The Firearm Blog

Rich at Canyon Creek Custom has created a custom compact variant of the Springfield XDM 3.8 which he has named the "Minus". The original XDM, despite being called a compact by Springfield, retains a standard sized grip. Rich has chopped 0.5" off the grip which makes it more concealable without making it uncomfortable to shoot. The cut down magazines are reduced to 16 rounds of capacity.

Standard XDm (left, note: it is not a XDm 3.8 but the grip is the same size as the 3.8) vs. Canyon Creek's Custom

Personal Armament Podcast has a very interesting interview with Rich about this gun and speculations about the future of the XD line. It is well worth listening too.

Defense Review has posted article about the Iron Ridge Arms' new IRA-10 rifle (... a somewhat unfortunate acronym!). The AR-10 style weapons come with Magpul stocks and Daniel Defense rails.

BoingBoing posted this image of a ring made from a mushroomed bullet. I was horrified to see that they had used a lead bullet.

Lead is toxic and should not be worn in contact with the skin. I have been tested for lead poisoning and if you shoot a lot, so should you. The symptoms are nasty.

I got myself tested not because I was worried about symptoms but because at the time I was shooting a few times each week and I wanted a baseline figure for the amount of lead in my body.

[ Many thanks to Sven (Defense and Freedom) for emailing me the the link. ]

Cris E. Murray helped design the 6.8mm SPC cartridge for SOCOM and considers it to be the best cartridge for the AR-15 platform and similarly sized weapons. The problem with the 6.8mm SPC, and similar cartridges like the 6.5mm Grendel, is that their performance has been constrained by the necessity of the cartridge to be able to be chambered in a M16 or M4.

7x46mm UIAC in AR-15 magazine and AR-10 magazine.

In his spare time Chis has been developing the ultimate military cartridge which he calls the 7x46mm Universal Intermediate Assault Cartridge. The design is based on the 7.62x45mm Czech cartridge.

The 7x46mm is designed to replace both the 5.56mm and 7.62mm NATO cartridges. It is low recoil and so can be used from carbines, but has long enough range to be used in machine guns and marksmen rifles. Its overall length has been optimized so that guns chambering it would be bigger than an AR-15 but smaller than a AR-10.

The below photos show how it compares with the 6.8mm SPC. Note: the 6.8mm round was fired from a 12" barrel, while the 7x46mm was fired from a 16" barrel.

6.8 mm SPC (Hornady 115 gr OTM) fired from a 12” barrel at 100m.

7x46mm (Hornady 120 gr OTM) fired from a 16" barrel at 100 meters.

The below ballistic graphs are for a 7x46mm UIAC loaded with a 130 gr bullet traveling at 2650 fps.

Murray has stated that the 7x46mm is designed to ...

• used a 130 gr. FMJ projectile having a length of 28.5mm (1.1220 in.) and a BC of .411 or better.

• have a maximum cartridge over-all-length (AOL) 64.262mm (2.530 in.).

• be used with 7mm Mauser bore diameters of 6.98mm bore, 7.24mm groove, having 4 grooves at a 1:297mm (1:11 in.) twist rate.

• be used in 7mm American bore diameters of 7.04mm bore, 7.21mm groove provided proper reamer bushings are used.

• to have the same pressure specifications as 7.61x51mm NATO/EPVAT.

7.62x33mm, 5.56x45mm, 6.8x43mm, 7.62x39mm, 7.62x45mm, 7x46mm, 6.5x47mm, 7.62x51mm, 7.62x63mm

This cartridge seems to be more a reference design than a practical cartridge. If the military do not want to switch to another 5.56mm sized cartridge they are defiantly not going to switch to a completely new cartridge. This cartridge would require new carbines, rifles and machine guns to be developed.

*All the photos in this blog post were taken by DocGKR at M4Carbine. You can read more about this cartridge at Cris's blog. *

[ Many thanks to Hugh for emailing me information about this cartridge. ]

From the interweb, via. SayUncle ...

The iPad is like the .45 GAP. No one can really tell you what it's good at, but it sure is expensive.

How long until somebody publishes photos of an iPad filled with 9mm holes? I say six months.

1098cya wrote about his Kaboom experience at AR15.com ...

From there, we took it apart and used my cleaning rod to push out the broken spent shell case out of the chamber. Needless to say, no more shooting that rifle. We surmised a possible "squib load", double load. But, if you look closely at the damaged spent shell casing, the end is pretty clean and the rest is fouled. RSO said that the round wasn't fully chambered.

When the firing pin made contact, about an inch of it was also fouled. The gases went straight from the chamber, down into the magazine well and blew out the bottom of the magazine. You should have seen my face, as I fired off that round and heard and felt something different. Looking down, I saw the bottom of the magazine all blown out and seeing the magazine spring hanging out too!

[ Many thanks to jdun1911 for emailing me the link. ]

Timothy Lindsay (USA) and Renaud Kerbrat (Switzerland) are listed as the inventors on the recently published patent application #20100077643. The patent describes a new pistol recoil mechanism that is similar to is the mechanism used by the TDI KRISS.

Like the TDI KRISS, the bolt recoils downwards to reduce perceived recoil and muzzle rise.

Prototype .45 Pistol

Steps showing the bolt recoil

The inventors envisage some pretty wacky rifle and carbine designs.

UPDATE: Some astute commenters pointed out that Renaud Kerbrat is credited with the KRISS design. So this could be said to be the KRISS patent. What is interesting is how long they took to submit a patent application to the USTPO.

You can read the full patent after the jump ...

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The upcoming Nation Firearm Museum Hollywood Guns exhibit would not be complete without guns from the 1988 classic Die Hard. The barrels are threaded so that a blank firing adapter can be inserted. The blank adapter increases the pressure inside the barrel allowing the weak blanks to open the slide.

You can learn more about the below guns at NRABlog and the latest episode of The Curator's Corner (Click on "program Archive" button, then click the Apr 01 tab, then scroll down to "Curator's Corner"). Many thanks to Lars for emailing them me the photos.

Beretta 92F prop gun

Bruce Willis' Beretta 92F

Hans Gruber's Heckler & Koch P7 M13

[ Many thanks to Lars Dalseide for emailing me the photos. ]

I reported in February that Anvil Arms, an AR-15 manufacturer, had gone out of business. On the 10th Olesby Auctioneers will be auctioning off their inventory, guns, suppressors, ammo and machinery. If you wanted to buy your own AR-15 manufacturing setup, now is your opportunity!

[ Many thanks to Matt (of WeaponsCache forum) for emailing me the link. ]

Brian has written a very interesting post about his tour of the STI Factory.