A Quick Run Around the Web--August 24, 2015

"New Tricks" from National Geographic's photo of the day.

Some firearms related articles, and a couple miscellaneous articles that caught my attention:

Firearms Related:

• "Another 3D Firearm Approach: Plastic Casting"--at Weaponsman. Instead of 3D printing each receiver, casting the receiver in a mold.
• "Confessions of an Ordinary Gun Toter" at Shall Not Be Questioned. Some realities about concealed carry and your options.
• "A Different Twist On Home Defense – Manually Operated Rifles!"--Shooting Performance. An article exploring options other than the standard AR for people in jurisdictions with restrictive gun laws. Notwithstanding the title, the author explores the use of semi-auto pistol-caliber carbines and an M-1 Garand, in addition to lever and pump action rifles.
• "Hornady Critical Defense"--a 2011 article from Shooting Illustrated with ballistic information for the Hornady Critical Defense ammo.
• Terminal Ballistics Research reviews the 7.62x39 (M43). Basic report is that it is a poor to fair round for light to light/medium game. Because of its low velocity, it has poor expansion even using soft-tip bullets, which falls off rapidly after 100 yards; soft-points generally perform the same as FMJ by 200 yards.

Other Stuff:

• "Seven (7) Key Trauma Management Tips and Tools For the Armed Individual" from Shooting Performance. Good points for managing gunshot wounds, or even deep puncture wounds.
• "Antediluvian Methods? An Evidence-Based Approach to Wound Irrigation" from emDocs (h/t Active Response Training). Conclusion: (i) Tap water is equally efficacious as saline for routine wound irrigation in uncomplicated wounds and immunocompetent patients (actually, from the data in the article, it was somewhat better to use tap water); (ii) Ideal irrigation pressure can be achieved using a 19-gauge or similar needle or a tap faucet; avoid IV bags and bottles; (iii) Very little data exist regarding ideal volumes of irrigation – texts recommend 60 cc/cm.; and (iv) Data is promising, but not yet convincing, that clean scalp and facial wounds may be closed safely without irrigation.
• "Why salad is so overrated." "There’s one food, though, that has almost nothing going for it. It occupies precious crop acreage, requires fossil fuels to be shipped, refrigerated, around the world, and adds nothing but crunch to the plate." Some points:

1. Being mostly water, salad vegetables are pitifully low in nutrition.
2. Salad fools dieters into making bad choices. Once you've added the dressing and other fixings, not only does it lack nutrition, but it is now high on calories. 
3. Salad has unfortunate repercussions in our food supply, including that it is the chief culprit for foodborne illnesses, accounting for 22 percent of all food-borne illnesses from 1998-2008 according to the CDC.

• "Schengen in danger, Germany Warns." Schengen refers to the open-border agreement between most of the members of the EU. The article is about Germany and France wanting to set quotas for accepting immigrants in an attempt to force other EU members to take more illegal aliens. However, quotas are meaningless if the Schengen system continues; the immigrants will simply move across the open borders anyway, even if originally "assigned" to another country. 
• "At noon on August 24, 79 A.D., ... Mount Vesuvius exploded, propelling a 10-mile mushroom cloud of ash and pumice into the stratosphere."