There are a couple of New cartridges that look promising, imho stick with a Name Brand like Hornady if you expect to get ammo after the new wears off. Plenty of wildcats.
I have a 22lr pistol and 9mm SBR. The blowback guns use different triggers and they all use unique buffer parts (the lr doesn't need anything special other than something to take up the space).
It's going to require a major,dare I say, revolutionary, change in both the makeup of the House & Senate, to get the violations of our Civil Rights rolled back to the 1980s, much less the 1930s.
I'm all in favor of such a rollback to freedoms. I'm just pessimistic that the current authoritarian informant Soviet censorship trends will allow such changes. Or even discussions of the desirability of them.
Hope I'm wrong. I'm as concerned with being labeled a Terrorist by Tryannical monsters today than restoring freedoms, and expect ANOTHER assault on rights here in NY as the Groping Governor tries to distract from his crimes.
The PSL is gone. The 1100 should be gone tonight The 590A1 is home. I'm keeping the 10/22 and just putting a Tac Sol SB-X barrel on it.
It's a little awkward looking, but allows for a 12" barrel without a tax stamp with a shroud that allows for a suppressor without the added length when mounted. Will lighten up the gun some as well, without any loss in accuracy.
The fancy stock for the 590A1 is a little disappointing. It's a bit heavy and the cheek piece attachment method isn't particularly sturdy. It also isn't the 13" LOP people claim it is. It's a full 14." Finally, it sits too high for bead sight use, so a shim kit is on the way. I kinda wish I just cut down and replaced the recoil pad on the original stock. I may like it better when I can get it to fit right.
My fancy 10/22 barrel is on the way. I hope I fall back in love with it again
It's been kinda fun selling off all of my extra gear, spare parts, and spare guns. It has all sold for prices ranging from decent to obscene and I'm okay with that. The market decides.
I plan on going with a 22 TCM. Hopefully I'll have it in May. .22 TCM and 9mm with a barrel change in a 1911. 17 round capacity. .22 TCM 2,000 fps out of a 5" 1911.
The 7.5 above seems to be the .22 TCM on steroids. You could even call it a copy... but most gun development for the last century is "standing on the shoulders of giants" since ( except for optics ) pretty much everything had been tried by a century ago.
Rick, I agree, generally, but it's possible something less than a century old can be good, fill a niche I want to fit, and catch on, or at least be available.
That said, I did pass on a near cherry Puma Winchester '92 clone because it was in .480 Ruger. Great gun, awesome power. Not a chance of finding ammo.
If it had been in .44 S&W Magnum? I'd buy it in a heartbeat. .357? Ditto. Even .454 Casull has a chance, especially if it would feed .45 Colt. ( not a sure thing, unfortunately ) But a caliber even Ruger gave up on & no longer offer a gun in? Nope.
Out of curiosity, which of the AR-15 compatible calibers do you think will last?
Seems like .300 Whisper ( aka the rip off .300 Blackout ) and 6.5 Grendel have staying power. I know there's a push for a 6mm from Hornady, which uses 6.5 Grendel mags, ironically, but I think the 6's are too niche.
The 6.8 SPC and .50 Beowulf, .458 SOCOM, etc. all seem to have faded away.
I'm not sure the 6.5 Grendel will hold up, I really like the ballistics, but it did get over hyped early on. Since I don't have ready access to a 1000+ Meter range, ( 200 yards at the local club ) I don't care if the Grendel is a 700 or 800 yard cartridge, it's more than good enough for deer sized critters at any practical range for the vast majority of people. More a DMR than sniper round, which is fine, if you understand the difference.
My "favorite" "failed" "cult" cartridge is the .280 Remington, preferably the Ackley Improved wildcat, which is roughly equal to 7mm Remington Magnum, but in a .30-06 bolt head and magazine/receiver package. But "favorite" is still in quotes because I never bought one. ( did miss a Ruger #1 in .280 Ackley Improved a few years back. Saw it in store, went home to think it over, and it was gone the next day. Sigh. )
I can still buy .454 casull and .22 TCM off the shelf at the local gun store. Saw it this week. Those two have become the commonly available. Didn.t see any 9mm, .45acp, or .45LC there.
...and 45Colt only survives because of the goofy .410 revolvers that were a fad for a while. There's less and less 45ACP handguns on the shelves these days, it seems.
That said, were I forced to use a handgun offensively it would be a 5" barreled .45ACP.
Waiting days for a $250 barrel to ship is aggravating, but so is the state of things these days. I really hate having a perfectly good gun in parts.
The big concerns were barrier penetration, staying accurate at 1000 yards plus ( still supersonic, because when a projectile drops below the sonic "barrier" the shock wave can die out unevenly and cause a wobble in the bullet. ) and better terminal effects than a .22...
Basically, they've duplicated the ballistics, with modern bullets, and in an AR platform, of the 1895 Lee Navy rifle.
While, ironically, the .50 Beowulf was a shot at doing the same with the 1873 .45-70 Government. And is better than the original load with black powder. A proven game cartridge for pretty much everything except the African Big 4 ( or 5? ) depending on local laws.
The Old Lee Navy was complained about at the time, as it was the first small bore smokeless cartridge in service, based on the Swiss inventor/genius Rubin's work on ballistics. It only served a fairly short time, before being replaced by the .30-40 Krag, and then the ( Mauser copy ) .30-03 and then .30-06
It was a busy turn of the century for arms development and quartermasters.
It'll be interesting to see the feedback from users. The 6mm Lee was a disappointment to troops moving down from a big horse killing .45 black powder round, so troops moving up from a .22 Varmint round should have different prejudices.
Then again, the Army loves wasting time and money on big dollar projects that go nowhere. They've been trying to replace 5.56 with some wonder weapon since the 80's, and it took them decades to replace the M9 pistol...with their ultimate choice being mildly disappointing.
Everyone else has figured out how to get more range out of 5.56 while having decent terminal ballistics. For longer range stuff...I though we had that figured out for a while.
You have the problem that nothing is going to make 5.56 NATO a .220 Swift, not in a gas operated arm. Nor is that desirable, barrel life would be measured in magazines instead of thousands of rounds.
The reasons for an intermediate cartridge haven't changed. Nor have the problem that 5.56 or 7.62x39 isn't ideal for machine guns. And 7.62x54r or 7.62 NATO is still heavier in multiple ways, than desired.
It's probable that somewhere between 6-8mm is the sweet spot, but it's always compromise.
The sweet spot in old guns IMHO is in the 6.5mm Swedish & 7mm Mauser, 6.5mm Carcano & 6.5mm Japanese, As far as ballistic performance goes. Both Italy and Japan chose to upgrade the old bottlenose 6.5 to a Spitzer 7.x ( .30-40 Krag power levels, which are actually plenty good ) but still were transitioning when WW2 happened.
Hit somewhere in that area with an AR platform and that's As good as it gets.
Still, the Army won't switch over until the next generation of guns makes it irrelevant.
As to .45ACP, if you don't live in a magazine size civil rights violator State, you don't see the sales are up there, just like during the Clinton Assault on Rights Ban. Many think, "if I can only have 7, make them count". True, new , better 9mm bullets have narrowed the performance gap, and the local shops are still selling more 9mm pistols, but .45 ammo sells out as fast as the 9mm, when it arrives, albeit in smaller amounts.
It would make sense to have one cartridge work for all the infantry rifles/DMR's yet suitable for medium machine gun duties.
Ultimately, the compromise is that the rifles/ammunition would be a little heavier/more powerful than necessary and the machine guns would be underpowered compared to legacy designs but their durability would likely be good.
It's all been dun befoe.
I kinda like the idea of a heavier/longer range caliber...but ultimately it would spend 99.9% of the time collecting dust.
I'm currently...essentially...getting rid of anything that isn't kept at the ready on a daily basis.
The 22's and my 9mm SBR are exempt, as they're essentially training tools. When I get my 9mm suppressor home from NFA jail, that may change.
The 10/22 is a capable game getter and pest control device...and should be nicer to lug around with a 1lb lighter barrel. I'm looking forward to trying it suppressed.