Guns Thread

[CgDs]

For some strange reason, after viewing , I feel less cynical about the future. I dunno why. But I do.

[Sennacherib]

has posted a number of interesting videos relating to the SMLE. Here are two:

Rare Aussie Lee Enfield Rifles



Lee-Enfield 1945 No5 Mk1 shoot

[noddy]

some bstard stole the 303 in my family - dad was forced to leave it in the care of a relative stranger, and they did a runner with it.

im not in the gun world enough at the moment to remember the model, but he lost an original american cowboy rifle to the same guy, the first of the round barrel lever action winchesters i think.

[Demon of Undoing]

You know , except for caliber , that LE jungle carbine is a half notch from a Scout. Could be made so very easy. I have no trouble imagining a bolt gun like that being my primary SHTF rifle - if it's close enough to fire fast , I will run a pistol like a chain saw. Been a whole assload of Germans that got assaulted as hell by men with quick reloading ten shot bolt action rifles. Rifles are cheap , ammo is still found everywhere.

Hmm. For the same price as a no frills AR , I can get a Mk4 , scope , and enough ammunition to lay in enough practice to peel hide at 500 yds. Hmmm.

[Mr. Perfect]

Honestly those 303s in the states can be picked up for about $300, maybe $400 tops. My uncle ends up with all the WWII guns, we finally gave him ours last year but priced it first, it would have fetched about $150 because it was sporterized.

Actually got an elk with that baby back in the day, iron sights about 50 yards. Wooded hilly country, wandered into it in a clearing.

[Sennacherib]

I bought my jungle carbine from a dealer in rifles (and rattlesnake skins) at a smalltown gun show when I was in high school. The banks were closed and there were no ATMs, so the dealer agreed to accept the U.S.$96 I had in my pocket from a trip to Montana instead of the CDN$130 suggested price.

Even in the late 1980s we could buy 500 rounds of Mk. 7 ammunition for under $100.

Dad probably paid the army $1 for his service rifle back in October, 1945....

[CgDs]

On cheap ammo ... something I've been reconsidering ...

Most of the cheap ammo is military surplus FMJ stuff. Which I would never want to use for hunting, and would be even less enthusiastic about with defending the Casa CD.

I mean, the best bargain now is an $89 Mosin (if your eyes can hack the open sights) and a 440 round tin for another $89 or so. (Unfortunately it has all the handiness of a long-handled shovel and is not especially suited for scout-izing it.) While it beats throwing rocks, I'm not sure I wouldn't rather have soft-pointed anything (even in a single-shot) instead if I was under assault.

It seems to me that cheap ammo requires lots of cheap once-fired brass (there's the cartridge criteria) and handloading capabilities so one can load soft-points.

Thots?

[CgDs]

[Sennacherib]

[CgDs]

[Demon of Undoing]

So, went to my favorite gunstore and found an SMLE ( without the magazine) for $650 with a few extras. Brass buttplate and fore end ring(?) , was stamped as 1944 . Light colored wood , looked original . Handled wonderfully for a military rifle , there's not a doubt in my mind but that you could go from a low ready to a center mass shot nearly as quickly as with an AR .

Of course , the same could be said of the Mosin Nagant carbine they had for under $200 , with bayonet should I feel the need to charge the French squares . Ammo almost half the price of .303 . I'm not looking for a sniper rifle or a deer gun. I want a full power rifle that I can go out and burn 300 rounds in a day of shooting that is going to happen in a couple of weeks. Idea is to hammer fundamentals like nobody's business . That, and I will try to scan a target I shoot with the mini Glock at 100 yards .

[CgDs]

[Sennacherib]

[Demon of Undoing]

I shoot that 18.5 inch .30-06, so I am indeed familiar . I wonder what the blast is like out of this when set to rock and roll.

[~]

Some of these videos should be class material for how not to handle a firearm...

[Demon of Undoing]

Personally , if I have to pull two charging handles to load a round , the word " overcomplex" is probably going to bounce around in my skull an awful lot.

But yeah , you see some real doozies. I'm thinking of running crimescene tape sound the entrance of the range later this month so I don't have to deal with it. The last episode was not pretty.

[Demon of Undoing]

... intended to be a multipart series.

Ithaca Model 37 Airweight

The lightest 12 bore pump shotgun made before the widespread use of plastics. The stock was military grade wood ( more on that later) that I think was probably used even though lighter materials were available. They had to , or else it would have been nearly unshootable. That twelve I spoke of earlier , that would rearrange facial geometry ? Yeah , this is the one. All the internal metal parts were just thick enough to do the job , and they would indeed. It's also the most reliable twelve I ever owned. It held seven 2 3/4" rounds with one in the chamber. I seem to remember a crossbolt safety and bottom feed and eject , but was otherwise just like a Mossberg inside. If you were going to carry a significant shoulder arm into harm's way and wanted to get out as light as possible, with as good a shooting and carrying balance as could be had, for the cost of a pair of today's running shoes , this was it. Boy did you pay for it at the cheek and shoulder.

The 37 was widely used in Vietnam by point men , for a number of reasons. The relative ease of carrying the thing was appreciated in heavy brush. In addition to it's weight and balance , it was very slick , with only a bead front sight unlike the brush hook used as a front sight on the M-16. It was also known for a particular oddity to the trigger that I am pretty sure would make a modern lawyer have a digestive event. There was no trigger disconnect. If you held down the trigger and worked the slide like a madman , you could burn eight rounds in an amazingly short time. I have seen the thing fired fast enough that it was probably near the cyclic rate of Ma Deuce. This sort of foolishness would litterally butcher sections of brush , and the effect on the intended target was pretty impressive , too.

Fired from offshoulder/ high hip it was slower but it was still done in those days before point shooting was completely discredited by people that never heard of Bill Jordan. A practiced man can fire as accurately from the hip at fighting ranges as from the shoulder. You can't do that sort of thing until you can. You don't learn it , you experience it. The Ithaca was excellent for that very thing. Plus , firing it like that didn't leave you looking like you had just been thrown out of an Olongapo bar.

A notable modification was made by the SEAL teams in Vietnam - the duckbill. The idea was to string the pellets in a horizontal spread. This gave tremendous close in firepower , as it really did become a jungle ( well , Delta ) broom. Chief Watson , a man that I could not outdrink though I had 40 years' youth on him, loved the thing for just that reason. I don't know if he personally used it so , but I do know that at least one greenface cut the stock down and used a section of OD line as a sling , in a high chest carry , but also carried a CAR. He didn't carry any spare rounds- it was there entirely to break contact or spring an ultra close ambush , one massive series of blasts that would loosen the sinuses. Two buckshot rounds at ten feet made a rathole in a pig big enough to put two fists in. I can hardly imagine eight. Note to those that have ears , the pig went down for the same reason the goats did in Panama.

I have no memory of what happened to that piece. Probably left it at somebody's house for safekeeping and never went back. It was by modern standards a cheap POS , though with the extended magazine and Parkerization it was all business. But you can't carry the thing and look all tactically erogenous. Not enough plastic , no black , no rail , no place to charge your cell phone. It just worked , really well , very cheaply. That used to be a good thing , stuff being cheap and simple of purpose. Now its all about the features and accessories.


Oy. This is what I mean about feeling considerably older than I am. After that last paragraph , I feel like I need to put on a yellow fedora and some Sansabelts .

[Sennacherib]

[Demon of Undoing]

This is a VT fuse for man portable artillery. They tried this initially with the OICW but it didn't go anywhere. If it has matured , then yes , it is a game changer. Most rules of cover go out the window. Fighting against that is going to be very hard.

[I am ST]

Trying to imagine an infantry encounter between two forces armed with these puppies, and a way that it wouldn't simply turn into attrition warfare. I mean, if you negate cover and accuracy with a time-burst area sweeping weapon like this what's left other than numerical superiority? It's like giving each guy his own personal airstrike option.

[Sennacherib]

I presume that the XM25 is, like the M79 and M203 grenade launchers, yet another descendant of the Rheinmetall-Borsig 8 cm PWK 8H63 anti-tank gun and its .

[CgDs]

[~]

[I am ST]

[cincinnatus]