Eva on the line shooting a standing string during a High Power Match.
Several months ago instagram’s “suggestions” kept putting this lady, Riflenumber13 up on my page. I ignored it for a good while until one of the suggestions was a video of her in a bikini jumping up and returning in a heavy shooting jacket with an AR15. Not many non-shooters would be in a heavy shooting coat let alone have an edited short video done in one. They are stiff, hot, heavy and just downright uncomfortable. I was intrigued as to why she would showcase one.
Practice helps built endurance and steadiness.
After perusing her page I saw that Riflenumber13 was a serious shooter as well as a woman who was proud of herself and her accomplishments. She posted photos of her shooting, photos just relaxing and even showed photos in various bathing suits; including bikinis. All of the photos were classy and portrayed her and shooting in a positive light, something that cannot be said for a lot of the internet.
Over the months I commented and had brief email conversations. More and more I realized Riflenumber13 was a good role model for new shooters, kids, and she was someone other women could relate to. We had a few more serious conversations and she agreed to do an email interview.
A lady needs a black rifle to shoot with and a little black dress to accept her trophy in.
So who is Riflenumber13?
She is Eva Barin, the mom of a teenage son and a cat. Eva is far more than the world gets to see in her photos. She has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and is an avid shark tooth collector. These things, like shooting let her relax and get away from the daily grind.
Eva first shot when she was 10 years old at summer camp, shooting BB guns on paper targets. It would be 6 more years until she shot again. This time she was in high school at a private girl’s school. She heard the private boy’s school across the street had a rifle team. Actually she saw the boys carrying their cased rifles into school which piqued her curiosity. As hard as some younger readers may find it to believe, we used to do this (sadly it is a freedom lost). She went over and talked to the shop teacher who was the coach. She told him she wanted to try out. Shortly after, Eva was the first girl to shoot on the boy’s varsity team. The rifle that she was loaned was Rifle Number 13.
No matter how the day goes, Eva makes the best of it with a smile.
Apparently the shooting bug stuck with Eva, 30 years later she started shooting High Power Rifle. That was 3 years ago, in one year she was classified Expert. In a discipline with many technical aspects, nuances and specialized gear, that is quite an achievement. During her first year shooting, Eva went to Camp Perry; the pinnacle event for precision shooters. It is here she realized that, to be successful, advice was needed from someone who knows High Power Rifle’s intricacies. More importantly, get advice from someone or a group of folks who want to help you and see you succeed. Not only should you seek good advice, but seek out a coach who can teach you the fundamentals and how to improve your performance. Eva credited her success to the folks she met, her coach Steve Trent, and the group she is proud to call friends. When seeking advice, watch out for those with ulterior motives, they will ruin things for you.
Tools for a High Power Match; shooting mat, glove to reduce vibrations from hand to rifle, shooter’s coat and of course a custom rifle with optic.
Before we close, I am certain you all want to know what Eva competes with. As you might guess, it is an AR15. However it is not one you buy at your local big box outdoor store. When she needed a rifle, Coach Steve; a High Master and Distinguished Rifleman, graciously assembled a masterpiece for her. The rifle was built using a White Oak Armament Upper Receiver, Shilen Rifles Barrel, Geisele Hi-Speed National Match Trigger (2 stage), Spikes Tactical Lower Receiver, Magpul UBR Gen 1 Adjustable Stock and the most recent addition a Nightforce Optics SR1 4X scope to replace her iron sights. She tells me this rifle is a proverbial tack driver. If her primary rifle has issues, it is backed up by a Rock River AR15-A2.
Just a happy girl with her new Montifeltro.
Eva does not limit her shooting to High Power Rifle. If she wants to save money, Eva owns several 22s. When we first started this project, Eva had a left handed Benelli Montefeltro on order. It has since arrived and she has had a blast shooting it. When given a chance she likes to shoot handguns as well. She recently added a Ruger Mk IV and wants to add a Smith & Wesson M&P9 to her collection.
Eva putting her new Ruge Mk IV through its paces.When she isn’t shooting, Eve likes to hit the beach looking for shark’s teeth.
I am proud to know Eva and to have her share her shooting advice and ventures with us. Hopefully this will help other ladies and for that matter guys to take a risk and shoot “out of their comfort zone”. You should peruse Riflenumber13’s facebook and instagram pages you will see, Eva embodies my usual closing; shoot safe, shoot accurate, and have FUN.
As we hurtle towards the end of 2020, there’s one question on the minds of every shooter: when is ammo coming back? With Vista Outdoor announcing a $1 Billion backlog, the answer is “not any time soon.”
In April, we first covered this topic, looking at the historic conditions that had created a shortage the likes of which we had never seen before. Now, it appears that we’ll have a Joe Biden Presidency, and control of the Senate is up for grabs, we can look at the question of when is ammo coming back with a little clearer vision. The first thing we have to look at are our normalization conditions.
The first normalization consideration is availability. “Normal” availability is being able to walk into Academy or Fleet Farm, or go to Lucky Gunner and just buy however much of whatever you want, regardless of caliber. This is the first piece of when ammo is coming back; and I have bad news. For this to happen, prices have to go up a little bit more. Because all the major manufacturers are back ordered until 2022, every round that comes out of the factories is already spoken for. It’s going to a distributor, that distributor has a retailer who wants it, and that retailer has a customer who wants it. Prices need to climb to a point where people aren’t willing to impulse buy 1,000 rounds of 9mm. It’s already starting, as manufacturers are raising prices across to the board. The next thing that needs to happen is for some of the small retailers to either close up shop, or cancel their pending back orders. That will free up inventory to go out into the market, which will have a higher price point, and hopefully last a little longer on shelves.
Of course, to answer when is ammo coming back, there’s a second piece, and that’s price. When we will see prices return to pre-pandemic levels? After the 2013 ammo crisis, it took 18 months for pricing to recover to normal levels, and as a reminder, this is worse than 2013. The most optimistic estimates for a return to normal pricing is after the 2022 mid-term election, assuming that nothing wild happens in that election.
The bottom line? If you’re asking “when is ammo coming back” the answer is: buckle up. We’re in for a long ride at these levels. The good news is that there is still ammo out there, but you’re going to pay a much higher price for it, and you’re going to have to work a little harder to get it than you did before.
Targets are a big industry that’s oft-ignored when it comes to training. Choosing the right target for your training can change how you train and how effective your training is. Targets come in many shapes and sizes, and the VTAC Tactical Target finds a way to be a single target, but at the same also has many shapes and sizes. Let’s break that down a little bit more.
The VTAC Tactical Targets – One Target Many Uses
The most eye-catching portion of the target is the giant skeletal figure bearing down on you. This is no Evil Dead training situation where you’re facing deadites, but a scaled skeletal figure that gives you a practical idea of what the body looks like beyond clothing and skin. This skeletal figure produces a realistic target image that allows you to learn what proper shot placement looks like on the human body.
Around that skeletal figure is a fleshly outline that produces a visible human target to represent the body better. Overlaid over the skeletal fleshy fella is an IPSC/USPSA style targets outlined in checkered lines. These lines show all the necessary portions of these targets to allow practice for these disciplines and any other training one may do.
This entire target inverses traditional target design and makes the skeletal bad guy all white and gray on a black background. This white on black makes it easy to see the target in low light scenarios and effectively see your hits when you engage from a moderate range.
That’s Not All Folks
The deadite inspired baddy on the VTAC Tactical target is already an impressive enough target. Still, when you flip this bad boy over, you get presented with various targets and shapes to build your shooting skills beyond shooting bad guys. Running down the center is four B8 style targets that are perfect for zeroing rifles. The inch sized grid squares make it easy to dial in adjustments and to make accurate measurements.
To the right and left of these B8 style targets, you have various black and white shapes in multiple configurations that are also numbered. These different shapes and their odd designs allow you to practice multiple drills. They can go as far as your imagination can go.
Off the top of my head, I could use the number 5 target to practice hostage style shooting drills. On numbers 3 and 4, you can work going diagonally with multiple shots, only hitting the white targets. The Number 2 target could be used for a precise transition drill. Shoot the back with a rifle, transition to your handgun, and punch out the white target.
On The Range
I love the VTAC Tactical targets for patterning shotguns. I’m a shotgun nerd and like being able to see where my pellets will land on the body. The reason being is that I could visualize the thick portions of the human body and where I need to aim to land the most effective shot on top of picking an area where pellets are less likely to overpentrate.
The VTAC Tactical targets allow you to visualize the target’s internals, and the internals is what matters when it comes to shot placement. Punching a standard silhouette target is okay, and it works. However, the skeletal structure allows for better visualization of the critical areas to place shots on. I could see these being useful for police forces training with less-lethal munitions for blasting the pelvic area of the target.
Logistically Sound
Having so many targets built into one design is ultra-handy. I love the design, and it allows you to keep fewer targets. This saves space, money, and the number of orders I’m placing on Amazon. Again, this design likely benefits police forces logistically. As someone who burns their way through targets, it’s much easier to have one that serves multiple roles.
The VTAC Tactical Targets are made from thick paper stock. It can withstand a little wind and water, as well a few shotgun blasts. They won’t survive a hurricane but are perfectly suited for some rainy day training—also the price point rules. If you purchase them in bulk, you can spend less than a dollar a target. The VTAC Tactical Target isn’t just a solid option for defensive training, but for drills, zeroing, and beyond. It’s well made, easy to see, and priced to move.
You know what BFG stands for. I know what it stands for. And Ian certainly knows what it stands for.
But it is a very interesting rifle none the less. In fact, much like many other projects it isn’t a military rifle due to logistics and not design.
Ian covers this in the video, but for the text inclined I will paraphrase here.
The Serbu BFG-50A is lighter, slightly less expensive, and more accurate .50 Caliber rifle than the Barrett 82/107’s. The reason is simple, it has a rigid barrel lock up where the Barrett’s whole barrel recoils with the shot. The Barrett runs on three recoil springs and no gas system. The Serbu is gas operate like the M16.
Okay, not exactly like the M16 as Ian is fond of noting. The M16/AR meets a “gas piston” definition after a fashion since the gas of the system is used behind the bolt to directly, sealed into the carrier, and push on that seal to unlock the bolt.
The Serbu uses a much simpler system where the gas is sealed inside the gas tube and the path of least resistance is for the bolt to slide backwards, like when you launch a straw wrapper off of a straw to annoy loved one. The bolt on the Serbu BFG-50A has no functional interaction with the gas, in the AR it does.
But these are largely mechanical semantics, important for design and maintenance but beyond the scope of basic understanding of function. The Serbu is gas operated and that allows for a very solid barrel lock up. This means the optics, the zero, and everything that exists to make for a precise and consistently repeatable shot are better in the Serbu than the Barrett.
The thing is, the Barrett isn’t a sniper rifle. Never has been. It was a cheap way to bust up enemy equipment. A round of .50, even specialty .50 like API or Raufoss Mk 211, fired from X hundred meters away is $65.00 while a LAW M7A7 is $2,000 (by the 2011 USMC contract) making for a 30:1 shot ration using .50 cal vs a light rocket with the .50 having much greater stand off distance. The rocket will have a superior payload and slightly better armor defeat (in certain warheads) and casualty radius vs a likely single target impact and effect.
But $65 dollar solution, easy to use at up to a mile, to put that $X00,000- $X0,000,000 piece of enemy equipment out of action? Nice.
Back to the BFG.
Mark Serbu wanted a .50 Cal so he made one. It was nice. In the most basic sense its what an upscaled AR to .50 cal might be. Even as Brandon Herrera continues doing that with the AK, the AR is essentially done. Direct gas, rotating bolt, similar take down with captive pins, familiar operation. The Serbu makes sense to an AR-15 user. We also know then benefits to recoil mitigation of a good gas system. Pair it with the BFG’s hydraulic buffer and impressive muzzle break (as all .50 ‘Light Rifles’ are sporting) and it makes for an impressive complete system.
While the M1 Garand gets all the love for being the “greatest battle implement ever devised”, we’ve covered here the ways it could have been even better if the logistics had been in place to support it in .276.
Where the 30.06 really had its glory days was in the M1903 series. It was the American Expeditionary companion of WWI and an unsung hero of WWII. It supported those troops who had not received the M1 Garand yet, production hadn’t met deploying troops requirements yet, as it was only adopted a couple year prior and the United States had been trying to stay out of the war.
The M1903, meanwhile, was in full service and circulation. It was a well fleshed out Mauser action where the new 30.06 caliber in a relatively light (150gr) round and studies in barrel length landed on a fairly short (for the era) 24 inches making the rifle only about 43 inches. This relative size would remain consistent all the way through the M16A4 at 39.5 inches. Other systems were all specialty niche weapons for specialized combat arms like paratroopers or support soldiers. Several systems like the M1 Carbine and M3 were pushed forward during the war in the same way the STG44 and STG45 were developed by the Germans.
Anyway, back to the ’03. It came about after the Americans had a very very rough time in the Spanish-American war against the Masuer 98 armed Spanish, even outnumbering the Spanish by magnitudes.
In short, the ability to mag load from a stripper clip and run a smooth bolt action that can feed and eject and be fed again to sustain a strong rate of fire from a relatively small number of troops was highly effective. If numbers of troops had been closer to parallel the Spanish could have given a very different outcome.
The US saw this, and after trying to fix the obsolete Krag, they built their own Mauser (and were sued successfully by Mauser over it) to give the US a modern fighting rifle. The 1903 was dramatically overshadowed by the Garand in its effective rate of fire while retaining parallel capabilities in practical effective range, but it was still a peer to the rest of the fighting rifles fielded at the time.
I believe that the M1903 was perfectly placed in its service slot and time period. The fact it continued to be made until 1949 is a testament to it and would see use up to Vietnam. But I retain my opinion that, by rights, we should have stopped fielding 30.06 with the M1903 and gone to .276 Garand.
In that event we may have fielded a much more modern rifle after it, one that suffered fewer of the .308’s issues. We have a habit of making less than ideal ideas work well and the .308/7.62 is proof. We’ve made that into a successful caliber that will continue to be fielded for a few decades at the least, but it exists as it does because we couldn’t give up on 30.06. Then we swung heavily to the low mass high velocity rounds, where we have also been successful and seen excellent technological gains. But now with the NGSW we are looking at a picking a round that we had an opportunity to pick almost a century ago (although probably at a lower pressure) and I will wonder how we would’ve progressed if we had picked that more efficient middle cartridge before the Brits and their EM-2. Would the AR-10 have been fielded instead of the 15? Would the FAL, which was scaled up, made a better showing? Would even the M14 have worked better, despite its significant differences from the M1?
Nobody knows, nobody can. We can only deal with today’s actual tech.
Good job on another video from Josh and Henry too. Subscribe if you have not.
Not to toot their own horn but Kalashnikov group knows their rifle. There have been several very good AKs made. So many that Vladimir Onokoy, our narrator for this video, can’t really nail down a ‘best‘.
But he will cover the worst.
First up: China.
Now, Chinese AKs actually have a fair reputation here in the United States. Why? The Norinco brands were made for a demanding US Market that will quickly, even back in the 80’s, abandon a firearms maker who fails to produce for the most prosperous 1st world firearm market.
Not all of China’s customers are so discerning or demanding. Some truly do just want the cheapest thing they can get. So they receive the Wish.com AKs and other military equipment. I think I’m going to enjoy this series since it highlights international experiences outside the highly discerning US market.
Options… Options… Options… That is the State of the AR-15 as we close out 2020. So many options.
Rail Systems and Negative Space Mounting
M-LOK is the way. Keymod is still prominent in a few forms. The proprietary systems like LWRCi has on their piston guns are still floating around too. Freefloating an AR-15’s barrel underneath a handguard that exposes, at most, the last 4 inches has become the normal.
The quadrail, freefloating or not, isn’t dead and truth be told the updated clamshell handguards from B5 Systems and Magpul are still perfectly viable options for users that need to cut costs without sacrificing critical functionality. But that cut is generally unnecessary as the costs of getting the freefloating parts are very nearly the cost of the non-freefloating parts. Rigidity in the handguard system is a different discussion but one that can be looked upon at need.
Barrel Lengths and Quality
16? 10.5? 14.5? 11.5? 13.7? 12.5? … 20? The ‘optimal’ barrel length for the AR-15 seems to have a new answer every few minutes as someone tries a slightly different length but the answer for 2020 I would have to say is… 14.5 for general purpose. 11.5 for size. 20, still, for velocity.
This is all for 5.56 caliber AR-15’s, I treat other calibers in the same line of thought as other barrel lengths. Purpose driven.
Barrel QUALITY is secondary to barrel length. The quality of the steel, the surface treatments, and the rifling cut, are going to determine what the barrel can do for you. Cold Hammer Forged with chrome lining is still the standard to go by, despite the accuracy drawbacks, due to the longevity it can achieve. 15,000-30,000 rounds depending on the expected ammunition and rate of fire.
But nitride emerged as an alternative, and one that may take over for rifle barrels in several applications. Not machine guns, they still benefit from chrome’s durability and can deal with the accuracy degradation through volume. But the clean rifling cut in a nitride treated barrel has emerged as an outstanding standard for barrel performance in all aspects, even under harsh environments.
Length determines average velocities for a round. Quality, rate of the rifling cut and finish will finalize accuracy expectations. Coating or surface treatment and steel selection will give an indication of longevity. The barrel is the heart of the system and is one of the two parts that need the most attention. The other being the quality of the bolt.
Receiver quality matters too, but mostly from the standpoint of being properly machined to an in specifications finished product. Parts must line up.
Ambidexterity
The ability for right and left handed shooters to run rifles equivalently has emerged nicely in the last few years. 2020 has landed us with several quality options for ambi AR-15’s.
Gone, is the left side ejection in AR rifles. That fad popularized by STAG seems to have quietly seated itself next to rotating quad-rails (although it was genuinely more useful than a roating quad-rail).
But selectors, magazine releases, and bolt locks/releases being easily operable from either shoulder and with either hand are features to be admired when done well. LWRCi, Radian, ADM, KAC, and many more have made this a reality within their carbines. Those that do not are easily upgraded with a few easily exchanged parts, prioritizing the selector.
My favorite lowers in this regard have to be Radian A-DACs. I did not know how much I like being able to lock the bolt open with the magazine release until I had the ability.
Triggers
Geissele. Enough said.
Actually, the field of triggers is well populated with good options if you are looking to game. There are drop-in self-contained single and two-stage options galore for anywhere between some money to some more money.
I will say again, stock GI triggers cut well work well. I like the coated option offerings from ALG, BCM, LWRCi, and more even better and they are generally quite affordable. The clean the press and break just enough while still keeping the rifle operating ‘mil-spec’ which could be a requirement.
Several companies have passable two-stage direct replacement triggers also. Passable is not meant as a disparaging comment on their quality. They function well, I liked the press and break, and they reset and ran flawlessly. Aero Precision and Rock River Arms Two-Stage triggers are well worth their lower entry investment if an extra $100+ to buy a G trigger is not in the works.
At the end of the day, the man or woman with the stock GI-ish AR-15, the one with a front sight post and MOE clamshell type handguard rocking mil-spec/+ bolt (seriously, don’t cheap out on the bolt carrier of all the parts) and trigger who can spend 200-300 rounds working critical skills on the regular is better off than the one with a Knight’s SR-15 in their safe that maybe got zeroed… maybe.
DIY
DIY home built rifles exploded in popularity and they show no signs of slowing down. We like options, we like being able to select exactly what we want in our tools. New car, new gun, or new home. We are going to put our personal preferences into the final product.
Whether it was just finishing out a lower and locking a factory completed upper onto it, or assembling each part onto the next with proper torque and staking (stake your receiver castle nut) and selecting each component carefully from recommendations, you made your rifle.
In my opinion Aero Precision has taken the DIY market in hand and shepherded it to a place of enlightenment. The M4E1 set is the user friendliest base you could build a rifle on. You don’t even have to finish it out with their handguard or trigger or the excellent Ballistic Advantage barrels the chose to fly the AP brand on. The receivers start it all and the little improvements, like the blessed threaded bolt catch, make life easier when you aren’t chasing detents, springs, and breaking roll pins.
My next recommendation are the Radian sets, again with or without handguard. They are more expensive, in exchange for more more features. And a lot of the little parts work is already done for you. No fiddling with a lower parts kit and its tiny ready to escape bits, add your trigger and grip of choice then seal it up with the supplied Talon selector and you are done. The upper is near as easy but since you are dealing with torque and handguards it will always be more involved.
Neither of these are to say you cannot grab X or Y brands lower that is there on the shelf and start putting yours together on an old tried-and-true mil-spec forging. Those have worked and will continue to do so for decades, but Aero played the smarter not harder card and Radian sets you up for success out of the box.
Best Buy Value
“Okay, Keith. That’s all well and good. “All the options”. But I just need a best bang-for-my-$ rifle. What do I get?”
IWI US’s first totally US product, the Z-15 was spec’d and sourced as an ideal out-of-the-box 2020 production AR-15.
And it costs $899… Probably less.
Good barrel, 4150 nitride steel with the sweet spot 1:8 twist.
Good bolt, properly staked, treated, and proper steel.
Good handguard, 15″ 7-Axis M-LOK with a top rail.
Good modern furniture, B5 systems grip and stock and an M-LOK QD point for the rail in the box.
You can run proper sling and equipment on the rifle and are finally not subjected to tossing the A2 grip immediately.
Good muzzle device, the A2 is a perfect selection for an unsuppressed duty gun.
We like to pretend the A2 wasn’t good, but really all that it wasn’t effective at was mounting your preferred suppressor. So picking a ridiculous brake or other expensive comp only served to make you spend more to replace it.
Good control suite, Mil-Spec
Everyone who is going to drop their favorite trigger, selector, charging handle, bolt catch, etc. into this gun was first, not saddled with a part they needed to replace out of the box and second didn’t spend extra on an expensive part they were going to replace.
Awhile ago I would have given this spot to the FN Tactical Carbine FDE P-LOK. It was around $1,200-1,300 most places and offered the addition of a cold-hammer forged chrome barrel. It wasn’t the “better” barrel that sold me much as nobody was doing such a nicely put together overall base rifle for less. Plenty of companies were in the club, making a roughly $1,200 rifle that was certainly worth the ticket, but IWI landed it for $899.
It’s essentially the FN rifle. All the same, or slightly, improved features or conveniences. Now, before someone says, “But the barrel, Keith!”
“But the barrel, Keith!”
*Sigh*
Okay, I have several hammer forged 1:7 guns featuring chromed barrels. They are fantastic systems, I have no complaints. But from a practical standpoint I do not need chrome when I have nitriding and I do not need 1:7 because I am not firing M856 tracer. This makes the 1:8 4150 steel with nitride coating barrel a more informed choice both cost wise and considering performance within expected ammunition selection of every FMJ, match, and defensive round in 5.56 currently in circulation.
It is almost like the design team thought it all through rather nicely to maximize their spend… and yours. A company best previously known for not producing AR-15’s produces one of the best now, in my considered opinion.
PPSS Group have today announced an official replacement for their highly acclaimed polycarbonate-based stab resistant body armour.
According to their CEO Robert Kaiser, the decision was based on the company’s comprehensive understanding of the most realistic operational risks and threats, faced by today’s homeland and private security professionals,
The firm’s product video, featuring him being beaten and stabbed wearing the body armour is widely regarded as ‘physical evidence’ of its precise performance level and quality.
Kaiser said:
“Following years of relentless R&D we have concluded that Polycarbonate as a raw material is simply no longer on par with the threats some of our men and women face. We learned to accept that improved protection from knives, machetes, razor blades, shanks and indeed spikes was needed.”
“We concluded that carbon fibre was the only real reliable and forward-thinking solution. Working with carbon fibre made us understand what truly superior levels of stab protection could be achieved, alongside substantial weight reduction, lower thickness, and finally also fully certified spike protection. And this at no extra cost.”
According to Kaiser, certified spike protection is crucial, especially to correctional and prison officers who face some of the cruellest makeshift weapons, such as shanks and spikes daily.
Spike protection has now also become of equal importance to private security professionals, simply due to the type of weapons appearing on the streets in recent years.
Religious extremism, terrorism, social deprivation, immigration, a lack of respect and discipline, and an overall breakdown in society all had an impact on to the increasing number of knives and edged weapons being carried, and on the kinds of edged weapons essentially being used.
In recent months and years we have seen extremely evil individuals walking the streets, carrying ‘Samurai’ swords, meat cleavers and machetes, brutally assaulting and indeed slaughtering innocent people, often driven by rage and extremism, in many cases committing multiple homicide or mass murder.
Comparing it with the company’s highly successful polycarbonate-based stab resistant vest, the new body armour is even lighter, thinner, more effective and more functional.
Certified Performance Levels
CAST KR1/SP1 Stab & Spike – (CAST Body Armour Standard 2017)
Over the past ten years, PPSS Group’s body armour have been offering the most reliable levels of protection from edged, protecting security professionals and law enforcement, prison, immigration, and customs officers worldwide.
About PPSS Group
PPSS Group is an international firm specialised in the development, manufacturing and supply of high-performance personal protective equipment, offering unrivalled protection from edged weapons, blunt force trauma and even human bites. Social media presence: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
Stolen from the internet somewhere, I don’t remember. But I laughed.
You know how some people have walls full of deer heads and turkey fans? Yeah, well that wouldn’t be me.
It’s not that I haven’t been hunting, it’s mostly just because I haven’t had that kind of luck. Besides the fact that taxidermy is really expen$ive.
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t keep hunt souvenirs. I do. It’s just that mine are a little more subdued and take up less space than a wall full of heads with glass eyes.
My “Trophy Shelf” from my short hunting career consists mainly of mementoes rather than mounts, and tales rather than tails. I do have a few tail feathers from my first pheasants though. They sit on little picture tripods from the craft store. I also have a decorative jar filled with duck feathers, a spent shell, and my out-of-state license for my first duck hunt.
Duck hunt mementoes
I also kept the flattened recovered bullet, the spent brass, and my Texas license in a bottle from my first hog and doe hunt last year. Additionally, I have random turkey feathers that I’ve picked up on my strolls through the family property. These are all artfully (or not) arranged on the bookshelves in my living room. I keep my treasures on my bookcases near the TV so I can admire them at my leisure and remember my times afield. Maybe that’s too “girly”. But I AM a girl, so whatever.
Hog and Doe hunt mementoes
Of course these mementoes don’t scream out for attention and questions like racks and heads and fans do. My guests have to pay a little more attention to know what they are looking at. But I guess that speaks in their favor if that means that guests are looking at my books to being with. My trophy shelf is really more for “me” than anybody else anyway.
My shelf. Or one of them.
From my perspective the best ”trophy” I can have is a trove of memories and a fed tummy. If it’s true that you are what you eat, then I am a product of the various game animals that I have consumed over the years. What better “trophies” to have than a healthy well-fed self, a stocked freezer, and fond memories?
[Ed: Dr. Faria wrote these articles prior to the confirmation of Justice Coney Barrett, but the sentiments and foresight are highly relevant for SCOTUS’ next term. First published on Hacienda Publishing and GOPUSA on September 22, reposted here by permission. Part 2 will come Thursday.]
Some readers were surprised to learn from my previous article on this subject that the Supreme Court of the United States has not made it clear that the right to keep and bear arms is protected outside the home. “How can that be?” they asked. Further perplexed they wondered, “But what about the SCOTUS decisions in the previous decade that supported the Second Amendment as an individual right to keep and bear arms?”
Well, yes, in a 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban, and in McDonald v. Chicago (2010) in a very similar 5-4 decision, it struck down Chicago’s draconian handgun ban.
But these 5-4 decisions have been hanging by threads. Chief Justice John Roberts has become an unpredictable liberal and unreliable as a constitutionalist. Moreover, the liberal justices’ dissent at the time provided a clear warning: “The Supreme Court is just one vote away from totally reversing District of Columbia v. Heller (the federal ban) and McDonald v. Chicago (the state ban).”
Even with these decisions standing, the courts and Congress seem to have acquiesced in vigorously interpreting the Second Amendment’s right “to keep and bear arms” in light of these two affirming decisions. Incredible as it may seem, some courts have interpreted them as protecting the right to firearm ownership in the home, but not in the street, or during transportation from one’s home to a shooting club or anywhere else depending on the state!
And yet, when we look at the other Natural or God-given rights supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution, we see that all of them apply to individuals both in and outside the home, including the prohibition against the quartering of soldiers in people’s home, a right enumerated in the Third Amendment. And when it comes to the First Amendment — “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” — we have to admit that we have also moved in an authoritarian direction.
We can go to churches, although this right has been curtailed by the farce of the COVID-19 lockdowns. We have also been guaranteed freedom of speech, although this right has been curtailed by insidious political correctness and the mere accusation of hate speech, as determined by the Thought Police of the Democrats, Marxist academicians, and the liberal media. As for peaceful assemblies and the redress of grievances, anarchists and communists infiltrating Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa have been given a go-ahead for not-so-peaceful assemblies — or rather riots with violent looting and burning! Thus, as in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others.
But ignoring these recent inconsistencies brought about by political correctness, and not by judicial precedents, the Supreme Court has held that when the phrase “the people” is used in the context of the Second Amendment, it means “individuals,” meaning “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” (U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 1990). And these are the same “people” and individuals empowered in the other Amendments, including the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th Amendments of the Bill of Rights. The question should then be asked, “Why can’t the Second Amendment be a full right, like all the others in the Bill of Rights?”
We need to proceed with filling the vacancy left by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and let SCOTUS get back to the business of the judiciary branch of government, particularly bringing the Second Amendment a la par with the rest of the Bill of Rights. And there is a lot of business that needs to be transacted.
For example, the Supreme Court has turned down several attempts to challenge the various Circuit Court decisions upholding restrictive concealed carry legislation in Maryland, New Jersey, and California. In California, the Ninth Circuit Court denied that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry concealed weapons in public. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch expressed regret that the Supreme Court failed to take up the challenge of the California case and believed it was high time SCOTUS ruled on the issue of concealed carry legislation and affirm the Second Amendment right outside the home. In the words of Justice Thomas, “The Court’s decision to deny certiorari in this case reflects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right.” Thomas further wrote in his dissent, “For those of us who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous. But the Framers made a clear choice: They reserved to all Americans the right to bear arms for self-defense.”
Open carry is another issue that hasn’t been settled to the satisfaction of gun owners, and the topic came to the forefront in Florida, the state that interestingly enough in 1987 passed the landmark concealed carry legislation. The case was that of Dale Norman, a Floridian with a concealed carry permit who in 2012 was arrested in Fort Pierce openly carrying a gun in a holster. He was fined and convicted of a misdemeanor. He appealed on constitutional grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case and effectively let stand a Florida Supreme Court ruling in March 2017 stating that the open-carry ban of the state did not violate the constitutional right of citizens to bear arms. Attorneys for the state successfully argued that lawful citizens may already carry concealed weapons legally by obtaining permits without undue burden. They also cited the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to rule that the Second Amendment protects open carry in public.
Also the issue of the constitutionality of “assault weapons” has not been settled. These beneficial semi-automatic firearms with paramilitary-style looks have been under attack on both the federal and state levels. Despite their usefulness for sports shooting as well as life-saving tools during natural catastrophes, urban unrest, and self-defense against multiple criminal assailants, these firearms have been so maligned that some courts are yet to rule favorably on their constitutionality. On November 27, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up Maryland’s assault weapons ban. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013, banning the AR-15 “and other military-style rifles and shotguns.” Apparently, semi-automatic “assault weapons” were confused with fully automatic “assault rifles” and characterized as military weapons, and thus excluded from Second Amendment protection. Interestingly, the judge who wrote the majority decision stated, “Put simply, we have no power to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war that the Heller decision explicitly excluded from such coverage.” Curiously, it was precisely in Miller v. U.S. (1938), the last major federal ruling on the Second Amendment until the Heller decision in 2008, that ownership of military-style weapons were specifically protected as a pre-existent individual right by the Second Amendment.
With a new Trump-appointed conservative Justice, SCOTUS should finally be able to allow the Second Amendment to sit in the front of the bus with the rest of the Bill of Rights!
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— Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D. is a retired professor of Neurosurgery and Medical History at Mercer University School of Medicine. He founded Hacienda Publishing and is Associate Editor in Chief and World Affairs Editor of Surgical Neurology International. He served on the CDC’s Injury Research Grant Review Committee.
This should be a fun one. When it comes to Olight WMLS and Olights in general, you fall into two categories. Either you freakin’ hate them, and they are cheap Chinese crap and are the worst weapon lights ever. The other side is the rabid fanbase of Olight fans that declare anything else overpriced. It’s a tough one, but I don’t hate Olight WMLS. However, I don’t like them either.
Not Because They’re Cheap…
Am I an elitist who believes you have to spend hundreds of dollars to get a competent weapon light? No, I mean, I love my OWL, but that’s not because it’s expensive. It’s because the OWL is the brightest and longest range light I’ve ever used. The thing is that Olight WMLs are not that cheap.
The PL Pro Valkyrie costs as much as a Streamlight TLR-1 HL. The Mini Valkyrie is a bit cheaper than the TLR-7, admittedly, but most of the time, they aren’t much cheaper than Streamlight. Streamlight is a very well respected brand in use by armed professionals second only to Surefire. Heck, the Olight Odin costs a good bit more than most Streamlight rifle lights.
They’re cheaper than Modlite, Cloud Defensive, and Surefire, but I’d choose a Streamlight over Olight WMLs any day of the week. Streamlight is a proven brand in use by plenty of police forces, and even the military adopted some Streamlight handheld lights and only dropped a pistol light due to the change location.
They Have Neat Ideas
Olight WMLs feature some cool ideas. For civilian use on a home defense gun, the rechargeable battery is handy. Home defense guns can be plugged in and left on the nightstand beside your cell phone. I’d never use a non-swappable rechargeable battery for duty use, admittedly.
The Odin’s mount is a cool idea that allows you to mount the light in various positions. It’s smart and makes it easy to use the light over multiple firearms and various ways. However, cool ideas can only push a product so far.
The Lumens
My biggest problem with Olight Wmls is that their lumen counts are almost false advertising. Olight will put out some impressive claims regarding their lumen counts… without failing to mention that these lumen counts are only temporary. When the PL Pro is advertised to be a 1,500 lumen light, what they don’t outright tell you is the fact that this brightness level lasts for about a minute.
After that, the lumens decrease steadily every 30 seconds until the light settles in at 600 lumens. This rapidly decreasing lumen count is present on all Olight WMLs. The little mini Valkyrie starts at 600 lumens and decreases to 60 lumens. The Odin goes from 2000 lumens all the way down to 300 lumens.
I’d rather have one lumen count for close to the entirety of a light’s battery life than a rapidly descending one.
Olight WMLS Have Glaring Design Flaws
My experience has been spread across three Olight WMLs that encompass the PL Pro, The Mini Valkyrie, and the Odin. That covers compact pistols, full-sized handguns, and rifles. I like to think I’ve experienced a good amount of what they are and what they can do, and where they have flaws.
The Olight PL Pro has massive paddles, which seem great, except for the fact they have a huge gap between the paddles and the body. This results in an issue with crap getting caught between the paddles and the body. This renders the paddles ineffective and makes it impossible to turn the light on until you clean the crap in the gap out.
The Odin as a long gun light has a weak mounting system. It’s a neat mount but didn’t hold up to about 150 rounds of 12 gauge, which was mostly birdshot. In my example, the bar that attaches the light to the mount bent, making it impossible to fully mount. This is just shooting and storage in a AR 15 case and that’s it. Also, the proprietary magnetic tape switch cuts off access to aftermarket options.
The Mini Valkyrie and it’s QD mount is neat and makes it easy to attach to your gun of choice, but adds a good deal of bulk and makes thin guns like the Hellcat thicker.
Olight WMLs and The World
In a world where there are so many weapon light options available, I can’t see a reason to invest in Olight WMLs. They have some neat features, and their lumen counts seem impressive for their price points, but if something is too good to be true, it often is. Olight WMLs leave a lot to be desired, and maybe they can rise to the occasion, but for now, WMLs on a budget still belong to Streamlight.
November 10th, 1775. The official birthdate of the United States Marine Corps. Celebrated with retelling of the legends. With song. With tribute. With cake and bravado. Only Marines party like Marines.
The solemnity of the tradition mixed with the pride of the Corps and the chance to celebrate that each and every single one of them are truly The Few and the Proud.
My brothers and sisters of clean body and filthy mind will be cracking cold ones and throwing the tap lever. They’ll be dressed up smartly for ceremony until its time to dress down and party rightly, probably wearing a plate carrier and nothing else. They will tell stories, trade jokes and insults, and revel in the simple existing fact that they are… that we are Marines.
And that’s just its own brand of awesome.
It doesn’t even really matter what kind of experience you had with the Corps. as a job. You love the Corps. You might’ve hated your boss or thought a rule was archaic dumb and getting in the way. You might have found a fantastic job after the Marines even though Sgt. Major said you would be living in a van down by the river under the bridge if you didn’t reenlist.
Those negatives though, are traced to individuals or small groups. Marines love the Corps. The Corps. is eternal. It is not spoiled by a bad leader, an injury, or a system that sucks to navigate in a human resource capacity.
Tradition is tradition. And we keep it today.
Semper Fi, Marines. Here’s to us. Every legend and honorable member spanning 245 years.
San Antonio, Texas (November 10, 2020) – J. P. Sauer & Sohn, Germany’s oldest manufacturer of hunting firearms, is pleased to introduce the ultralight S101 Highland XTC carbon-fiber rifle. Weighing just 5.4 lbs. in the .308 Win version, this highly accurate bolt-action rifle is ideal for strenuous hunts when every ounce counts.
The S101 features a hand-laid, carbon-fiber stock with advanced recoil absorbing properties. The barrel is fluted and threaded for additional weight reduction and cold-hammer forged for guaranteed precision of less than one MOA at 100 yards. The barrel and receiver also feature Sauer’s Diamond-Like-Carbon (DLC) surface for maximum corrosion protection.
“The DLC layer is 40 times thinner than a human hair while offering key advantages such as superior surface hardness and maximum rust protection and wear resistance,” said Jason Evans, CEO, Blaser Group. “Many advances were made in the production of the Highland XTC, and it now holds the record as Sauer’s lightest rifle ever.”
Additional features include superb balance, a crisp match-grade trigger, fluted bolt, and Sauer’s Dura Safe direct firing pin safety which operates as an ergonomic slide on the bolt shroud for enhanced safety and optimum operation. The Highland XTC consistently delivers precision and accuracy even under the most extreme climate conditions.
The Sauer S101 Highland XTC carbon-fiber rifle is available in all current calibers in the S101 series and, depending on the caliber, in barrel lengths from 20-inches to 22-inches.
About Blaser Group The Blaser Group is the official U.S. importer for iconic German firearms brands Blaser, Mauser and J.P. Sauer; English gunmaker John Rigby & Co.; and Minox optics. Established in 2006, the company which is based in San Antonio, Texas works with over 200 authorized Blaser Group dealers across all North American states, with this figure continually growing. Today the Blaser Group’s industry-leading product portfolio includes bolt-action, combination rifles and over-and-under shotguns designed specifically for game hunters and competitive target shooters. Its custom shop offers exclusive engravings, design work and custom finishing for bespoke guns. With recent innovations, Blaser Group has gone on to expand its product portfolio into cutting edge optics and accessory lines. For more information about the company and product lines, visit: www.blaser-group.com.
Guy Smith is a man after my own heart. He’s curious, doesn’t accept pronouncements of truth by authority, and digs deeper in order to prove it himself. His entry into the topsy-turvy world of contrafactual “research” by, shall we say, skeptics about guns parallels my own. We both moved from accepting popular disapproval of firearms in society, to wondering why, to making our own inquiries and analyses. We both discovered the truth is opposite: Firearms are an important part of American culture, are overwhelmingly safely, responsibly owned and used, and help protect more citizens from harm than they are involved in hurting them.
There are differences in his favor. Smith has been at this over 20 years and has developed an encyclopedic website called GunFacts. He posts everything he learns there (now with help from a dedicated group of volunteer researchers as the Gun Facts Project). I go back 10 years as an amateur–DRGO is a volunteer project run by practicing physicians. You can learn a lot from searching DRGO, but all that and more is on Smith’s GunFacts website, and better organized.
All those years and thousands of facts later, he has collected in Guns and Control everything you need to know about gun ownership and the efforts to weaponize research to justify restricting it. Its title precisely states the conflict we face, in this election year and every day. The activists who argue for licensing users, banning guns and other infringements on our natural, constitutional rights are primarily motivated by and depend on emotional arguments. Smith cuts through that and focuses on “Just the facts, ma’am.” The subtitle, A Nonpartisan Guide to Understanding Mass Public Shootings, Gun Accidents, Crime, Public Carry, Suicides, Defensive Use, and More makes that clear, though in too much a Table-of-Contents manner.
As he guides us through objective evidence on topics including the prevalence of firearms in the U.S., mass shootings, suicide and criminal use, carry and defensive uses, and accidents, we realize that the story is the same in each area. Guns are not the issue—how people use them is. Not how legal, knowledgeable gun owners do, but how they are used by the “murderer, rapist, bandit, gangbanger, or thug.” He presents salient comparisons between countries and cultures, which make it clear that custom and society determine the rates of violence of all kinds in different places.
In the penultimate chapter, he discusses perhaps the most important points in the book—the many ways in which research goes wrong, so often by anti-gun academics. Smith himself has “encountered hundreds of bad studies”, and new such ones each week.
Critical decisions are made in study design that determine the quality of data and the reliability of its sources, the choice of methodology (not that which leads toward desirable conclusions), the assumptions made in the analysis (which too often are personal beliefs of the author) and the variables examined in the work (but “correlation does not equal causation”). All of these are subject to bias on the part of study authors.
Smith and I agree, too, on the particularly abysmal work of medical and public health researchers on firearm violence issues. The subject is best evaluated by criminologists, with help from economists who understand cost-benefit analysis.
Smith has drawn tables and charts from numerous sources (and created many himself) that clearly illustrate the comparisons and trends he talks about. There are many ways to cast light into obscure, hidden methods of manipulating data, and he avails himself of all of them.
You can, in fact, find all this at the GunFacts website. But Smith’s book organizes and explains it so that you get an overarching picture of data being consistently manipulated in all realms of official antagonism toward firearms. And for those of us who like to hold information on a subject in our hands, books beat all. There will be plenty more bad studies coming to explicate, and Smith and the Gun Facts Project will continue doing so (as will DRGO). But at this moment in time, Guns and Control details for us everything we need to know.
Control is indeed the end game of anti-gun “safety” studies. Knowing how these researchers mold their work to that end is how we can reverse their impact on public opinion.
Read Guns and Control, reference it, share it. It is, as Smith states, “pro-fact and anti-B.S.” It’s the medicine firearm research and society need today.
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— DRGO Editor Robert B. Young, MD is a psychiatrist practicing in Pittsford, NY, an associate clinical professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.
In tragic news for the entire shooting community, a USPSA range officer was shot over this weekend as the result of an accidental discharge at the Genesee Conservation League during a USPSA match.
The individual who was 67 years old and a long time member of the GCL, was a certified USPSA range officer who was running a shooter when the shooter dropped his gun, which fired when it struck the ground, hitting the range officer. The RO was pronounced dead at the scene. Genesee Conservation League is currently closed while the local authorities complete their investigation.
This is the first fatality we were able to confirm at a US hosted United States Practical Shooting Association match, and serves to illustrate how rare such events are. The only other event we were able to find recently was a shooter accidentally fatally shooting himself in 2017 during a Canadian IPSC (International Practical Shooting Confederation) match. Additionally, this incident illustrates how rare true accidental discharges are. Most unintentional shootings are caused by negligence, however in very rare cases such as this one, they’re caused by a freak accident. With millions of rounds expended every year in competition, this magnitude of this tragedy is increased by its rarity.
There are conflicting anecdotal reports as to how the accident occurred. One report states that the shooter was performing a reload on the move and dropped their gun. Another report says that the gun was dropped during “make ready,” the part of the stage where the shooter loads their gun and holsters it before shooting the stage. Consensus reports indicate that the gun was a double action CZ-type, some models of which are not considered drop safe.
Our sympathies are with all of the people affected by this tragedy, both the family of the victim and the man who now has to live with this on his conscience. It’s a horrible thing, and we cannot express how deeply we feel for everyone involved.
Update 11/11/2020: We now know that the firearm in question was a DA/SA CZ Shadow, which does not have an internal firing pin block. According to eyewitnesses, the gun missed the holster during Load and Make Ready, fell and struck the concrete indoor range floor hammer first, causing the round to discharge.
