feinstein is at it again. This time, she's not trying to pass legislation. No, that hasn't been working. She is trying to get support to get BATFE to halt the importation of more "non-sporting" guns. I guess the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the semi-auto import ban of 1989 weren't enough for her.
This is her "wish list" with my comments in red:
Prohibit importation of all semi-automatic rifles that can accept, or be readily converted to accept, a large capacity ammunition magazine of more than 10 rounds, regardless of the military pedigree of the firearm or the configuration of the firearm’s magazine well. - To ban military-style firearms that aren't military firearms, which seems very contradictory. This would stop the importation of the Century WASR-10 rifles and Draco pistols.
Prohibit semi-automatic rifles with fixed magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds. - I guess seeking to preemptively ban work-around guns with welded-in magazines and 20-round Mauser Broomhandle replicas?
Prohibit the importation of the frame or receiver of any prohibited rifle, regardless of whether it is incorporated into a fully manufactured firearm.
Prohibit the practice of importing assault rifles in parts and then constructing the rifles once they are in the United States by adding the requisite number of American-made parts. - No more AK parts-guns, wiping out 922(r) compliance, although I don't see how this is enforceable without a new law. How can anyone tell whether the AK I built in my basement was built last night, or 10 years ago. Without registration, you can't tell.
Prohibit the use of a “thumbhole” stock as a means to avoid classification of a rifle as an assault rifle. - Closing a "loophole" in the 1989 ban. Naturally, they wouldn't have written in the "loophole" if they could get it to pass without it. At any rate, classification of an assault rifle depends on the firing mechanism and selector switch, and really has nothing to do with the stock.
Prohibit the importation of "assault pistols," in addition to "assault rifles." - I have no idea what this is about. The importation of assault rifles was part of the 1968 ban, and I don't think there is a definition of "assault pistol," at least in federal law.
Basically this would affect all AKs except for the Century Arms Centurion 39, which is entirely made in America. Once the supply of parts kits and sporterized AKs already in the country dry up, Krebs Custom, Red Jacket and other builders would have nothing left to build with. It would also affect the building of semi-only STEN guns, and PPSH pistols, and a whole lot of others.
Of course, this attempt hinges on the 2nd Amendment not protecting non-sporting firearms, and the Supreme Court has already stated with their U.S. v. Miller and D.C. v. Heller decisions that the 2nd doesn't only protect firearms for sporting-uses.
A while back, I bought a Pigsticker compensator from Palmetto State Armory, and put it on a 10.5" barrel. Although it seemed to work fine, the muzzle flash was ridiculous. (Original Post)
Yesterday, I swapped the comp over to my 16" Spike's Tactical 5.45x39mm upper, and today I took it out to do some shooting. Unfortunately, all is still not well. The comp shoved the muzzle down hard and to the left. I also couldn't get the tip of my pull-through cleaning rod out through the end of the comp. No flash that I noticed, though.
The Rainer XTC did fare much better. While I had the barrel vice blocks out, I put the XTC on my LMT 16" M4gery Although there is a bit of concussion, there was no tuning fork "ting," and not too much muzzle lift. Unfortunately, I had another Tula steel shell case get stuck hard in the chamber, cutting short that shooting session. Even if I had a cleaning rod, it took a half dozen hard hits with a dead-blow hammer to remove it.
No, I didn't type the title for the post with a stutter. Southern Gun Company of Cornwall, England developed an AR-15 style 9mm rifle that locks the bolt back with every shot. The shooter can then release the bolt with a lever put in place where the safety lever would normally be. It probably sounds more awkward than it is in practice. Check out the video of the SGC Unicorn rifle in action.
There shouldn't be a need for these shenanigans, but there are, regardless. I find this solution to an unnecessary problem to be brilliant. If I were stuck living behind enemy lines in a ban state, I would be
trying to do something like this over a "featureless" build, or a
bullet-button, or a fixed magazine, or any of that other nonsense.
Beats having to manually operate the bolt like a bolt-action rifle, which is what U.K. shooters have been doing with AR rifles.
Rainier Arms sent me a notification that they got in the barrel that I wanted. Surfing through their site, while I was there, I found the XTC compensator in the sale pages. The sale price is $56-something, but when you use coupon code "2014" it becomes $39.99, which I found hard to resist. The shipping isn't bad either, I only paid like $8 for the barrel, handguard, gas tube and compensator.
One NYC resident sent a copy of their letter to The Blaze, which reads:
Immediately surrender your rifle and/or shotgun to your local police precinct, and notify this office of the invoice number. The firearm may be sold or permanently removed from the City of New York thereafter. Permanently remove your rifle and/or shotgun from New York City.
If you follow the Military Arms Channel website, The Bang Switch, you'll remember the Illinois Confiscation article that ran a little while ago. State residents may have their guns seized, and be charged with a crime if they allow their Firearm Owner Identification Cards to expire.
The Liberty Digest posted an article about California gun confiscation squads. The state of California has set up an Armed Prohibited Persons System (APPS). According to the article, California is bypassing 5th and 14th amendment protections against the seizure of property without due process of law, by sending the Armed Prohibited Persons System gun confiscation squad after people whom the state welfare system has declared "a danger to himself or others." But wait, there's more! Funding for the APPS comes from firearm purchase fees. So some of the California residents purchasing firearms, may be funding their own disarmament.
The Liberty Digest article also discusses confiscations in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Following the passage of "The SAFE Act" in New York State, Big Brother got busy pretty quickly grabbing up the guns. Of course nobody was reporting on it very much, until they managed to collect them from the wrong guy and a judge made them give them back.
. . . and because it's sort of related, here's a poem.
Do You Want My Gun
By Dr. Gene Howard c. 1992
Do you want my gun, or do you want my life
Do you want my gun, or do you want my wife.
Do you want my gun, or do you want mt store.
Do you want my gun, or much, much more.
What is it you really want, I must ask myself,
For it is one of the few freedoms we have left.
Maybe it’s something more political you seek,
But cannot accomplish unless we become weak.
I think of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and the rest,
Fooling the people into thinking they knew best
They traded their arms for hoes and wooden staves
And they traded their freedom and wound up slaves.
For when people can no longer defend their rights,
Their days become filled with sleepless nights,
And soon their fears become much, much more
When the secret police knock on their door.
They took them from their family,and their home,
And without a trial locked them up alone.
No visitors, no place that they could go appeal
For they were politically incorrect to party zeal.
Today the majority of us are not politically correct,
And what do the liberals want us to put in check?
That’s right, our guns, they want us to turn them in,
For as long as we have them socialism cannot win.
Each day our liberal government denies our rights,
As they put GOD fearing people in their sights,
So i will keep my gun, and use if if I must
To defend my inherited right to say, “In God We Trust”
For the very foundation of this great land of ours
Is now being threatened, and it it may only be hours,
Till GOD is completely removed from every part,
And this country is stripped of its very heart.
For today freedom of religion is no longer a right,
But a battle ground for which we must fight.
So if you ask me for my gun, the answer is NO!
Try to take it, and if there’s a hell, you’ll know.
Keep your eyes and ears open people!
5th Amendment
[N]or shall any person . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .
14th Amendment
[N]or shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .
Lone Wolf Advertisement, image saved from a gun blog
BLING!!
I've seen a lot of 1911 pistols, where the back of slide, ejector, extractor, rear sight, front sight, and the top of slide are serrated to prevent glare. . . and then there's this. Lone Wolf Distributors is taking the opposite approach, and is Titanium Nitride plating Glock slides. The cost for refinishing a slide is $105. You can get them to do sights for you too, if you want.
Sights too!!
Titanium Nitride coating does actually make sense for some firearm parts, and offers many of same benefits of Nickel Boron coating, as made famous by FailZero. However, and it's a big however, Titanium Nitride coating a pistol slide and/or sights, is probably not a good idea, unless perhaps you are a drug dealer, and you surround yourself with a dozen well-armed thugs at all times.
Sorry, LWD, for beating up on you, but this is kind of goofy, at best.
Todd at pistol-training.com does these 50,000 round pistol tests. His latest one is a Springfield Custom Shop 9mm 1911. Having gone through 53,000 rounds now, the first 1/3 of the rifling in the barrel has worn away. The pistol was clamped into a Ransom rest for an accuracy test.
A 10-shot group was fired, with Federal match ammo, at 35 yards. The group measured 2.04", which is better than most pistols will shoot new, out of the box, at 25 yards.
I suppose that is a testament to the accuracy you can get out of a 1911 with a hand-fitted barrel.
They're kind of expensive rifles, but good rifles aren't cheap, and these are good rifles. When you add in the free EoTech sight, it's a pretty darn good deal.
DSG is pretty good for aluminum AR magazines and other gear, if you're like me and don't really need another AR, take advantage of the free shipping offer. Coupon code "NOFREIGHT4YOU"
I'm going to post these videos, because there are still a lot of people who don't know who Trayvon really was, or what happened the night of the shooting.
The unedited audio from the call to the police by Zimmerman. No opinion presented, just the recording.
Trayvon was out for snacks, right? Maybe not.
Longer video by philosopher Stephan Molyneux. Trayvon was 17, over 5' 9", maybe 6' 2", 170 pounds, a football player, and a street fighter (by Trayvon's own personal account), not a 12-year old boy, as the news portrayed him. Zimmerman racist? - Probably not.
I'm not going to say that Zimmerman didn't make any mistakes that night, but it seems fairly obvious that a lot of information was intentionally suppressed by media and other public figures, in order to make the whole thing into something that it wasn't, a case of murdered for being black in public. Although discrimination may have been an element, it just isn't that simple. I believe that far too many people have based their opinions on the Zimmerman shooting on incomplete information.
Just this weekend, I've been called a bitch and a "dumb ass" (sic) for trying to explain to people that Zimmerman acted in self-defense after being attacked. The irony of the lack of politeness apparently lost on these people.
One individual said that he'd punch someone in the face if he was followed, too, seemingly having learned absolutely nothing from the whole event. If you haven't read Ayoob's In The Gravest Extreme yet, time may be of the essence.
I may take flak for this, but it is my blog, and I'm entitled to post my own opinion. I'm backing it up with information that seems to me to be accurate and trustworthy.
You can read a little more on the Hotchkiss Universal here, from the Modern Firearms website. Somewhat unusual for a French gun, it's chambered for 9mm Luger, rather than something wimpy and obscure like many French service pistols, or the 7.65x20mm MAS-38 submachinegun. Retracting the barrel, for folding it, requires putting fingers perilously close to the muzzle.
The Hotchkiss Universal is fairly complicated and was probably pretty expensive compared to SMGs of it's day, like the British STEN and American M3 Grease Gun, which were mostly made from bits of tubing welded together, and maybe a stamped steel grip frame, with a barrel screwed on the front.
British Farquhar-Hill rifle - Antique Tacticool
First designed in 1908, but adopted by the British in 1918.
The drum magazine of the WW1-era British Farquhar-Hill rifle doesn't have feedlips. The rounds are held in the magazine by a manual latch. The feedlips are machined into the receiver, sort of the way it was done with the Mosin Nagant. After loading the magazine, and releasing the catch on the magazine, the bolt is released by pulling the trigger, which makes it easy to put back into action, but somewhat dangerous for anyone who happens to be nearby, such as your brothers in arms in the trenches, as you are preparing for a run across no-mans-land.
According to the Wikipedia article, the standard drum held 20-rounds, but there were also 65-round drums. The .303 British cartridge, like most very-old rifle cartridges, is a rimmed round, which doesn't work very well in box magazines. The rim of the top round in the magazine can get "locked" behind the rim of the round under it. Drum magazines are a way to get around this, providing that you can made the drum magazine work properly. As far as I know, the SMLE box magazines worked fine, but at the time the Farquhar-Hill was designed, the SMLE magazines were all 10-round capacity. However, the year that that the Farquhar-Hill was adopted, there was a run of 20-round Lee Enfield box magazines produced.
The Lee Enfield SMLE remained the primary British service rifle, until being replaced by the L1A1 SLR (Self Loading Rifle) in 1957, which is the inch-pattern version of the FN FAL rifle.
I'm up to 1110 rounds through the ACR with no lubrication, and without cleaning the action. The manual says that no lubrication is necessary, so I've been running it completely dry. It doesn't seem to be doing any harm. I have cleaned the bore and chamber though, hoping to squeeze a little more accuracy out of it.
I've tried a bunch of "match" loads through it, trying to get a decent group, but the best groups I've gotten have been around 2" at 100 yards. These same loads have been around .9" to 1 1/8" out of my LMT M4. I tried removing and reinstalling the barrel, and really snugging down the barrel nut. I tried supporting the handguard at the middle, and back toward the magazine well. I checked to make sure my rifle rest was solidly locked down and screwed together tight. Getting a really good group out of the ACR is proving to be frustrating. My best load to date through the LMT has been a round with a Midway 55gr varmint bullet, which the ACR puts into sloppy 3 inch groups. Maybe some of the lighter MatchKing or Hornady bullets will do a little better from the ACR, fingers crossed.
I'm not sure if the 1:7" twist barrels are available yet. They have been extremely slow introducing barrels for the civilian market, which kind of makes the "A" for adaptive kind of a joke. Mine is a 1:9" twist. I was told that 1:9" twist barrels will sometimes shoot heavy bullets just fine, so I tried some. The Nosler 77gr Custom Competition bullets just sort of sprayed. I actually couldn't keep them all on a 14x14" target. It was really that bad. 75gr Hornady match bullets did very much better, but still didn't produce anything resembling an impressive group. 69 grain MatchKings were good, but still not impressive.
But at least it runs. It's chewed through the softest shooting ammo that I could find, and obviously has no problem with hot 5.56mm spec ammo. Steel case ammo has not yet posed a problem, at least not with the ACR.
It does have magazine preferances, but then most rifles do, to some extent. A Fusil steel magazine or two have seemed to lock in, and pass the pull test, only to fall back out when a shot is fired (embarrasing). A couple of my old English SA80 steel magazines lock in well, but then you have to really mash the magazine release to get them back out again. But the ACR chugs along happily with G.I. aluminum magazines, PMags of various generations and capacities, TangoDown, C Products stainless steel, Lancer and Troy magazines. I'm not sure if Fusil is even still making magazines, and I suspect that a lot of the old English steel SA80 magazines have been crushed, scrapped, or trashed, as 3 of the 5 that I bought in 2002 have proven to be sub-par.
Oh, and I dumped the trigger that came with the rifle. I bought a Geissele SSA-Enhanced AR-15 trigger on sale from Palmetto State Armory, and installed it with the ACR hammer spring, which doubles as the selector detent spring. Soooo much better. I run an SSA in my main AR-15, and I've got another with a 15-minute trigger job. The ACR trigger really sucked compared to both, and couldn't even compete with a Tapco AK trigger. I usually take 2 rifles with me when I got to shoot, and the ACR always came in 2nd place because the trigger pull was always heavier than whatever else I took. Just unpleasantly heavy if you have anything to compare it to.
Ian McCollum has been posting videos of obscure firearms, and explaining how they work for a couple of years. He's also done video reviews on military and civilian firearm books, if that's more your speed.
Here's an example. Halloway Arms HAC-7 .308 Winchester semi-automatic rifle. There may be about 300 of these rifles. The design is a kind of a strange conglomeration of elements from the FN FAL, Kalashnikov rifle trigger and operating system, AR-15 bolt and gas tube. The rifle didn't work very well, and a piece had fallen off of it, but I think it's still an interesting design. I've been absorbing all that I can about military-style rifles for decades, and I've never seen or even heard of these Halloway Arms rifles.
Starting at the start, it seems that "Ian" is a bit of a gunsmith, engineer, and fabricator. I'm very jealous of the shop. Many many thousands of dollars worth of machinery, tools, and components there.
Here is the video I put up on YouTube. It's a little less than two and a half minutes. I spent way too much time on it, struggling with Windows Live Movie Maker, restarting my computer about a dozen times before I got it all together and working properly.
Since I was rebuilding one of my AR-15 uppers anyway, I decided that I should try a compensator. I would have preferred a BattleComp, but was not willing to pay the price for one. There are a few options for similar comps, and the one that I chose was the Pigsticker from Palmetto State Armory. Things did not go exactly to plan. Although muzzle flip is minimal. . .
That upper will get it's A2 flash-suppressor back, and I'll probably put the Pigsticker on a 16" barrel at some point in the future, to see how that goes. When that happens, I'll put up another video.
I wanted to get a picture before I got them all dirty with soot from burned solid propellant.
Those are fresh, never-fired, Starline .38 Special shell casings.
I've reloaded thousands of shell casings, but they've all been at least once-fired. They never come out of the tumbler that clean, inside and out. I had a Brownells gift card, and not enough .38 Special brass, so a brown truck brought me these little brass gems.
Link to offer on MidwayUSA site. They haven't been doing a lot of coupon codes. I guess people have just been throwing handfulls of cash at them since the election and December, so they just don't need to do it.
1. Go Shopping
Add regularly priced, in-stock products to your cart totaling $100 or more - Promo Code JULY413
Excludes Ammo, Reloading Components and Gun Parts
2. Enter Code
Enter the promotion code into the box titled "Promotion Code" on the Shopping Cart page.
3. Receive Discount
See the discount applied in the Order Summary on the right hand side of the Checkout pages.
Special Details
Offer expires at 11:59 p.m. CT on July 4, 2013. Hurry!
Can only be used once per Customer.
Sale, Clearance, out-of-stock, Ammo, Reloading Components, Gun Parts, FNH, Geissele, Nightforce and Sitka Gear products do not count towards the total.
Gift certificates do not count towards the total.
Can only be used on midwayusa.com on regularly priced, in-stock products.
No phone, fax or mail orders please.
Cannot be used with any other promotion code, or combined with Dealer, Birthday or Special pricing.
Boston Bomber "Speed Bump" Tsarnaev's name was on a list of gun victims compiled by Mayors Against "Illegal" Guns.
It's one thing to pad the statistics of gun victims with criminals killed in self-defense or in the line of duty, but to put a known terrorist on the list was pure and unadulterated stupidity.
Illinois has been the only state that grants NO permits for concealed carry, not counting Washington D.C. as a state. As I posted earlier, The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Illinois could not deny the Right To Bear, and had to come up with a permitting system. The Illinois House passed a new concealed carry bill with an 89-28 vote. The Senate passed it 45-12. These margins are high enough to avoid a veto by governor pat quinn That's the good news.
Bad news:
The law will not allow concealed carry on mass transportation or in government buildings, schools, taverns*, stadiums, casinos^, rahm emanuel's house, or in parks.
$150 fee for the permit. That's a lot.
16 hours of training is required before issuance, the most of any state in the country. (Are shooting ranges still outlawed within chicago city limits?).
The bill that passed does not include the requirement to abolish local gun ordinances, such as chicago's "assault weapon" ban that was written into earlier bills.
Law enforcement can object to the issuance of a permit. The applicant can appeal the objection to a seven-member panel of appropriate personnel (retired judges, FBI agents).
So if you live in chicago, where you are most likely to need a firearm to defend yourself, and take the bus or train to work or to visit friends, you're still prohibited most of the time. Maybe time to get a bicycle? If you are one of many on welfare, you probably can't afford the fee and training. Still, I guess something is better than nothing, and the law will undo some of the ridiculous restrictions on transportation of firearms that currently exist, at least for those who can get their hands on a permit.
* - Businesses that serve alcohol, where less than half of the sales are food.
I realized that I had a collection of reviews, and just maybe some wisdom to share. I hope to keep the information as unbiased as humanly possible.
Why do I bother writing all this stuff? When I buy something, I want it to work the way I want it to. I hope that what goes around, comes around, and that I'll find the reviews or advice that I need when I go looking for information.
The items reviewed on the blog are, almost without exception, purchased or rented by myself, with real money.
I am also kind of hoping that maybe someone in the right position may see some glimmer of genious in my ramblings, and help get me a paying gig at a gun magazine or website.
I hope that some of this nonsense in the blog is helpful to someone.
Don't be afraid to post comments!
About Me
Some of you may wonder what the deal with the nickname is.It’s short for Suburban Commando, a nick I picked up in high school.A few companions that were a little left of center though it was quite funny, I accepted it out of spite.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a Glocker.I really can’t have nice things, so the basic black pistols work just fine for me.
I’ve also shot rimfire benchrest.I even managed to win a local match.My best score to date was shot with a completely rebuilt Ruger 10/22 with a KID trigger and barrel, although my Remington 40XRBR is more consistant.
I started shooting rimfire benchrest in 2004, I think.I got into action pistol competitions in 2006.
