Category: The Gun Thing

Not just the guns, but all the stuff that goes with them

Fit For Purpose

The Gun Thing

Reader JohnO asks the question:

I just finished reading “Vengeance” about the Israelis’ revenge operation for the Munich Olympic massacres. One aspect that piqued my interest was the agents’ use of a .22 for close combat fire. I found myself reading the eliminations via the .22 and thinking, “Kim duT would never approve”. But it seemed effective for the operation. So what’s your opinion on this? I mean, I already ditched my Glock 19 9mm in favor of a Springfield 1911 and a Walther PPQ both in .45 based. Is the .22 a viable self defense calibre?

No.

Now, is a .22 a better self-defense weapon than a Whiffle bat or a rolling pin?  Of course, but as a self-defense caliber, it falls far behind pretty much all the larger ones.  Would I like to be shot with a .22?  Of course not;  but I’d far rather be struck in, say, the leg or arm by a .22 than by a .357 Mag or a .45 bullet from your 1911.

All that said:  the .22 LR cartridge is a nigh-perfect assassin’s caliber.  At any distance under twenty feet and especially at very close ranges, a head shot with a .22 bullet — properly placed, as opposed to a glancing blow — will generally result in instant death:  the little boolet will penetrate the skull easily, and then pretty much bounce around inside the cranium, turning brain tissue into something resembling rice pudding, functionally speaking.  (In passing, I should note that when my Dad lived on the farm, they used a .22 rifle to slaughter cattle — a close-range single shot into the animal’s skull had the above result, every single time:  drop, a couple of kicks, and then game over.)

The .22 has a couple of other advantages for the assassin:  in a silenced semi-auto pistol, the noise is negligible compared to a shot from a 1911, for example (a “silencer” doesn’t do much to attenuate the blast from a larger caliber);  and using a .22 revolver means that you don’t have to bother about leaving expended cartridge cases bouncing around the room as clues for the investigators.  Likewise, it’s easier to conceal a .22-sized handgun about your person than a large-frame revolver or semi-auto pistol.  Using even a 9mm pistol shooting subsonic rounds requires a longer moderator to achieve the same degree of noise reduction as a much-shorter .22 moderator, so even a silenced .22 pistol is less bulky and more concealable.

And it’s in that capacity that the Mossad agents used .22 pistols, with excellent results, rather than as self-defense weapons.  Certainly, the end result seemed satisfactory to all except the deceased terrorists.

National Ammo Day In Jeopardy?

The Gun Thing

While reading through this report about how the recent spike in gun sales has affected the share prices of both S&W (+133%) and Ruger (+42%) — which is all good stuff, by the way — I spied at the bottom of the report this little snippet:

Moreover, on September 21, 2020, Breitbart News reported that ammunition sales were up 139 percent the first six months of 2020 as compared to the first six months of 2019, as Americans sought bullets and shotgun shells for the guns they were buying at a record pace.

A couple of days ago I went into Academy to check out the lay of the land with regard to their ammo stocks, and in a nutshell, they don’t have any.  A few lonely boxes of .270 Win, .30-06 and some 6.5mm Creedmoor were all they had on the shelves.  Forget any handgun ammo, and other than .22 CB (which are basically cartridges with no gunpowder in the cases, the bullets fired by the primer compound alone) and one (1) box of .22 Mag, there was no .22 ammo of any usable sort.

When I asked the counter guy when he was expecting a fresh shipment of ammo, he just shrugged.

So, Gentle Readers:  whither National Ammo Day this Year?

I have to admit to mixed feelings about the whole thing.  While the thought that Americans have basically bought all the spare ammo in the country should fill my heart with joy, it’s a  fact that I can’t even perform a full-bore [sic]  Happy Dance because I’d not be able to shoot my AK into the air à la  some Iraqi wedding guest, having to count off the rounds like some Gun Powder Scrooge Of Ammo Day Present.

Even worse is that a cursory scrutiny of my favorite online ammo pushers’ websites reveals that not only are they out of stock of most ammo calibers, they aren’t even letting us know when the replacement stocks will arrive.  And frankly, going to four different websites just to scrape up five boxes of 6.5x55mm to make the mandatory 100-round NAD minimum seems to be not worth the effort.

Here’s Lucky Gunner’s offering:

…and I’m not even going to talk about the per-trigger-squeeze cost… sheesh.

But I am going to talk about cost when it comes to .22 LR.  Here are the only two options available from LG:

So much for the “7-cent solution”…

Fortunately, I’m not strapped for ammo (of any caliber) because well, you all know the reason.  But National Ammo Day has always been a symbolic purchase — to remind the gun-confiscators and ammo-taxers that they face an uphill battle, so to speak.

But I think only a few complete idiots among this ungodly crowd will not have got the message this year.

So… is it worth the expense to buy .22 ammo at 18 cents per squeeze (instead of the usual 6-8 cents), just to make a point?   Should we cancel National Ammo Day this year, not for lack of interest, but because of over-enthusiasm?

After I’d written the above, I thought to myself:  why not get an obscure cartridge?  They must have stocks of those.  So I went to Midway to see about some .45-70 Govt, and found this:

None to be had, at any price.  Ugh.

 

 

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Beretta 686 Silver Pigeon (20ga)

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

As I grow older, I find myself torn between holding onto what has always worked for me, yet often having said experiential wisdom undermined by pesky things such as facts.

Take shotguns.

As Loyal Readers all know, I prefer side-by-side shotguns to over-and-under shotguns, illustrated by my own maxim:  “Shotgun barrels should be side by side like a man and his dog, and not over and under like a man and his mistress.”  (Yes, I coined that phrase.)

Actually, it’s bullshit.  While I yield to no man for my love of fine side-by-side shotguns, the plain fact of the matter is that when it comes to sustained usage, the old SxS just doesn’t cut it.  No matter how costly the gun, or how hardy, they all break after thousands of rounds;  the much-maligned over-and-unders, much less so.  (Ask yourself why Olympic shotgunners like Kim Rhode have always used over-and-unders — in fact, nobody in serious shotgunning competition uses a side-by-side, and that’s for good reasons.)

Which brings me to today’s gun under discussion, the shotgun which is pretty much the international gold standard for the ordinary shotgunner:  the Beretta 686 Silver Pigeon.

 

From a pricing perspective, it’s always difficult to pin the 686 down, because the addition of different Roman numerals makes the price shoot up faster than the options list on a Porsche 911.  The one in the picture is the bottom-of-the-range “Silver Pigeon I” in 20ga, and it typically retails for around $2,000.  This, by the way, is common in the shotgun business:  adding a couple inches to the barrel can double the price, as can asking for superior wood for the stock.

The dirty little secret about the 686 is that it probably represents the best value for money of any O/U shotgun.  (Its closest rival, sales-wise, is the excellent Browning 725 Citori, which typically retails for nearly a grand more.)  I use as an example Mr. Free Market, who each year shoots thousands of rounds through his 686 (he actually shot out his earlier 686 to the point where it would have cost more to repair than just buying a new one), and despite my constant needling, he steadfastly refuses to change to another brand.  (This post was in fact triggered by me saying to someone that we should learn from others’ mistakes or equally, by the example of others, and in the matter of O/U shotguns, I therefore bow to his experience.  If you wish to do the same, feel free to browse here.)

Where I will not change, however, is in the matter of barrel length.  I’ve always though that the longer the barrel, the better.  A 29″ or 30″ barrel will add many yards to the effective range of a shotgun over a 26″ barrel, and the increased range (and efficacy) far outweighs the weight and handling disadvantages.  Save short barrels for the self-defense pump-actions;  field guns should have longer barrels.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to run out and buy an over-and-under shotgun, by the way.  I don’t shoot clays often enough to warrant a change over to an O/U, so I’ll stick to my side-by-side companion.  Yes, I’m preaching form over function, which should surprise precisely nobody.

But if I was looking to buy an O/U, the 686 would get a very close look.

Alternative Use

Good Stuff, Real Estate, The Gun Thing

Looks like this is a week for alternatives, but this one is a little less… contentious, shall we say, than the one from yesterday.

While looking at this article about Harry Redknapp’s little beach cottage, one of the pics got me thinking.  While I think the house in general is awful (like Alyssa Milano:  quite lovely from the outside;  inside, not so much), this room is excellent:

Now I have little use for a wine cellar, being that I don’t drink a lot of wine and have no interest in collecting it either.  But a temperature/humidity-controlled room, with very limited access… can we all say “Gun Room“, children?

If I ever same into something like this (assuming it was in the Land Of The Free and not Hoplophobic Britannia), I know that one of the first things I’d do is turn to the interior designer and say, “Lose all those faggy shelves and stuff, and put in some glassed gun display cases, with room for a couple-three safes on the side.”  All that’s left is to have a decent, robust table somewhere with several clamps for gun cleaning and -smithing, and there ya go.

The same is true of houses that have projection rooms — in-home cinemas, as it were — which I think are a total waste of space.  Here’s one, from some mega-mansion on the market here in Plano:

Once again, a room with no windows, a single door access… who the hell needs stupid Disney movies that much. when you could have a primo gun room?

I know, I’m so hopelessly out of touch.

Stuff We Already Knew

Anti-Gun Nannies, Elections, Marxists, The Gun Thing

From Ammo.com I get an email which serves to remind us of one of the consequences of a Biden presidency:

According to Joe Biden’s own website, he plans to put [Ammo.com] out of business:

“End the online sale of firearms and ammunition.  Biden will enact legislation to prohibit all online sales of firearms, ammunition, kits, and gun parts.” We’re not telling you who you should vote for, but we do want to inform you of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party’s current position on these Second Amendment issues from the candidate who proudly proclaims:

“In 1994, Biden – along with Senator Dianne Feinstein – secured the passage of 10-year bans on “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines.  As president, Joe Biden will defeat the NRA again.” 

Like the title of this post says, we all know what these pricks want to do to the Second Amendment:  gut it and do everything they can to make it irrelevant.  (They can’t repeal it, but they can emasculate it with regulation after regulation to render its freedoms moot.)

What saddens me the most — just a little — is that all this new buying of guns by our citizens has drained the shelves and pipeline of ammo and related supplies to the point where National Ammo Day (Nov 19th, mark yer calendars) is going to be really difficult to observe.  (Reminder:  500 rounds or more of rimfire, or 100 rounds or more of centerfire, or reloading supplies sufficient for 500 or more rounds, all to be purchased or ordered on that date.)

It makes me think of this conundrum:

Asking Too Much

The Gun Thing

American Rifleman asks the question:

The .22 Magnum: Good for Self-Defense?

Short answer:  no.  Longer answer:  Hell, no.

I’m going to put my bias out front:  I love the .22 Magnum cartridge, when I’m shooting it in a rifle.  On varmints, I can personally attest that it’s absolute mustard;  I’ve shot maybe a dozen African silver-backed jackals with the .22 Mag, all were one-shot kills and only one of the little beasts made it more than a couple dozen yards before dropping like a stone.  Rock rabbits (Seffrican:  dassies), maybe thirty or so, with only one which ran off and I never found (probably a clean miss, as there was no blood trail).

And as Longtime Readers know, I carry a little .22 Mag NAA Mini-revolver in my pocket against the threat of snakes when I’m out anywhere near Texas brush country (e.g. the little creek which runs past our apartment complex), but it’s loaded with #9 shot shells, not boolets.

Now:  would it be pleasant to be shot in the face with one of these?  No, of course not.  Would even that stop a hopped-up lunatic with a knife?  You can try it out;  I’ll stick to a .45 ACP, thank you, if that situation presents itself.

As the above article suggests, the .22 Mag is a little powerhouse out of a rifle barrel, but out of the typical short-barreled revolvers which typically carry them:  not so much.  Sometimes you can ask just too much out of a .22 bullet, and self-defense would be one of those times.