Maybe this is why Ruger keeps having to recall their guns – their employees are working in substandard conditions according to OSHA. Thanks to Unc for the story.
First person that suggests some sort of government conspiracy to shut down gun makers via OSHA in the comments is going to get their comment edited to say that they like playing in pretty pink dresses.
My buddy Steve at the Firearms Blog asks for opinions on Federal’s new “Self-Defense Birdshot” load for the Taurus Judge. No, that’s not a typo, I actually wrote that. In addition to their Judge buckshot load, Federal has also released a .410 shotshell load that contains about 60 pellets of number 4 shot – not to be confused with #4 Buckshot, mind you. No, this is 60 pellets of #4 birdshot. Which, nevermind that you can already buy .410 shotshells loaded with #4 birdshot, I don’t know what particularly makes this round “personal defense” as opposed to the other .410 shotshells.
As far as the round’s actual efficiency for personal defense, I have a pretty simple question: would you load your 12 gauge shotgun with birdshot for personal defense? I wouldn’t, unless it was the very last box of ammo in the house. So if I’m not going to load a much larger and more effective gun with birdshot, I’m certainly not loading a revolver with a 2.5 inch barrel with birdshot.
If you’ve got a Judge, and you’re shopping for a round for personal defense, Federal makes an excellent 255 grain semi-wadcutter hollowpoint. It’s an all lead round doing about 800 fps. If that’s not your particular flavor, Hornady makes a .45 Colt round in the LeveRevolution line with a 225 grain bullet with a polymer tip. It’s designed for slugging deer, but out of a short barrelled pistol would probably make a handy defensive round.
The .45 Colt is a proven stopper. There are a lot of cowboys under a lot of headstones because of that round, so there’s no particular reason I see to go mucking around with a shotshell for personal defense from 2 legged varmints.
*Snubby is a special awards category in ICORE for shooters running guns with barrels of 3 inches or less. If I got a wild hair in my saddle and decided I wanted to try an ICORE match with a snubby, you can bet that the S&W Model 60 Pro Series would be my first choice.
Congratulations to all the winners – I’ll see you in Morro Bay next year, assuming all goes according to plan!
The Shooting Wire says that gun blogs are the new “power brokers” in the game.
http://michaelbane.blogspot.com/2009/06/bad-news-and-tactical-corsets.html
Michael has some commentary at his blog on how new media is rapidly blending with Old media in the shooting community. I don’t really think that blogs are power brokers so much as we tend to serve as the mouthpiece and PR machine for the voice of the shooting community. As a community, bloggers tend to have our fingers on what people are actually feeling in real time; there is very little delay from thought to action. Mind you, that is both our biggest strength and greatest weakness as a content distribution format.
Ultimately, I do think that new media wields a tremendous amount of clout, but right now it tends to be an unfocused sort of clout, jumping from issue to issue and topic to topic. I do also think we’re far too quick to eat our own, but that’s another post. Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Remember Wilson Combat’s Name Our New Gun Contest they had a while back? The winner is here, and the new gun is named the SPEC OPS 9. It’s a 16+1 round 9mm 1911 style pistol built on a polymer frame, with a 4.5 inch barrel (which means it won’t fit holsters for Commander sized guns OR Government sized guns!) and an accuracy guarantee of 1.5 inches at 25 yards. It all comes with a price tag just south of 2k ($1995 to be exact) and a single source for acquiring magazines. No word on how much mags will cost, but if they’re less than $30 I’ll eat my hat.
Now, I’m sure I’m going to get some emails or comments saying “But Caleb, why are you so down on this pistol” – and to be frank, it’s because for 2 grand you could roll over to STI and order a Tactical 4.15 in 9mm which costs the same, but has widely available spare parts, holsters, and magazines; not to mention the huge aftermarket support base that STI guns have due to their near ubiquitous presence in the shooting sports. Plus, the STI’s street price is usually going to beat the pants off the street price of a Wilson Combat gun, especially Wilson’s new Plastic Fantastic.
I’m sure it’s a great gun, and I’m sure it will shoot like no one’s business. I’m just having a hard time justifying paying 2 grand for a gun that won’t fit any of my holsters, can’t compete in Single Stack, is a 9mm so it’s no good for Limited, and only has one source for magazines. Of course, I’m sure it will sell well, and so Wilson Combat gets a “Good Game” from me, but color me unenthusiastic about this one, and give me an STI any day of the week for competition. For concealed carry, you could take that 2k you’re going to spend on this gun, and buy a Glock 19 (500 bucks) two or three good holsters (100 bucks), 10 magazines (250 bucks), and then take the remaining 1100 dollars and go to one or two good training classes on how to use your new pistol defensively. Or you could sink that 1100 bucks into ammo and shoot the wheels off some IDPA.
Now if could just convince STI to make that 8 shot .327 revolver for ICORE, I’d be in business…
As you may or may not know, I’ve started shooting ICORE (International Confederation of Revolver Enthusiasts) and in so doing have spent a decent amount of time immersed in the ICORE rulebook. One of the neat things that I’ve learned from the ICORE rulebook is the minimum caliber requirement, which is a revolver in .32 or larger. That’s right, it says .32, not .38/9mm, which is the standard for most of the other shooting sports.
Additionally, ICORE does not have a major/minor power factor. All ammo is required to meet a power factor of 120 (bullet weight*velocity/1000) to be legal to compete, which means that in theory you could hot rod a .32 Magnum or .32-20 (if you feel like rolling old school) to meet the PF, or you could shoot the new .327 Federal Magnum, although you’d have to make do with a 3 inch barrel.
Another interesting difference between ICORE and other shooting sports such as USPSA or IDPA is the rule about reloading. Both USPSA and IDPA require that revolver shooters reload after six shots, regardless of the actual capacity of their revolvers. That means that a guy shooting an S&W 627 (which is an eight shot wheelgun) in IDPA or USPSA is going to lose the advantage of those two additional rounds. Not so in ICORE, where you simply reload when you need to, whether it’s after 6, 7, or 8 shots doesn’t matter.
After that, I had an idea, a terrible, dark idea. If one were to design the gamiest of gamer guns for ICORE, it would probably be an 8 shot .327 Federal revolver with a six inch barrel firing .32 S&W Long that have been loaded hot enough to meet power factor. Such a revolver does not exist, and it’s probably a good thing at that, because it is an abomination. You could even put a titanium cylinder in it to get a faster lock time! Oh, and it would of course be ported and fitted with a red dot sight so that it would compete in Open division.
In all seriousness though, you should give ICORE a try. I recently ordered a 4 inch 625 in .45 ACP for it. While it’s not the perfect ICORE gun, I can also shoot in in USPSA, IDPA, and even three gun if I’m feeling sporty; so it is a good gun to own if you want to shoot the same gun across multiple disciplines.
At Staghounds, a lesson the media should take on how to prevent these sorts of things in the future.
I don’t watch Hardball, so I had no idea that Chris Matthews was ranting about gun control last night – not even waiting until the bodies were cold before dancing in the blood. However, a friend of mine emailed this quote from last night’s show, proving once again that Chris Matthews is, well, an idiot:
“It’s easier to get your hands on a gun than to get somebody to make you a waffle.”
Really, Chris? You’re telling me that when Rush Limbaugh gets his minions to drive his Jabba the Hutt sail-barge over to Waffle House that he has to fill out a federal form, submit to a criminal background check, and in some states undergo a three day waiting period before he can eat his waffle?
You’re telling me that when you decide to go slumming with the plebes at IHOP for some American/Belgian Waffles, that if you’re in Virginia you can only have one waffle a month?
Look, we all know that Chris Matthews is an idiot, but come on. You can’t let incredibly retarded statements like that fly without pointing out the utter ludicrousness of them; somewhere someone heard that and actually believed it, hence why it has to be challenged. Although I guess on the flipside, if someone is watching MSNBC and actually believes the stuff that Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and that harpy Rachel Maddow say, they’re probably too far gone to help anyway.
By now, you’ve all probably heard about the shooting at the Holocaust museum in Washington, DC. I’m not going to recount all the details, save to praise the security guards for stopping the guy before he had a chance to shoot any innocent bystanders, and to offer my sincere condolences to the family of the guard that lost his life.
Now, what I am going to do is list a few things about the shooter that will probably be misrepresented in the media – it is important when you start talking to coworkers about this that you’re armed with facts, and not emotions and soundbites.
The shooter was a white supremacist, holocaust denier, and possible a 9/11 Truther. Any one of those three things is enough to classify him as “bat-shit loco”, but taken together it’s a testament to being a total ball of crazy.
He used a shotgun, which is illegal in Washington, DC.
He is a convicted felon, having been convicted of kidnapping and a few other charges; thus it was already illegal for him to be in possession of any firearms.
Once again, we find a sad case where no amount of gun control in the world could have stopped this man – just to get to Washington DC to attack the Museum, he committed at least 3 felonies that I can think of; all before firing his first shot. So when someone says “oh we need laws to prevent this sort of thing”, ask them “what laws?” and point out that it was already illegal for this guy to have any guns. Then ask them if they want us to “make it more illegal.”
The tactical (blank) craze has officially gone too far. Assuming that my blackberry parses this link correctly, I present the tactical corset.
http://www.tacticalcorsets.com/
I am both turned on and a little disturbed. I mean honestly, what’s next? Actually, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know.