins & Allen Arms Co. Forehand Model 1901 .32 M&H Cal. Hammerless 5 Shot that I sold to a coworker shortly before they moved to Tennessee.
Gotta love those old .32s.
There's a sour point in firearms collecting and it's near the 1890s when you have cartridge weapons whose ammunition is simply no longer available and it's difficult to hand load an equivalent because the pressures were so low. If you go pre-cartridge era, you're fine.
Of course, there are individual calibers outside of that period that are challenging as well (9mm Largo, 8x22mm Nambu for example), but that period seems to have the most issues.
A fun thing about .32 revolvers is that you can load a bunch of different versions into modern magnums. A revolver chambered for .327 Federal Magnum can handle .32 Long, .32 short, .32 H&R magnum and even .32 ACP (though I wouldn't rely on it for self-defense).
Vintage "off-brand" .32 revolvers (i.e. not Colt or S&W) are probably the cheapest weapons out there and ones in excellent condition can be had for gas money.
My Father recently decided he wanted to get rid of his Sig Sauer P320 Stainless. It's the Sig version of the PPK in 380. It's a nice little snapper, but it's barely accurate for anything but CCW. He wants 350 for it? It's also out of production these days, so is it worth it?
cuda1179 wrote:As absolutely stupid as it sounds, I've always wanted a Tec-9. The problem being it's long been out of production, and even at the best of times it was totally unreliable. I think I may have found a suitable substitute.
I understand the Tec-9 draw, there's a lot of pop culture value there, though for actual shooting and for history cool factor I think the vz61 is a winner
I had good times with my cousin's TEC-DC9 way back when this one wasn't banned. The blowback operation taught me to keep the wrists steady.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: My Father recently decided he wanted to get rid of his Sig Sauer P320 Stainless. It's the Sig version of the PPK in 380. It's a nice little snapper, but it's barely accurate for anything but CCW. He wants 350 for it? It's also out of production these days, so is it worth it?
The PP and the PPK were designed to use both .32 and .380, and I think some of the poor reputation the PPK/S enjoys in certain circles is because it is much better in .32. Alas, getting one is difficult and hideously expensive (and it will probably have a Hitler stamp on it).
The PP in .32 is much more affordable and a lot are out there as post-war police turn-ins. For a while, the French-made ones were a great deal and (according to the online chatter I saw), better quality than the German ones because Walther's QC people deeply resented the French and nit-picked every single flaw. Once they were allowed to use their own plant in Germany, they weren't as punitively strict. I've fired one and it points and hits like a laser. Crazy accurate.
What makes or made you jealous/envious at the range?
NFA items like short-barreled rifles and suppressors. Fully automatic weapons too, although somewhat less so, mostly due to the prohibitive price of the items themselves and the cost of ammunition, which is high enough for non-full auto weapons as it is.
What makes or made you jealous/envious at the range?
You are speaking of the fabled "Ooo-Ahh!" Factor. This is a significant motivator in firearms collection. I mean, who cares if you pull out a current-gen Glock? They're as scarce as air molecules.
The Platonic ideal is to open the case and remove a weapon that causes the range officers to crowd around it and either say "What the heck is that?!" or "Is that what I think it is?!"
Because I am drawn to the obscure, instances of me being impressed at the range are exceedingly rare. That being said, I have a friend who inherited a collection that never ceases to incite feelings of deeply sinful envy - particularly regarding his Colt 1911 (not 1911A1, but actual 1911) that was issued during the Great War. On one memorable occasion, he allowed me to fire his Colt M1917 revolver, which was sublime. I'd love to have one of those. Maybe when I grow up.
I thought they called them Hollars in Kentucky? or is that Tennessee? We got Hallows up this way.
Are you referring to the location in my sig? Yeah, we call them "Hollars" around here, I just didn't want to subject people from a myriad of different places to figuring out "Hillbilly dialect".
I thought they called them Hollars in Kentucky? or is that Tennessee? We got Hallows up this way.
Are you referring to the location in my sig? Yeah, we call them "Hollars" around here, I just didn't want to subject people from a myriad of different places to figuring out "Hillbilly dialect".
Mighty modest of you there, and I probably did that the way I spelled hollow...
What makes or made you jealous/envious at the range?
If someone brings in something rare, or just plain unattainable, I like it, even if it's a jam-o-matic. Even the downright goofy gets my attention. Yes, I know a double-barrel 1911 pistol was a stupid idea, but if someone would let me shoot one I'd giggle the entire time. Have a Derringer chambered in 50AE? Awesome. Modern shotgun converted to look like a Civil War era musket? Gotta see it.
Yeah, I'd like to think I'm above that. Cool guns are cool, and I'll talk to anybody and take interest in their stuff, but envy would be a stretch. I am envious of you guys that are able to shoot on your own land.
Does anyone have a Savage Impulse and/or have an opinion on it? I'm mostly interested in the 10 shot .308 or 6.5
I'm jealous of people who practice with CCW ammo, like it doesn't cost 1-2 dollars a round, and people who can still do the long distance marksmanship competitions.
I'm jealous of people who can afford to waste ammo with casual abandon.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I'm jealous of people who practice with CCW ammo, like it doesn't cost 1-2 dollars a round, and people who can still do the long distance marksmanship competitions.
I'm jealous of people who can afford to waste ammo with casual abandon.
The prices have come down lately, especially for 9mm. Most of the 9mm FMJ is $20 or less per box. I'm not a millionaire either and only shoot a few mags of carry ammo every few range trips to see where I'm at. In theory you could practice with a cheap carry ammo but I haven't had much luck with that. IMI "Black Dot" was not great in my gun and the Winchester/Remington budget HPs don't seem to perform well.
For carry ammo and ammo in general really, IME being a patient shopper can really pay off as some ammo seems to nearly always be available and others come in waves then dissappear until the next run. It is better to buy a lot of ammo that hits where you expect at once than buy it as you go and roll the dice on availability.
For carry ammo, you can occasionally find law enforcement overruns and get a really nice deal. These are usually in 50 rd boxes rather than the 20 rd boxes sold to the general public.
My first stop for ammo is this place as it has the best prices I've found, and they happen to have a good amount of that atm. Not really a secret but some might be unaware.
Do you only shoot alone? I know people with private ranges and they still enjoy shooting with others, which often has a "show 'n' tell' atmosphere.
Not much for social shooting these days and I don't do a lot of it anyway. There is a range down over yonder of here. Pretty much everyone around me is shooting or hunting on their land so not sure who goes to the range. I think it's some sort of club, there's military in this area too so that might have something to do with it. I'll have to look into it now.
Three five shot thirty eight short barrel revolvers. They are pocket pistols, and that's where I keep them (well, one, anyway, the other two are in a gun box next to the bed). They are here to defend myself and my wife. Along with a big Rottweiler and a big Labrador, they are all the home defense we need.
I also take one with me when my wife and I go out, and keep it concealed (perfectly legal in my area).
I was a soldier, and even in my old man years, am still a very good shot. However, I see firearms as tools for defense, and that is all. I keep them clean and oiled and loaded. I have never yet had a reason to draw one, as there has never yet been a situation that I couldn't talk myself out of.
For the first time since I started EDC'ing in 1998 I had a personal reason to draw my pistol two weeks ago.
As I stopped at a red light in a fairly bad part of town I couldn't avoid driving through (I work there) I was the victim of a smash and grab. Normally I can see them coming and have avoided it more than once, but this time I was distracted by the light being out. I wasn't stopping for a light change as everyone was going 1-1 through the light, like it was a stop street, so I was still rolling forwards to pull up to the light.
My wife in the passenger seat screamed as the window exploded in on her and someone leant into the car.
I'd already started reaching for it as I heard her scream and had a grip on it by the time he lent in the car and was pulling it out as my wife yelled "NO!" and punched him in the throat so hard he fell out the car without having got her bag. As he wasn't actually attacking her, was no longer in the car and a quick scan of my 6 showed it wasn't a hijacking I let go of the pistol and just peeled out of there, around the truck that was stopped at the light ahead of me.
For the first time since I started EDC'ing in 1998 I had a personal reason to draw my pistol two weeks ago.
As I stopped at a red light in a fairly bad part of town I couldn't avoid driving through (I work there) I was the victim of a smash and grab. Normally I can see them coming and have avoided it more than once, but this time I was distracted by the light being out. I wasn't stopping for a light change as everyone was going 1-1 through the light, like it was a stop street, so I was still rolling forwards to pull up to the light.
My wife in the passenger seat screamed as the window exploded in on her and someone leant into the car.
I'd already started reaching for it as I heard her scream and had a grip on it by the time he lent in the car and was pulling it out as my wife yelled "NO!" and punched him in the throat so hard he fell out the car without having got her bag. As he wasn't actually attacking her, was no longer in the car and a quick scan of my 6 showed it wasn't a hijacking I let go of the pistol and just peeled out of there, around the truck that was stopped at the light ahead of me.
Holy poop on a stick!
That’s horrifying. Glad you’re both at least physically OK though.
A while back my brother and I both got 1911's. We went shooting them for the first time at the local gun store. A friend of his was cleaning out his reloads, and had given my brother a freezer baggy of about 120 rounds.
First shot was fine, then misfeed, misfeed, failure to eject, misfeed that rammed the bullet all the way into the casing. After a few rounds I noticed my forearms covered in black soot, or possibly unspent powder. I eventually just bought a box of 20 rounds just to see if it was the reloads. Yeah, it was. Gun functions 100% with factory ammo. We threw the reloads in the trash.
For the first time since I started EDC'ing in 1998 I had a personal reason to draw my pistol two weeks ago.
When driving through Detroit one has to check an intersection before deciding whether to obey the signage.
Carjacking was invented there, and people typically shift their carry posture from "accessible" to "in the hand" while driving through the neighborhoods.
cuda1179 wrote: A while back my brother and I both got 1911's. We went shooting them for the first time at the local gun store. A friend of his was cleaning out his reloads, and had given my brother a freezer baggy of about 120 rounds.
First shot was fine, then misfeed, misfeed, failure to eject, misfeed that rammed the bullet all the way into the casing. After a few rounds I noticed my forearms covered in black soot, or possibly unspent powder. I eventually just bought a box of 20 rounds just to see if it was the reloads. Yeah, it was. Gun functions 100% with factory ammo. We threw the reloads in the trash.
My guess is the bullets were not seated to a proper overall length. They were probably too long and were jamming because of that, plus having too much powder.
Slinky wrote: Best policy is to not use other people's handloads, imo.
The problem with using a friend's handloads is that you are now doubling your risk. All handloads are somewhat suspect, so if they don't work, you might damage a weapon and lose an otherwise happy friendship.
I will use remanufactured ammo so long as the concern is big enough to pay out on a lawsuit.
Looks like an extended mag, so presumably a fully automatic pistol. And given A-Team’s budget, I don’t think it would be something custom or with random cool bits tacked on.
Looks like an extended mag, so presumably a fully automatic pistol. And given A-Team’s budget, I don’t think it would be something custom or with random cool bits tacked on.
I've spent entirely too much time on the Internet Movie Firearms Database to engage in speculation.
For example, many M-16s used during the 80s were replicas, and to confuse matters even more, they would move the replicas around with the firing versions as needed. Thus, a given character didn't consistently use the same prop.
Likewise, there's the issue of "rubber ducks" (hard rubber or polymer replicas) being swapped out between scenes.
Indeed, if you dig into the topic, the striking feature is the absolute indifference of most production crews in maintaining firearms consistency.
Conversely, there's also the situation where cosmetic changes are applied to conceal the fact that the production company could only afford a small number of firearms. I think "El Mariachi" had one functioning prop gun, the rest were squirt guns spray-painted matte black.
Over the last 20 years, much more attention has gone into firearms prop selection. The John Wick films are a great example of this.
Over the last 20 years, much more attention has gone into firearms prop selection. The John Wick films are a great example of this.
Interesting topic.
The aftermath of the Miami Dade shootout in 1986 provoked a sea change in firearms evaluation and usage by US law enforcement. Quite a lot has been written about this, but in brief, the gunfight was between 8 FBI and 2 bank robbers. One of the robbers was taken out early in the fight, while the other (Michael Lee Platt) was able to do an enormous amount of damage (killed 2 and wounded 5), primarily with a Mini-14.
Platt was hit pretty early in the fight by a 9mm round that punctured his lung but stopped short of his heart. This probably more than anything is the reason for the FBI penetration standards that all ammunition is now measured by, and why 9mm was considered underpowered causing LE to switch to .40 S&W and 10mm. Modern 9mm ammo is much better and can now pass these tests, so .40 has fallen to the wayside. 10mm is powerful enough to still have a niche purpose.
FBI Agent Ed Mireles was wounded in one arm and had to shoot and reload his Remington 870 pump shotgun 1 handed. His heroic actions were perhaps an inspiration for the memorable scene in Terminator 2.
The A-Team's main gun was that same Mini-14. While the show was cartoonish in that 80's network television way, its hard to dispute that this was an effective gun for that era given the impact it had on firearm development following the Miami Dade shootout.
Switching to the modern era, yes the John Wick films tend to feature really good guns that would be your top picks for CQB gunfights. The "Pit Viper" custom 1911 is close to or the best handgun you could possibly have.
Still, these are just movies. I would argue that while the John Wick films have better guns, they have more in common with the cowboy shows of the 50's and 60's with people like "Lash Larue" and "The Rifleman" mastering their particular guns for the purpose of showmanship rather than shows aiming for more realism.
The sequence in JW3 where he has to switch out his AR for a semi auto shotgun with AP shells is rather an overreach. A standard 2 3/4" shotgun shell is going to top out at perhaps 1500 fps and not be a viable armor piercing option compared to a rifle no matter how good the slug is.
Its just an excuse for there to be a cool shotgun sequence using the "3 gun" shell caddys and quad load techniques.He even has and uses a match saver! And the end result is more like a super hero film then something approaching realism. Along the same lines I thought it was clever that in the latest Terminator movie they fired their guns from the hip while in the 80's then actually aimed them in the modern timeline.
On a related/personal note, I bought the tactical version of this (with less bling, barrel and 2 fewer shells) as my home defense gun, primarily because of this commercial:
The gun seems very effective at the range, but I can't rapid fire anywhere near as steady as Jerry, or reliably quad load like the QL queen Lena here. Even the double load is hard enough I wouldn't try it in a real HD situation. It is quite difficult and you'd really have to practice to the extent of a pro shooter to realistically be able to do those things. Plus I doubt they are using the full power buckshot/slugs you'd want if you had to shoot at actual people.
Something like the Terminal List at least seems like it is more realistic. The MC has an HK 416 with thermal optic. "Riggins" uses a Beretta semi auto shotgun and reloads normally, slowing the operation down. He would have been better off with an AR. Having said that, idk if the "explosively forged projectile" is realistic or not. Obviously I don't make IEDs. Still really cool either way.
Looks like an extended mag, so presumably a fully automatic pistol. And given A-Team’s budget, I don’t think it would be something custom or with random cool bits tacked on.
(I had to look it up, I did not know off the top of my head)
Yep! I think that’s the one! Thought on the next poster’s comment about a lack of consistency? I swear Hannibal is later seen with a Beretta - that machine pistols also seen in Total Recall, with the cowling with all holes up the side?
Slowroll wrote: Platt was hit pretty early in the fight by a 9mm round that punctured his lung but stopped short of his heart. This probably more than anything is the reason for the FBI penetration standards that all ammunition is now measured by, and why 9mm was considered underpowered causing LE to switch to .40 S&W and 10mm. Modern 9mm ammo is much better and can now pass these tests, so .40 has fallen to the wayside. 10mm is powerful enough to still have a niche purpose.
I think it's been pretty conclusively shown that the FBI used poor tactics and had inadequate training and leadership. Several agents had .357 Magnum revolvers which had ample stopping power, but they missed.
Typical response: blame the cartridge, not the leadership.
The sequence in JW3 where he has to switch out his AR for a semi auto shotgun with AP shells is rather an overreach. A standard 2 3/4" shotgun shell is going to top out at perhaps 1500 fps and not be a viable armor piercing option compared to a rifle no matter how good the slug is.
The notion of dropping one weapon in favor of drawing a new one was obsolete as soon as magazine-fed autoloaders were developed. Contra console gaming, it is almost always faster to slap a new magazine in than it is to switch weapons and extra mags are much less bulky that a second (or third!) firearm.
Slowroll wrote: Platt was hit pretty early in the fight by a 9mm round that punctured his lung but stopped short of his heart. This probably more than anything is the reason for the FBI penetration standards that all ammunition is now measured by, and why 9mm was considered underpowered causing LE to switch to .40 S&W and 10mm. Modern 9mm ammo is much better and can now pass these tests, so .40 has fallen to the wayside. 10mm is powerful enough to still have a niche purpose.
I think it's been pretty conclusively shown that the FBI used poor tactics and had inadequate training and leadership. Several agents had .357 Magnum revolvers which had ample stopping power, but they missed.
Typical response: blame the cartridge, not the leadership.
To be fair, everything was bad. They initiated the stop before more backup arrived, backup which was more heavily armed, and they were carrying inadaquate firepower. Yes, a .357 would have done fine at stopping power, but you really can't afford to take a carefully aimed shot when under fire and revolvers can't make it up with volume. Revolvers are totally obsolete and have been since the early 1900s, it was penny pinching and curmudgeonly attitudes that kept Police from upgrading till this happened.
Plus there was probably some bravado and naivety making the officers think the guys might just pull over and give up.
And really they didn't just blame the tools. They blamed everything. It led to better training and equipment, not just equipment.
And really they didn't just blame the tools. They blamed everything. It led to better training and equipment, not just equipment.
Yeah I agree. Their performance here and the loss of two agents did merit an overhaul in terms of their tactics, training, and gear. Had all the agents been carrying .40 Glocks (not invented yet), likely only Platt would have died. And you certainly can't count on having someone like Mireles on your team every time.
IMO they did the responsible thing and we all benefit from it. There is certainly an argument to be made that law enforcement later pushed this line of thinking too far and I'd agree with that, but that discussion likely belongs elsewhere.
The notion of dropping one weapon in favor of drawing a new one was obsolete as soon as magazine-fed autoloaders were developed. Contra console gaming, it is almost always faster to slap a new magazine in than it is to switch weapons and extra mags are much less bulky that a second (or third!) firearm.
But it is fun to watch.
The "New York Reload" (draw another gun rather than reload) was popularized by Jim Cirillo, an NYPD cop in the 70's who mainly used revolvers in part because he favored wad cutter bullets that won't feed in semi auto pistols. When he carried a semi auto he would have a hand loaded wad cutter in the chamber with standard ball ammo in the mag. This guy survived dozens of gunfights and put a quite a lot of people in the ground.
His book is really good, and while outdated well worth a look. He made the best choices for what was available at the time, backed up by his own testing and personal experience. In modern times, the tools to measure what will be faster for you in particular are readily available and you can test this yourself. I can tell you they still teach transition to pistol in carbine class, and we've probably all seen Officer Rex Englebert clear the school with an AR and no spare magazines. He didn't need them but may have had it gone down differently. I think that training has some real world value.
In the film John Wick does do a lot of those transitions but in this case is fighting against a platoon of guys with soft body armor that is so good they are only mildly inconvenienced by full auto ARs. He leaves the fight to go get a better gun and I'm thinking he's going to grab a Tavor 7 or P-90 with real AP ammo but no, the shotgun is somehow the armor penetration king, leading to a shotgun sequence that is an orgy of 3-gun reloading drills and "gun kata" that makes for an exciting, if totally unrealistic action sequence.
As you said, fun to watch if unrealistic. An interesting choice given that they went through the trouble to give Keanu, Halle Berry etc quite a lot of real firearms training, give them the best guns, etc.
In the film John Wick does do a lot of those transitions but in this case is fighting against a platoon of guys with soft body armor that is so good they are only mildly inconvenienced by full auto ARs. He leaves the fight to go get a better gun and I'm thinking he's going to grab a Tavor 7 or P-90 with real AP ammo but no, the shotgun is somehow the armor penetration king, leading to a shotgun sequence that is an orgy of 3-gun reloading drills and "gun kata" that makes for an exciting, if totally unrealistic action sequence.
I legit though they would go grab some M1 Garands with black tip .30-06. I see your modern soft body armour and choose to ignore it.
But Taran probably wouldn't have cool guy moves for that.
In fairness, the John Wick movies are pretty realistic on the actual gunplay, weapon handling, etc... I believe they even actually bother to do accurate reloading(IE: no infinite mags till it's convenient for the plot to require a reload) most of the time.
Yes, picking the shotgun was not realistically a good choice. It was done for the cool factor.
It's funny that Keanu is this ultra peaceful practicing buddist hippy, that decries the violence in Hollywood. Dude, you have the highest kill count in 20 years, Arnold doesn't even touch you in on screen kills. Not only that, you basically made Violence = sexy in the Matrix films.
Slowroll wrote: Switching to the modern era, yes the John Wick films tend to feature really good guns that would be your top picks for CQB gunfights. The "Pit Viper" custom 1911 is close to or the best handgun you could possibly have.
On the flipside, that MPX carbine in JW3 is a firearm that has no purpose beyond min-maxing comp requirements while meeting NFA regulations, and the movie practically lampshades itself by then showing how well a 9mm PCC deals with body armor.
I unironically enjoy how the John Wick films are set in an alternate reality where three-gun competition raceguns and techniques are used for combat, even though your comparison to cowboy shows (where the gunplay has more in common with exhibition shoots than actual gunfights) is spot-on. It's pure style over realism, but there's internal consistency and attention to detail that makes it fun to watch.
Slowroll wrote: Switching to the modern era, yes the John Wick films tend to feature really good guns that would be your top picks for CQB gunfights. The "Pit Viper" custom 1911 is close to or the best handgun you could possibly have.
On the flipside, that MPX carbine in JW3 is a firearm that has no purpose beyond min-maxing comp requirements while meeting NFA regulations, and the movie practically lampshades itself by then showing how well a 9mm PCC deals with body armor.
I know it's cos, as you say, 3 gun uses it but I never got why the MPX 9 was used. The 9mm doesn't become magic out a carbine. He uses the 416/415 to good effect in JW1.
You can get really fast using a 5.56 too. Not as fast as a low recoil 9mm, sure, but fast enough that hits that actually penetrate armour vs lightning fast splits that don't do damage...
catbarf wrote: I unironically enjoy how the John Wick films are set in an alternate reality where three-gun competition raceguns and techniques are used for combat, even though your comparison to cowboy shows (where the gunplay has more in common with exhibition shoots than actual gunfights) is spot-on. It's pure style over realism, but there's internal consistency and attention to detail that makes it fun to watch.
It's like classic martial arts films. Obviously the fight is choreographed, but the moves and timing involved are a pleasure to watch.
On the flipside, that MPX carbine in JW3 is a firearm that has no purpose beyond min-maxing comp requirements while meeting NFA regulations, and the movie practically lampshades itself by then showing how well a 9mm PCC deals with body armor.
I know it's cos, as you say, 3 gun uses it but I never got why the MPX 9 was used. The 9mm doesn't become magic out a carbine. He uses the 416/415 to good effect in JW1.
You can get really fast using a 5.56 too. Not as fast as a low recoil 9mm, sure, but fast enough that hits that actually penetrate armour vs lightning fast splits that don't do damage...
Huh, I didn't notice that was an MPX. Even better.
I'm not too keen on 9mm carbines in general either, for the same reasons. People seem to like them, though. They sell a lot of those cheap Kel-Tec Sub 2000's and they seem to show up in the news a lot. I really don't get it.
I like the 9mm carbine I have, fun to shoot, low recoil makes it a great teaching gun. Also been used as a varmint gun where I don't want the longer range and higher penetration of the 5.56.
Slowroll wrote: I'm not too keen on 9mm carbines in general either, for the same reasons. People seem to like them, though. They sell a lot of those cheap Kel-Tec Sub 2000's and they seem to show up in the news a lot. I really don't get it.
The improvement in ballistic performance vs a handgun is significant at the ranges you are likely to use them. Some of them can use pistol magazines, so if you can match them to be fully interchangeable.
In some states, rifle cartridges are prohibited in certain jurisdictions during hunting season, so PCCs have that niche as well.
Before the boating accident I had one (Beretta CX4 Storm) and it was superb. Easy to use and clean, flawlessly accurate.
Made to do a murder mystery at departmental away day. Written by boss. The victim died by gunshot wound to the heart. Autopsy confirms 44mm round used…
Made to do a murder mystery at departmental away day. Written by boss. The victim died by gunshot wound to the heart. Autopsy confirms 44mm round used…
Guessing 44mm doesn’t exist, or is sufficiently large to obliterate the general chest region?
40mm is also the caliber of M203's and assorted NATO grenade launchers. I guess someone could have been shot by one at such a close range that the grenade doesn't have time to arm
Bobthehero wrote: 40mm is also the caliber of M203's and assorted NATO grenade launchers. I guess someone could have been shot by one at such a close range that the grenade doesn't have time to arm
Yes, but you'll still have a fist sized hole in your chest and a very obvious unexploded grenade in it.
Made to do a murder mystery at departmental away day. Written by boss. The victim died by gunshot wound to the heart. Autopsy confirms 44mm round used…
Bobthehero wrote: 40mm is also the caliber of M203's and assorted NATO grenade launchers. I guess someone could have been shot by one at such a close range that the grenade doesn't have time to arm
Yes, but you'll still have a fist sized hole in your chest and a very obvious unexploded grenade in it.
I wonder if it would stay stuck there. Though tbh, a 40mm round kind just looks like a big bullet.
Bobthehero wrote: 40mm is also the caliber of M203's and assorted NATO grenade launchers. I guess someone could have been shot by one at such a close range that the grenade doesn't have time to arm
CptJake wrote: A 44mm round to the heart would do the trick...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Not sure where you get a 44mm gun/cannon though.
Hmm... Russians used to make a gun a few mm bigger so that people couldn't use the captured guns/ammo. Beyond that.... biggest thing I've ever heard of being used for a murder that wasn't an explosive or a vehicle was 20mm Oerlikon.
Edit:
And, then, suddenly, I remember. If you use a subcaliber round in a M1937, it's 44mm. Mind you, it's still a light anti tank gun.
CptJake wrote: A 44mm round to the heart would do the trick...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Not sure where you get a 44mm gun/cannon though.
Hmm... Russians used to make a gun a few mm bigger so that people couldn't use the captured guns/ammo. Beyond that.... biggest thing I've ever heard of being used for a murder that wasn't an explosive or a vehicle was 20mm Oerlikon.
Edit:
And, then, suddenly, I remember. If you use a subcaliber round in a M1937, it's 44mm. Mind you, it's still a light anti tank gun.
Well, there you go, poor dude got capped by a sub cal from a M1937! Can't be too many of them around so finding the perp ought to be relatively easy. Mystery solved!
Now the murder mystery is beginning to take shape. Next step is to canvas the local VFW and American Legion clubs to see if they had one parked outside that has gone missing. Could be quite the creative writing exercise.
Bobthehero wrote: 40mm is also the caliber of M203's and assorted NATO grenade launchers. I guess someone could have been shot by one at such a close range that the grenade doesn't have time to arm
Yes, but you'll still have a fist sized hole in your chest and a very obvious unexploded grenade in it.
I wonder if it would stay stuck there. Though tbh, a 40mm round kind just looks like a big bullet.
Garand Thumb has a youtube video where he tested that, some of the rounds got stuck if they struck the spine/shoulder blades but others would go clean through the ballistics dummy.
Made to do a murder mystery at departmental away day. Written by boss. The victim died by gunshot wound to the heart. Autopsy confirms 44mm round used…
Any missing AA mounts?
Considering half the participants were reservists or serving it did lead to various theories like proximity to live fire tank training grounds. But it was just shocking consider what we do how sketchy on the basics much of the staff are.
The_Real_Chris wrote: Considering half the participants were reservists or serving it did lead to various theories like proximity to live fire tank training grounds. But it was just shocking consider what we do how sketchy on the basics much of the staff are.
On the one hand, using a really unusual cartridge/caliber as a murder weapon is obviously going to draw additional attention, but there's also the sheer improbability of it.
For example, figuring on the ballistics on a 40mm+ slug has to be monumentally difficult. A common pistol round is going to have much better documentation.
As people have pointed out, there probably isn't a lot of definitive information on what a 44mm hole means. Obviously, people think a 40mm AA or AT round, but there's a ton of 37mm ammunition out there, and probably not a lot of ballistic gel tests using those calibers to tell you exactly what size of hole they would make.
I mean, who's to say it wasn't an M79 using a training round?
Or - thinking outside the box a bit - why not a muzzle-loader? Some of the heavy "fort defense" weapons had absurdly large projectiles. I betcha there's not a lot of ballistic fingerprints on Chinese jingals.
Well, there you go, poor dude got capped by a sub cal from a M1937! Can't be too many of them around so finding the perp ought to be relatively easy. Mystery solved!
Particularly since they weren't used much outside the Russian Front and a few African bush wars.
Or - thinking outside the box a bit - why not a muzzle-loader? Some of the heavy "fort defense" weapons had absurdly large projectiles. I betcha there's not a lot of ballistic fingerprints on Chinese jingals.
You'd be surprised on this one. I can remember Pittsburgh PD getting a crash course on the ballistics of a swivel gun a bout twenty years ago. That said, since most of those guns are hand made, the ballistics can very significantly between guns.
And whilst we’re talking dubious calibres? Any Dakkanauts, outside of military service, ever fired something really big/really fun?
Don’t want to place limiters, but I’m primarily thinking field guns/artillery, but honking Geet automatics would count.
A Swivel gun! Well calibre was hard to tell, it had a chicken wire like material holding a number of lead balls together (it wasn't called canister but something else I can't remember...) and a half charge of black powder, but was amusing. I suppose it wasn't that big (I have been stood about 20 metres, but forward of the muzzle, away from a 12-lb cannon and when that went off it was like being kicked in the chest.
You'd be surprised on this one. I can remember Pittsburgh PD getting a crash course on the ballistics of a swivel gun a bout twenty years ago. That said, since most of those guns are hand made, the ballistics can very significantly between guns.
Yes, but the same weapon can also use different calibers of ammunition because there aren't cartridges going into a chamber, just balls stuffed up the muzzle. The other day I read a monograph on Civil War rifles and how units could be issue with two types of ammunition - .58 caliber and .57 caliber - because as the fouling built up in the barrel, the "correct" caliber ball would be harder to load. Thus troops stacked the larger minie balls at the front of their ammo box and the smaller ones at the back.
I'm thinking the same applies with wall guns or swivel guns. At relatively short range (where any hit is basically a kill), you could fire a rock if you wanted to.
As for firing heavy ordnance, I'm too cheap to do that on my own. I let the generous American taxpayer pay for my fun with machineguns, grenade launchers and an AT-4. Not that I got much of it, but I enjoyed it all the same.
The thing is much above .50 BMG you're not going to be able to say for certain what caliber was used on a body other than "a big one". Once the damage is just leaving chunks there isn't much to be told from the damage.
Grey Templar wrote: The thing is much above .50 BMG you're not going to be able to say for certain what caliber was used on a body other than "a big one". Once the damage is just leaving chunks there isn't much to be told from the damage.
Shows like CSI have created this myth that dedicated scientists can tell everything from a single fiber or wound channel. Forensics have gotten a lot better, but there are still very real limits.
Of course, based on what I see on television, the most dangerous city in the world is Oxford. Man, those British university types really hate each other. Seems like they have a murder almost every week!
You should try Midsommer. Wowzers that place is a hotbed of murder and intrigue!
Turning back to firearms, when it comes to ammo, is there anything, for want of a better term, seasonal about it? As in sometimes you can find certain calibres easily, only for supply to suddenly dry up?
Do calibres and that come and go out of fashion as new shooters are released to market?
Specific stores might have a fluctuation as they sell out and need to wait for their new order to come in just because you're not getting weekly shipments of every caliber, but new releases on the market generally don't affect the supply of ammo. A new 9mm PCC isn't going to cause a noticeable uptick in the sales of 9mm compared to the general demand.
The calibers that exist on the market have pretty much been stable for decades. New guns come and go, but they rarely have new calibers so their effect on the ammunition supply is minimal. The only new calibers are usually very niche large bore hunting/anti-material calibers for extremely expensive and small quantity rifles, stuff like .408 Cheytac.
This is because by and large everybody has figured out what calibers people actually like or want to buy, so breaking into the market with a new gun that also shoots a new cartridge is a hard sell. If you design a new gun, you are almost certainly not designing a new cartridge to go with it. You'll use an existing one because not only does it save you development time but there will be a ready supply of ammo for your customers.
Back around the turn of the century when self-loading firearms were finally practical, there was a flood of hundreds of different calibers that were very similar to each other trying to compete. But when all was said and done only a dozen or so won out and became widely used enough to stick around.
Forgotten Weapons has several videos on the subject, here is one of them
The_Real_Chris wrote: Considering half the participants were reservists or serving it did lead to various theories like proximity to live fire tank training grounds. But it was just shocking consider what we do how sketchy on the basics much of the staff are.
On the one hand, using a really unusual cartridge/caliber as a murder weapon is obviously going to draw additional attention, but there's also the sheer improbability of it.
Being bored at work once the topic came up about what gun to use. My answer? 45 LC revolver, using a chamber sleeve to fire a round other than 45LC, let's say 9mm or any other caliber you don't own a weapon in. Save a few 9mm casings from the shooting range floor. Plant those casings near the body.
I got some open mouthed "you've thought of this before" looks.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: You should try Midsommer. Wowzers that place is a hotbed of murder and intrigue!
Turning back to firearms, when it comes to ammo, is there anything, for want of a better term, seasonal about it? As in sometimes you can find certain calibres easily, only for supply to suddenly dry up?
Do calibres and that come and go out of fashion as new shooters are released to market?
Yes, quite a lot of ammo is made this way. Rather than a continuous production the mfg will make a batch of something and once it has all sold, it is gone until they make another batch, which could take months, years, or never happen. During periods of high demand, they won't put out near as much of the less common calibers and it can take quite a while for that to normalize. The supply and prices still have not quite reached the new normal from Covid 19. Also in the new normal, 7.62x39 and 5.56 prices are starting to converge and the price of 7.62x39 ammo may no longer be a factor when buying a new gun. Supplies of the really popular, really good stuff don't last too long when introduced. I've said this before but it is worth repeating that it really pays off to be a disciplined shopper in this hobby.
As far as ammo supplies being sensitive to new guns coming out, it happens a little. 5.7mm FN has been around a while but had only 2 guns that could shoot it, a handgun and the P-90 that looks rather goofy with a civilian legal 16" barrel on it. 2 new handguns and a carbine have come out recently and are all on the budget side, so interest has increased. The cartridge is interesting as it has capabilities other pistol rounds don't. It shoots a small pointy bullet really fast, in theory fast enough to do "rifle" damage. It has a longer effective range than other pistol rounds. And there is one other reason . If you want to actually shoot a gun in this caliber getting ammunition is a big challenge. For quite a while the only round available was a Federal plinking round at $1.30 per round. It has come down a bit and a few other ammo types are now available but they are still exorbitantly expensive for what they are. And many of them are deliberately loaded light, defeating the purpose of why you chose that gun in the first place (a lot of high caliber hollow point ammo falls into this category as well, which is another discussion worth having).
Most once popular calibers become less so as better options become available. They can hang around a long time (many of the "cowboy" calibers that were originally black powder from the 1800's still see decent use and remain effective for hunting) but don't really become popular again. 10mm might be an example of a "seasonal" cartridge that was initially popular, stagnated, and has become a lot more popular recently. 9mm has remained popular but lost a lot of its "market share" to .40 S&W for a few decades. With modern ammo .40 is only marginally different than 9mm so that cartridge is in decline and 9mm is by far the most popular pistol caliber.
Many new calibers are introduced and a lot of them don't catch on, so you can get stuck with a gun that initially had some good ammo availability and now has very little. A pile of alternate calibers for AR-15s have been introduced and I think most of them will fall into this category. 357 Sig is a good example of this, it has a small following but never really caught on and these days it is very difficult to maintain proficiency with. 300 Blackout and 6.5 Creedmore are here to stay I think, we'll see about 30 Super Carry and the other AR calibers (.350 Legend, .450 Bushmaster seem like they'll be ok, and 7.62x39 for obvious reasons).
.350 Legend and .450 Bushmaster are probably here to stay. They are straight-walled cartridges that meet deer hunting restrictions in several states. They are available in many budget friendly bolt-action rifles as well as ARs. Their supply can dry up just before and during hunting season and then be plentiful shortly after.
Turning back to firearms, when it comes to ammo, is there anything, for want of a better term, seasonal about it? As in sometimes you can find certain calibres easily, only for supply to suddenly dry up?
Do calibres and that come and go out of fashion as new shooters are released to market?
Target shooters are a funny bunch. If they find a batch of magic ammo they will try and get as much as possible to hoard.
Being bored at work once the topic came up about what gun to use. My answer? 45 LC revolver, using a chamber sleeve to fire a round other than 45LC, let's say 9mm or any other caliber you don't own a weapon in. Save a few 9mm casings from the shooting range floor. Plant those casings near the body.
I got some open mouthed "you've thought of this before" looks.
More thought than our 1* clearly, though that would have ruined his 'it's all an accident' training serial intent. We still however wished to prosecute for a range of reasons that revealed he knew little about hunting...
This is because by and large everybody has figured out what calibers people actually like or want to buy, so breaking into the market with a new gun that also shoots a new cartridge is a hard sell.
It will be interesting to see if a 'round' of innovation is kicked off by the new US army rifle round. Though switching to any type of non-metal case will make reloaders sad.
.277 Fury is already on the market, you can buy semi-auto Sig Spears too. And there will just be Ar10 uppers chambered in it. Granted, none of the ammo is of the rediculous 80,000 PSI military ammo with the steel based brass or the composite casings, its just normal brass cased stuff.
The steel based brass would probably still be reloadable anyway, just the composite stuff wouldn't but I doubt that is going to gain much traction.
As a 40K fan and an Ork fan? This might be the closest we have right now to something vaguely approximating “enuff Dakka”. Even though there is no such as enuff Dakka.
But…..it does sound like aircraft are doing particularly vicious farts. As an idiot, overgrown man child who still gets Viz, and has bought every issue since…erm…..1994? That’s just Brass Knobs on it.
For the first time since I started EDC'ing in 1998 I had a personal reason to draw my pistol two weeks ago.
As I stopped at a red light in a fairly bad part of town I couldn't avoid driving through (I work there) I was the victim of a smash and grab. Normally I can see them coming and have avoided it more than once, but this time I was distracted by the light being out. I wasn't stopping for a light change as everyone was going 1-1 through the light, like it was a stop street, so I was still rolling forwards to pull up to the light.
My wife in the passenger seat screamed as the window exploded in on her and someone leant into the car.
I'd already started reaching for it as I heard her scream and had a grip on it by the time he lent in the car and was pulling it out as my wife yelled "NO!" and punched him in the throat so hard he fell out the car without having got her bag. As he wasn't actually attacking her, was no longer in the car and a quick scan of my 6 showed it wasn't a hijacking I let go of the pistol and just peeled out of there, around the truck that was stopped at the light ahead of me.
How am I only seeing this today?
Anyway, kudos to your wife, my friend. Evidently she's no joke!
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: You should try Midsommer. Wowzers that place is a hotbed of murder and intrigue!
Do the Brits have anything like American police procedurals where an undermanned and demoralized urban dept. wages a desperate, forlorn battle to keep the streets safe? "Hill Street Blues" comes to mind, but I'm sure there have been others.
Turning back to firearms, when it comes to ammo, is there anything, for want of a better term, seasonal about it? As in sometimes you can find certain calibres easily, only for supply to suddenly dry up?
Do calibres and that come and go out of fashion as new shooters are released to market?
There are surges of certain ammo types when game seasons arrive. The manufacturers time their production and switch their lines.
The pandemic and rioting threw all these calculations off, so while some calibers (9mm, 5.56mm) have come back and are both affordable and plentiful, others continue to lag. This could be a function of demand shifts - .38 Special used to be as cheap as 9mm, but I think a lot of people bought revolvers and shifted the curve.
The ammo shortage also cause a "clear the shelves" mentality, which wiped out stocks of low-demand, low-production calibers. Most of these are not in continuous production - the manufacturers instead do a run of so many thousands rounds, the retailers stock up, and it sells bit by bit until a new run is justified.
This is particularly true of vintage/historical calibers like 7.63mm Mauser or 8x22mm Nambu. Even more modern ones like .327 Federal Magnum are only now coming back and are very expensive for what you get.
Shotgun shells were also affected. Boxes of 12 gauge never truly ran out, but finding 20 gauge or .410 gauge can be difficult - the latter because it's now a common pistol round thanks to the hideous Taurus Judge and its clones.
The upshot is that because of these wholesale shifts in demand (and firearms in production), the "seasons" are a bit messed up.
Shotgun shells were also affected. Boxes of 12 gauge never truly ran out, but finding 20 gauge or .410 gauge can be difficult - the latter because it's now a common pistol round thanks to the hideous Taurus Judge and its clones.
Hey, I've had my judge for about 5 years now and love it! Nothing hideous about it. It is my 'carry in the wet areas' while out on the property gun and has dispatched a few moccasins and a copperhead or two.
As a 40K fan and an Ork fan? This might be the closest we have right now to something vaguely approximating “enuff Dakka”. Even though there is no such as enuff Dakka.
But…..it does sound like aircraft are doing particularly vicious farts. As an idiot, overgrown man child who still gets Viz, and has bought every issue since…erm…..1994? That’s just Brass Knobs on it.
"the key to this is the barrels, six of them"
"this also increases multi-hit probabilities when compared to a single barrel."
Do the Brits have anything like American police procedurals where an undermanned and demoralized urban dept. wages a desperate, forlorn battle to keep the streets safe? "Hill Street Blues" comes to mind, but I'm sure there have been others.
We have the middle class bumping each other off and getting caught (the majority). The rich doing the same (Poirot etc.). The poorer lot tend to be lumped into dealing with 'the underworld' which they are all someone very aware of (honestly they are more aware of the deals at the local supermarket), or as background cases to solve in long running police series in the vein of one of our misery soap operas. I think any attempt at the above would result in the writers describing a bunch of sullen cops not liking the locals and thinking screw 'em, and leaving them to their own devices...
Started off good, ran for far, far too long, and become the Mortuary For Once Successful Now Failed Acting Careers.
We also have stuff like Taggart - but any non-Scot would probably want to be watching with the subtitles on.
Do the cops in the precinct house eat porridge with their fingers? (Sorry, Waugh reference.)
Something I learned during the Great Shortage was that Americans generally hate .32 ACP and Europeans make lots of ammo for it. Not only that, there are plenty of vintage .32s that run great. Literary James Bond's weapon of choice and all that (movie Bond uses 9mm short).
.32 is a woefully underpowered cartridge. It was considered weak when it first came out, and that is saying something for early automatic pistol calibers.
A potential safety issue is that .32 pistols are capable of chambering some other calibers, like .380, but firing it will result in the pistol energetically disassembling itself in all directions. Particularly said vintage pistols where they were made for much weaker loads than are made today. Even some modern factory .32 might be too hot for a 100+ year-old revolver.
Grey Templar wrote: .32 is a woefully underpowered cartridge. It was considered weak when it first came out, and that is saying something for early automatic pistol calibers.
I'm curious as to the basis of this statement. The reception of .32 ACP was overwhelmingly positive - just about every police force in Europe chose equip their officers with autoloaders in this caliber (which most them called 7.65mm Browning).
A potential safety issue is that .32 pistols are capable of chambering some other calibers, like .380, but firing it will result in the pistol energetically disassembling itself in all directions.
I'm not sure I follow you here. The difference between .32 and .380 (or, if you like 7.65mm and 9mm) is considerable. You can feed a 7.65mm cartridge into a 9mm but it will just fall out the other end of the barrel. I'm not sure how you'd chamber a 9mm into a 7.65mm short of using a hammer to close the slide.
Particularly said vintage pistols where they were made for much weaker loads than are made today. Even some modern factory .32 might be too hot for a 100+ year-old revolver.
Now that is a very valid concern. Because it is "semi-rimmed," one can seat a .32 ACP cartridge into a revolver. (Since most autoloader cartridges are "rimless," they will just fall through unless they are in a moon clip or have some weird cylinder thingy.)
The .32 ACP has a fairly short cartridge length overall (shorter than .32 S&W Long, for example), so it could conceivably chamber in some revolvers designed for .32 Short (a mild round if there ever was one). That would likely not end well for either shooter or firearm.
The moral of that story: know your firearm, especially if it is an antique. Ammo that fits is not necessarily safe.
I felt compelled to check, and no, a .380 won't chamber in my wife's Mauser HSc (.32ACP/7.65 Browning).
.32ACP was one of the most successful autoloader cartridges of the early 20th century. Like Commissar said it was widely adopted by police and militaries in Europe, and was a more powerful cartridge than some of the standard police cartridges of the time (eg .32S&W Long, .38SC), comparable to the .38LC which was considered adequate against anyone that wasn't a Moro warrior.
Are you thinking of a different caliber, Templar? I'm not familiar with any revolvers chambered in .32ACP.
Maybe I am, but I am pretty sure I have heard this a lot regarding .32 revolvers and .380. Specifically regarding them feeding a different caliber and you not being able to tell till it goes kaboom in your hand.
The reason it was successful early on was precisely because it was wimpy. Early autoloaders were pretty flimsy so the early autoloading calibers were all small so it was easier on the parts. Which was why it took a while for revolvers to fall out of style, revolvers could be made with more powerful calibers, but autoloaders had ammo capacity and speed on their side. It took a while for manufacturing techniques to catch up and make reliable large caliber autoloaders.
I don't personally own either caliber, but it has turned me off vintage revolvers in general because ammo is a concern with some.
Grey Templar wrote: The reason it was successful early on was precisely because it was wimpy. Early autoloaders were pretty flimsy so the early autoloading calibers were all small so it was easier on the parts. Which was why it took a while for revolvers to fall out of style, revolvers could be made with more powerful calibers, but autoloaders had ammo capacity and speed on their side. It took a while for manufacturing techniques to catch up and make reliable large caliber autoloaders.
Its a bit of an odd discussion I always find about handguns and ammo. At the end of the day, they are hand guns. They have a very narrow niche, almost entirely within civilian individual and police usage (military handguns are always a bit of a weird fish). If your situation requires a gun, you probably don't want a pistol, it is more a case of that is what you have got to hand as it were. The difference in many calibres is very marginal given their optimum utilisation and outside of well practiced users and static targets practical engagement range is far shorter than the vast majority realise.
.32 ACP is considered a "mouse gun" caliber in the States. There were a few popular pistols in that caliber, notably the PPK, Seecamp, and Kel Tec up to the turn of the century. All of these have short barrels and there are many .380 and 9mm pistols in that size these days with higher capacity, much more power, and a nice price tag. So it is pretty much obsolete.
If you look at this, hollow points don't have enough energy (100ish foot pounds) to expand when fired from the pocket pistol, and they do when fired from the larger pistol (130 range). Still underpowered but "adequate" performance. So it makes some sense that the caliber would be more popular in Europe where there are probably a lot more of those 4" barrel police guns in circulation.
They also didn't have hollow point ammunition when these were introduced, which would narrow the gap between .32 ACP and the heavier stuff considerably.
Grey Templar wrote: The reason it was successful early on was precisely because it was wimpy. Early autoloaders were pretty flimsy so the early autoloading calibers were all small so it was easier on the parts. Which was why it took a while for revolvers to fall out of style, revolvers could be made with more powerful calibers, but autoloaders had ammo capacity and speed on their side. It took a while for manufacturing techniques to catch up and make reliable large caliber autoloaders.
Like I said, there were a variety of revolver calibers in common military/police use that were weaker (.32S&W Long, .38SC) or comparable (.38LC).
Some of the early autoloader cartridges were no slouches, either. 7.65 Borchardt (1893) was a slightly lighter rendition of 7.63 Mauser (1896), which was the highest-velocity handgun cartridge prior to .357 Magnum (1935) and had comparable energy to the most powerful revolver cartridges of the time. Both of those predated .32ACP (1899); and 9x19 came along just two years later, immediately more powerful than the vast majority of revolver cartridges in use. .45ACP was introduced in 1905 with comparable ballistics to the 'man-stopper' .45LC. There was no real gap between the introduction of autoloading handguns and the development of high-power (for the time) autoloaders.
Low-power cartridges like .32ACP saw popularity for their simplicity, being conducive to cheap straight-blowback designs. The Mausers and Lugers were certainly not flimsy by the standards of their day (the Mauser in particular is as reliable as any modern autoloader), but their complexity made them several times more expensive than contemporary revolvers. The big breakthrough of the Colt delayed-blowback design was simplifying the delay mechanism to a simple and inexpensive barrel/slide linkage.
Anyways, you should be checking your ammo regardless. You can stick to all modern guns and still load a 9x18 in a 9x19 or a .300BLK in a 5.56 and have a bad day.
Slowroll wrote: .32 ACP is considered a "mouse gun" caliber in the States.
In 2023. Perceptions have changed a lot over time; we're talking about first introduction.
Though you do bring up a good point about ammunition- not just hollowpoints, but wadcutter ammunition for a revolver cartridge will typically outperform FMJ in a comparable caliber. Still, that didn't stop Hague Convention signatories from adopting autoloaders.
Grey Templar wrote: Maybe I am, but I am pretty sure I have heard this a lot regarding .32 revolvers and .380. Specifically regarding them feeding a different caliber and you not being able to tell till it goes kaboom in your hand.
I've never encountered that. I assure you, .380 cartridges are far too wide to fit into a .32 chamber. As in: not even close.
The reason it was successful early on was precisely because it was wimpy. Early autoloaders were pretty flimsy so the early autoloading calibers were all small so it was easier on the parts. Which was why it took a while for revolvers to fall out of style, revolvers could be made with more powerful calibers, but autoloaders had ammo capacity and speed on their side. It took a while for manufacturing techniques to catch up and make reliable large caliber autoloaders.
No, it was popular because it was so stout. Remember that all revolvers in 1900 were built with black powder in mind. Very, very low pressures by today's standards, and many of them were top-break (think Webley).
What .32 ACP did was create a cartridge with the same bore diameter but far more hitting power.
You also have the power thing backwards - .32 ACP is loaded at much, much higher pressures than .32 short or .32 long. A Browning 1900 or Colt 1903 will happily take .32 ACP ammo and fire tens of thousands of rounds without a hint of failure (I've shot a Dreyse 1907 that's a BEAST of a gun), but load .32 ACP in a Colt Police Positive and you may well blow it up. Revolvers of that era were simply built to lower pressures, and many were top-break, so not a solid frame.
That being said, solid-frame revolvers could (and did) take the high-pressure loads, hence the 'wildcatting' that lead to .357 Magnum.
I don't personally own either caliber, but it has turned me off vintage revolvers in general because ammo is a concern with some.
Vintage arms have certain challenges. You have to know the calibers, understand the pressure differences and also get that a lot of people in the internet (he said unironically) have no idea what they are talking about. Don't trust, just verify.
The thing to do is look for ammunition that is specifically marked as being of a certain type of vintage caliber - and only use that stuff with the vintage firearm.
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catbarf wrote: Some of the early autoloader cartridges were no slouches, either. 7.65 Borchardt (1893) was a slightly lighter rendition of 7.63 Mauser (1896), which was the highest-velocity handgun cartridge prior to .357 Magnum (1935) and had comparable energy to the most powerful revolver cartridges of the time.
The Mauser c96 was called a "box cannon" by the Chinese, who imported them by the hundreds of thousands. Sykes and Fairbairn said of all the handgun wounds they saw in Shanghai, those inflicted by the c96 were the most horrific.
In 2023. Perceptions have changed a lot over time; we're talking about first introduction.
Americans have an obsession with MORE DAKKA. People over a certain age will recall when 9mm Para was regarded as a "puny, ineffective" cartridge. When making my first handgun purchase all those moons ago, I finally settled on a .357 Magnum because anything else simply didn't have enough "stopping power." I really believed that.
We're not as bad as we used to be, but the "mouse gun" label still lingers even though it is now beyond question that shot placement trumps all other factors.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: The Mauser c96 was called a "box cannon" by the Chinese, who imported them by the hundreds of thousands. Sykes and Fairbairn said of all the handgun wounds they saw in Shanghai, those inflicted by the c96 were the most horrific.
Yup! The history of the 'box cannon' is fascinating to me- European arms treaties forbid the export of long guns to China during the warlord era, but handguns were just fine, and the C96 (and copies, eg Astra) with shoulder stock worked quite well as a carbine.
My C96 is one such commercial gun that was manufactured in the 30s, sent to China, had some kind of history there, and then was cleaned up (reblued, relined to 9x19) and exported to the US.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Americans have an obsession with MORE DAKKA. People over a certain age will recall when 9mm Para was regarded as a "puny, ineffective" cartridge. When making my first handgun purchase all those moons ago, I finally settled on a .357 Magnum because anything else simply didn't have enough "stopping power." I really believed that.
We're not as bad as we used to be, but the "mouse gun" label still lingers even though it is now beyond question that shot placement trumps all other factors.
Yeah, it's funny to me to read the hot debates in old Soldier of Fortune mags from the 80s, where you've got the classic 'stopping power' arguments on one side and shot placement + ballistic gel + mag capacity on the other. Some things never change.
One thing I wonder about, though, is whether changes in perception have to do with 1. the increasing mass of the average person as diets have improved over the last hundred years, and 2. the much greater survivability of gunshot wounds due to modern medicine. I have to imagine .32ACP is a lot more threatening if you weigh 100lbs soaking wet and antibiotics don't exist.
Having perused a few other firearms channels, I just can't understand why so many have more hits than Ian's. His output is frankly excellent, the firearms background is delivered brilliantly and he fesses up normally when mistakes are made.
Probably because other people do more jump cuts, action scenes, and snazz that makes the algorithm happy and probably keeps younger viewers on the video longer.
The people who just want to see Kentucky Ballistics blow up something may not be the ones to sit through a quiet but informative video on the fine inner workings of an obscure gun. Which is a shame of course, but that is Youtube for you.
Kentucjy Ballistics firing a 4 bore rifle does have the bonus perk of being good material to counter those arguments about boltguns ripping arms out of their socket, at least caliber wise, so it's got its uses.
Grey Templar wrote: Probably because other people do more jump cuts, action scenes, and snazz that makes the algorithm happy and probably keeps younger viewers on the video longer.
The people who just want to see Kentucky Ballistics blow up something may not be the ones to sit through a quiet but informative video on the fine inner workings of an obscure gun. Which is a shame of course, but that is Youtube for you.
Demolition Ranch has far more subscribers than Ian and it's...very silly.
I mean, I've watched it from time to time, but I can only handle it in small doses.
Getting back to "mouse guns," yes, I think medical knowledge/care has reached a point where gunshot wounds are much more survivable, I don't think a lot of people are going to say "Oh, that's only a .32, so go ahead and shoot."
Between Jeff Cooper and the FBI Miami-Dade fiasco, Americans have convinced themselves that MORE DAKKA is the answer. There was a post-Miami-Dade working paper that contained the terrifying phrase that "caliber is at least as important as shot placement."
No. A thousand times no. Pulp Fiction provided a wonderful illustration that missing with every shot in a .44 Magnum gets you nothing. Imagine that famous scene with the guy sweating in the bathroom coming out with a Colt 1903 and planting a .32 caliber slug through Jackson's and Travolta's brainboxes. Mild recoil, quick recovery, pinpoint accuracy. Remember Teddy Roosevelt pushed for NYPD to switch to .32 Long because they were missing too much with .38.
Grey Templar wrote: Probably because other people do more jump cuts, action scenes, and snazz that makes the algorithm happy and probably keeps younger viewers on the video longer.
The people who just want to see Kentucky Ballistics blow up something may not be the ones to sit through a quiet but informative video on the fine inner workings of an obscure gun. Which is a shame of course, but that is Youtube for you.
Having perused a few other firearms channels, I just can't understand why so many have more hits than Ian's. His output is frankly excellent, the firearms background is delivered brilliantly and he fesses up normally when mistakes are made.
As someone with a smidge more than a passing interest, Ian’s delivery is solid. But. It can veer into being a bit dry at times, which is more to do with me than him! I’ll take a bit dry but factual over HEY WOW ZOMG any day.
No. A thousand times no. Pulp Fiction provided a wonderful illustration that missing with every shot in a .44 Magnum gets you nothing. Imagine that famous scene with the guy sweating in the bathroom coming out with a Colt 1903 and planting a .32 caliber slug through Jackson's and Travolta's brainboxes. Mild recoil, quick recovery, pinpoint accuracy.
Sure, I agree there is no question accuracy is the number one factor.
Studies show that the NYPD has an 18% chance to hit their target (at all) with any given shot fired. At one point those officers had to qualify with their guns and you'd think they would do better than that, and didn't. It's easier to just say that shot placement trumps everything than it is to quantify the effects of extreme stress and the inherent accuracy of the gun/ammo have on the shooter's ability to actually place those shots, especially when shots are also coming at you. In your Pulp Fiction example the guy was terrified and likely would have missed no matter what gun he had.
I don't think it is unreasonable to want to use guns and ammunition that "work" (IMO, a combination that passes the FBI penetration test with reliable hollow point expansion). The FBI test isn't the word of god, but it is the best measuring stick available right now until something better comes along, at least that I'm aware of. The real world information available might not tell the whole story but I rather stick to that than talk myself into some fantasy.
The report of horrific wounds inflicted by Mauser pistols reminded me a bit of modern discourse. Without straying outside the boundaries of this forum, you might have recently heard high profile individuals saying 9mm can "blow lungs out" or that 5.56mm "vaporizes bone" and can "turn people to dust". I'm not disputing that C96 and other .32s were good guns in their day, or throwing shade on those guys, its just an observation.
Here's another real world study that is pretty interesting. We can see here that medium caliber guns were 2.3x more effective than the "mouse guns", and the heavy calibers were 4.5x more effective. They have .380 as a medium caliber and .40 as heavy there, it would be even worse if those were in the small and medium buckets instead. We also see that there were an average of 5.25 shots fired in each of these shootings and over 50% of the targets were only hit once.
The results are interesting in regards to the talk regarding medical advances as well. I remember reading that in Iraq the US was losing one man for every seven wounded, and historically you see close to a 2:1 number for war casualties. Here it is 1:1 in a city with some of the best hospitals on earth, with just handguns (and ONE rifle shooting in 5 years). I guess having IFAKs and trained medics handy makes all the difference.
In table 2 (probably best if we don't discuss table 1), .32 overperformed, greatly skewing the numbers, and that is interesting. Is it really that much better than .38 and .380 and "JUST AS POWERFUL" as 9mm? Physics says no, but there has to be a reason behind that. In fantasy land, that might be a gang of elite shooters all using vintage Mauser C96 and PPKs. In reality I expect one or more murder suicides is skewing the numbers, but in fairness I couldn't find any evidence of that.
Slowroll wrote: In table 2 (probably best if we don't discuss table 1), .32 overperformed, greatly skewing the numbers, and that is interesting. Is it really that much better than .38 and .380 and "JUST AS POWERFUL" as 9mm? Physics says no, but there has to be a reason behind that. In fantasy land, that might be a gang of elite shooters all using vintage Mauser C96 and PPKs. In reality I expect one or more murder suicides is skewing the numbers, but in fairness I couldn't find any evidence of that.
It is axiomatic that if you make a bigger hole, you do more damage to the target. Conversely, the larger the hole you want, the more energy it takes to make it. In head-to-head comparisons on always reliable Youtube, I've seen it shown that 9mm performs better against armor than .45 ACP. This should come as no surprise, and of course 5.7x28mm exists to penetrate ballistic armor.
With .32 ACP, you are making a smaller hole, and this allows significantly less power to achieve good penetration. There's also the fact that guns in the caliber are lighter, fit easily in the hand, have less noise and less recoil. Many of them even feature fixed barrels, further enhancing accuracy. The Walther PP (big brother to our PPK) is like a tack hammer.
When Teddy Roosevelt switched NYPD to .32 revolvers, accuracy was one of his concerns. Sykes and Fairbairn also used .32 ACP because it took less training to use effectively.
Americans have long bought into "carry the heaviest thing you can" rather than "carry what works best for you," though that tide seems to be turning. I am seeing more reviews and discussion about "mouse guns" and calibers like .32 H&R Magnum are finally getting some respect.
I'm a huge fan that caliber, btw. It is the platonic ideal of self-defense cartridges - for the exact same package as a standard J-frame, you get less recoil, one extra round vs .38 (six instead of five) and it hits remarkably hard with excellent penetration. On paper, it's equivalent to .38 Special or .380+P, but as Paul Harrell likes to say, those are just numbers on a page.
In practical use (shooting water jugs, etc.), I've been very impressed and Kyle Baker at Lucky Gunner's youtube channel has some nice demonstrations of its effectiveness.
Do the Brits have anything like American police procedurals where an undermanned and demoralized urban dept. wages a desperate, forlorn battle to keep the streets safe? "Hill Street Blues" comes to mind, but I'm sure there have been others.
It was a bit of a stretch to pretend the streets weren't largely safe anyway, beyond some small pockets of rough 'uns.
The Bill as mentioned ran forever, but if I recall they spend most of their time dealing with vandals and thieves and not battling a non existant underworld.
There were a few 70's shows like The Sweeny and Minder (who was a bodyguard rather than a cop, I think) who were a kind of UK equivalent of Starsky and Hutch, but it mostly just involved punching dodgy looking guys outside pubs.
but as Paul Harrell likes to say, those are just numbers on a page.
In practical use (shooting water jugs, etc.), I've been very impressed and Kyle Baker at Lucky Gunner's youtube channel has some nice demonstrations of its effectiveness.
Paul Harrell is my favorite guntuber. A bit of an odd duck, but always objective, and the vids are always about guns and subjects within the wheelhouse of most civilian shooters. I do like the Lucky Gunner stuff as well.
If you saw it, what did you think of Paul's video on .32 ACP? It being unable to penetrate even one orange through the simulated "meat target" was a surprise. The .380 mangled them with the same (excellent) ammo fired from a similar gun.
With .32 ACP, you are making a smaller hole, and this allows significantly less power to achieve good penetration. There's also the fact that guns in the caliber are lighter, fit easily in the hand, have less noise and less recoil. Many of them even feature fixed barrels, further enhancing accuracy. The Walther PP (big brother to our PPK) is like a tack hammer.
Less recoil, less power needed to make a smaller hole and noise perhaps (although most should be able to handle .380, and see the vid referenced above). Fixed barrel vs easily upgradable barrel is debatable. The rest was true at one point and really isn't anymore. Modern pocket/micro/subcompact guns have polymer or aluminum frames and are lighter than those old steel guns. A Ruger LCP MAX is pocket sized with 10 round mag in .380, weighs 10 ounces, and is $300. Go a little bigger and you can get something like a S&W Shield Plus that still fits in a mans pocket, is a 10 shot 9mm, and $500. Most manufacturers put out guns like these now, and most of them also offer magazines with extended grips and 2-3 more rounds so you can choose between concealment and shootability depending on your clothes/season without having to buy another gun.
It's interesting you bring up Roosvelt a few times. Wonder if he said that before or after getting shot by a .38 and it being mostly stopped by the stuff in his pocket!
On the subject of Youtube and different viewing habits for gun content, a lot of the bigger guntubers are in the Leviathan group and are social media influencers. Their vids can be entertaining, but you have to question the objectivity. Some of these guys seem to love every single gun they do a video on. And really, flexing with full auto or $5,000+ guns the vast majority of shooters will never buy isn't too much different than the more traditional "Instagram Model" influencer flexing with their five figure purse and exotic "vacation" destinations . I'm not a milsurp collector so the militaria channels like Forgotten Weapons and C&Rsenal I'll only occasionally watch despite them being good channels for those with more interest. Similarly I may watch a few of the "hold my beer" and "tactical zoomer" style vids on occasion but not enough of them to follow the channel.
AK Operator's Union and Sgt 1911 are some other good "meat and potatoes" channels if you like either of those types of guns, which I do.
You can see which guntubers are in the Leviathan Group here:
If you saw it, what did you think of Paul's video on .32 ACP? It being unable to penetrate even one orange through the simulated "meat target" was a surprise. The .380 mangled them with the same (excellent) ammo fired from a similar gun.
I've seen the video and it's not bad. However, he should not have used hollow points, which are not something .32 ACP was designed for. Browning built it for penetration, not expansion. The same is true with .25 ACP. I know hollow point ammo exists, but I think it's foolish to use it in these calibers.
I actually bought a box of .32 hollow point and it doesn't feed correctly at all - too short, moves around in the magazine. Since Paul is all about a "fair test," I'd love to see him use some ball ammo.
I'd also note that he doesn't say that they failed to penetrate the oranges, he's pointing out that one very damaged orange was hit along the edge, which opened it up. They then went through the ribs and were stopped by the t-shirt on the back.
So that's reasonable penetration. Not a ton of damage on the way through, but that's why shot placement is so important.
I'd also note that (as is often the case), the only weapon available to him is a sub-sub compact, which has the weakest ballistics because of the short barrel and is often difficult to use because the grips are tiny. A moderately larger pistol (Colt 1903, Walther PP, Browning 1910) produces better results and superior accuracy while remaining comparable in size to current compact carry weapons.
Last weekend I was with some friends at the range and a .32 ACP Yugo M70 police surplus gun was able to hold a one-inch group at seven yards. That's some serious shot placement but when you have almost no noise or recoil, it's a lot easier.
When the first edition of Vampire: The Masquerade came out, I came up with the idea of a break action, over/under .410 gauge shotgun with 6" barrels that could use "Dragonbreath" incendiary rounds.
Many years later, the Taurus Judge came out and I thought: "Close enough!"
However, now Bond Arms has the exact thing I envisioned those 25 years ago, and I've held one in my hand, weighing the validation of my vision being made real vs. the impracticality of the actual weapon. (I live in northern state where venomous snakes are very rarely encountered.)
To put it another way: I have not yet achieved the level of affluence required to buy a gun "just because."
Do you tend to decide “well we’re hunting for Deer” and load specifically. Or (season allowing of course) in terms of hardware and ammo hedge your bets in case Something Tasty But Not Deer/Hog/Budgerigar shows up?
Generally a hunting trip is always targeting a specific game animal. At most you might be hunting deer and/or pig whichever you see and that isn't going to be a difference in terms of ammo.
Bird hunting with a shotgun might be a little different, you'd want different shot types for quail/dove vs turkey. And maybe a slug incase a pig/deer shows up and the seasons are overlapping. But then you can just carry a couple of different shells in your pocket.
Loading a rifle cartridge is not generally going to discriminate between a deer or a hog. They'll be basically the same in terms of need. I'd hunt a deer, elk, or pig with the same load. Depending on the state, if pig are considered vermin then you probably won't bother with any type of hand loads. Give em the cheap store bought FMJ.
Do you tend to decide “well we’re hunting for Deer” and load specifically. Or (season allowing of course) in terms of hardware and ammo hedge your bets in case Something Tasty But Not Deer/Hog/Budgerigar shows up?
In much of the US, there are specific seasons for particular types of animal, and these vary from state to state. In some cases, seasons may overlap or include multiple categories of critter. In Michigan, firearm deer season starts on November 15, and is a Very Important Day. By tradition, the state Legislature goes into recess and since time immemorial, the entire auto industry takes the day off. Down tools and kill Bambi.
Michigan has a "small game" season which includes both birds and bunnies. I recall a hunt many years ago where one of the bird dogs was doing an abjectly terrible job and our "hunt" was mostly a dog run. Happily, whilst taking a moment to relieve my bladder, I spied a rabbit engaged in a similar activity. There was a tense moment of recognition, where the bunny sought to complete his business whilst I sought to bring my shotgun to bear. I won the race.
In the event, birdshot was sufficient to do the trick and instead of woodcock, we dined on rabbit.
I should add that most of the time, one must have a specific license to take game, and these can be sex-specific (does vs bucks) depending on the species.
There are exceptions for nuisance critters, such as wild hogs or crows.
Do to my work hunting hasn't really been in the cards for a while. Here there is no rifle hunting for deer, only shotguns, pistols, and bows. If I'm hunting deer, I keep a couple shells of birdshot on me, if pheasant hunting an extra slug and buckshot. You never know when you'll get bored and run into a random feral dog, feral pig, pigeon, or squirrel.
I haven't hunted regularly since I was a teenager, and now that my weekends are free, I'm very excited about obtaining free-range, antibiotic-free, renewable and sustainable meat.
It would be nice to take a deer with something other than my car.
Most people can talk about what rifle, shotgun or load they used. I have a make, model and year.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: I haven't hunted regularly since I was a teenager, and now that my weekends are free, I'm very excited about obtaining free-range, antibiotic-free, renewable and sustainable meat.
It would be nice to take a deer with something other than my car.
Most people can talk about what rifle, shotgun or load they used. I have a make, model and year.
Yeah, I know the feeling. It's surprising how hard people work to take a deer with a rifle, when they just jump right in front of a multi-ton moving vehicle.
Doesn't help that hunting restrictions are often a little onerous.
I have nothing against limits on how many and what size of deer you can take, but restrictions on antler size and time of year are odd. Especially in areas where the deer are overpopulated, which is most areas. It especially annoys me in CA that you can't hunt Does. I mostly want to deer hunt for the meat. I wouldn't mind a buck, but they have learned that they are the targets of hunting not the Does, and they know when the season is too.
Frankly I think you should be able to hunt at least 1 deer at any time of year with any means and method(provided it is done in a safe manner) as a sustenance hunt. Doe or Buck as long as its an adult its fair game. Does need to be hunted more anyway since the population of most deer are exploding and that is the only way to control them.
And of course every state should be like Texas when it comes to hogs. No liscence or tags needed, pop em as much as you want. Eat them if you want or donate to charities. We could feed a lot of needy people if we went to war on the feral hogs and we could at least keep them in check.
Grey Templar wrote: Doesn't help that hunting restrictions are often a little onerous.
I have nothing against limits on how many and what size of deer you can take, but restrictions on antler size and time of year are odd. Especially in areas where the deer are overpopulated, which is most areas. It especially annoys me in CA that you can't hunt Does. I mostly want to deer hunt for the meat. I wouldn't mind a buck, but they have learned that they are the targets of hunting not the Does, and they know when the season is too.
That's absolutely nuts.
The limits on deer are generally based on long-time herd management practices. You take the bucks with a big rack because they are soon going to die of disease or be too weak to make it through the winter. You spare the spikes because they are the future old bucks.
Does are what controls the size of the herd. If you hunt them heavily, you will cripple population growth. When Michigan's herd gets too big, an extra amount of doe permits are generated and sometimes a second late season takes place in December.
There has been talk of changing Opening Day from a fixed date, but while deer may know it is coming, weather really determines how successful the hunt is. That being said, Michigan has loosened up the other seasons a bit, so crossbows are now legal for archery season.
Perpetually banning doe hunting is insane. I can't believe any state would do that.
The idea of hunting for food definitely appeals, but as a Brit feels like an odd idea.
Guess the difference is it’s been a long, long time since Us Plebs were really allowed to freely hunt. Deer being the reserve of the Nobility for reasons.
Do you tend to decide “well we’re hunting for Deer” and load specifically. Or (season allowing of course) in terms of hardware and ammo hedge your bets in case Something Tasty But Not Deer/Hog/Budgerigar shows up?
In much of the US, there are specific seasons for particular types of animal, and these vary from state to state. In some cases, seasons may overlap or include multiple categories of critter. In Michigan, firearm deer season starts on November 15, and is a Very Important Day. By tradition, the state Legislature goes into recess and since time immemorial, the entire auto industry takes the day off. Down tools and kill Bambi.
.
Similar here, though its the first monday after Thanksgiving*, which made it an unofficial school holiday before county legislators gave up and just made it a real one (simultaneously created a demand for too many substitute teachers and less student attendance). We now have two bow seasons as well, before and after. And a season for flintlocks, which overlaps gun and second bow season, for some reason.
*which also created the Thanksgiving tradition of deerspotting, where drunk locals roam the back roads with floodlights in the back of their pickups, trying to find where the deer are currently laying.
Grey Templar wrote: Doesn't help that hunting restrictions are often a little onerous.
I have nothing against limits on how many and what size of deer you can take, but restrictions on antler size and time of year are odd. Especially in areas where the deer are overpopulated, which is most areas. It especially annoys me in CA that you can't hunt Does. I mostly want to deer hunt for the meat. I wouldn't mind a buck, but they have learned that they are the targets of hunting not the Does, and they know when the season is too.
Perpetually banning doe hunting is insane. I can't believe any state would do that.
Yup. What is extra dumb in CA is that, if you are lucky enough to win the drawing, you can get Elk doe tags. Or rather "antlerless" tags. Elk aren't critically endangered or anything, but they're much more closely monitored.
And yeah, you don't want to kill all the young bucks before they get to maturity, but there is a good argument against only allowing larger bucks to be taken. Namely because it creates a selective pressure for smaller antlers. This is why for salt water fish a lot of species have both a minimum and a maximum. Not that there is enough hunting in CA to actually thin out the large bucks, but it would be an issue in other more hunter dense states.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The idea of hunting for food definitely appeals, but as a Brit feels like an odd idea.
Guess the difference is it’s been a long, long time since Us Plebs were really allowed to freely hunt. Deer being the reserve of the Nobility for reasons.
Rabbit is the quarry of choice for plebs, I believe
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: The idea of hunting for food definitely appeals, but as a Brit feels like an odd idea.
Guess the difference is it’s been a long, long time since Us Plebs were really allowed to freely hunt. Deer being the reserve of the Nobility for reasons.
More wilderness areas plus we don't have Norman lords who own everything.
There are also various government-owned areas that anyone can hunt on with a valid license. The revenue from license sales is considerable, and supports other conservation efforts. Hunting also prevents overpopulation which can damage crops, spread disease into livestock, and of course deaths and damage due to vehicle collisions. In my area, overpopulated deer caused extensive environmental damage. After they exhausted the primary food supply, the deer ate less nutritious plants, needed more of them and displaced other animals who began to strip everything bare.
Because it is a residential area (albeit with parks), forest rangers came in and held a series of cullings, which not only eased the pressure, but provided fresh meat for local food banks.
Roadkill Deer are legal to take - provided you’re not the one that ran them over.
I say “fact” as whilst that’s my understanding, it may just be urban myth.
In my state (Pennsylvania), its legal to take a deer that you hit, as long as you call the cops out and pay for a tag to be given to you on the spot.
I have not been hunting in about 20 years or so, but I'm debating on giving it a go. We have Red Tag hunting around here, where basically if you're a farmer, you can hunt your land year round to protect your crop. Just have to give Fish and Wildlife the numbers of what you cull periodically. Some farmers sublet their property, for a price.
As someone without the option, but to whom the idea that for a couple of skilful shots you can fill your larder with some of the tastiest meats known to mankind?
For my sake, do it. I cannot. You can. So if you do not, I’ll take it a personal insult!
Bloody love a bit of Venison, me. Well, any game really. It’s the tasty meat you know you’ve eaten.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: As someone without the option, but to whom the idea that for a couple of skilful shots you can fill your larder with some of the tastiest meats known to mankind?
For my sake, do it. I cannot. You can. So if you do not, I’ll take it a personal insult!
Bloody love a bit of Venison, me. Well, any game really. It’s the tasty meat you know you’ve eaten.
That is my plan. I'm currently working on cleaning out the garage so I have room for a chest freezer.
If I'm successful, I will post photos of the feast.
Over the years, I've found people collect firearms for very different reasons. I'm curious as to how Dakka enthusiasts build their collections.
For those unable to collect: what would you collect if you could?
As is well known, all of my firearms have been lost through freakish canoe and pontoon boat accidents.
However, if I did collect, I would aim for a broad military/historical/geographic collection. I might have a few modern weapons for functionality, but I'm the kind of guy who shies away from polymer and instead is drawn the gleam of well-used steel and seasoned wooden stocks. If you ask me about Austrian firearms, I think of Steyr and Mannlicher rather than Glock.
I think I’d just want to collect iconic shooters from movies and TV shows I like.
I could of course just buy replicas. And I suspect even in places with more open gun ownership laws a replica is still your only option for some.
But living in the U.K., having a display of replica guns somehow makes me feel like a sad act edge lord. Like a plastic gangster. A kid pretending their water pistol is a real bit of hardware.
I'd consider myself more of a hobbyist than a collector. I buy guns to
shoot them and try to get good with them. I do a lot of research before buying anything so I can make an informed choice. That goes for ammo as well.
I tend to prefer guns that have a lot of after market support and like to upgrade/customize them. Better sites, better trigger, match barrel, etc. And I prefer new to used when feasible, with some exceptions. New S&W revolvers have a certain safety feature with a hilaryous nickname, and if I wanted one of those I'd get an older one without that feature.
Since I started the more desirable milsurp guns have gone from being some of the cheapest guns available to collector prices, and I'm not interested in them enough to pay that. I feel like I've missed the boat with those.
Often the prop gun is based on an existing firearm. Most Star Wars weapons were, though some are pretty rare.
Many if not most props are non-firing, so that wouldn't count against you.
Ehhh, not necessarily. Most "prop guns" used in movies are actually real guns, possibly just with extra stuff slapped on to make them look sci-fi if necessary. There are several companies whose sole business is renting out guns/making sci-fi prop guns for movie productions. Sadly way too many classic WW2 and earlier guns have been sacrificed to make sci-fi movies.
The blasters used in the opening scene of A New Hope were actually fully functional firearms(Sterling SMGs) and the fight was shot using blanks with aftereffects to make them look like lasers. You can see shell casings in some stills from those scenes.
If you buy a special "Prop" collectable gun, it will be a non-functional because its going to be a replica of what was used in the film.
Grey Templar wrote: Ehhh, not necessarily. Most "prop guns" used in movies are actually real guns, possibly just with extra stuff slapped on to make them look sci-fi if necessary. There are several companies whose sole business is renting out guns/making sci-fi prop guns for movie productions. Sadly way too many classic WW2 and earlier guns have been sacrificed to make sci-fi movies.
The blasters used in the opening scene of A New Hope were actually fully functional firearms(Sterling SMGs) and the fight was shot using blanks with aftereffects to make them look like lasers. You can see shell casings in some stills from those scenes
I don't know about the "fully functional" part. Lots of prop guns have blank firing adapters permanently inserted because the blanks lack the power to cycle the action.
Because they aren't recoil-operated revolvers don't need that modification, though some get them. One of the Indiana Jones revolvers is non-firing. Obviously Baldwin's didn't have this modification.
In fact, in many films the guns that are flung around the set are hard rubber copies. The "hero" weapon is used only in closeups where the detail is necessary. The same is true with swords, knives etc.
When I started digging into props, I was surprised how many productions (going back many years) simply use replicas. They are cheaper and safer, and they mostly featured in background shots. A bunch of the M-16s in 80s action films are replicas.
I agree that the wholesale destruction of vintage Mauser C96s to make non-firing Han Solo blasters is abhorrent.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Quick question on the hunting theme? When out hunting with buddies, is it usual to share the goodies where some have luck and others don’t?
It depends on the type of game and how one defines "hunting." By that I mean the seasons can be quite long (if you hunt deer in Michigan, it's about three months long if you include every option), so while you may have bad luck on that big weekend, there's a lot of time to remedy it.
Typically, people will be generous, especially if storage is a problem. Serious hunters live off of the stuff, but also pass it around.
People around here will also offer gifts of game meat to those who don't hunt but are known to like it.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Quick question on the hunting theme? When out hunting with buddies, is it usual to share the goodies where some have luck and others don’t?
My in-laws (grandfather and uncle in law) are big on hunting and fishing, they love sharing their catches with family. So much so that even the non-hunting family households have an extra fridge or freezer space.
Because a deer, or a big tuna haul, are just too much for someone that also does regular grocery shopping to eat.
Also venison burgers - you need to add a little ground beef so the patties will have enough fat content to hold together, but they are absolutely delicious.
Does anyone have a firearm that they have never fired?
I have a reproduction Remington 1857 revolver I received as a gift, and I have yet to fire it. I have the munitions, but have simply not gotten around to deciding which gunk I will use to seal the chamber front.
Of course, given my luck, it will fall into a lake as soon as it take out of the house, just like all my other firearms.
Got an 'antique camel gun' in Afghanistan just for gaks and giggles. Would be terrified to actually attempt to fire it, though my Dad who has a lot of black powder stuff has tried to get me to do so.
My brother has the1896 ACME double barrel 12 gauge shotgun that was passed down our family for generations. He could get it functional with a couple parts but he'd have to manufacture his own shells for it, and that's more work than he's willing to put into it.
Just Tony wrote: My brother has the1896 ACME double barrel 12 gauge shotgun that was passed down our family for generations. He could get it functional with a couple parts but he'd have to manufacture his own shells for it, and that's more work than he's willing to put into it.
Whatever you do, don't try to hunt road runners with it!
Especially of late, ammunition supplies have been an issue.
Has anyone had much difficulty with this for primary firearms? I remember in the "trough" when store shelves were totally bare and 9mm was trending towards a dollar a round, which was 5x the normal price.
That's now over, and but for inflation, we might be at pre-Covid prices for many calibers, but I find shotgun ammo in particular hard to come by. Which is weird, because so many sporting goods stores (i.e. not dedicated gun shops) sell it.
I've been having problems getting specific 12 gauge shells as well. Specifically the Federal shells with the improved "flight control" or the multiple varieties of reduced recoil, 8 pellet 00 buck I would like to try in my semi auto shotgun. My own testing has confirmed that the 9th pellet "flyer" that doesn't stay in the pattern is legit and not just "Fudd Lore". I've got a few boxes of full power 8 pellet Critical Defense but have not tried them yet, and I'm not satisfied with my accuracy when rapid firing the full power shells.
Slowroll wrote: I've been having problems getting specific 12 gauge shells as well. Specifically the Federal shells with the improved "flight control" or the multiple varieties of reduced recoil, 8 pellet 00 buck I would like to try in my semi auto shotgun. My own testing has confirmed that the 9th pellet "flyer" that doesn't stay in the pattern is legit and not just "Fudd Lore". I've got a few boxes of full power 8 pellet Critical Defense but have not tried them yet, and I'm not satisfied with my accuracy when rapid firing the full power shells.
One of the reasons I dislike the Taurus Judge (and its clones) is the spike it caused in .410 ammunition prices and the subsequent shortages. This stuff used to be cheap and plentiful, but now it's considered "premium self-defense ammunition."
From what I've seen those are extremely picky with the shotshells, pretty much unusable with ammo it doesn't "like" (can't hit center mass at 3 yards and jams every shot). With shells it does like, it seems to reliably do what it is advertised to. So some of that shortage may be due to people experimenting with different brands to find what works and doesn't.
Regarding "premium self-defense ammunition", some of those are intended exclusively for the Judge style handguns. The Critical Defense load posted earlier with the slug would be one of those. It seems to work well out of those guns but that unrifled(sp?) slug is going to keyhole out of smoothbore shotgun and possibly zip off into the neighborhood if used in a self defense situation. Hopefully people are careful reading the box!
I have a few guns I've never shot. Mostly because I've had limited time since COVID lockdown. Running a business, teenage kids activities, caring for an elderly parent, 40k, combat robots, etc. There's only so much time.
Slowroll wrote: From what I've seen those are extremely picky with the shotshells, pretty much unusable with ammo it doesn't "like" (can't hit center mass at 3 yards and jams every shot). With shells it does like, it seems to reliably do what it is advertised to. So some of that shortage may be due to people experimenting with different brands to find what works and doesn't.
Regarding "premium self-defense ammunition", some of those are intended exclusively for the Judge style handguns. The Critical Defense load posted earlier with the slug would be one of those. It seems to work well out of those guns but that unrifled(sp?) slug is going to keyhole out of smoothbore shotgun and possibly zip off into the neighborhood if used in a self defense situation. Hopefully people are careful reading the box!
What clearly happened is that the demand curve shifted and the industry was not prepared for it. For decades .410 was light load often used to train young hunters. The archetypal single-shot Fudd-style shotgun was perfect for kids learning to shoot and hunt.
When the Judge came out, that dramatically altered the market and while we are starting to see new products in response, I don't think production has yet caught up with demand.
A secondary result is that people have rediscovered .410 in general, which is a nice, light cartridge.
As it happened yesterday I went to a gun show. I'm sure many people consider these to be unregulated arms bazaars where all manner of heavy ordnance changes hands. They are not, and the same laws apply as at a brick-and-mortar store.
Moreover, firearms are not even close to being the main item for sale. Maybe 10 percent of the table space will be firearms. The rest will be food, camping accessories, furs and pelts, lots of clothing, and random knick-knacks.
Yesterday's purchase included a video game player, cotton candy, and - as an afterthought - some surplus Russian rifle ammo. We almost bought some artisan pickles but that would have put us over budget. (Pro tip: Always go to the show with a budget.)
There are a fair number of vendors that use the shows as their main sales option - home made jams, salsa, barbecue sauce, seasonings, jerky - there was a period when I mostly went to see a cheese vendor (alas, he retired).
And yeah, you don't want to kill all the young bucks before they get to maturity, but there is a good argument against only allowing larger bucks to be taken. Namely because it creates a selective pressure for smaller antlers. This is why for salt water fish a lot of species have both a minimum and a maximum. Not that there is enough hunting in CA to actually thin out the large bucks, but it would be an issue in other more hunter dense states.
Animal husbandry isn't my thing, but surely you would want people to shoot the smallest and sickest? Not the biggest and fittest?
Moreover, firearms are not even close to being the main item for sale. Maybe 10 percent of the table space will be firearms. The rest will be food, camping accessories, furs and pelts, lots of clothing, and random knick-knacks.
Is that a new phenomenon? Here when a show for one thing (say toy soldiers) starts to see sales of other stuff it is normally economic stress but also a shortfall in buyer/sellers of the normal stuff. Or have the shows always been so diversified?
And yeah, you don't want to kill all the young bucks before they get to maturity, but there is a good argument against only allowing larger bucks to be taken. Namely because it creates a selective pressure for smaller antlers. This is why for salt water fish a lot of species have both a minimum and a maximum. Not that there is enough hunting in CA to actually thin out the large bucks, but it would be an issue in other more hunter dense states.
Animal husbandry isn't my thing, but surely you would want people to shoot the smallest and sickest? Not the biggest and fittest?
nope. Certainly not in general since deer where there are not enough predators are actually pests. Sure, eliminating sick ones is prefereable but when you have too many they damage trees, especially young ones. Hence why locally they get shot despite having now introduced more predators (mostly lynx and now sadly wolves.)
Here in the Midwest deer populations are estimated to be 9 times what they were 200 years ago. Crops provide more nutritional value than prairie grass.
The_Real_Chris wrote: Is that a new phenomenon? Here when a show for one thing (say toy soldiers) starts to see sales of other stuff it is normally economic stress but also a shortfall in buyer/sellers of the normal stuff. Or have the shows always been so diversified?
This has been the case since I started going to them regularly, 30 years ago. It's really quite simple: people who sell outdoor-sy stuff know that those people also are interested in firearms. So buy a table and rake in the profit.
It's basically a Venn diagram in action. The same people who are likely to buy guns also are likely to hunt. That means they like meat. So jerky and sausages sell well, as do seasonings for them.
As for game management, mature bucks are likely near the end of their lifespan. If they are strong enough to dominate an area during mating season, they may not have the fat reserves to survive the winter, so reducing them to a trophy (and many dinners) is better than them stumbling onto a highway while starving.
That also opens up space for the new generation to grow and mature.
Which is why a lot of fishing regulations do now have maximum size limits too, but there isn't an equivalent for big game. Though again hunting pressure in the US is not even close enough to cause negative pressure on the deer populations, there are simply too dang many of them.
Grey Templar wrote: Which is why a lot of fishing regulations do now have maximum size limits too, but there isn't an equivalent for big game. Though again hunting pressure in the US is not even close enough to cause negative pressure on the deer populations, there are simply too dang many of them.
A lot of inland fisheries have been negatively impacted by invasive species. Zebra mussels, lampreys and other ballast-water dweller have put native fish populations on the ropes.
There are no indigenous predators for these critters, and local fish have no defense against the
Deer are more threatened by chronic wasting disease and bovine tuberculosis than an influx of ravenous European or Asian wolves. Feral hogs are a menace wherever they are found. Indeed, they're the invasive species, which is why so many states have an open limit.
Feral hogs also remind us why boar hunts used to be a big deal.
Grey Templar wrote: Which is why a lot of fishing regulations do now have maximum size limits too, but there isn't an equivalent for big game. Though again hunting pressure in the US is not even close enough to cause negative pressure on the deer populations, there are simply too dang many of them.
A lot of inland fisheries have been negatively impacted by invasive species. Zebra mussels, lampreys and other ballast-water dweller have put native fish populations on the ropes.
There are no indigenous predators for these critters, and local fish have no defense against the
Deer are more threatened by chronic wasting disease and bovine tuberculosis than an influx of ravenous European or Asian wolves. Feral hogs are a menace wherever they are found. Indeed, they're the invasive species, which is why so many states have an open limit.
Feral hogs also remind us why boar hunts used to be a big deal.
We have the same issue in the U.K. with Crawfish, which outcompete native Crayfish species.
I think we need to borrow some Cajuns, ship them over with their gear and Old Bay, teach others the wisdom of Devouring Those Pesky Crustaceans. Show them what happens when you irritate the world’s top species of predator.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: We have the same issue in the U.K. with Crawfish, which outcompete native Crayfish species.
I think we need to borrow some Cajuns, ship them over with their gear and Old Bay, teach others the wisdom of Devouring Those Pesky Crustaceans. Show them what happens when you irritate the world’s top species of predator.
Hmm, I'm not sure what firearms one uses to hunt crawfish. Even a speargun seems overkill.
A quarter-stick of dynamite is probably the best one can do.
I reckon a few years of extensive “let’s eat as many of them as we can” ought to balance the books. Though it seems the problem is the females rarely leaves their nests, making them a rare catch. And of course just a single male can then have a whale of a time ensuring the population.
But even so. We should be catching and eating them. 1 for the environment, 2 because they are delicious.
I reckon a few years of extensive “let’s eat as many of them as we can” ought to balance the books. Though it seems the problem is the females rarely leaves their nests, making them a rare catch. And of course just a single male can then have a whale of a time ensuring the population.
But even so. We should be catching and eating them. 1 for the environment, 2 because they are delicious.
LOL! I love this, especially the way people (and ESPECIALLY GAMERS) can get off track in ways normal human beings probably couldn't work their heads around.
Somehow a thread on a gaming site called "Firearms You Own..." turned into "lets eat as many invasive wildlife critters as we possibly can."
NapoleonInSpace wrote: LOL! I love this, especially the way people (and ESPECIALLY GAMERS) can get off track in ways normal human beings probably couldn't work their heads around.
Somehow a thread on a gaming site called "Firearms You Own..." turned into "lets eat as many invasive wildlife critters as we possibly can."
Love you people. I just do.
To be fair, it came via feral hogs, which are not only a problem and a menace, but also almost entirely made of food.
The number one reason why invasive species are a problem is that they typically have no natural predators, so they just displace everyone else. Since humans have a track record of hunting creatures to extinction, it stand to reason that we could do this deliberately, rather than the historical norm of achieving it by accident.
That's why I'm pretty certain that if people really wanted to wipe out particular critters, the time-tested bounty system would do the trick. Offer a few shillings for each dead crawdad or whatever it is, and pretty soon you will have dedicated, full-time hunters working to clean those things out for the good of the nation and also for profit, but mostly for profit.
NapoleonInSpace wrote: LOL! I love this, especially the way people (and ESPECIALLY GAMERS) can get off track in ways normal human beings probably couldn't work their heads around.
Somehow a thread on a gaming site called "Firearms You Own..." turned into "lets eat as many invasive wildlife critters as we possibly can."
Love you people. I just do.
To be fair, it came via feral hogs, which are not only a problem and a menace, but also almost entirely made of food.
The number one reason why invasive species are a problem is that they typically have no natural predators, so they just displace everyone else. Since humans have a track record of hunting creatures to extinction, it stand to reason that we could do this deliberately, rather than the historical norm of achieving it by accident.
That's why I'm pretty certain that if people really wanted to wipe out particular critters, the time-tested bounty system would do the trick. Offer a few shillings for each dead crawdad or whatever it is, and pretty soon you will have dedicated, full-time hunters working to clean those things out for the good of the nation and also for profit, but mostly for profit.
To be honest, I think human beings tend to get a little silly about this stuff. I have to admit, its been awhile since I last saw a velociraptor in my neighborhood.
But, in fact, the raptors died off for good reason, and if ten thousand of them just plopped down in widely separated areas of the planet today, they'd probably be dead within a decade?
Why? Chipmunks, squirrels, rats, etc., would devour their eggs, which is what happened to their great-great-+ grandparents umpteen million years ago. If humanity is pushing evolution forward, again, the toughest will survive.
My thoughts, for all that they are worth. Write a few down, take 'em to the corner store, and see what they'll give you.
***
Now, just to keep this on topic, do you think a velociraptor would prefer a revolver, or is he more the semi-automatic type?
NapoleonInSpace wrote: Now, just to keep this on topic, do you think a velociraptor would prefer a revolver, or is he more the semi-automatic type?
In the book version of "Jurassic Park," the big game hunter (who lives through it) uses anti-tank rockets against them and they are indeed effective.
I mean, that comes down to a lot of the issues with critters vs guns. Yes, trying to take down tyrannosaur with a snub-nosed .38 is going to require exquisite shot placement, but a Maxim gun would certainly make an impression. I don't think I'd go lighter than 7.62mm, though. Something like a Garand might make an impression. Or a BAR.
This is why the Pacific Rim sort of movies amuse the heck out of me. If such a creature popped up in the real world, it would be obliterated by over-the-horizon artillery fire, not helicopters that literally fly within arms' reach.
The truth is that dinosaurs wouldn't be any tougher than existing creatures today. Even the relatively few that were actually bigger than what we have now. If anything, their vitals would be easier to hit because its a bigger target.
A T-rex is a walking heart+lung shot waiting to happen. Raptors might be fast but they are hardly going to be tougher than a wolf or a human for that matter.
You could probably take a T-rex out with a single rifle round through the chest. If you got the heart it would drop more or less immediately. Just the lungs might take a while and you would need to retreat to a safe distance in case it notices your presence. Granted, you might use .50bmg over .308 or 7.62x54 just for expediency but they could get the job done.
Raptors, even the big ones the size of cars, would be much more squishy. The real question is how long would it take to domesticate them and just have scaly dog analogs.
Grey Templar wrote: Raptors, even the big ones the size of cars, would be much more squishy. The real question is how long would it take to domesticate them and just have scaly dog analogs.
Grey Templar wrote: Raptors, even the big ones the size of cars, would be much more squishy. The real question is how long would it take to domesticate them and just have scaly dog analogs.
Grey Templar wrote: Raptors, even the big ones the size of cars, would be much more squishy. The real question is how long would it take to domesticate them and just have scaly dog analogs.
Grey Templar wrote: The truth is that dinosaurs wouldn't be any tougher than existing creatures today. Even the relatively few that were actually bigger than what we have now. If anything, their vitals would be easier to hit because its a bigger target.
The big target is a key point. The "game trails" of dinosaurs would be of immense size, facilitating truck-mounted weaponry.
Hunting from helicopters would also be pretty easy.
This is really zombie movie trope territory in a lot of ways. Zombies always attack people limited to shotguns and revolvers because they cycle manually, so you can use low-powered blanks without needed an adapter.
Within the generally understood "rules," one could simply sit on a rooftop with a .22 and piles of ammo doing head shots all day. No need for the giant sniper rifle or 12-gauge slugs.
In terms of suitable firearms, have you ever gone a bit overboard accidentally, and wound up spifflicating the target?
And what’s the etiquette on bringing the right tools? I mean, I know part of the etiquette is for every hit to be a kill, and where that doesn’t quite work out you track the wounded beastie and finish the job. But has someone ever brought a ridiculous gun and been told “not with that you’re not”, whether it was OTT for the prey, or massively underpowered?
If the goal is getting meat, you don't want to use overkill. You use a killing caliber and good shot placement. If you can't get the right shot placement you don't pull the trigger.
even then you may be tracking. Son2 got a big buck at the back of one of the horse pastures last season. It went a couple hundred yards towards a creek before it dropped. At least one lung was blown out but it still hopped the fence and got into the woodline. Probably only lasted like 10-20 seconds but moved pretty quick in that time.
In terms of suitable firearms, have you ever gone a bit overboard accidentally, and wound up spifflicating the target?
And what’s the etiquette on bringing the right tools? I mean, I know part of the etiquette is for every hit to be a kill, and where that doesn’t quite work out you track the wounded beastie and finish the job. But has someone ever brought a ridiculous gun and been told “not with that you’re not”, whether it was OTT for the prey, or massively underpowered?
It depends on what you mean by "hunting." Here in the vast fruited plain, there are such things as pests critters from whom no meat will be taken. With them the only requirement is a clean kill to prevent needless suffering, so "overpowered" would only be relevant in terms of ammo expense or (depending on location) travel of the round after it hits the intended target.
There are minimum requirements for certain game animals. I've never had someone be told "you mean more gun."
I have seen people get "Are you really going with that?" simply because the degree of difficulty.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I think we need to borrow some Cajuns, ship them over with their gear and Old Bay
Oof. That's a little like borrowing Londoners with their haggis
(Cajuns have creole while Old Bay's a Maryland thing- and they are very protective of their respective spices)
When I was growing up in sub-Saharan Africa, my mom used a lot of Indian spices to cover up the gaminess of zebra and wildebeest. Works a treat.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:For those that Hunt.
In terms of suitable firearms, have you ever gone a bit overboard accidentally, and wound up spifflicating the target?
And what’s the etiquette on bringing the right tools? I mean, I know part of the etiquette is for every hit to be a kill, and where that doesn’t quite work out you track the wounded beastie and finish the job. But has someone ever brought a ridiculous gun and been told “not with that you’re not”, whether it was OTT for the prey, or massively underpowered?
Usually the constraint is bringing enough gun for the job. All things being equal a lighter, smaller-caliber rifle is easier to carry, set up, rest with, and shoot, but the size of the game might dictate a larger caliber.
.223/5.56mm is commonly used on deer, for example, but in some localities it's prohibited as too small of a cartridge. .308 or .30-06 is sufficient for most four-legged game.
Good point. Is it possible the component is ambidextrous, has ports on both sides, and this particular firearm has been configured to eject from the unseen side for a left-handed user?
Edit: it is already enough of a Tactistein's Monster that anything seems possible. Including just being a dangerous or non-functional design.
Haighus wrote: Good point. Is it possible the component is ambidextrous, has ports on both sides, and this particular firearm has been configured to eject from the unseen side for a left-handed user?
Edit: it is already enough of a Tactistein's Monster that anything seems possible. Including just being a dangerous or non-functional design.
Let's not forget that it's using rimmed handgum ammo as well. In a belt.
Admittedly .44 Mag has plenty of juice and with a longer barrel, one would see considerable improvement, but a big point of the PCC is that you can swap ammo between the long weapon and the handgun.
Haighus wrote: Good point. Is it possible the component is ambidextrous, has ports on both sides, and this particular firearm has been configured to eject from the unseen side for a left-handed user?
Edit: it is already enough of a Tactistein's Monster that anything seems possible. Including just being a dangerous or non-functional design.
Let's not forget that it's using rimmed handgum ammo as well. In a belt.
Admittedly .44 Mag has plenty of juice and with a longer barrel, one would see considerable improvement, but a big point of the PCC is that you can swap ammo between the long weapon and the handgun.
Does it come with a matching belt-fed revolver?
How would that even work? No really, does something like that exist?
I personally prefer the stgw 90 but then again not everyone has had the "privileg" to get conscripted.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Haighus wrote: Good point. Is it possible the component is ambidextrous, has ports on both sides, and this particular firearm has been configured to eject from the unseen side for a left-handed user?
Edit: it is already enough of a Tactistein's Monster that anything seems possible. Including just being a dangerous or non-functional design.
But at that point, why not buy a massproduced working semiautomatic rifle chambered in a Nato calibre? f.e. the civilian version of the STGW 90? Or are the gun laws so absurd wherever this thing is from that you couldn't get a 5,56 x 45mm semi automatic rifle but this thing is?
Haighus wrote: Good point. Is it possible the component is ambidextrous, has ports on both sides, and this particular firearm has been configured to eject from the unseen side for a left-handed user?
Edit: it is already enough of a Tactistein's Monster that anything seems possible. Including just being a dangerous or non-functional design.
But at that point, why not buy a massproduced working semiautomatic rifle chambered in a Nato calibre? f.e. the civilian version of the STGW 90? Or are the gun laws so absurd wherever this thing is from that you couldn't get a 5,56 x 45mm semi automatic rifle but this thing is?
Well, if the following is true...
Grey Templar wrote: IIRC that is actually made for British gun laws, but yes it is totally absurd.
British gun law prohibits semi-automatic ("self-loading") weapons in most cases. Bolt and lever actioned firearms are allowed with a standard firearms license.
I see no competent answer in which the self-loading bit could be considered as reasonable compared to bolt / lever systems beyond a complete and utter lack of understanding of ammo wastage and accuracy that already starts to appear on users using semi-automatic and even worse automatic firing weapons as compared to lever and bolt actions.
And if this is about ease of use for unsavory means... those people anyways will get what they need if they really really want it or find other means, potentially even more dangerous than a firearm.
Not Online!!! wrote: I see no competent answer in which the self-loading bit could be considered as reasonable compared to bolt / lever systems beyond a complete and utter lack of understanding of ammo wastage and accuracy that already starts to appear on users using semi-automatic and even worse automatic firing weapons as compared to lever and bolt actions.
And if this is about ease of use for unsavory means... those people anyways will get what they need if they really really want it or find other means, potentially even more dangerous than a firearm.
Eh. British gun law follows three main tenets and is pretty consistent on them:
1) Guns cannot be owned for self-defence
2) Guns should not be easily hidden
3) Guns should not have a high rate of fire
Anyone who wants an exception to this needs to prove why with a good reason under UK law (a section 5 license). The weird one is pump actions, which are also prohibited for the most part.
For whatever reason, that dividing line for rate of fire has been set between bolt-action and semi-automatic. I think it is hard to argue there is no benefit in killing humans for semi- and fully-automatic weapons over bolt action weapons, because every military that can has adopted the higher fire-rate where possible. It may be fairly marginal but it clearly exists.
A debate on the efficacy and justification of such laws is veering into politics and beyond the scope of this thread.
The end result is that the kinds of rifle available for general use in the UK are quite restricted to particular actions.
Not Online!!! wrote: I see no competent answer in which the self-loading bit could be considered as reasonable compared to bolt / lever systems beyond a complete and utter lack of understanding of ammo wastage and accuracy that already starts to appear on users using semi-automatic and even worse automatic firing weapons as compared to lever and bolt actions.
And if this is about ease of use for unsavory means... those people anyways will get what they need if they really really want it or find other means, potentially even more dangerous than a firearm.
Eh. British gun law follows three main tenets and is pretty consistent on them:
1) Guns cannot be owned for self-defence
2) Guns should not be easily hidden
3) Guns should not have a high rate of fire
Anyone who wants an exception to this needs to prove why with a good reason under UK law (a section 5 license). The weird one is pump actions, which are also prohibited for the most part.
For whatever reason, that dividing line for rate of fire has been set between bolt-action and semi-automatic. I think it is hard to argue there is no benefit in killing humans for semi- and fully-automatic weapons over bolt action weapons, because every military that can has adopted the higher fire-rate where possible. It may be fairly marginal but it clearly exists.
A debate on the efficacy and justification of such laws is veering into politics and beyond the scope of this thread.
The end result is that the kinds of rifle available for general use in the UK are quite restricted to particular actions.
There is a reason for drill though, hence why the higher firerate isn't a boon to an civilian beyond niche cases.
Many thanks for the explanation though.. still seems willfully lobotomized but thems the breaks i guess.,
Apologies if this veers into politics, but I guess part of the U.K. not having anyone really pushing against our gun laws is our (mentioned earlier in the thread) lack of a particular hunting culture.
Farmers can still have firearms for pest control and Deer culling. And up in the Highlands you can do for a (sodding expensive) hunting weekend where you stalk Deer.
But….that’s about it. We absolutely do have tracks of untamed wilderness, but we don’t really have the wildlife in the same way.
And so those who need firearms for their job/vocation are allowed them, and nobody else seems especially fussed.
Is what it is, and this post should not be interpreted as passing any kind of judgement.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Apologies if this veers into politics, but I guess part of the U.K. not having anyone really pushing against our gun laws is our (mentioned earlier in the thread) lack of a particular hunting culture.
Farmers can still have firearms for pest control and Deer culling. And up in the Highlands you can do for a (sodding expensive) hunting weekend where you stalk Deer.
But….that’s about it. We absolutely do have tracks of untamed wilderness, but we don’t really have the wildlife in the same way.
And so those who need firearms for their job/vocation are allowed them, and nobody else seems especially fussed.
Is what it is, and this post should not be interpreted as passing any kind of judgement.
Well, and you can easily get a firearm adequate for hunting anything in the UK- there is nothing bigger than red deer or feral ponies in most the country, with a couple of boar reserves.
Shotgun licenses in particular are fairly straightforward. My dad holds one after my parents inherited my granddad's shotguns, and my dad has fired a gun about 3 times in his life. The shotguns are something of a family tree with them being condensed from various relatives (and one family friend), so we didn't want to sell them. Getting the license was pretty trivial once the storage box was bolted to the wall.
Reminds me I need to look through and ID those shotguns at some point. Some of them are apparently over 100 years old. There were also some WWII home guard cartridges floating around at one point, not sure what happened to those.
Haighus wrote: British gun law prohibits semi-automatic ("self-loading") weapons in most cases. Bolt and lever actioned firearms are allowed with a standard firearms license.
Interesting to note that just over 100 years ago, British and American guns laws were remarkably similar. Full-auto belt-fed machineguns legal for private purchase in both countries.
A belt-fed revolver is of course an oxymoron, unless you want to lump in rotary weapons like a Gatling Gun.
The "tactical lever action" is becoming in thing in the US in part because of loopholes in certain jurisdictions' gun laws. The problem with a lever action is that its sustained rate of fire is about the same as a single-shot weapon; it's real strength is a rapid burst when needed, which could prove decisive in a short-range firefight.
Now, automatic revolvers actually became a thing...
NapoleonInSpace wrote: Now, just to keep this on topic, do you think a velociraptor would prefer a revolver, or is he more the semi-automatic type?
In the book version of "Jurassic Park," the big game hunter (who lives through it) uses anti-tank rockets against them and they are indeed effective.
I mean, that comes down to a lot of the issues with critters vs guns. Yes, trying to take down tyrannosaur with a snub-nosed .38 is going to require exquisite shot placement, but a Maxim gun would certainly make an impression. I don't think I'd go lighter than 7.62mm, though. Something like a Garand might make an impression. Or a BAR.
This is why the Pacific Rim sort of movies amuse the heck out of me. If such a creature popped up in the real world, it would be obliterated by over-the-horizon artillery fire, not helicopters that literally fly within arms' reach.
I JUST EXALTED YOUR POST! FOR WHATEVER THAT'S WORTH!
Not as much as there used to be - "Expanding" ammunition used to be a separate thing you needed permission for, but they did away with that.
With a FAC (firearms certificate) you are limited to the max number you can possess at any one time in each calibre, but for a target shooter that is normally a fairly large number, and then reloading components can be held in store to replace them as you need.
Not as much as there used to be - "Expanding" ammunition used to be a separate thing you needed permission for, but they did away with that.
With a FAC (firearms certificate) you are limited to the max number you can possess at any one time in each calibre, but for a target shooter that is normally a fairly large number, and then reloading components can be held in store to replace them as you need.
The maximum number of rounds is whatever you can fit on the property over here. I think some people take it to an illogical extreme, but when looking for a rare or out of production caliber, snapping up a can or two when you can find it makes sense.
For whatever reason, the law changes, and for the purpose of this hypothetical there’s nothing to do be done to overturn the decision. The new law requires that no more guns will ever be sold to the public. And for those with existing guns, you can only keep two.
Assume the law will be enforced and you’re willing to comply. And that there’s no grace period for non-gun owners to enjoy fire sales and that.
Which two do you keep? And if you can be bothered, why?
The way the question is phrased has (regrettable) political overtones and in the current environment, few people will be willing to announce their intention to circumvent future changes to the law.
A better way of phrasing it (to Americans at least) is:
Your ex-wife totally took you to the cleaners in your latest divorce. Which two guns do you shelter from her in the property settlement?
In my scenario, I'm sure the property settlement will still apply.
Some years ago I was browsing in a gun shop and found several high-quality firearms on consignment for outstandingly low prices. I asked what was wrong with them and the salesperson just laughed.
"The owner got them from her ex-husband in a divorce settlement, and she wants to sell them as quickly as possible without regard for price. She wanted them even cheaper, but I told her people would think they were broken or stolen. Do you want one, because I don't think they will be here by the end of the week."
Alas, I was short on funds, so I could not profit by the poor fellow's misfortune.
Haighus wrote: Good point. Is it possible the component is ambidextrous, has ports on both sides, and this particular firearm has been configured to eject from the unseen side for a left-handed user?
Edit: it is already enough of a Tactistein's Monster that anything seems possible. Including just being a dangerous or non-functional design.
Let's not forget that it's using rimmed handgum ammo as well. In a belt.
Admittedly .44 Mag has plenty of juice and with a longer barrel, one would see considerable improvement, but a big point of the PCC is that you can swap ammo between the long weapon and the handgun.
Does it come with a matching belt-fed revolver?
How would that even work? No really, does something like that exist?
Actually, yes, there were such things as belt fed revolvers. They never caught on, for obvious reasons, but they were an experiment to get higher capacity into a handgun before someone thought up the stacked magazine.
In my scenario, I'm sure the property settlement will still apply.
Some years ago I was browsing in a gun shop and found several high-quality firearms on consignment for outstandingly low prices. I asked what was wrong with them and the salesperson just laughed.
"The owner got them from her ex-husband in a divorce settlement, and she wants to sell them as quickly as possible without regard for price. She wanted them even cheaper, but I told her people would think they were broken or stolen. Do you want one, because I don't think they will be here by the end of the week."
Alas, I was short on funds, so I could not profit by the poor fellow's misfortune.
I'd have to check the castle laws wherever I did move. Not going anywhere there isn't one
cuda1179 wrote: Actually, yes, there were such things as belt fed revolvers. They never caught on, for obvious reasons, but they were an experiment to get higher capacity into a handgun before someone thought up the stacked magazine.
For a long time, most revolvers were belt-fed. You emptied the cylinder, and grabbed the extra cartridges on your belt.
If money was no object and I could afford not only the original, but commission a working replica, and a suitably experienced lawyer for the legal side?
Puckle Gun is my jam. Low tech High Tech. An innovation so far ahead of its time the concept was solid but the execution was a bit wonky, and by the time everything caught up it was obsolete.
If money was no object and I could afford not only the original, but commission a working replica, and a suitably experienced lawyer for the legal side?
Puckle Gun is my jam. Low tech High Tech. An innovation so far ahead of its time the concept was solid but the execution was a bit wonky, and by the time everything caught up it was obsolete.
I don't think it would be that hard to fabricate one. I think there was a British dude some years ago who published book on how to make a submachine gun out of standard hardware store bits.
A smoothbore pepperbox would be pretty easy as well, mostly a question of knowing what pressures your barrels can take and keeping the cartridge loads in line with that.
If money was no object and I could afford not only the original, but commission a working replica, and a suitably experienced lawyer for the legal side?
Puckle Gun is my jam. Low tech High Tech. An innovation so far ahead of its time the concept was solid but the execution was a bit wonky, and by the time everything caught up it was obsolete.
As with many early repeating firearms, and this held true even up to WW2, they were held back by the miserly attitudes of the world's governments when it came to ammunition. Paying for ammo was like pulling teeth in wartime, and in peacetime it was out of the question.
IIRC the training allotment for the British army in the 1800s was 5 rounds a year. So trying to convince the treasury to buy a gun that shoots how many rounds per minute was basically impossible.
Anyone have any experience collecting military surplus stuff, especially buying online? Any advice on how to make sure you aren't getting a broken bunch of scrap metal that looks good in a photo but doesn't work or is unsafe to fire? If I'm going to make a boating trip I'd like to make sure I'm at least sending good guns to the bottom of the lake!
Grey Templar wrote: IIRC the training allotment for the British army in the 1800s was 5 rounds a year. So trying to convince the treasury to buy a gun that shoots how many rounds per minute was basically impossible.
Attitudes changed in the 1850s when they introduced the rifle-musket. Having a weapon capable of hitting out to 800 yards turned out to be pointless if no-one knew how to shoot!
So they setup the school of musketry at Hythe and placed a great deal of emphasis on weapon training, in particular range estimation owing to the parabolic trajectory of the bullets.
And there was an annual musketry qualification for each soldier where 90 rounds were fired.
Ork-en Man wrote: If you get a curios & relics license, they can be shipped to your door rather than an ffl.
Right, but how do you make sure you're buying a good one? Like, my former M1 carbine wants a friend to keep it company at the bottom of the lake but I live in an AWB state so my options are kind of limited. A Johnson rifle would be cool but how do I make sure I'm not spending all that money on a broken gun? It's rare enough that finding one locally where I can check it out in person is wishful thinking. Am I missing something or do people just buy and hope it works?
Grey Templar wrote: IIRC the training allotment for the British army in the 1800s was 5 rounds a year. So trying to convince the treasury to buy a gun that shoots how many rounds per minute was basically impossible.
Attitudes changed in the 1850s when they introduced the rifle-musket. Having a weapon capable of hitting out to 800 yards turned out to be pointless if no-one knew how to shoot!
So they setup the school of musketry at Hythe and placed a great deal of emphasis on weapon training, in particular range estimation owing to the parabolic trajectory of the bullets.
And there was an annual musketry qualification for each soldier where 90 rounds were fired.
Hythe is just down the road from me. And has a nice goth shop. Maybe I’ll go see if I can find!
Ork-en Man wrote: If you get a curios & relics license, they can be shipped to your door rather than an ffl.
Right, but how do you make sure you're buying a good one? Like, my former M1 carbine wants a friend to keep it company at the bottom of the lake but I live in an AWB state so my options are kind of limited. A Johnson rifle would be cool but how do I make sure I'm not spending all that money on a broken gun? It's rare enough that finding one locally where I can check it out in person is wishful thinking. Am I missing something or do people just buy and hope it works?
Are there no consumer protection laws in the US? In the UK, we have an absolute right to return faulty goods for a full refund within a certain time period. If the gun was sold as functional and safe but wasn't, it would be returnable.
Grey Templar wrote: IIRC the training allotment for the British army in the 1800s was 5 rounds a year. So trying to convince the treasury to buy a gun that shoots how many rounds per minute was basically impossible.
Attitudes changed in the 1850s when they introduced the rifle-musket. Having a weapon capable of hitting out to 800 yards turned out to be pointless if no-one knew how to shoot!
So they setup the school of musketry at Hythe and placed a great deal of emphasis on weapon training, in particular range estimation owing to the parabolic trajectory of the bullets.
And there was an annual musketry qualification for each soldier where 90 rounds were fired.
What? Only in the 1850s?!? No Shooting competitions to facilitate training beforehand?
Haighus wrote: Are there no consumer protection laws in the US? In the UK, we have an absolute right to return faulty goods for a full refund within a certain time period. If the gun was sold as functional and safe but wasn't, it would be returnable.
For new stuff, yeah, it would be under warranty. But from what I've seen most historical pieces are sold labeled "as-is, collector value only, function not guaranteed" or similar because the dealer doesn't want to deal with verifying function on 50-100+ year old relics. Most of them will work fine but AFAIK you wouldn't have any legal rights if it doesn't.
Grey Templar wrote: IIRC the training allotment for the British army in the 1800s was 5 rounds a year. So trying to convince the treasury to buy a gun that shoots how many rounds per minute was basically impossible.
Attitudes changed in the 1850s when they introduced the rifle-musket. Having a weapon capable of hitting out to 800 yards turned out to be pointless if no-one knew how to shoot!
So they setup the school of musketry at Hythe and placed a great deal of emphasis on weapon training, in particular range estimation owing to the parabolic trajectory of the bullets.
And there was an annual musketry qualification for each soldier where 90 rounds were fired.
What? Only in the 1850s?!? No Shooting competitions to facilitate training beforehand?
My era of interest basically starts in the 1850s, so I am not totally sure what happened beforehand, but I am pretty certain there was minimal shooting practice for the line infantry.
Grey Templar wrote: IIRC the training allotment for the British army in the 1800s was 5 rounds a year. So trying to convince the treasury to buy a gun that shoots how many rounds per minute was basically impossible.
Attitudes changed in the 1850s when they introduced the rifle-musket. Having a weapon capable of hitting out to 800 yards turned out to be pointless if no-one knew how to shoot!
So they setup the school of musketry at Hythe and placed a great deal of emphasis on weapon training, in particular range estimation owing to the parabolic trajectory of the bullets.
And there was an annual musketry qualification for each soldier where 90 rounds were fired.
To add on to this, the more effective Swiss, German, and Italian mercenary arquebusiers and musketeers of the 1500s-1600s (Italian Wars through the Thirty Years War- basically the heyday of Renaissance mercenaries) trained and practiced extensively, including live fire practice at ranges as high as 400yds. At the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547, Spanish musketeers achieved decisive fire across the span of the Elbe river, over 200yds. All that pop-history stuff about muskets being effective to 50yds is pretty much garbage.
But the value of marksmanship declined as mercenary companies gave way to professional standing militaries, and the expense of live-fire was seen as excessive on top of the expense of maintaining a standing army. Jagers and other light infantry of the 1700s-1800s, often armed with rifled muskets, did practice, but the basic line infantry typically did not. And so you get infantry in the American Civil War, armed with rifled Springfield muskets and Minie balls capable of significant range, going into battle having never actually fired live ammunition before. I have read multiple accounts of such units lining up at as little as 30-50yds and firing at one another without effect, despite the mechanical capabilities of their weapons being far superior to those of centuries prior.
The development of individual marksmanship as a basic requirement for infantry coincided with the adoption of breechloading centerfire rifles in the mid-to-late-1800s, the decline of formation fighting necessitating an ability to engage point targets, and the widespread acceptance that future battles would be decided at far longer ranges than those of the century prior.
Grey Templar wrote: IIRC the training allotment for the British army in the 1800s was 5 rounds a year. So trying to convince the treasury to buy a gun that shoots how many rounds per minute was basically impossible.
Attitudes changed in the 1850s when they introduced the rifle-musket. Having a weapon capable of hitting out to 800 yards turned out to be pointless if no-one knew how to shoot!
So they setup the school of musketry at Hythe and placed a great deal of emphasis on weapon training, in particular range estimation owing to the parabolic trajectory of the bullets.
And there was an annual musketry qualification for each soldier where 90 rounds were fired.
To add on to this, the more effective Swiss, German, and Italian mercenary arquebusiers and musketeers of the 1500s-1600s (Italian Wars through the Thirty Years War- basically the heyday of Renaissance mercenaries) trained and practiced extensively, including live fire practice at ranges as high as 400yds. At the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547, Spanish musketeers achieved decisive fire across the span of the Elbe river, over 200yds. All that pop-history stuff about muskets being effective to 50yds is pretty much garbage.
But the value of marksmanship declined as mercenary companies gave way to professional standing militaries, and the expense of live-fire was seen as excessive on top of the expense of maintaining a standing army. Jagers and other light infantry of the 1700s-1800s, often armed with rifled muskets, did practice, but the basic line infantry typically did not. And so you get infantry in the American Civil War, armed with rifled Springfield muskets and Minie balls capable of significant range, going into battle having never actually fired live ammunition before. I have read multiple accounts of such units lining up at as little as 30-50yds and firing at one another without effect, despite the mechanical capabilities of their weapons being far superior to those of centuries prior.
The development of individual marksmanship as a basic requirement for infantry coincided with the adoption of breechloading centerfire rifles in the mid-to-late-1800s, the decline of formation fighting necessitating an ability to engage point targets, and the widespread acceptance that future battles would be decided at far longer ranges than those of the century prior.
Funnily enough in switzerland it was pretty much shooting competitions for certain time periods tieing us together after the reformation. Therefore competition shooting and drilling of large militia forces never really stopped especially since it was into the 19th century a monetary concern that you could export infantry.
That was why i was so surprised.
How do I store my firearms (can't find the link to where this started, for whatever reason)
For me and my wife, its just a question of being able to get to them quickly. No grandkids around, or any other reason to have to worry about anything but burglars.
So I keep them in an unlocked plastic gun box, and spritz them slightly with gun oil every week or so.
Ork-en Man wrote: If you get a curios & relics license, they can be shipped to your door rather than an ffl.
Right, but how do you make sure you're buying a good one? Like, my former M1 carbine wants a friend to keep it company at the bottom of the lake but I live in an AWB state so my options are kind of limited. A Johnson rifle would be cool but how do I make sure I'm not spending all that money on a broken gun? It's rare enough that finding one locally where I can check it out in person is wishful thinking. Am I missing something or do people just buy and hope it works?
Are there no consumer protection laws in the US? In the UK, we have an absolute right to return faulty goods for a full refund within a certain time period. If the gun was sold as functional and safe but wasn't, it would be returnable.
For new products, sure.
Used stuff is pretty much sold as is. And when you are talking military surplus it is definitely beyond any sort of liability. Now if you bought from a large company that is handling surplus they might have return policies and such, but for private individuals you won't have such protections. You could potentially sue them for fraud if they clearly scammed you, but that would require an egregiously bad case.
For me personally, I wouldn't buy a surplus firearm without having examined it in person if it wasn't coming from a reputable importer.
If you get the gun and it's just a jam'o'matic you're not going to get anywhere claiming foul play. Its a used milsurp gun and was sold as such. Same thing with like buying a used car. You can't buy a car from someone and then go after them complaining if the oil pan leaks or the tire is bald and needs replacing. It was a used car.
This is actually a longstanding tenant of common law and would hold up pretty much anywhere that uses that as a base for your legal system. Outside of being able to prove you were actively deceived as to the nature of what you were buying you have no recourse.
I'm not a collector, but if I were, I'd just look for local auctions. If you got any rural papers in your area there's always a bunch of estate auctions with all sorts of guns farmers have collected over the years. Some of the auctions do have websites though.
By Napoleonic times, most armies fired one live round annually (so they knew how it felt) and then several blank rounds to get used to the mechanics and BOOM.
The British were unique in that they actually did target practice and their army got several times as many practice rounds as the Continental rivals. Since the emphasis was on rigid formations and mass volleys, individual marksmanship was not something anyone worried about - except for the British.
Now, as for collecting an antique, the first requirement is research. Know what it is you want to buy, especially the features, weaknesses, quirks and desirable traits. Did the army using it have corrosive ammo? If so, were they disciplined enough to clean them properly?
The best way to be safe is to handle the item personally at a store or show. I would not go online unless you really know what to look for. Among the most important elements is the condition of the bore. Always check this. Always.
If buying online, demand either clear photos or a detailed description of its condition. If the description is inaccurate, it amounts to fraud.
Depending on what you are collecting, other features may be important, but barrels are kind of a big deal. For example, you can generally replace a firing pin and spring without anyone even noticing. Firing pins and springs are generally not serialized, so it's not going to hurt the value of an "all match" weapon.*
Other parts (like magazines) may be serialized, but you get the point. I would not buy online until you've had good success collecting in person.
*Nambu Type 14s do have serialized firing pins, and they are notoriously fragile. If you have a serialized one, take it out and shoot it with a modern replacement.
Another idiot question, based purely on the media I consume.
On-screen, hunters are shown to wear camo, and a high vis vest of some kind.
Now in that, I get the high vis vest is to be immediately noticeable to other hunters in the area. For the obvious reason. Which makes the camo fatigues seemingly redundant, and maybe the result of Stupid Writing.
But Dakka? What is your truth of the matter? Up to an including studies and that which suggest animals don’t see high vis colours the same way we do.
Humans normally have red, green, and blue cones in our eyes. Deer(and related animals) only have blue and green cones. Thus anything that is red appears green or brown to them. Interestingly, for animals like this the color blue is the worst color to wear as it lights up like neon colors do to us and doesn't occur naturally as much. Jeans would look like a blazing blue shimmer to them.
Birds on the other hand see in color just like we do so they can see hunter orange just fine.
I believe dogs are the same. They don't see in black and white technically, but only in blues and greens and shades thereof.
Hunter orange is just the convention for us because it is both bright and unnatural so the person with it stands out. Very few things in nature have a neon orange color.
This picture illustrates what a deer actually sees by filtering out all red light from the image on the right vs the normal one on the left.
On-screen, hunters are shown to wear camo, and a high vis vest of some kind.
Now in that, I get the high vis vest is to be immediately noticeable to other hunters in the area. For the obvious reason. Which makes the camo fatigues seemingly redundant, and maybe the result of Stupid Writing.
But Dakka? What is your truth of the matter? Up to an including studies and that which suggest animals don’t see high vis colours the same way we do.
Many game animals do not have full color vision, but they can see patterns quite well. Thus a blaze orange camo pattern is effective.
Exactly, an orange and black camo pattern just looks like a green/brown and black pattern to them.
This would actually be an interesting premise for an alien conflict. Humans are fighting aliens, but the aliens lack one color receptor, thus they can be fooled by camo patterns with that color while normal humans can see friends just fine.
I’m gonna chalk this one up to “lazy writing”, where the hunter is wearing regular camo, but with a high vis vest over the top.
The sample photos and explanations are satisfactory to my idiot curiosity
No, it's not lazy writing, I happen to have one of those vests. Not all seasons require high visibility (archery, for example, does not). So rather than have multiple outfits, just wear a vest when you need it. This is particularly true if you are hunting small game, where you are going to be moving so concealment isn't as much of a priority.
The vest also lets you have flexibility in terms of clothing type underneath - is it a warm fall day or a crisp, cold January morning?
My particular vest is designed for small game hunting, so it has a game pouch and the pockets are designed to carry shotgun shells.
The "last ditch" rifles have issues, but there's literally decades of production before that. After the war, Allied ordnance officers had an informal competition to see which bolt action was the strongest. The Arisaka won decisively.
That's not surprising, because the Arisaka is really just an overbuilt Mauser action.
Which brings us to an interesting question: which bolt action was the most popular? The Mosin had some 37 million rifles to its credit, but how many did the Mauser derivatives get?
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Which brings us to an interesting question: which bolt action was the most popular? The Mosin had some 37 million rifles to its credit, but how many did the Mauser derivatives get?
Mauser, no question. In pure numbers the Mosin gets the benefit of Soviet wartime production not ramping up the SVT-40 in time but it was an overly complicated evolutionary dead end design and nobody outside of Soviet puppet states wanted it. The Mauser and its clones (1903, etc) were adopted by a bunch of different countries and its derivatives are still in production.
If you're talking pure numbers of a single model, the Mosin is the more numerous. The Mauser pulls ahead if you count derived rifles all as "Mausers" despite them having different model numbers and names.
The "last ditch" rifles have issues, but there's literally decades of production before that. After the war, Allied ordnance officers had an informal competition to see which bolt action was the strongest. The Arisaka won decisively.
That's not surprising, because the Arisaka is really just an overbuilt Mauser action.
Which brings us to an interesting question: which bolt action was the most popular? The Mosin had some 37 million rifles to its credit, but how many did the Mauser derivatives get?
Questionable again since the design got simplified multiple times during the war to save ressources before we even enter last ditch rifle land. But it is, if you get an early or interwar one, one of the most beautiful and nicest working pieces of engineering. That said i prefer things with straight pulls and magazins, hence my K31... which reminds me, i really want a diopter one...
Anyways, last ditch rifles is also a good topic. Sometimes they are surprisingly interesting.
Generally I've heard that even the last ditch K98ks are quite good guns. The Germans at least knew what they could and could not sacrifice and keep the gun nice and functional. The Japanese, a little less so with the Arisakas...
Grey Templar wrote: Generally I've heard that even the last ditch K98ks are quite good guns. The Germans at least knew what they could and could not sacrifice and keep the gun nice and functional. The Japanese, a little less so with the Arisakas...
Afaik what i know is that the K98 wasn't part of the last ditch effort, it got simplified but not overly unlike the arisaka typ 99 which honestly got from a design perspective butchered (mostly removal of bajonet socket and cleaning utensils vs. basically everything on the arisaka), compared to the Volksturm-Waffenprogramm.
Grey Templar wrote: Generally I've heard that even the last ditch K98ks are quite good guns. The Germans at least knew what they could and could not sacrifice and keep the gun nice and functional. The Japanese, a little less so with the Arisakas...
Afaik what i know is that the K98 wasn't part of the last ditch effort, it got simplified but not overly unlike the arisaka typ 99 which honestly got from a design perspective butchered (mostly removal of bajonet socket and cleaning utensils vs. basically everything on the arisaka), compared to the Volksturm-Waffenprogramm.
Yes, the Kar98k was mostly simplified in terms of finish and secondary materials, using stamped rather than forged triggers guards, removing the disassembly disk and putting a hole in the butt plate, etc.
The true German last ditch stuff was the semi-auto rifles the SS bigwigs organized. Crude doesn't even cover it.
It's interesting to note that the British "last ditch" was in the summer of 1940, and Lend-Lease helped soften the desperation.
I find the Republican weapons made during the Spanish Civil War interesting. The Astra 400/Model 1921 pistols made in Barcelona machine shops are fascinating. Not sure I'd dare fire one, though.
It all still falls under "last ditch" in my book, but yes it was far less intense than other guns suffered. Hence why they're still perfectly functional guns.
The biggest thing you are trying to do with last ditch weapons anyway is mostly to save on man hours, not necessarily materials. The fewer actions you have to take to make a functional gun the more guns you can make in the same amount of time. Its easier to do that without compromising the weapons quality with a bolt action than a stamped semi-auto.
Grey Templar wrote: The biggest thing you are trying to do with last ditch weapons anyway is mostly to save on man hours, not necessarily materials. The fewer actions you have to take to make a functional gun the more guns you can make in the same amount of time. Its easier to do that without compromising the weapons quality with a bolt action than a stamped semi-auto.
I think you're trying to save on everything, including materials and energy resources. Some ores were difficult to work with and obtain, so if you can avoid using them, that's a huge win.
That's why you see SMGs being so popular as well as "intermediate" cartridges, which run at lower pressures so you can make weapons with lower-grade steel and use less of it overall.
Compare the Thompson to the M3 "Grease Gun" and you've captured the essence of the thing.
Generally the truly hard to get stuff is not being made into small arms. Its going into tanks and artillery.
The real reason SMGs are popular is because they are easy to make compared to the firepower you get. Intermediate cartridges are popular because of the firepower increase not because they are cheaper and let you make "weaker" guns with less materials.
Grey Templar wrote: Intermediate cartridges are popular because of the firepower increase not because they are cheaper and let you make "weaker" guns with less materials.
Not entirely true. Caliber reductions for SMGs did make it easier to build cheaper guns with lower material requirements because dropping to a pistol caliber SMG allowed the use of simple blowback actions that wouldn't work with a rifle caliber weapon. You might still need the same high quality materials for the barrel and chamber but the rest of the gun can be made out of low-quality stamped sheet metal. You simply can't make a grease gun clone in a rifle caliber no matter how desirable the firepower is.
Grey Templar wrote: Intermediate cartridges are popular because of the firepower increase not because they are cheaper and let you make "weaker" guns with less materials.
Not entirely true. Caliber reductions for SMGs did make it easier to build cheaper guns with lower material requirements because dropping to a pistol caliber SMG allowed the use of simple blowback actions that wouldn't work with a rifle caliber weapon. You might still need the same high quality materials for the barrel and chamber but the rest of the gun can be made out of low-quality stamped sheet metal. You simply can't make a grease gun clone in a rifle caliber no matter how desirable the firepower is.
Ammunition components were very much a factor in production decisions. If you think about the millions of rounds being produced, having shorter cartridge casings, smaller bullets and using less powder is a pretty big deal. Compare the component cost of 7.62 Tokarev or 7.62x39 to 7.62x54R. Both the Germans and the Russians were under such a crunch for materials that they experimented with alternative bullet composition.
The US was better off, but still removed copper coinage from circulation. Pennies were made from steel during the war years.
I'm scanning .410 gauge ammo and 90 percent of it is stupid buckshot/slug combos for "self-defense" because everyone obviously dresses in such a way as to conceal a two-pound heater in their pocket.
Some of us actually have a real, no-kidding .410 shotguns. We do silly things that require different loads and I look back fondly with 3" loads for trap shooting were readily available.
I hate the Judge with the white-hot fury of 1,000 suns.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: I'm scanning .410 gauge ammo and 90 percent of it is stupid buckshot/slug combos for "self-defense" because everyone obviously dresses in such a way as to conceal a two-pound heater in their pocket.
But what else are you going to carry when your AR-15 pistol is a bit too large to fit in your tactical swimsuit?
Interestingly, I only use 7 or 8 shot in my Judge since it is the Anti-Snake gun. All that self defense ammo is too pricey and not as good for my purpose. The only other person I know who has a Judge uses his for the same thing and carries similar shot.
CptJake wrote: Interestingly, I only use 7 or 8 shot in my Judge since it is the Anti-Snake gun. All that self defense ammo is too pricey and not as good for my purpose. The only other person I know who has a Judge uses his for the same thing and carries similar shot.
I'm not going to lie: I think the Bond Arms snake guns are kind of cool. They're absolutely on my "money to burn" list of purchases.
But it is frustrating to see a huge segment of .410 ammo being nothing more than revenge fantasies for dudes who could get superior ballistic performance, magazine capacity and accuracy out of a 9mm Hi Point.
I too dislike the 2 inch barrel Judge, but the 6 inch barrel is almost decent. I've used it for rabbit, squirrel, and pigeon, and it's nice to have a couple 45LC along for racoons.
For those familiar with legal firearms, how good do you reckon you be at identifying and gauging a given weapon with maybe a second or two’s glance?
As ever, I’m genuinely not going anywhere with this. All I know is I’d see something vaguely gun shaped, besmirch my pantaloons, and then hide as best I could.
For those familiar with legal firearms, how good do you reckon you be at identifying and gauging a given weapon with maybe a second or two’s glance?
As ever, I’m genuinely not going anywhere with this. All I know is I’d see something vaguely gun shaped, besmirch my pantaloons, and then hide as best I could.
I'm pretty good at it. Whenever I see a shoot 'em up movie, I'll blurt out whatever's on the screen, often with commentary about how downloaded the ammo is so that it can be fired on full auto with zero barrel rise.
It's something of a competitive sport in my social circle. My daughters are now getting into the act. ("Hey dad, that's an MP 40, right?" "Yep, could catch."
Of course, sometimes the same gun isn't used from scene to see (I'm thinking of Indiana Jones movies specifically), so you think it's a Smith, but then it's a Colt in the next scene, and then a Smith again.
And modern autoloaders have something of a dreary sameness about them. Glocks are easy to spot because they are so ugly.
Old revolvers can be hard, because you can't always see the cylinder release, which often gives it away (though this can mislead you since Taurus revolvers were built on the same machinery as Smiths).
But for once, I know something about something in this thread and will Super Nod And Agree on the Paw and Weans bonding stuff!
For those who care, you can check your answers at the internet movie firearms database, (imfdb.com) which is uneven in parts, but a pretty good resource.
Good times for me tomorrow. Got the Folkestone Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
Not necessarily firearms related, but as it includes…
Local News wrote:Starting at 1.25pm, the stirring flypast will feature the wartime Lancaster, Hurricane and Spitfire planes. This will be followed by the stars of the show, the eight Hawk jets that form the Red Arrows and their jaw-dropping aerobatics between 2.20pm and 2.50pm.
Must see if I can find my folding chair. It’s looking to be a toasty afternoon, and even if I don’t need it myself, it’s a useful thing to have in case of elderly or pregnant peeps in the crowd.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Good times for me tomorrow. Got the Folkestone Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
Not necessarily firearms related, but as it includes…
Local News wrote:Starting at 1.25pm, the stirring flypast will feature the wartime Lancaster, Hurricane and Spitfire planes. This will be followed by the stars of the show, the eight Hawk jets that form the Red Arrows and their jaw-dropping aerobatics between 2.20pm and 2.50pm.
Must see if I can find my folding chair. It’s looking to be a toasty afternoon, and even if I don’t need it myself, it’s a useful thing to have in case of elderly or pregnant peeps in the crowd.
There are some parallels between surviving aircraft and vintage firearms. Generally, the inexpensive, lower-tier items have become very rare, just as Hurricanes - mainstay of the RAF in 1940, are very few in number.
Value is often simply a function of popularity rather than scarcity. Lugars and Colt 1911s extremely common yet also command premium prices vs far more rare items.
. If you want to actually shoot a gun in this caliber getting ammunition is a big challenge. For quite a while the only round available was a Federal plinking round at $1.30 per round. It has come down a bit and a few other ammo types are now available but they are still exorbitantly expensive for what they are. And many of them are deliberately loaded light, defeating the purpose of why you chose that gun in the first place (a lot of high caliber hollow point ammo falls into this category as well, which is another discussion worth having).
