Sorry

Won't happen again.

Combat Shotgunnin'

So I'm about halfway through Stressfire II: Advanced Combat Shotgun by Massad Ayoob, and so far, I'm liking it.  I haven't read Stressfire I yet, but it's on the list.  II is all about shotguns though, and I is only referred to in passing once or twice.

Like I said, I'm about halfway through it right now, but the book is set up with the first half being about gear and ammo and the various hard technical aspects, and the second half concentrates on technique, so it's a good spot to pause, and I need some content anyway.  One of the things I'm liking is it seems that Mr. Ayoob's thoughts on semi versus pump seem to mirror my previous, less educated thoughts on the subject.  The biggest thing being where I only have my mediocre common sense and limited personal experience, he has a massive background and can dig up the numbers to back it up.  He mentions that one department he worked with switched from pump action Ithicas to Benelli autos, and the qual scores went through the roof, and has noticed it in other places as well. (pg47)  As for other action types, "two shot guns are for users with two digit IQs."

One word of caution, Chapter 3 is not for the squeamish.  On the other hand, if you want some good looks at what you can accomplish with a shotgun against human flesh, you won't be disappointed.

He also goes into the various chamberings available, and of course challenging the proliferation of the 12 gauge.  Turns out a 20 gauge loaded with #3 buck is damn impressive, 20 some projectiles, similar velocity to the same out of a 12, yet lower recoil.  (Downside being that your 000, 00, and #1 balls don't stack well in a 20 gauge shell.)  .410, conversely, even with a slug, gives you at best the same terminal ballistics as a decent .44mag or .45acp, so why hinder yourself with a long gun to get pistol effects?  (Let alone out of a handgun... but that's another subject all on it's own.)

The book is getting a little dated, the newest coolest semi talked about is the Benelli Super 90, albeit with much praise, but I can't help but wonder how he would compare it to the M4 (I'm sure there's an article out there somewhere.)  And nothing whatsoever about the newest Mossbergs (no semi's from them at all at the time of writing.)

Overall though, so far I'd say it's possibly the best practical shotgun book I've read to date.  Give it a few weeks and hopefully I'll have re-read Tactical Shotgun: The Best Techniques And Tactics For Employing The Shotgun In Personal Combat and get into Defensive Shotgun, the Techniques and Tactics and see how they stack up, plus some range time to try out some of the techniques.

Part of me wants to laugh...

But the geographer/geologist in me wants to cry...



I'm sure most of you have seen it, but... wow... just....... wow.  Although it would be interesting to see an island capsize.

That time of year.

In true Wisconsin style, April was flung upon us with a beautiful day with a high of 81F.  So of course I was in classes most of the day.  Hooray.

Anyway, got home, and drug out the hard tail, my trusty Trek 6500,

dusted off the proverbial cobwebs, lubed up the chain and cables and pedals, and went for a short re-familiarization ride.  The standard "there's a pedal around there somewhere, clip dang it!" ride mixed with a touch of "crap am I'm out of shape."

The other fun thing is not only remembering which gear lever does what, but getting over the muscle memory of my usual commuter's brakes.  I easily put the most miles on my beat up old pseudo-track bike;

BIG track ring in front (55 tooth I think...) and a little 16t cog in back, and only a brake up front.  The way to get this rig to stop fast is to slide off the saddle and get your crotch like two inches away from the stem, putting all your weight into that front wheel.  Brakes on the rear make things a bit different to say the least...

I also was thinking about how the price/use relationship on these two bikes is so unlike my guns.  With the exception of .22lr, I easily put more rounds through my most expensive centerfire guns than my cheaper ones.  The bikes, on the other hand, are a completely inverse relationship.  The Trek is by far the most expensive of the bikes I own, but probably gets the least amount of use, where the Kabuki cost me maybe $150 (I put new wheels on it last year) and I use it nearly everyday, as you can tell by the shape of the steel frame.  Three Wisconsin winters have been hard on the girl.  One of these days I'll take it apart as much as I can and give it a good sanding and paint job...

Also, note to all of you people in those big four-wheeled driving contraptions: on your steering column's left side (as you look at it from your seat) is a stick.  It's pointing to your left, and can move up and down.  Moving it up will let those around your machine know you plan to turn right, and down signifies left.  If you would like to avoid bicycle shaped dents in your side panels, try using them.  If your turn signal is on I'm much less likely to try to cut past you as you linger, seemingly lost in thought, at an intersection.

Monster Hunting

Wouldn't feel too under gunned with this one.

It was only a matter of time...

(found in the Keep Your Laws Off My Guns group on facebook... lots of fun stuff)

Sig E2 update

I keep getting lots of search hits for the Sig E2 pistols, so I'ma toss up more info for those people.

Sig has them up on their site now (P226 E2 & P229 E2) (not sure how long they've been up, but they're there) with a MSRP of $1,149 for either, around $150 more than the base models.  The E2s do come with night sites (optional on the plain ones for about $75) and short reset triggers though, so about the same as a comparable non-E2.  And I'm sure the street price will be a bit less, at least if you have a dealer that isn't trying to screw you or in a corporate owned giant box.

Amazon.com

Just added a new feature, so playing a bit.  Currently reading this for at least the 5th time:














 (It's a once a year at least read)
My copy is holding up pretty well though, unlike Starship Troopers, I'm on my third copy of that one...

Bring it on James...

"That's right," Cameron said. "I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads."

Why is it that the most liberal anti-gun hippy jack@sses always go straight to violence?

The Women and High Caliber Recoil Fallacy

So I took some less experienced shooters out to the range today, and it was the first time ever handling pistols for a few of them.  One of the shooters was my coworker Trescha.  When planning for the trip her request was "something cool, that's not too big and is going to hurt me," so we started out with the little P22 to get down the basics.

(Note, if you wear glasses, it's pretty easy to forget eye pro for those that don't.  I'm just used to it always being on my face.  Need to make a checklist one of these days.  There were plenty of earplugs though.)

So we put a couple mags through, and she feels pretty good. So I ask if she wants to try something with a little more bang.  After getting her a good solid thumbs forward grip, and reassuring her that the slide's not gonna bite her with the nice wide beaver-tail grip safety, she proceeds to send big fat bullets downrange, and score some pretty good hits.  No limp wristing, no flinching, no problem depressing the grip safety, just mighty fine shooting for the first time ever shooting handguns, let alone a full-size Kimber 1911.

Notice the brass still hanging in the air, and the gun already back on target.

Case just exiting the chamber...

...and back on target before the brass hits the grass.

It never fails, somebody walks into a gun shop, or logs on to a gun forum, and asks what kind of gun would be good for their wife/girlfriend/daughter/mom, someone will always say that a small frame, small caliber, and probably pink gripped auto or revolver is what they want.  There's some misconception that girls can't handle the recoil of a large bore auto, or that there's just too much gun for them to handle.

It's not a miracle, and Trescha's not endowed with super human strength.  It's simply a case of nobody told her she couldn't.  I simply said it's going to buck a bit more than the Walther did, but it's not going to hurt her, and made sure she had a good grip with plenty of meat on the gun and good stance.  By the end of the day, the 1911 was easily her favorite gun out of the dozen or so we had out there, and was asking how much they go for.

Anyway, just a proud teacher rambling.

Mmm... two of my favorite things.

Machineguns and bacon.

(H/T: ENDO)

Back down on Tuesday...

Grumbles.  Paperwork was misread and I need to go back Tuesday/Wednesday for the physical and everything.  Blah.  I strongly dislike Milwaukee.

ETA: To the couple in the room next door last night; I'm glad you were able to get over the argument earlier in the evening and shared in some very enthusiastic prayer later in the night.  At least I assume it was prayer, as the female half was quite positive and loud in her appeals to the most popular of deities, and my frail, heavily sleep deprived mind refuses to imagine it was anything else.  It was just a little rough on those of us who had 4am wake-up calls.

Sitting in Milwaukee

At the hotel.  And MEPS is still a bunch of sitting around and waiting.

M&P 15-22 for Home Defense

I've noticed this search phrase pop up on the sitetracker a couple times today, so I think I'll be a nice guy and give my thoughts towards the subject.

In short, only if you don't have any other guns.  Or your only other gun is a bolt action .22lr, and even then, you may be better off with that one.

On one hand, .22lr is cheap, and cheaper ammo makes for more range time.  They are also low recoil, so gun-shy people tend to flinch less, and follow up shots can be made much faster.  And the S&W has all sort of rail-estate to throw lights and lasers on, which are good in a midnight home-defense situation, and is endowed with all the ergonomic goodness of the AR platform.

On the other hand... Gun savvy people know that the .22lr is far from a fight stopper.  It can work, and yes, people have been killed by the little 22, but like many other things, why settle for "maybe" when better is available?  The small diameter, 40 grains at most, often just barely super-sonic bullet just doesn't deliver much energy to your target.

More importantly, .22lr is notorious for mediocre quality control.  It's pretty much a given that in any given bulk pack of .22lr, you'll have a handful of rounds with poor primer distribution and fail to go bang.  .22lr semi-autos also tend to be very dirty little guns, leading to more reliability issues, and rimmed cartridges are always an issue with semis.  Every semi-auto 22 I've used has jammed at some point, from the venerable 10/22 to the cheapest Remchester Walmart special.  It's the nature of .22lr semi-autos.  The last thing you want during a home defense scenario you'd want would be any sort off failure.

All that being said, for generally less than the cost of an M&P15-22, you can pick up a decent pump shotgun of some shape or form, load it up with 00 buck, and have a much more reliable fight stopper than you'll find with any .22lr semi.  Just my $.02, and YMMV.  My go to home defense set-up is my Sigpro 2022 with an attached light.  Gives me a hand free to grab my cell phone so they can get there faster and clean things up so I can go back to bed.

Squee!

Had to get it out of my system.  Got a few packages today, Mr. Ayoob's shotgun book, some cool model bases from Kiwi-land, and these:

Mr. Correia's blog is on the list to the left, and from there you can order yourself some patches and paperbacked awesome.  If you're into guns and enjoy sci-fi/fantasy, and haven't read his book yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

Should help kill time at MEPS the next couple days...

Pic of the Day, Kool-aid Edition

Gear-gasm

Soldier Systems posted a new camera from Olympus, their new Olympus Stylus Tough 8010 14MP Digital Camera.

Crushproof up to 220lbs, shockproof up to 6.6ft, waterproof to 33ft...
My first ever digital was an Olympus of some sort, and it was a combat casualty in Afghanistan. Had it on my vest, and it ended up bouncing off the butt of my rifle during a convoy down to Kabul.  The camera still worked, but the LCD screen was shattered, so you couldn't really change the settings or know if the card was full.
My replacement was another little Olympus, and that one took a hit one day biking.  Took a spill on a hilly road doing about 20mph, landed on the camera in it's little cloth case, slide about 15 feet down the road on top of it... no damage.  Not even a scratch.  It's served me well for quite some time, and I still take it kayaking and stuff, but the 4.1 megapixel sensor is just pushing it for me these days, and I know it's not waterproofed for more than a light rain.
Needless to say, I've been pretty impressed with the durability of the little Olympus point and shoots, so one that's reinforced and built to take abuse is simply a fantastic prospect.  Plus it comes in black for the tacticool points.
Of course, I need another camera like I need another gun.........................

Tactical Shotgun Application

I'm quickly realizing that there doesn't seem to be much material on the subject produced in the last 20 years, especially with the AR platform gaining so much favor.  I've got a couple books (Gabriel Suarez's and Massad Ayoob's is on the way) and I will probably do a write up of them when I have time to go through them in detail, but if you know of any others out there let me know.

A-10s over Kandahar

A pretty cool article about A-10s with plenty of pictures.  I spent lots of time around them during my time at Bagram (we essentially built their parking lot) so a few memories were stirred (good ones though, I love those ugly birds).

Leaps and Bounds

Mag clamp and front sling bracket.

On a lighter note

From Strange Maps:

Gotta have a little state pride.

November...

...will be interesting.

Another 40k vehicle?

Not Sure of where the pic is from, but it would fit right in with some of the bigger Imperium tanks.

40k stuff...

Mentioned the Forgeworld Tauros Venator before.  Still looks cool, but the price is a bit high for something I wouldn't use much in a game.
Forgeworld just released pictures of the Tauros Assault Vehicle, a version with one less axle and either a grenade launcher or heavy flamer from the look of things.

I like the Mk19 style, even though it appears to be a dual feed (which works well for 40k rules) and as usual, Forgeworld packed the sucker with detail.  The gunner even has a strap seat deally along the lines of what the Army's rigged up for humvee gunners.  Hopefully the smaller size brings the price down closer to what I'm willing to pay.

Something that pisses me off...

AG A$$hat, er Holder, opening his mouth.  It almost never fails that when he does that, I get angry.

In testy exchanges with House Republicans, the attorney general compared terrorists to mass murderer Charles Manson and predicted that events would ensure "we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden" not to the al-Qaida leader as a captive.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around why we would be reading him Miranda rights in the first place.  He is not an American citizen, he will not be captured on American soil.  He is responsible for an act of war that took place on American soil, and so were some Germans back in WWII (well, attempted anyway), would we have had to read them their rights if they had been around then? (They've only been around since 1966)

Well, according to the Supreme Court, and the letter of the law and whatnot, yeah, we would have.

However, these were non-uniformed operatives working to commit an act of war.  They were tried in a military court as such and shot.  Foreign saboteurs trying to kill Americans aren't looked upon kindly.  The Supreme Court even backed it then.

The Geneva Convention notes that uniforms are not necessary, just that any organized militia or such needs to have something that identifies them as such from a distance, an obvious commanding officer, and be openly displaying weapons.  However these are pretty much the last thing Al Queda wants to do, and on top of that,  they don't follow any of the rules anyway. Those giant red crosses on a medical helicopter are nothing but a giant target identifier to them.

The Germans knew it back in WWII, after dressing up as civilians to get behind enemy lines, they'd make damn sure to get back in uniform before attacking, otherwise they would be granted no rights as POWs.  When OSS agents and the like dropped into France, they knew damn well that the had none of the rights that the soldiers of the 82nd would have when they jumped in.  They knew if they were caught they'd be tortured and killed and nobody could complain.

As I see it, Al Queda and  the like terrorists essentially have no rights under the GC and the Laws of Land Warfare.  Essentially, by participating in non-uniformed actions, committing numerous atrocities, and breaking truckloads of other international laws, they have given up their rights, as far as international laws are concerned, as human beings.  You could shoot them on sight without much worry.

Then again, I'm not a lawyer.  I'm a line grunt at heart, and my view of things can be pretty simple at times.  I almost fully support the shoot on sight concept, if it weren't for enough exposure to the intelligence aspect of things to know that some good intel can do wonders.

So what I can't figure out, is why these wastes of organic matter (remember, I don't think of them as people anymore) that have no rights as far as international laws are concerned, suddenly are afforded the rights of an American citizen?  Granted, the way the Bill of Rights reads is "all men," not just Americans, and those rights should extend to all people, even illegal immigrants or anybody arrested and tried in the United States.  But Al Queda operatives technically have as many rights as a rabid wolf.  It's quite dangerous, but it's still a living thing, and should be put out of it's misery quickly, but we're not gonna hold a dang trial over it, let alone make sure to treat the wolf nicely while we get it set up.

The apparent difference with current terrorists and the Germans back in 1942 is that back then, there was an "official" war going on.  Congress had passed a law the title "Declaration of War" making things all pretty and by the book.  The current administration doesn't think that we are at war with terrorists.  "The  Global War on Terror," that damn thing I have two freakin' medals from, isn't a war, and even calling it that is no longer allowed.  (On another note, I've been out for a bit, can you still earn a GWOT?  Or is there some new name equivalent?  Not the Iraq or Afghan Campaign medals, but something for guys in Kuwait or Qutar and the like?)

But the best reasoning I've been able to find as to why we're giving them rights, is a chunk of the Geneva Convention along the lines of:

An unlawful combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a civilian who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action.

That's out of the Geneva Convention, a set of rules governing warfare.  I thought we weren't at war with them, why are we following rules of warfare?

The only thing I agree with Holder on is the fact that his "rights," if read, will be read over his corps.  If the guys that do finally get him find him alive, given what some SEALS are going through, I'm sure he'll be combative right up till a round makes it's way right between his beady eyes, and then we can all congratulate the soldiers fantastic marksmanship in combat, being able to place such a precision shot under such strenuous conditions.  At least that's how the report will read.

Hmm... the sun disappeared behind the neighbor's house, so the porch is a cold shadow now... Guess we'll call this one.

Not sure if I should be laughing...

Or stocking up on ammo...

I've noticed this domain name a few times before...

And a little later today there's this one...

I've seen the first one followed closely by the Pentagon's ISP too..............

Speaking of Brady...

A lovely field guide to identifying their scat on Sharp as a Marble.

Brady Excavation Services

A petition didn't work, and borderline slander didn't go too far, so let's try just some good old elementary school tactics. I did have the same thought when the story first broke, but for the same reasons that Sebastien brings up, I quickly realized that it's not going to happen.

I've worked at a few jobs over the years where you are wearing a uniform. All the way from the Boy Scouts, the Army, LE/Security work, and corporate retail. Any time you are wearing a uniform, you no longer are an individual to any random stranger/customer. You are (insert employer's name here) and all of your actions are judged so. If you happen to be working for an employer the public views as successful, and you do something sufficiently stupid, lawsuits against your employer will occur, and you're gonna be looking for a new job with a really poor reference from your most immediate former boss. Good luck. Granted (insert big name here) could care less about what happens to you, they do care about the lawsuit and resulting press.

So they put clauses in contracts and make company policies to prevent things from getting that far. Pretty straight forward.

What I do love, though, is the fact that the Brady Campaign is scratching for any little thing to draw out the stupidity as long as they can. Starbucks has nicely asked, a couple times now, for everybody to just back off. For the most part, aside from buying coffee and a few metaphoric pats on the back, the gunnies have shown a willingness to move on. But the Brady Campaign, like an annoying little purse dog, just doesn't know when to stop, and, at least in my mind, just make themselves look more and more idiotic. Of course I don't like them anyway, so I'm perfectly happy with them expending all sorts of money, time, and energy into pursuing the result they want, and will never get, and dragging their own name through the mud in doing so.

Keep it up guys, I'll even donate a shovel to help you dig faster.

Pic-O'the-Day

A green carbine for St. Patrick's Day.

Nordic Magazine Tube Extension

I ordered a +5 model for the new shotgun, showed up while I was at class. Look how nice it tucks up under the 24" barrel.

Instillation is pretty straight forward, strip down the front half of the gun, unscrew the factory tube so you can get the guts out, take a big long dowel to tap out the pluggy deally (technical term) from the end, screw tube back on, reassemble the front half sans tube guts, screw on extension in place of the old cap. Now comes the hard work. Unscrew the end of the tube extension, drop in the follower (make sure it's pointed the right way) slide in the new spring, measure 10-16 inches from the end of the extension (I did 16" to be safe, you can always cut it down more if need be) wiggle the spring all the way in, and screw the cap on. The end has a hole you can stick a cleaning rod in to help guide the spring if you need it.

It looks good, but will make disassembly a little awkward, as that will now involve unscrewing the extension and dealing with a long squirrelly spring. But the gun now holds 9+1, so I can handle it I guess. Hopefully I'll be able to get out to the range this weekend or something and make sure it works right and I don't have too many hangups inside.