The Firearm Blog

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that the Orange County Sheriff’s Office has bought 14 Alexander Arms .50 Beowulf AR-15 rifles.

The article is obviously written by someone with no clue about firearms. For example “…the new semiautomatic, .45-caliber Heckler & Koch machine pistols.”. I can’t be sure that the journalist understood the real reason why the Sheriff bought the .50 Beowulf rifles.

The journalist claims that the rifles are for ridding the expressway of cows and exotic animals, who sometimes escape from the local theme parks, such as elephant and lion.

I do not think killing cows would be money well spent on these expensive rifles. Surely a .308 will dispatch a cow just as fast and at a longer range. They are sure to have tactical rifles in their arsenal.

(Disclaimer: I have never hunted exotic dangerous game … the following is just my uninformed opinion)

If they were really worried about dangerous game a few .375 H&H rifles would be more effective.

According to Alexander Arms and Cartridges of the World 11th edition this is how the .375 H&H and the .50 Beowulf compare

The .375 H&H also offers much greater penetration due to the smaller caliber.

I do not think the Sheriff is really planning on using his new AR-15 rifles on elephants or lions! It is most likely for use against people and vehicles.

From Alexander Arms:

The external ballistics of the Beowulf® cartridge are well suited to urban environments where the shorter range template allows for more flexible application and the large projectile energy delivered by the ammunition can disable both motor vehicles and assailants with body armor. Windscreen glass does not affect the trajectory of the bullet nor does automotive body panels.

The .50 Beowulf AR is defiantly a very nice rifle Here is a video of is being shot:

Nice looking .22 CZ rifle with green dyed beech stock

I really like the color!

More photos here.

Do your kids play with Lego? Then treat them to life-like Lego guns!

A company called BrickArms sells Lego guns based on real guns. To image to the right is a WWII Sergeant armed with a M1A1 and his trusty 1911.

Other guns available are the MP5, M4, S&W 500 and more

even a briefcase uzi

Hat Tip: The Download Munkey

I have been getting quite a lot of visits from people searching google for M16 / M4 / AR-15 manuals. So I decided to post some of them.
US Army M16 / M4 operators manual

This covers Disassembly, Cleaning, Reassembly, Magazine, Operation and Ammunition and more.

Click here to download it.

Bushmaster: Operating and Safety Instruction Manual.

Uses the diagrams from the US Army manual and covers the same content but is not as detailed.

Click here to download it.

Olympic Arms: OWNER’S MANUAL FOR PCR/AR RIFLES

Covers the same content as the above manuals.

Click here to download it.

Izhevsk Mechanical Works is a Russian arms and vehicle manufacturer founded in 1807 by Tsar Alexander I.

Below are some of their firearm promotional videos. I enjoy watching and reading military promotional material which are usually designed to entice the buyer to purchase millions of dollars worth of goods, rather than consumer marketing trying to entice you to try another type of tooth paste.

The first video is about the AK, Dragunov and Bizon firearms. The second is about the Saiga-12 shotguns. These video are also available on the Izhevsk website here.

I came across an article showing you how to make the Glock trigger pull smoother and well as showing you how to detail strip a Glock. I have not tried this.

What we are going to do here is to polish (not alter) some parts to make the trigger pull (which admittingly is a bit different) smoother. I’ve also included the extra steps to completely disassemble the gun and get it back together again

Read it here.

I came across a company call Stellar Rigs who claim to be selling some pretty cool carbine conversion kits for 1911 and Glock pistol made by “Mec-Tec”

The website is out of date and I do not know if the kits are still sold. I do know that in most Western countries converting a pistol into a rifle is not allowed. UPDATE: I was wrong. See comments below.

UPDATE:

Some more photos from gunbroker

ShelbyFan over at RFC warns about the use of hot .22 rimfire cartridges on game you plan on eating!

normally I use PMC Zappers, but I was in a hurry and used quik shoks to go grouse hunting, big mistake.
just saying, if you wanna blow something up the quik shok’s do the job nicely, not if the target is gonna be eaten.
i barely needed to clean her, she lost almost all her guts, the tail fell off.
ruffled grouse

I have not used CCI Quic-shot but plan of purchasing a box soon and seeing how effective it is on small game. I will be sure to post my experiences on the blog.

Knifes and hunting seem to go together. I have a modest collection of knives for use general DIY and for hunting.

Dave Markowitz over at the Survival & Emergency Preparedness blog has an interesting post about choosing a knife for survival. Something evey hunter should take into account.

Knives are among the most important items in your survival kit. They should be selected with care to maximize their utility in your environment. Between the SAK, LB7, and machete, I should be able to handle anything that needs cutting in an emergency.

More here.

The economist has a very interesting article about how criminals in the UK appear to lease firearms from each other for use in specific crimes. The same firearms are used in crimes all over the country!

Some have suggested that would-be thugs are renting guns to use as fashion accessories. Daniel Silverstone of Portsmouth University is sceptical: “It would be cheaper to buy a replica,” he points out. “Someone who hired a real gun would probably intend to use it.” Renters must either be very short of cash or in need of a gun at very short notice, he reckons.

More here.

The Good:
The little Kel-Tecs are very easy to conceal, with very little weight or bulk. They are also very inexpensive.

The Bad and Ugly:
On the 2nd or 3rd round fired, the little bracket that the guide rod slides through fell out and disappeared. I’m told that Kel-Tec now makes slides without this piece, the bracket is a part of the slide, rather than a separate part.

More here.

Guns and Ammo have a review here.

I ran a couple of different types of ammo through the pistol, shooting as fast as I could recover. There is a distinct upward flip to the muzzle. You have to accept this in an auto so light, particularly when most of the weight is in the top half. Still, it was possible to keep six fast shots in a vital zone, and that is all the P-3AT is meant to do. In my hands, the pistol delivered the first shot about eight inches low and left of the remaining five. There were no malfunctions.

The title says it all.

He is renowned as one of the fastest revolver shooters in the world, emptying a five-shot revolver in 0.57 seconds in a group the size of a playing card. Miculek currently holds five world records in exhibition revolver shooting. (See his wikipedia page.)

Following his article about Glock safety Rob has written an article explaining the differences between the safeties in the Glock and XD.

If the Glock firing pin is partially retracted and the Springfield XD is fully retracted we could draw the conclusion that the Glock is half-cocked while the XD is cocked and locked. Both will fire if there is an accident. Both have safeties in place to prevent this from happening. If the only unique safety on the XD’s is the grip safety, how does it work? It looks like the grip safety on the 1911, but it definitely does not quack like the same duck.

More here.

A reader recently asked where he can find an animation showing how a pump action shotgun works. This is not the best animation ever, but it is all I could find. Click here to view it (scroll down the page).

Below is a screenshot (just an image. Click here to view it.):

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Blackwater employees have been supplying the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) with weapons. The PKK are labeled a terrorist group by the US government.

In July Turkey complained to the US that they had seized American made weapons from the PPK.

Two former Blackwater staff have already pleaded guilty to another incident of weapon smuggling.

Blackwater had this to say:

Allegations that Blackwater was in any way associated or complicit in unlawful arms activities are baseless. The company has no knowledge of any employee improperly exporting weapons… There is no indication that the weapons stolen… ever ended up in Iraq.

My Opinion: Thousands of US weapons have ended up on the Turkish blackmarket. It is not unfeasible that some of these were bought by the PPK. It would not surprise me if these accusations are yet another attempt by the Iraqi government to increase pressure on Washington in order to force Blackwater out of Iraq.

Sources:

BBC
CNN
Blackwater
International Herald Tribune