The Firearm Blog

James Yeager wrote a fascinating article for SWAT Magazine and has cross posted it on the The Survival Podcast Forum.

So what happens to a bunch of ARs, AKs and various pistols when you subject them to 12 very intense days and nearly a quarter million rounds of ammunition? Everything! In a recent 12-day span we have 22 students in a Fighting Rifle course, a High Risk Civilian Contractor Shooting Package and a High Risk Civilian Contractor Medical Package. I decided to document the things that went wrong as we pushed men and machines through 12 very harsh days of training. This was no make-believe “Torture Test” it was actual sweat and ammunition combined to make “Training Torture”. If these classes aren’t the toughest in the world they are close.

I highly recommend reading it. Some of the malfunctions they had are bizarre. In one such malfunction an empty 7.62×39mm (or possibly 5.45mm) case got stuck *behind* the bolt of an AK!

Also make sure you read forum replies by James. I was interested to see that he offers all his classes to civilians:

I will NEVER teach a class that isn’t open to civilians. NEVER. I am a Life NRA member and a proud supporter of the 2nd Ammendment.

Read the article here.

A big thanks to Jay for emailing me the link.

Indonesian police officers display confiscated arms during press conference in Jakarta, Indonesia on 30 December 2008. Indonesia police seized dozens of arms, 8,5 kilos of heroin, 1,5 tons of marijuana, and 16,000 methamphetamine pils in several operations in the end of the year. Indonesia has tightened security in the country ahead of the Christmas day and New Year Eve. Indonesia was hit by a series of major terrorist acts from 2000 to 2005, including the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, hotel explosion in 2003 and the Australian embassy bombing in 2004, killing more than 250 people.

Those sneaky drug dealers! The police think they have confiscated guns and all they have is paintball markers and cheap airsoft toys. I bet we find that those 16k methamphetamine pills are cleverly disguised aspirin
H/T MP.net

Wheel gun aficionados are likely to be appalled at these “21st century” single action Shooting Master series revolvers from USFA (U.S. Fire Arms) that will be on sale next year (2009).

There is not much information out there but they will be available in 2009 for an MSRP of $899. Calibers offered will be .357 Magnum, .41 Short Magnum and .44 Magnum. Customers will be able to choose from six colors: Coyote Tan, Sage Green, Forest Green, Federal Brown, Sniper Grey and Black Graphite.

Hat Tip: CASCity

The below photo comes from an article about the AAC Cyclops suppressor that Andy posted on the official AAC blog. The photo illustrates the size really well.

Looks similar in size to a massive custom 12 gauge suppressor I saw on a Remington 870 recently.

Blackfork is trying to develop subsonic loads for his .223:

I looked on the Hogden site and found a subsonic load: 3.1 grains of Titegroup and a 55 grain bullet. I tried 3.1 grains of Titegroup under a Nosler 69. It works, doesn’t cycle the rifle but it’s quiet. The gun kind of rattles a bit when it goes off. Kind of a beefed up .22lr. About six inches under the zero for my normal ammo.

As he said, a problem is that a subsonic 55 grain has about the same muzzle energy as a High velocity .22 Long Rifle. On the other hand a heavy 77 grain bullet will not give great accuracy unless the correct barrel twist is used. The Shooting Times says a 1:8 twist rate is the minimum need to stabilize a 77 grain Sierra MatchKing.

I look forward to following BlackFork’s progress.

More at BlackFork

Hat Tip: Snowflakes in Hell

The man was a professional hunter. Spiegel Online reports:

Evidently charades or board games weren’t exciting enough. A 52-year-old man in Cologne who had drunk too much on Christmas Day last Thursday picked up his revolver, loaded one bullet into the barrel and spun it, declaring “Now we’re going to play Russian roulette!”

Very sad for his family.

For reasons unknown in the West the Chinese are experimenting with a conventional/non-bullpup conversion of their QBZ-95 rifle. It is called the Type 03 / QBZ-03. Information is scarce but it appears to be currently being used by PAP (Peoples Armed Police).

Here are some photos of the rifle in action (From Ronguild and ShanghaiExpress @ MP.net):

Close ups of the rifle disassembled (click to expand):

It has been said that the reason the QBZ-03 is being developed is that the conventional design is better suited to certain mission requirements. I don’t buy that reason. While there are many reasons to love/hate bullpups it is proven that they fulfill the exact same role as conventional rifles. I am not sure what the reason is but maybe the QBZ-95 is just not performing as expected.

The rifle chambers the Chinese 5.8×42mm DBP87 round and the export version, introduced last year, chambers the 5.56mm NATO.

Specifications for the 5.56mm export version:

Caliber: 5.56 x 45mm
Overall length:960mm/710mm with butt unfolded/folded
Total weight:3.8kg / 8.4 lbs with empty magazine
Firing model: Single shot, continuous firing, 3-rounds burst
Sight: Mechanical sight or optical sight

There does not appear to be a “Canadian” version yet (Sorry, I am just jealous of those lucky Canadians and their QBZ-97 imports ).

James has written an interesting post discussing the modern trend of not calling a revolver a pistol. Technically any handgun is a pistol from the early matchlocks to single shot handguns to autoloaders.

I personally use the following terminology:

A revolver: revolver
A single-shot: pistol
A Derringer: Derringer
An Autoloader: pistol (unless it is also a revolver. I would call that an automatic revolver)
A Matchlock: pistol
A fully-automatic handgun: machine pistol (if it was specifically designed to he held like a pistol, otherwise it is a submachine gun)
A handheld cannon: handheld cannon, hand cannon or Handgonne

The futuristic looking Mateba Auto Revolver (from Wikipedia)


Chinese Hand cannon (from Wikipedia)

Robert Boyd of Shooting Illustrated has started a blog tracking the progress of the development of a replica U.N.C.L.E. Walther P38 carbine conversion.

I am looking forward to reading his progress reports. More here.

I have decided to resume blogging for the next few days. I will be away from the 3rd - 7th.

Have a very merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year!

A big thanks to all those who have helped me with the blog, my readers especially those who have posted comments on the blog and to all my fellow gun bloggers.

I hope blogging next year will be as fun as it has been this year.

A vaguely seasonal image.

I will probably take a break from blogging until 2 January 2009.

See you all next year.

B.B. has written a very interesting post about a working replica of an outside lock air rife. This type of air rifle was made between 1600 and the mid 1700s. It is called an outside lock because the firing mechanism is literally on the outside of the action.

Instead of knocking open a value with a hammer and instantly releasing gas when the trigger is pulled, a cam is used to time the release of the gas. It creates a very effective system, although to take advantage of the slow release of gas a 32 3/4″ barrel is needed.

I highly recommend this article.

The problem with blogs is that shortly after something interesting is posted it is moved to the dusty archives in the recesses of the blog and only ever uncovered by the occasional google visitor. I came across, courtesy of google, a series of articles at SaysUncle on building an AK all the way from a flat receiver which was written before I started reading gun blogs.

The start of the project. From Part 1.

If you missed this series back in 2005 I highly recommend having a read of it.

Jennersen has just started down the homemade AK path and is blogging his progress. Expect some interesting posts from him in the future.

Zack @ The Next Chapter has reviewed his 1967 .380 ACP Walther PPK :

Suppose that I did not own this PPK; some might ask if I would I run out to purchase a Walther PPK over all other handguns available for home defense or concealed carry. No, I probably would not, but I certainly would not fault anyone who did choose one; the PPK is a fine little pistol.

More here.

Dennis @ Mister Mills is without doubt a man who loves his revolvers:

This is a tip of the hat to a couple of the best guns you can find.One is a work of art and the other is a working horse of a gun.

He has info and lots of photos of the S&W “Combat Masterpiece” and the Ruger GP-100 here.

S&W Model 15. Beautiful grips

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