The Firearm Blog

Chicago, you are next! When the Chicago ban is finally overturned and crime does not increase, or even decreases, a lot of wind will be taken out of the gun control sails

A summery, along with some interesting comments, of this historic Supreme Court ruling can be found over at GunPundit.

As a commenter, Jack, at The Gunnut said:

It’s a wretched commentary on this Court that the opinion wasn’t 9-0.

DoubleTapper describes the latest wedding he attended …

I sat at my assigned table with 9 other guys. Of the 10 of us, there were 3 Glocks, 1 Sig, and 2 S&W’s. It was a little weird until I realized that 3 of the guys were under 21, and 2 were still in the IDF and had their duty weapons stashed under the table.

I have got to attend a Jewish Israeli wedding in my lifetime! Seems like an event not to be missed

What is cooler than a .50 BMG? A suppressed .50 BMG

I found this photo on the Advanced Armament website. Click to expand

The Cyclops Suppressor

The Fedorov Avtomat is possibly the first (see comments) an early firearm used in action that would classify as a true self-loading battle rifle.

Photo by Semen Fedoseev

It weights in at about 4.4kg compared to the 7.7-8.8kg of the BAR: much closer in weight to that of a battle rifle (rather than a light machine gun).

3200 were produced and it saw action during the Russian civil war and WWII.

More about it at Wikipedia and guns.ru.

Aviation Week reports that last week the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office Soldier, Brig. Gen. Mark Brown weighed in on the M4/.223 issue:

“I don’t think we need an unhealthy, discordant debate over the current carbine because I don’t think the current carbine is a long-lived solution anyway. However, the M4 carbine has been continuously improved. It has 68 substantial engineering design changes and about 380 total engineering design changes, so it’s become a modular system. It’s very accurate, it’s the most accurate of the carbines, it’s the lightest of the carbines, and it’s the shortest of the carbines. We’re very pleased with it, and we expect it to be the Army’s carbine of record, for a little while.”

The 6.8×45mm is an alternative to the 6.8 SPC cartridge that has been getting a lot of attentio. Developed by Larry Kramer of Kramer Defense (They have no website that I could find). The parent cartridge is the .223 Remington / 5.56mm NATO.

Its advantage over the 6.8 SPC is that a standard AR15 bolt face and magazine can be used, and that the case can be formed from .223 brass instead of the obscure .30 Remington.

5.56mm vs. 6.8×45mm.
Photo from Defense Review.

The 6.8 SPC can send a 115 gr bullet at 2625 ft/s while the 6.8×45mm Kramer can push the bullet to 2500 ft/s. Kramer claims that once the round is refined it will be able to achieve 2600 ft/s from a 16″ barrel.

A lot of development has gone into the SPC by Special Forces members and Remington. I think it is likely that they would have tried the .223 case as it would be a logical choice for the next AR/M16 cartridge. I know very little about wildcats and cartridge development but I would guess there was a good reason they went with the .30 Rem as a parent instead of the .223 Rem.

More at Defense Review

A collection of the classics

H/T: Gizmodo

An unfinished AR upper made from a 60% Beryllium alloy is being sold on GunBroker. Dr. Strange gun pointed out that Beryllium is toxic. Machining and finishing it off could cause Berylliosis, a chronic lung disease that has no cure.

Even handling it could be have unpleasant side effects. According to wikipedia:

Beryllium contact with skin that has been scraped or cut may cause rashes, ulcers, or bumps under the skin called granulomas.

Scary stuff, considering the buyer may not be aware of this.

The 60% Beryllium upper.

The auction description is:

60% A1 BERYLLIUM UPPER, YOU WILL NEED TO REAM FRONT TO REAR THE CENTER TO FIT THE BOLT , DRILL FRONT AND REAR TAKE DOWN PIN HOLES,EJECTON PORT DOOR HINGE PIN HOLES, ROLL PIN FOR THE FWD ASSIST, AND THREAD THE FRONT FOR THE BARREL NUT…..S/H…10.00

Jennersen was kind enough to photograph his Bushmaster A3M4 Gas Piston system for me. He took some really good shots.

Thanks Jennersen!

The rest of them are here.

DoubleTapper has taken photos of a Tavor being field stripped in his kitchen. Very interesting.

More here.

This is crazy and really goes against all firearm safety rules.

Still, they do prove that a .308 is not enough to knock you down, although it makes perfect sense.

Obviously the shock and internal damage of a bullet entering the body with no energy absorbed and distributed by a vest is going to have much greater effect.

Very busy at the moment.