Nate Matthews, who runs this blog, has just returned from an excellent safari to South Africa where he shot well and killed everything. Before he left, I filled his head with all my African expertise, but I apparently neglected one important item of information, because he encountered a puff adder and did not make it a dead puff adder. His excuse was that there was no time to take its skin, but I think it was a simple lack of civic responsibility.
(The serpent in question).
The puff adder is a short, thick viper that is responsible for more bites than any other serpent in Africa. It has long fangs, a bad temper, serious hemotoxic venom, and a very fast strike. It's fond of sleeping in the dust of footpaths, and when you step on it, it will bite you fatally and then go right back to sleep.
Nate's obligation was to make adderburger out of it on general principles, and possibly even theological ones. It says in the Book of Mark that "thou shalt take up serpents," but I think this was mis-translated and originally read "thou shalt hack up serpents," which is why the hoe, the shovel, the pickup-truck tire, the shotgun, and many other excellent tools were invented.
***
This may be the place to pass along my favorite serpent story, which I got from a 1920s edition of Field & Stream, where it was represented as the truth:
It seems that back in the days of the Old West, New Hands in an outfit were subjected to cowboy humor, which got pretty creative at times. Anyway, one night this particular outfit decided to have some fun with its New Hand. The cowpokes collected a rattler who was frozen near-stiff from the cold, sewed its mouth shut, and put it down inside the New Hand's boot. (In them days, working cowboys wore stovepipe boots, very high and tight-fitting, and impossible to get on or off inside of 15 minutes).
So morning comes, and the New Hand puts on his boot, and the serpent, thawed out by now and very cross, makes its presence known. The New Hand goes berserk trying to get the boot off, and unbridled hilarity reigns in the bunkhouse. Finally, the NH gets the boot off, and says:
"What son of a bitch done this?"
To which a grizzled cowhand says, "Waaal, I reckon it was me."
Upon which the New Hand pulls his gun, shoots the man dead, saddles his pony and rides off into the sunrise.
To me, that is a snake story with a happy ending.
***
And a non-serpent note: In a previous blog, I referred to Cabela's Bell & Carlson Gator knife. This peerless piece of cutlery is jointly made for Cabela's by Gerber and Bell & Carlson, and is so good that none of you are worthy of it. It is not yet available, but will be in the big Cabela's catalog in August, and in their stores in September.
Three pair of headphones, one with sound in them. (Why three? For people I teach, and for the occasional pitiful bastard who shows up on the line with a pair of cotton balls.)
Screwdrivers. Standard blade, Torx, Allen wrenches, and one great big screwdriver for Leupold windage screws.
Belding & Mull takedown steel cleaning rod for knocking out stuck shells.
Leatherman Wave.
Two pairs of molded ear plugs. (Used in combination with the headphones when I shoot muzzle brakes.)
Weatherproof notebook for recording chronograph readings.
Chronograph aiming cards and sunscreens.
Scoring gauges for .22 rimfire matches (sometimes I get to do this.)
Ball-less whistle. (For range officering.)
Stopwatch. (Same.)
A roll of heavy, black stick-on aiming squares. For when my geezer eyes need some help.
Three pairs of shooting glasses. One for me, two as loaners. If you have a spare pair of eyes, you can skip these.
Bug repellent. The little bastards love me.
Two Fisher Space Pens. One small Sharpie. One great big Sharpie. One big fat Magic Marker. Writing is better than trying to remember.
100 rounds of Winchester .22 LR High Velocity for practicing with my .22 rifle.
100 rounds of CCI .22 LR Pistol Match, for practicing with my S&W Model 41. Having the ammo on hand encourages me to practice. I need it.
The weight of all this would bring a mule to its knees, but what the hell, shooting is about having lots of stuff, so why not?
I found this clip under “Hilarious Turkey Hunt” on YouTube. Maybe I’m stuffy, but I’d have called it: “How Not to Start Kids Shooting.” http://youtube.com/watch?v=gH2N-n70AXs
Fortunately this kid kills the turkey with the shot that rolls him over backward, so he has a positive, if painful, hunting experience. Never mind that he’s wearing pants the color of a turkey’s head, or that he picks up the flopping bird while pointing his gun at his Dad, who wisely runs out of the frame.
Obviously, the boy has been given way too much gun and he may be on his way to developing a lifelong flinch. Other kids get .410s, which very frustrating guns to hit anything with. My own first gun was a 12 gauge A-5, but then I didn’t hunt until I was 21 years old, so I was too big for it to knock me over..
I started my own kids with 20 gauge 1100 Youth Models when they were 11 or 12. The 20 gauge 1100s are very soft shooters and great guns for kids to learn with. When target shooting and hunting we used only light loads and were very careful always to wear hearing protection. Even so my older son started closing both eyes when he pulled the trigger in anticipation of the muzzle blast and recoil after a while.
We had to take a break from shooting, then start back up with air rifles and .22s before he could keep his eyes open. He and his brother are both happy shooters today. If I had it to do again, though, I might go with cheaper, lighter youth pump guns and shoot slow, 3/ 4 ounce reloads to keep recoil down.
I’m curious to know how all of you started. Since you grew up to read a blog called “the Gun Nut” it’s fair to assume that your fathers did something right when they taught you to shoot.
A blogger noted a few rants ago that I had not said one hard word about Barack Obama, despite my constant picking on Hillary Rodham Clinton, and asked if it was due to political correctness. It is not, and to understand the situation we must return to ancient Rome, where the legal system had an unusual system of disposing of people whom it really did not like. They would sew the offender in a bag along with a rooster, an ape, and an adder, and then throw the bag into the Tiber River to let its inhabitants sort things out among themselves.
Mr. Obama, a decent and likable individual of no discernable substance, finds himself sewn in a modern-day bag with the Original Werewolf, her increasingly deranged husband, and the very unusual Reverend Jeremiah Wright. PC has nothing to do with it; I simply do not have the heart to say unkind things about someone with that kind of trouble.
2) Why I Will Not Stop Talking About Expensive Stuff, Even Though It Makes Some People Feel Bad
In the most recent edition of Guns & Ammo, its editor states that readers will see the magazine's future product evaluations devoted to cheaper and cheaper gear. Considering the future economic state of our country, this is sound and logical thinking. Why should G&A waste pages on stuff its readers can't afford?
However, it is not the way things work. Reflect a moment on the photo of Ms.Elisha Cuthbert shown here.
Do you have even a prayer of hooking up with a woman who looks like this? Of course not. But is that any reason why I should not run the occasional photo of Ms. Elisha Cuthbert? Take away our dreams and it is a pretty sorry existence.
If you would like to buy some good, inexpensive gear, get a Marlin XL-7 rifle, which is a stupefyingly good rifle for $325 list, or a Cabela's Bell & Carlson Gator, which is $90 and about the best working knife I've laid eyes on.
Here are a few things you should know about ceramic sharpening-rods sets. First, there are some truly lousy ones on the market. The two good ones that I know of are the Lansky Kitchen Combo and the A.G. Russell Ceramic Sharpener. The Lansky comes with three sets of rods ranging from coarse through fine and A.G.'s is fine only. Fine is all I ever use, and I don't believe you can get a shaving edge without it.
Ceramic rods will never wear out, but if you drop them they are guaranteed to shatter. So don't drop them. Also, I was not kidding about cutting your arm in the video. A knifemaker friend of mine cut himself so badly pulling that stunt that he had to go to the hospital.
A week ago, I watched a timed shooting event at the club that tolerates my presence. It involved five-man teams who were required to run down a 50-yard hill, then up another 50-yard hill, grab five rounds of ammunition, run back to the firing line and shoot, offhand, at a 1/3-size target of a bighorn sheep. I watched with delight as a couple of them frantically hauled on the triggers after shooting the first time, not realizing that they had failed to work their actions to get a second shot into the chambers.
Stress is the great finisher of the unpracticed shooter. After the battle of Gettysburg, 27, 574 muskets were collected from the field. Of these, 24,000 were loaded; 12,000 were at least double-loaded, and of these, 6,000 had anywhere between 3 to 10 charges down the barrel. The soldiers who had left them behind were so terrified that they loaded without realizing they were not firing.
Last week, a New York City judge returned a not guilty verdict in the trial of three detectives who had fired 50 rounds at a car with three unarmed men inside it. One of the three detectives fired a total of 30 rounds--a whole magazine, reload, then another one--with no return fire coming at him. I'm not entitled to pass judgment on people who wear badges, but this does not sound like New York City has a training program that amounts to anything. Overall, in actual combat, the NYPD has a hit ratio of 20 percent--two hits for every ten shots they fire.
If you knew that the surgeon who was about to operate on you got 20 percent of all his test questions right in medical school, how happy would you be about it? I think Mayor Bloomberg, who is concerned about the misuse of handguns, should chip in a few billion and buy his police force enough practice ammo for them to become competent.
I don’t know about you, but whenever I see a radio-controlled airplane, I think about chokes, loads, and leads. So imagine my delight at stumbling across this clip of “Gnat Shooting” on YouTube. Gnats, it turns out, have been around in England since 1990, and they have been sighted once or twice in the United States. They’re radio controlled target drones for shotgunners, capable of speeds up to 80 mph.
Several different outfits in the U.K. have complete Gnat-shooting setups they rent out along with shotguns and instructors for corporate team building events. Since “corporate team building” usually means something lame like ropes courses, drumming, building a boat out of cardboard boxes, or at the very best, paintball, I’d call Gnat shooting a definite improvement. I don’t quite see how shooting at a model plane improves a company’s bottom line, but I’m in.
However, something strikes me about this video – besides the tweedy outfits and the bizarre choice of music – none of the planes ever crashes, despite the Gnat’s website statement that “scores soon start to mount up, as direct hits set off explosive pods fitted to the aircraft, giving a highly visual effect. Maximum bonus points are achieved by blowing the target out of the sky!”
If I ever get a chance to shoot a Gnat, I want bonus points. Since Gnats are made from impact resistant plastic and fiberglass and can withstand small explosions, I don’t think you can count on breaking a wing. It would be very difficult to punch pellets through the body to the top-mounted engine, which means shooting the propeller off is your best bet. I’m thinking full choke, a load of HeviShot 4s, and shoot this thing in the beak. How much lead? A Gnat crossing at full speed 40 yards away requires 14 feet – about one Ford Explorer length.
Anyone out there have a better plan for bringing one down?
This past week I was drooling over one of Jim Carmichel's double rifles, a lovely Westley Richards .465 Droplock, which is a marvel of mechanical intricacy and British craftsmanship. Among other things it incorporates a safety block--a small lever designed to keep a gunbearer from flipping the safety on and causing you embarrassment when something was chewing on your head and you couldn't figure out why the gun wouldn't fire. It probably took someone a week to make and install that little device.
The metal-to-metal fit was so perfect that when you put the locks back in the receiver and closed it, you couldn't see where the parts joined--I mean, not even a hairline. Nothing. I can't even guess how long it took someone with a set of files and infinite patience to pull that off.
German and Austrian gunsmiths absolutely love mechanical intricacy. I once handled a double rifle that was designed to be used from a hochsitz, which is a treestand to you. Because doubles click when you open them, and might spook whatever was lurking nearby, this rifle had a pair of small, noiseless pistons that cocked it.
Most really good gunsmiths don't build guns for the money. They could make a lot more money programming CAD/CAM systems someplace. They do it because they like guns, and they do it because they enjoy pursuing perfection, and to show how good they are.
Sometime about 500 years ago, a European gunmaker completed a wheel lock pistol, inlaid, fancy to the nth degree, and on it, he inscribed in Middle German: "There, it's done. Anyone who thinks he can do better is welcome to try."
This covey has just taken wing – the tail-end bird is still tucking his landing gear away. Which one to shoot first?
The hunter in the picture has chosen his intended victim wisely. Bird number three is the highest and most obvious, but number one is the better call. It’s not only in front of, but lower than the two behind it. When the first bird folds, our hunter will have two birds right where he wants them, above the bead and easy to see, while the lower birds will be “lost” behind his gun. Bird number two seems the obvious candidate for the second shot. It’s beginning to bank left, closer to the hunter in the picture. He should shoot his double, then reload quickly. Sometimes six birds only represent the first wave of a multi-stage covey flush.
The other reason not to shoot the obvious “candy bird” is that everyone else shoots at it, too. If you look closely you’ll see a wad above bird six, and pellets in the air to the right of it, showing up as white dots. Shooter two (off-camera) has picked bird number three, and it looks as if he missed. Best thing for him to do is stick with the bird he’s shooting at until it goes down.
To put this book in perspective, I've been reading about World War II since a couple of years after the war ended, and I've never seen anything like it. I was put onto Old Breed by Paul Fussell, himself a World War II combat vet and a literary critic of the severest kind. Fussell called it "one of the finest memoirs to emerge from any war," and it is. It is also appalling.
Prior to reading Old Breed, the best book I had seen on the Marines' World War II campaigns was Robert Leckie's Helmet for My Pillow, which was published in 1957. Leckie was a gifted professional writer, and had more than a little of the poet to him. Old Breed was written by Eugene Sledge, a genteel Alabama boy who served as a mortarman with K Company, 3rd Batallion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Sledge served through the campaigns on Pelelieu (obscure) and Okinawa (famous) and lived to write about it, working from notes he kept in a Bible during the fighting.
It is the most unsparing look at the horrors of combat I've ever seen any where in any form. Sledge describes incompetent (some obviously unhinged) officers, casual cruelty by Marines equal to anything the Japanese did, untrained replacements, death, grief, unending filth, mud, rain, and constant terror. He and his steadily dwindling company were reduced to a state where they were one step from madness, and a great many of them did cross over that line--far more than was ever admitted to the public.
"Luck" does not begin to describe what protected Sledge. On Okinawa, of the 230 men in Company K who made the landing, only 20 some were left standing when the island was declared secured. And yet, through it all, he remained tremendously proud to be a Marine, and proud of what his comrades did.
Eugene Sledge went on to become a biologist and a teacher, and lived with his nightmares as best he could. Old Breed was published in 1981, and has been reprinted three times. In 2001, its author went to join his fallen friends, but what he wrote will long survive him. It is both a tribute and a warning. This is what happens when you let the genie out of the bottle.
A guest post from Shooting Editor and Shotguns columnist Phil Bourjaily
Turkey season started last week.
They say you should write about what you know, and one thing I know way too much about is missing wild turkeys. Until you’ve pointed a shotgun at a stationary bird’s head, pulled the trigger and watched it fly off, you genuinely believe (as I used to) that it’s impossible to miss a turkey. It’s not.
What’s worse, once you break the ice and whiff that first bird, it gets ever easier to miss.
You miss because turkey chokes are so tight they throw patterns the size of a volleyball at 20 yards. After my closest miss (5 yards) I shot a pattern at that range that made one hole you couldn’t fit a golf ball through.
And, you miss because you raise your head to get a better view of the bird falling over, except that when you lift your cheek off the stock, the shot goes high.
Like any shooter, I decided my problem had to be lack of gear. First I added a middle bead to my shotgun and used it as a rear sight. That worked fine, until one day it didn’t, and I put clamp-on iron sights onto the rib of my gun. From there, I went to a peep sight with the rear aperture unscrewed and thrown away. Peep sights are lightning fast, surprisingly precise, and all but forgotten by today’s hunter, which is a shame. Peeps may be great and underrated, but it turns out I can miss with those, too. Since then I’ve put scopes and red dots on my guns.
As you’re all aware, Hillary Clinton has become the Second Amendment’s Best Friend in the past few weeks; so much so, in fact, that she is thinking of opening a series of franchised shooting schools, starting in the Southwest—just in case things don’t work out in her current job. The trick to creating a successful franchise is to come up with something unique, and I have been contracted to provide ideas that would set these schools apart. Here are my ideas:
*All attendees will be flown in by C-47, which will make a corkscrew landing at the school airport.
*To create a realistic environment, recordings of imaginary sniper fire will be played at all times.
*All attendees will wear pantsuits.
*All attendees will run (or waddle, as the case may be) between classes to avoid imaginary sniper fire.
*When not actually engaged in classes, attendees will play pinochle.
*Attendees who are selected to shoot first in any class are entitled to whine about it.
*Female attendees whose husbands exhibit signs of incipient mental illness are entitled to a 20 percent discount.
That’s what I’ve come up with. What are your suggestions?
Part of the trouble with our older scope mounting systems is that they were designed way back when scope reticles were not permanently centered. If you cranked the crosshairs up and right, they traveled up into the upper right quadrant of your field of view and there they sat. So rather than adjusting the crosshairs, shooters would center them and then adjust the scope itself up, down, right or left. This was an immense pain in the ass, and once you had a scope mounted, you didn't touch it.
Now we don't have to do this, unless the barrel is out of line with the receiver, and then you will probably need a mounting system with some of the old left/right to it.
The strongest mount around is made by David Miller, the great Tucson rifle builder. He builds each one to fit a particular rifle, and they are constructed so that the scope is almost entirely encased by the steel rings and bases.
The lightest/simplest rings and bases are made by Talley, and were designed by Melvin Forbes of New Ultra light arms. The base and lower half of each ring is one piece of aircraft aluminum. They weigh less than a hummingbird's spleen, but are extremely strong.
The strongest bases and rings, aside from David Miller's, are the standard Talleys. They are steel, and have a virtual death grip on the fine-gun biz. Every expensive rifle you see employs them. However, getting them mounted can cause you to say many a bad word, and the directions don't help much.
The worst rings and bases are any of the see-unders. Structurally they are weak and they force you to lift your head off the stock to see through the scope and thereby violate one of the principles of sound rifle shooting. And try to get a gun with these abominations on board into a saddle scabbard.
A guest post from Shooting Editor and Shotguns Columnist Phil Bourjaily.
When I asked last week what guns you all think Browning should make I didn’t expect to read over 100 replies. Obviously, the question struck a chord. I’ve forwarded all your answers to my contact at Browning, who in turn forwarded them to the company’s firearms product managers. We’ll have to wait and see if they listen to you.
Counting up the responses (shotguns only, rifles are DEP’s area) it’s about a tie between a revived A-5, especially a Sweet 16, and a side by side. There’s good news and bad news here. The bad news: tooling for the BSS doesn’t exist anymore, and the high start-up costs aren’t justified for what would be a niche gun. It’s gone. If Browning introduced a side by side, it would have to be an existing gun, sourced from another manufacturer. Would you buy a Spanish or Turkish Browning? I’m not sure I would.
The good news is, a new Miroku A-5 is much more likely. It would probably have to be a custom shop item, but that could include a no-frills hunting model. A Sweet 16 would be a natural, too. I’d like mine with a ribless barrel for a little less weight.
The A-Bolt shotgun got four votes. It was a gun ahead of its time and I think there’s a market for it now. With modern slugs, it would be an absolute tack-driver by slug standards. Would you want it in 12 gauge, 20, or both?
My suggestion was for an alloy-receivered “feather” version of the BPS in 16, 20 and 28 gauge. The BPS is quality pump gun but overweight for upland hunting. If you could lose half or three-quarters of a pound with an alloy receiver and maybe a shorter magazine tube, it would make a great bird gun. Anybody else think that’s a good idea?
Here are two ways to cause trouble: Yell "Incoming" at a Hillary Clinton rally. This will be intensely funny to the people who watch it next day on You Tube, but after you are Tasered by the Secret Service and sentenced to 10 years in prison for being a Public Wiseass, it may not seem like such a good idea.
The other way is order a rifle from one of the top gun makers around the country and offer to mount the scope yourself. Probably he will just hang up. Or he may make a noise like a choking chicken, and you will hear a thump and his wife screaming his name in the background. These guys know that in all the realm of riflery, nothing causes so much sorrow, pain, and woe as the average shooter mounting his own scope.
Mostly this is the fault of the people who make scope mounts. They assume that the people who buy their stuff have a modicum of common sense and mechanical ability and write their directions accordingly. They are wrong on both counts. Often, people don't even read the instructions. I think it was scope-mount maker Maynard Beuhler who said, "When all else fails, read the directions." Beuhler's mounts, by the way, were handsome and very strong, and a real pain in the ass to get on a rifle properly.
Some mounts are perverse. The old Weaver mounts are cheesy and cheap looking, but they're very light, very strong, and put the scope very low over the receiver. The problem is that as you tighten the ring screws, they torque the scope clockwise. So before you tighten them, you have to guess how much out of whack the vertical crosshair is going to move, and position it slightly counterclockwise to compensate. It usually takes six or so tries before you get it right, and you are powerfully motivated not to swap scopes on that rifle.
Putting a heavy scope on a hard-kicking rifle is a prescription for trouble because of Newton's First Law of Motion, which states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest. (Newton, in addition to being one of the great geniuses of all time, was an odd duck. He once ran a knife blade around his eye socket to see what would happen. Nothing did.)
The heavy scope wants to sit where it is; the rifle insists on moving. So, if the scope weighs enough and the rifle kicks hard enough, the scope will either edge forward in its rings, or it can yank the rings out of the bases, or it can shear the base screws. (To Be Continued)
Last year, one of the items of shooting equipment to receive a Best of the Best award was the Rapid Acquisition Shooting System, made by R.C.B.S (and who there among ye can tell me what that acronym stands for, and how it came to be?). We used it in our rifle tests, and the three of us who did the shooting loved it.
Despite its somewhat overblown name, the R.A.S.S. is simply a portable shooting bench--a stand with four legs, a seat, and a rifle brace that supports the fore-end and the butt. The R.A.S.S. is heavy and hyper-engineered, but it is very quick to set up, can adapt to just about any uneven terrain, and is dead solid.
I've found it most useful at the rifle ranges I use, both of which have fixed backstops and benches. If you want to shoot at 25 yards or 50 or 100, you're fine, but if you want to shoot at 5 yards (getting a scope on paper) or 10 yards (air rifles) or 250 or 300, you're SOL. So what you to is take your R.A.S.S. to the range and your problems are solved.
Or you can take it groundhog shooting and you will not have to lie prone on a fresh meadow muffin in order to be steady. Prairie dog shooting? A natural.
The real-world price for the R.A.S.S. is around $350. It's worth it, and then some.
In the May issue of Field & Stream, in "Cheers & Jeers," we had occasion to mention Audie L. Murphy and his 1949 autobiography, To Hell and Back. Most readers of this blog are aware that Murphy remains the most decorated serviceman in American history, but he was a remarkable person in other respects, and he is certainly worth remembering here.
Murphy came from a large, dirt-poor Depression-era Texas family. His father deserted, his mother died, and at the age of 16, Murphy found himself the sole support of his brothers and sisters. He couldn't manage, and they were placed in an orphanage.
In 1942, he enlisted in the Army. At 5'5" and 110 pounds he was pronounced unfit for combat duty, but he insisted, and was trained as an infantryman. Murphy was sent overseas, assigned to the Third Infantry Division, and saw 27 months of combat in North Africa, Italy, and France.
He began as a private and finished as a first lieutenant, having been awarded the Medal of Honor as well as 32 other U.S. medals, 5 French, and 1 Belgian. He received every American decoration for bravery that it was possible to get at that time.
Murphy returned home a celebrity, was introduced to Hollywood by James Cagney, and went on to a successful film career, making 44 pictures. His most notable was To Hell and Back, which was faithful to his book. This 1955 film was an enormous hit, and was Universal's leading money-maker until it was surpassed by Jaws in 1975. Its theme is the same as the book's: that the lot of a combat infantryman is unrelieved terror, grief, and misery, and that there is no glory anywhere. When asked what it was like to act in the film Murphy said: "I got to see my friends killed all over again."
He suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, and in the 1960s, became one of the first to talk about it openly. He drank, had nightmares, was married and divorced repeatedly, and is alleged to have suffered fits of violence.
Murphy might eventually have recovered, but on May 28, 1971, when he was 46 years old, the small plane in which he was flying crashed near Catawba, Virginia. All aboard were killed. I've often wondered what he thought in his last few seconds of life: To survive so much and die like this? And very possibly, No more dreams.
He was buried with full honors at Arlington Cemetery. Tradition dictates that Medal of Honor winners have grave markers set off by gold leaf, but Murphy's at his request, is plain. After John Kennedy's grave, more people visit it than any other.
A guest post from Shooting Editor and Shotguns Columnist Phil Bourjaily.
Last week I was lucky enough to travel to Japan with three of my gun-writing colleagues to visit the Miroku factory, which has made Browning guns since 1966. It was an eye-opening experience which I’ll be recounting in an upcoming Shotguns department. After we toured the plant, the Miroku brass gathered us in a conference room and asked “What guns should we make?” Because they thought we were firearms experts, and because they are very polite people, they carefully wrote down everything we told them. We had a lot to say, much of which, if the Japanese know what’s good for them, they will consign immediately to the Miroku shredder.
So let me put the same question to you Gun Nuts, who are the real gun buying public and therefore the experts whose opinions matter: what guns would like to see Browning make? Should they revive the A-5? How about the A-Bolt shotgun? Or, is there something new you’d like to see come out of the Miroku factory?
One of the rules of probability states that if you forced a million chimps to type for a million years, they would eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare, or "It Takes a Village," I forget which. Similarly, the endless stream of Clinton/Obama verbiage was bound to produce a nugget or two of truth, and a couple of days ago, we got a couple.
According to Barrack Obama, citizens who are bitter about their economic hardships "…cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them…" as a way to explain their frustrations. Hillary, sensing blood, immediately called him an elitist, and went on to say that "Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a constitutional right."
Barack Obama (Harvard Law) is of course an elitist, and he is an urban elitist, and among these folk, interest in or ownership of firearms is viewed as anything from a quaint aberration to a dangerous form of psychosis. Hillary is, if anything, more of an elitist, and what is really fascinating about her statement is her use of the word "believe." Believe means that you think something may be true, but you can’t prove it, so you have to go part of the way on faith.
"I believe the Yankees will blow it again this year."
"I believe I’m going to throw up."
Hillary Clinton (Yale Law) does not necessarily accept the Second Amendment as the law of the land. If you believe in it, she says, it is the law. If you don’t believe in it, by implication, it isn’t.
In the meanwhile, Hillary (who as First Lady urged Congress to buck the gun lobby; at least I think the word was buck) continues to prattle about her father teaching her to shoot, and Governor Ed Rendell, who is one of the worst of the anti-gun governors, blathers on about the great traditions of hunting and sportsmanship in Pennsylvania.
In Catch 22, Yossarian calls Lt. Orr an "…evil-eyed, mechanically-aptituded, disaffiliated, son of a bitch." I qualify for all of that except the mechanically aptituded part, and my life would have been a lot easier if I had been.
People with mechanical aptitude can look at machines, such as guns, and see how they work on an intuitive level. Melvin Forbes, of New Ultra Light Arms, is the most mechanically aptituded person I know. Melvin says he can call up in his mind a three-dimensional schematic of the hellishly complicated Browning Superposed shotgun, and look at it from any angle. He can pick locks, or diddle with cars, or build almost anything.
Among gun writers, John Barsness and Jim Carmichel are so mechanically aptituded that they could have been successful as gunsmiths had they not objected to honest work. Jack O'Connor, by his own admission, had very little mechanical aptitude, and I think that for someone in this line of work, that is actually an advantage. By the time you are able to understand a piece of machinery, like a gun, you apprehend it in such simple terms that you can describe it to anyone, and they will understand.
Some of most incomprehensible gibberish I've ever listened to was spoken to by engineers at gun companies. They blast right off into outer space and leave you there on the launching pad, scratching your head and wondering if what you just listened to was English.
A National Guard friend of mine, currently on active duty, tells me that the weight of the much-modified M-16 she is carrying (with red dot sight) is 9 pounds. This caused my semi-annual smile, because one of the selling points of the Armalite rifle from which the M-16 evolved was that it weighed only 7 pounds, and was much easier to lug though the rice paddies than the M-14 which was 9 pounds, or the M-1 which weighed 9.6 pounds (SIR!). So we are back to square one.
Actually, there is something to be said for heavy rifles. Some years ago in Texas, Craig Boddington loaned me an 8mm Remington magnum that had been built for him by John Rigby (in California, not London) and weighed 12 pounds. Because of its weight, the rifle had almost no recoil, and as fate had it, the shot I got was one where I had to jam my eye right against the scope. I resigned myself to a great scope cut, but nothing happened. The rifle hardly moved when I pulled the trigger.
The Thompson submachine gun weighed 12 pounds and was extremely effective because it recoiled very little. Ditto the Browning Automatic Rifle at just under 20 pounds. Civilian guns, too, profit by some weight. A skillful shot can hit with a 6-pound rifle (in a reasonable caliber) but an unskilled shot will have fits--the gun will be just too twitchy.
The real problem with a heavy gun comes in rough country, particularly mountain country. You not only have to carry the thing uphill, but because the footing is uneven, you'll be fighting the rifle every step of the way as it does its best to pull you off balance.
The winner, by a landslide, in naming our award for untruthful legislators, is the Distinguished Lying Cross. Congratulations to DINFOS, and a tip of the hat to all the other finalists. I will award the DLC in four grades: Grade One is the basic decoration; Grade II is the DLC with oak leaves; Grade III is the DLC with oak leaves and crossed swords, and Grade IV will be the DLC with oak leaves, crossed swords, and diamonds.
And now for Charlton Heston. The American Revolution was set apart from all other revolutions because it was fomented and led by the people who had the most to lose by doing so. When the signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged "…our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." It was not a figure of speech. If the revolution failed, their families would be ruined, and all of them--except for the ones that would hang--would be imprisoned. They were all wealthy men who stood to gain most by toadying to the British, and to lose most by leading a rebellion. And they did it anyway because they believed in it.
Charlton Heston was a man in this tradition. He had a great deal to lose, and he followed his principles regardless. In Hollywood, in the early 1960s, if you wanted to show your support for the civil rights movement, you hired Sydney Poitier for a leading role, or you gave a cocktail party to raise money for the NAACP. You did not actually go and march with radicals and activists like Martin Luther King, Jr., who then enjoyed nothing like his current status. Especially if you were a major star with a lot to lose, because there were a great many people who did not like Dr. King or what he represented. But Heston did just that.
And gun rights. If there is one thing that all of Hollywood agrees on, it is that guns are evil (except in the movies; the more violence the better) and that no one should have them (except people who enough money and influence to get them regardless of restrictive laws). But Charlton Heston did what he did, and it undoubtedly cost him.
In 1992, Heston stood up at the annual stockholder's meeting of the Time/Warner Corporation and recited the lyrics of an Ice-T rap song called "Cop Killer, " which celebrated the pleasures of murdering police officers. "Catchy little number, isn't it?" he said to the assembled T/W suits, and helped thereby to get it taken off the market.
He undoubtedly paid for this, too, because one does not embarrass entertainment-industry suits with impunity. So the next time you watch one of his movies, remember that he was that rarest of Hollywood leading men--a hero offscreen as well.
A young (he sounds young) reader, whom we will call Mr. F, sent me a copy of a letter to gun writer Bryce Towsley, tearing poor old Bryce a new one over some things he wrote in the November 07 issue of The American Rifleman. Bryce, it seems, had the gall to state that factory iron sights are worthless and a waste of money. Mr. F disagrees with that, because he uses them, and his dad uses them, and because scopes run contrary to the American spirit, which is grounded in the use of open sights.
He also stated that Bryce's article "…dripped with sarcasm, arrogance, and foolishness." I've made a career out of sarcasm, arrogance, and foolishness, so I'm with Bryce on this one.
Are factory iron sights worthless? Yes, almost without exception. Thompson/Center puts very good iron sights on their .22 rifles, and Blaser uses outstanding open sights on its $14,000 double rifle, but aside from those and a few target guns, most factory iron sights are not worth a barrel of old hog s**t. There are wonderful iron sights available, but they are not issued at the factory.
Is it virtuous to hunt with open factory sights when scopes are available? In one sense yes, because it makes accurate shooting more difficult and you have to get closer, which is sporting. However, if you are an older hunter, if you can't use a scope you probably can't aim and so you probably can't hunt. If you shoot badly because you can't see well, it is the animal that pays. Also, the constantly declining rate of hunter fatalities is due, at least in part, to the almost universal use of scopes. If you can see what you're shooting at, you will probably not mistake a man for a deer.
Is the use of scopes contrary to the American spirit? The American spirit says that the minute someone invents something more effective you buy it and discard whatever you had been using. This has been going on since we used matchlocks. Even the armed forces, who are usually way behind the curve, have dropped iron sights in favor of red dots, lasers, and scopes.
Finally, Mr. F says that the dependence on technology has reached the tipping point; that all this gadgetry has become "…crutches, and both woodcraft and hunting ethics have been the victims." I think he has something here; I have said much the same thing myself.
I commend Mr. F for his spirited letter, and thank him for letting me use it.
I would like to thank all of you who participated in the contest to create an award for lying public officials who get caught at it. Rather than pick a winner myself, I have selected five finalists and leave the final decision to you. Vote only once for your favorite, and watch out for hanging chads. The entry that gets the most votes wins. No caucuses here.
1. Medal of Misrememberment, from jack
2. Distinguished Lying Cross, from DINFOS
3. Bosnian Order of Omnipresent Self-Delusion, from BUMP
4. Richard Nixon Award for Honesty in Public Service, from Canuck
5. The Legion of Invisible Distinction, from El-Wazir
In the meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton continues to show an increasing disconnect from reality, comparing herself to movie figure Rocky Balboa who, by the way, ended his career penniless and speaking in tongues. Her aides, reluctant to incur her wrath, have apparently not told her that there was no Rocky Balboa in real life. The fighter on which Rocky was patterned was a fellow named Chuck Wepner, aka the Bayonne Bleeder, a no-hoper heavyweight who got a fight with Mohammed Ali in 1975, and got the stuffings pounded out of him. As Mrs. Clinton continues to lose her grip, it will be interesting to see where her mind wanders.
Five years ago, I was on a hunt in a high-fence ranch in northern South Africa when a friend shot and wounded an eland. He, I, the PH and two trackers followed the animal for four days, dawn to dusk, when the blood trail finally dried up and we could see that he was eating and drinking and not hit seriously.
The point is that we were hunting inside a high fence and we never caught up. Hunting in the RSA is now a big business, and game animals are becoming extremely valuable, so a high fence makes sense because it keeps them from wandering off, and it keeps non-paying personnel from wandering in and poaching your critters.
The plain fact is, that if you have enough acreage inside the fence and enough cover, the game has all the chance it needs to stay alive. Aesthetically it is not nearly so pleasing as hunting without fences, but that is the way things are today.
Return of the Booth Babes: The 2007 SHOT Show
