The Post-Obama~New Rules, Assault Rifle

What will you do for a rifle that obeys the law, when;

All weapons are limited to a 10 round magazine but detachable magazines are outlawed.
All rifles must have barrels longer than 17”, thus outlawing the 16” and 16.5” ones popular right now.
All rifles must have an overall length greater than 37”, thus outlawing today’s minimum length guns.
All semi-automatic rifles are banned. Any semi-automatic gun in 20 minutes and a good small hand file can be fully automatic.
No civilian firearm can be chambered for any present or past military cartridge (this law is not uncommon in the world)

Yeah, I think thoughts like that. If you think we’re in dark days now, just wait another 3 years. It’s going to get worse.

But should those rules come to pass, I’ve already figured out a solution. Which in itself shows you just how pointless gun control is: not matter what kind of gun I am allowed, I will figure out a way to load and fire it quickly.

Here’s a modernized version of a 120 year design, a beefed up and modified version of a Taurus Thunderbolt rifle, which itself is a clone of the 1877 Colt Lightning rifle.

Full length original and the modernized carbine would read like;


-->Colt came out with the Lightning pump action rifle way back in the day to compete against Henry and Winchester, who had the lever gun market locked up. The pump stroke is only 2”, so this action cycles very quickly. Internally it isn’t much different from a lever gun. In trained hands a Lightning can fire 10 shots in less than 2.5 seconds.

OK, now let’s modernize it. The medium size receiver Colt was never chambered for anything more potent than the black powder driven .45 Colt. That’s just about the lowest pressure cartridge still on the market. So let’s amp it up somewhat. Plus, in this plan for the future exercise, all military cartridges from anywhere, past and present, have been banned. So we can’t use the .45 Colt.

There is a newer generation of extreme modern pistol cartridges that run at full modern rifle pressures. The .454 Casull, the .460 Linebaugh, etc. Great for hunting bears at 200 yards, but way too much gun for using in the home. And home defense is half of what this daydream rifle is about. So let’s meet halfway between the .45 Colt, and the .454 Casull. Why not? After all the Casull almost is a .45 Colt; it just uses a stronger and slightly longer version of the Colt’s case, then runs it at 4 times as much pressure. So ... skip whispers to his crack team of product liability lawyers ... we’ll make our own cartridge. It will be too long to fit in .45 Colts, and will operate at up to standard magnum pressure: 35,000psi. We’ll beef up the Taurus so that it can safely eat this ammo even at 43,000psi, and we’ll proof test the rifles at 53,000. That’s a full 50% more than the ammo spec calls for ... and since we’re the ones also selling the ammo, we’ll try to keep the home defense product line well below that pressure level. Less BOOM that way. And even though the cartridge we’re designing is a magnum version of the old .45 Colt, we won’t use the “m word” anywhere. Just in case of twitchy DAs. No, we;ll look at things from the other end of the table, and call it the .451 CSR. No, not “Cane Spirit Rothschild”, that delightful Caribbean libation. “Colt Short Rifle”. And that turns out to be just the kind of gun we’re building.

We’ll lop almost 9” off of the Taurus design’s barrel, going with a 17.25” tube, which makes the government happy. If we have to we can beef up the barrel, but it probably won’t be necessary. We’ll cut down the stock too, so that the gun is 37.25” long even when the butt plate is removed. And we’ll sell the gun with a 1.25” recoil pad installed. So it will be 38.5”, and the government will be even happier. While we’re at it, we put a handguard/palmswell on the pump’s forend. And we put a classic pistol grip stock (the legal kind) on the back. Both of these make holding the rifle easier, but they both reduce perceived recoil.

Now for the sneaky part. We’re going to tighten up the rifling in the barrel. Instead of spinning the bullet at a leisurely 1 turn in 38” like the .357, or a relaxed but still sedate 1 turn in 16” like the .45 Colt, ours will spin the bullets just as fast as modern high powered rifles. 1 turn in 9” should be fine. What’s the point of this? SF/M. Surface feet per minute.

Huh? Imagine you are a microscopic bacterium. (try seeing yourself from Hillary’s point of view) Imagine that you are clinging tightly to the side of a bullet that gets fired from a gun. Amazingly, that bullet manages to fly through the air for a full 60 seconds before it lands. How far have you traveled? That’s SF/M. SF/M=PI*d*RPM/12, but we don’t have RPM. We have muzzle velocity and we have rifling twist (quick side note: while the forward velocity of a flying bullet decreases rapidly, the spin imparted on it when fired never decreases), so we derive (and bypass) RPM with SF/M = PI*d*MV*60/twist.

Ok, fine, Mr. Formula, but who cares? Well, you the prospective gun owner ought to. The faster you can spin a bullet, the more stable it will remain when something interrupts it. Said another way, bullets that spin faster penetrate in a straighter line. Faster spin also causes stronger deformation on contact (mushrooming). We’re building a moderately powered rifle, fully expecting that it be used indoors for home defense. So let’s try to avoid shooting through the bad guy and the wall behind him into Mrs. Tucker’s house next door. She gets so cranky when that happens!

There is a special line of heavy, strong bullets on the market for today’s monster pistol cartridges. We’re not going to use them for HD. We’re going to use medium weight hollpoints that were designed to do their job at 900fps. And then we’re going to fire them at 2000fps and spin them at nearly twice the rate. That gives us a SF/M number far above what the bullets were designed for. That means they will hit , mushroom, and practically explode. Wounds will be very shallow, only 4-6” deep, but the impact craters will be immense. You betcha: we’re blowing the bad guys up as well as blowing them away.

Sure, this is all just a daydream on my part, but the cartridge design will work as I said, the rifle can be built as I said, and little lightly built hollow point pistol bullets work as I described when you shoot them too fast and too spinny. They will fly to pieces.

On the other end of things, if you load this cartridge down with 300 grain bullets, you can expect about 1870-1950 fps. That makes the .451 CSR considerably better as a short range big game hunting cartridge, and nearly the equal of a .45-70 using standard factory 300 grain bullets. Which is plenty enough to hunt deer, elk, or bears out to 150 to 200 yards.

Lastly, I’d build in a tube feeder for the magazine. something either like Henry’s loading button and spring slide lock, or a tube within a tube like Remington used on it’s rimfire rifles back in the 60s. You can reload the whole tubular magazine in just over a second. Make up a little cylinder thingy, kind of like a pepper grinder that holds 6 columns of 5 rounds each; a whole in the underside fits over the end of the magazine tube. Spin the top to line up a cylinder full of cartridges, and in they go. Do it twice - press, twist click, twist click, release - and you’ve got a full magazine. Carry 20-30 rounds on your hip in a holster the size of a medium flashlight. Easy design. You could even make a slapper button on the top to get them all moving. Or a coil spring and plunger per cylinder.

 

An article over at Weasel Zippers knocking a gun control bill introduced in Wisconsin that would seek to ban civilian possession of hollow point and frangible bullets. Problem is, they’re saying that such things are required for hunting deer and bear.

A Democratic state senator and three Democratic state representatives have circulated draft legislation that would ban civilian possession of holl...ow point or frangible ammunition. According to existing Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources regulations, sportsmen and women in Wisconsin must use such ammunition when hunting deer or bear. The Democratic lawmakers, two of whom are freshman, all hail from urban districts in the City of Milwaukee.

The reasoning behind the legislation is a bit muddled. The impact, however, is quite clear. According to a legislative counsel review of the legislation, it would essentially make it impossible for civilians to hunt deer or bear in Wisconsin.

Ok, it pisses me off when I read these bills, introduced by lefty city boys who don’t know beans about guns. And while I do know some things about firearms, in no way would I consider myself an expert. But what really chaps my martingale is when a right-ish blog points out the gun error and still gets it wrong.

So, to put my dander back down, let’s review some bullets. No, I ain’t gonna go hunt up some pictures. Y’all can do that yourself.

~Frangible Bullets These bullets are made from sintered metal dust, squeezed or lightly glued together. They were designed for Air Marshalls to use on airliners, where a bullet hole in the skin of the plane could cause a dangerous pressure loss. They are also somewhat favored by indoor shooting ranges, because the bullet does almost no damage to the armor plates used as backstops behind the targets. Shoot somebody with these bullets and the likelihood of the bullet passing through the target is very slim. They create a wide, very shallow wound channel. This is about the worst kind of bullet you could use to hunt medium to large bodied animals like deer and bear, but it may be a very good bullet to hunt varmints and small fur bearing creatures. MAY BE. Never tried them myself, never heard of anyone using them that way.

~Hollowpoint Bullets Whether made from soft cast lead, or a gilding metal jacket over a lead core, or one of the modern lead-free machined copper or bronze bullets, a hollowpoint bullet has a small opening in the front end. A dent, hole, or concavity in the meplat. This allows the bullet to mushroom faster than a regular bullet, and will produce a comparatively wider, shallower wound. Again, this is not the kind of bullet you really want to use on medium to large game. However, used against small creatures or people, it is highly effective. They do not penetrate as much as the harder or more solid bullets. This is a good thing in self-defense situations in the home, because it cuts down - but does not eliminate the occurrence of - over penetration. That’s what you get when you shoot the bad guy, and the bullet goes through him, through the wall behind him, through your neighbors house behind that, and then through the car in his backyard. And anyone who happens to be in the way. Over penetration is a bad thing in this regard, but it is not ordinarily an issue when hunting, unless you shoot at an animal that’s right in front of another animal you don’t also wish to shoot. As always, know your target and your environment.

~Softpoint Bullets This is your typical hunting bullet. The nose end is usually exposed lead, a plastic point, or a bronze point. These bullets come in an amazing variety [round nose, flat point, Accu-tip, etc], but they all function in the same way: they trade off more moderate expansion [mushrooming] for increased penetration. When you’re hunting a large animal, you sometimes need a bullet that can penetrate 20 or even 30 inches into flesh to break bones or puncture the vital organs.

~Solids These are non-expanding bullets that do not flip over when they strike a game animal. These are used to hunt the largest animals, like elephants, because the non-expanding bullet penetrates very deeply. Smaller ones are also useful for hunting fur bearing animals, because you get a smaller bullet hole in the hide. Varieties include Round Nose Full Metal Jacket, flat tipped Blunts machined from solid copper or bronze, and very hard cast lead bullets with flat or round noses. The hard cast lead one work their best at reduced velocity, and can fragment on contact at too high a velocity. Almost all solids have very poor aerodynamics and are used at fairly short ranges, 150 yards or so at the most for rifle bullets.

~Just as an aside, the latest solid metal bullets, like the Triple-Shock from Barnes, are a crossbreed between Solids and Softpoints and Hollowpoints. These bullets are made on a lathe, are almost always for high velocity rifles, and are the current epitome of controlled expansion. The nose of the bullet is actually several petals of metal folded into a point. On impact these petals open up and create a wide entrance wound. At a certain penetration distance the petals break off, leaving a flat tipped shank which then penetrates deeply just like a Blunt, with the same small diameter wound channel. Hey, the enviro-wienies demanded lead-free bullets. They didn’t realize that the bullet companies would give them what they wanted and at the same time create an even more effective bullet.

~Full Metal Jacket, aka FMJ or “ball” bullets These are military bullets. While they are also non-expanding, the bullets are very pointy and often have tapered heels [boat tails]. This gives them excellent aerodynamics and allows the bullet to shoot a much longer distance for a given amount of trajectory. Because of their long stretched out shape, the center of gravity of FMJ jackets is located in a position that causes the bullet to tumble on impact. This can make the bullet go all over the place inside an animal, even right back out the side that the bullet went in. They are not suitable for most hunting applications.

There. So now you know. While I don’t like the Wisconsin bill at all, it really has nothing to do with hunting. I have not read the Wisconsin deer and bear hunting regulations, but I can pretty much guarantee you that expanding bullets of some kind are mandated. And quite possibly frangible and hollowpoint bullets are already proscribed. But the universe of expanding bullets is not at all limited to frangible or hollowpoints. To the contrary, the past 60 years worth of hunting bullet development has been towards controlled expansion, the art and science of building a bullet that is just right for the game you are hunting and the velocity of your bullet when it hits that game. For almost all ground animal hunting an ethical hunter wants a bullet that will expand enough to create a large temporary wound channel [the terribly wrong label of “hydrostatic shock"], create a decent sized permanent wound channel, and sufficient straight line penetration to fully puncture the creature being hunted. That means the bullet goes in one side, mushrooms up somewhat, digs straight through while breaking bones, mashing up the heart, lungs, and central nervous system, and then goes out the other side, creating a second hole to maximize the rate at which the animal bleeds out. Yes, it’s a bit grisly. But it’s humane; the proper bullet [properly placed of course!!!!] can kill an animal stone dead in a couple of seconds. The wrong bullet [or the right one in the wrong spot] can cause an animal to suffer for days. Of course, minimizing that suffering is also what having another couple of shots immediately available is all about, and that drags me back to the semi-automatic rifle thing again, and I don’t want to go there today.

Bottom line: know what you’re talking about before sounding off. Personally, I think civilians ought to be FORCED to use frangible or hollowpoint bullets for all self defense weapons. Not only do they do a much better job while being safer for other folks in the area, they are also far less likely to penetrate a policeman’s bullet-proof vest, even when fired at high velocity from a real high-powered rifle [like a .378 Weatherby].

Other states always had it bass-ackwards, outlawing hollowpoint bullets for self-defense use ... because they think these are armor piercing bullets that will penetrate bullet-proof vests. Which is exactly what they aren’t.

Oh, and while the military may have a plethora of bullets that are actually designed to penetrate armor, once again, depending on what the type and thickness of the armor is, nearly any bullet can be considered armor piercing. So anti-gun bills that throw that one in, without detailed specification, are also full of crap.

 

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