Sunday, November 14, 2010

Heavy Lubrication Improves M16, M4 Effectiveness

"Out of the 60,000 rounds fired in each phase, the M4 stoppage-rate dropped from 9,836 with light lubrication to 678 with heavy lubrication.

The M16A4 stoppage-rate dropped from 2,124 with light lubrication to 507 with heavy lubrication, results show."

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Tet '68 Bien Hoa/Long Binh, RVN
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We went to Saigon a few days later getting a hop on an assault helicopter out of Bien Hoa. They would oil their doorguns by immersing them into a 55 gallon drum of oil."

Why War On Guns Must Fail

"Making a gun is easy. A conventional gun is a tube or a box with propellant (powder, gas, atomized liquid fuel or something else) on one and and a projectile (a bullet, a ball, a beverage can filled with concrete, an arrow in a sabot or something else). Enclosing one end is option, an RPG doesn't have that. Sights are optional, many guns, especially those with multiple barrels, lack those. Even safety to the operator is optional as long as remote triggering is possible: the directed mines like American "Claymore" or Russian MON are essentially explosive shotguns. Medieval artisans who had poor materials and no knowledge base at their disposal could still make cannon capable of battering down a stone tower. Early Renaissance gunmakers, working with primitive hand tools made rifles capable of hitting and killing an armored knight at 200m.

On both sides of the road which the retreating army had to traverse the Spaniards had placed in ambush a large force of arquebusiers. It was a weapon which Bayard held in detestation; for while skill and courage were required to wield a spear or sword, any skulking wretch could pull a trigger from behind a stone. From one of these hated weapons he received his death. As he was retreating slowly with his face toward the foe, a stone from a cross-arquebus struck him on the side. (source)


Pierre Terrail mentioned in the passage above habitually ordered enemy gunners captured in battle mutilated. Even such extreme measures didn't keep him from falling to a stone from a matchlock arquebus. His opponent's use of stone instead of lead made no difference to the outcome.

Gun controllers really don't credit their compatriots with much imagination or skills if they think that a 21st century person cannot make at least a 20th century level design.

Poles under German occupation were able to copy British STEN submachine guns. Would gun control advocates suggest implementing a heavier level of repression and surveillance than practiced by the Nazis to stop people from doing that today?

Looking further at the STEN, we find that the magazine and the rifled barrel are the hardest parts to make well. The magazine can be made of metal or plastic or even hardwood. The rifled barrel may be made at home, as done by many people today. But let's assume that even the basic machine tools are unavailable.

A thick enough pipe can contain sufficient pressure to be used as a barrel. Steel liners wrapped in plastic or aluminum or wood have been used to reduce weight or to make up for lack of availability of adequate pipes. Rifled barrel isn't necessary for spin stabilization, as the use of short rifled choke tubes on smoothbore shotguns. Rifling isn't necessary for stabilization in general, given the availability of plastics or wood for sabots to convey arrow-type projectiles through smooth barrels. The side effect of such an expedient is much increased penetration of things like body armor or car bodies.

But let's assume no fancy projectiles. Assume nothing but two pipes, some sheet metal (steel, aluminum, brass would all would do fine) or plastic, three springs (one each for trigger/sear return, magazine and bolt) and...that's it. A fourth spring for an extractor is optional for blowback firearms, especially if the ejection port is on the bottom. Look at this STEN-like design and envision it without the barrel jacket, with buttplate integral to lengthened receiver (which would also reduce the cyclic rate) and a smooth, unrifled pipe for a barrel. The chamber can be reinforced with a larger pipe segment to help contain the pressures. Use any shotgun ammunition, slug or shot. Sights are optional: just a front post or bead would do, or a laser pointer taped to the barrel.

The end product would fire automatically but slowly enough to make single shots possible. With loose clearances, it would leak some gas but away from the operator and generally be effective to 15-20m with shot and perhaps 50m with slugs. Would it be a viable defensive weapon? Hardly. It would be bulky, heavy and a little slow to handle. Would it make a good offensive weapon to take down state enforcement personnel...could be, but military and paramilitary troops are generally armored and at least somewhat trained, so going after a soldier or a policeman for his weapon would be a perilous undertaking. Not that the risk ever stopped Filipino guerrillas from fighting either Spaniards, Americans or Japanese troops with even lesser weapons, but they had to take heavy casualties in such fighting. When successful, they gained access to better weapons from the enemy casualties.

So for what purpose would such a weapon be ideal? Would taking out a politician supporting gun control come to mind? After all, not many politicians or heads of regulatory agencies rate effective bodyguards, nor do they wear military-grade armor with helmets most of the time. While remote controlled mines are the favored tool in the rest of the world, improvised small arms are another tool that would be available to the resisters.

Can guns be banned so effectively that they cannot be re-created by motivated people?
Yes. It would require destroying all industrial capacity, exterminating anyone with knowledge of weapons or related industries (such as engine making, as firearms are merely heat engines with bullets instead of pistons) and continuing to kill off all new inventors. Such a path isn't very practical and I hope that anyone in favor of enforcing gun control legislation thinks long and hard about it even being desirable.

Some fans of gun control say they aren't against guns, only against those people -- variously defined -- having guns. That is also a pipe dream for reasons that I will address in another post. For now, meditate on the impossibility of putting the genie back in the bottle and on the risks already incurred by so carelessly informing the well-armed freedom genie of your desire. In other words, step away from the gun control platform and keep your tentacles where we can see them!"

Oleg Volk

The Magic Of Guns

"The 'magic' of guns is that they are not magic. Despite the legend and lore of firearms, they just a subset of weapons. At appropriate distances, an assegai or a fougasse or a longbow would work just as well as a revolver or a rifle. What makes firearms, especially the handguns and other hand-held small arms is their defensive nature.

It is seldom practical to defend an individual with land mines because they don't move with the person being protected. Hand grenades are not sufficiently directional in their effect. A sword or an ax or a spear require getting closer to the threat for effect precisely when retreat would be advised for de-escalation. A crossbows is similar enough to a single-shot firearm and regulated in most jurisdictions for the same reason.

Confiscation of guns and restrictions on their use all have the effect of reducing safety of those affected. They have a secondary effect described long ago by Niccolo Machiavelli: "among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible". Lest you think I am overstating the effect, how do TSA agents treat those they disarm? Guns as the defensive subset of personal weapons are a major component of liberty. It is still possible to be dependent while armed, but independence without arms is impossible.

Back to the magic of firearms. Gun owners are as mortal as everyone else, they mostly survive by not motivating others to kill them. Being armed is an edge, not a guarantee of surviving a well-planned attack by motivated enemy. Gun control by its very nature -- removal of rights and property -- breeds motivated enemies. They may lack defensive weapons but the offensive types -- from a sharp stick to remote-controlled bomb and everything in between -- are even harder to eradicate. Improvised offensive weapons with strong motivation to use them is what keeps armies from winning against insurgents. The same could trouble bureaucrats and politicians who commute in less well armored vehicles than M1A Abrams."

Oleg Volk

Snipers In Orange Vests

"A funny set coincidences came to mind today. Did you know that white tail and mule deer are almost the same weight as a typical American human? Some are a little heavier, most have slightly tougher hide, but the weight differences are minor. In the US, hunters kill about 3,000,000 deer every year.

Did you know that most police snipers use Remington 700 bolt action rifle, the same model typically used by deer hunters? Most other makes and models of police sniper rifles are also similar to hunting guns, the main difference being barrel weight and the optic magnification. Typical calibers range from .223 to .300 Win Mag with .308 being most common, slightly more powerful than a typical round for deer deer and slightly less powerful than a typical round for elk.

Police snipers very rarely take shots at ranges over 100 yards, with 60 being closer to average. Deer hunters often fire out to 200 yards, often with good accuracy. About 11,000,000 Americans are considered deer hunters on the basis of deer tag purchases, more have the equipment and the skills typical of deer hunters but do not hunt at this time.

With those facts, is it any wonder that sitting and aspiring politicians are careful to claim that they 'don't want to ban anybody's deer rifle'. Gun owners, including hunters, vote. At present, they vote with paper and touch screens."

Oleg Volk

Krugman: Death Panels, VAT Will Fix Debt Crisis

"When you’re 35 points down in the polls and the only people who think you can win live in your house, and four of them are under the age of 10, you better know why your running!"
Marco Rubio
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"The American South saw that its resistance to unconstitutional and aggressive Northern acts had come to a head over questions connected with slavery, that the incessant agitation caused secession, and that the North waged war against the latter. It was clear that by 1860 the two sections were two different countries, and as some viewed it, 'the split might have come about over mules.'”
Bernhard Thuersam
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Well, Krugman, I suggest you volunteer to be judged by one as a prerequisite, and you have no more business being a "economist" than the man in the moon.


American Narcissus

"Cool. That means he can still be hung after the war crimes trial subsequent to the civil war he starts"

For docgary: Southern Cavalry


Southern Cavalry


Still In Saigon, Charlie Daniels

I Am Now An Ex-Marine

A Southerner Speaks

"I have always been proud of my time spent as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. I served in the Republic of Vietnam in 1969 and, while I was certainly no 'John Wayne' type, I tried to do my duty to the best of my ability and I did bring all of my platoon out of Vietnam alive."


The Battle Flag In Iraq

Southern Boys In Iraq
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs967.snc4/76075_174153459265314_149308815083112_627613_3365174_n.jpg

Reframing Reality

"Professor Robert Shiller of Yale was kind enough to provide the masses, also known as ‘sheeple’ as the elites prefer to call the majority of us, with his wit and insights into modern newspeak in the Sunday edition in an article titled Bailouts, Reframed as ‘Orderly Resolutions.’

The portion........from the article he penned implicates that “they” know more than we do and thus when “they” act, we should simply be thankful that “they” did something to save us from a necessary economic corrective phase which used to be framed as an economic “depression” but now is forever banished from the vocabulary because the brilliance of the American Illuminati can never permit such an occurrence.........

I have elected to reframe much of the reality and political econo-newspeak in terms that “us’uns who is too stoopid and unedumucated” can understand as future actions are undertaken by the obviously superior elites who think we are too naive to see the reality they seek to manipulate. I am simply providing a service, to my readers, where the original terminology needs to be broken down into “oldspeak” or the commoner’s English where the rest of us could understand what has happened and what the terms we have heard and shall hear actually mean."

Via Western Rifle Shooters Association

The Petit Murders: Why You And Yours Need A Gun

"........I hope these two oxygen thieves experience hell on earth from here on out and then tumble into an especially atrocious, concentrated dose of eternal damnation for raping, torturing and murdering Jennifer Hawke-Petit (48), Hayley (17) and little 11-year-old Michaela. FYI: After raping and torturing Hayley and Michaela, Hayes and Komisarjevsky drenched the girls in gasoline and then lit them on fire. They died of smoke inhalation. The mother was raped and then strangled to death."

Serial No. 3817131

Oleg Volk
"
At an age when social, sexual, and educational explorations are at their highest point, the life of an eighteen-year-old Israeli girl is interrupted. She is plucked from her home surroundings and placed in a rigorous institution where her individuality is temporarily forced aside in the name of nationalism. During the next two years, immersed in a regimented and masculine environment, she will be transformed from a girl to a woman, within the framework of an army that is engaged in daily war and conflict. She is now a soldier serving her country, in a military camp amidst hundreds like her, yet beneath the uniform there is someone wishing to be noticed, listened to, and understood."