#Education

Constitutional Carry is hot right now. The list of states officially supporting the practice has grown to nearly half of the US. Texas recently became the twenty-first such state, and this new legislation will go into effect as of September 1st of this year. Second Amendment advocacy groups are working with legislators in several other states as well, so hopefully, the list will grow beyond twenty-one in the not-too-distant future. According to the National Association for Gun Rights, some of the next Constitutional Carry candidates could potentially include Michigan, Alabama, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, and South Carolina. With this, organizations like U.S. LawShield are endeavoring to provide relevant education to firearms owners.

The United States Concealed Carry Association, or USCCA, is an organization focused on providing resources and benefits to responsibly armed Americans. They offer a variety of informational initiatives from training and education, legal guidance, digital tutorials and checklists, and more. They also offer self-defense liability insurance coverage for their members. Now the Association has announced a new partner, one of the firearms industry’s top gun manufacturers: SIG SAUER.

The model of 1911 pistol is an American classic and has a long and illustrious history. While we can’t possibly cover everything about the 1911, today we’re going to look at some of the high points in the love affair that America has enjoyed with this iconic pistol.

On November 8th, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the organization that houses the excellent Cody Firearms Museum, announced that Timney Triggers has decided to donate $500,000 to CFM’s reconstruction effort.

In the comments section of my recent Brief Thoughts article regarding caseless ammunition, there was a discussion about whether the cookoff issues of caseless would also be problem for LSAT-style polymer cased telescoped ammunition. Based on conversations I have had with subject matter experts regarding polymer cased ammunition in general, I noted that a lower cookoff threshold is one of the challenges I would expect CT ammunition developers to face. However, after some back-and-forth in the comments, I decided to contact LSAT/CTSAS program officer Kori Phillips regarding this issue (as it was not something I covered in my three-part interview with her), and she kindly agreed to allow her comments on the matter to be published here on TFB. They are below:

Caseless: The ammunition designer’s holy grail, and the engineer’s worst nightmare. It would obsolete the cartridge case overnight, resulting in cheaper, lighter, and more compact ammunition. Weapons would be able to carry 50, 60, or more rounds in slim, inexpensive magazines, and expel them at a rate of fire much higher than current weapons are capable of – not only because the ammunition is lighter and therefore more could be carried to feed such thirsty guns, but because the extraction and ejection cycles of the weapons themselves could be eliminated.

If we can make a round that is significantly better than the existing 5.56mm or 7.62mm ammunition, shouldn’t the military just bite the bullet and switch, to the benefit of the servicemen and women in harm’s way? What’s stopping the powers that be from making the incremental improvements that everyone knows are possible?

Previously, we compared the Russian 9x39mm subsonic sniper round to its Western counterparts, including the .300 AAC Blackout and the .45 ACP. As it stands now, the 9x39mm is a subsonic round only – no supersonic loads exist for it currently. But… What if they did?

Today’s Modern Intermediate Calibers will handle something a little different. While virtually all rounds we have looked at so far were designed primarily for supersonic use, today we will be taking a gander at the Russian 9x39mm round – a dedicated suppressed caliber designed exclusively for the subsonic flight regime, with no supersonic option (yet) available. This begets a question, then: Is the 9x39mm truly an intermediate caliber? To answer this, we should consider a few facts about the 9×39: First, it was designed for carbines and rifles with cartridge overall lengths comparable to common intermediate calibers, like 5.56mm or 7.62×39. Second, it was designed to give substantially better performance than is possible with pistol rounds, including armor piercing effect above that which is normally possible with handgun rounds. Third, it is used more like an intermediate caliber than a pistol caliber, being issued with a whole host of sniper rifles, assault rifles, and other weapons comparable to any other intermediate caliber. Therefore, I would argue that it is an intermediate, albeit possibly the strangest one in common use.

Although the Russian Kalashnikov assault rifle is the one that is most famous, it is arguably the Chinese Type 56 AK that made the bigger impression on the world in the 1960s and 70s. This rifle was initially developed with Russian technical assistance just before the Sino-Soviet split beginning in 1956, but subsequent development took place without Russian input, leading to an entire family of unique AK variants. The name “Type 56” actually refers to this entire family of Chinese AKs, which includes milled receiver variants derived from the Russian Type 2 AK, as well as stamped versions similar to (but distinct from) the AKM. These guns showed up all over the world, and for many they are THE iconic “AK-47”. They were the primary weapon of the North Vietnamese Army in the latter half of the Vietnam War, were exported by the Chinese to Africa, Asia, and South America. It was the most used AK variant by the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War, up against Russian AK-74 rifles. Too this day remains one of the most common if not the most common AK variant, and it’s the Chinese Type 56 with its distinctive integral spike bayonet that is famously depicted as a symbol of liberation on the Flag of Mozambique.

In the coming decades, it is likely that one of the biggest challenges facing small arms ammunition designers will be solving the problem of how to deal with advanced body armors. The problem is already percolating to the surface, as Level IV body armor – which is immune to virtually all general issue rounds below .50 caliber – becomes more available and less expensive. Already, an individual can equip themselves with a full set of Level IV plates and a carrier for less than $1,000. As armor improves, it will only get lighter, cheaper, and more resistant to fire.

The Russian PKM: Arguably the best general purpose machine gun in the world, it combines a robust reliability with best-in-class light weight. Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons recently released two video overviews of the weapon, giving us a good enough excuse as any to spend some time with the Soviet showstopper:

The following is an article that was originally written in Russian by TFB contributor Maxim Popenker, and Andrey Ulanov, and translated to English by Peter Samsonov. With their permission, I have replicated the text here, and edited it, for the enrichment of you, our readers!

The recent controversy regarding the drop safety characteristics of SIG’s P320 handgun has some taking a closer look at their handguns. Drop safety is something that – in theory – is so mature in modern handguns that it should be a non-issue, but with so many different variations on the same theme ( that theme being “Glock”) in the market today, how do we know these guns are really as safe as they could be? With that in mind, it’s worth taking a closer look at what makes a modern striker-fired handgun drop safe, and that’s just what Tom Jones of Pistol-Training.com has given us in a recent forum post. Jones lays out what makes a Glock a “Glock”, in other words, the carefully designed safety features of the company’s handguns which make them as difficult to accidentally discharge as possible:

The excellent firearms reference website Modern Firearms is undergoing a major move to a new location, with a much improved interface and look. Although the new site is still in beta, it already appears to include most if not all of the pages from the original, in an attractive new updated format.