Iraqveteran8888 demonstrates homemade wax slugs in the below video. To make these slugs you just buy some #8 target shot shells, remove the shot, mix the shot with wax and then pour back into the shotshell. They seem to hit accurate and hard.
In this highly entertaining clip from a BBC documentary, Sean Connery and Geoffrey Boothroyd, a English firearms expert, explain (and demonstrate) why the .25 Beretta was a poor choice of weapon for James Bond.
Kids, please don't try what you see in the video at home!
I remember reading Casino Royale for the first time and wondering why James Bond would choose such low powered weapon. If my memory serves me correctly, he used .38 Special revolver in next book after Casino Royale.
At lunch recently, my friend and fellow blogger Mike Mollenhour showed me a Zebra F-701 pen he purchased at Wal-Mart for $5. He was impressed at the build quality of this cheap pen. The cheap pen had fairly thick stainless steel barrel with a knurled grip, much like the expensive "tactical" pens that cost a lot more.
I purchased one off ebay (they are sold everywhere from Amazon to Walmart). It writes nicely and I love the feel of the knurled steel grip. This pen could definitely be used as a "tactical" Kubotan style martial arts weapon in a tight spot.
If you search Google, you will find plenty of mods to make this pen even more "tactical" by replacing the plastic components with metal parts from another cheap pen and installing a Fisher pressurize ink cartridge.
Franklin Armory is producing a weird AR-15 they call the XO-26. It is essentially a Short Barreled Rifle with a vertical foregrip and no stock. What is especially interesting is that the BATFE don't consider it a SBR (Short Barreled Rifle) or a AOW (All Other Weapon) therefore is needs no special NFA paperwork to purchase and own. If it was classified as a pistol, like all other short barreled pistol-type AR-15s, using a forward vertical grip would be illegal. I can see other AR-15 pistol makers jumping on this BATFE ruling and producing their own quasi-pistol AR-15s.
The XO-26b has a MSRP of $1149.99.
[ Many thanks to Samopal for emailing me the link. ]
This Japanese website has photos of a beautiful wooden replica of the Nagant M1895 Revolver.
[ Many thanks to Kei for emailing me the link. ]
Birchwood Casey are selling a range of nifty zombie targets.
Two different types of Darkotic targets are available. The first are reactive splattering targets that measure 12”x18” and come in packs of 8. They sell for a suggested retail price of $13.98. The second group of full color targets is printed on plain paper and measure 23”x35”. They come in packs of 100 at a price of $1.98 per each target, making them great for ranges or groups. The 23”x35” size also works great for archery shooters.
[ Many thanks to Accurate Shooter for emailing me the link. ]
Back in the 70s it was rumored that the KGB possessed a three-barred disposable all-plastic pistol, called the Troika, that could pass though airport scanners undetected. So when the polymer-framed Glock pistol first came to market in the early 80s, it really excited the imagination of politicians, reporters and novelists who believed that plastic guns capable of being smuggled aboard airplanes were just around the corner.
In 1984, a couple of years after the Glock landed, David Byron, a 32 year old gunsmith and manufacturer of plastic pistol grips, filed for a patent on an all plastic pistol design. His patent, which was issued in 1987, does describe a plastic .22 gun but offers no hints as to what plastics and ceramics could be used to build it. Congress got wind of this patent and hysteria ensued. Members of the House tried introducing legislation to ban the importation and manufacture of these hypothetical plastic guns.
Byron teamed up with a wealthy former cemetery salesman and formed Red Eye Arms Inc., a company dedicated to bringing the .22 pistol and plastic military weapons to market. Byron said to an Orlando Sentinel reporter:
"Can you imagine the difference between a three-man crew firing a weapon from a tripod and one soldier running around the battlefield firing the same weapon from the shoulder? It would give our side so much firepower superiority that it wouldn't be any contest. And with the reduction in midrange nuclear weapons, superiority in conventional weapons is what our country needs right now."
Between 1986 and 1988 numerous magazine and newspapers article were written about Bryon's plans. After 1988 he seemed to drop off the map without having demonstrated a functioning plastic pistol.
In 2000 he formed a company called Magnum Technology Inc. and in 2001 secured almost $800,000 of research funding from Department of Defense to construct a light-weight non-metal ceramic gun barrel. He claimed that the they had successfully fired small caliber rounds in ceramic barrels ...
... ceramic barrels that are reinforced to enable their satisfactory use as gun barrels. The basis of our technology is the reinforcement of materials that are extremely hard and brittle so that they may be used for purposes not previously feasible, such as gun barrels. Referred to as Composite Reinforced Ceramic Technology (CRCT), this technology has been privately researched and funded. A proof of principle has been successfully demonstrated with thousands of satisfactory firings in small caliber.
The barrels were apparently made from a machined zirconia (a type of ceramic) over-wrapped with resin-coated carbon fibers.
Magnum Technology was shut down in 2007. I was unable to find any evidence that a functional lightweight ceramic barrel was actually delivered to the military.
According to Byron's LinkedIn profile, last year he started up a new defense-related company called AlEX Ventures. I suspect that this is his latest attempt at the mythical ceramic barrel and all-plastic pistol.
Is Byron a dreamer or just a very clever salesman? I don't know.
[ Many thanks to Clayton for help researching. ]
We are testing a pretty awesome new comment system that allows you to "thumb up" or "thumb down" comments. Highly rated comments are highlighted in yellow and controversial/hotly debated comments are highlighted in orange. Comments with a high number of "thumb downs" (and without sufficient "thumb ups") are hidden. My comments and comments by TFB contributors will continue to be highlighted in dark green.
I am also testing comments going live immediately, without having to wait for me to manually approve them. The benefit of this is that it will allow debates to happen much faster, the downside is that spammers and trolls will have their comments approved automatically. I will be relying on y'all to thumb up quality comments and thumb down offensive comments and comments by trollers and spammers so that these comments are hidden and I can go through and delete them.
![comments 1 tm tfb New Comment System at TFB [Important, Please Read] photo](http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/comments_1-tfb.jpg "comments 1 tm tfb New Comment System at TFB [Important, Please Read] photo")
Another nifty feature of the comment system is that a live preview of your comment is shown while you type it. This is useful if you are adding links or HTML to the comment.
I will be asking for feedback in one or two weeks time.
Andrew has produced a video about choosing the right concealed carry gun.
I think Andrews advice is solid. I would point out that ultra-compact pistols can't be imported into the USA, so any European ultra-compacts on the market are actually made in the USA. I would also add that there are plenty of American companies producing reliable compact carry pistols, for example Kel-Tec, North American Arms, Charter Arms, Ruger and Kahr.
Defense News reports that Poland's Ministry of Defense is buying 21,000 9mm pistols from Radom. I think they are probably the Walther P99 RAD, a modified version of the standard P99 that was developed by the Polish military.
[ Many thanks to Lance for emailing me the link. ]
