The Gun Thread

Off Topic
141

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Dr. FruitPie wrote:

Hah…every once in a while I consider changing my steadfast stance on only carrying a .45 or better, and then I hear something like this. These stories always serve well to knock the fantasy of higher capacity mags outta my head xD

High capacity magazines are only useful if a) your gun fires an inadequate round; and/or b) you anticipate a lot of misses.[/quote]

Check out this experiment using a standard kevlar helmet. Seems like both .45 and 9mm couldn’t do what an even smaller diameter pistol round could do.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot29.htm

142

[quote]pushharder wrote:
I have another canine and gun story. Yep. I do.

I will decline to inject humor into this one because it has to do with my dog, or rather at the time, one of my dogs.

Years ago I bred my Rottweiler bitch to my brother’s Doberman in search of a very muscular Dobie. Did this twice and ended up with two litters over a two year span.

We ended up keeping three males out of the two litters. I raised and trained 'em and they were perfect gentlemen and two of them were perfect specimens of what I was looking for - tough, alert, athletic SOBs.

My friends called them “the three-headed monster” because that’s what they looked like roiling around in the back of the pickup. Another name was the “land sharks”. I’d run them behind my dirt bike, snowmobile, pickup and horse for exercise and they’d fan out and “scoop up” the countryside like German tanks moving into France in 1940.

Anyway, to make a long story a little longer, having three males together even though they grew up together just didn’t pan out. It was always two on one when barks gave way to bites. It didn’t happen often in the first half of their lives but when they got up to six, seven, eight years of age, the carnage got intense. Thing is, the smallest and the medium sized dogs ganged up on the largest one. Yeah, the most muscular one of the three was low man on the totem pole.

I won’t go into all the details because this is the gun thread but suffice it to say that you can’t even begin to imagine the fury, stamina, guts and glory involved with big, healthy, powerful dogs like these in a full blown fight unless you’ve seen it yourself. Stepping in to break up the fight was like running into a buzzsaw.

Anyway, the smallest of the three happened to be the bully and the instigator or most of the trouble but he also carried some congenital defects. He had bad hips and his front end was bowlegged. When he turned about six or so he started to show signs of rapid or accelerated aging too.

I had had a friend put down my three boys’ momma a year before by taking a rifle and her out in the woods. She was very sick and old and we should have had it done long before we did and I swore I would never procrastinate again in that regard.

Back to the youngest dog, the one with the problems. He really started going downhill fast, healthwise, very gaunt and miserable so one day I grabbed my Colt Commander and walked him out into the national forest to put him down. In case you’re wondering, it was very, very tough to do. I pretty much had to have an iron will to get the job done.

We stopped in the middle of a deep, dark spot and I suspected if I hesitated I might not get the job done so I aimed at the center of his skull and fired fairly quickly. I had thought the 230 gr. .45 ACP bullet at close range (10 ft.) would make short work of the situation.

It did not.

I hit him but all it did was spin him around and make him caterwaul. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was still standing and whimpering and I was in some mental pain myself. I fired again. Hit him again in the skull. He ran around in circles and I fired again and I think I missed due to his moving around.

Bottom line is it took five shots to end his life including what may have been one miss. Now yes, he would’ve died from the first bullet if I had given him time but that’s not the way to put down a dog humanely. Obviously, I wanted him to die quickly.

This story says a few things to me.

  1. The .45 ACP round is not necessarily a quick, effective killing round on animals especially animals with thick, hard skulls.

  2. Rottweilers or Rott crosses have thick, hard skulls.

  3. There may be more to extrapolate from that story than just #1 and #2.

The epilogue to this story is this past winter I had to put down the third of my three boys. (The second died naturally last fall or should I say mysteriously. I inadvertently found him dead out in the woods when picketing my horse).

#3 found himself beset with the same disease or defect as #1 or so it appeared. I really hated to have to put him down because he was the last of the Mohicans and I would be without a dog for the first time in many, many years. I put it off and put it off and put it off until I was disgusted with myself because he looked so bad and I had not taken care of it.

One shot. A 12 gauge and 000 buck.

There was no repeat with what happened to #1. He never knew what hit him and he never suffered from being put down.

Now go ahead and extrapolate.[/quote]

Very tough story to hear, I’m sorry.

143

The M1A ia the loaded model for 1595, above the basic and below the national match, Varqanir BTW .

144

[quote]tom63 wrote:
The M1A ia the loaded model for 1595, above the basic and below the national match, Varqanir BTW .[/quote]

As I said in my PM, Tom, that’s an excellent price, and I heartily recommend that you snatch it up before it gets away.

Of course, I recommend that every liberty-loving patriot arrange to acquire an M14 or similar 30-caliber battle rifle while he is still able to.

One should also procure enough ammunition to allow you to practice enough to become an expert rifleman, and enough again to see you through the dark times ahead. Let’s say a thousand rounds of cheap military ball from a reputable source (Lithuanian, Serbian, Australian, South African, British, German: the supplies are drying up. Better hurry), and 500 rounds of match-grade, police-sniper grade, and hunting ammunition. Lake City, Federal Gold Match, and Hornady TAP and SST are the names to remember.

Buy ten spare magazines (genuine GI: forget the Taiwanese and Chinese junk), a complete GI cleaning kit, and a good set of spare parts. For the M14, the following are bare-minimum spares:

extractor
extractor spring
ejector & spring
firing pin
hammer
hammer spring housing
hammer & trigger pins
trigger & sear
bolt roller & retainer
front sight screw
flash suppressor nut
flash suppressor set screw
gas piston
spindle valve spring
spindle valve pin
spindle valve
connector lock
connector lock pin
op rod spring

Even better would be to buy a complete GI bolt group (headspaced to your rifle), NM trigger group, all the gas system parts, a spare NM flash hider, and an op rod, guide, pin and spring. With proper maintenance, your rifle will outlast you. Barrels last about 10,000 rounds before you’ll start noticing any degradation of accuracy.

If you’re on a budget (or if you’ve spent all your spare cash on ammunition, which is right and proper), then at very, very least get the following:

op rod spring
firing pin
extractor
ejector
extractor spring
ejector spring,

Hollow out a space in the butt stock, right below the hole for the cleaning kit, and keep your spare firing pin, ejector, extractor, and their respective springs there. M14 parts are pretty tough, but if they ever break, you have at best a magazine-fed single-shot rifle, and at worst a very beautiful, expensive shillelagh. Spare parts are life.

I know you know all this, Tom. This post is for people who might not be as well acquainted with this sort of thing.

145

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
tom63 wrote:
The M1A ia the loaded model for 1595, above the basic and below the national match, Varqanir BTW .

As I said in my PM, Tom, that’s an excellent price, and I heartily recommend that you snatch it up before it gets away.

Of course, I recommend that every liberty-loving patriot arrange to acquire an M14 or similar 30-caliber battle rifle while he is still able to.

One should also procure enough ammunition to allow you to practice enough to become an expert rifleman, and enough again to see you through the dark times ahead. Let’s say a thousand rounds of cheap military ball from a reputable source (Lithuanian, Serbian, Australian, South African, British, German: the supplies are drying up. Better hurry), and 500 rounds of match-grade, police-sniper grade, and hunting ammunition. Lake City, Federal Gold Match, and Hornady TAP and SST are the names to remember.

Buy ten spare magazines (genuine GI: forget the Taiwanese and Chinese junk), a complete GI cleaning kit, and a good set of spare parts. For the M14, the following are bare-minimum spares:

extractor
extractor spring
ejector & spring
firing pin
hammer
hammer spring housing
hammer & trigger pins
trigger & sear
bolt roller & retainer
front sight screw
flash suppressor nut
flash suppressor set screw
gas piston
spindle valve spring
spindle valve pin
spindle valve
connector lock
connector lock pin
op rod spring

Even better would be to buy a complete GI bolt group (headspaced to your rifle), NM trigger group, all the gas system parts, a spare NM flash hider, and an op rod, guide, pin and spring. With proper maintenance, your rifle will outlast you. Barrels last about 10,000 rounds before you’ll start noticing any degradation of accuracy.

If you’re on a budget (or if you’ve spent all your spare cash on ammunition, which is right and proper), then at very, very least get the following:

op rod spring
firing pin
extractor
ejector
extractor spring
ejector spring,

Hollow out a space in the butt stock, right below the hole for the cleaning kit, and keep your spare firing pin, ejector, extractor, and their respective springs there. M14 parts are pretty tough, but if they ever break, you have at best a magazine-fed single-shot rifle, and at worst a very beautiful, expensive shillelagh. Spare parts are life.

I know you know all this, Tom. This post is for people who might not be as well acquainted with this sort of thing.[/quote]

Exactly, I will get the mags first, then the spare parts. lots of gun shows in Pa where they are available.

146

this is a really good thread. Never thought I’d get teary eyed reading a gun thread.

147

[quote]StevenF wrote:
this is a really good thread. Never thought I’d get teary eyed reading a gun thread. [/quote]

It does do that to you, doesn’t it? There is so much good in the gun culture. Reading Unintended consequences as Push recommended should be mandatory. It shows how shooting well was considered such a noble thing and gentlemanly in the past.

Marksmanship was considered an honorable endeavor and it was held in high regard.

148

Matthew Bracken has recently written a few pro gun novels. Enemies: foreign and Domestic is a great read so far. There are two out now, with a third coming out in may. available from Amazon.com.

149

[quote]tom63 wrote:
StevenF wrote:
this is a really good thread. Never thought I’d get teary eyed reading a gun thread.

It does do that to you, doesn’t it? There is so much good in the gun culture. Reading Unintended consequences as Push recommended should be mandatory. It shows how shooting well was considered such a noble thing and gentlemanly in the past.

Marksmanship was considered an honorable endeavor and it was held in high regard.[/quote]

When I was in junior high, I belonged to the school sponsored Outdoor Sports Club. One of the outdoor sports was shooting. The school janitor was a grumpy old man that, just so happened, used to be a former Olympic level marksman. He didn’t seem so grumpy after I learned that.

150

[quote]tom63 wrote:
Matthew Bracken has recently written a few pro gun novels. Enemies: foreign and Domestic is a great read so far. There are two out now, with a third coming out in may. available from Amazon.com.[/quote]

I recommend sticking with UC or Boston T. Party’s Molon Labe. I’ve found most “libertarian porn” like the Enemies series and Patriots to be too simplistic, lacking in character development and others being far too bible thumpy.

mike

151

[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
tom63 wrote:
Matthew Bracken has recently written a few pro gun novels. Enemies: foreign and Domestic is a great read so far. There are two out now, with a third coming out in may. available from Amazon.com.

I recommend sticking with UC or Boston T. Party’s Molon Labe. I’ve found most “libertarian porn” like the Enemies series and Patriots to be too simplistic, lacking in character development and others being far too bible thumpy.

mike[/quote]

True to some degree, but I read so much that I’ll get to those eventually.

152

[quote]Doug Adams wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
Dr. FruitPie wrote:

Hah…every once in a while I consider changing my steadfast stance on only carrying a .45 or better, and then I hear something like this. These stories always serve well to knock the fantasy of higher capacity mags outta my head xD

High capacity magazines are only useful if a) your gun fires an inadequate round; and/or b) you anticipate a lot of misses.

Check out this experiment using a standard kevlar helmet. Seems like both .45 and 9mm couldn’t do what an even smaller diameter pistol round could do.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot29.htm[/quote]

Yeah, but I’m not going to be shooting people in kevlar. I’ll be shooting dumbasses trying to mug me for $40 in a t-shirt or a winter coat at the worst. If I were routinely getting into gun fights with people in full kevlar garb, I’d seriously consider something like the FN Five-seven, but a .45 is perfect for any encounters I might have to face.

Yeah, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to. I think it was Massad Ayoob that said something about 16 rounds in your magazine just being 16 more lawyers looking to toss you into prison.

153

Well this weekend my dad and I went to the gun show in Missouri near the KCI airport. I’ll try to make this long story short. We bought a Mosin Nagant rifle made in 1943 at the factory that has the stamp of a triangle/pyramid with an arrow through it.

It had a decent layer of cosmoline(sp?) on it so we had to use some mineral spirits to remove it. Luckily the stock was fairly clean and some dish soap was able to remove the sticky feeling so we didn’t damage the finish at all. The barrel was really dirty but the rifling looks good. The rifle also came with the original bayonet, sling, and field kit containing tools and a metal oil cleaning container. All for $100.

We also found a Mosin Nagant 1895 revolver. It was also made in 1943 at the same factory as the rifle. Unfortunately since my dad and I are Kansas residents we couldn’t buy it. I had to wait until Sunday and bribe my girlfriend into getting it for me. $120 for the revolver, holster and tools. We were only able to find one box of the 7.62x38r ammo for it and it cost $30 ouch. Anyways this weekend I’ll probably clean the revolver and hopefully get some pictures up for you guys since they are at my parents place because I don’t have a gun safe.

EDIT for spelling

154

[quote]Dr. FruitPie wrote:
Doug Adams wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
Dr. FruitPie wrote:

Hah…every once in a while I consider changing my steadfast stance on only carrying a .45 or better, and then I hear something like this. These stories always serve well to knock the fantasy of higher capacity mags outta my head xD

High capacity magazines are only useful if a) your gun fires an inadequate round; and/or b) you anticipate a lot of misses.

Check out this experiment using a standard kevlar helmet. Seems like both .45 and 9mm couldn’t do what an even smaller diameter pistol round could do.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot29.htm

Yeah, but I’m not going to be shooting people in kevlar. I’ll be shooting dumbasses trying to mug me for $40 in a t-shirt or a winter coat at the worst. If I were routinely getting into gun fights with people in full kevlar garb, I’d seriously consider something like the FN Five-seven, but a .45 is perfect for any encounters I might have to face.

High capacity magazines are only useful if a) your gun fires an inadequate round; and/or b) you anticipate a lot of misses.

Yeah, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to. I think it was Massad Ayoob that said something about 16 rounds in your magazine just being 16 more lawyers looking to toss you into prison.[/quote]

My point to the discussion was that .45 doesn’t equal instant doom for everything it encounters. As the article suggests- pistols are pistols and rifles are rifles. pushharder’s story about his dog also illustrates this point.

155

A standard .45 ACP 230-grain FMJ bullet will not penetrate this helmet, but will cause sufficient brain trauma to the wearer to effectively take him out of the fight for a good long while.

[quote]Doug Adams wrote:

My point to the discussion was that .45 doesn’t equal instant doom for everything it encounters. As the article suggests- pistols are pistols and rifles are rifles. pushharder’s story about his dog also illustrates this point.
[/quote]

Quite so. If I knew I were about to face an onslaught of assailants wearing body armor, I would have the rifle. For that matter, if I knew I would soon be facing any assailant, I would have the rifle.

Even a non-armor-piercing .308 bullet will punch through one side of PASGT helmets and body armor and right out the other side, and will do the same to most commercially-available soft body armor, for that matter. And even a level III or IV vest, properly equipped with steel or ceramic trauma plates, cannot completely nullify nearly 3000 foot-pounds of energy.

By means of comparison, Mike Tyson’s hardest punch generates about 1500 foot-pounds. Would you like to take a punch twice as hard as Tyson in his prime could hit, even wearing a kevlar helmet or vest? I don’t think I would.

By the same token, a large, heavy bullet from a .45-caliber handgun striking a ballistic helmet does not necessarily have to penetrate to ring the assailant’s bell hard enough to effectively take him out of the action. Instant doom not required, simply adequate incapacitation.

That said, were I armed only with a .45-caliber handgun against body-armored enemies, and had not yet reached my rifle, then I would aim for faces, throats, hips and knees.

156

Agreed Varqanir. And just so no one goes starts thinking of me as a heretic, I hereby pay homage to arguably the greatest firearm designer ever to grace this planet- St. John Browning. If anyone owns a self loading firearm, odds are good its design was inspired in some way by Browning’s work.

-hey where’d my picture go?

157

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
A standard .45 ACP 230-grain FMJ bullet will not penetrate this helmet, but will cause sufficient brain trauma to the wearer to effectively take him out of the fight for a good long while.

Doug Adams wrote:

My point to the discussion was that .45 doesn’t equal instant doom for everything it encounters. As the article suggests- pistols are pistols and rifles are rifles. pushharder’s story about his dog also illustrates this point.

Quite so. If I knew I were about to face an onslaught of assailants wearing body armor, I would have the rifle. For that matter, if I knew I would soon be facing any assailant, I would have the rifle.

Even a non-armor-piercing .308 bullet will punch through one side of PASGT helmets and body armor and right out the other side, and will do the same to most commercially-available soft body armor, for that matter. And even a level III or IV vest, properly equipped with steel or ceramic trauma plates, cannot completely nullify nearly 3000 foot-pounds of energy.

By means of comparison, Mike Tyson’s hardest punch generates about 1500 foot-pounds. Would you like to take a punch twice as hard as Tyson in his prime could hit, even wearing a kevlar helmet or vest? I don’t think I would.

By the same token, a large, heavy bullet from a .45-caliber handgun striking a ballistic helmet does not necessarily have to penetrate to ring the assailant’s bell hard enough to effectively take him out of the action. Instant doom not required, simply adequate incapacitation.

That said, were I armed only with a .45-caliber handgun against body-armored enemies, and had not yet reached my rifle, then I would aim for faces, throats, hips and knees. [/quote]

Good points.

158

My dream collection. As long as I could get the High-Power in a serious caliber.

[quote]Doug Adams wrote:
Agreed Varqanir. And just so no one goes starts thinking of me as a heretic, I hereby pay homage to arguably the greatest firearm designer ever to grace this planet- St. John Browning. If anyone owns a self loading firearm, odds are good its design was inspired in some way by Browning’s work.
[/quote]

I’d say there were two St. Johns that answer that description: John Browning and John Garand.

Shortly before the opening of the museum in Izhevsk bearing his name, the great Mikhail Kalashnikov was asked what he thought of the fact that he had designed so many more weapons than John Garand had.

“Well, what do you expect?” Kalashnikov replied, “he got it right the first time.”

159

What’s everyone’s thoughts on shotguns for defensive purposes, be it home protection or fighting off the zombie hordes? If a shotgun is your primary for home defense, what ammo do you use?

I have a Benelli M1 Super 90, but lately it’s just been a safe queen. I’m trying to figure out whether I want to move forward with trying a 3 gun competition or selling it. Decisions decisions.

160

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
That said, were I armed only with a .45-caliber handgun against body-armored enemies, and had not yet reached my rifle, then I would aim for faces, throats, hips and knees. [/quote]

I shoot 'em all just like Butters…in the dick.