I would have to call a baseball bat, out of a dugout, an assault weapon. So are my favorite two kitchen knives. What about large knitting needles??? A sock and three bars of soap... it will never end.
There is a great scene in the Novel the Loo Sanction ( from Eiger Sanction author Trevanian ) where the "hero" an assassin, is "recruited" by a government agency ( blackmailed ) and the MI-5 type jerk is questioning Hemlock's credentials on unarmed combat skills. "Passed, but not qualified? how the bleep does that work?" Hemlock explains that any common item can be used as a weapon and picks up a copy of Punch (think Mad magazine) rolls it into a tight roll, and then attacks the agent, almost blinding and killing him, until pulled off by the rest of the team. "let me guess" says Hemlock, "Passed, but not qualified?"
My Sifu in Tai Chi was adamant that you learn empty hand skills, before weapons skills, since you never knew when you'd have nothing. His attitude was as long as you had one hand or even an elbow, you should be able to defend yourself. But after the basics were ingrained, he would quote Bruce Lee, who famously said in Enter The Dragon, "why not just take a .45, and..?" ANYTHING is deadly in the hands of anyone who thinks.
England is banning Kitchen knives. Knitting needles will get you kicked off an airline flight.
I would love to do a helicopter door gunnery course. It's a kind of specialized and difficult field to get into in the service. IIRC they liked to use crewmen and train them in aerial gunnery vs using professional machine gunners. I suppose that it's better to have someone that can help keep the thing running and such.
As it is, you don't see much in defensive motorcycle gunnery. In the movies it's blacked out supermotos and dudes with submachineguns with impressive riding skills, poor marksmanship, and terrible judgement.
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Anyone who deliberately inflicts pain on another & laughs? Should be ashamed. Stay away from women & go get therapy.
It's okay if they ask for it.
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Teach, encourage, work up to louder harder kicking guns. My wrists don't like bear loads in a .44 anymore, her's are half my size.
I had a nice 629 forever. I never really used it for any real purpose and sold it off. The .357 that replaced it is far more practical and enjoyable to shoot.
It's funny that ladies are always intimidated by big heavy guns in moderate calibers until they shoot them...then they want one for themselves.
There's a couple of projects on lady shooters, picking out the best pistol, by having numbers of women actually try them, as opposed to some guy imposing his beliefs.
I remember Ruger's president spent time at the big gun shows, watching and talking to customers. Ladies would walk up, try the trigger pull on the small revolvers, and walk away, unhappy. It's been thought by many MEN that a small .38 revolver is a good choice, but women often reject them since the trigger is too hard to pull.
A very legit concern. A too hard trigger ruins aim and discourages practice.
Roger took that to heart and has made a priority to have more user friendly triggers in their line. Colt has followed with it's new reintroduction of the famous Snake line of revolvers.
It's a Golden Age.
Unfortunately they seem to happen just before the Darkness falls.
I'd prefer to have the 1934 & subsequent laws re-written, but we can argue that.... At length. And I don't presume to have the answers. Just notions.
My guess is that's a violation of the spirit of the law on automatic weapons, as each trigger pull fires multiple shots. Unlike a trigger crank, which are legal, which requires a deliberate motion to fire.
The legal or logical argument is between the view that it's two separate deliberate motions, vs. One "normal" trained motion, pull & reset. it can be argued either way.
My opinion is it's a loophole toy. And a darn good one. It's not even unethical as a hunting mode. Simply increasing lethality, a positive moral factor, and with historical provenance, but without "unfairly" reducing the skill or responsibility requirements.
Golden Age.
Back as the 20th century, a minute of angle accurate rifle was a rarity to brag about, and usually the result of dedicated custom work & high prices. High prices alone didn't buy you that performance!
Modern machining technology means that multiple companies are selling bargain basement rifles that have that performance level, and the biggest difference between the best and the worst is how flexible the stocks are and how that puts pressure on the barrel, when slung tightly, etc.
The pull and release are considered separate motions by the ATF. If they are banned, it'll be by arbitrary ruling rather than technical grounds, as it is with statewide bump stock bans.
With all the high bump stock prices I have seen, it just seemed time to install the BFSIII™. Picked one up for about 360. Easy as putting in a stock trigger.
As I said, I understand the argument, and fear that it will indeed get banned. Illogical, illegal, they don't care. Any new restriction, they Want it.
Anyone remember the tripod mount for 2 10/22 actions on their sides, top to top? A crank handle to run a rocker bar to alternatively fire the rifles, made for a poor man's Gatling gun. Fun fun!
If I lived where it was legal, my choice for a full auto rifle would be the AM-180.
I saw the sales film for police back in 1975 when taking a law course where we hung with police & followed cases through the system.
The film, 16mm, was great. Carving through cinder block walks to hit dummies on the other side, destroying a car, and coolest of all, one of the first commercial laser sights, with belt mounted battery pack & a tube the size of a Pringles can.
The poster given to the police showed a "dark alley" with armed perp with the still terrifying red dot on his chest. Awesome!
Oh, budget alone would keep me from owning & practicing with a Colt Monitor or even a Sten gun.
You have to be doing pretty good to play with a minigun. Brrrrt, no Burger King for a month, brrrt, no movies, brrrt, no Trader Joe's pumpkin spice cookies this year, brrrt, oh, $%&#, that was the mortgage.
So, yeah. I can shoot faster than my budget with a Ruger #1,
With a 10/22 and years of Halo, I can hit targets faster than some bump stock AR.
Rounds that miss don't count as fire rate in my book.
I bought one of the springs that clamp to the trigger guard to push the trigger forward faster. I put it on my Mini 14 and learned how to pull the rifle forward as I held a steady trigger finger at the hip. I got to where I could blast a 20 round magazine without stopping. After I saw how many hand loads I just blasted through I transferred it to the 10/22! It sounded cool though!!
I helped a guy set up a 2/22 back in the mid 80s. Lot of fun. I've used a hellfire trigger system on a 10/22 and a BMF activator on a 10/22 then an AR. BMF fires 4 times per revolution. Worked well for pest control on the 10/22 with a scope on it. Line it up an fire for effect. Used Mitchel 50 round mags with the belt in them. Even put the BMF on a SPAS 12 and a Cobray M-11. More nuts than smarts.
My answer to full auto at 9mm or so is buckshot and a pump. Or the rifled 12Ga pump with slugs. When my 870 had the goose barrel, I would get 3 shot at a clay. Nobody I shot with could get more than 2 shots off. Almost always got the bird by the last shot.
I do enjoy my .177 CO2 Uzi full auto. Steel BBs.... 25 rd clip costs a dollar. Been using ball thistle as targets, very active.
Z
<edit>I have moved from buckshot to goose shot. #2 shot is the size of BBs and there's 50 or so of them. Won't go thru 2 walls either.
That's what it was called, the hellfire. I have the Mitchel belt feed magazine too. The hellfire cracked the clamping devise as it was plastic. Oh well, I had my fun with it now back to wild beer cans!
BMF activators clamped on and are still sold for 35 to 45 dollars.
The hellfire I had was a leaf spring and a blade that created a trigger in front of your finger that you pushed forward after letting off the main trigger.
Birdshot does not excessively penetrate drywall walls. But it does not penetrate deeply enough to reach a bad guy’s vital organs. Birdshot makes a nasty but shallow wound. It is not a good Stopper. Use Birdshot for little birds. Use 00 Buckshot for bad guys.
read the section on Birdshot as a Defense Load ( this one predates the top one )
A bit later, with experimentation, these nice folk determined that their water jug testing correlated nicely with ballistic gel, at about 2 to one. So, 12 inch with water jugs equals 6 in gel. Not super precise, but affordable.
Personally, I'm glad they did this one, since I've always wanted to try it, and now I don't need to. A bit disappointed, but glad.
I'm also a fan of the 20 ga. shotgun. I don't own one today, but I had a Winchester Defender Pump that was nice, if ugly, and a Browning side by side. Pretty. Both were gifted to others, one for home defense to a fellow who has physical difficulties, and didn't think he could take the recoil from a 12, but is fine with a 20, and the Browning to a petite woman who enjoys shooting clays, but doesn't enjoy the weight of a gas operated auto in 12, or the recoil of a pump in 12. The side by side also meets her sense of aesthetics. ( It's just darn cute. )
So it's nice to see that ga. doesn't matter to penetration. It's also worth pay attention to the fact that you figure lethality by the performance of the individual projectiles, FIRST, then count holes. The difference between getting 8 .36 dia holes and 12? Real, I'm sure, but not as important as aim. Only holes in the target count.
But ....
I received a note from a police officer that asked me not to mention names or locations about this true event.
A police officer was involved in some shotgun training, where they used #6 birdshot in the training due to lower cost. After the training session, he forgot to remove the birdshot and replace it with 00 Buckshot, the normal carry load.
That night, while on patrol, he confronted a couple of burglars and was in a shootout with them. He shot both of them with his shotgun, but forgot that he had it loaded with birdshot.
They killed the officer and escaped.
Never use birdshot against goblins. Use plated 00 Buckshot.
BBs seem to be just under the penetration minimum, while #4 buck is just above. TANSTAAFL applies. If it's going to go deep enough to stop a bad guy, it's going to go through at least one, and probably two, interior walls.
That said, deer slugs absolutely penetrate too much for in home use, as they will go through exterior walls and into your neighbors house, even 50 yards away.
When sci-fi stunners become available, I'm certainly going to want one. ( we can have a whole argument on their problems, separately ) But until then.
Don't use birdshot on people. It leaves hideous, nasty wounds that a jury will be horrified by and award more to the lying sack you shot about to rape your baby girl than you will ever make.
And it won't stop him from killing you or your family. It probably will stop him from less angry pursuits, but that is not the point. You don't shoot people unless it's to stop a lethal threat. Bird shot won't do that with any reliability.
end rant.
And, a different source... with LOTS of pretty pictures.
#4 is what I have locked in the closet safe with the 870. Not loaded. Next to. I have some old fashioned safety notions.
Obsolete, I suppose.
I know modern silicon alloy springs in, for example, a magazine, can be left compressed for a year. But older springs cannot. I consider it unsafe when a gun jams. I admit I haven't bothered to research springs for tube magazines, but just don't have any loaded magazines on or off a gun in my house.
The exceptions being revolvers ( locked up or carried ) and in use semi pistols. I define in use as carrying or in a locked safe, car, nightstand, etc. I try to get Those weapons emptied at least monthly, to relax the springs and ideally swap to other mags for the next month or less. Ideally. I haven't always had enough mags to do that.
By preference, I empty the mags by using them at the range in practice.
Of course, all of the above could just be rationalizing OCD behavior.
According to the spring experts, it's a spring at work vs a compressed spring that will wear out first. Whether loaded or fired, it'll eventually wear out, regardless. Using Wolff extra power springs for all magazines as replacements, they get a few extra years on them vs factory springs.
Don't use birdshot on people. It leaves hideous, nasty wounds that a jury will be horrified by and award more to the lying sack you shot about to rape your baby girl than you will ever make.
I’d agree.
I have 98 pieces of #4 left in me ......and the photos the FBI took of my sister who got hit in the face with the center of a pattern.
I've settled on a 9mm carbine for home defense. Plenty of stopping power, a 9MM round has the same power as a 357 pistol round when shot from a 16 inch barrel. Ridiculous accuracy. Almost 0 recoil. A ton of fun to shoot at the range and a ton of really good, relatively cheap self defense and range ammo.
I'll never get rid of my AR but the 9mm Carbine is what I am grabbing first. This will be especially true when or if I put a suppressor on it.
As a Kiwi and Buell enthusiast I feel I must say here how sorry and embarrassed I am to learn that a so called fellow New Zealander should travel half way around the world to Virginia to meet up with a 14 year old girl he has been "chatting" with online only to be shot by the girl's mother (in defence) for breaking and entering their home. This is abhorrent behaviour and I hope the US authorities give this #%$$$ the maximum penalty which will be much more than he'd get back here by our limp wristed judiciary. I truly wish we had home invasion defence laws as strong as many US States. Sincerely, Dave, NZ