Boomstick's and shooty shooty bang bang's - The GUN Thread!

[Shipmaster Sane]

Point 1 - Perhaps, but there is no statistical data to support you either. It is highly dependent on the situation, the home, and the nature of the intrusion. Bird shot is effective if you are not facing a determined opponent, but quite bluntly double-ought buck is the 'ideal' shotgun load for home defense in the vast majority of situations.

Point 2 - I worship at the Church of the Holy 1911... if your caliber isn't .45 ACP then your argument is invalid. GOOD DAY SIR

1. Pure supposition based on feelings. If large numbers of people use no.8 for self defense and we don't see any statistical basis for this being insufficient, we don't just "assume" it's useless because "something something my buddy got shot with birdshot from across a field I don't know what # I don't know what powder load I don't know if the shooter's aim was center but therefore number eight is useless"
No statistics I've seen on defensive use of shotguns have revealed anything particularly damming about No.8, which has only ever been tarnished by annecdotes and supposition, never by actual data.

As for buckshot, wildly inappropriate in a building where there are other people in. No.8 will take a fist sized chunk out of someone at 15 feet, and No.4 will punch a fist sized hole right through them. It isnt about willpower or pain.

2. Liking the 1911 Is perfectly fine, as long as you don't think it's better because .45acp is bigger than 9mm

 

[Husky_Khan]

Any of you guys have any opinions on the .22 Hornet or if it's anything worth checking out? Is their a niche for it?

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Any of you guys have any opinions on the .22 Hornet or if it's anything worth checking out? Is their a niche for it?

While technically interesting, what exactly is it for?

 

[Husky_Khan]

It looks like a heavier varmint rifle round so you can peg cute rodents at longer distances. I was just curious if it's actually practical for that or not to the point it could necessitate the effort of purchasing a rifle for it or something.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

It looks like a heavier varmint rifle round so you can peg cute rodents at longer distances. I was just curious if it's actually practical for that or not to the point it could necessitate the effort of purchasing a rifle for it or something.

Well let me refresh myself on some stats...

A quick google search lists .22 hornet as between 35-55 grains, velocity in the ballpark of 3k fps, energy around 1KJ.


For comparison... 17HMR is on the lower end of its speed at best (2.6k) and a third the energy, at less than half the weight.

22 WinMag is similar energy to the 17, but it's similar weight to the Hornet, meaning it's much slower.

So, as a round meant to directly compare to those two specifically, it makes sense, however, I think a more apt comparison is to the 5.56.

They're both of very similar caliber, but the 5.56 is on average heavier (55-63 grains), comparable or better in speed, and somewhat supierior in energy and penetration. The similar to supierior weight and speed mean that the 5.56 will still have that flat trajectory.

I haven't checked prices, but I suspect running .22 hornet isn't cheaper than 5.56. I know, I hate that "gun weeb supposition" stuff when others do it and I just did it, but I encourage you to research it on the prices of both the ammunition and platforms.

From what I can tell, .22 hornet did what it set out to do, dramatically out performing the big names in varmint cartridges, but from my lay person's perspective it seems to have done so by basically becoming a 5.56.



EDIT: from My five minutes of searching, cost seems comparable, but I can't believe I forgot that with 22 hornet, you're restricted to bolt action guns more or less, no Semi Auto there.

 

[stephen the barbarian]

Any of you guys have any opinions on the .22 Hornet or if it's anything worth checking out? Is there a niche for it?

it's a 1930's cartridge, and it works for small game out to 100yds, keep that in mind
i checked the hodgdon load data, and a hot load still comes in just under the V for a soft .223 in 55 grn
however, the chamber pressures are significantly lower
for comparison, this guy was able to get simular V out of 5.7 fn using 40 grn bullets
i can see it as an option in some places, if .223 is unavailable or expensive, or if you just want one

. Any _>1oz birdshot load #8 or larger is sufficient for home defense, and there is no actual statistical data to dispute this.

this guy did some tests using ballistics gel, he got >5" penetration at 10'
for context, the fbi standard is 12-18" penetration for handguns, and the gel is calibrated using a bb gun at 560-620 fps and that penetrates ~3.4"
so i feel very justified in saying that i am not confident using birdshot for home/self defence

 

[ShadowArxxy]

My personal handgun is a Springfield Armory XD(m) Compact in .45ACP. I was originally planning on getting the .40 S&W version as I am generally a fan of the ballistics of that caliber, but when I did pre-purchase range testing I found that the 9mm and .40 S&W versions of the Compact had a sharp recoil impulse which I found unpleasant, whereas the .45 ACP version generates a heavier but less "snappy" recoil impulse. So I went with that.

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

this guy did some tests using ballistics gel, he got >5" penetration at 10'
for context, the fbi standard is 12-18" penetration for handguns, and the gel is calibrated using a bb gun at 560-620 fps and that penetrates ~3.4"
so i feel very justified in saying that i am not confident using birdshot for home/self defence

It's fine if you feel that way, but just know that the feeling isnt actually backed up by any data on defensive shooting. Seriously, after years of this, no one can ever pony up any statistics. It's not like statistics on defensive shooting haven't been done, by the way, it's just that no one ever seems to be able to find anything to support this point.


You know the FBI standards are for single pistol rounds right? You're comparing apples and oranges.


I mean, how far are you willing to take this logic? "Oh it only goes like three inches deep" I mean. If you think a two inch wide, three inch deep hole is insufficient, How about a four inch hole, three inches deep? How about a ten inch hole, one inch deep? I suppose if I blasted the entirety of a man's chest muscles clear off his torso someone would be talking about "That wont stop him on meth" and "it's not deep enough to hit organs".

 

[Francis Urquhart]

It's fine if you feel that way, but just know that the feeling isnt actually backed up by any data on defensive shooting. Seriously, after years of this, no one can ever pony up any statistics. It's not like statistics on defensive shooting haven't been done, by the way, it's just that no one ever seems to be able to find anything to support this point. You know the FBI standards are for single pistol rounds right? You're comparing apples and oranges.

I mean, how far are you willing to take this logic? "Oh it only goes like three inches deep" I mean. If you think a two inch wide, three inch deep hole is insufficient, How about a four inch hole, three inches deep? How about a ten inch hole, one inch deep? I suppose if I blasted the entirety of a man's chest muscles clear off his torso someone would be talking about "That wont stop him on meth" and "it's not deep enough to hit organs".

Professionals I know don't talk about penetration or wound track dimensions; they talk about placement. Two quotes.

"A .22 five centimeters to the right of left ear has more stopping power than .44 magnum five centimeters to left of left ear."

"If you hit what you are shooting at, pretty much any gun will do the job."

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

Professionals I know don't talk about penetration or wound track dimensions; they talk about placement. Two quotes.

"A .22 five centimeters to the right of left ear has more stopping power than .44 magnum five centimeters to left of left ear."

"If you hit what you are shooting at, pretty much any gun will do the job."

I can't find it offhand, but there used to be this great video of someone dropping a boar with 17HMR. No long bleed out or multiple shots needed either, lights were out in seconds.
If I recall, a record setting boar (either current or past) was taken a few years back with something considered rather small... I want to say a 22 Mag pistol, but I can't remember.


So, thats correct certainly, though understandably accuracy suffers in the chaos of some encounters. In such a case, it's better to maximize number of hits than caliber. People have walked away from .70 caliber slug hits, after all. Frankly, I think anyone, with any caliber of small arms, should expect to have to land at least two hits.



Now, I want to be clear, I dont think theres really any reason to use #8, when #4 is twice as effective and doesn't, to my knowledge, have a meaningfully higher chance of injuring bystanders (unlike buckshot or slugs). But I would consider #8 to be the extreme end of what would be effective, it will get the job done certainly, but #7, #6, #5, and #4 are all better without any downsides besides being slightly more expensive.

 

[Laskar]

I can't find it offhand, but there used to be this great video of someone dropping a boar with 17HMR. No long bleed out or multiple shots needed either, lights were out in seconds.
If I recall, a record setting boar (either current or past) was taken a few years back with something considered rather small... I want to say a 22 Mag pistol, but I can't remember.

Spoiler: 1953 world record grizzly bear, and the gun used to put it down

Spoiler: Shot placement

So here's a softball-pitch to folks on the general topic: Do you have any idiosyncrasies or particular things/manufacturers/etc. you look for or enjoy in firearms? Have a company you have slavishly devoted yourself to defending no matter what (or, alternatively, to shaming whenever possible)? Enjoy anachronistic weirdness like wooden furniture on modern rifles or tacticool/bubba'd old rifles (*glares at posters further up the thread...You know who you are*)? Is there a particular 'forgotten firearm' design-feature you just think is neat, even if it's stupid, and want to share?

Well, I've got a few interests. More than a few interests, really.

I love Czechoslovakian firearms. Really, the Czechs seem to have been at the cutting edge of firearms design, which is rather unusual for not being a world power like America, Britain, or Germany. I mean, for a while John Pederson had Congress convinced that a self-loading rifle chambered in a full rifle caliber cartridge wasn't feasible, but then the Chechs popped up and asked if anyone wanted to buy a ZH-29.

My heart, however, goes out to Zastava, and all of Yugoslavia's guns. Yugoslavia has never been afraid to go its own way. Nominally on the side of the Soviets in the Cold War, they have been perfectly willing to mix the old with the new. When the rest of the Eastern Bloc switched to 7.62 Russian for their rifle and machine gun cartridges, the Yugoslavians decided that 8mm Mauser was good enough as it was, and fielded a copy of the MG-42 with their rebuilt Mauser Karabiners. Then they stuck a grenade launcher onto their domestically-produced SKS just to prove that they weren't afraid to change things up.

As for more general designs... I really like the Friberg/Kjellman flapper-locking system and all the systems derived from it, but I don't know why. Frankly, a rotating bolt does the same job that flappers and rollers do with less hassle. Maybe what's interesting is how you can trace the development of the idea from Friberg to Kjellman to Mauser and Degtyaryov to a bunch of German engineers who noticed that if you design the bolt and the rollers right, the action will unlock itself.

So yeah. Between the Degtyaryov, the PTR, and the CZ-52 I just picked up, I doubt I'll get any other guns in this category. They're fascinating designs, though, and fun to shoot!

 

[bullethead]

My heart, however, goes out to Zastava, and all of Yugoslavia's guns. Yugoslavia has never been afraid to go its own way. Nominally on the side of the Soviets in the Cold War, they have been perfectly willing to mix the old with the new. When the rest of the Eastern Bloc switched to 7.62 Russian for their rifle and machine gun cartridges, the Yugoslavians decided that 8mm Mauser was good enough as it was, and fielded a copy of the MG-42 with their rebuilt Mauser Karabiners. Then they stuck a grenade launcher onto their domestically-produced SKS just to prove that they weren't afraid to change things up.

If Zastava had ever gotten their M21BS rifle over here to the states, I might've gone AK instead of AR for the family rifle. It solves the problems with the AK's optics compatibility, while looking sick as hell and using 5.56 NATO.

 

[Captain X]

It's a shame their SKS lacks a chrome-lined barrel.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Explicit Premium Beretta Gun Pornvid.

NSFW

 

[ShadowArxxy]

So here's a softball-pitch to folks on the general topic: Do you have any idiosyncrasies or particular things/manufacturers/etc. you look for or enjoy in firearms? Have a company you have slavishly devoted yourself to defending no matter what (or, alternatively, to shaming whenever possible)? Enjoy anachronistic weirdness like wooden furniture on modern rifles or tacticool/bubba'd old rifles (*glares at posters further up the thread...You know who you are*)? Is there a particular 'forgotten firearm' design-feature you just think is neat, even if it's stupid, and want to share?

I'm a huge fan of striker-fired pistols.

 

[Laskar]

If Zastava had ever gotten their M21BS rifle over here to the states, I might've gone AK instead of AR for the family rifle. It solves the problems with the AK's optics compatibility, while looking sick as hell and using 5.56 NATO.

Looks nice, but I wonder how well that top rail holds zero. Good enough for RDS, but what about optics?

 

[Francis Urquhart]

The Russians are introducing a new round (9.3x54R) Lancaster for hunting rifles. This is basically the old 7.62x54R round that had been debottlenecked. It uses the Lancaster oval bore that technically makes rifles using it smoothbores and thus much more accessible under Russian firearms restrictions.

There's a military version of the same round, 9.6x54R, that uses conventional rifling and is apparently to be used for a new generation of squad-level machine guns.

 

[Laskar]

The Russians are introducing a new round (9.3x54R) Lancaster for hunting rifles. This is basically the old 7.62x54R round that had been debottlenecked. It uses the Lancaster oval bore that technically makes rifles using it smoothbores and thus much more accessible under Russian firearms restrictions.

There's a military version of the same round, 9.6x54R, that uses conventional rifling and is apparently to be used for a new generation of squad-level machine guns.

In case anyone's wondering, Russia mandates that all firearms owners must own a shotgun for five years before they can purchase a rifle. The Lancaster rifling is technically not rifling under Russian law, and therefore permits the legal fiction that a bolt-action rifle is really a shotgun.

The military version of the cartridge is interesting. Right before the Soviet Union fell, there was a development program for a next-generation machine gun cartridge. One of the prototypes was a 7.62x54R cartridge necked up to 11mm. Yes. Eleven millimeters. The projectile was a saboted dart.

A 9.6mm bullet for a squad automatic weapon is an interesting choice. I wonder if it's meant to defeat body armor?

 

[Shipmaster Sane]

In case anyone's wondering, Russia mandates that all firearms owners must own a shotgun for five years before they can purchase a rifle. The Lancaster rifling is technically not rifling under Russian law, and therefore permits the legal fiction that a bolt-action rifle is really a shotgun.

Huuh-huuuuuuuh???? Whaaaaaat the fuck?
Jesus christ, is that thing only to screw with the law or is it practical? Is there any ballistics data for that psychotic morph of a 410 and a salvo cartridge?

A 9.6mm bullet for a squad automatic weapon is an interesting choice. I wonder if it's meant to defeat body armor?

Any info on velocity? Thats a fair bit fatter than most armor piercing rounds.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

Huuh-huuuuuuuh???? Whaaaaaat the fuck?
Jesus christ, is that thing only to screw with the law or is it practical? Is there any ballistics data for that psychotic morph of a 410 and a salvo cartridge?

As far as I can make out from the article in a shooting blog describing this thing, the reasoning behind it was that Russian shotguns for domestic sale have a portion of their barrels rifled near the barrel, the rifling acting as a choke. The problem is, when using slugs, there is a dangerous pressure build-up when the slug enters the rifled section and this design is supposed to overcome that. With the Lancaster oval bore, there is no rifled section. From the picture provided, it seems that there is both a solid round and what appears to be a sort-of-buckshot.

The picture shows a 9.6x53mm which doesn't square with the Firearmsblog article I read. That said 9.6mm for military use and 9.3mm for civilian and quoted a cartridge case length of 54mm. That would actually make some sense since a lot of countries don't like civilians having access to military-caliber rounds. That's why, for example, there a 9x21mm pistol round. Russia is drifting that way it seems only with their inventory of 7.62x54R rifles in civilian hands, it'll be a job enforcing it. Given that the picture shows a civilian 9.6mm they may have dropped the idea.

Any info on velocity? Thats a fair bit fatter than most armor piercing rounds.

According to The Firearms Blog, the following applies to the 9.6x53mm. The load with a 230 grain (15 gram) FMJ bullet has a muzzle velocity of 750 m/s (2,460 fps) and muzzle energy of more than 4,000 J (about 3,000 ft lbs). At 100 meters the muzzle velocity drops to about 585 m/s (2,000 fps).

Apparently the new round is proving highly successful on the civilian market and several other Russian rifle manufacturers are releasing models chambered for it.

The following section is a ***personal guess***.

I think the Firearms Blog mixed things up with the military 9.3mm I don't think this is related to the 9.6mm Lancaster at all. Some of the comments I've seen on this refers to the cartridge being a modified 5.45x39mm. I know that cartridge is not popular with the Russian military and the older 7.62x39 is still preferred. Mikhail Kalashnikov himself went on record as disliking the 5.45. That cartridge is very light for a machine gun and it may be that the 9.6mm is a move away from it. That would make the new cartridge a 9.6x39mm, essentially a straight-sided version of the old x39.

***Still guessing***. one of the things about body armor is that the energy from the bullet hits has to go somewhere and it usually translates to the body of the person wearing it giving a bad bruise and possibly a broken rib or two. Much better than being shot of course. A case could be made though that instead of trying ever-more complex rounds to penetrate new technology armors, the Russians are playing with the idea of a big, energetic round to maximize those secondary effects. A bit like hitting an old-fashioned armored knight over the head with a mace or morningstar rather than penetrating his plates with an estoc.

If anybody has more information, I'd be really grateful.