PART 1: MOAR GUNZ

Check this Out: 80% 1911 frames

Frames and jigs in aluminum alloy from Stealth Arms. Interesting to us, the Phantom jig uses a sliding cutter that comes with it, rather than require a milling machine. We may write more about this anon.

These are available at a discount from Sportsman’s Guide if you’re a member of their Buyers’ Club racket.

Sub-firearm 1911 frame blanks have been hard to come by in the last couple of years. Stealth Arms represents themselves as having several styles of “80%” receiver. Note that “80%” is a term commonly accepted in the gun world, but not in law or by ATF. ATF rules (sometimes arbitrarily) whether a given product is a firearm or “not a firearm;” they never, ever, validate anybody’s percentage claim.

Recommended by a Commenter: Inventables.com

They have a new CNC mill coming, and meanwhile, have an interesting set of Shapeoko (CNC router) kits, and an interesting online application, Easel. Personally, we wouldn’t trust a cloud app for firearms parts data. We’ve played with Easel and it’s pretty cool, but we just can’t get over the trust hump here.

SIG-based Guns from Chile coming here

TFB is reporting that Chile’s FAMAE, which makes the SIG 540 under license, and has derived many of its own guns from that weapon (including blowback 9mms), is planning to bring them into the USA, with the compact carbines coming in as pistols, with separate stocks available for those who want to put them on Form 1. How they plan to work around 922(r) is not really clear to us; do Read The Whole Thing™ from the good guys over at TFB.

Humongous BAR Training Aid

A BAR training aid at 2:1 scale. Ian references some of the other versions in the video (link only, we haven’t figured out how to embed from Full30.com).

We’ve seen the M1 he mentions and an M1 carbine, and they used M16A1s along these lines in our basic training in the 1970s.

This one appears to have been modified… the metal “handguard” wasn’t always there.  It’s available at the RIA online auction on 28 March 15.

Shooting an AR to Death

We seem to recall citing or posting this video before, but in it, Iraq Veteran 8888 fires 830 rounds on full-auto, until his barrel bursts (he says it’s the gas tube but it isn’t. Seems to gibe with what we alredy lerned about ARs and long-term results of cyclic firing.

Yeah, the video’s longish. But several things are interesting. A full magazine before the ultimate failure at 830 rounds, you can see the muzzle brake unscrewing itself (on the next mag you can see it depart, but not where it goes — probably 6-10 feet downrange. This is a good reason to have a magnet like the ones roofing contractors use for cleanup in your range truck). The burst is in an interesting place, further forward than it comes on a GI barrel. (Lack of chrome plating may account for that). Note that long before the failure, the barrel is no good in terms of accuracy, and he observes that it’s completely shot out when he looks at the damaged barrel afterward. (Pity he didn’t borescope it).

Note also that he pauses between mags, sizes things up, looks around. In a fight you might not do that. And if he were not pausing (sometimes a minute or more) before locking a new mag in, the weapon would have failed sooner. Our guess is that it would be in the 400-500 range where Colt and US Army tests have shown the M4 vulnerable.

Note that, just as it took more rounds for this cyclic-rate experiment to fail tge barrel than the Colt and Army experiments, it would probably take more rounds for near-cyclic semi-auto fire to produce this kind of failure.

Still sure you want a Shrike or other beltfed AR?

Click “More” to continue to Part 2: Unconventional Warfare, Part 3: Cops and Robbers; and Part 4: Poly-Ticks. (Because this is looooong).

 

Part 2: Unconventional Warfare

I ran, you ran, we all ran from Iran.

The US is not only given Iran a green light to build nukes, it’s cozying up to one of the world’s most prolific terror-sponsoring regimes: Qatar. This’ll end well.

Russia is a Free Country

Until you disagree with Tsar Vladimir Vladimirovich. Then they give you 7 in the head.

Part 3: Cops and Robbers

Pennsylvania State Police Training Corporal Indicted

We’ve mentioned before the case in which a Pennsylvania State Trooper was shot and killed during a training exercise. Some details from the Inquirer.

Cpl. Richard Schroeter, a 20-year veteran of the state police and a firearms instructor for over a decade, could face up to 10 years in prison.

Schroeter… had been conducting training sessions as the department switched from a Glock to a Sig Sauer handgun.

On Sept. 30, Kedra was one of five troopers sitting around a table at the Public Safety Training Campus in Plymouth Township.

“Schroeter was discussing the trigger mechanics when he pulled the trigger on his duty-issued firearm,” the District Attorney’s Office and the state police said in a joint statement.

The weapon fired, and a bullet struck Kedra in the abdomen. He died about an hour later at a trauma center in Philadelphia.

Schroeter may well beat the rap. The grand jury was not unanimous in indicting him, with only 13 of 18 members voting to indict on reckless endangerment, which is a misdemeanor, despite the potentially stuff sentence. They rejected more serious charges.

Reminds us of This One from Baltimore, which was worse

A few years ago, Baltimore PD training sergeant William S. Kern shot a trainee in the head during a training exercise. He was arrested and indicted on misdemeanor charges, getting a substantial “police discount” on the charges a citizen would have faced. He entered a not guilty plea and was convicted of reckless endangerment, but acquitted of assault.

Those bare facts somewhat understate Kern’s case. From CBS:

When he saw trainees peering through the window in a door, he decided to scare them by firing a pellet from his blue handled paintball style simulation training weapon.  But instead, he mistakenly grabbed his real gun. The shot struck trainee Raymond Gray in the forehead.

Panicked, Kern call 911.

And then lied about the accident. Kern had violated protocol by bringing his service pistol into the Simunitions training area. Hell of a guy. His victim, Raymond Gray, suffered the loss of one eye and permanently incapacitating brain damage. Kern remained on full pay vacation throughout the whole evolution, apparently including his 60-day wrist-tap sentence.

Unlike Schroeter, who’s reported to be devastated by the accidental shooting, Kern showed no remorse.

Pennsylvania State Police head profiles in uniform, criticizes force’s racism

The new head of the embattled Pennsylvania State Police is already embattled himself, first over his decision to wear the PSP uniform, despite being a political appointee who has never having served as a policeman in PA. Marcus Brown came up through Baltimore (yeah, home of William S. Kern), where he developed a reputation as soft on criminals, hard on gun owners, and obsessed with racial bean-counting. At the Maryland Transportation Authority he had his tunnel cops hunting out-of-state gun owners by running all out-of-state plates to see if the owner came up with a gun license. It will be a while before he gets to guns, though. He has said his highest priority at PSP is to cleanse it of “institutional racism,” and that all promotions will go to the most-deserving racial minorities, to compensate for past discrimination. This does not sound like a recipe for solving the PSP’s use of force and firearms training problems.

Brown has also been recorded saying, in a discussion of Ferguson, MO, where he was critical of police and supportive of rioters:

The vast majority of civil disobedience in this country is sparked by law enforcement. If there are not restraints in these situations, the actions of law enforcement can further escalate the overall conditions.

DC: Permits Trickle Out

In the City of Washington, DC, the police department that couldn’t be bothered to solve the majority of homicides takes pleasure in making the hoops any would-be legal carrier has to jump through both narrow and very high-up. Despite that, they grudgingly issued a permit to the Fox-TV Channel 5’s investigative reporter, Emily Miller. She also pried these statistics out of the gendarmes.

	Permits Applied For	Issued	Denied	limbo
Raw Numbers	76	16	31	28
Percentages	100%	21%	41%	37%

PA: Murderer Sucker-Punches Attorney. His.

Note to would-be felons: this is not the way to get your public defender to put his heart and soul into your case. Not only did that case not go well for him — he was convicted and sentenced to death — but he got an extra 5 to 10 tacked on at a separate trial for clobbering the mouthpiece (he pled guilty). Why did he do it? He wanted to represent himself, which certainly couldn’t have come out any worse for him, but probably wouldn’t have come out any better.

You have to wonder when they expect him to serve the five and dime. Meanwhile, he’s appealing (verb, not adverb; although he probably has groupies who write him love letters… in grad school or working at the Inquirer, probably).

NJ: Anti-Gun Prosecutor Blinks

Probably aware of Gordon Van Gilder’s potential as a test-case plaintiff, Cumberland County, NJ, prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae blinked and backed down from trying the 72-year-old history buff and retired teacher for possession of an 18th-Century flintlock. As we understand it, the antique pistol will be destroyed in keeping with the nightmarish gun laws of Christiestan. Because Van Gilder’s colonial-era firelock is what’s driving the crime in Newark and Camden, right?

In her statement, she defended the law and said she would not answer any questions on the subject. Andrew Branca probably nails the reason:

It seems any time that the light of day shines on New Jersey’s insane, and insanely unconstitutional, gun laws, the pols responsible for enforcing them scatter like roaches.

Hey, what does he know? He’s just the guy who wrote the book on the Law of Self Defense.

Speaking of Andrew Branca… Don’t miss him on…

• How the Massachusetts prosecutors who wink at a lot of violent ghetto crime always “make the process the punishment” for lawful self-defenders, trying them for murder or manslaughter — and how a recent case is an exception to this ugly rule. (P.S. his description of the city of Springfield, once a place where US Army weapons, Rolls-Royces (!), and the Gee Bee racing planes were made, is spot on. We spent over a dozen years in a Guard SF unit that was based down the street from Smith & Wesson’s plant and know the city well. We always went armed).
• Andrew sees the M855 ban not as more ATF political partisanship, but as simple retribution for the shellacking their signature legislative achievement got in a recent court case, Mance vs. Holder. 
• The guy in Montana who killed a burglar in his garage after leaving a purse as “bait” for him got sentenced to 70 years; he’ll spend at least two decades in pokey before being considered for parole. The guy he shot was a worthless, thieving scumbag, and the world is a better place without him. Think of it as evolution in action. But you can’t do it that way.
• He has lost his patience entirely with media mythmaking on the George Zimmerman — Trayvon Martin case. Andrew had better coverage than any of the national media (and was at least the equal of the best local media, who were actually in the courtroom and came to understand the issues). But The Narrative® has a power that mediots can’t resist.

Part 4: Poly-Ticks

Vermont: Der Bloomführer Loses One

As is often the case when money and obfuscation run into grassroots power and sunlight, the paid lobbyists of gun-ban group Gun Sense Vermont, along with some big-government urban groups including the Chiefs of Police, ran into a solid wall of resistance from Gun Owners of Vermont, the VT Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, and, perhaps surprisingly, the ACLU’s Vermont affiliate, which argued that existing laws were sufficient. Even normally anti-gun Democrats crawfished away from the bill, and all the Bloombucks went for naught. It’s dead, Jim — at least for now.

Georgia: Georgia Carry responds to ATF

Remember that we told you where, Georgia Carry’s petition is a model of one kind of how. We recommend sticking to one subject per filing, and Georgia Carry addressed the question: does the law support this determination? Details at Georgia Carry (.pdf); hat tip Guns Save Lives.