Guns

Home Defense Shotgunning

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

While I’ve chimed in before with my take on a home defense firearm, Carteach0 has a nice piece on home-defense shotgunning (h/t Xavier). I will say I don’t like the buttstock shell holder because if you have to switch shooting to your “other hand/shoulder” (something we did in the KR Training Defensive Long Gun class), now you’ve got shells in your cheek and it’s going to be tough to aim. However, you may not have a choice and it’s certainly better than nothing. As InSights Training Chief Instructor Greg Hamilton says:

Chances are, if you’re ever going to be involved in a home defense situation with a shotgun, you’ll be in your birthday-suit. So unless you’ve got ammunition Velcro’d to your ass, all the extra ammunition you’ll have will be on the gun.

And while I’m apparently now biased towards an AR/M4-gery as my home-defense tool, there’s still some good reading in my take on a home defense firearm regarding use of a shotgun. Take a look at the section with links to The Box O’ Truth. Very good reading.

One thing I really liked was Carteach0’s additional piece on practice drills for shotgun home-defense. Look at the first reload drill. Notice the muzzle is kept between you and the threat (previously discussed here, firearm may be different, concepts are the same). Notice the shotgun runs dry, he then ensures the first load is dropped in and made ready… he doesn’t reload the whole gun then ready it, he gets one load ready to go then reloads the rest. This is important because you did the minimal necessary to get the gun back in a reusable state in case you have to start using it again before being fully replenished. Good technique. He’s very smooth in the video. I’m going to have to give his particular technique a try. Someone in the comments mentioned reaching under to pop the shell into the port instead of over, and gave a nice reason why. Have to try both approaches.

In terms of movement, one of the best things you can do is move in a natural way — like he said, it’s tough, tougher if you try to think about it. Try to let your legs and feet move in a natural way. Let your hips point in the direction you want to move, keep a slight bend in your knees, and walk. You should pivot your torso at your hips, like a turret on a tank, to take aim at whatever you’re shooting at.

Carteach0, thanx for the pieces. Good stuff!

(Re)loading from empty

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Another nice video from Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch. This time talking about (re)loading an empty semi-automatic handgun (from slide-lock, because you’ve run the gun dry).

There are some subtitles of his technique to pay attention to:

  • Leave the muzzle between you and the threat. This keeps your eyes on the threat, the gun will be in your peripheral vision which is all you need. If you bring the gun in to your face to reload your eyes will focus on the gun and who knows what that threat is going to be doing and how fast they can do it in (see Tueller Drill). 
  • When he pulls out the new magazine, note it’s already positioned properly for the reload… no need to flip it around to get it positioned right. Ensure your spare magazines are stowed in such a manner. This then allows that index finger to index the first round of the magazine which will facilitate your brain and gross motor skills to guide the magazine into the magazine well.
  • When he racks the slide, he grabs the slide with an overhand grip. I’ll discuss this more in a moment.
  • Clint emphasizes being smooth, not fast. This is important! Yes you need to be fast, but not so fast that you fail to reload on the first attempt — that will ultimately lead to a slower reload. You must be smooth: slow is smooth, smooth is fast. When you practice these reloads, focus on being correct and smooth first, then gradually add speed but never go so fast as to let your smoothness and correctness degrade.

I wanted to talk a little more about the rack technique. Generally you see two techniques: the over the top grip like Clint used, or the “slingshot”  method. In the slingshot method you use your thumb and index finger (or maybe index and middle, or the side of the 2nd knuckle of the index finger) to “pinch” the rear of the slide and rack it like you would if you were pulling back a loaded slingshot. I prefer the over the top method because it provides a few advantages:

  • It’s a gross motor skill. If adrenaline is pumping, fine motor skills degrade.
  • It involves more muscles, thus is easier to rack the slide. If you’re not that strong (e.g. women, elderly), you’ll have more success, maintain a better grip on the slide, and be able to successfully rack the slide. Furthermore, if you’re using a gun you’re unfamiliar with, who knows… maybe the recoil spring on this one is a lot stronger than you’re used to; sure on the range you’d get to try racking again, but in a fight for your life you might only get one chance to rack it: give yourself every advantage to ensure your success.
  • On that same token, some of us might have one hand’s grip stronger than the other. What if you have to use your weak hand to rack because your strong hand is disabled? Over the top works with any hand.
  • And on that token, what if you lose use of your thumb? You can still rack over the top, even if some digits are disabled.

To perform the over-the-top technique, do it just like Clint demonstrates in the video, with the meat/palm-heel of your hand resting on one side of the rear of the slide and your fingers coming over the top and the pads of your fingers gripping the other side of the rear of the slide. Grip firmly, ensuring your hand/fingers do not cover the ejection port. Then pull the slide back in one smooth and fast motion (it’s easier if you move fast than slow). Your hand should travel all the way back to your shoulder, which means, when the slide reaches the end of its travel it should come out of your hand and the recoil springs slam it forward and your hand comes off and continues back towards your shoulder. Do not ride the slide forward, let the recoil springs slam it forward.

As well, as Clint said, don’t just drop the slide. Rack it, always rack it. Let your muscle memory work to always rack it. The gun that saves your life may be unfamiliar to you, so learn and practice techniques that work regardless of the hardware in your hands.

Tap, Rack, Bang – Pistol Malfunctions and How to Fix Them

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

A nice video of Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch on the 3 types of semi-automatic handgun malfunctions and how to clear them.

Just remember:

  1. Tap
  2. Rack
  3. Bang (if necessary)

If that fails:

  1. Drop the magazine
  2. Rack, Rack, Rack
  3. Reload (tap)
  4. Rack
  5. Bang (if necessary)

So really, it’s all about “TRB”, but if that fails, drop mag, rack rack rack, then TRB.

Some might suggest that if you have to drop the magazine, you should totally drop the magazine: don’t put it back in (to retain the magazine or not is up to you, dependent upon circumstance). Reason is, double-feeds are often caused by magazine problems, so if you’re having a double-feed problem you should assume magazine is at fault and go for a fresh magazine. It all depends upon your circumstance, but certainly once you are able you should test out that magazine to see if it keeps having problems. If so, mark it as problematic and either take it out of use or relegate it to a practice/range-only magazine.

Finally, practice these malfunction drills. Clint was showing them live on the range, but until you know your drills I wouldn’t recommend this. Get snap caps or other types of dummy rounds and practice like any sort of dry-fire practice. The nice thing about the drill is Clint shows how to set up the malfunctions so you can practice them.

Belt fed 12 gauge

/ hsoi

oooo…. belt-fed 12 gauge.

Zombie apocalypses will never be the same!

Updated: In the spirit of my previous post, belt-fed 12 gauge Benny Hillified. Or probably more appropriately, Epic-ified.

The engineering of the Remington 700 VTR’s barrel

/ hsoi

This post about the Remington 700 VTR’s triangular barrel was an interesting read. I’ve been interested in that rifle, mostly because of the barrel — was it just a marketing gimmick or was there legit engineering behind it. Looks legit. I’d love to try out this rifle sometime.

Updated (June ’09): I was at Cabela’s and they had VTR’s without the muzzle brake. A little research turns up that this is a special run made exclusively for Cabela’s. Take it for whatever it’s worth.

The rules

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

This is what you get when you’re on a mailing list populated by people that are both computer geeks and gun nuts:

<so-and-so> wrote:

> sudo

Outstanding. I respect a man who wields awesome power responsibly.

1. All root shells are always loaded.
2. Never run as root on a system that you are not authorized to destroy.
3. Be aware of your PATH.

I’m not the original author of this, but for their privacy I’m not posting their name.

The screams just echo…

/ hsoi

I’m sure you’ve heard the recent news story about the chimpanzee attack.

If you haven’t heard the 911 call, listen to it.

It’s sobering. It’s frightening. And some may think it’s harsh to use such a sad event to make a point, but David Codrea makes a good one.

Guns in your car vs. employer property rights

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

In a 3-0 decision, the US Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in support of allowing employees to store legally owned firearms in locked, private motor vehicles while parked in employer parking lots. I wonder how this will affect efforts here in Texas, such as HB 1301 and SB 730. 

I’m torn on this issue, because it’s a mix of personal rights to self-protection and property rights.  Here’s some debate on the matter:

And if you spend a little time with Google, you can find a lot more on the debate.

Ruger 10/22 – now with extended magazine release

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I received a 2009 Ruger catalog in the mail a couple days ago. Was flipping through it today and came to the pages on the 10/22. What are they touting?

Easy-To-Use Extended Magazine Release

Provides smooth, no-fuss removal of the unique flush mounted magazine — with no exposed magazine to dent and no uncomfortable protrusions at the rifle’s balance point.

And you see the pictures, and there’s a little lever sticking off the bottom of the rifle.

Here’s the basic 10/22 carbine model off Ruger’s website:

Finally!

The old magazine release was one of the biggest problems with the 10/22, thus a nice sized aftermarket exists. It’s nice to see Ruger improving the factory design.

My case against 3-dot sights

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

My Springfield Armory XD’s all came with “traditional” notch-and-post 3-dot sights. They certainly work, but I wanted to try something else. I ended up putting a set of XS 24/7 Express Big Dot sights on one of them, but it hasn’t worked out for me. I was able to try a couple handguns with a red fiber optic front sight and an all-black rear sight, and that seemed to work well for me, so I’m currently in process of getting the XD with the XS Sights changed to use some Dawson Precision sights (red fiber front, fixed all-black rear). We’ll see how it works out.

What made the Dawson’s, at least when I tried them, work so well for me was the red fiber optic was like a bright beacon and my eyes couldn’t help but focus on that front sight. That’s exactly what you want in your sight picture. You generally have 3 things in your path of view: rear sight, front sight, target. Your eyes can only focus on one of those things, so they need to focus on the front sight (Kathy Jackson over at Cornered Cat has a nice write-up on this). One additional thing is that you don’t want other things in your sight path to distract you. Thus the plain and simple all-black rear sight. When you have 3-dot sights, now you have 3 dots to have to sort out in your head. It may be easier if your front dot and rear dots are of different colors (some do this), or some people paint the front post a bright color. Whatever works, the key is distinctive contrast so your eyes find that front sight.

One additional thing about 3-dot sights is there may be confusion about what to line up. Do you line up the top edge of the front post with the top edge of the rear post? Or do you line up the 3 dots? Depending upon your particular sights, when you line up one, the other may be slightly misaligned. Allowing for a simple sight setup means there’s less to juggle — let the front sight draw your eye, let the rear sight just be passively in your sight picture, one thing to line up (top edges), off you go.

So a couple days ago I took a Sharpie to the rear dots of my other XD’s and blackened them out. Yeah it’s not perfect, the black’s aren’t quite the same black, and your depth perception can still pick up the recess of the dots, but they are far less distracting now. My eye goes right for the white dot on the front post, and there’s a lot less clutting the sight picture up. I like this.

I should have done that a long time ago. Well, better late than never.

Updated: As I write this update, I’ve had the Dawson sights on for quite some time. For me, they work great. The notch size and post size are good in relation to each other to give you a clear amount of airspace when lining up the sights. The sights are also very crisp and sharp, so again the sight picture looks very crisp and sharp. The rear sight, being plain black, stays out of your way… it’s there in your field of vision, but it doesn’t draw your eye nor distract you, but it’s around for as much as it needs to be for a rear sight. The red fiber in the front sight is, as I said, a bright beacon. Your eye can’t help but get pulled to it. It helps you find the front sight quickly so you can get on target faster. It’s just a clean sight picture and it does the right things for your eyes to allow you to shoot faster and more accurately. I’m quite sold on this setup.