Master gunsmith Steve Zihn, who made the huge 2 bore rifle I have blogged about before, emailed these photos of this magnificent .54 caliber flintlock rifle he built.
Look at the trigger blade. Beautiful.
It has a 44″ swamped barrel.
The rifle along with a matching custom made knife is being raffled off to raise money for the Cowboy Church in Riverton, Wyoming. Tickets for the raffle cost $10 each or 3 for $25 and can be purchased from CJ Vandermuehlen. He can be contacted at 1-307-851 8829 or at the below email address.
The first driving force has been the huge demand for loaded ammunition through 2008 and continuing into 2009. The large primer manufacturers like ATK (which would include Federal and CCI), Winchester, and Remington are directing the majority of their primers into loaded ammunition.
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the result has been consumers stockpiling and hoarding primers. Individuals are buying and keeping more primers in their own personal inventories and this has prevented some reloaders from having any primers at all. We normally see people buying 1,000 or maybe 5,000 primers at a time, now we are seeing customers buying 25,000 at a time.
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Federal told us a couple of weeks ago to not be surprised if we don’t see many primers from them until the end of 2009.
A very dire situation indeed. I expect few of us will ever forget the ammunition drought of 2009!
Brian, who blogs at SKS’s and More, emailed me photos of his Mosin-Nagant M44 which has been configured for short range ( 75 yards ) hog and deer hunting. The scope mount attaches to where the front sight would have been.
Click to expand the photos.
I love that laminated stock.
If you are into SKS and other comblock firearms I recommend checking out Brian’s SKS’s and More blog.
The Norwegians finally seem happy with their new H&K 416 rifles. They have solved the problem of soldiers getting sick from inhaling the fumes of their “green” 5.56mm ammunition by simply not shooing at their indoor ranges.
Of course it is summer in Norway right now and I wonder how much fun the HK 416 troops will be having when thier fellow H&K G3 equipped buddies are using the indoor range!
Gisle Mjaatvedt is in the HV-16′s Battle Claymore and has shot up to 5000 shots with the new rifle to the military. He has never felt that he himself or any of his colleagues in the Home Guard have been sick as a result of that they have shot with the lead-free ammunition that has been as much about skriverier. – No, the health problems that have arisen because of the gunpowder gas has we have been free of, “says Mjaatvedt.
The report that has analyzed the issues around health as a result of firing states in part: “Based on the reported symptoms and the composition of the gunpowder gases from HK416 is likely that the cause of health problems are high concentrations of copper and zinc in the exhaust fumes.” Summary is that as long as it is shot outdoors with the HK 416 and its ammunition will exhaust concentration is so low that it does not give health problems. To Mjaatvedt and colleagues have done all the time.
GunListings.com is a craigslist style website to trade guns, ammo and other shooting gear. Zach Terhark, a 20 year old college student from Iowa and owner of GunListings, says:
Last year I was browsing craigslist.org and I thought I would search for a shotgun because I was in the market for a new one. I then realized that craigslist bans guns. I then go to google to search for a craigslist dedicated to guns, and there were none to be found. At that moment I was determined to make a website where people could buy and sell guns to others in their community for free.
I think I visibly shuddered when I watched this video (It is safe for work).
The video was taken at one of James Yeager’s Tactical Response Fighting Pistol classes. The photographer seen forward of the firing line is Jay Gibson, one of the Tactical Response instructors.
Apparently bullets whizzing by you as you train and is quite common at Tactical Response classes. My personal opinion is that I would never do what the photographer did, nor would I shoot with someone standing next to the target. I know I will *never* be skilled enough to guarantee I would not make a mistake. As far as I am concerned even the best shooters can make mistakes or have equipment failures, such as a pistol going full auto.
The counter argument is that the elite military units train with live cross fire, none of the four rules of firearm safety have technically been broken and that if you trust the shooters it is not any less safe than driving a car (I don’t know about this last point, that is just the argument).
The video is being hotly debated at Photobucket (where the video was posted), AR15.com and GetOffTheX (the official Tactical Response forum).
Thanks to Jay (not the same Jay) for the link.
UPDATE: James Yeager’s official response can be viewed here.
Last month a Californian resident was granted a patentapplication for a wooden hunting style stock for the “M-16/AR-15″.
Photo from the patent
Of course as you can see in the photo the rifle is not a AR-15/M16 as the patent claims. It has a forward recoil system and only the Para USA Tactical Target Rifle (previously know as the ZM LR300) has such a system.
I cannot see how this is an original invention. All he has patented is a standard rifle stock replaces the the pistol grip. The patent system is severely messed up.
Still, I must say I like his laminated stock and handguard in the above photo. I think it looks pretty nifty.
Thanks to the ever vigilant Daniel Watters for sending me the patent info.
UPDATE: It is a patent application, not a patent, and I have been told it was not allowed.
SayUncle spotted this ad for a SIG 556 Short Barreled Rifle. What is very interesting is that the rifles being sold by Manchester Firing Line are factory manufactured, not conversions of the standard rifles.
SIG 556 Short Barreled Rifle
Although the price is steep at $3,495, Sig 556 Reviews notes that SBRs conversions are popular with the Sig crowd:
The P556 has definitely been popular with the SBR crowd so its good too see that Sig Sauer is paying attention and grabbing some of this pie by jumping into the NFA market. There have been a few post’s on the SigArms556 forum about people with P556 SBR’s that have had customer service issues (Sig basically coming back saying theiy voided they’re warranty)
Gun writer and SBR enthusiast Bob Boyd is currently building his own Sig SBR and modeling it after the Sig 552 Commando Carbine. The Commando is probably better classified as a PDW (Personal Defense Weapon), than a Short Barrel Rifle.
8.9″ barrel Swiss Army Stgw 90 kurz aka. Sig 552 Commando Carbine.
I am looking forward to seeing Bob’s rifle when it is completed.
