Guns

Reloading speed

/ hsoi

Not that any of you probably care but…. seems I can reload about 200-300 rounds an hour.

I wanted to load about 500 rounds of 9mm and it only took me a couple hours to do. Not to shabby. It’s good to know the pace I can move tho, for future work planning.

One thing I can say. Most of my loads were using the Berry’s 115 grain plated RN DS bullets. However, I opted to load 100 of the Hornady 115 grain FMJ RN. As well, I had a box of Speer 115 grain TMJ RN’s from when I bought all the reloading gear off dockbot/exodus. I figure what the hey, might as well load those up too. So the recipe remained the same, save the bullet I used. I’m going to see if I can chrono them and see if any differences are to be found.

Hey Mr. UPS Man

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Look what the UPS man brought to me:

1000 Hornady 9mm 115 grain FMJ RN bullets. This is Hornady’s “free gift” from purchasing their Lock-n-Load AP. Whoo!

16.5 lbs. of bullets.

I did some caliper measuring and comparison to the Berry’s 115 grain RN DS bullets. The Hornady are a hair more rounded and the Berry’s a hair more “pointed” shaped, but all really seems negligible. I’m going to use my 9mm plinking load recipe and load 100 of these for a trial run.

Speaking of which, I know I’ve been talking about needing to load 2000 rounds for a class in October, and that hasn’t changed. However, next weekend I’ll be taking AT-6 Pistol Workout and I think loading 500 rounds for that class would be a good testing ground. I’ll take 500 rounds of factory with me as well, just in case, and a backup gun, just in case. The 100 with the Hornady will be a part of that run.

If not for arms, where would civil rights be today?

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

A little late in presenting this but given my giant computer snafu I have some time to catch up on my reading while I wait for files to move and copy.

David Kopel writes an informative piece on how the civil rights protesters of the 1960’s may have been non-violent, but they knew people wanted them dead. There was only one way for them to preserve their own lives: to have guns and let it be known they had them.

Later, I worked for years in the Deep South as a full-time civil rights organizer. Like a martyred friend of mine, NAACP staffer Medgar W. Evers, I, too, was on many Klan death lists and I, too, traveled armed: a .38 special Smith and Wesson revolver and a 44/40 Winchester carbine.

The knowledge that I had these weapons and was willing to use them kept enemies at bay. Years later, in a changed Mississippi, this was confirmed by a former prominent leader of the White Knights of the KKK when we had an interesting dinner together at Jackson.

[…]

We were opposed by white racist organizations (e.g., Nazi Party) and various youth gangs of many sorts. My staff and I received countless death threats, there were arson attacks on our offices, and, on one occasion, men with weapons came to my home and told my wife and children that they intended to kill me. (I happened to be at work.)

Again, I was glad I had many firearms and, again, we guarded our home and let this be known. We responded to hate calls on the telephone by telling the callers we were quite prepared for them.

For Salter, the right to own a handgun was apparently a crucial part of his ability to exercise his right to defend himself and his family, which was a sine qua non of his ability to stay alive in order to exercise his First Amendment rights to advocate for enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Yet in modern Chicago, decent law-abiding citizens are forbidden to own handguns. As I detailed in my amicus brief in McDonald v. Chicago (pages 39–45), many people find that a handgun is best choice for family defense, especially in urban areas such as Chicago. As the history of the Civil Rights Movement demonstrates, the denial of the constitutional right to own a handgun could endanger other constitutional rights, particularly the rights of community organizers.

Read more here.

Berry’s Tour

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

A guy goes on a tour of the Berry’s Mfg plant.

I use Berry’s bullets in my reloading, so that was neat to read.

And to boot, the blogger is a homeschooled kid. Try having field trips like that in public schools!

Home invasion defense handgun choice

/ hsoi

Via SayUncle I’m pointed to this 3 part series on home invasion defense.

The intentions are good, but I take issue with a few things.

From part 2

Handguns are more portable and easier to keep with you, and can be kept on your person if they are not too large.

If they are not too large? Can someone show me a handgun that is too large to keep on your person? OK, maybe some of those “pistol AR’s” or something like the Ruger Charger. But most of your traditional “full sized handguns” (think 1911 with a 5″ barrel) are able to be kept on your person. Concealed even.

Then in part 3:

Revolver manufacturers also make double action only (DAO) revolvers, such as the Smith and Wesson Model 640 at right. The advantage of the DAO revolver is the fact that the hammer is completely enclosed.

And how is a completely enclosed hammer an advantage in a home defense situation? It’s useful in a concealed carry situation, sure, but I’m unclear as to how it’s an advantage for home defense.

Semi-auto handguns come a a wide variety of sizes and functions. The Beretta Model 92 at right is the civilian version of the military issue M9. It comes in 9mm Luger caliber. The Model 92 is a double action/single action autoloading handgun. This means that the first cartridge is fired with a long DA (heavy) pull, and subsequent shots are fired single action (light). Pro – proven as the primary US military sidearm for over two decades, large capacity magazines. Con – fairly heavy.

Fairly heavy is a con? No, that’s a pro because being heavier will help with recoil management. The author also implies the DA/SA trigger is a pro. No, that is a con. Previously in the article the author says how the double-action trigger pull is a con of revolvers (for the correct reasons). If a double-action trigger is a con, it’s a con.

The author then goes on about a S&W 640 (snub revolver), and other small guns like a Sig P238 and Kel-Tec P3AT. He talks about how great they are because they’re so lightweight, portable, how they can be carried in a holster. Um…. I thought this article was supposed to be about home invasion defense? The choice of guns here is arguably more geared towards carry guns, tho I’d debate some of the selection there too.

While the author’s intentions are good, the article loses focus and even contradicts itself. The guns recommended are not good choices for home invasion defense. While I have my take on good tools for home invasion defense, if we want to talk handguns for home defense I’d have to err on the side of larger guns. You can shoot larger guns better. You’re not necessarily going to carry this thing around, so it’s not a consideration. While a self-defense situation on the street is likely to happen within 5 yards of you, a home defense situation could require a shot up to the longest distance across your house. In my house it could be 25 yards, and frankly I’d rather take a 25 yard shot with a full sized handgun that provides me with excellent sights and a long sight radius vs. say a snub revolver or pocket semi-auto with their crappy sights and miniscule sight radius. So big gun, proper gun fit, adequate caliber, that’d be my general guidelines for a home-invasion defense handgun.

Tactical – Even my kids think it’s silly

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Returning from the mailbox yesterday I started flipping through the latest Cabela’s flyer.

Tactical Turkey shotgun.

What the fuck is a TACTICAL turkey shotgun? To help you take out those Ninja turkeys? Has Al-Qaeda started recruiting gobblers? Or is this perhaps to help prepare for great turkey uprising, because they’re tired of the mass slaughter of their feathered brethren every November?

*sigh*

So Youngest overhears me spouting off about “tactical” and he asks what the word means. I explain what the word really means, then I explain how it’s become bastardized by marketing departments. How is making the barrel of a gun a particular length, tactical? How is making something out of black plastic, tactical? Giving it a pistol grip is tactical (so all handguns must be tactical by definition). We can’t forget needing a shoulder thing that goes up. Hell, you can make a pen tactical! Of course, CMMG understands how silly this all is, thus we have tactical bacon, black can of course.

Hrm. Does anyone make tactical toilet paper yet? It’d have to be black (natch), the tube would be made of plastic (not cardboard) and come with an ergonomic grip for ease of deployment. I’m sure if we could put a fart silencer on it that’d jack up the tacticalness.

Oldest and Daughter wandered over as I was explaining all of this to Youngest. My kids agree, it’s silly.

Updated: of course, earlier this morning I posted on the “tactical reload”. What makes it so tactical? Using the proper definition of the term, aren’t all reloads ultimately tactical? Bitch bitch bitch… 🙂

On the Tactical Reload

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Found at tgace’s blog and worth reposting to spread the word:

Clint Smith, of Thunder Ranch, on the tactical reload:

I too must agree here.

If your gun is working, why put it into a non-working state?

If your gun isn’t working, you need to get it back to working as fast as possible or transition to a backup gun.

If you must put it into a non-working state, you should ensure you’re in a position that can manage that. So you’re behind cover, you have a partner, you know you have time/opportunity, or you have no other choice.

I forget exactly where I read this, but I know the source is Tom Givens. Tom has had a lot of interaction with folks in gunfights, from studying fight reports, being involved in hundreds of post-fight debriefs, to 50+ of his own students being involved in a gunfight. He has yet to find a time when there was a need for that “ammo/magazine retention”, at least in civilian situations. In Tom’s classes he advocates the “speed reload”, which is dropping the magazine out of the gun and onto the floor and inserting a new magazine. You work to keep the gun running and keep downtime as minimal as possible.

Stuff for sale

/ hsoi

A friend of mine has some stuff for sale. I’m posting it here to increase exposure:

If you are interested in any of this stuff, please contact him directly at perdurabo93@yahoo.com or via the mechanisms in the following posts.

He may have a few other things for sale too… those would be posted as he sorts through his inventory.

Note again: this is a listing for a friend. I am not selling this stuff. Please do not contact me about these items because I know nothing about them and cannot help you.

A good morning

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

I just returned from the gun range. Many interesting tales to tell.

First, if you wish to contribute to the “Buy John a 4×4 pickup truck” fund, I would be so happy. 🙂  We’ve had a lot of rain lately and the ground is a mess; rarely do we get enough time to dry out before it rains again. I’m not complaining about the rain as we are still technically recovering from the drought of the past 2 years. But it has made things messy and muddy and my poor little car got stuck in the mud.

Second, gun folk can be some of the nicest folk. There was only one other person at the range and he was on the other side of things. But he heard and saw my car stuck in the mud and he packed up and came over to help me out. Turns out it was John Schaefer, brother of Tom Schaefer. John remembered me from my CHL class and also we took our NRA Instructor classes together last year. He helped me get out of the mud, and it was nice to see him again.

As for the shooting, it’s been a month since my private lesson. I’ve been working on the techniques at home in dry fire and it was high time I go to the range and see where I am. Instead of doing the Central Texas Standards I opted to do the Two Target No Reload Standards. I ran it twice: first time was OK, second time was better and I almost shot it clean. I didn’t have a timer but I did put time pressure upon myself to shoot as fast as I could but with a focus on accuracy. I wanted only good hits and on the second run only had 2 “not-A-zone” hits. What I took from my shooting:

  • #1 thing is I need to get on the trigger faster. This is something Karl specifically spoke to me on at the private lesson. Need to get on the trigger during presentation not after having presented.
  • Still need to work on trigger control because when pressure is on I will yank. More group shooting at longer distances is needed. I actually shot decently today, better than I have in the past. Just need more. It should be a mix of no time pressure to shoot the best possible, but then also slight time pressure.
  • My eyes were an issue today. It may have been in part due to the 30Âş temperatures and 20+ MPH chilly wind, so my eyes would squit and water a lot. But all the squinting makes it hard to see the front sight clearly. I’ve struggled to shoot with both eyes open and had given up on it, but I want to try again and pursue it more seriously.
  • My presentation is really improving based upon what came out of the private lesson. It’s the little things, the advanced details. But it gets me on the sights quicker. I still have to trust myself more to shoot with a “good enough” sight picture.

All in all, I’m pleased with things but I know I can do better. Dry practice pays off. Much more in my future.

One thing of note is the first run of the drill I shot with factory loads. The second run I did using my 9mm reloads. Each run is 100 rounds, and my reloads performed peachy. They are a hair less “kicky” than the factory loads, but otherwise they’re fine. In about a week and a half I’ll be taking the KR Training AT-6 Pistol Workout class. I’ll see about loading 400-500 rounds for that class and see how it runs.

I also brought out my XD-9 5″. I’ve been thinking about sending her to Springer Precision to get customized. Given the cost involved in shipping, you might as well go for the gusto and get everything done that needs doing. One question I had was if I wanted to get a Bar-Sto barrel or not. I shoot some groups at 25 yards using a benchrest. I used both factory ammo (Federal American Eagle) and my reloads. Both shot groups about 2″. So 2″ at 25 yards? I can deal with that given the nature and purpose of the gun. Not going to bother with the barrel.

I was also happy that my reloads were showing that level of precision.

All in all, a good morning.

OK, one bad part of the morning. I had benched my carry XD while I did all the work with the 5″. Before I pack up I want to do a quick cleaning of the guns. I pick up the carry XD and go to take it down but it doesn’t go. Slide is forward, press trigger to take it down, it doesn’t go. Huh? I poke around with it a bit more and the trigger just isn’t working. It feels strange, acts strange. I can press the trigger and there’s a noticeable delay before the gun goes “click”. Really strange. Eventually I get the slide off. Nothing looks wrong. Not sure what gives but I’m getting scared that I broke something. Got on the phone with Tom Hogel and spoke with him about it. He figured the sear dropped behind the disconnector… I probably pulled the trigger while the takedown lever was up but with the slide not in position to come off. Suggested solution? Rack the slide back HARD. I did that. Sure enough, she’s all better. Nothing looks bent, trigger feels right.

Apart from that tho, good morning. Got work ahead of me.