|
|
By the time you have purchased the equipment required to load your own ammunition, then bought primers, powder, brass and bullets, you will not have saved any money over purchasing commercial factory loaded ammunition.
Trained snipers use commercial high-end ammunition made specifically for that task. Cost per round doesn’t matter, but repeatability, reliability and lethality mean everything.
Hunters only take a few shots per year per rifle. They cannot make handloading pay off for them. Your typical handloader is a guy who shoots in competition. We shoot a lot. The cost-per round must be on par […]
Coulda-shoulda- dunnit sooner, but nevermind all that, I got my new Sightmark scope sighted in … and had fun in the process.
The Wraith is an electronic scope that has now impressed me A LOT. It is my first non-mechanical scope, but not my most expensive. Yet it was considered a breakthrough at the February 2020 SHOT SHOW in that you could use it both day and night AND it was very reasonably priced at $400 on the street.
For this particular rifle, thousand-yard shots are not on the agenda, nor even half that. A couple hundred is […]
I once was an active NRA-certified junior rifle coach. More relevant, I am a very good teacher. Yesterday my three charges voiced and agreed that “He is a very good coach” – which is just about the finest compliment one can lay on me. Thank you for that one.
That came up because a couple from the west coast passed through our neighborhood, and I gave them the opportunity to burn some ammunition on our short range (10-30 meters). I laid out a table of .22 semi-auto pistols, a 9mm Glock, 38 Special revolvers, .22 rifles and a […]
There are three standards in the shooting community that are simply not worth challenging within a group chatting behind the firing lines. Chief among them are the irrefutable power of the .45 ACP (“forty five”), the superiority of the 1911 (“nineteen eleven”) among handgun platforms, and the requirement that shotguns must be 12 gauge. Even if not a majority, the acolytes will be adamant, staunch and vociferous in defense of the aforementioned religions. You may not lose, but you will never win those arguments.
Fortunately we are here not there. I brook no counter-arguments, in fact I don’t want […]
Inspired by the “10 Guns Worth Keeping” article that I copied and linked below is my more fundamental version of that here.
Author Bob Campbell describes his double-handful with make/model specificity that is always welcome to people considering one or another of the recommendations. However, as I read through the article I was confident that my long and short guns were functionally every bit as good as his favorites, perhaps better in my opinion. Of course opinions are like ________ , everybody has one.
I am a mid-pack shooter with at least a little experience in most shooting […]
A friend who rarely goes out unarmed was relating the attitude expressed by some in a hiking group of hers. Me, carry a defensive weapon??? Why should I, Jane has my back? (not her name)
The question then becomes who has Jane’s back?
Many of us are defensively armed for more than personal preservation. It is a civic duty, and obligation we feel for our community – both large and small.
Could I watch a handful of thugs beat somebody to death? … and live with myself???
I know the answer is a lifetime of nightmares and […]
with your clothes on.
Okay, that phrase refused to stay where it belongs regardless of its limited applicability here. What I am talking about looks like a TON OF FUN, though.
I have been hankering for and looking at various ways of having a carbine I could shoot inexpensively AND quietly.
Quiet is nice for several reasons.
#1 – It is neighborly. I live in a rural area where my neighbors are mostly shooters, accustomed to sight-in, target and hunting shots taking place, BUT they are also very appreciative of the peace and quiet we have most of […]
AmmoToGo.com published the results of an excellent, thorough and hugely informative defensive handgun ammunition test. I have never seen one better; rarely one even close.
Quite noteworthy is that a bullet design may be excellent in one caliber but perform poorly in another.
Velocity is an interesting factor, but penetration and expanded diameter are more important. Anybody with a chronograph can give you the former. It is normally listed on the box and in promotional literature. Only shooting into ballistic gel provides the latter.
The best test fires bullets through simulated winter clothes into ballistic gel. AmmoToGo.co did […]
I continue to extoll the virtues of this platform as your basic home defense firearm. You will never regret having one of these, find many people who it fits perfectly and know it could serve anybody well as an only home defense weapon if you have limited choices.
It has not been long since I published 20 gauge youth pump as #1 home defense weapon choice (Bitterroot Bugle .com, April 26th), but I did not include a link to the one I would be purchasing were I in the market today:
Mossberg 500 Tactical 8 Shot Pump Shotgun
[…]
My reloading bench ran its first set of test loads in the new homestead. Getting it operational tends to be well below the CRITICAL and Urgent level activities. However it sure is nice to get there.
My reloading skills exceed my shooting abilities, but I work to achieve the best mechanical accuracy to minimize the inaccuracies that arrive when my finger starts dancing on the trigger.
My first two batches of load test firings were not as careful as the third one, but all suffer from eyes that cannot focus very well on both the near sights and far […]
The statistics below and to the right are occasionally compiled. I carried one such list on a card in my wallet for a decade. The numbers ebb and flow year-to-year, but their position on the causes of death list rarely move much.
There are 32,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms. The U.S. population is 324,000,000.
Thus: 0.00987% of the population dies from gun related actions each year.
-80% are through criminal activity, gang and drug-trade related This is one cost of “our” war on non-prescription drugs.
-60% of those deaths are by suicide A similar […]
My best year of DCM, CMP and NRA-High-Power competition followed a winter where I had an international-style ten-meter air rifle on loan and a ten meter air gun range in my basement.
Here in our riverside paradise, I once again have a ten-meter air-gun range. In the years since my first international-level air gun experience, I also acquired one each adequately accurate rifle and pistol to shoot on it.
Sadly, I have not used them much at all recently.
A couple of days ago, I celebrated a long overdue clear sally port floor and clean workbench by shooting both […]
|
|
