I’m listening to Pantera’s “Cowboys From Hell”
and when Phil sings about his “double-barrelled 12 gauge”, the thought that goes through my head is how inadequate that is with only 2 shot capacity.
What does it say about me? 🙂
Guns
Getting serious on 6.8 SPC
So I post about my hunting itch and Rog posts a link to this article by Frank James.
Here’s what didn’t sit well with me:
On one of my gunwriting trips a well known gunwriter/hunting specialist recommended to me Federal Premium .223 Rem. 55 gr. Barnes Triple Shock (#p223s) for hog hunting as he felt it was the only .223 load that worked in his experience. So I purchased 5 boxes (100 rds) at a big box store in northern Indiana and loaded the M&P-15. I must no longer be high on the gunwriter food chain as the ATK ammo fairy doesn’t like me as it once did. It is just as well, because this load also proved to be a disappointment. Yeah, it killed, but it didn’t drop ’em. On our first night I intentionally picked out the smaller animals as the targets of choice because I have such a dim view of this caliber on hogs. Even the little ones ran off after being shot and I know I shot ’em because both the guide (using thermal imagining) and I through my PVS-14 night scope saw them stumble, roll and get back up again. After we left, the ranch emailed us to inform us they were still finding dead pigs in a hay pasture close to the first night’s kill zone. I am NOT impressed with this load for use on hogs and feel it was over-rated. If it were made in a heavier weight maybe it would work better.
That’s the very load I was going to use for hunting (Federal P223S). The above isn’t promising. The load is rated for deer, but deer aren’t as tough as hogs. Still, it gives me pause.
I wonder why the problem. My guess is too light a bullet, because I know TSX in larger, heavier bullets have no problem dropping hogs. As well, in the Frank James article he uses some Black Hills 77gr JHP’s and has no problem dropping hogs. Makes me wonder if say the CorBon loads with the 62 grain TSX (the only factory load I know if that uses the 62 grain TSX, or rather a factory load that uses something other/heavier than the 53/55 grain TSX’s) might work out.
But really… it just increases my want to go to 6.8 SPC. I know that’s suitable. I’ve seen the results from Bill Wilson on some monster hogs.
I know it’s a bad itch because last night in bed I’m using my iPhone and poking around the Bison Armory website.
I think that may be how I start out. Buying a good upper, keeping it minimal in accouterments for now (other than a set of iron sights since Bison’s stuff are all flattop), swapping the scope and lower, and going from there. I just finished talking to The Tax Man so now may be the time to get this rolling.
Any 6.8 users out there with any advice or recommendations?
Being Relaxed
Flipping channels last night, go by The Outdoor Channel and there’s Jim Scouten… talking about Steel Challenge. That’s fast shooting.
As I watched the show, watching the top shooters in the world drawing and drawing and drawing and drawing again it hit me what my problem has been lately.
I’ve been too tense.
When you’re tense, you cannot move fast. When you need to do a certain move you need muscle X to do it. But when you’re tense the muscles antagonistic to X are also tense… thus it ends up acting like a brake and you will not move fast. Or if you can move fast, it’s not as fast as it could be if you were relaxed. Or in my case, my brain is still wanting to move fast so I end up “rushing” it and the results are fast but sloppy.
I turned off the TV. Did some dry fire, forcing myself to relax between each draw. Amazing the difference.
This is constantly my problem. The sort of person I am? I can be high stress. Right now my life is full of stress. And it’s something that has once again crept up on me and I didn’t notice (until last night). So once again I must remind myself to relax, I must remind myself to loosen up. That there’s no need to actually think about moving fast, just move, it will be fast. If I think to move fast I’ll get all tense and thus won’t move fast.
It’s a problem I’ve struggled with for years. Very evident in my martial arts practice, which needs to be loose and relaxed, but I tense up… I hold my breath… and these things all lead to being stiff.
I’ve thought about studying something like Tai Chi or Baguazhang to see if that might help. Maybe even Aikido. We’ll see. Meantime, I just have to remind myself to be aware of my tension and do away with it.
Still disappointed, but improving
I previously mentioned my problems with my BLUEGUNS order.
I finally got to try out the XD-45 mags this past weekend. None of them worked. Why? They were just flat out wrong. When we compared them to a proper XD-45 magazine, they were too short and of different shape/dimensions.
So let’s recap:
- 6 XD-9 mags
- None had the magazine catch notch
- 1 was “blistered”
- 1 was too thick and wouldn’t drop free
- 4 XD-45 mags
- All were flat out wrong
- 2 AR-15 mags
- One was too thin, couldn’t catch on anything in the magwell
- One would catch but then the bolt wouldn’t close
- 1 XD-45 gun
- Fine
Really, that’s pretty bad.
I called RINGS yesterday and left a message and just got my callback from Carl Rings. I explained the whole situation. He sounded rather embarrassed about the whole thing and apologized profusely. He said that all molds should be taken from proper parts and then should be tested out before shipping. Obviously that didn’t happen. I of course have no knowledge of what will happen internally, but I’d like to hope the person(s) that made my products will get some remedial training in proper manufacturing procedure and quality assurance (if not just fired or smacked upside the head).
To their credit, they will be sending me a UPS hang tag (or some such thing) so that we can ship back to them at no cost to us. I would expect that in a case like this.
We’ll see how it resolves out. So… I’m still disappointed at what a trial this has been, but I’m glad to see RINGS working to make things right. I also hope they’re taking internal steps to correct this so something like this doesn’t happen again.
Rangemaster April 2010 Newsletter
The April 2010 Rangemaster Newsletter is up.
One thing in the newsletter bears repeating: most self-defense incidents do not happen at home. Most people are all into home-defense, but the reality is it makes up a small part of violent crime. From the newsletter:
To illustrate, here are some statistics from the United States Department of Justice, looking at Robbery Locations for the year 2007:
Street- 43.8%
Commercial- 13.9%
Residence- 15.2%
Banks- 2.1%
Gas station- 2.6%
Miscellaneous- 16.8%.So, you are almost three times as likely to be robbed on the street than at home, and in the home only accounts for 1 robbery in 6. Similar patterns exist for rape, aggravated assaults, etc. In fact, good locks, an alarm system, and proper lighting can reduce your risk of violent crime at home to very low levels.
So this isn’t to say you can’t have issues at home, but on the whole most incidents are outside the home: about 85%! So just looking at the statistics, odds are if the flag is going to fly it’s going to fly when you’re away from home.
What’s your plan for defending yourself outside of your home?
Glad to hear it
LINCOLN – Attorney General Jon Bruning today issued an opinion finding that Omaha’s city ordinance requiring handguns to be registered does not apply to anyone with a state- recognized concealed handgun permit.
“The Legislature clearly intended the concealed carry permit process to be stringent,” Bruning said. “If you go through the steps to obtain a permit, there’s no reason for cities to make you jump through additional hoops.”
Nebraskans must undergo a background check, firearms training and fingerprinting, and submit a photograph and $100 to obtain a concealed handgun permit.
The Concealed Handgun Permit Act, as amended by LB430 in 2009, pre-empts municipal bans on the carrying of concealed handguns. The Omaha ordinance, which prohibits the possession of unregistered concealable firearms, violates this pre-emption as it applies to those who possess a valid carry permit recognized by Nebraska.
Given the wording of “state-recognized”, well… my Texas state CHL is recognized as valid (via reciprocity) within Nebraska.
This is all good. Omaha has been very anti-gun, but the only people that’s served to hurt are the law-abiding citizens. The gangs and other criminal element so prevalent in Omaha of course doesn’t give a fairy fart about any laws. So now removing barriers from law-abiding citizens, that’s a good thing.
Denver Gunsmiths?
Does anyone know of a gunsmith in the Denver, Colorado area? Someone that knows rifles, older firearms, restore/refinish/repair, etc..?
How to control your gun
Gun control is using both hands. 🙂
Or perhaps better, gun control is having as much of both hands on the gun as possible.
I remembered something else I observed a lot of in yesterday’s classes.
Many people understood putting both hands on the gun, but how those hands were put on the gun would vary greatly. It all depended where and how you learned how to shoot a pistol, and thus what habits you needed to break. 🙂
One key is having as much of both hands actually on the gun, as much palm and skin in contact with the grip/frame as possible. Most people don’t have a problem with this with their dominant/trigger hand. But the weak hand would have all sorts of issues. Some people would “teacup” hold (meaning the butt of the gun rested in the palm of their hand, as if the saucer for a teacup), which does nothing to help manage recoil. Some would get the support hand on the side of the gun, but it would barely be in contact with the gun. Typically this was due to thumb problems. They might tuck the dominant hand’s thumb against the frame then their support hand palm would be over the dominant thumb. Or the thumbs might be weaved together. Or the thumbs might be tucked back revolver-style. There would be all manner of ways, but the end result was the same: very little of the support hand was actually in contact with the gun.
The trouble with this? That support hand does most of your gripping of the gun! So you need to grip and grip tightly with that hand, and the more that palm and skin is actually in contact with the gun the more possible grip surface and friction there is against the gun recoiling and moving to help control it.
Watch this great Todd Jarrett video:
He explains a lot of detail about good grip and stance.
That “other hand” isn’t just there to be there, it has a lot of purpose. Get its palm high on the grips, get lots of skin in contact with grip, get the thumbs out of the way, and have that hand squeeze and actually grip the gun. There’s more to “good grip” than that, but seeing all the “lack of contact” with that hand in classes yesterday and I wanted to comment on it.
Good Day of Classes
Was out at KR Training today helping with Basic Pistol 2 and Defensive Pistol Skills 1.
A good day.
Both classes were at capacity. The usual gamut of people: men and women, young folk, old folk, various ethnicities, various backgrounds and “lots in life”. I always point this out to break stereotypes: gun folk aren’t just old white men or just rednecks. And while these two classes can typically have a lot of people taking both, today the majority of each class were actually only there for the one class. So a lot of faces went through the school today.
Given it was a long day… given I’m going on 4 hours of sleep… well, I’ll just mention a few things that today’s class made most evident.
- Small guns are hard to shoot well. Small guns that kick a lot (e.g. .40 S&W) are even harder to shoot well.
- You obviously acknowledge the difficulty in shooting the small gun because you take steps to make it a larger gun: e.g. mag extenders so you can get a full grip. Well, once you do that the gun is almost full-sized, so why not just use a full-sized gun?
- Good holsters are well worth it. One quality of a good holster? It stays put. Another quality? The mouth stays open when the holster is empty so you can reholster without having to look at the holster or use your other hand to open the mouth up. That could be acceptable for carry, but in a class or any time when you know you will be drawing and reholstering? Nope.
- It’s hard to find a good holster in most stores. The Internet is your friend.
- Sunscreen is your friend.
- Drink water. Drink some more.
- When reloading, just drop the magazine to the ground. If someone is attacking you, the magazine is the least of your concerns! Getting your gun running again is more important so spend your time focusing on the important things, like getting more ammo in the gun so it’s again functional and useful.
- Magazine pouches are useful. But regardless of how you store a spare magazine, position the magazine such that when you retrieve it the magazine is already oriented to go right into the gun.. no need to check it, flip it over, etc… just retrieve and insert. Typically this means you want to point the bullets outward, i.e. “bullets towards the bad guy”. But that’s not a hard rule (e.g. one student had to retrieve from a pants pocket and the way his hand naturally went there was better to position the bullets away from the bad guy).
- Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
- When you draw your gun, keep with the 4-count draw. When you reholster, do the 4-count draw in reverse. Keep the discipline of the draw. Do no travel along the hypotenuse.
- Guns with big long double-action trigger presses are hard to shoot well. Yeah maybe you can get a nicer single-action on the 2nd press, but when your life is on the line that 1st shot is going to be most important. Make sure that first shot can hit what you’re aiming at.
- Please be mindful of school/class policies. KR Training policy only wants brass-cased ammo (no steel case, no aluminum). As well, SERPA holsters are not permitted because of the risks that come with that holster. When in doubt about your equipment, ask prior to class.
I know there were other things I wanted to mention… but my brain is fried and ready for bed.
There was one student that did something I thought was commendable. He was only in the DPS1 class but realized in there that his fundamentals were not solid… that the way he had been taught prior to this class just didn’t cut it. He asked if going back and taking the prior course (Basic Pistol 2) would be good for him. I think it’s great he realized where his skills were and didn’t let his ego keep him from taking a step back. A lot of people would just press on with their existing habits (good or bad), but he wants to go back and improve his fundamentals. I think that’s most commendable, and I do hope to see him come back. He’s got a good attitude.
The biggest thing I saw all day tho was small guns and harsh calibers. Small guns are hard to shoot well, and when you add in harsh calibers like .40 S&W they’re even harder. This isn’t to say one cannot eventually come to shoot those guns at an acceptable level, but why fight your equipment? Why make things hard on yourself when you don’t have to? Granted, in many respects this is a personal choice and you have to choose what’s right for you and your situation and need. But consider what’s important here: the gun or your life. Is the gun the most important thing (that gun, that caliber)? or is the ability to shoot well? the ability to defend your life if need be. Just be sure to be clear on what your goal is, and proceed accordingly from there.
Thanx to the students that came out. Hope to see you all back again soon. Keep practicing! Dry fire is your friend. 🙂
Small win for APD
Going to give some kudos to Austin Police Department here. It’s a small thing, but it’s little things like this that add up.
As frequent readers know, we have a lot of ducks that hang out at our house.
Well, about 45 minutes ago my kids saw some random Rottweiler trotting across our lawn. I was called to come see, and so I went and saw. He was perked up, looking at something. My guess? The ducks, but a few houses down and out of sight.
I go back to work.
A minute or so later I hear my kids screaming in terror. The Rot was attacking a duck.
Granted my kids understand nature and life, but they are very fond of the ducks… so injury to these ducks is like injuring a member of the family.
I tear down the stairs and run outside looking for the Rot. He was behind/under a truck… apparently it was just some guy driving through and he saw things too and tried to do something about it (I guess… I really didn’t know, my only exchange with him was “That your dog?” “No.”). I chased the Rot, shouting and yelling. The Rot broke off his attack and retreated back into a yard in the cul-de-sac. I don’t know what happened to the duck, but I did see him waddle off… I don’t know his condition, but it is what it is.
The Rot eventually stopped and laid down. I took out my phone, dialed 911, explained, and they said police will be dispatched. My wife was also on the phone to 311 and they took the animal control call. Yes it’s just attacking a duck but my thinking is 1. it’s a Rot, 2. if he’s showing a penchant for attacking things who knows what else he could attack, 3. no collar so who knows if he’s a pet or feral. Who knows. My brother-in-law has a Rot and she’s a sweetie. I know Rot’s aren’t evil, but there’s no question there’s a legit reason for their reputation. I don’t want some unknown Rot wandering my neighborhood.
About 10 minutes after the call goes in, 2 APD cruisers pull up. We point out the dog, explain things, they drive over to the dog. You could tell there was some joking “you get him, no you get him”. A third cruiser pulls in, and that officer had some leashes in his trunk. A little figuring out of who will do what, tasers at the ready, and the third officer approaches the Rot. He tries calling him over and the dog obediently comes, a little unsure, but obeys. Leashed up, “good dog” petting, and into the back of a cruiser. Some handshakes and thank you’s to the officers, and what’s done is done.
My take
I don’t feel bad about what I did. Granted, as the event wore on it was evident the dog is fairly well-behaved. He’s certainly someone’s pet (tho lacking a collar, but hopefully not a microchip). He did show signs of submissive behavior, but he was also constantly alert. That’s good stuff, when it’s your dog. But again, I have no idea about this dog. He demonstrated attacking behavior, and well… I just can’t allow some unknown and potentially dangerous dog to be trotting around my neighborhood with other pets, small children, and people around. No apologies for what I did.
APD took about 10 minutes to show up, and my guess is they were there that “quickly” due to the fact the dog was seen attacking. I can’t fault them… it’s not like there was a cop right here, they did have to drive to get here, so 10 minutes is reasonable. But as with all things, it shows what response time can be.
I did have my gun on me. It shows that situations can happen suddenly and you have to run with what you have. There was no time to run and get my gun or get anything… I ran outside barefoot. If the dog was a problem, yes I had no problem shooting it. I wanted to avoid that at all costs of course, but if someone’s life was in danger (because again, I knew nothing of the dog’s demeanor, other than he was attacking a duck) well… that’s how it goes. While standing off with the dog, I asked my wife for her pepper spray, as that’d be my preference. I had a prior experience with dogs and wishing for OC. I still don’t have OC on me, because I haven’t found something suitable (even tho GT Dist has some decent options).
I do hope the dog has a microchip and can be reunited with his owner… and his owner is a little wiser for the experience so it doesn’t happen again. He was a good looking Rotty, and seemed to be a “good dog”, so I do hope there ends up being a happy ending to this story. But again, dogs are what they are, and I’m not going to take a chance.
APD did well. Took care of things. Thank you to the local Boys in Blue.
Stuff From Hsoi 