Three well known gun photographers allowed me use of their SHOT Show ’09 photos on the blog. Without those photos my SHOT coverage would not have been nearly as interesting for you to read and for me to write. A big thanks to, in no particular order …
Remigiusz Wilk (REMOV). REMOV covers military expos on both sides of the Atlantic as the editor-in-chief of Bron i Amunicja. REMOV has been known to visit The Firearm Blog from time to time 
REMOV shouldering the 7.62mm Magpul Massoud at SHOT.
Chen “SMGLee” Lee. I don’t know what Chen does for a living but he is notorious for getting access to military gear before anyone else does. Luckily for us he is also a keen photographer and took over 600 photos at SHOT Show alone! SMGLee has been spotted on this blog a couple of times
Chen at SHOT probably wishing he could take the KAC PDW home
Dr Ken Lunde. Ken is computer scientist and author working for Adobe. He is a talented and prolific gun photographer who has covered SHOT for the past few years.
All of these guys are first class photographers and we are all fortunate they take the time to post their work online.
You will notice I have added these “Share / Save” buttons at the bottom of every post.
If you click on the button a popup box will allow you to easily share that blog post on whatever social network, news, bookmarking or messaging services you use.
I encourage you to share blog posts you find interesting on reddit / digg / facebook / stumble upon / delicious / twitter … etc. The more people that visit the blog, the more inspired I am to keep on blogging. Blogging is hard work, if that hard work is not paying off it can be depressing.
In summary: if you love the blog, share the love
Thanks
- Steve
The Marines are back doing what they do best – kicking pirates ass. Marine Scout Snipers are being deployed to provide protection for counter-piracy teams in and around the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Red Sea. Navy.mil reports:
The nine-member sniper team brings multiple capabilities to CTF 151, including its ability to operate from an aerial platform with a variety of different weapons systems. The scout snipers use a Mk-11, which is the 762 sniper rifle; a 50-caliber M107 special application scoped rifle (SASR); and several different sets of optics to aid them in carrying out their mission.
“We have the ability to stand off of a target, visually see what is on the target and report that information to the VBSS teams so they understand — before they’re boarding — the number of personnel, if there are any weapons on board, if there are any type of foulings on the deck, if their hook point is obtainable, and, basically, give them a warm and fuzzy feeling that they’re not out alone out here, that they have snipers watching over them 100 percent of the time,” explained Benkie.
Emphases mine. That must be a good feeling
More here.
From the you-got-to-be-kidding-me-department. The BBC reports:
“We’re looking for anyone who is brandishing offensive weapons or blades,” Holly told Newsbeat.
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Even when pictures are taken in private, though, which isn’t technically breaking the law, he says the weapons are so dangerous his officers pay a visit to the people involved.
“We show the parents their pictures,” he explained, “recover the weapons and make sure they know that behaviour is unacceptable.
“We have large kitchen knives, axes, samurai swords, baseball bats, a huge number and different type of weapons – in simple terms weapons that can kill.”
I am speechless. If you take a photo of yourself holding a knife in Glasgow and post it on the internet the police will hunt you down and explain to you that knives are dangerous.
$3 Plastic knife: Guaranteed not to offend.
If William Wallace has been forced to cook food with a plastic kitchen knife he would never have had to heart to take on the British. I think it is safe to say that the Queen does not have to worry about the Scots seceding from the Kingdom.
SayUncle reports that Alliant Techsystems are laying off workers for the second time from their Federal Cartridge Ammunition plant in Anoka. Apparently their order backlog is at an end.
At first glance this seems insane given the availability of reasonably priced ammo. One reason could be that the market for premium hunting ammunition has decreased.
One of the premium brands manufactured is Cape Shok dangerous game ammunition. It could be possible, in our current global economic state, hunters cannot afford to travel to the parts of the world where dangerous game is found.
Why they do no tool up to produce more cheap “tactical” ammo is a mystery.
The Carabinieri (Italian gendarmerie) have seized a pen gun from a mobster in Naples.
.22 Short rounds and one standard (subsonic) .22 Long Rifle
My memory is pretty bad but I think it was 6 months ago when the Italian police captured one of those cell phone guns from another mobster.
SFGate reports:
A Carabinieri paramilitary officer holds a .22-caliber pen gun that was confiscated from a man in Naples. According to reports, Carabinieri were investigating if the weapon has been used in crimes or “acts of intimidation.”
Hat Tip: Zeon @ MP.net
I have joined the twitter thing! My account is steve9x19. If you use twitter please go ahead and follow to me.
I read about this re-tweeting thing. I don’t really get it, but I hear it is how you let other people know about someones twitter account. So if you are feeling generous please re-tweet me
I was amazed the other day on twitter. I googled for some IT topic and found a tweet (a twitter message) asking the same thing. So I replied to that guys message and it turns out he is also a gun nut! What are the odds?
By the way, in case anyone is wondering, 9x19mm is what is commonly called 9mm Luger / Parabellum.
Armed Canadian describes the bolt action French MAS36 rifle as classic “weapon of war”. It features no safety what-so-ever (including no mosin-nagant type “safeties”) and an integral bayonet that is stored under the barrel.
Despite its classic and attractive stock, the MAS36 is a weapon meant to shed blood and it shows in its design. One non-visible aspect of this is the fact the MAS36 has no safety whatsoever. Childproof this rifle is not. The moment you chamber a round, the rifle is ready to shoot. MAS36s were often carried on patrol with no round in the chamber and the soldier cycling the bolt to load a round the moment combat occurred.
Read the very interesting homage to the “weapon of war” here
At SHOT Crosman unveiled two new PCP air rifles: the Challenger 2009 and the Benjamin PCP Marauder.
The Challenger 2009 is an upgrade of the Challenger 2000 and is designed for three-position air rifle competition.
The new challenger features a fully adjustable, match grade trigger. The individual shooter can adjust length of pull, seer engagement and trigger weight. The breech has also been completely redesigned to the loading port is farther forward to accommodate a new ambidextrous PCP bolt action. The breech redesign also allows for more eye relief adjustment. The rear diopter sight can be adjusted for all three shooting positions. The new breech also made it possible to incorporate a floating choked Lothar Walther barrel.
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Because this gun is specifically designed for three-position shooting the velocity will be factory set at 530 fps for a minimum of 70 shots.
Its will sell for $549.99 and should be available in May.
The Crosman Benjamin PCP Marauder is an interesting air rifle. According to Crosman is is integrally suppressed … or something like that:
The Marauder features an internally shrouded barrel that captures the sound and makes this gun significantly quieter than any gun we have released and makes it one of the quietest guns on the market today.
The Marauder has been designed to operate at a starting fill pressure of 2000 PSI. However, this gun can be filled to a higher fill pressure of 3000 PSI for even more shots at a sustained velocity of 1100 fps with .177 caliber and 1000 fps at .22 caliber. The Marauder offers our Dual Fuel technology so it can be filled with CO2 for more shots at a lower velocity.
The Marauder will be available in April for $529.
Seen over at GunPundit:
Click to expand. Comic Strip from Dilbert.com
heh
