The Firearm Blog

Ammoland reports that the Palm Pistol development is moving forward:

The response to the design has been very encouraging. Mainstream media and trade press stories coupled with the gun’s initial designation by the FDA as a medical device, created widespread domestic and international publicity. As a result, we received 417 pre-production reservations to date. Several well known gun magazines have informed us they are eager to conduct a detailed review of our prototypes as soon as they become available.

…

We are engaged in promising discussions with several small arms manufacturers regarding bringing the Palm Pistol to market. We are working toward the goal of creating prototypes late in 2009 with deliveries sometime in 2010, although a number of factors could change this timeline.

More here.

Future Weapons recently demonstrated a fascinating prototype less-lethal shotgun from Beretta. What is interesting is that the kinetic energy expended on the target from the rubber bullet is constant regardless of the range. This fixes a common problem with less-lethal ammunition: they are often powerful enough to kill at close range and to weak at long range to stop the target.

View though the LTLX7000 scope.

The range is configured using the holographic scope. The distance is set by moving two red dots in the scope until the bottom dot is at the feet of the target and the top dot it at the top of the head of the target. Because the approximate height of people in the region will be programmed into the scope, it can easily calculate the distance to the target. This method of calculating distance is similar to how hunters and snipers calculate range using mil-dot scopes.

The round is then fired by pulling a trigger. In the video we see a round hitting a target placed at 50 and 230 feet away at the same speed ( 309 fps).

The video:

The only way I think this could work is by venting gas from the barrel. The amount of gas vented would depend on the range selected. The more gas vented, the lower the gas pressure behind the projectile, and so the speed is reduced. The slower the projectile, the lower the kinetic energy expended on the target.

When watching the video you can see a puff of smoke coming out of the action after each shot is fired. This is not a semi-automatic firearm so it cannot be coming from the action cycling automatically. It must be coming from a vent.

I did some patent searching and I managed to find a patent entitled “Variable velocity weapon system having selective lethality and methods” that describes almost this exact system:

The present invention relates to weapon systems that accelerate projectiles using gases generated by the rapid combustion of a solid propellant, in particular, such a weapon system is able to vary the barrel exiting velocity of the projectile through a barrel venting means. In one embodiment, a front venting means exhausts gas generated by combusting propellant from behind the accelerating projectile and redirects a portion of the exhausted gas either to at least one fixed volume, to the front of the projectile, or to a combination of at least one fixed volume and to the front of the projectile. Redirecting some of the exhausted gas to the front of the projectile restrains the projectile, thereby slowing the projectile, and thus further decreasing the muzzle velocity of the projectile. In another embodiment, gas from behind the projectile is exhausted into a fixed volume, thereby decreasing projectile acceleration, and thus, the muzzle velocity of the projectile. One can use a…

Venting system proposed by patent.

The patent suggests venting gas in front of the projectile in the barrel to increase the air pressure and slow it down.

[ I admit that this article is very long, about 1,400 words, but I encourage you to read the whole thing. It took about 9 hours of research and writing to put together. ]

For the past few months the media has been awash with articles discussing a new disease spreading across the USA-Mexican border, destroying lives and fueling the drug trade. The pathogen is the infamous “assault rifle” and the reason for the spread of arms is lax American gun laws, or so the American public is being told again and again.

Finally two reporters from Fox News, William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott, took the time to look into the figures behind recent politicians’ speeches and discovered that only 13% of firearms confiscated in Mexico were of US origin. While it was a breath of fresh air to read an honest piece of journalism, I was still not satisfied with the number. It seemed incredible that an organization that is able to smuggle up to $48.4 billion [PDF link] worth of drugs into Mexico and from there export them to the US with apparent impunity are forced to purchase 13% of their arms from US gun stores selling civilian legal semi-automatic firearms, rather than the global arms black-market where just about anything can be purchased if you have the money.

To get to the bottom of this I engaged in some serious research and ended up reading up to 100 press releases and documents published by the office of the Procuraduría General de la República (Attorney General of Mexico) and US Government agencies.

What hardware is being found in Mexico?

This photo, taken by a US embassy official last year, shows weapons confiscated by Mexican federal police:

The weapons displayed from left to right are:

M72 LAW : A light anti tank weapon. This rocket launcher is used by the US Army and over 20 other countries. This particular launcher, and others I have seen confiscated by the Mexican police, looks to be one of the pre-1990 versions of the M72. Not able to be purchased by civilians in the United States and are unlikely to be in use by law enforcement.

Fragmentation grenade : Frequently seized by Mexican police. These particular grenades are likely copies of the US Army M67 grenade. Not able to be purchased by civilians in the United States and are unlikely to be in use by law enforcement.

Colt M4 Commando (1) : This fully automatic sub-carbine is not available to civilians and is marketed to military and law enforcement.

M249 Light Machine Gun (1) : The Mexican army uses this weapon. Not available to civilians.

A document entitled “USA-MEXICO FIREARMS SMUGGLING” [PDF link] , published less than two weeks ago list these arms:

On this 28 months of the government, between December 1st 2006 and March 26, 2009, it has been seized 35,943 firearms, out of them 19,801 are long weapons, most of them are assault rifles; 4 millions 772 thousand 517 cartridges and ammunitions; and 2,804 grenades.

…

It is highlighted the following weapons anti-tank rockets M72 and AT-4, rocket launchers RPG-7, grenade launchers c Caliber 37mm., grenade launcher additional devices caliber 37 and 40 mm, 37 and 40 mm grenades, fragmenting grenades, Barret rifle.50″, and new generation firearms like sub-machinegun and pistol FN Herstal by Belgium, imported by US, caliber 5.7x28mm, “Five-Seven” for their technical characteristics the qualities of its subsonic, tracing and penetrating ammunition able to penetrate Kevlar and Crisat armor, it is also known as “police killer”

M72 LAWs and AT-4 rocket launcher, RPG-7 grenade launchers, MGL (Multiple Grenade Launchers), grenades, sub-machine guns (1), and armor penetrating ammunition (1) are not available to civilians in the United States.

An inert deactivated RPG is the closest thing a US Citizen can get to the real thing.

[ 1: It is possible a small quantity are owned by civilians legally in line with the National Firearms Act. These have to be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and transfers between individuals are regulated. Because the Firearm Owners Protection Act prevents any more of these machine guns are entering the civilian market, they command exorbitant prices far exceeding the price that military, law enforcement or government departments pay. ]

These are all weapons you would expect para-military narco-terrorists to be using. They would have to have been either stolen from the Mexican army/police, stolen from overseas armies or acquired by arms dealers using forged end user certificates and illegally exported to Mexico.

What Hardware are the Mexican Federales reporting?

I have lost count of how many press releases detailing firearms and explosives captured during raids I have read. There are some glaring discrepancies in what they report.

Firstly, the Mexican police seem to have either little understanding of the firearms they are confiscating, or little command of the english language to interpret what they have captured. For example, in this press release from last year, they list this rifle “Un rifle marca Nickel Steel Barrel, matrícula 440236, calibre 30mm” (English: “A rifle brand Nickel Steel Barrel, number 440236, size 30mm”, emphasis mine). The “brand” was obviously read off the barrel. They also regularly name the same type of firearm under varying names. For example MAK-90 Norinco semi-automatic AK-47 clones are sometimes called MAK-90, Mark-90 or MK-90 or just “Norinco”. They do not appear to be able to keep consistent records. The police regularly make many other sloppy errors but I will not list them all.

Secondly, despite the significant desertion of Mexican soldiers who likely took thier M16 rifles with them (150,000 soldiers deserted in the past 6 years out of a force of 183,700 active personal) the Mexicans have kept very quite about M16 rifles being confiscated. I only managed to find evidence of three M16 rifles captured in the past 12 months. This does not make sense considering the vast quantity of these arms almost certainty exist in the hands of Mexican criminals.

Apart from the obviously missing M16s there appear to be very few real assault weapons confiscated. Fragmentation grenades are often found, but grenade launchers, rocket launchers, fully automatic AK-47s, machine guns and sub machine guns are rarely found compared to benign weapons.

Finally, a significant amount of arms confiscated are indeed made in the United States by well known companies such as Remington, Winchester, Mossberg and Ruger but these also happen to be arms that can be legally owned in Mexico. Hunting rifles in non-military calibers such as .22, .25, .270 and .30-30 are often confiscated as are 12 gauge shotguns and .380 ACP pistols. All these can be owned legally in Mexico, although they do require a license. These photos are of “menacing” weaponry that was captured last year:

Antique Winchester Model 06 pump action .22 rifle in front


Note the single shot 12 gauge take-down shotgun (bottom right)

While I did not do a scientific analysis of all the press releases I read, I would say possibly 25% of firearms confiscated by the Mexican police were probably at one point in time legally imported and legally owned. Just like in the United States, criminals steal arms from law abiding citizens. It is quite possible that the Mexican Army, who themselves run the only gun store in Mexico, imported many of these arms.

Top sold pistols in Mexico last year.

Conclusion

I suspect the Mexican police are deliberately or unintentionally obscuring the reporting of firearms confiscated. Embarrassing incidents such as the capture weapons that were stolen from the military or police are either reclassified, left off reports or not reported to the public. A significant of the captured weapons that the ATF traced may have been legally exported to Mexico.

While border smuggling or firearms is a serious problem, it is just one symptom of the leaky southern border. I took the number of firearms captured last year that were traced by the BATFE according to Fox News : 3000 ( 6000 / 2) and multiplied that by $1,500 (the approx. cost of an AR-15 rifle). I then compared that the most conservative estimate of illegal drugs imported from Mexico ($13 billion). Because the media like charts I drew this one:

Can you see the bar representing firearms? The chart would have to be very tall to show even a pixel of the firearm bar. Illegal firearm exports are only 0.035% of illegal drug imports from Mexico. What hope is there in stopping such a small quantity of firearms from traversing the border when a torrent of drugs is flowing in the opposite direction?

[ Feel free to reproduce this article on your website or blog, but do not hot link the images, and make sure you attribute me as the author and link back to the web page. I would appreciate you post a link the reproduced article in the comments below. ]

Thanks to Jay for providing some research material.

In last November for the first time in a long while did Ruger finally start selling mini-14 20 round magazines to the general public. Previously they had restricted them to law enforcement only. Now only 5 months later they are selling 30 rounders!

This is a great move by Ruger. At this rate we should be seeing a 100 round drum pretty soon

Bob Dylan got it right when he sung

Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

They are selling for $49.95 at Ruger.com.

Hat Tip: Michael Bane via. Say Uncle

Crazy Einar aka Michael Z. Williamson once described the Colt Python as jewelry for real men. This 1977 engraved piece by Colt’s custom shop is stunning. A suitable fashion accessory for men and woman.

Unfortunately the opening bid at gun broker is $2500! How many AR-15 lowers can you get for that?

Click to expand the images.

UPDATE: The Tactical Wire got it wrong. Production was not halted.
Tactical Wire claims that significant problems with the HK416 have been uncovered and production has been halted:

The Tactical Wire has learned from very reliable sources that the US military has encountered significant problems with H&K Model 416s in combat conditions. HK has suspended production pending an internal investigation and inspection of that weapon system.

Very interesting if true. I previously reported that Norwegian soldiers were having problems with their HK416s.

Thanks to Ed Friedman for alerting me to this.

UPDATE: In response to jdun1911: I don’t think this is an Aprils fools joke:

Billll finished off a working replica of a .36 cal. pepperbox pistol and has review it over at Billlls Idle Mind. The Pepperbox is a repeating firearm design that was the forerunner to the true revolver. The design was mainly used for pistols but it was also used for repeating rifles.

Billls blackpowder pepperbox replica.

Mark Twain wrote about a pepperbox:

“If she didn’t get what she went after, she would fetch something else.” And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. It was a cheerful weapon–the “Allen.” Sometimes all its six barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but behind it.”

Billl’s is not much more accurate! Seems more like a gun to scare off your enemies than to do them damage.

Read his review here.

The IDF report that the Tavor rifle performed well in the recent Gaza conflict Operation Cast Lead. Earlier problems with the rifle jamming have been resolved, Israeli National News reports:

The IDF has completed its study of the weapon’s performance in the Gaza fighting and a report will be handed in to the Chief Infantry and Paratroopers Officer, Brig.-Gen. Yossi Buchner, and to OC Ground Forces Command, Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrachi, within the next few weeks.

The weapon is not expected to undergo any upgrading in the near future because the Ground Forces Command found nothing to improve in it, IDF journal Bamachaneh reported. I.W.I., which manufactures the weapon, asked the IDF for feedback on the weapon’s performance, but “the answer we got was that the weapon is excellent and there is nothing to fix,” I.W.I. Director Uri Amit said.

More here.

IMI Tavor TAR-21. From Wikipedia.
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The much hyped Benelli Vinci shotgun has finally been unveiled. Benelli have proclaimed the shotgun to be a revolution. I will go through the features and let you decide if it is truly a revolution or an evolution of Benelli’s existing high-tech shotgun designs.

Benelli Vinci: In Advantage, RealTree and Black Synthetic finishes.

The modular design features is made up of three main parts: a removable stock, an upper receiver (barrel and operating mechanism) and lower receiver (trigger group, magazine and forearm). This configuration is not unlike many autoloader rifles. The three main modules can be broken down and reassembled quickly for easy transport and storage. The only extra module promised so far by Benelli is a tactical pistol gripped stock. Over time I hope we shall see a variety of lowers, stocks, handguard and uppers with different barrel configurations.

The removable stock has been made possible by a significant change to the famous Benelli Inertia recoil system. The old system requires a recoil spring in the stock. The new In-Line system has a recoil spring adjacent to the bolt.

Old Inertia recoil system. Note the recoil spring in the stock.

New Vinci In-Line recoil system.

It is outside the scope of this blog post to explain how this recoil system work. In short the whole shotgun recoils but the bolt (a separate component to the rotating bolt head) does not move because of inertia. The bolt stays still, the Inertia springs compresses, the bolt head is unlocked and the Inertia spring then forces the bolt and bolt head backwards cycling the action. If this does not make sense, read Wikipedia which has a section explaining the Inertia recoil system.

I personally cannot see how the newer in-line bolt will reduce recoil anymore than the older Inertia recoil system already does. But it does makes sense in that it allows for a modular stock.

A gun writer at the Argentina Torture Test firing a Vinci.

Trigger/grip on Benelli M2 (background, camo) and Vinci (Black, foreground).

One of the touted features is a straighter trigger pull that is more like a rifle than a traditional shotgun. I overlayed the Vinci with a Benelli M2 and you can see the stock has a more pronounced pistol grip.

The Comfort Tech system used on older models have been upgraded:

The ComforTech™ Plus Stock is divided into 12 synthetic, recoil-absorbing chevrons, arranged diagonally from the heel of the buttstock to a point just behind the pistol-grip. The stock is designed so that the exterior shell flexes outward to further dampen recoil. In combination with the ComforTech™ Plus recoil pad, this design spreads the peak force of recoil over a longer period of time than any competitor’s claim.

Comfort Tech Plus

Specifications:

Cartridge: 2.75″ or 3″ 12 gauge.
Magazine capacity: 3+1
Chokes: Crio C,IC,M,IM,F
Barrel Lengths: 28″ or 26″
Sights: Red front fiber optic bead (receiver tapped and drilled for mounting)
Overall length: 45.75″ / 47.75″
Weight: 6.8 or 6.9 lbs depending on model.
Finishes: RealTree APG, Advantage Max-4 HD or black synthetic.
Also included: Fitted gun case.

The MSRP is $1379 for the black models or $1470 for the camo models.

At the Argentina Torture Test.

So is it a revolution? I don’t think so, but I do think it is a solid evolution of Benelli’s technology.

Twelve gun writers were invited by Benelli to a game lodge in Argentina to test fire the shotgun (I am very bitter about not being invited ). They shot a total of 88,000 rounds and apparently it functioned really well. I am looking forward to a comparison with the new Browning Maxus shotgun once both are on sale to the public. The Maxus and Benelli both claim to be significant improvements over the previous generation of the fowling piece.

A promotional video about the shotgun:

Some photos from Nodak Outdoor Forum:

UPDATE: Mark Keefe, Editor In Chief of American Rifleman has a write up and video of the Vinci

And now we know what the hype was all about. Benelli officially unveiled the gun yesterday at noon, but before that NRA Publications was granted an extensive preview. Not unexpectedly the Vinci is a semi-auto 12-gauge that relies heavily on polymer for its manufacture. It sports a 3-inch chamber with a new In–Line Inertia Driven bolt system and excellent, radically styled ergonomics. All that might have been predicted. What makes it so different—and worth the wait—is a revolutionary modular design that may change how future shotguns are built.