General gun stuff
Light blogging today, but take a look at these BIG guns!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Somewhere out there, someone is disappointed that the title does not refer to scandalous pictures!
I had a long weekend, working as an assistant instructor in a rifle class. A very small class compared to others, but it still occupied a couple days of productive time. I'm back in the office today to catch up on a ton of paperwork.
Not to worry, though, because I've got a great link to a Dark Roasted Blend story. Normally we see their content in the FRIDAY SURPRISE, but today they've provided something that is more-or-less on topic: guns. Really big guns. Guns where the powder is measured in barrels, not grains.
Have a look.
-=[ Grant ]=-
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In praise of the "boy's rifle"
Monday, July 21, 2008
When I was a kid (which was not all that long ago - at least I don't remember it being all that long ago) we had "boy's rifles." Today they're known by a more politically correct term, but as Juliet said "That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet."
The boy's rifle was chambered in .22 LR, and was most often a single-shot bolt action - though repeaters were not unheard of. Their wood stocks were sized slightly smaller to fit a teenager's frame (before the days when teenagers were routinely 6' tall and weighed in over 180 lbs), and were slim from butt to forearm. The grip area was smaller in circumference to fit shorter fingers, and the receivers and barrels were similarly proportioned.
Though not normally fitted as nicely as the adult-oriented rifles in their respective lines, they usually shot pretty well. Some, in fact, were downright amazing, especially considering the very simple sights they carried.
People used to larger guns are often astonished when they pick up an old boy's rifle; light weight, quick handling, and superb pointing characteristics are almost foreign concepts today. Unfortunately, those attributes usually lead to snide comments about feeling "like a toy." Were they to actually shoot one - or, better yet, pack one into the field - perhaps their opinions would change. I know mine did!
Like many people, I have a number of "adult" .22 rifles, none of them weighing under 7 lbs. I recently acquired an old Stevens Model 66, which is a bolt action tube fed repeater. At barely 5 lbs, it's definitely a lightweight - but this 70-year-old gun, well worn on the outside but pristine on the inside, is an absolute joy to shoot.
The best word I can use is "handy". It's the kind of gun that carries unobtrusively on the shoulder, yet springs immediately to eye level when needed. It makes my "grown up" .22 rifles seem ungainly by comparison.
Give one a try. You may just get hooked - and wasn't that the whole idea behind the boy's rifle to begin with?
-=[ Grant ]=-
The gun of dreams
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
There are guns that we want - perhaps even "need" - but don't happen to have. This is not about those.
This is about the gun which consumes large amounts of our subconscious thought, in the way that the opposite sex did in high school. Though we desire others, one remains a constant; a gun that, it seems, we've always wanted and always will. Perhaps one day our dream is fulfilled, perhaps not - but it never goes away.
Admit it: you have one. We all have one.
Me? It might surprise you to know that mine is not a revolver. Don't get me wrong - there are a number of wheelguns I want but don't yet possess, the specifics changing a bit over time. My dream gun, though, has remained unchanged for many years now. That is the way of dreams.
My dream gun is a Mannlicher stocked bolt action carbine in 6.5x55 Swedish. Why? Romance, plain and simple. (That's the great part about dreams - they don't have to make any sense.)
Since I was a kid I've seen pictures of the lone hunter standing on a ridge, peering through binoculars at some unseen quarry, with "my" rifle perched on his knee. A graceful yet purposeful gun, lithe of line, whose mere presence brings gentility to the wilderness. (I told you it was romantic!)
Open up a hunting book from the '50s or '60s, and you'll probably see that picture. I have, more times than I can count. That's the reason I want one.
Of course I can recite all the technical justifications for owning my dream. I rationalize that it would make the perfect hunting rifle (which it would); the 6.5 Swede round is well suited for the game we have in North America, and it's one of my very favorite target cartridges to boot. The light weight and short barrel would make it wonderful to carry and even better to swing on target; it would be the perfect tool for "snap shooting" and tramping through our dense coastal rainforest. Yadda yadda yadda.
But, at the end of the day, it's all about peering off into the game-filled distance with the Dream perched ever-so-photogenically on MY knee.
Someday.
-=[ Grant ]=-
On scope magnification
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Moving back to the farm as I recently did has changed my shooting habits. I'm shooting a larger amount of rimfire rifle lately, not just for fun but also predator/pest control.
For all the years I lived in suburbia (which is a Kafkaesque purgatory for a simple, ignorant country boy like me) I did all of my shooting at the gun club. When I shot rimfire there I invariably took the only scoped .22 rifle in my inventory, forsaking the other iron-sighted rimfires in the safe.
Out here, where the rimfire rifle is a constant companion, the scoped rifle is too awkward to constantly carry around. The open sighted rifles are slimmer, lighter, and less delicate, which means that I'm using them more and more often.
Shooting virtually all open sights has resulted in an interesting revelation: the less magnification I have, the better I shoot.
For years I shot long range rifles with higher magnification scopes. The last centerfire I built - a marvelous 6.5-284 screamer - got topped with a relatively low power 2.5x-10x variable scope, which I've found completely adequate all the way out to 800 yards. Friends shooting at that same range would use 16x or 20x optics, and wondered why I chose the "small" magnification. Even at that time I recognized that the 10x was enough; I just didn't need any more.
As to the rimfires, my scoped rifle carries a straight 4x optic. As I shoot more with iron sights, I find that even this modest magnification is more than I really need, especially from field positions. Even at 4x, movement is sufficiently magnified that my mind starts to play the game that is the bane of precision shooters everywhere: "hurry, the crosshairs are right on target! Pull the trigger now!"
In the field, I've proven to myself that I can shoot open sights more than accurately enough. There are times, though, when a scope would be handy - differentiating target from background in dappled sunlight, for instance. In those cases I'm dreaming of a nice fixed 2.5x scope - or maybe a 2.5x-5x variable, just in case I need a bit more magnification at some point. (In my heart I know that I won't, but the "I might need that someday!" attitude is part and parcel of being an avid shooter!)
For me, less magnification is definitely the way to go.
-=[ Grant ]=-
A new (to me) gun blog
Sunday, June 29, 2008
It's always good to find a fresh face in the gun blogging world. Say Uncle, who is becoming to gun bloggers what Johnny Carson was to new performers, recently came up with another: Politics, Guns, & Beer.
Now I know what you're thinking: you're thinking the author of that title must resemble Larry The Cable Guy. Boy, are you wrong! It's written (quite well, I might add) by a 20-something gal named Laurel. She's from Idaho, is a staunch libertarian ("small-L", as she's careful to remind us), likes guns and beer (duh!), eats organic food, uses a Mac, and is cute as the dickens.
(I'm sure that last comment would probably be labeled as "sexist" by a certain segment of society. Hey, I calls 'em as I sees 'em, folks!)
She takes a less aggressive approach to gunblogging, and her topics are more eclectic than most. Check her blog out - it's worth reading.
-=[ Grant ]=-
Is the Ruger GP100 inaccurate?
Monday, June 23, 2008
It sometimes amuses me how often one hears the same question, with only slight variations. One that I've heard over the years goes something like this: "Is it true that the GP100 isn't very accurate?" Personally, I've not noticed that any of mine are, but there is more to this story.
Assuming that the gun is "in spec" with regards to its construction (forcing cone, crown, chamber/barrel alignment, etc.) it should shoot quite well. Many GP owners, however, continue to complain about the accuracy of their individual example in the absence of those identifiable deficiencies. It so happens that there is a design defect in certain models of the GP100 that will definitely reduce the precision of the gun: the sights.
Owners of fixed-sight Rugers are generally much happier with the accuracy of the GP than those who have the adjustable sights, and I can't say I blame them. The first problem is Ruger's rear sight: it stinks, to put it bluntly. Don't get me wrong, the rear sight picture isn't bad (in fact I prefer it to Smith & Wesson's); the problem is that the Ruger rear sight often won't hold zero all that well.
It starts with a body which has a very loose fit in the frame's sight channel. It continues with universally sloppy fit on the sight pivot pin - the pin that holds the sight onto the gun, allowing the body to pivot up and down for elevation changes. The elevation screw, likewise, has a lot of "wiggle" in it, and the windage screw is often not any better. The net result is a sight that can't be relied upon to stay where it's set from shot to shot.
The rear sight isn't the only problem, just the biggest one. The interchangeable front sight often shows deficiencies of it's own. It is investment cast (like the rest of the gun), but without subsequent machining the edges and serrations remain quite indistinct. The sight picture isn't all that crisp, making a sure hold on target a bit like driving a well-worn 1951 GMC 2-1/2 ton flatbed farm truck. (For those who've never had the pleasure, imagine going down the street having to constantly move the steering wheel a half-turn in each direction just to maintain something like a straight line. Now try it in the rain. At night. Get the idea?)
I've seen more than a few front sights which also weren't secure in the dovetails, causing them to wobble a bit, and there are quite a few that don't have parallel sides. (Or worse, lack a straight top!)
The fixed-sight GP100 doesn't have any of these problems, which explains why their owners tend to be more satisfied with that model's performance.
There are solutions. The best is to replace the rear sight with the terrific Rough Country sight from Bowen Classic Arms. It fits precisely, and the opposing screws that adjust windage and elevation also serve as lockdowns for those adjustments. (If you've ever adjusted the rear sight on a FAL rifle, you know the concept.) The Rough Country sights have the easy change capability of an adjustable sight, but once locked down are as rugged as a fixed sight. There is nothing better on the market, period. Absolutely the best.
The Rough Country sight has a superb sight picture, and is available with a plain black blade, a white outline blade, an "express" (shallow "V") blade, and a blank blade - so that your friendly gunsmith can provide the notch that you feel is best.
The front sight can also be replaced with a Bowen unit. The Bowen front blade is precisely made, with perfect dovetails and parallel sides. It comes as a "blank" - it must be machined to shape and height, then blued, before it is of any use. It is an expensive part, and the additional machining adds to the cost, but if you're looking for the absolute best GP100 sight picture it is the way to go.
Outfitted with decent sights the GP100 really comes into its own, easily keeping up with the best from the competition. If you've not been happy with the way your GP100 shoots, take a hard look at those sights - my bet is you'll find they aren't terribly great!
-=[ Grant ]=-
A disappointment
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
A few weeks ago the online gun community started buzzing about an impending product announcement from Freedom Arms. FA, for those not familiar with the company, makes the world's best production single-action revolvers. They are strong, accurate, and well made - and dominate the revolver divisions in metallic silhouette competition.
When the news was leaked, speculation abounded. Like many others, I was hopeful that the product would be a double-action wheelgun. I've even mentioned in this blog that I believe FA to be the only company capable of bringing back the era of finely made double action revolvers.
Sadly, we find at gunblast.com they instead brought out a single-shot pistol for the hunting/silhouette market. To quote Gomer Pyle, "I'm sure it's a sight to behold", but I can't help thinking that the engineers at FA are wasting their talents.
I still hold out hope that FA will see the light and bring us a double action. Soon. Please??
-=[ Grant ]=-
On rimfire ammunition and accuracy
Monday, June 16, 2008
Serendipity, that's what it is. Last week a consistent topic kept coming up in a variety of places: the necessity (or lack thereof) for "accurate" .22 long rifle ammunition.
"I don't shoot groups, I hunt {insert favorite furry tidbit here}."
"You can't shoot really accurately in the field anyway, so better ammo isn't worth the price."
"The ammo already shoots better than I can, so I just buy whatever is cheapest."
I believe such comments to be shortsighted. First, though, a bit of information for those not intimately familiar with the vast array of rimfire ammunition.
The .22lr is the most popular (by a huge margin) cartridge in the world. It is available in a bewildering number of forms, from the very cheapest to the "ohmigod, I could buy a good steak dinner for that amount of money!" In general, the more accurate the ammo, the more it will cost.
The odd thing, however, is that not every .22 gun (be it rifle or pistol) will necessarily shoot the most expensive ammo into the smallest group. Rimfires are notoriously finicky; you can, quite literally, take two different .22 rifles, of the same model and vintage (and very close to the same serial number) and each will have very different ammunition preferences. Sometimes the most expensive will in fact shoot the best; other times, a less expensive fodder will do the deed.
In terms of consistency, however, the more costly ammunition will win out - it simply won't vary as much from group to group, even if its absolute accuracy isn't as good. In other words, a cheaper ammo may produce a smaller group occasionally, but the more expensive stuff will shoot the same size group all the time. In the aggregate, the more expensive the ammunition, the more likely it will shoot better in any given gun.
There's no guarantee that you'll set records with more costly bullets, but it's a dead certainty that you won't with WallyWorld specials!
Back to the subject at hand...let's say that you have a rifle that at its absolute best is capable of shooting the magic 1 minute-of-angle (MOA) group (which is, for all intents and purposes, 1/2" at 50 yards.) What this means is that the group it shoots with its best ammunition choice will fit into a circle measuring 1/2" in diameter. Clear so far?
Assuming that the actual center of the group is at the actual point of aim, any shot fired will fall a maximum of 1/4" from the point of aim; this is known as 1/4" radial dispersion. If one shot lands at the extreme edge of that dispersion, and the next at the opposite side of that dispersion, the distance between them will be 1/2", which is the group size. See how that works?
Now, let's say that some other ammunition shoots 4 MOA in this rifle (2" at 50 yards.) Any shot that is fired will now land within 1" of the point of aim. That's still not bad; certainly not enough to even get you in the door at an Olympic training village, but enough to nail pop cans off the fence.
Or is it?
A standard 12oz pop can has a diameter of 2.6", or 1.3" on either side of the center. Aiming dead on that center point, with our 4 MOA ammo, means that the worst shot of the bunch only has .3" to spare to knock the can off the fence. In other words, with that ammo your aim and hold has to vary no more than .3" if you expect to hit the can with any given shot!
Will the better ammo give us an edge? You tell me...with 1 MOA ammunition, the expected radial dispersion is .25". That means that any given shot, holding absolutely dead center, now has a margin of error of 1.05". In other words, your aim and hold now has a bit over an inch of leeway to hit with 100% certainty. I'd say that's a significant advantage, wouldn't you?
Shooting is all about being able to trust your skills, but you can't get to trust your skills until you first can trust your equipment. If you practice by popping cans off the fence, how will you know if that miss was because of your skills, or because of your equipment - and is it the ammo, or the gun?
Someone will no doubt be yelling at his (or her) monitor that not every shot will be at the outer edges of the variables. In other words, an ammo that shoots 4 MOA will distribute shots all over that circle; not all of them will be in the center (otherwise it would shoot better than 4 MOA), but likewise not all of them will fall on the edge of that circle. This is true.
The trouble with this line of thinking is that we don't know where any given upcoming shot will fall. We know that it may hit in the center of its expected circle, or it may hit at the edge, or somewhere in between. We don't know where it will hit until it does; if we expect to hit the target with every shot, we have to assume the worst and prepare for it, looking on anything else as a wonderful happenstance.
It's all about probabilities. Let's take our 4 MOA ammo; it's possible that, say, 80% of its shots might fall within a 2 MOA circle. This means that 80% of the time, you have a bit over 1/2" of leeway on that pop can. Put differently, if you can aim and hold within 1/2" of center, you'll hit the can 80% of the time. If you're happy with 80%, great! (Yes, I'm aware that you can increase the hit probability by simply decreasing the distance to the target. If you're going to shoot everything from 20 feet away, you may feel free to use the worst ammo in the worst gun, and never have the need to improve your skills. Everyone wins - sort of.)
Personally, I'm not enamored with those numbers. Look at it from my perspective: I like to hunt small game with my .22 rifles, both for pest control and dinner. I'm an old farm boy who has a close relationship to the animals around him; if an animal is to die by my hand, I require that death to be as humane - quick and painless - as is possible. For me, that means headshots and instant incapacitation. If you eat small game, you know that head shots are necessary simply to maximize the amount of usable meat from the ammo. Squirrels aren't all that big to begin with!
Further, a missed shot is a lost animal; unlike targets and pop cans, they usually don't wait around for you to try again. I want 100% hit probability if I can supply the necessary foundation (sighting and hold.)
A small animal's head often has a kill zone of around 1-1/2" (even less if forced to take a frontal shot.) If I were to use ammunition that only shoots 4 MOA, that would require me to have absolutely zero error in both sighting and hold to make a clean kill at 50 yards. (Actually, it has negative error - meaning that even with perfect performance on my part, I cannot expect the ammo to deliver a clean hit 100% of the time.) At 25 yards, it doesn't get a lot better - my total allowable aim/hold error for a clean kill is a whopping quarter-inch! Can you do that from a field shooting position? Really? Every time?
Switching to the better ammunition gives me a big edge. At 50 yards my self-induced error allowance is now a half inch, and at 25 yards it is almost 3/4". It means that the chances of a successful clean kill are significantly improved by using the better fodder.
Higher quality .22lr ammunition isn't just for benchresters and group junkies. If one is just starting out, it means faster and surer skill development. For the hunter, it means greater yield and more humane treatment of the animal. In my mind, it's worth the price.
The only thing left is to get a whole bunch of different kinds of ammunition and test them all in your gun. You'll learn just how much you'll have to pay to get the accuracy you really need - not the accuracy someone insists you can settle for!
-=[ Grant ]=-
Illustrating the concept
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
A reader sent me this link to an old Richard Davis "Second Chance" video. The video has Davis shooting a fellow - who is wearing one of Davis' vests, of course - with a .308 rifle and himself with a .44 magnum revolver. The reader's comment was "if this doesn't show an energy dump, I don't know what it shows."
I agree. With the second part of the statement, at least. Going back to our "Stopping power" series, as I pointed out the term "energy dump" is nonsensical - energy isn't "dumped", it is used to do work.
What is the work in this case?
First, I can guarantee that the bullet itself was grossly deformed in its contact with the vest material. It takes energy to deform the bullet, and that energy only comes from one place: the bullet itself.
Second, there is a huge amount of work being done by that slug. It is trying to part and sever the fibers in the vest material, which are quite tough and designed to resist such force. The bullet does manage to defeat some of the fibers - which is why it's buried between the layers of cloth - but the energy required to do that job, again and again (there are many layers in a vest) rapidly depletes the bullet's stored energy. The result is that all of the energy is used up doing the work of penetrating the vest.
Again, the bullet's energy wasn't "dumped" - it was used. Understand the difference, and terminal ballistics won't seem so mysterious.
(Notice also the second myth busted in the video: that a bullet has enough energy to knock a man down. As you can see, even full-power .308 NATO, at near contact distance, isn't sufficient to knock over a man standing on one foot. Again, there is nothing mysterious at work - simply basic physics.)
-=[ Grant ]=-
The MSM takes note
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
I don't have to tell you that things are getting more expensive. While the "official" inflation rate hovers in the mid-four-percent range, look at your own expenditures versus last year. I'll bet you're spending at least 14% more than you did in 2007 - perhaps a lot more.
For a shooting hobbyist, ammo prices factor into that increase, and the mainstream media has finally noticed. I'm sure that the average lightweight yuppies reading the article are recoiling in horror that anyone would need to buy "so many bullets", but it's nice to be mentioned at least somewhat favorably. For once.
(Don't fret - I'm sure next week they'll be back to painting all gun owners as ignorant rednecked hicks, racists, and criminals. After all, they have a job to do!)
-=[ Grant ]=-
The "Holster of the Week" Club
Monday, May 19, 2008
Last week I promised a story. I heard this from "the horse's mouth", and if you knew this particular horse the story would not surprise you...
Anyhow, I happen to know a fellow (I'll call him "Ted") who, back in the '70s, was a Detective in a very large eastern police department. He had just been promoted from patrol, which meant that for the first time in his career he got to dress in plainclothes.
Ted and his more experienced partner were headed to lunch one day. They worked in a not terribly good part of town, and picked a restaurant in the vicinity of their last call. They pulled up in front of the restaurant, just behind a taxicab.
As they were exiting their unmarked vehicle a male climbed out of the cab ahead of them. He drew what Ted described as "a chrome-plated automatic", and started firing at another person who was still in the back seat of the cab.
(Allow me to digress as I explain that Ted, taking advantage of his now much looser dress requirements, had taken to wearing all manner of holsters. He alternated between a shoulder holster, crossdraw, strong side hip, appendix, and even ankle. He made the decision about which one to wear almost on a whim each morning. I'm sure you're beginning to see where this is going.)
Ted, who was exiting on the curb side of the vehicle, was in direct line of sight of the suspect. Being the gung-ho young cop that he was, he yelled "police, freeze!" as he reached for his gun. The perp turned toward the source of the command, and seeing two witnesses in suits raised his pistol in their direction and started firing.
Here's where the story gets interesting: Ted habitually reached for the spot where his uniform belt had always placed his gun. Of course, it wasn't there! I wish I could convey the level of comical panic that he did, but the gist is that he started patting himself all over, trying to find his gun while at the same time diving for cover behind his car door. "I couldn't remember where my gun was," he exclaimed to me. "I suddenly had the horrible thought that maybe I'd left it on my dresser!"
In the meantime his older and wiser partner simply drew his "snubby" revolver from the crossdraw holster he always used, and proceeded to drop said perp in his tracks. Ted found his gun just in time to help clean up the mess.
Ted told me that this incident convinced him to carry his gun in the same holster and in the same place every day. His advice to me was that I should do likewise - and I always do.
A firefight, gentle readers, is not the time to try to remember where you put your gun, or where your bullets are landing relative to your sights. Standardize on your load and your holster, and practice regularly so that you can quickly draw and reliably put your shots where they need to go!
-=[ Grant ]=-
Self defense, stopping power, and caliber, Part 9
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
(For convenience, you can
access all the installments
at this link.)
Stick with what works
You've all heard of the "Gun of the Week" club, right? That's the term used to describe an "enthusiast", the guy (gals are too smart to engage in such nonsense) who carries or competes with a different gun every time he goes out. (Closely related is the "Holster of the Week" club. I'll post an amusing story about that, soon.)
There is also the "Bullet of the Week" club. Some folks read the gun magazines assiduously, loading up with the latest and greatest "stopper" from the current issue. The next issue (or possibly a competing magazine) tells them about yet another new bullet, and off to the gunstore ammo shelves they go!
There are problems with this approach. Aside from the fact that one is unlikely to see any major performance differences between modern designs from major makers, there is a reliability issue. If you're shooting an autoloader (an affliction which elicits my sincere sympathies), you need to fire a minimum of 200 rounds of your chosen ammunition to ensure reliability. That's a lot of ammunition to buy and shoot every time you change loads!
Even with a revolver, you should shoot a full box of that ammo to ensure ignition reliability in your gun, especially if you've had action work performed.
The other issue is with the sights on your gun. Fixed sights, as featured on both revolvers and autos, will not shoot all ammunition to the same point of aim, necessitating on-the-fly windage or elevation corrections. Trying to remember whether this week's ammunition choice shoots up or down, right or left, relative to the sights is hard enough. Imagine trying to do that with someone lobbing rounds into your personal airspace!
If you have fixed sights, you should regulate them to match the load you'll be using - then use that load, and only that load, for "serious" use in that gun. If for some reason you change the standard load for that gun, have the sights adjusted to shoot to point-of-aim for that load.
That's why I say "stick with what works." Pick a decent load that proves itself to be reliable in your gun, have the sights regulated properly, and just use it. Constantly switching between different bullets gains you nothing, and may in fact cost you in a dynamic self-defense incident. Pick one load, practice with it, and use only that bullet in that particular gun.
I go even further - I've standardized on one load for all my .38/.357 guns, and I've regulated all of them to shoot that load. That way, I don't have to maintain a huge stock of ammunition to fit a bunch of different guns.
I think this finally does it for the "Self defense, stopping power, and caliber" series. I'm just about "talked out"! I hope that it has given you some insight into the task of selecting a gun/cartridge for your self defense needs.
Stay safe, make sensible choices, and practice. It's all you can do - but, as it happens, all you can do is enough!
-=[ Grant ]=-
Stick with what works
You've all heard of the "Gun of the Week" club, right? That's the term used to describe an "enthusiast", the guy (gals are too smart to engage in such nonsense) who carries or competes with a different gun every time he goes out. (Closely related is the "Holster of the Week" club. I'll post an amusing story about that, soon.)
There is also the "Bullet of the Week" club. Some folks read the gun magazines assiduously, loading up with the latest and greatest "stopper" from the current issue. The next issue (or possibly a competing magazine) tells them about yet another new bullet, and off to the gunstore ammo shelves they go!
There are problems with this approach. Aside from the fact that one is unlikely to see any major performance differences between modern designs from major makers, there is a reliability issue. If you're shooting an autoloader (an affliction which elicits my sincere sympathies), you need to fire a minimum of 200 rounds of your chosen ammunition to ensure reliability. That's a lot of ammunition to buy and shoot every time you change loads!
Even with a revolver, you should shoot a full box of that ammo to ensure ignition reliability in your gun, especially if you've had action work performed.
The other issue is with the sights on your gun. Fixed sights, as featured on both revolvers and autos, will not shoot all ammunition to the same point of aim, necessitating on-the-fly windage or elevation corrections. Trying to remember whether this week's ammunition choice shoots up or down, right or left, relative to the sights is hard enough. Imagine trying to do that with someone lobbing rounds into your personal airspace!
If you have fixed sights, you should regulate them to match the load you'll be using - then use that load, and only that load, for "serious" use in that gun. If for some reason you change the standard load for that gun, have the sights adjusted to shoot to point-of-aim for that load.
That's why I say "stick with what works." Pick a decent load that proves itself to be reliable in your gun, have the sights regulated properly, and just use it. Constantly switching between different bullets gains you nothing, and may in fact cost you in a dynamic self-defense incident. Pick one load, practice with it, and use only that bullet in that particular gun.
I go even further - I've standardized on one load for all my .38/.357 guns, and I've regulated all of them to shoot that load. That way, I don't have to maintain a huge stock of ammunition to fit a bunch of different guns.
I think this finally does it for the "Self defense, stopping power, and caliber" series. I'm just about "talked out"! I hope that it has given you some insight into the task of selecting a gun/cartridge for your self defense needs.
Stay safe, make sensible choices, and practice. It's all you can do - but, as it happens, all you can do is enough!
-=[ Grant ]=-
Self defense, stopping power, and caliber, Part 8
Monday, May 12, 2008
(For convenience, you can access all the installments at this link.)
"So, smarty pants - what gun should I get?"
I receive many emails asking, in essence, what the "best" self-defense caliber might be. (Those emails, in fact, have served as the motivation behind this series.) The correspondents are probably expecting sage advice, the wisdom of years, a sort of Ballistic Oracle. What they get is a non-commital "it depends!"
If you take nothing else from this series, take this: there is no such thing as "best" - there is only "suitability for purpose."
Why is that? As we learned in the first parts, there is a pretty large envelope - caliber, weight, and velocity - of performance criteria that have shown themselves to work well. Thus, any cartridge you select within that envelope is likely to do the job, as long as you do yours.
That's the most important part: that the gun in question enables you to do your job. It is the first place you should start. You need to be honest with yourself, accurately assess what you can and cannot handle. Remember that a self-defense scenario often will call for multiple, rapid, precisely-placed shots. Can you do that with the guns that you're considering? Really? Be honest with yourself!
I see many people who are talked into a gun that is touted as a "better stopper", but who are unable to handle it to the standards given above. Most of this is technique, and technique can be learned, but everyone has some upper limit. Remember: only accurate hits count, and you should strive to maximize your hit potential. As we've explored, power is irrelevant if it doesn't get to something important!
Once you've passed that hurdle, the choices almost make themselves. In any given cartridge, if you pick a hollowpoint load in the middle of the caliber's normal weight range, you'll generally have most of what you need. There are exceptions, of course: at the lowest ends of the energy spectrum (say, standard .38 Specials) penetration becomes an issue, so you should tend to the heavier rounds. At the other end (the heavy magnums), the more powerful loads often need lighter bullets to limit penetration and enhance expansion.
For everything else, stay away from the lightest and heaviest bullets, pick a decent hollowpoint, and you'll most likely be just fine.
The most important part of this whole selection process is to practice with the load that you've chosen. If the cartridge/gun combination is "too much" for you to do so, that's a sign that you need to pick something else. You need to practice with your safety/rescue equipment, and if you can't or don't want to, then you will be less prepared to face a deadly encounter. The old trick of practicing with Specials while carrying Magnums on the street has been thoroughly discredited, because it doesn't allow the user to get used to the dramatic difference in handling between the two.
(This isn't to say that you have to do all your training this way; I do a lot of work with light loads when I'm diagnosing a trigger control issue, or to help develop a specific skill. When I've got them down, though, I switch to my carry load and train extensively with that.)
So, what do I carry? Most of the time, I load up the trusted and proven .38 Special +P 158 grain all lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoint. I've spoken with many people who have actually used this load against an adversary, and to a person they were all very satisfied with the ballistic effect. Massad Ayoob tells me that his research showed police agencies who switched from that load to hot autoloading cartridges did so not to get "better" bullets, but to get "more bullets." I'm confident in it's abilities, and in my ability to handle the cartridge from any gun under any conditions.
This is a tradeoff for me. For instance, I really like the .44 Special. It's a great round, but in a concealable gun I just don't handle it as well as other calibers. I'm honest with my limitations; increasing joint pain, particularly in my elbows, is beginning to limit what I can handle, which means that the sweet .44 Special is no longer a good choice for my primary caliber.
In fact, a hot .357 Magnum from a Ruger SP101 is easier for me to control than a .44 Special from a small gun, and the Magnum has become to be too much for me in a normal range session. I like the .357 too, but I have to admit to myself that if I want to live relatively pain free, I can't shoot it from my carry guns any more.
The result is that I've picked the most effective round that falls within my limitations, and practice with it extensively. I think that is the most rational way to approach this whole topic!
Next time, we'll explore some less obvious considerations when picking your "ideal" self defense cartridge.
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-=[ Grant ]=-
Series index: "Self defense, stopping power, and caliber"
Monday, May 05, 2008
Self defense, stopping power, and caliber, Part 7
Monday, May 05, 2008
(For convenience, you can access all the installments at this link.)
There Is No Such Thing as a Magic Bullet
What does that mean, you ask?
One of the last bastions of the snake oil salesman is in the field of ammunition promotion. Claims that would make Professor Harold Hill blush are the norm, and are repeated in gunstores, shooting ranges, and deer camps across the country. They sometimes even make their way into magazines and the internet - though the latter's instant exchange of information has helped to quell the worst of the hyperbole.
Still, many hold on to their belief in "magic bullets", hoping that there really exists something that will transform their .25ACP into an elephant killer. (I exaggerate, of course, but one ammo maker used to claim that their product for the little .25 had the same "one shot stop" percentage as a .45. That, my friends, is a true belief in magic.)
Like many fables, the legend of the Magic Bullet has its roots in reality. As Arthur C. Clarke said, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In the bullet world, that advanced technology is the hollowpoint bullet.
The hollowpoint, as we've learned, is a good mechanism to control the penetration and wound profile of any given cartridge. Sometimes, it can work what seems like a miracle - transforming an otherwise unremarkable cartridge into a respectable "stopper."
One of the best examples of this is the .30 M1 Carbine cartridge. Many servicemen had experience with the little Carbine in World War II and Korea, and they either loved it or hated it. Those that hated it often complained about a lack of "stopping power" - enemies who were hit often didn't go down with alacrity. (Some even claimed that the rounds "bounced off" the heavy wool coats worn by the opposition. That wasn't true, and was easily shown as such, but when someone is running toward you screaming his head off, a lack of convincing ballistic effect makes the distinction unimportant.)
The .30 Carbine, as it turns out, is a penetrator. Its sleek bullet usually went straight through the target, making a quick-closing wound and doing little damage along the way. (Sound familiar?) After the war, one of the ammo makers got the bright idea of stuffing a semi-jacketed hollowpoint into the casing. When they did that, the entire complexion of the carbine changed.
The penetration was now more controlled, and the expanded bullet had a much larger frontal area that did more damage along its path. So changed was the round that Jim Cirillo, the famous member of the New York Stakeout Squad, proclaimed it one of the two most effective weapons in their entire arsenal - the other being the formidable 12 gauge shotgun. High praise indeed!
He wasn't the only one who made note of the "enhanced" Carbine. The late Gene Wolburg, wound ballistics expert and one of the most knowledgeable people in the field, once said that his home defense weapon of choice was the M1 Carbine loaded with that semi-jacketed hollowpoint.
It may have seemed like magic to the servicemen who had bad experiences with the round, but the effect of the hollowpoint loading was simple physics. It did its job better - it just happened to be a lot better.
A "magic bullet", in contrast, appears to violate the laws of physics, or so skews its sales copy that you think it does. For instance, magic bullet purveyors play up the "energy" of their load, to the exclusion of everything else.
Now, understand that energy is the result of multiplying the mass of the projectile by the square of it's velocity. Without boring you with the math, what that means is that a small change in velocity makes a big change in the energy of the projectile. In other words, if you drop the projectile weight you can up the velocity, which will make a huge increase in energy figures. Sounds great, right?
Well, as we've already studied, energy isn't everything. A light projectile might be moving very quickly, but when it contacts solid matter it loses velocity quickly. That translates into shallow wounds. (Remember the last installment, where we looked at the .357 Magnum? Same thing, only worse.) The projectile needs weight as well as velocity in order to penetrate well, and if you sacrifice enough weight for more speed, you'll fail at the First Task: reaching something important.
Exotic bullets that claim to do something others can't should set off your B.S. detector. Any cartridge that proclaims a "massive energy dump" as the wounding mechanism or pushes velocity over everything else is probably vying for a magic bullet award. Personally, I'm not going to trust my life to that kind of ammo!
What I'm getting at (and have been for this entire series) is that there is nothing mysterious, nothing magic about the way a bullet works. It has to get to something important, and it has to do rapid and significant damage when it gets there. That's it. Any claims that seem to skate around the topic should be looked at with great skepticism, for there is truly no such thing as a "magic bullet."
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-=[ Grant ]=-
Self defense, stopping power, and caliber, Part 6
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
(For convenience, you can access all the installments of this series at this link.)
"What would I want with a reputation? That's a good way to get yourself killed!" - Jason McCullough, "Support Your Local Sheriff" (my favorite movie of all time!)
What about "reputation"? Some cartridges or loadings have reputations for better effectiveness than others. Sometimes that's valid, but other times it may not be.
Let's take the mighty .357 Magnum, one of my very favorite cartridges. The 125 grain semi-jacketed hollowpoint loads have the reputation of being superbly effective; some believe that they are the "best" manstoppers ever made. I've talked with people who have actually used them in real shootings, and they were very happy with the performance. But there are instances of stupendous failures.
For those who hold that energy is everything, this may come as a shock. How could all that power possibly fail? Simple - if it doesn't do both of the Twin Tasks!
Let's consider what happens with the 125 grain Magnum loads. Leaving the barrel at nearly 1500 feet per second, the bullet enters the target with a huge reserve of energy. As the hollowpoint fills with fluid and starts to expand, it uses up some of that energy to grow dramatically in diameter. The increase in diameter means more resistance in the tissues, which uses more energy and further slows the bullet. Because the relatively light weight of the slug doesn't have great momentum, and thus not a lot of stored energy, it doesn't travel very far before it finally runs out of steam. The result can be a shallow wound - one which doesn't reach something the body finds important.
This is the "ugly secret" that proponents of the .357 125 grain JHP don't want to talk about. Shallow wound profiles with these "barn burner" loads are not unheard of, and occasionally prove to not be as effective as expected. As one noted trainer once told me, when they work they are superb - but when they fail, they fail spectacularly!
Suppose you've decided that you'd prefer something a bit more predictable, but want to retain the superb performance of the round - is there a solution? Yep! Simply go to a slightly heavier bullet, one which carries a tad less velocity and a bit more momentum. Winchester, for instance, has the 145 grain Silvertip bullet, and Speer is now making a 135 grain Gold Dot Magnum load. Both are obviously designed to retain the Magnum's reputation as a fight-ender, but do so on a more consistent basis.
This is a good illustration of the tradeoffs involved in cartridge selection. Speed isn't everything; bullet size isn't everything; bullet weight isn't everything. It's a combination, a concert of all of those (plus good handling qualities as defined by the shooter) that make a round effective. One can't simply say "I've got a Magnum" or "I carry a .45" and smugly claim that one has the "perfect" self defense gun. While it may work, there is always the chance that it may not; handguns, after all, are underpowered things.
Through intelligent selection, you can dramatically improve the performance envelope of your chosen gun, regardless of the cartridge it shoots.
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-=[ Grant ]=-
Self defense, stopping power, and caliber, Part 5
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
(For convenience, you can access all the installments of this series at this link.)
More energy can be a good thing - as long as it actually does something useful.
Last time we discussed the concept of the hollowpoint as a way to increase the frontal diameter of the bullet in the target. I also introduced the idea that it takes energy to expand the bullet, energy that is also needed to push the projectile into something that it needs to reach.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. If we want the bullet to expand, it doesn't happen by magic. Somewhere the energy has to be found to deform the metal used in the bullet, and that energy can only be found in the bullet's own movement. If there is too little to start with, then there won't be enough to continue the bullet on its path.
If the cartridge has insufficient energy, when the bullet expands it will stop forward movement too rapidly, resulting in very shallow wounds that may or may not be effective. This tends to explain the lack of expanding bullets for the venerable .38 Special cartridge - there just isn't enough energy to drive a bullet deeply into the target and expand it at the same time.
How do we get around this problem? Well, the first alternative is to simply switch to a cartridge with more energy. In the case of the .38, we could bump up to the .357 Magnum. The .357 certainly has enough energy! Of course, that energy reserve comes at a price: greatly increased recoil and muzzle blast.
The other alternative is to make a higher energy version of the cartridge we already have. This time-tested tactic results in what's know as "+P" ammunition, which is the designation for a cartridge loaded beyond what is considered "normal" pressure. The idea is to increase the energy delivery of that cartridge to accomplish a specific task. Generally, it works pretty well!
You'll see criticisms on the internet of some +P loadings, usually centered on the idea that "it's not much of an increase in power." If you consider what we've explored in this series so far, you'll realize that it doesn't have to be a "lot" - it just has to be "enough"! If a cartridge at normal pressure can't quite deliver an expanding bullet to where it needs to, but a +P version does, then that is sufficient for the task at hand.
Remember: if the energy doesn't do something useful, then it is wasted from our perspective.
Get away from the idea that you need vast increases in power for defensive applications. You simply need enough power to perform the Twin Tasks. Is it better to have an large reserve amount of energy on tap? That's a question that only you can answer, after being honest about your own abilities and needs.
In the next installment we'll bring together the things we've discussed, and look at the tradeoffs you need to consider to pick your "ideal" self defense cartridge.
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-=[ Grant ]=-
Self defense, stopping power, and caliber, Part 4
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
(For convenience, you can access all the installments of this series at this link.)
The bullet is more important than the caliber.
We know that our bullet needs to do damage to whatever important thing it manages to find. How, exactly, is that going to occur? It just so happens that most animal tissue (including that of the violent felon who has just attacked you) is remarkably elastic, and consequently difficult to damage. Most tissues have a tendency to "close up" around puncture wounds, in the same way that they close up after a hypodermic needle withdraws. If they didn't, every time we get a booster shot we'd spring a leak!
The upshot (pardon the pun) of this is that our bullet needs to die-cut or crush the tissues in its path, rather than sliding cleanly through. The reputation of the old .38 Special 158 grain round nose bullet as a "widow maker" was well deserved, as it often went in one side and out the other with very little blood loss. That smooth, aerodynamic profile travels through water-filled tissue about as cleanly as through air, for all the same reasons. It neatly parts that tissue in a way that facilitates immediate closure and minimal blood loss. In our sefl-defense scenario, that's what's known as "A Bad Thing."
In fact, round nose (or "ball") ammunition is an unremarkable performer in just about any caliber; "they all fall to hardball" is right up there with "the check is in the mail" for statements you should never believe, no matter how authoritatively (read: arrogantly) delivered.
If we can get a bullet to cut or crush a non-closing hole in the target, we stand a better chance of doing the kind of work necessary to cause that target to stop in its tracks.
The amount of disruption that a handgun bullet delivers to the target is dependent on its shape/construction and on the overall diameter (caliber.) A shape that encourages efficient travel through the target is to be avoided; a shape that is non-aerodynamic will generally produce the kind of result that we seek. All other things being equal, flat-faced bullets usually beat pointy bullets.
(Personally, I pay more attention to bullet construction than caliber. Hunting and shooting experience, plus a lot of research with those more knowledgeable in the field of wound ballistics, has convinced me that there is more variation in effectiveness within calibers than between them. In other words, you're more likely to see performance differences by changing your bullet type, rather than changing calibers. )
This isn't news to any old-timers out there! Hunters in bygone days were always told to use flat-pointed bullets over round-nosed varieties, because they delivered more "shock" to the quarry. That was their non-scientific way of explaining why the bullets obviously performed differently, and what they lacked in technical jargon was more than compensated by their acute observations.
Of course there just isn't a free lunch; those flat bullets don't usually work in autoloading actions, and they make speed reloading of a revolver more difficult. There is an answer: the expanding bullet. We can actually enhance the terminal results by using a bullet (usually a hollowpoint of some sort) that grows in diameter as it goes through the target.
A hollowpoint bullet works because, as it enters the target, it expands to a greater-than-caliber frontal diameter and assumes a very flat-faced shape. This means that the bullet can crush a much larger hole than normally possible for the caliber, ensuring the kind of target damage necessary to complete the task at hand.
There are, of course, issues in making these things perform as desired: first, the work of deforming the bullet takes energy. This energy can only be come from the bullet itself, which means there is that much less available to enable the bullet to continue its travel. Second, the resulting increase in drag from that wide face also uses energy at a tremendous rate, and thus also drastically limits penetration. Because of these factors, shallow wounds from hollowpoint bullets are not at all unheard of, both in hunting and in self defense.
The solution is to a) use a different cartridge that has enough energy to spare to begin with, or b) increase the energy of the existing cartridge. We'll tackle those issues next time!
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-=[ Grant ]=-
Self defense, stopping power, and caliber, Part 3
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
(For convenience, you can access all the installments of this series at this link.)
Once it gets there, it has to do work.
In today's installment, we're going to look at the second of the Twin Tasks:
2) The bullet has to do rapid and significant damage to that thing when it arrives.
It may not be self evident, but kinetic (moving) energy is either used or conserved (stored.) In the case of a bullet, it starts being used simply by fighting the friction caused by traveling through the air. Unless it encounters a target, the bullet will use all of its energy in flight and gravity will pull it to the ground. We're interested in using that energy for lawful purposes before it's wasted in the atmosphere!
I usually refer to the second Task as "doing work", because that's exactly what is expected of the bullet. From the perspective of the target, the kinetic energy in a bullet can only do one of two things: it can be used to do work, or it can be wasted beyond the target.
(There is no such thing as an "energy dump" in a target, no matter how many times you see that nonsensical term. The energy does some sort of work, whether doing damage to tissue or pushing the bullet through the air. The bullet may use up all of the energy available, and stop inside the target, but it doesn't "dump" anything. The energy in such an event is depleted in expansion/deformation and in forward movement, both of which are work. Whether or not the work performed was useful to the goal depends on what it encountered along the way, which brings us back to the First Task.)
As the bullet traverses the target, its energy is used to push it through material more dense than the air it previously encountered. The amount of energy used in this endeavor is dependent upon the shape of the bullet; the more streamlined the projectile, the smaller the frontal profile, the less energy is expended in pushing it through the target. Conversely, the "flatter" the bullet profile, the more energy is necessary to move it through.
Think of a rowboat paddle - easy to move through the water edge first, much harder face first. If the bullet expands in the target, some of the energy is used to deform the bullet itself, and the rest is used to push the much larger, flatter profile through the target. In some cases, it uses up all its energy trying to get through the target and never makes it out the other side. This is why, as we touched on in Part 2, penetration can be controlled through the use of an expanding bullet.
At some point, we hope that the bullet finds something that the body deems necessary for function - and disrupts that functioning. That item could be structural (skeletal) - where disruption causes collapse; It could be electrical, where interruption of signals causes instantaneous nervous system malfunction; or it could be vascular (plumbing), where large leaks cause a loss of pressure that eventually results in unconsciousness.
Whichever system is compromised, the bullet needs to use some of its energy to do the necessary work of disruption. This is why I say that the bullet has to do rapid and significant damage to something when it arrives; if it gets there, but has so little energy left that it is incapable of inflicting necessary damage, then it might as well have not gotten there to begin with.
(This is not to suggest that the bullet's wound in such a case is benign or trivial! Remember, we have a task for that bullet to accomplish; if it doesn't do so in the necessary time frame, then it is useless to us. The classic example is the attacker shot with a .22 but still able to complete his assault. He might die of peritonitis a few days later, proving that the wound is not unimportant. However, it didn't complete our goal of stopping the criminal before he could harm an innocent, making it irrelevant to our situation. Keep the end in mind!)
Now that we understand the Twin Tasks, we'll take a look at the mechanisms by which all this might be accomplished. Until next time!
<--- Click here for the previous episode ..................... Click here for the next episode --->
-=[ Grant ]=-
Self defense, stopping power, and caliber, Part 2
Monday, March 31, 2008
(For convenience, you can access all the installments of this series at this link.)
If it doesn't get somewhere, it can't do something.
OK, so we know about the Twin Tasks, the two things that a bullet has to do in order to stop an attacker:
1) It has to get to something the body finds important, and
2) It has to do rapid and significant damage to that thing when it arrives.
Today we'll be taking a look at Task #1: getting to something important.
Let's start by pointing out that the user of the bullet must be capable of putting it on a course that will lead it to something important. If the cartridge in question presents too much of a challenge for the shooter to handle with the requisite accuracy, it doesn't make any difference how "good" the cartridge is!
This is only given lip service by trainers and enthusiasts; they'll repeat the mantra "a hit with a .22 is better than a miss with a .45", then in the same breath give some arbitrary limit on "acceptable" calibers for self defense. Folks, there are people in this world who do not wish to, or simply cannot, practice to become proficient with a "correct" caliber. When the time comes that they need the weapon, wouldn't it be better that they possess a bullet that they can send where it really needs to go? Of course!
Step One, then, is pick a cartridge that is within your ability to control.
Once the bullet is in the air, it has to negotiate all obstacles to reach a vital organ of some sort. This requires that it get through any outer shell (clothing), past the skin (which is a lot tougher than you might believe), and alternating layers of bone and muscle. It has to have what's known as 'penetration'.
Penetration is dependent on several things: the weight of the bullet, the diameter (caliber), the velocity, and the shape. If we were to take two bullets of different weight, but of the same caliber and shape and traveling at the same velocity, the heavier one would penetrate further. We can do the same comparison for any of the factors, as long as the others remain the same. If we had two bullets of different shapes - a round nose and a wadcutter - with everything else the same, the more streamlined bullet (the round nose) would penetrate further. Simple, right?
When we look at expanding (softnose or hollowpoint) bullets, which increase their diameter at some point in the target, the situation changes. The increased frontal are of the expanded bullet acts like a parachute, slowing it more rapidly and reducing penetration. Sometimes penetration can be reduced so much that the bullet will not reach anything important, and we're back to that unreliable psychological incapacitation thing again.
Remember that too much penetration can be as bad as too little. Having a bullet that sails through the target without doing much work, or (worse) encountering another (possibly) innocent target beyond, is not a good thing. Hence it behooves us to have a bullet which demonstrates sufficient penetration, but not an excessive amount.
It's not uncommon to find a cartridge that, when loaded with streamlined, roundnosed bullets, goes through multiple targets - but when loaded with expanding bullets stops inside the desired one. As it turns out, this behavior has major benefits in terms of terminal effects, which we'll cover next time.
<--- Click here for the previous episode ..................... Click here for the next episode --->
-=[ Grant ]=-
Turned out to be more work than I anticipated!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
I'd hoped to have Part Two of the Self defense, stopping power, and caliber series up today. As I was writing over the last couple of days, I found myself adding more and more information to try to make sense of it all. That's a problem when trying to explain a complicated subject in a manner that is clear, concise, and still readable. It's proving to be a challenge for this amateur wordsmith, but I'm not giving up!
Stay tuned, it's coming...in the meantime, take a look at this story. What an idiot.
-=[ Grant ]=-
Self defense, stopping power, and caliber
Monday, March 24, 2008
I've gotten a bunch of emails recently regarding the choice of an appropriate self-defense caliber and/or bullet. Around this one topic swirls more misinformation - and outright inanity - than any other I can think of. And now, here's mine!
What follows is a layman's understanding, backed by research of available literature and years of hunting and shooting experience, of the practical mechanics of wound ballistics. It is not intended to be a complete and exhaustive study of the subject. Instead, I hope to give my readers - who are, in all likelihood, laypersons themselves - a solid base of information to help make good decisions when choosing self defense ammunition.
Let's start by understanding that in a self-defense scenario our goal is simply to cause the perpetrator of a crime to cease immediately his/her antisocial activities. That's it - we want the miscreant to quit doing whatever it was that caused us to draw our gun in the first place. The closer to "immediately" that this occurs, the better for all concerned.
There are two mechanisms by which this can be accomplished: psychological incapacitation and physical incapacitation.
The first - psychological incapacitation - is the least predictable of the two. Some people will stop and run when grazed by a well-thrown rock, others will soak up all manner of chemical, electrical, and physical deterrents without so much as flinching. Since it's all in the mind, and minds vary significantly (especially when intoxicated in some form), we cannot count on delivering a reliable jolt to a criminal's psyche. We must instead focus on doing enough physical damage to cause cessation of action through reduction of motor skills.
On this subject has been constructed all manner of measures, each attempting to quantify the unquantifiable: "One shot stops." "Knockout index." "Wound channel volume." There are more, and none of them ever seem to agree (at least most of the time) on what actually works.
Well, folks, hunters have known something for a very long time, and it has been proven in the field again and again: to reliably put the brakes on a living entity, a bullet must do what I call The Twin Tasks.
1) It has to get to something the body finds important, and
2) It has to do rapid and significant damage to that thing when it arrives.
That's it. Either, by itself, simply won't deliver the results we seek (at least, not in the physical sense.) If the projectile fails at either of these Tasks, any success that occurs is in fact a product of psychological incapacitation, which we already know to be both unpredictable and unreliable.
Keep in mind that as the bullet traverses the target, it may repeat the Tasks; in other words, it may encounter more than one thing the body finds important. The more times that it does, and then completes the second Task, the faster the incapacitation is likely to occur. (Note that I didn't say "will", only "likely to". Handgun rounds are underpowered things, and with them nothing is ever certain.)
Within certain limits, it doesn't really matter what the caliber is or what the bullet is made of or how fast it travels, as long as it does both of the Tasks. That's why there seems to be such a wide range of calibers, weights and velocities that have shown "good" results in self defense shootings, and why arguments about "stopping power" rage on the gun forums: there is, as the saying goes, more than one way to skin a cat.
Remember, as long as both Tasks are accomplished, the envelope of "how" they are is large enough to encompass a variety of approaches.
The reason that the "heavy and slow" and "light and fast" bullet camps exist is because, generally, their choices just happen do both of those Tasks on a fairly regular basis. Arguing about which is the "better" approach is really quite silly, because when they work it's because they did both Tasks, regardless of the actual mechanism; when they fail, it is simply because they didn't do one (or both) of the Tasks, again regardless of their physical attributes.
It's at this point that someone invariably chimes in "but my cousin is engaged to a girl whose brother-in-law heard about a guy who saw someone shot fifteen times with a 9mm, and the victim was still able to walk into a French restaurant, order a 5-course meal, eat, chat with the sommelier, and stiff the waiter before finally collapsing on the sidewalk while waiting for his cab! That's why I carry a .467 Loudenboomer Ultra Grande - if it hits them in the pinky the hydrostatic shock wave will knock them down!"
I'm exaggerating, you understand, but if you regularly haunt the gun forums you'll recognize that it isn't all that far off.
Yes, small caliber bullets fail. Guess what? Large caliber bullets fail, too. As someone once told me, "put on your big-boy pants and deal with it!"
A good friend gave me a first-hand account of a battle incident wherein a fellow absorbed several very large caliber, solid torso hits, and was still able to jump from his vehicle and cross a road before finally collapsing.
The gun in question? A .50 caliber heavy machine gun.
Yes, you read that correctly. Sometimes, folks, nothing works.
Our job is to choose those calibers and bullets which seem to do the Two Tasks fairly reliably, and prepare to deal with the times that it just isn't enough. With handgun rounds, those times are more common than the gunshop commandoes would have you believe.
In the next installment, we'll take a layman's look at the physics involved.
Click here to go to the next article --->
Or, you can access the series index at this link.
-=[ Grant ]=-
Can you hear me now? Part Deux
Monday, March 17, 2008
As I mentioned a while back, I recently decided to acquire new hearing protection to replace my aging Peltor electronic muffs. Durability and water resistance were at the top of my list, followed by sufficient clearance to comfortably shoot a rifle.
I chose the Swedish-made Sordin Supreme Pro-X unit, based on rave reviews from other users (and a very good friend.) Sordins have a great reputation in the "tactical" community for ruggedness, which is what I wanted. I also paid extra to get the ultra-cushy gel earmuffs, which (in my estimation) was money well spent!
The Sordin circuitry is a big step up from the old Peltors. (In all fairness, so are the current Peltors!) Instead of completely shutting down the electronics when a sound over it's threshold is detected, the Sordins simply reduce the volume to match that of the background. This is a great improvement, and makes for a far more natural sound than my old muffs.
What really surprised me was the sound quality: it is superb, far better than my old Peltors. When the earpiece volume is set to normal - that is, no amplification relative to the environment - the sound is crisp, clean, and darn near like not wearing the muffs at all. In contrast, my old muffs had a bit of a hollow sound, and a greatly attenuated upper register. Compared to the Sordins, they literally sound like a cheap AM radio!
The gel earpieces, as noted, are incredibly comfortable - well worth the premium over the standard foam one, which themselves are quite comfortable compared to others I've used. The gel pads, though, are just in another league altogether - and they seal around the ear for better protection to boot!
All in all, I'm happy with the Sordins (so far...we'll see how I feel about them a couple of years from now!) I got mine from a company called CSUK (yeah, I know, but keep reading.) Not only did they have the best price, their delivery was lightning fast. Frankly, of all the online companies I've dealt with, these guys are by far the fastest; incredible, actually. I've placed three orders with them so far, and all have been delivered before I ever expected them. That's service; CSUK gets two thumbs up from me!
-=[ Grant ]=-
Monday Meanderings
Monday, March 10, 2008
From Michael "Fashion Plate" Bane comes a story about cops and the 'Triangle of Death' (no, not THAT 'Triangle of Death' - this one is serious.) If you're a cop, you need to read it.
Reed and Malloy were in constant danger and didn't even know it!
---
After my lament last week, I went to a gunshow this weekend and found - of all things - a stainless Ruger Speed-Six in 9mm! The owner and I are dickering about the price right now, but (unfortunately) there is little recent sales data to go on. If you've seen such a beast sell in the last 6 months, please drop me an email and let me know what it went for. Much appreciated.
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Crazy Rumor Department
Hey, Bane, you missed this one! Overheard at the gunshow: Colt has been sold to Norinco, so that they can have a domestic plant to get around import restrictions.
Ohhhhhh-kayyyyyyy....
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'It Must Be Something In The Water' Department
Also overheard at the gunshow: the 9mm "doesn't work, so you need to go to a bigger caliber like .38 Special."
A math genius he ain't...
---
So much for my weekend. Back to the salt mines!
-=[ Grant ]=-
I'm beginning to hate myself
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Big gun show last weekend...didn't find anything I wanted.
Another big show coming up soon...doubt I'll find anything I want there, either.
The problem with being "into" something, to the extent that I am (and many of you are) is that the things we want get more and more esoteric. That translates to "hard to find", which usually translates to "valuable" - which morphs quickly to "the seller thinks it's made of gold from King Tut's codpiece, and has priced it accordingly."
The things I'm looking for range from the admittedly unusual (Marlin Levermatic in .30 Carbine) to the mundane (Mossberg bolt-action .22LR) and lots in between. You'd think, with an extensive and wide-ranging list of "wants" I'd get lucky sooner or later.
You'd be wrong.
For instance, a 3" S&W "K" frame (of any model; I'm not picky) shouldn't be a problem - they made scads of 'em, and they were pretty common just a few years ago. Naturally, I haven't seen one in ages.
I'd like a 9mm Speed-Six (yes, I know they're unusual) but I'd settle for a good clean one in .357. Doesn't matter - they seem to be equally scarce around these parts.
How about a simple Winchester Model 67 (their cheap single shot, manually cocking .22 from the middle of the last century) under $225? Not around here. Come on, people, this is a thin-barreled "starter" rifle, not a rare target gun!
Maybe a Browning BLR in .308? Good luck. (I've given up on ever finding one in .358, which is what I really lust for.) Oh, I can find a Winchester 88 in .308 - and I'd like to have one - but I'm not about to pay $800 for the privilege!
For some reason I want a simple, plain, common Marlin in .35 Remington. If I lived in Maine I'd have my pick of 'em, but out here in the West if it ain't a thutty-thutty you won't find it.
And so it goes. Come the next show I'll drag myself into the exhibit hall, knowing full well I'll be disappointed once again - but I'll do it anyway.
Sigh. I wonder if there's a suitable 12-step program for this...
-=[ Grant ]=-
Monday Meanderings
Monday, March 03, 2008
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Every once in a while, Tam hits one out of the park.
Read the whole thing - it's good.This is the country where we're supposed to be leading ourselves, not waiting for solutions to be handed down from on high.
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SayUncle alerts us to this story. Predictable Euro-socialist hand-wringing and whining commence.
(Yes, I would generally agree that brandishing a weapon is both a tactical and legal no-no - but then again, if you're an old, frail lady and someone strange is standing in your yard, refusing to leave, perhaps you are justified.)
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I missed this until Michael Bane pointed me to it. Hilarious!
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Happy Monday, everyone!
-=[ Grant ]=-
Monday meanderings
Monday, February 25, 2008
Tam alerts us that today is the "official" birthday of the revolver - courtesy of The Great One, Samuel Colt. (I'm surprised, yet gratified, that she acknowledges someone whose last name is not Browning or Wesson!)
---
As long as I'm doing the link-love bit, over at Michael Bane's place there is something of a brouhaha regarding his assessment of the new Ruger SR9 pistol. Read the first part, then read Michael's response. (Be sure to read the comments on each - that's where the fireworks happen.)
One of the commenters has invoked Massad Ayoob's name as some sort of "proof" that Michael's opinions are "wrong." In the interest of full disclosure, I know Mas Ayoob on a personal basis, and I've done work for Bane. I've read their reviews, and what it comes down to is that they are both opinionated people with very definite tastes and preferences in firearms. That they have different points of view with regard to this particular gun is simply evidence that nothing appeals to everyone. I trust them both, and my feeling is that it's sad they couldn't find a new, innovative Ruger revolver to disagree about!
-=[ Grant ]=-
Ignition troubles
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
I've gotten a number of
inquiries over the past few months regarding ignition troubles in
otherwise stock revolvers.
As ammunition prices continue their climb, many enthusiasts find their budgets strained. In order to continue shooting, those who do not reload their own ammo have been looking at less expensive options for feeding their guns. Brands like Fiocchi and Sellier & Bellot ("S&B"), brands that didn't have many takers a couple of years ago, are now being featured at many sporting goods outlets.
For the most part there is nothing wrong, from a quality control standpoint, with this ammunition. It must be remembered, though, that many foreign ammunition companies do not have the range of cartridge components that we do. Since much (if not most) of their production is often military contract, they are known use the same components for their commercial products - said components to include primers.
Military specifications, regardless of country, usually require a certain level of slam-fire resistance, which necessitates heavier primer cups. Those thicker, harder primers can be more difficult to ignite in firearms that expect to see a "civilian" (more sensitive) primer. It's no wonder, then, that ignition problems with Fiocchi and S&B ammunition are being seen; it's not that the ammo is "bad", but rather that the components used are intended for guns with more robust firing systems!
If you're using foreign ammunition, and your stock firearm is proving to be a bit unreliable, don't blame the gun. Try some "normal" (read: American produced) ammo - I'll bet it returns to 100% function.
(You say that using U.S. ammunition will cut into your shooting activities because of the cost? Well, it's time to learn how to reload your own - it's easy, fun, and economical!)
-=[ Grant ]=-
As ammunition prices continue their climb, many enthusiasts find their budgets strained. In order to continue shooting, those who do not reload their own ammo have been looking at less expensive options for feeding their guns. Brands like Fiocchi and Sellier & Bellot ("S&B"), brands that didn't have many takers a couple of years ago, are now being featured at many sporting goods outlets.
For the most part there is nothing wrong, from a quality control standpoint, with this ammunition. It must be remembered, though, that many foreign ammunition companies do not have the range of cartridge components that we do. Since much (if not most) of their production is often military contract, they are known use the same components for their commercial products - said components to include primers.
Military specifications, regardless of country, usually require a certain level of slam-fire resistance, which necessitates heavier primer cups. Those thicker, harder primers can be more difficult to ignite in firearms that expect to see a "civilian" (more sensitive) primer. It's no wonder, then, that ignition problems with Fiocchi and S&B ammunition are being seen; it's not that the ammo is "bad", but rather that the components used are intended for guns with more robust firing systems!
If you're using foreign ammunition, and your stock firearm is proving to be a bit unreliable, don't blame the gun. Try some "normal" (read: American produced) ammo - I'll bet it returns to 100% function.
(You say that using U.S. ammunition will cut into your shooting activities because of the cost? Well, it's time to learn how to reload your own - it's easy, fun, and economical!)
-=[ Grant ]=-
Can you hear me now?
Monday, February 18, 2008
It's time to shop for new
hearing protection.
My wife and I bought Peltor Model 7 electronic muffs quite a long time ago - over 10 years, if memory serves. They've held up remarkably well, even through torrential rain (common here in Oregon) and the inevitable bumps and knocks from being thrown into the back of the car. They're not terribly comfortable (though far more so than the infamous "vise-like" Wolf Ears), the interior padding is coming apart, and they're starting to pop and hiss and make crackling noises. Their time, sad to say, is coming to a rapid end.
As I shop I'm paying particular attention to suitability for use with rifles. The old Peltors are quite large, and getting a proper cheek weld on a rifle stock invariably knocks them slightly off of a perfect seal, resulting in sound leakage. It's not so much a problem when shooting by myself, but try it on a class firing line with another shooter next to you and you'll appreciate the issue!
The choice came down to the Peltor ComTac and the Sordin Supreme XL. Just a few minutes ago, I ordered the Sordins - the Peltor has a big battery compartment bulge on the left side, which meant that I'd have the aforementioned rifle problem when shooting from my weak side. (You don't do that? There are lots of good reasons to practice shooting a rifle from your weak side - just like your handgun.)
The Sordins have a phenomenal reputation for durability and waterproofness, and I have a close friend who has worn a pair for the last couple of years - and raves about them compared to his old Wolf Ears.
I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to put them through their paces.
-=[ Grant ]=-
My wife and I bought Peltor Model 7 electronic muffs quite a long time ago - over 10 years, if memory serves. They've held up remarkably well, even through torrential rain (common here in Oregon) and the inevitable bumps and knocks from being thrown into the back of the car. They're not terribly comfortable (though far more so than the infamous "vise-like" Wolf Ears), the interior padding is coming apart, and they're starting to pop and hiss and make crackling noises. Their time, sad to say, is coming to a rapid end.
As I shop I'm paying particular attention to suitability for use with rifles. The old Peltors are quite large, and getting a proper cheek weld on a rifle stock invariably knocks them slightly off of a perfect seal, resulting in sound leakage. It's not so much a problem when shooting by myself, but try it on a class firing line with another shooter next to you and you'll appreciate the issue!
The choice came down to the Peltor ComTac and the Sordin Supreme XL. Just a few minutes ago, I ordered the Sordins - the Peltor has a big battery compartment bulge on the left side, which meant that I'd have the aforementioned rifle problem when shooting from my weak side. (You don't do that? There are lots of good reasons to practice shooting a rifle from your weak side - just like your handgun.)
The Sordins have a phenomenal reputation for durability and waterproofness, and I have a close friend who has worn a pair for the last couple of years - and raves about them compared to his old Wolf Ears.
I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to put them through their paces.
-=[ Grant ]=-
Oily to bed, oily to rise
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sorry for the very, very bad
pun. My defense? It's Monday!
Quite a while back, I told you of the difficulty an agency in California was having finding a suitable gun oil. I made the recommendations in that article, and my contact indicated that he would make a decision and follow up with the results.
I talked to him last week, and he indicated that they decided to go with a medium-weight Lubriplate FMO-AW series oil versus a light grease, primarily for application ease. He reports that the food grade lubricant easily passed muster with the ultra-picky worker safety people in his agency, which was a big concern.
How about performance? In a word, they're "delighted" with the oil. It lubricates superbly, doesn't run, and seems unaffected by the alkaline environment in which it is being used. That they can choose exactly the right viscosity for their application is "icing on the cake."
He says that it has worked out so well, he's using the stuff on his personal guns, and says that it's better than any "gun" oil he (or his agency) has ever used.
(Maybe I should get a Lubriplate distributorship...!)
-=[ Grant ]=-
Quite a while back, I told you of the difficulty an agency in California was having finding a suitable gun oil. I made the recommendations in that article, and my contact indicated that he would make a decision and follow up with the results.
I talked to him last week, and he indicated that they decided to go with a medium-weight Lubriplate FMO-AW series oil versus a light grease, primarily for application ease. He reports that the food grade lubricant easily passed muster with the ultra-picky worker safety people in his agency, which was a big concern.
How about performance? In a word, they're "delighted" with the oil. It lubricates superbly, doesn't run, and seems unaffected by the alkaline environment in which it is being used. That they can choose exactly the right viscosity for their application is "icing on the cake."
He says that it has worked out so well, he's using the stuff on his personal guns, and says that it's better than any "gun" oil he (or his agency) has ever used.
(Maybe I should get a Lubriplate distributorship...!)
-=[ Grant ]=-
SHOT Show wrap-up
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Remember last Wednesday,
when I wished for some new
revolver introductions - then reminded Taurus that
revolvers which chambered shotshells weren't terribly
interesting?
Guess what they introduced at SHOT?
Yep. More revolvers that chamber shotshells.
Obviously the things are selling (Taurus being notorious for discontinuing products at the first whiff of a sales drop), but I haven't quite figured out the attraction.
---
Taurus did introduce something interesting, but it appears to be getting zero press: a 6-shot compact .38 special revolver. If it's any good at all, this could be the long-awaited replacement for the Colt Detective Special.
Knowing Taurus quality control I'm apprehensive, but I'll reserve judgement until I can get one in my hands. (Reports are, oddly, listing it as a Model 85, which is their nomenclature for the 5-shot line. Hmmm...of course, there's no info available on the perennially out-of-date Taurus website.)
---
Since I haven't gotten any nasty emails from Charter Arms partisans since the last SHOT Show, I'll just mention that they introduced a new .327 Federal chambering for their "affordable" guns. (If it performs as well as the brand-new .38 Special Charter I encountered on the firing line at a class last weekend, potential buyers may want to update their life insurance before filling out the 4473 form. Yes, it was that bad.)
---
-=[ Grant ]=-
Guess what they introduced at SHOT?
Yep. More revolvers that chamber shotshells.
Obviously the things are selling (Taurus being notorious for discontinuing products at the first whiff of a sales drop), but I haven't quite figured out the attraction.
---
Taurus did introduce something interesting, but it appears to be getting zero press: a 6-shot compact .38 special revolver. If it's any good at all, this could be the long-awaited replacement for the Colt Detective Special.
Knowing Taurus quality control I'm apprehensive, but I'll reserve judgement until I can get one in my hands. (Reports are, oddly, listing it as a Model 85, which is their nomenclature for the 5-shot line. Hmmm...of course, there's no info available on the perennially out-of-date Taurus website.)
---
Since I haven't gotten any nasty emails from Charter Arms partisans since the last SHOT Show, I'll just mention that they introduced a new .327 Federal chambering for their "affordable" guns. (If it performs as well as the brand-new .38 Special Charter I encountered on the firing line at a class last weekend, potential buyers may want to update their life insurance before filling out the 4473 form. Yes, it was that bad.)
---
-=[ Grant ]=-