Not just the guns, but all the stuff that goes with them
Hitchcock45 chooses his favorite child.
Among those beauties he had on that buckskin-covered table, I’m not sure I could have made a choice.
And for what it’s worth, I only half-agree with his final choice, despite it being chambered for my favorite cartridge. Out of that particular group, I could have narrowed it down to (maybe) four… and then killed myself.
Ooooh baby:
First, what they are (i.e. via Gun Jesus, thankee Ian), and then one is brought back to life, with some shooty goodness at the end.
Of every sub-machine gun ever made, this might be the only one that could entice me to hassle with all the NFA bollocks.
Sometimes an article appears that just resonates with me, but before I talk about this one I need to clear the space a little.
One of the problems that beset gun manufacturers is that they are, in effect, doomed by the quality of their product. My Swedish Mauser, for example, was designed in 1896 and made in 1906, and after probably several hundred rounds through the barrel — maybe over a thousand, who knows? — it can and does still shoot minute-of-angle (MOA) groups at 100- and 500-yard distances.
So from a manufacturer’s perspective, they produced a rifle that has lasted close to four generations, and counting; there’s no way they could stay in business with that kind of production cycle, even assuming that the number of shooters would moderately increase every year. That’s no basis for a business to operate.
Fortunately, gunmakers are blessed with a restless clientele who are always on the search for the “perfect” cartridge — flatter trajectory, higher velocity, harder-hitting, lessened recoil: you name the goal (or combinations thereof) and there’ll be a market for it.
So it’s no surprise that the manufacturers will come out with some new wunderkind-cartridge that will require a new rifle with a different chamber size, different barrel bore / rifling twist, and so on.
I used to have a problem with this, especially when — as it must — such “improvements” come at the expense of a cartridge doomed to reloader-only status simply by virtue of being old. There’s only so much room on the shelf, after all, and only so much profit to be made at whatever production runs.
The 6.5x55mm cartridge used by the aforementioned Swedish Mauser is a good example of the above phenomenon. That 6.5mm (.256″) bullet diameter has been proven to be perhaps the perfect dimension to create the compromise between performance and recoil for most small-to-medium-sized game (and amply adequate for ahem anti-personnel requirements).
One can play around, of course, with the cartridge casing size and/or length to change the propellant quantity that will slow or increase the bullet’s velocity. So the 6.5mm bullet can appear inside the 55mm casing of the Swede, the 47mm of the 6.5mm (BR) Lapua, the 51mm of the .308 Win (a.k.a. 6.5 Creedmoor), or the 63mm of the .30-06 (a.k.a .25-06 Remington): the list goes on and on.
And that’s just for the quarter-inch bullet diameter. Now take it up to 6.7mm (e.g. the .264″) and OMG 7mm, and all hell breaks loose.
So now you can go and read 6 Dying Rifle Cartridges that Deserve a Second Chance, and see if you agree. Your own choices for redemption can be posted in Comments.
For Readers Of More Recent Vintage, I first talked about this topic a couple decades ago, in Nothing Good Since 1955.
And yes, I know that all the cool kids swear by the 6.5 Creed; we Olde Pharttes know full well that the 6.5 CM is popular only with shooters who’d never shot the 6.5 Swede, which is a superior performer anyway.
In cartridges, as with all things, history is important.
I got this from Reader Brad_In_IL over the weekend:
Kim,
The skeet/trap ranges at my local sporting club have been severely damaged by a miscreant. Here’s from the senior RSO for the pistol/rifle side of the club
On Friday evening, someone in a dump truck did extensive damage to the Main Clubhouse. The individual also hit the other buildings as well, sparing only the R/P office. It was all caught on camera and the perp has been found and charges pending. No fun for anyone. It’s frustrating.
Perhaps you can help bring some attention to this wanton vandalism, for fundraising for repair / rebuilding. If not fundraising… perhaps you can encourage your readers in the Northeast IL / Southeast Wisconsin area to patronize the club.
Thank you.
Indeed I can. Those of you who live out there, get over to Brad’s club and join up, because it’s not like there are a zillion choices to shoot in that part of GFW World. All others: please reach for yer wallets, if you can, and follow the link above. Your support is sorely needed.
So in PSA’s hourly emailed sales brochure (side note: seriously? keep this up and you’re going to end up in the spam folder, guys), I see this:
Now I have no idea whether this is a good buy, or the product quality thereof either, but I have to ask myself: outside the .dotmil and law enforcement, who the hell would want to buy this kind of thing?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that this shouldn’t be available, and “just because” isn’t sufficient reason to want to own anything gunly. No no siree, not me never.
But you’re going to drop a grand on something that I can almost guarantee you’re never going to need or use, outside your fevered Red Dawn fanboi fantasies.
Please let me reiterate: if you’re going to spend a grand on something intrinsically useless, be my guest.
But a thermal optic?
Feel free to correct my thinking, in Comments.
Update: Clearly, according to my ahem propertied Readers, I’m showing my Suburban Bias.
My apologies to one and all.
Cassie McBride at Ammo.com runs the numbers, and produces this intriguing little chart (among others):
The only issue I have is that there’s no mention of whether the lethality was affected by the number of boolets per fatality — i.e. how many died as a result of being shot more than once. Whatever, I’m pleased to see a tidy 2:1 ratio for the .45 ACP and likewise for the .357 Mag, albeit from a lower base. (I know, these are murders, not Righteous Shootings. But given the source, I don’t think the fuzz would make a distinction anyway.)
But wait: surely Massachusetts’s strict gun laws should make any murders unlikely or even impossible? Or are they telling us that all the above murders were committed by licensed gun owners only? [/sarc]
Browse the whole article for full reading pleasure.