Guns and Ammo Thread

[Beetlegeuse]

Beetle TY. There’s a “throw back” community close around here that seems to have multiple stores open. I might have a connection at one of them. Going to do some shopping next week. I always appreciate your knowledge....

Proximal, my answer was too snarky by half and in fact I was being somewhat dismissive because you live in the golden cesspool. I regard myself as an ordained minister in the First Church of RKBA, and I'm always eager to lead the repentant down the path of righteousness, but in your case I more dumped on you more than helped you. And I've been trying ever since to figure a way to make it up to you but nothing I'm writing passes muster (you've opened a really big can of worms). So I'm being as brief as possible and ASSuMEing you don't know jack-shit about guns, so please don't take offense, it'd take me another six weeks to write something I thought made a worthy reply. This won't meet my usual (bellicose) standards but it might at least be of use to you.

If you don't know a lot about guns, and you don't have the natural inclination to flaunt the law, and you live in Mexifornia, you need to make sure your firearm purchase, ownership and use remains scrupulously with in the bounds of state law. I think that for two reasons.

First, if you're not already competent in the safe use of firearms, you need training from someone who has impeccable credentials. And I'm talking beyond the state's pre-purchase requirements. If you have to use your new gun in self-defense, the knowledge they can give you increases the likelihood of a better outcome from the shooting incident itself, plus it could reduce your exposure to criminal and civil action after the shooting.

Plus, too many people think they have the innate ability to be a crack shot so they don't train properly and never learn to shoot worth a damn. And popular perceptions to the contrary notwithstanding, handguns do a piss-poor job of killing people. Don't believe me? About 20 years ago a certain medical journal published what is AFAIK the largest peer-reviewed study of shooting mortality ever conducted in the US. And they put the survival rate for gunshot wounding victims at 80%. Four out of five lived.

If you don't buy that, here's a talk given about more recently (~2012) by a noted trauma anesthesiologist from a major hospital in Washington state.



At about 1:45 he states that survival rate for handgun shootings is 6 out of 7, about 86%. Different study, different data sets, a decade's improvement in emergency trauma medicine, same conclusion. Handguns do a shitty job of killing people.

Yes, I am fixated on "killing" because that's the crux of the biscuit. Unless it's being bought for sporting purposes, it would be misguided to water it down and think you're getting a firearm for anything less. If it's intended for home or self defense, then you're buying it so you can have the proper tool available in case you cross paths with someone who needs killing. A gun isn't a magic talisman you can wave in a criminal's face and cause him to vanish in a wisp of smoke. Buying a gun thinking you can use it to frighten away evil is a good way to get killed. Get it through your head at the outset that what you're buying is a tool to make it as easy as possible to end the life of a fellow human being. All subsequent decisions should trickle down from that reality.

The biggest single reason 80% (or 86%, depending on the study) of GSW victims didn't die had next to nothing to do with the cartridge they'd been shot with and practically everything to do with shot placement. Every handgun made is capable of killing reliably if employed properly. The old USSR's master executioner used a .25 ACP, the most anemic centerfire pistol cartridge in existence. And he never missed.

And it's every bit as essential that you train even if you decide to get a long gun, because the hazard to innocents is far greater from a miss with a long gun than from a handgun. Misses with a rifle could be even costlier.

And you can't get training with your new gun, then take it to the range on a regular basis for target practice without it becoming public knowledge that you own a gun. And that could lead to you finding yourself jammed up in a place like Mexifornia if you weren't religiously following the law.

The second reason is that even if you use it with justification, unless your possession and use of the firearm is squeaky-clean by Kommiefornia law, you're in for an ass-fucking.

You asked where to get a gun without asking what kind, which struck me a bit odd, so I'm further ASSuMEing you need advice in that regard, too.

My first recommendation is that you get a long gun. Why? Because handguns do a shitty job of killing people. If they didn't you'd find armies equipped with nothing but handguns. But there is no such animal. I have dozens of guns, more handguns than long guns, but when there's a bump in the night, I grab a long gun to investigate. EVERY time.

My recommendation would be a shotgun. Not so much because it's easier to hit your target, although it is true, but to a much smaller extent than most people think. Most shotgun barrels have a constriction near the muzzle called a "choke" that serves to control the spread of the shot after it leaves the barrel. Most home defense/self defense shotguns are "full" choke, which produces a relatively tight pattern. With a full choke your shot group opens to about nine inches at 10 yards, a foot at 15 yards. So it's a significant spread but you still need to aim carefully, especially because the buckshot sizes that are effective for self defense also will go zinging through several walls in a house.

Bird shot (the size used for small game hunting) is less prone to penetrating residential walls, but that also makes them less likely to kill the guy you thought needed it.



Based on the number of holes, the size of the shot spread, and that fact that he appears still to be very much alive, I'd guess he was shot from 10-15 yards (using a "sporting" shotgun with a choke "looser" than full) with #3 or #4 birdshot. Check out the limited blood on the waist band of his drawers. He wouldn't have bled to death if he'd gone for a jog. But he's the posterboy for NOT using too small of a shot size in your home-defense shotgun.

Bigger number means smaller pellets. #3 birdshot (as in the photo above) is pretty large for birdshot but any buckshot is larger than all birdshot. #1 buckshot is widely regarded as the minimum size to get the penetration necessary to kill reliably.

The "standard" for home defense is the 12-gauge pump but you don't have to follow the herd. It doesn't have to be a pump (even the US military is using autoloading shotguns now) and doesn't have to be a 12-gauge. And a hunting shotgun kills just as dead as a military-looking one. But you'll find more self-defense loadings in 12-gauge than any other.

Double-ought (.33 caliber) is the standard for military and professional security but there is larger still (000 and buck-and-ball). Another reason I like shotguns in the home-defense role is multiple projectiles mean multiple wound channels. Multiple traumas require multiple medical procedures and present multiple opportunities to hit something that will cause death. 00 also will go through three or four interior walls if you miss. So will #1 buck (.30 caliber) but less of them.

They still make shotguns in 16 and 20 gauge and .410 (bore). As with shot, the smaller gauge number means a bigger bore and bigger bore means more kick (the .410 continues to use the English bore/caliber designation and is the equivalent of a 67-gauge). Self-defense loadings are less commonly available in other gauges but you can get 00 shells even for the "puny" .410 shotgun (the smallest commonly available gauge) but there's only three or four pellets per shell. 12-gauge gets eight or nine. Each individual pellet might be just as lethal but the 12-gauge just has more of them. 12 gauges can be pretty punishing to shoot (depends a lot on the load), which is why guys shooting skeet or trap or sporting clays tend to wear a vest with a padded shoulder.

More reasons I'd recommend a shottie: It's less evil in the eyes of the Kommiefornia Politburo. And there'll be far less stigma attached to buying a box of shotgun shells than a box of pistol cartridges. And the ammunition isn't so critical. There is a staggering array of bullets used in commercial loadings of rifle and handgun cartrdges, and they don't all do the business of SD/HD equally well. But a 00 load is a 00 load, regardless who makes it.

Plenty of rifles would make excellent HD firearms. What makes the AR-15 so lethal isn't the military appearance, it's the .223 Remington cartridge that it shoots. Which was a modified from the .222 Remington cartridge. Which was made primarily for guys who hunt varmints; prairie dogs, woodchucks, marmots, ... animals the size of a small dog. Which is why its detractors like to call the M-16/AR-15 a "poodle-shooter." But you dodge the stigma of the "Evil Black Rifle" by just getting a sporting/hunting rifle chambered in the same round. The Ruger Mini-14 probably is the most widely-known such rifle. If you remember the old 1980's show "The A-Team," the Mini-14 appeared in almost every episode.





And there's plenty of other cartridges besides the .223 that would make a great HD weapon. Any cartridge favored by whitetail deer hunters also would do a number on a human. Lots of semi-automatic hunting rifles are chambered in .308 Winchester, even .300 Winchester Magnum, far more powerful than the poodle-shooter but without the stigma.

And it doesn't have to be an autoloader. How about a lever gun like the Winchester Model 94 or the Marlin 336 chambered in .30-30? Fast follow-up shots with a cartridge that's extremely popular with whitetail hunters but to the best of my knowledge has yet to be used in a mass-murder.


Marlin 336

You probably have been thinking "handgun" while I've been prattling on about shotguns. There's no arguing but that a long gun does a much better job of killing but there admittedly are circumstances when a long gun just is not practical. I wouldn't want to have to use one to fend off a car jacking, so they wouldn't be ideal if you felt compelled to bug out by car. And they're not much help if you want some added security for a trip to a restaurant or an evening at the theater.

If it has to be a handgun, I suggest you get a revolver. Why? Because it's the simplest to learn to use, they're stone reliable, and the corrective action in case of a misfire is to just. pull. the. trigger. again. And if you start out learning to shoot a single action/double action revolver in double-action mode, it teaches you trigger control that will put you in good standing with every other firearm you'll ever shoot. And they're likely to be of benefit to Mexifornians in general because revolvers don't carry as much stigma as semi-automatics.

Right now the world is ga-ga over the high-capacity plastic wunder-guns but a large part of the reason for that is the magazine capacity. Which doesn't do you any good because Mexifornia arbitrarily limits magazine capacity to 10 (which is actually 11 if you count the round already in the chamber). And you can get 8-shot .357 magnum revolvers. The firepower difference between a 6-shot S&W Model 19 revolver and an 18-shot (17+1) Glock 17 is pretty substantial. The difference between a Glock 19 with a 10-shot magazine and an 8-shot S&W Model 627 .357, ... not so much. Especially since there is a device for revolver owners that mimics the function of a detachable magazine.



Open the cylinder, dump the spent casings, stick in the cartridges contained by the speed loader, twist the nob on the loader, pull it back and close the cylinder and you're ready to rock again. In my next post down (I can't put two videos in this post) I'll put a video of Jerry Miculek firing 12 rounds from a six shot revolver in LESS THAN three seconds. Don't blink or you'll miss the reload.

It doesn't have to be a .357 but I mention it because it's a respectable (and respected) SD/HD cartridge, plus you're perfectly fine shooting (cheaper & less recoiling) .38 Special rounds in a .357. So the .357 has that extra measure of flexibility. The same can be said of the .44 Magnum (you can shoot .44 Special in it, no problemo) but the .44s are more expensive and heavier to tote and buck harder but don't kill deader enough to justify the extra baggage. Don't forget that almost every cop in America carried a 6-shot .38 Spl revolver for about 75 years.

But if it absolutely has to be an autoloader, get a Glock 19 (the best-selling handgun on the planet, and for good reason). It's a half-brother to the Glock 17 (all internals are identical) which is staggeringly reliable, probably the highest mean rounds between failure of any automatic handgun ever made. And they're at a very competitive price point. But only the 10-round magazines are Mexifornia-legal.

And one oddball option is the Taurus Judge. It's a 5-shot revolver chambered in .45 Colt (not the rimless .45 ACP, the more powerful .45 "long" Colt). Coincidentally, the .45 Colt's cartridge head is the same size as the .410 shotgun's. And shotguns shells produce milder pressure than handgun cartridges. So you can shoot a full-grown self-defense handgun cartridge out of the Judge, or load it up with 00 buck shotgun shells. Or both. But it's probably not the hot set-up for concealed carry because the most challenging part of a typical revolver to conceal is the cylinder. And the Judge has an extremely long cylinder to accommodate 3-inch shotgun shells.

If your local gun shop doesn't have what you want, you can find what you want and buy from an online store (usually at a decent discount) and have it shipped to your LGS. An FFL can only ship a gun to another FFL. Most FFLs will accept an incoming gun for a customer for a fee. In my area it's $25-$35. And they'll charge you for having to call the state for the pre-sale background check ($10 here, dunno about Kalifornia). They provide this service because it's pure profit, whereas they have capital and shelf space tied up in the guns they have in stock, and they don't have to order a replacement. You can find the gun you want, ask your LGS to email their FFL# the the online store, call the online store to make the buy, being sure to tell them the LGS will send them their FFL number.

The two online stores I check with for a lowest possible price are Bud's Guns and CDNN Guns. A good place to start if your LGS is short on stock.

Short answer, if you can tolerate its limitations (in portability & concealability), get a long gun. If it has to be a handgun, best to get something that the state of Kalifornia has the smallest possible bug up its ass about. If you have both in your home, the best use for a handgun in home defense is to use to fight your way to wherever you've left your long gun.

For protecting home and hearth, you don't just need a gun, you need a plan. The gun is a tool to aid you in executing that plan. Choose it accordingly.

That's pretty much how I should have replied five days ago. Sorry for the delay, and I hope this helps with your predicament.

Written in haste; many edits sure to follow