Guns

On defensive shotgun and ammo choice

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Tom Givens is coming back to KR Training in May 2011 to run a one-day shotgun course. I’ll be there.

I’m still a proponent of a rifle for home defense (e.g. AR-15/M4-gery in .223/5.56), but I’ve warmed up a bit to exploring shotguns in this context. Certainly it’s better than nothing and for some it’s the best or only choice. So it shotgun works best for your situation, fine. But what hurts me to hear is a lot of misinformation that continues to be preached as gospel about how to use a shotgun for home defense.

For instance, ammo selection. That birdshot is good. That you want a big spread of pellets. No and no.

Here’s a simple scenario. Someone breaks into your home and takes a hostage (your spouse, your child, etc.). The bad guy 15 yards away holding your loved one close and in front of them, such that you really only see the bad guy’s head over your loved one’s shoulder. You followed conventional wisdom and have birdshot and an open choke. Are you going to take that shot to save your loved one’s life? I wouldn’t.

Now change the scenario slightly. Instead of a shotgun you have an AR-15 with good ammo (e.g. Hornady TAP .223 Rem or 5.56x45mm NATO 75 grain) and a red dot scope. Now are you going to take that shot? I would.

Birdshot is for birds. It’s made to be enough to hit a small flying object, but not blow that little dove to smithereens. So if it’s that “gentle” on a dove, how tough do you think it’s going to be on some bad guy? Buckshot is… for bucks, deer. They’re roughly man-sized and man-tough. Buckshot works better for this context.

Open chokes also good for birds… at least, low flying ones. You want just the right amount of pattern spread so the “pellet cloud” is wide enough to cover the area where the bird is, but still dense enough to have enough patterns in that area where the bird is. If the birds are going to be further away, you need tighter chokes so the pattern doesn’t spread too much before it gets to where the birds are. Same holds in home defense: you need to control where all those pellets go. If they spread too much before they reach their target, first that means less pellets on target, but it also means where are those other pellets going? they are most likely going to become unacceptable hits.

Furthermore, shotguns by nature cause pellets to spread no matter what ammo you choose or choke you select. Will you be able to properly gauge the spread and distance to take the shot you need to when you need to? Will the pattern be tight enough at 15 yards that you could take that shot? And the further the distance, the more the spread, the less chance you can take the shot. Yes home defense isn’t some 200 yard engagement (typically… those of you in rural areas, maybe), but you may have longer distances to account for than you think.

But let us consider… I’m talking about some contrived situation. What are the chances someone will break into my house and hold my Wife or Kiddos hostage? I don’t know what the chances are, but they aren’t zero.

You don’t get to choose what your situation will be. Luck favors the prepared, so wouldn’t it serve best to be prepared for as wide an array of scenarios as possible? Shotgun is good, but limited. Rifle gives you more options to address a wider set of possible scenarios. I won’t poo-poo the shotgun because it’s just another tool. With any tool you have to think realistically about the tool, know what it can do and what it cannot do. If that tool doesn’t work for your needs or perhaps if there’s a tool that can suit your needs better, don’t be reluctant to seek out better.

Another Day, Another Class

/ hsoi / 13 Comments

Well, classes. Two to be exact.

KR Training held two classes today: Defensive Pistol Skills 1, and Beyond the Basics: Handgun. What was different was the classes were held at the Austin Rifle Club instead of Karl’s A-Zone Range. Reason is simple: Karl doesn’t do live-fire there during deer hunting season so the rural neighbors can hunt without gunfire scaring all the deer out of the area.

Apart from the strong winds all day long, the classes went alright. I’m actually rather exhausted so I’m not all that motivated to type, but I’ll say a few things:

It’s great to see such diversity in students. Young people, old people, various ethnicities, various backgrounds. Guns aren’t just for old white rednecks, no matter what the stereotypes say. What made me especially happy was to see a few women attending these intermediate-level classes. For whatever reason (and I have my hypotheses), you see lots of women in beginner courses but so few in courses beyond that. I think it’s great to see anyone wanting to take their skills to a higher level, but it’s especially wonderful to see women wanting to become truly skilled shooters.

It’s good for people to come to these classes and learn their gear sucks. Any gun is fine when you’re under no pressure, shooting at your leisure, and nothing important is on the line. But if you’re betting on this gun to save your life someday? It’s good to know if it can actually run. It’s good to know what gear is bad, what gear is good. It’s good to learn how crappy those double-action/single-action guns are (I’m looking at you, Sig)… when you have that long, heavy, first trigger pull and how difficult it is to get a good first hit — especially when the first shot is the most important — well… it’s just good to learn all of this stuff under the pressure of a safe classroom environment than when it may really matter. I tell people that while we have investment, financially and emotionally, in our gear, just weigh the costs here: if it’s a range toy, whatever; but if this is your life, what’s your life worth? If your gear sucks, abandon it and seek better gear. It may take you a while to shop around, lots of buying and selling, lots of trying, lots of asking questions. Do whatever it takes, because at least for me, while I might have a little emotional attachment to my choice in guns, I have a HUGE emotional attachment to Wife and Kiddos. I want a gun that works right and works best, so I can keep those emotional attachments that matter most.

But the best part? Seeing people improve. At the beginning of BtB:H oh… we had to do some serious reworking of fundamental skills of trigger control and sight alignment — mostly trigger control. And while yes, everyone needs more practice, there’s no question there was substantial improvement by everyone in the class. I was pleased with what I saw.

Two biggest things to help? 1. Dry fire practice. 2. ball-and-dummy drill.

So, apart from being very wind-blown and weary, it was a good day. Everyone left with the same number of holes they came with. Looks like everyone learned something, and hopefully we’ll see these folks back again at future classes.

What to do… what to do….

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

This is one of those times where the blog is more for me… where I want to write something to help me think through it, to help me remember what I’m thinking. But if someone wants to comment, great.

I’ve got some things rolling around in my head. Trying to think about what to do.

Guns, specifically reloading

One gun thing that I’m not waffling about… I need to step back on my formal working and step up my informal working. That is, be it teaching classes or taking classes, I have to be selective and moderate here. I’ve been really diving into this because there’s so much I want to do, but it’s consuming too much time and I have to pull back. Because the flip side is, I have to get to the range more regularly. The trouble is going to the range is a massive time sink for me but you know… if the ONLY thing I can do is go to the local indoor range and do “abridged” work (e.g. can’t practice draw from concealment, but I can practice press-outs, I can practice 25 yard groups) well, so be it. Some live fire is better than none, and if my only recourse is the local indoor range well, so be it.

On the reloading front…. as you can see, I’m getting back on the ball with .38 Special. If I keep up with it, even if I slack off a day or two here and there, it should be done by the end of the month. So… rifle time. But, what? .223? 6.8? .308?

I recall when I did rifle last time (which was my first time ever with rifle reloading), I had a dog of a time and it just wasn’t happening. Why? Potentially numerous factors, but too difficult and costly (time and money) to nail down. But my thinking then was to just load cheap 55 grain .223 FMJ’s using well-establish recipes and see how that did. Work out any bugs in technique or gun issues or whatever, then go back to serious loads (e.g. hunting stuff). Since that time I’ve gotten into 6.8 SPC and really want to reload for that… but the main reason there? Because I want to use those Barnes 6.8 SPC 95 grain TTSX’s, which you can’t get in a factory load. The thing is tho, reloading 6.8 is just costly, period. Even trying to do “cheap plinking loads” isn’t cheap. And for whatever reason, a few days ago I got some itch to do .308.

Yes. My present leaning is to do .308 Win. Why? I’m not really sure, but I think it’s because .308 is such a great caliber and well.. it’d be cool to do something beefy. 🙂  It’s kinda hard to do .308 wrong… so many people just say “yeah… 45 grains of Varget or 4895 and you’re good to go”. I’ve got a bunch of 147 grain FMJBT’s from Dock, I’ve got powder, I’ve got primers, I’ve got cases, I’ve got dies and shell holders and everything you need. Why not? My thinking? The new range up north has really long yardage. I’ve been toying with the idea of an elk hunt with my Dad. If I want to do that? I probably should be able to ring the gong on demand out to 500 yards. So… working up a .308 plinking load would be in my best interest. And once I can ring the gong like that, then get some Barnes 168 grain TTSX (or maybe 180 grain, if my rifle can handle it) and make a hunting load.

So I don’t know. I may well change my mind again. But I picked up 1000 CCI #200 large rifle primers today, and my present leaning is .308 Win, just cuz. 🙂

Empty Hand Martial Arts

I stopped Kuk Sool practice for 2 main reasons: tired of the political bullshit and greed, tired of the lame-ass training approach. The art is sound, and while it has things I don’t care about (e.g. sword), it’s rather solid in its foundations so long as it’s taught and trained in a practical way.

That’s part of why I went to Kali, Silat, Muay Thai, JKD, boxing: practicalness. I wanted to focus (thus why I didn’t add BJJ to the mix), I wanted more practical, where people did spar and go to town. Where a takedown was performed and you went to the mat because you were put there, not because you said “ok, and now I cooperatively fall to the ground”. The only real reason I stopped this was a practical one: just couldn’t make classes.

So I’ve been out of the formal mix for some months and want to get back to it. I have been thinking about Aikido and even paid a brief visit to a local dojo. Been talking to an old friend about it, reading up. And while there’s something about Aikido that interests me, for some reason I just can’t pull the trigger on it. Yes the philosophical notions are interesting to me to explore, but they conflict with my own philosophy. Furthermore, let’s just be frank — I like hitting things. 🙂  There’s really no striking in Aikido (yes there is atemi, but certainly nothing like say Muay Thai). Plus you have to find the right school, because Aikido spans so much and risks being watered down and too new-agey-touchy-feely; old-school Aikido I could be cool with.

So I found this one school, “Martial Arts Center of Austin“. I know the location and well, while the website doesn’t strictly say, I know that was Brian Duffy‘s place. Brian Duffy’s a legit guy in the world of Ed Parker’s American Kenpo. I even recall my old Kuk Sool teacher, Dewain Perry, telling me how he and guys from Duffy’s school would get together and full-contact spar all the time, only having to stop because they were getting too hurt from going too rough (they liked to “go”). 🙂 Thing is, last few times I drove by that place I don’t think I saw Duffy’s name on it. And if you look at this MACA website, they are really devoid of any idea of who is running the place… no instructor names, no instructor bios. But I do see Kenpo on the schedule. The schedule tho… it’s got a ton of stuff, seems an eclectic place. Not 100% sure what to make of it. Then over here, this guy reviews all the Aikido-related places around Austin and spoke highly of MACA. I’m not sure what to make of the place

But the real kicker? Watching the videos of that school rekindled a desire for particular training. Yeah, I kinda like traditional arts, formal but not uptight. In the end, the body only moves in so many ways, and heck, if we want to talk about Aikijujitsu lineages then Kuk Sool eventually falls from that tree (look at the Hapkido bridge). So really, what’s the difference?  I have had thoughts about rejoining Kuk Sool, because I didn’t get to leave it under the circumstances I wanted to. Especially now that Master Lee has broken off from WKSA gosh… he’s a great guy, worthy of respect because of who he is, not what he is. I know if I joined up that way, there’d be no real political b.s. to have to deal with. But what about training? As much as I love Master Les and know HE can be a pretty hardcore guy, the way he runs his school is very family oriented and NOT hardcore at all.

While out shopping I ran into an old training buddy, Ricky. We got our 1st degree black belts together, and were testing together for 2nd, so we were “classmates”. Of course, I left, but he stayed on because it’s been his dream to have his own school. Well, when Master Lee broke off, he did too, and started his own school. Running into him today was purely by chance, but it was really cool to see him and his wife and talk about things. He extended an open invitation for me to work out at his school any time and I may just take him up on it…. dust off the dobok and see how much I’ve forgotten. 😉  The cool thing? Talking to Ricky about how they train there. They are of similar philosophy to me, which is good. But also slightly different, for Ricky and the old school stable of friends well… they’re all at least 10 years younger and me and with slightly different motivations and goals than I have (e.g. I just can’t do the gymnastics they like doing). Will it mesh? Will it work? I’m not sure. Plus, could I have the long-term growth that I want? The freedom to explore and work “outside the box”? I’m not sure. But that this happened is good as it gives me more options.

So I don’t know. There’s a lot swirling around and perhaps there’s a reason I haven’t been able to pull the trigger on things. That I bumped into Ricky was odd, but perhaps part of the bigger picture. Don’t know, we’ll see.

But I think I might dust off my dobok and see how much I remember. 🙂

Happiness is…

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

…doing it yourself.

200 rounds of .38 Special. Loaded myself, same recipe.

Happy because there’s no factory load like this. I can do it myself and get exactly what I want. The materials, the performance, the quality, the satisfaction.

DHS and Wal-Mart

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

From the “you gotta be kidding me” files….

The US Department of Homeland Security is teaming up with Wal-Mart to fight terrorism

 

“Homeland security starts with hometown security, and each of us plays a critical role in keeping our country and communities safe,” said DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. “This partnership will help millions of shoppers across the nation identify and report indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats to law enforcement authorities.”

Napolitano will also appear in a video that will run at select checkout counters. The Secretary somehow manages to stave off a smile as she tells shoppers to alert Walmart managers to possible threats of terrorism.

 

 

This is an extension of the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign.

Well you know… it will be Wal-Mart, and if you’ve visited PeopleOfWalMart.com well… there’s sure a LOT of things to see.

This should go well….

Of course my serious reply to this is if they truly believe that security starts with each one of us, then I think we need to do something about carry laws and eliminating all those 2A restrictions. But you know…. DHS isn’t about doing things that actually improve security, just ways to dance about, accomplish nothing, and spend lots of money doing it.

 

This is why I want a bigger sidearm for the field

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

Via EDNO, some guys go bear hunting and despite a high degree of lead ingestion, the bear just keeps coming. Full story.

Fifteen-year-old Chris Moen of Glide, who had drawn the tag, hit the animal in the shoulder with a .338-caliber rifle round, but he and his father couldn’t pick up a trail of blood.

They called on Wyckoff and friends to help track it. A few hours later, Wyckoff went up a hill for a view.

He heard a rustling in the bushes behind him, then a grunt. The bear had apparently circled around the group.

“We never even heard him,” said Wyckoff.

Wyckoff said he fired a round into the bear’s forehead, but the animal kept coming and climbed on top of him. From beneath, Wyckoff said, he got off three more rounds.

Then he tucked the gun beneath the bear’s chin. But it quit. Wyckoff, left-handed, said he had accidentally released the ammunition clip.

Odd that a .338 to the shoulder didn’t drop him. I’d be curious to know if there was an entry wound, if the shoulder joint was shattered, what the path through the bear’s body was. Very strange.

Then lots of .45 shots. I’m sure it was a .45 ACP round, and again I’d like to know if there was actually any penetration into the skull. My guess is the bullets glanced off the forehead.

Justin Norton fired a round from his .44-caliber pistol into the black bear’s stomach, to no avail. He approached the bear, put the gun behind its ear and fired again. It finally rolled away.

“I walked right up to his head, and he didn’t even look at me,” said Norton, 26.

With the dying bear still struggling, a final round finished him off.

And so… this demonstrates why I continue to look for a good backwoods sidearm — my 9mm might be fine for social purposes, but is an inadequate tool for the woods. While .460 Rowland certainly has much appeal on paper, the above situation demonstrates a couple good reasons for revolvers: 1. you’re not going to accidentally hit the magazine release on a revolver (unlikely with a good revolver that you’ll hit the cylinder release and drop your cartridges), 2. you can do contact shots with a revolver. There’s also 3, if there’s a malfunction, just keep pulling the trigger… when a bear is gnawing on you, you really don’t have time to do remedial actions.

Things that make you go hrm.

Couple random things

/ hsoi / 12 Comments

Oh, before I go… couple random things.

1. Feeling a lot better. I think whatever I had is now gone… but last night I felt really bad. My guess tho? The cigar and glass of wine did it… body just wasn’t quite ready for that yet. 🙂   But I’m on the mend, almost 100%. Thank you for the well wishes.

2. Daughter did something cool.

My father-in-law has a deer lease (natch) and the first couple weeks of January there’s a special youth season. He invited Daughter out to come take a doe or a spike during that time. I spoke with Daughter about it and she declined. Why? because she doesn’t feel her marksmanship skills are quite there. She would rather pass on the opportunity than recklessly take it. I am mighty proud of her. I know  she’s got the ability to put a rifle round within an 8″ circle at 100 yards, but she’s not sure of her ability to do it on demand especially given the excitement and pressure of “the moment.” I respect her thinking here; she wants to do the right thing and would rather wait than rush into it and do things wrong.

So it just means more range time. No arguments there!

Make me think… maybe time to buy a second Ruger 10/22 and do an Appleseed with the kids. I’ve been wanting to do that for some time. Hrm.

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho

/ hsoi

It’s back to the reloading bench I go.

I don’t know why I stopped reloading, but I just stopped. My guess? The daily routine of loading 9mm until I had a mountain of surplus just burned me out. I don’t WANT to reload .38 Special, I feel this NEED to do it to use up the rest of my Titegroup, build up a bit of surplus there, and also finish pistol reloading so I can shift to rifle.

But you know… I just haven’t had a burning desire to do rifle reloading right now. I think it’s a matter of time and the lack of it. To properly do the rifle reloading I’d have to spend a lot of time at the range, more than usual, and it’s not that I don’t WANT to, but I just don’t have the spare cycles these days to do it, let alone all the researching to come up with a good recipe and so on. It’s not lack of want, it’s lack of resources mainly time. And when I look at all the things I need to spend my time on these days, other things are taking priority.

I think that’s why I didn’t hesitate to order another 100 rounds of SSA 6.8 SPC 85 grain TSX. It’s the time vs. money tradeoff. I’ve got the money, don’t have the time.

Nevertheless, I need to get back in a groove so…. enough writing. Off to reload some .38.

Not a reason to pull your gun

/ hsoi

AUSTIN (KXAN) – A Travis County man faces charges after police say he shot a man who was trying to leave the scene of a fender bender near the Austin Bergstrom International Airport.

Charlies Dunbar, 73, is charged with aggravated assault after he allegedly shot 34-year-old Stacy Stautzenburger in the neck on Nov. 22, 2010. Stautzenburger was treated at a nearby hospital and released. Police reports did not say what time of day the shooting happened.

The shooting started with a minor fender bender on Texas 71 Eastbound. Dunbar holds a concealed-carry license, has no criminal record, and told police he was afraid Stautzenburger was going to run over him. He said he brings the .32 Beretta Tomcat with him for protection when he goes to Austin.

Full story here. Another write-up here.

First order of business: this is not a reason to pull your gun, nor a reason to use it. The gun is only pulled out when you feel your life (or the life of another) is in imminent danger. It’s not used to hold someone at bay.

But was the man’s life in danger? That’s hard to tell from the police report.

Apparently Stautzenburger didn’t have his license or insurance paperwork on him. Around here that typically means the person is driving illegally. And the fact Stautzenburger didn’t want police involved? That’s a possible tip-off the person is illegally in this country. So, “the fact that Stautzenburger had no ID on him made Dunbar ‘nervous,’according to the police report” and I can’t blame him for feeling that way.

But after that, the timing of events is odd. One thing says that Stautzenburger then went to his car and got in. Dunbar told him not to move. Stautzenburger started his car, then apparently Dunbar pulled his gun. Apparently Dunbar felt that the Stautzenburger was going to run him over, but during the reenactment to police it didn’t jive… he couldn’t have been run over.

At the hospital, Stautzenburger told police he wasn’t intending to flee the scene, but was trying to leave because Dunbar had pulled a gun on him and he was afraid of him. He told police he had “no intention of running Charles over with his vehicle,” the affidavit reads.

But if that’s the case, then why did he get into his car and start his car? Stautzenburger says he was trying to leave because the gun was pulled, but then why did you get into and start up the car?

Events don’t jive.

Furthermore:

“Charles said that he pulled the trigger in order to stop him, but was not intending to kill him.”

Folks, if you pull a gun you are using deadly force. Even if you didn’t intend to kill him, you very well could have.

Chances are good things aren’t going to go well for Dunbar. And it’s unfortunate it makes the rest of us CHL holders look bad. Stastistically it doesn’t amount to much (there’s always a bad apple in the bunch). I mean, that’s one bad CHL holder while the hundreds of thousands of other CHL holders didn’t do anything…. but us well-behaved folks don’t make the evening news.

So what can we learn from this:

  • You don’t pull your gun unless your life (or the life of another) is truly in danger. It’s that “maximize beer and TV time” maxim.
  • You say as little as possible during and after the event. The events are likely to be fuzzy in your brain and you’ll be pumped with adrenaline and emotion. You may not remember things correctly, and it can only serve to work against you. The facts will be what they will be and cannot be denied, but you don’t need to remember the facts in a skewed way. They won’t change in 48-72 hours, so use your lawyer and speak through them to ensure the facts are straight. I mean, supposing Dunbar remembered the “reenactment” incorrectly, if he wants to correct his story, the changing of the story won’t look good.
  • You take your CHL class from a good instructor, pay attention, and heed what’s taught there… especially the parts about non-violent dispute resolution.