SWAT

According to the news, a suicidal man — said to be armed with a handgun — has barricaded himself inside his house three blocks from my apartment.
Of course, TPD decided to do a full SWAT callout, evacuate ~15 houses around the guy, and cordon off a few blocks around the house.
What the hell is wrong with people?
It’s one guy, suicidal, with a gun. Put a cop outside the front and back of the house in a concealed position and get a crisis counselor to call the guy on the phone. If he doesn’t come out, wait him out.
To me, SWAT seems more suited for a hostage situation, active shooter, or some other situation that requires (here it comes) Special Weapons And Tactics, not a lone suicidal guy. What the heck are they going to do against a suicidal guy, shoot him?
I guess they need to justify the expense, huh?

Answering Search Terms

will m16 mag fit sr 556

Yes. Ruger SR 556 lowers accept standard STANAG (“M16” or “AR-15”) magazines.

can lake city? 308 win brass be reloaded

Yes. Lake City brass is good stuff. However, military brass tends to be a bit thicker and so has smaller internal volume, so it’d behoove you to reduce your loads by about 10% when switching from commercial to military brass, then testing with a chronograph while making adjustments. Be particularly aware of signs of high-pressure (see your loading manual) when using military cases. Reloading military cases is perfectly safe, so long as you’re careful and realize that they’re slightly different from commercial cases.

New Shooter Report

Rita and Teresa have been accompanying me to the range for some time. They are regulars at turning ammo into smiles.
Interestingly enough, Teresa happens to be dating Nolan, Rita’s brother. Now that Nolan has moved to Tucson for school and had never been shooting before, we all figured it’d be a good thing to take him out to go shooting. So we did…








Once again, it was a beautiful (albeit hot) day in Tucson. Thank goodness the Tucson Rifle Club has overhead shades for the firing line.
Rita, myself, and my med student friend Ian spent a few hours on Saturday reloading .223. Out of the 120 or so rounds we fired today, there were only three failures (( Two were jams due to the out-of-round bullets we’re using. One was due to one of the rounds having some goopy black residue on it. )), none of them dramatic (( Note for reloaders: double-check your bullet weights against the load data tables. I foolishly assumed that we were using 55gr bullets as that was what I normally load and picked a middle-of-the-road load from the tables. Turns out we were using 62gr bullets and the powder charge we were using turned out to be rather near the never-exceed range for .223. Eep. Fortunately, we never actually crossed the never-exceed line, and even so the loads were several thousand PSI below the 5.56mm NATO pressure spec, which is what the rifle was rated for. Fortunately, we discovered this condition at the reloading bench after we loaded a few hundred rounds, so we were able to confirm that the loads would be safe by consulting the tables. The rifle did not explosively self-destruct, which is good. )). It’s nice actually having some .223 ammo, as my ARs are quite voracious.
I had also dug about in my closet and found some .30-06 reloads, so we were able to shoot the M1 (Rita has a bit of a love affair with my M1, and really enjoys shooting it.) a bit. Shooting the M1 seems to be a family trait, as Nolan also greatly enjoyed shooting it. There’s something immensely satisfying about recoil, .30 caliber bullets, and large dust clouds behind one’s targets.
As usual, the suppressed Ruger 10/22 was a big hit, as were the Ruger MkIII and Glock 19 pistols. Fun was, as usual, had by all.
The fall semester starts up again in about a month, so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find some new shooters to take to the range then. For now, I’m happy that I managed to get another new shooter out to the range. When Rita and Nolan’s parents are in town, I may have to take the whole family out shooting.

Tucson Ammo Availability

It appears as though ammo is getting to be somewhat more available, even if it is a bit more pricey.
As of the other day, the Tucson Sportsman’s Warehouse has a few dozen boxes of .223 Remington, which has been completely bare for the last few months. Murphy’s Guns has, for some unknown reason, had constant availability of Prvi Partizan M193 5.56mm NATO rounds for the last few months at not-unreasonable-for-retail prices. Now they’ve got a wider variety of 5.56mm/.223, such as 200-round packs of Federal American Eagle (which has been completely gone for months).
While Murphy’s prices for non-Prvi .223/5.56mm ammo is a bit steep, it’s not wholly unreasonable for the current market, and its good to see ammo back in stock.
Primers, though, are a different matter: nearly everyone I’ve asked is either critically low or completely out of primers. Murphys has some CCI Large Rifle primers for $33/1000, which seems rather high to me. Again, though, it’s nice to at least see some primers rather than none, even if the current stocks are closer to “none” than “some”.
I can’t wait for this stupid buying crisis to be over.

Beverage of Choice

It’s been recently reported that North Carolina may soon legalize (( I hate using that term, as the default state of rights is “on” — laws shouldn’t ever need to “allow” something, as all actions that don’t infringe on others rights are, by default, “on” unless a law exists that restricts them. )) beer tastings, bringing them to parity with existing laws on wine tasting.
My response: “Took you long enough!” The depths of stupidity that alcohol-related laws in various states plumb amaze me sometimes. What possible reasons could there be to prohibit the public sampling of various beers?
Of course, there’s always someone who has to be a downer:

Criticism of his proposal comes from social conservatives who say beer has more potential for abuse than wine.
Beer is ?disproportionately consumed in hazardous amounts,? said the Rev. Mark Creech, director of the Christian Action League of N.C., which says beer accounts for 81 percent of all alcohol drunk in such excessive amounts.
It’s also ?the beverage of choice for underage drinkers,? Creech told lawmakers.

This “[insert-item-here] of choice” logic (( It’s hardly logical. )) seems to be something that anti-rights people share, whether they’re opposed to upstanding people possessing guns, sampling beer, or other similar things.
Just as a criminal using a handgun to rob a convenience store should have no bearing whatsoever on my ability to acquire, own, and use handguns in a safe, responsible manner, underage drinkers drinking beer (( Most likely because it’s cheap and “gets the job done.” )) should have no bearing whatsoever on whether or not an adult should be able to go to a public beer tasting.
Do some people drink alcohol to excess? Absolutely. Does beer make up the majority of alcohol drunk to excess? I have no idea, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. Is beer the “beverage of choice” for underage drinkers? I don’t doubt it. Even so, those claims do not matter, because we’re talking about beer tasting in licensed retail stores by adults. The law even limits someone to four (down from six) 2-ounce samples (which I find absurd) per event — that’s two-thirds of a single can of beer. What’s the problem here?
Remember, gun control isn’t about guns — it’s about control. The same thing goes for alcohol control laws.
Anyone find any other topics where “[something] of choice” was an argument used by someone trying to make or keep something illegal or restricted? What about citing the illegal actions and behaviors of minors or criminals in an attempt to restrict the actions of law-abiding adults?

Damn you .270 Winchester!

Who was the wise guy at Winchester back in the day when they invented .270 Win? What could have possibly gone through their mind?
“Let’s make a new cartridge! Since everyone loves the .30-06 and it’s got a goodly amount of case capacity, let’s essentially neck it down from .30 caliber to .27 caliber and put a new bullet in it! Nobody would ever confuse the two. Ever. Nope. Never.”
Bastards, the lot of them.
I tumble brass based on caliber (e.g. all .30-06, all .308, all .223, etc.) or, if I lack enough of a particular cartridge to make a full tumbler load, neck size (all .30 caliber necks, all .22 caliber necks, etc.) — it keeps the cases from getting stuck together. Since tumbling is hardly a critical stage in the reloading process, I go fairly quickly when I remove brass from my “spent brass from the range” bucket and toss it into the tumbler.
Since I mainly shoot .30-06 and .223, it’s easy to tell them apart. Unfortunately, I’ll occasionally pick up a piece of .270 at the range, as it just happens to be in my .30-06 brass field. As I don’t expect them (( No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! )), I don’t usually keep an eye out for them. It seems that at least one or two always get into each tumbler load of .30-06 brass, and from there into my caliber-specific “clean brass” bins in the closet.
As it turns out, a .30-06 resizing die’s expander pin can blow out .270 to .30 caliber without too much effort. I’ve created not a small number of these “.30-.270s” over the years, but always catch them when it comes to priming them, as I look at the base in detail and read the headstamp. So far, none have made it through the whole process.
Even so, the similarities between the two rounds annoy me to no end. I’m sure it’s a fine round, but it still is far too similar to .30-06 for my taste.

Restaurant Carry Passes AZ Legislature

If my understanding of the email I received from Karen Winfield at the Arizona Legislature is correct, SB1113 (“Restaurant Carry”) passed both the House and Senate last night.
Due to Fun Happy Budget issues and the fact that the legislative “day” doesn’t end so long as the legislature is in session, both the House and Senate stayed in session throughout the night until 7:30am.
SB1113 was the last bill to be voted on (at 6:12am) in the House.
While I’m neither a lawyer nor play one on TV, my understanding is that the bills will now go to the governor for her signature.
Perhaps we can soon join many of the other states that don’t arbitrary prohibit law-abiding people from carrying arms into restaurants that happen to serve alcohol, even if the person carrying does not imbibe.
Update: Of course, the Arizona Daily Star demonstrates PSH while claiming that the bill would allow guns in bars! ZOMG! There’s a few people in the comments thread who freak out, but the majority of comments and “votes” on comments are pro-gun and actually provide some facts. Is it too much to ask for neutral, unbiased news reporting (( Note that I don’t claim to be an actual journalist, nor make any claims about being unbiased. At least I’m upfront about it, though. ))? The bill is, after all, available for anyone to review — couldn’t the Star (or some legal expert on their staff) review it and realize that it’s not a big deal at all?

Fisking the Daily Star

The Arizona Daily Star published an article in their Sunday Edition that stood out to me when I was grocery shopping today: it had a large, above-the-fold headline entitled, “US makes it easy for gun traffickers.”
While their article is long and makes a weak attempt at appearing balanced, it has some absurdities that I really must point out. I’ve made a few statements in my response that are likely to be common knowledge to gunny folks, though I’d appreciate it if readers could point out where I might find good sources for such statements so I can cite them properly.
Also, I wrote this post rather late at night, so I’m likely to have a few spelling or grammar mistakes. Mea cupla. Continue reading “Fisking the Daily Star”

On Odors

I’m almost afraid to ask what it is that foreign, mostly eastern European/Asian countries (e.g. Serbia, Russia, etc.) put in their powders, but one of the ingredients smells horrible.
I really like Prvi Partizan ammo, as it’s reliable, consistent, well-made, and easily reloadable. The fact that it’s loaded to NATO spec and is commonly available (unlike, say, Federal XM193/XM855) is a big plus. I’ve never had any practical problems with it at all…but it, like the Russian Wolf-brand ammo, smells awful when fired.
You’d think they’d figure out how to make non-stinky ammo…