Defense Articles

One of SI’s goals is to help dealers increase their gun sales, including used and surplus firearms. The nature of the retail surplus firearm market has changed, but the profit potential from economical, proven firearms is still there. When I was a puppy, the surplus market was primarily a source of cheap hunting guns. Today, surplus guns have an increasingly interested market: self-defense.

Makarov pistols are plentiful, well made for the most part, rugged, and above all, cheap. They’ll sell to your customer who thought a main-line defensive auto pistol was too expensive. Generic (small, medium, large) nylon holsters are a natural corollary sale. Have the hot self-defense hollow-points from CCI and Cor-Bon in stock, and you’ll sell a combo to more than one customer who otherwise would have left your shop without reaching for his wallet.

It has been estimated that the number of Americans who own an SKS rifle is now in seven figures. Damn few were bought for deer hunting. The SKS was a staple weapon among store owners during the Los Angeles riots. It makes a lot of sense for rural home defense. Ram-Line’s excellent aftermarket stocks, and softnose commercial American 7.62×39 ammo, are natural corollary sales items.

Few commercial M-1 carbines are as well made as the wartime surplus ones that are still in circulation. Considered anemic by some with GI ball ammo, it has the ballistics of a .357 Maximum when loaded with a 110-grain expanding bullet at 1,990 fps, delivering a .44 Magnum-like energy level of 967 foot-pounds. Remington makes a softpoint and Winchester a hollowpoint in that caliber. Jim Cirillo said that of all the NYPD Stakeout Squad weapons, including the short-barrel 12-gauge shotgun with rifled slugs, nothing delivered faster one-shot stops than their .30 carbines.

This handy little gun makes a friend of everyone who handles it. The M-1 carbine is particularly suitable for smaller statured persons. An effective home-defense arm, it doubles as a fun plinker.

If you gave most gun dealers a word association test and said “surplus,” they’d probably answer, “military.” It’s a conditioned response. But don’t overlook opportunities in police surplus, better known as “police trade-ins.”

Today’s cops take better care of their handguns than they used to. There was a time when buying a traded-in cop gun was like buying a traded-in cop car; you figured the thing would have been either worn out or rusted from neglect by the time you got it. Today’s police departments trade up their weapons more frequently, and the current custom and practice is to have factory-trained armorers among the department’s personnel to maintain and service the guns. There are perhaps three main categories of trade-in police firearms.

Service revolvers have ebbed since the massive changeover of the American police service to the autoloader over the last 10 to 15 years, but just because the tide is not still flowing doesn’t mean the market isn’t still flooded. You can get these guns in excellent shape, dirt cheap, from distributors who are glutted with them after taking them in trade for a department-load of “automatics.” The double-action revolver that can fire the .38 Special cartridge is the near-universal recommendation of the experts for a citizen’s “first gun” when he chooses to arm for self defense.

Consider running a special deal where you teach a class (or hire a police instructor to teach one) for basic defensive users of the revolver. Gun, leather, ammo, speedloaders (often also available cheap as traded equipment), ear and eye protection, and the training are part of one package fee. “Learn from the cops the system that kept them alive for most of this century” could be your theme. A lot of those students will come back to you later when they want to upgrade to auto pistols.

Service autoloaders are already being traded in, in a massive wave. A great many departments jumped on the autoloader bandwagon when the high-capacity “wondernines” were the thing to have, and have upgraded to heavier caliber weapons like the .45, the .357 SIG, and particularly the .40 S&W. They may not be bargains, because there is a finite supply of these guns and their grandfathered high-capacity magazines, but X number of your customers want a home-defense or carry gun that shoots a lot of times before reloading.

Service shotguns are starting to come on the market as police departments trade in their traditional slide-action 12-gauge “riot guns” for modern autoloading Benelli Super-90s, Remington Police 11-87s, and Mossberg’s outstanding new Jungle Guns. Even more police pumps are being swapped for carbines and rifles.

Be warned, however, these guns won’t always be in as good of shape as the traded police handguns. Certainly, some will be cherry, having waited in the armory for a disaster that never happened, because the chief in question didn’t believe in putting heavy firepower on patrol. However, there will be a lot that are in badly neglected condition - rusted and pitted - because they’ve dwelt for lo these many years in the non-temperature controlled environment of patrol cars. In winter, they’re racked on the dash or secured to the front seat near the blasting heater when patrol is underway, and freezing when the cruiser is in the parking lot. In summer, they’re just as close to the air conditioner, then abandoned in sweltering heat. Condensation develops and takes its course.

Remember also that, unlike handguns, it is common practice for cops to qualify with dedicated “range shotguns” instead of the ones in their cars. This means that the patrol car guns will have been shot rarely, if ever, but possibly neglected; the range guns will probably have been maintained at least to some degree, but have been buffeted almost to pieces by the constant rapid fire of full power loads that resemble the .375 Magnum elephant rifle.

You’ll want to buy the trade-in shotguns from a distributor you can trust to be up front with you about the guns’ condition. Before you make the commitment, though, check your latest brochures from the distributors. You may be able to get brand new Mossberg 500 or Remington Express 870 pumps wholesale for very close to what it might cost you for the police trades.

With all three types of police trades, remember that most PDs, especially the big ones, are likely to keep in the armory a number of spare weapons that are in mint, unfired condition, never having been issued. The trade-up of 870 to 11-87, from Model 686 to Model 4006, or from 9mm to .40, will include a limited number of these cherry guns at surplus prices. These may be the best bargains of all for you to share with your loyal customers.

Time was “surplus firearm” meant a Lee-Enfield .303 that you’d sell to your customer with a Fajen stock and Lyman sight so he could sporterize it and go

hunting. Today, it means something different: Affordable, combat-proven protection for a customer who may well be making his first commitment to buy a gun to protect his family.

The article, (”Who Uses What” Nov/Dec 2005), is the most insightful article you’ve run in a long time. After reading all those product reviews, gun evaluations and tips, it’s especially refreshing to see what you actually do for yourselves. I was pleased to see many of you use the guns you reviewed and were impressed by.

I enjoyed Charles Petty’s spoof on home defense too! Does he have knee pads to go with that night-time Ninja outfit?
The only thing I could ask for is a little more expansion on the subject. Use of revolvers and automatics were distributed evenly and usually both were employed. I’d like to hear the philosophy behind the use of each; first response, firepower, close quarters and such. Choice of ammo is important, so lets hear about it some more. Rifles and shotguns were well represented. I guess Mike Venturino can forego the Wild West and use an M-16–if he also has the side-by-side! Of particular interest was the limited use of gadgets and attachments. There were few special sights and lights.

Basically, I feel readers of Handgunner should be of a sort of thick-skinned, take-it-how-it-is, kind of people; not bothered by a few hard remarks or characterizations. Politically-correct language gets in the way of much real, understandable communication.

“Philosophy behind the use” of the guns these goofs all picked? That’s asking an awful lot, John. Gads, these guys can’t hardly spell philosophy much less actually know what it means. Basically, it strikes me we’re all old enough to have grown up with wheelguns and no matter how cool, how fancy, how reliable an auto might be, there’s something about having a J-frame .38 tucked away somewhere that lets us all sleep a little better. After all, Clint Smith might have summed it up best when he said: “Wheel guns are real guns.”

SHOOTERS SEEKING A HIGH-PERFORMANCE TACTICAL CARBINE WITHOUT A HIGH-TECH PRICE TAG ARE REDISCOVERING THIS VERSATILE, VINTAGE FIREARM.

Police agencies and armed citizens need a good long arm to supplement their handgun for defensive purposes. There are very few situations where a person is better off defending himself with a handgun than a good long gun, if the latter is available.

Here the definition of long gun is a shoulder-fired weapon like a rifle, carbine, submachine gun, assault rifle or shotgun. There is a readily available, often overlooked long gun that is superb for this purpose that can out-perform most of its high-tech, expensive competition — the M1 carbine.

In recent years the traditional shotgun has been losing favor with both police and civilians for defensive use. The reasons for this include excessive recoil, a high degree of proficiency in operation, potential collateral damage from the buckshot pattern, and the limited effective range with buckshot.

In answer, many departments, individual officers and armed civilians have turned to semi-automatic rifles or carbines in either pistol calibers or .223 for use as tactical long guns. Some law enforcement agencies have turned to submachine guns.

All of these guns offer improved ballistic performance and practical accuracy over a handgun. However, none of the pistol-caliber carbines or submachine guns are nearly as effective as the old and often unfairly maligned .30 Ml carbine.

With proper ammunition, the M1 carbine can easily compete in effectiveness with .223-chambered weapons out to at least 150 yards, and few police or civilians have any business shooting at anybody farther away than that.

In addition, the M1 carbine weighs only 5 1/2 lbs., making it a pound or more lighter than most of its competition, including even the pistol-caliber carbines, and considerably lighter than many like the UZI submachine gun at 8.8 lbs. or the M16A2 at 7.9 lbs.

Born Far Combat

The M1 carbine has many other assets as well. It has superb reliability under the worst field conditions. Its accuracy exceeds that of virtually all the pistol-caliber carbines and submachine guns on the market and is comparable with that of many of the semi-automatic .223 rifles.

Another huge advantage for the M1 carbine is that, unlike most modern firearms, it has pre-ban high capacity 15- and 30-round magazines readily available in quantity at very modest prices. The same holds true for spare parts and accessories.

Ballistically, the M1 carbine’s little .30 Carbine cartridge packs about 2.5 times the kinetic energy of a standard .45 ACP or 9mm load fired from a pistol. This is solidly in the energy territory of the .44 Mag. revolver. Indeed it has only 90 ft./lbs. less energy at the muzzle than the Russian 5.45×39mm cartridge and is only a little farther behind the .223 when fired from 14.5″ or 16″ barreled carbines.

Options And Tactics

Although a cartridge’s muzzle energy is not the sole criterion for measuring its effectiveness, it is a good indication of the cartridge’s potential if it is loaded with properly designed expanding bullets. With military-type FMJ bullets, the .30 Carbine will drill right through car bodies and such.

This capability is highly desirable to police officers in many situations. When the .30 Carbine cartridge is loaded with expanding bullets, its effectiveness as a manstopper increases exponentially. One police unit used M1 carbines loaded with JSPs in several shootings. They found the carbines to be extremely effective. Quoting one of their more experienced officers about the results from shootings with a .30 Carbine using expanding bullet ammunition, “We never had to shoot anyone twice.”

Out to at least 150 yards, the .30 Carbine cartridge usually makes a more serious wound than does the .223, .308 or .30-’06, when the latter are used with FMJ bullets. It is also greatly superior to any of the common defensive pistol rounds fired from a handgun or carbine, even when the latter uses hollow point ammunition.

Even the FMJ .30 Carbine load is far more effective than is commonly thought. After interviewing many veteran M1 carbine users from World War II, Korea and Vietnam, we found that the vast majority of these soldiers found the M1 carbine to be quite effective even with GI ball ammunition.

One former Marine who saw extensive combat with the MI carbine in the Pacific in World War II was quite emphatic that the little gun and its cartridge were effective in the close-range combat that he experienced. He also stated that he greatly preferred the M1 carbine to the Garand for that type of fighting because of its much lighter weight, shorter length and higher magazine capacity.

First-Hand Experience

Another veteran M1 carbine user interviewed was a U.S. Army Special Forces adviser in the early days of the Vietnam War. He had advised indigenous units armed almost exclusively with M1 carbines, and used the gun extensively himself in combat. He stated that the M1 carbine was very effective in the jungle combat that they typically experienced. Interestingly, he said that when M16s eventually replaced the M1 carbines, he found that the new gun offered little if any significant advantage in effectiveness over the older M1 carbines.

Probably the most authoritative account of the effectiveness of the M1 carbine in real combat comes from the superb book Shots Fired In Anger by John George. George served as a company grade officer in World War II in the famous Merrill’s Marauders, operating behind Japanese lines. George was a highly experienced and successful service rifle competitor, shooter and hunter before the war, so all of his writing is from the perspective of someone highly knowledgeable about guns.

The M1 carbine was his primary weapon in the Marauders. The light weight of the carbine and its ammunition made it ideal for troops like the Marauders that carried all their supplies and equipment with them and were re-supplied by airdrops. His book covers several instances where he personally used or observed M1 carbines employed with great effect.

George reports, “The M1 carbine turned out to be the ace weapon of the war, as far as I am concerned. It was light and handy, powerful, and reasonably accurate … The cartridge was powerful enough to penetrate several thicknesses of helmet, and to perforate the plates of the Japanese bulletproof vest, which would only be dented by .45 auto slugs. It was flat shooting enough to have practical accuracy at more than 200 yards … For many types of offensive fighting, such as sneak raids and infiltration tactics, it was often superior even to the M1 (Garand), penetration being the only point of difference.”

Full-Auto Follies

Late in World War II a selective-fire version of the M1 carbine was introduced as the M2 carbine. These saw little use in World War II, but were extensively used in Korea. Many of the accounts about the ineffectiveness of the .30 Carbine round come from improper and ineffective use of the M2 carbine on full auto.

Typically, the soldier or Marine dumped an entire magazine on full auto at a charging enemy with little or no effect. The probable truth is that in most instances it was ineffective because he simply missed. When firing the M2, if the first shot does not hit, none of the following shots will hit either, because the weapon will quickly climb off target, particularly with a long burst. The idea that anyone could absorb a magazine full of .30 Carbine bullets through the chest and keep coming is a myth born of bad shooting.

One must remember that these accounts are all about the M1 or M2 carbine using standard GI hardball ammunition. When this weapon is used with modern expanding bullets, its effectiveness against soft targets is increased considerably. One of the best .30 Carbine loads is the Winchester HSP. It is very accurate, feeding and expanding superbly and reliably.

A Cost Effective Warrior

An important asset of the Ml carbine is that two or three M1 carbines can be purchased for the price of one AR-15 or MP5 submachine gun. An affordable M1 carbine is worth more than all the expensive state-of-the-art rifles that you do not have when you need them, because you cannot afford them.

Something else in the Ml carbine’s favor compared to all the submachine guns and rifles based on military assault rifles, is that it is relatively innocuous looking. Police do not like to be perceived as storm troopers, and the M1 carbine is much less likely to cause that impression than an AR-15 or an MP5,

It is appropriate to note that this is my first appearance before this Committee with General Pete Pace in his new role as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Many of you have come to know General Pace and to appreciate his abilities. He understands that the decisions he helps to make have a profound impact on our men and women in uniform and their families. And he is doing a fine job for our country.

Also with us is the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Pete Schoomaker. Because so many of the key issues involve the Army, we thought it would be useful to have General Schoomaker here to join in responding to your questions.

This is the sixth consecutive year I’ve appeared before you to discuss the Department’s budget. We’ve met during times of war, and at a time when war seemed unlikely. We’ve met during periods of national unity, and in the midst of great controversy and debate over the course recent wars have taken. In every instance, the American people expected us to put the defense of this nation before political or parochial concerns. We have tried to do just that in making the tough decisions that our troops merit and that history will remember.

We meet today–again–as a nation engaged in what will be a “long war”–a conflict that has put our military on a path of near continuous change for the past five years. A conflict, which also is having the effect of transforming the way our forces fight and defend the nation.

Not long before Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, the United States had a standing army of about 200,000, putting us somewhere below Romania among the world’s militaries. Just a few years earlier, American soldiers had been training with wooden rifles. Almost starting from scratch, America began to field huge armies and stand up an armaments industry that turned out massive fleets of ships, aircraft, tanks and equipment of every kind.

After Pearl Harbor, there were many setbacks and false starts–think of the losses at Kasserine Pass, the bloody landings at Tarawa and Anzio, and the frustrating inability of American tanks to be able to go one on one against German Panzers. Over the following several years, our nation would learn some tough lessons and marshal the forces necessary to eventually triumph over two fascist empires.

When our country was attacked again on September 11th, we found ourselves in another global conflict, though one that had been started years earlier by our enemies. Fortunately, the process of rethinking and reconfiguring our military for such an eventuality was already well under way. Within three months, the Taliban regime and its al Qaeda “guests” were routed in a landlocked country several thousand miles away. And within three years, our military had removed a dangerous and brutal regime from Iraq and helped to stand up a new democratically elected government that is now fighting terrorists instead of harboring them.

This would not have been possible without an historic change in the way our military is arranged and operates.

Consider that when I first assumed this post more than 30 years ago, America’s military establishment was understandably organized, trained and equipped to deter the Soviet Union and to do battle against large armies, navies, and air forces.

When I returned to the Department in 2001, the Armed Forces–though smaller–were in many respects still pretty much organized the same way they were during the Cold War.

The President recognized this and charged the Department with making the changes necessary to adapt to the new circumstances and threats of an uncertain era–an environment where the greatest threats were less likely to come from large armies, navies and air forces, but instead from the evil designs of terrorists and rogue nations.

The urgency of these changes were made all too plain 53 months ago on that mid-September morning, by 19 men carrying tourist visas, boarding passes, and box cutters.

And today, this enemy, though under constant pressure and on the defensive, still intends to bring its cult of murder and suicide to our shores, and our cities–and to those of our closest allies as well.

This “long war” is the central security issue of our time. The ensuing campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and other theaters in the Global War on Terror have added new impetus and urgency to transformation efforts that were already underway in this Department.

This process of continuous change and adaptation is so critical because of the nature of the enemy we face, one that has left little doubt about its intentions.

Last month, Osama bin Laden warned of yet more attacks on America. He has said:

“Let every person … come forward to fight those Jews and Americans … their killing is from the most important duties and most pressing things.”

His top lieutenant, Zawahiri, warned us last year:

“Oh, Americans, in New York and Washington and the losses you are having in Afghanistan and Iraq … are only the losses of the initial clashes.”

The enemy cannot win any conventional battle, so they challenge us through nontraditional, or asymmetric means, using terror as their weapon of choice. Their goal is to break America’s resolve through the deft use of propaganda and carefully plotted attacks that garner headlines.

They are willing to employ every means–every lie, every atrocity, and every available technology and means of communication–to achieve their aims. In a few short years they have become experts at manipulating the global media to both inspire and intimidate. They have media committees and handbooks that advise their operatives when and how to lie–in particular to claim torture when captured–in order to generate coverage and commentary that damages vigorous anti-terrorism efforts. They have multiple web sites that display videos of bombings and beheadings that are shown around the world.

Their priority is to force us to abandon Iraq before that country is ready to defend itself so they can turn it into a base of operation–as was Afghanistan before 9/11.

In a letter written by Zawahiri, he spelled out their strategy: “The first stage: expel the Americans from Iraq. The second stage: establish an Islamic authority. The third stage: extend the jihad.”

And have no doubt: should these fanatics obtain the weapons of mass destruction they actively seek, the survival of our free way of life would be at risk.

The enemy would like to define this war as a conflict between Islam and the West, but it is not. It is, in fact, a war within the Muslim world between the overwhelming majority of moderates and a much smaller number of violent extremists. The vast majority of Muslims do not share the violent ideology of al-Qaeda. They have children and families they care about. They hope for a better future for themselves and their countries. They do not want the extremists to win. And many are opposing them at every opportunity.

IRAQ:

We see this dynamic at work in Iraq. On December 15th it was the brave and decent people of Iraq–Shia, Kurds, Sunnis and others–who seized the headlines and captured the attention and admiration of the world. Some 12 million Iraqis–about 70 percent of eligible voters–and thousands of candidates came together in a remarkably peaceful and orderly election. The jihadists, Baathist holdouts and criminals who dominate the daily news from Iraq were unable to halt yet another important milestone in that country’s remarkable transformation.

Consider that compared to the successful provisional elections held last January, nearly four million more Iraqis voted and there were about 80 percent fewer violent attacks. And Sunnis, who had previously boycotted the political process, participated in large numbers, encouraged by their leaders not to make the same mistake again. In the Sunni majority Anbar province, turnout rose from 2 percent in January to 86 percent of registered voters in December.

The marginalization of the terrorists on Election Day last December was due in large part to the growth in the size, confidence and capability of the Iraqi security forces–increasing from some 120,000 to 220,000 over the course of the year. Already, some 30 U.S. military bases have either been returned to Iraqi control or closed altogether. The 8th Iraqi Army Division recently took over a battle space the size of Kentucky, the largest such area transferred to date. So far, this division has seized nearly 5,000 weapons, confiscated more than 1,000 pounds of explosives and detained more than 1,000 suspects.

High-tech designs and premium performance give today’s shooters a lot of options when it comes to selecting a handgun round.

One of the most daunting chores gun owners face today is deciding what ammo to use in a concealed-carry or home-defense handgun. Not all that long ago, you simply went to the local hardware store and asked for a box of .38s. You might have had a choice in the manufacturer, Remington or Winchester, but there was a single weight — 158 grs. in a round-nose lead bullet — and they were loaded to the same velocity.

The same was true if you wanted ammo for your semiautomatic pistol. You could chose the maker, but bullet weights and velocities were standardized for the specific cartridge. Obviously there were a few variations, but not many.

The concept of expanding bullets had been around for quite awhile in high-power rifles, but not for handguns — largely because it was assumed that you had to have velocities over 1,000 fps to have a chance of expansion. Few handguns did that. To this day, some people claim that you have to have high velocity to get good bullet performance. Bunk!

Early in the ’70s, along came a guy by the name of Lee Jurras with an upstart little ammo company named Super Vel. He began with a .38 Special loaded with a JHP bullet that reached some pretty zippy velocities.

The secret to much of this was the use of significantly lighter bullets than we’d ever seen. The .38 Special, for example, used a 110 gr. bullet. Today that’s common, but then it was virtually revolutionary.

Of course, none of us had chronographs back then, so factory data was often used. This data was accompanied by some truly spectacular photographs of blocks of clay rendered asunder by Super Vel bullets. The product line grew to include magnum revolver calibers and pistol ammo for the .380 ACP, 9mm and .45 ACP, At about the same time, Sierra Bullets began to sell JHPs that looked suspiciously like those in the Super Vel ammo.

Of course, everyone jumped on the bandwagon and we began to see debates on which bullet was best. These debates continue today. Super Vel also triggered the hot-button issue that still plagues us — which is better: light and fast or heavy and slow?

Proof, on either side of this question, is based upon interpretation of data and anecdotal information. It is very hard to get good science when the subject under investigation is shooting people. Beware of pundits who proclaim they have the only true answer.

Zealots of any stripe should be viewed with the highest level of critical thinking skill we can muster. Question everything and accept it only if the argument is convincing. And, of course, to do that we have to really listen to both sides.

Silver And Gold

The next big advance in ammunition occurred when Winchester introduced the Silvertip handgun bullet. Years later, Federal Cartridge Co. purchased the rights to manufacture and market the Hydra-Shok bullet. Those two products both started trends.

Some authorities pronounced Hydra-Shok best, and things were rosy in Anoka, Minn. Federal introduced the concept of a premium handgun bullet, and it still isn’t known why other manufacturers waited so long to begin offering competitive products.

Ammunition history changed course forever on April 11, 1986. That was the day of the Miami massacre, one of the bloodiest shootouts in law-enforcement history. It left two FBI agents and two criminals dead and several other agents wounded.

As a result of that tragic day, the FBI began an extensive investigation of ammunition performance. They developed a criterion for what was expected from handgun ammo, and Federal won a number of contracts with Hydra-Shok. Finally, the other big companies really began to take notice. They all launched development of their own lines of high-performance bullets.

The result was an evolutionary stream of better bullets: First, Winchester had the illfated Black Talon, now replaced by their SXT, Remington brought out the Golden Saber brass JHP and Speer provided the Gold Dot.

All took different paths to reach the same goal: a bullet that expanded reliably with adequate penetration at handgun velocities. One of the FBI’s inflexible requirements was a minimum of 12″ penetration in 10 percent ballistic gelatin. In large part, that remains the goal today, although some specifications are leaning toward a little less penetration.

The result of all this research and development is that there is a wide variety of great defensive ammo available to the consumer today. We are not including pre-fragmented ammunition simply because of the extremely high cost and a very real shortage of reliable data. Nor will we include the superfast stuff. For those who steadfastly believe that fast is good and faster is best, discussion really isn’t necessary.

Here, then, is a detailed description of the specific bullet types available to today’s self-defense-conscious shooter.

The Ammo Line-Up

Hydra-Shok is surely the elder statesman here, for this hollowpoint with a post in the middle is only found in Federal ammo. The theory is that the post focuses hydrostatic pressure outward against the jacket to improve expansion. That is certainly true — tests have shown that bullets with the post removed expanded a little less than those unmodified.

Perhaps the biggest competitor to HydraShok is the Speer Gold Dot. Since both are owned by the same parent company, Blount Inc., they compete with themselves a bit. The Gold Dot begins by using Speer’s copper-plated lead core — very similar to their TMJ (total metal jacket) — but then the nose is pierced and the hollowpoint cavity formed. The result is a very distinctive little remnant of jacket material at the bottom of the hollowpoint — hence the name.

Winchester’s offering, the SXT, is a derivative of the Black Talon design — although it is neither black nor clawlike anymore. The SXT is characterized by eight deep skiving cuts evenly spaced around the nose. Very much like the original Silvertip design, this is done by punching a hole in the nose of the core and then forming and skiving around it.

Skiving is simply the process of making some small cuts in the jacket — usually four, six or eight — that will make it a little easier for the jacket to start expanding. Skiving is not new, but it is used to great advantage to help bullets expand at some pretty modest velocities.

Remington’s Golden Saber is easily identified by the brass jacket and six skiving cuts, which are formed at an angle (rather than straight down, as is more common). If you look at one of the bullets nose-on, there is a visual similarity to the petals of a flower. You can see how it will open during expansion. The Golden Saber design is noteworthy because their .45 ACP load was judged equal to the Hydra-Shok by the FBI. Remington won in the competitive bidding process, and Golden Saber became the issue ammunition for agents armed with .45 ACP pistols.

.380 ACP

Often, lists of cartridge rankings in order of sales popularity include the .380 ACP in the top 10. This is a controversial inclusion. Some authorities decry the .380 as underpowered, while others, ourselves included, view it as near the bottom of the list. But the fact is that all the major manufacturers have premium-level bullets to load in it.

Speer has the lightest, with a 90 gr. Gold Dot (990 fps), a distinction shared by Federal, with a 90 gr. Hydra-Shok (1,000 fps), and Winchester SXT at 95 gr. (955 fps). The heavyweight title belongs to Remington with a 102 gr. Golden Saber, with a velocity of 940 fps.

9mm

In terms of total ammunition sales, the 9mm Parabellum is the biggest seller by a wide margin. The reason is simple: It is compatible in so many guns. Since World War I, the 9mm has been the dominant cartridge in Europe and much of the free world. When American law enforcement began the switch to semi-automatic pistols, high magazine capacity was a major concern, and the 9mm led the pack in those terms. Today almost everyone who makes pistols has one or more 9mms in the line.

Three bullet weights dominate today’s 9mm selections — 115, 124 and 147 gr. loadings. Within that group you can find standard, +P and even a few +P+, which are restricted to law enforcement. The information regarding all the various calibers, bullet weights and factory velocities is available at the various web sites, or in catalogs.

.38 Special

Next in line is the .38 Special, with bullets ranging from 110 up to 158 gr., many in the +P variety. Bullet types are the same, too. Ditto for the .357 Mag., although we add 180 and 200 gr. weights for hunters.

In places like Bosnia, North Korea and Macedonia, hot spots where unconventional warfare rules, they wait. Peering through scopes atop rifles that can hit a target from better than a mile away, these silent hunters stare at you and your aircraft, which look more like ducks on a pond than million-dollar war machines.

As they watch, one of them slips a .50 caliber bullet into the chamber of a long-barreled rifle pointed at the side of the E-3 Sentry aircraft 500 meters away. In jest, the sniper positions his sights just over the shoulder of the 19-year-old baby-faced security policeman standing watch, an M-16 slung over his shoulder.

The sniper’s spotter makes the calls for the range and wind, and, when he feels comfortable enough, the shooter slides his finger onto the trigger of the weapon. He leans into his scope to ensure the crosshairs are directly over the area where expensive avionics equipment rests. Satisfied, he exhales a deep breath and squeezes the trigger.

The fire from the muzzle ignites the evening air as the projectile whistles down range. It punches through the side of the aircraft, ripping through delicate components onboard the plane. A second sniper 100 yards away fires, as does a third, launching rounds into the cockpit and the wing fuel tanks. As the white-hot bullets hit, the wing tanks explode, ripping the plane apart, as other rounds tear through the secretive avionics equipment, rendering it useless.

The attack is finished without engaging one human adversary, and a $300 million aircraft is ruined. This sort of attack destroyed 393 U.S. and allied aircraft in Vietnam, and damaged another 1,185, according to the Rand Corp, an organization that advises the U.S. government on matters of policy through research and analysis.

Today, air base flight lines are even more vulnerable, with sensitive aircraft like the E-3, the $270 million E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System and equally costly RC-135 Rivet Joint reconnaissance planes without hardened bunkers.

Enter Air Force countersnipers, the cat to an enemy sniper’s mouse, to a mission that led late Marine GunnerySgt. Carlos Hathcock II, the military’s best known sniper - a man with a confirmed kill from a distance greater than 22 football fields — to say, “The most deadly thing on the battlefield is one well-aimed shot.”

More than two-dozen Guard and active duty security forces airmen have graduated from the Air Force Countersniper School at Camp Joseph T. Robinson in Arkansas. The 15-day course, taught at the National Guard Marksmanship Center, gives security forces a boot camp on countersniper tactics and procedures. It also introduces them to the life of one of their key adversaries — the military sniper.

The instructor cadre is diverse. Former Marines, Army snipers and Rangers — with experience in Vietnam, Panama, the Persian Gulf and other hot spots too clandestine to discuss — compose this group of motivated, salty Guard veterans.

Each student is issued about 50 pounds of equipment. This includes the $5,000 single-shot, 15-pound M-24 rifle, a variation of the Remington 700, firing a NATO 7.62 mm round. Students also receive a handbook for writing targets and sketching scenery when memorizing target locations, and a bevy of other gear.

While shooting, this rifle is seen as the carrot that will draw potential countersnipers to the course, the instructors emphasized the need to pay attention to the other points of instruction.

“A lot of times they’ll come into this school, and they’ll think ‘well, it’s a National Guard School,’ and they hang around for a couple of weeks, pass, get their coin and go home. It just ain’t that way,” said Army 1st Sgt. Jim Green, one of the school’s lead instructors. “We’re lucky to graduate 75 to 80 percent of the students.”

What was that again?

The instruction includes memory tests, where students must recall the locations of objects large and small from great distances. Using binoculars, students pencil sketch objects like coins, cans, rocks and other items. Instructors will later change the setting, and students must figure out what’s been altered from what they’ve drawn.

To keep their brains hungry, students are subjected almost daily to something on a smaller scale called the “keep in memory” game. Instructors gather students in a circle to look at a similar set of objects on the ground. Hours later, they must remember all of the objects as well as other variables instructors throw their way.

There’s also target range estimation. Using a complex mathematical formula, binoculars and pencils, students figure the distance to the target. Initially, students are given a 500-meter target to calibrate and test their skills. After that, they’re on their own, having to range targets from 300 to 1,000 meters away.

Students like Senior Airman Todd Tomlinson from Huriburt Field, Fla., find this the most difficult part of the course.

“You don’t know how far away the target is,” he said. “It’s tough.”

A team effort

Students are also tested in target detection - just what are they seeing in their scope, and should they shoot it? This is a craft for the spotter, usually the most experienced member of the countersniper team, who watches the shots go down range and offers adjustments to the shooter.

As Chief Master Sgt. Mark Hughes, countersniper school instructor, notes, nothing is done unless the spotter says so.

“It’s the spotter’s job to make sure the shooter is set up,” said Hughes, a former Marine and a 16-year Air Force veteran. “You want to make sure when you spin the dials and get set up, you don’t lose something.”

For the shooter, Hughes said focus becomes paramount. “You have to get in the bubble, get everything out of your head and concentrate on the sight picture. The great ones have the fundamentals down right off the bat and stick with them so they don’t miss.”

Missing, hanging around and shooting again is not an option in this “one-shot, one-kill” mindset. As Sgt. James Davidson, an Army Ranger and batt]e-tested sniper during Operations Just Cause and Desert Storm, said, “If you’re lucky enough to get off two shots, you’d better be hauling a– pretty quickly after that.”

Students must hit 14 targets from 300 to 1,000 meters in day and night settings to qualify and pass the class. Tomlinson hit 20 of 20 at night and 19 of 20 during the day.

When shooting, a student sets up, usually laying his battle dress uniform blouse in the dirt, with his rucksack in front of him. Tomlinson uses Air Force-issue black socks filled with popcorn seed, or whatever he can find, to position the weapon.

One sock sits beneath the stock of the weapon. The other sits underneath the M-24 barrel atop the shooter’s ruck. With the right hand, he squeezes the stock sock, raising and lowering the weapon. His cheek, pressed firmly against the butt of the gun, moves it left and right until the crosshairs come center.

The spotter calls the range and the “windage,” or how much wind is blowing and which way. Once dialed in, the shooter says he’s ready, and the spotter leans in to monitor the shot.

“Send it,” the spotter says.

The blast from the weapon could wake the dead as dust flies and grass is ripped from the ground. The bullet zings down range, and, moments later, the “ding!” from the metal target echoes back. An instructor perched behind the twosome watches through a monocular sight. He sees the heated vapor trail of the round as it arcs and impacts the target. He then gives advice on positioning for the next shot.

The instructor calls out the number of “minutes” to reposition the M-24. A minute is a measurement of how far, in inches, to realign the scope. At 500 meters, it accounts for about 5 inches of movement down range. At 1,000 meters, it’s 10 inches and so on. The shooter redials the distance. Without moving his head from the stock, he reloads his weapon with another 7.62 mm round, ensuring the shell from the last round goes back into the ammo box.

A physical and mental job

Students will tell you, however, it’s not as easy as aiming and firing. Staff Sgt. Brian Gilliland wears the scars of his training. He developed a series of sores and abrasions on his stomach, as well as back spasms late in the course, but he passed. Another student got slashed when the M-24 recoiled, and the metal scope whacked him on the eyebrow.

While mastering all the traits of the countersniper, students must complete the Army physical fitness test, including a run (with and without gear), push-ups and sit-ups. During the August class, two students left for medical reasons, one gave up and another failed.

Regardless of a cut, bruise or sniffle, students must be ready to perform their mission and pass the course in a very “no whiners” manner, instructor Army Sgt. 1st Class Bob Weibler said.

“You have to have a good attitude and be prepared to handle anything,” he commented, “or you’re going home early.”

‘WHEN I was growing up in Tennessee, we had a saying for something that was so outrageous nobody could believe it: ‘That dog don’t hunt,’” says Chris Cox, the chief lobbyist of the National Rifle Association. The old phrase came back to him a couple of years ago, as Cox was plotting the NRA’s strategy for 2004. “I knew the Democrats were going to go after the pro-gun vote, and I knew their efforts would be full of bald-faced lies. We had to figure out a way to expose them.”

So Cox visualized a dog that didn’t hunt. He came up with the concept of a French poodle with a pink ribbon in its exquisitely groomed fur, wearing a sweater bearing the name of the Democratic presidential candidate. Beneath this picture would be Cox’s boyhood aphorism. It was bound to be a clever ad, but then Democratic primary voters did something to turn it into a perfect one: They nominated John Kerry, the senator with puffed-up hair and “French” looks.

In doing so, they helped the NRA launch one of the most effective and memorable images from the 2004 election. For a few weeks last fall, the Kerry poodle was America’s most famous canine–a political version of the Taco Bell Chihuahua. It became the centerpiece image in a “No quiero John Kerry” campaign that included more than 6 million postcards and letters, nearly as many fliers and bumper stickers, and an expensive media campaign made up of 28,000 television commercials, 20,000 radio spots, 1,700 newspaper ads, and more than 500 billboard messages. “Nothing kills Democratic candidates’ prospects more than guns,” concluded New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. “If it weren’t for guns, President-elect Kerry might now be conferring with incoming Senate Majority Leader Daschle.”

That may be an overstatement, but not by much. Kerry and Daschle were the NRA’s top two targets and both lost. The NRA’s vote counters say they also returned a bipartisan pro-gun majority to the House and increased their standing in the Senate by at least four seats (and possibly five, depending on whether Democrat Ken Salazar of Colorado votes the way he promised). As a result, the defenders of gun rights are in as strong a position today as ever before. “The politics of this issue have changed 180 degrees in the last four years,” says Cox.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way–or so thought many liberals throughout the 1990s, when they became convinced that gun control was an unbeatable issue for them. Bill Clinton certainly agreed. In his first year as president, he abandoned the gun-friendly credentials he had built up as governor of Arkansas and signed the Brady Bill, which required background checks and five-day waiting periods before the purchase of guns. Encouraged by this early success, which involved overcoming the objections of NRA lobbyists, Clinton pushed an assault-weapons ban as part of a major crime bill the next year. It was a policy mirage: The term “assault weapon” was an invention that referred more to a gun’s appearance than its performance, and most semi-automatic rifles weren’t even affected by it. But to Clinton such details didn’t matter. He was a master of the micro-initiative, and he was confident he could rout the NRA once more–and look good to voters as he did it.

The NRA didn’t like the Brady Bill, but it loathed the gun ban. Its efforts on Capitol Hill were so vigorous that the two top Democrats in the House even asked Clinton to back off. Many of their colleagues from rural areas had bucked the NRA on the Brady Bill and couldn’t afford to let it happen again, warned Speaker Tom Foley and Majority Leader Dick Gephardt. Yet the president ignored their pleas. The gun ban passed and Clinton signed it into law. In his 2004 memoir, My Life, Clinton recounted his talk with Foley and Gephardt and summed it up with three words he has never had an easy time saying: “I was wrong.”

It would have been difficult to make any other kind of claim because the GOP’s historic takeover of Congress followed two months later. “The NRA had a great night,” wrote Clinton. “We got the living daylights beat out of us.” He wasn’t wrong about that. Although gun rights weren’t mentioned in Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, the NRA was an essential partner in the Republican triumph. By one estimate, the gun group defeated 19 of the 24 incumbent House members on its target list. The assault-weapons ban had backfired.

Many Democrats nevertheless insisted that they remained right on the politics but had somehow mishandled the anti-gun message. Instead of accepting the NRA as a mainstream organization whose devoted membership included rural Democrats and union members–voters who belonged in their own base–they settled on a strategy of demonization. Their task was made much simpler after the Oklahoma City bombing in early 1995. From Clinton on down, Democratic politicians and commentators blamed conservatives for inciting Timothy McVeigh’s terrorism with antigovernment rhetoric. An NRA fundraising letter quickly became Exhibit A: It had referred to federal agents as “jack-booted government thugs.”

That provocative phrase owed its existence to Democratic congressman John Dingell of Michigan, who had used the term “jackbooted group of fascists” to describe officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in an NRA documentary some years earlier. Yet such details were lost in a maelstrom of controversy over the phrase. The NRA’s credibility suffered and former president Bush even resigned his lifetime membership. In an instant, the anti-gun groups appeared to neutralize much of the advantage the NRA had gained from its election victories. The pro-gun forces scaled back on their legislative ambitions and prepared to play defense instead. The NRA spent much of its time talking about its safety and educational courses rather than the politics of guns.

The NRA also began rethinking some of its traditional strategies, starting with leadership. In 1997, Charlton Heston joined the group’s board and the next year became its president. His elevation–and the personal activism that came with it–provided a huge lift. “He gave the NRA a tremendous boost in credibility,” says Gary Lawrence, a California-based pollster who has worked with the NRA for decades. Before Heston, NRA press conferences were virtually empty. But when Heston called them on the NRA’s behalf, they were standing-room-only media events.

The NRA also knew from Lawrence’s research that it could draw on a deep reservoir of public support. Its own surveys routinely showed that more than 80 percent of Americans consider gun ownership a basic right. And although half will claim they’re for stricter gun control, many don’t feel strongly about it. Their convictions begin to erode as soon as they learn about specific proposals, and very few believe that gun restrictions control crime. “We see this in our focus groups all the time,” says Lawrence. “There’s a distinct group of people who don’t think gun control reduces crime but at the same time feel the need to be doing something about guns.” This makes them vulnerable to counterarguments: One the NRA began to employ to great effect in the late 1990s was that the Clinton administration wasn’t enforcing the gun laws already on the books–what good would it do to add more?

Support for gun control tends to spike after catastrophes, and a big one struck in the spring of 1999, at Columbine High School. Senate Democrats immediately demanded to close what they called the “gun-show loophole,” the ability of non-dealers to buy or trade guns with other individuals at gun shows without cumbersome federal oversight, just as they would if they were in private homes. The vote came to a 50-50 tie, allowing Vice President Gore to break it with much fanfare. “I personally would like to dedicate my tie-breaking vote to all of the families that have suffered from gun violence,” he trumpeted. At the time, his vote was seen as an important piece of publicity as he prepared to emerge from Clinton’s shadow and run for president. Liberal pundits hailed him.

A month after Gore’s vote, however, the House refused to follow suit. It accepted the NRA’s logic about the futility of new gun laws. Yet a compromise with the Senate was still possible. Some Republicans insist that the Clinton administration might have struck a deal over the gun shows but became less interested in a legislative accomplishment than in keeping the issue alive for Gore. “They moved the goal posts on us about 42 times,” complains a former House Judiciary lawyer who was involved in the negotiations. Once again, Democrats thought that gun control was a ticket to success, especially among jittery soccer moms who just wanted to keep their kids safe at school.

Ring Around Ruger

On page 39 of your September 1999 issue (”50 Years Of Ruger Genius”), the statement is made that all Ruger No. 1 rifles are shipped with a pair of 1″ Ruger scope rings at no extra cost. Page 7 of the 1999 Ruger catalog also states this. However, this is not correct, as I found out when I recently purchased a new No. 1 rifle in 45-70 Gov’t.

When I telephoned the Ruger company to ask about the missing scope rings, I was told that the statement in the catalog was a “typo” and that some calibers of the No. 1 rifle are shipped without rings. The rings can be purchased from Ruger for about $50.

Duane Starr

Oak Ridge, Tenn.

A Flatterer’s Day Of Reckoning

I was scanning the August issue of GUNS magazine and saw a pair of letters in “Crossfire” that were disappointing. An often-repeated military leader once reminded some squabbling subordinates, “Men the enemy is out there.” With liberal extremists hiding the scandals and immoral, degenerate behavior in their ranks, they continue pushing their agenda of disarmament of the honest citizen.

Meanwhile, in this respected publication, two literate “friends” gripe in print because some readers have higher standards and convictions than they. Apparently other readers had registered distaste for the tawdry, excessive commercial use of exposed females to stir lust in males during the “rut.” More than one trophy has ended on a wall because the bucks could not think their best.

GUNS is not a magazine selected for articles about washing machines or underwear; neither do we expect it to be anything but a wholesome family publication that our children or grandchildren can read. If the two disgruntled readers parading their preference for porn get upset when ladies and gentlemen do not share their unrequited fleshly appetites, then their interest is not focused on guns.

Why don’t you get the porn magazines to write some truthful articles on the American right to keep and bear arms? The Second Amendment is the guarantor of the rest of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution including the First Amendment, which keeps those magazines in business.

You probably know that the biggest porn publishers in this country support the left wing agenda of disarmament in the U.S. and support the location, registration and confiscation agenda.

Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil. Truth still matters. Lies from big media anchors or lies from a prevaricator in chief are still lies. Anyone with integrity hates to be lied to. Even a flatterer has a day of reckoning and this gang has done a lot more than that.

Name Withheld

Don’t Choose Sports Authority

I was just reading my very first copy of GUNS Magazine (July 1999) when I came upon the “Wal-Mart Stomps 2nd Amendment” letter in “Crossfire.” Well, this one hit home because I had a similar experience. I was recently at my local Sports Authority store in Broadview, Ill., where I have been a loyal customer ever since they first opened. I always bought a lot of my hunting, fishing and golfing equipment there because their prices are hard to beat.

I noticed that they no longer sell handguns or much ammo for handguns. In addition to this, the clerk now makes you sign your John Hancock on a computer screen saying that you are over 18 years of age when you purchase any kind of firearm ammunition.

I see two things wrong with this picture. One, your date of birth is clearly printed on both your Drivers License and your Ill. F.O.I.D. Card (Firearms Owner Identification) along with a photo on both. So why the signature?

Second, I believe it is an invasion of my privacy for anybody or store to have my signature on file or in a computer database showing every ammunition purchase that I make. I believe this is another liberal “below the belt” shot at destroying what is left of our Second Amendment rights.

This is going to keep going on all over America. Not enough of us “walk the walk.” The NRA is our last line of defense against all of this. It is very disturbing to know that of all the legal gun owners, even some that are active sport shooters and hunters, there are literally millions who do not join or support the NRA. The NRA is the only group in America who fights to keep our Second Amendment rights and allow us the privilege to “keep and bear arms.

So please, if you are reading this and you are not a member of the NRA, do join, do voice your opinion to your Congressmen and Senators, do vote and do get youngsters involved in this fun and rewarding sport. Fight to keep our Second Amendment rights intact for our children and our children’s children.

In closing, remember this: “The will of the people is the best law.” So don’t just talk the talk, it’s now time to also walk the walk.

Nicholas L. Bobel

La Grange Park, ill.

Kudos For Beretta

Since I was such a good boy last year, I bought myself a Beretta Silver Pigeon for Christmas. (Mrs. Santa Claus was not real thrilled with my purchase, but she came around. Forgiveness is always easier to obtain than permission.)

When I picked up my back-ordered gun I commented on the blonde buttstock and the dark brown forearm. But, wanting to get some use out of it before quail season was over with, I went ahead and took delivery of the gun. Love at first use.

After hunting season was over with, I sent the gun back to Beretta U.S.A. asking them if they could restain the buttstock to match the forearm. Much to my pleasant surprise, they returned the gun four weeks later with a beautiful new buttstock, whose color was as close a match to the forearm as you could possibly get, all under warranty coverage. Cost me nothing but the original shipping through my local gun shop. A tip of the old hunting cap to Beretta U.SA for their merchandising integrity and no-questions asked satisfied customer response to my query. Thanks Beretta.

Jim Hathcoat

Olathe, Kan.

Quibbling Over .22 Magnum

I’ve been enjoying GUNS ever since it first hit the newsstands, and rarely, if ever, have I found anything I can quibble with. Finally, I have found some information I can take exception to as erroneous.

In the “Rimfire” column by Clair Rees, in the August issue, he states “For the first time ever, Remington is now offering .22 WMR factory fodder.”

Sorry, Clair, but Remington had .22 WMR ammo on the market in the early 1960s. I had an S&W model 48 in .22 Mag. Caliber and I purchased several boxes of the Remington stuff to harass the local jackrabbits with. I found this ammo to be highly erratic — a sort of pop, bang, and boom sequence — with the result of poor accuracy Shortly thereafter Remington quit marketing the .22 WMR ammo.

The point is they did sell the stuff way back then; so this is the “second-coming,” so to speak — not the first time ever.

Herb Hunt Richfield, Utah

A .32 Owner In His Right Mind

My September issue of GUNS Magazine arrived today in the mail. I gave it a cursory examination, and found your articles on the Smith & Wesson “J” frame .32 H&R magnums. I found them interesting, because I bought a new S&W model 331 yesterday after waiting a month for the retailer to put it on sale.

I read with great interest the comments on the old Federal .32 H&R ammunition that split. I spotted three boxes of Federal .32 H&R Mag. ammo on a shelf at a farm supply store in a rural town in our area and was planning on buying it. It was a closeout; three boxes for $10 each. After reading the article I remembered that it was in red boxes. I’ll spend $17 and get a box of good ammo now.

I chose the S&W .32 Mag because I didn’t think anyone in his or her right mind should fire +P round in an airweight J frame. I would have purchased the .38 model titanium if you could fire standard load .38 specials in it.

As an alternative, I bought an S&W model 637, and load it with plain-Jane 158 grain round nose lead. The purists would scoff, but it’s accurate, and a well-placed 158 grain will do the same job a 12 gauge slug will do. At my age, I’m not going to be uncomfortable anymore. The .32 H&R fills the bill and it is a delight to carry.

I bought one of the S&W model 640s when they first came on the market. Although it has a smooth action and is accurate, it is a heavy little fellow. I would think S&W would be hard pressed to develop something niftier than the model 332.

lmost 20 years ago, Stackpole published the revised edition of the Firearms Dictionary by R. A. Steindler. Alas, my old friend Bob is no longer with us, so there won’t be a third version. The original books are no longer in print, but you can sometimes find them at guns shows and booksellers.For old hands, some of the definitions are rather obvious. But it occurred to me that for some of you who arrive on the gun scene more recently, a few of the terms used might be slightly confusing. Hence, this little four-part series.

I will avoid the obvious here. Even a newcomer will know the moving part at the top of a 1911 is called a slide, and the same part on a .22 Ruger Standard Auto, being internall, is called a bolt. So, instead, I’ll address a few terms that are frequently used, and might be confusing to some.

For example, let’s look at “double action.” When D. B. Wesson first used the term in 1879, he was describing a handgun that had two different modes of operation–cock the hammer with the thumb and pull the trigger, or pull the trigger to cock and release the hammer. Two ways, hence a “double” action.

Over the years, the first way came to be know as “single action.” and the second became “double action,” often currently abbreviated to “DA.” In a pistol with a DA first shot and subsequent shots SA, the hammer cocked by the slide, the term might be “Selective DA/SA.”

And then, in more recent times, we have “DAO.” double action only. With no provision for single action, the hammer or striker is always in un-cocked position, moved only by a complete pull of the trigger. This system is usually found in small personal defense pistols, or in full-sized law enforcement sidearms In the latter case, it is a deterrent against liability lawsuits.

The Taurus Millennium series and the Accu-Tek XL-9 are true full-travel DAO pistols. Then, there are those with a “reset” system, in which the hammer or striker is “half-cocked” when the sllide cycles. In this group are the Glock, the Kahr and the Kel-Tec. What do you call this, “Semi-DAO”?

I don’t know. Of those mentioned, the Kel-Tec and the Kahr do have a definite DA “feel” to the trigger pull, while the Glock, after a lightly-sprung 1/4″ of take-up, is just a stiff single action. The people at Glock don’t quibble–they call it “Safe-Action.” Which it is.

Now, let’s look at locking system terminology. Most readers will know in heavier calibers there is usually some form of mechanical hesitation in pistols, to delay the breech opening until the initial higher pressure has dropped. In the past, auto pistols have been termed “blowback,” “locked breech,” and “retarded blowback.”

The application of those terms to certain pistols is frequently vague, and sometimes downright incorrect.

The 1911 pistol, for example–everyone knows that the action remains securely locked until the bullet has left the barrel, right? Wrong. By the time the bullet is midway, the action is half-way to the un-locked position.

All auto pistols operate on the “blowback” principle. I think we should do away with that term, and just refer to “locked” or “unllocked” actions. That would be much more precise. We could also dispense with “retarded blowback,” used when describing such pistols as the Savage 1908 and the Czech Vz24.

In both examples mentioned above, the barrel has to rotate slightly before the breech can open. In the Savage, it’s only about seven degrees–but still, locked is locked. There are only differences in dwell time. If there as any mechanically-obtained hesitation in the action, it’s a locked-breech pistol.

Use of the word “hesitation” above reminds me that it would be a good term to replace “retarded blowback.” There is one small class of pistols to which it could be applied. An example is the elegant little Seecamp, which uses an annular ring in the chamber and the adhesion of the fired case to delay opening, a non-mechanical application.

Finally there is that small group of pistols that use ported gas for delay. Examples are the Heckler & Koch P7 and the Steyr GB. I have seen the letters of the Steyr mistakenly translated as “gas blowback.” The factory designation, actually, is “gas bremse,” which precisely translated to “gas brake”–and that’s an excellent term to use on this class of pistol.

With the popularity of lights, lasers and the “accessory rail,” we see many references to the “dust cover,” used to denote the front extension of the frame or receiver. Let’s look at Steindler’s definition: “Dust Cover: a sliding, easily removable sheet metal device on some military rifles. Installed to protect the bolt from rain, dust and other foreign matter.”

How, I have wondered, did some nitwit apply this term to the front of an auto pistol frame? Someone in military ordnance, perhaps? Not so. I dug out an original (1942) TM 9-1295, and looked at all the specs and illustrations. The only reference is to the entire frame as the “receiver.” Anyway, I refuse to call the front of the frame a “dust cover.”

Porcupines are not aggressive animals, but never tread on these quill-bearing creatures. The porcupine is the symbol of the innovative and exciting Free State Project, “FSP” (www.freestateproject.org). FSP is a ground-breaking political strategy in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented activists promise to move to New Hampshire to be advocates for freedom. Free Staters affectionately call themselves “porcupines.” In order to join the Free State Project, a prospective porcupine must agree to the Statement of Intent, which says: “I hereby state my solemn intent to move to the state of New Hampshire. Once there, I will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of civil government is the protection of life, liberty and property.” The move to New Hampshire must be done within five years of the project reaching 20,000 participants. FSP strongly supports gun rights and already has over 6,000 sworn participants.

FSP was founded by Dr. Jason Sorens, a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University and full-time Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Yale University. Dr. Sorens has created one of the most novel and stimulating political strategies ever devised in our fight for firearm freedom and individual liberty. Free Starers are determined to work within the political system to reduce the size and scope of government. Porcupines vow to vigorously defend gun rights and fight for reductions in burdensome taxation and regulation, reforms in state and local law, an end to Federal mandates and restoration of Constitutional federalism. This innovative political strategy will demonstrate the benefits of liberty to the rest of the nation and to the world.

Welcomed

New Hampshire’s Governor Craig Benson has officially welcomed the Free State Project to the Granite State, and porcupines already serve in New Hampshire State Government. New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die