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Tuesday, April 11, 2017

April 11, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"Operating a bolt action rifle: working the bolt for speed and consistency"--Dave Anderson (3 min.)


"Bolt action Ultra Rapid Fire"--Gen Scinmore (1 min.)

Firearms/Prepping:
  • Related: "The Townsend Whelen Challenge"--The Art of the Rifle. The challenge: "An expert rifleman with few peers, Whelen could reportedly hit man-sized target at 200 yards using the bolt action, open-sighted M1903 Springfield.30/06 service rifle, scoring six hits in ten seconds flat, and could do it on command." Whelen, to my understanding, actually preferred the Model 1917 Enfield, which had a magazine capacity of 6, so I wonder if it was the 1917 rather than 1903.
           This is a good example of reason that good firearms trainers tell people to focus on the ocular cavity formed by the outside of the eyes and bottom of the nose if they must fire a headshot.
             If a 7.62x54R round—roughly analogous with the .30-’06—cannot reliably stop a human with a shot to the head outside of the ocular triangle, odds are that our much lower-powered handgun cartridges moving more than a thousand feet-per-second slower are even more likely to ricochet or deviate off of hard, curved bone.
               In my opinion, the most brilliant tactic in the Filipino arts is based on a concept called “defanging the snake.” When an attacker armed with a weapon swings or thrusts at you, rather than blocking, parrying, or evading and then countering with a similar attack, you simply target his attacking limb. Done properly, it causes him to drop his weapon instantly—literally taking the “fang” (the weapon) from the “snake” (the arm wielding it). From an OODA-loop decision-making standpoint, this approach is dead simple. He sticks his arm out to attack and you attack it. Even though you are reacting to his action and therefore inherently slower, you can actually use the force of his strike to increase the force of yours by hitting or cutting into its motion with a mirror-image movement. If he throws a high forehand strike, you match it with a short, economical high forehand of your own, “letting” him hit himself or cut himself on your weapon.
                 As a knife tactic, defanging the snake is extremely effective because it directly targets the structures that allow his hand to hold a weapon. In simple terms, muscles pull on tendons to move bones. To grip a weapon, the muscles of the forearm contract and pull on the flexor tendons, which pass through the inside of the wrist and attach to the fingers. By severing the tendons or the muscles that power them, this connection is broken and the hand can no longer close to grip anything. The fingers will instantly open and any object in the hand will be released—an immediate disarm and the perfect tactic for using a knife defensively.
                   Physiologically, this concept applies to all muscle groups, tendons, and limbs. If you sever the tissues responsible for moving a limb, you destroy or at least severely inhibit that limb’s function. Sometimes called “biomechanical cutting,” this approach has been used by edged-weapon cultures around the world for centuries (although I cite the Filipino arts as my inspiration for it, this tactic is also found in many other Eastern and Western systems). ...
                     Scientists have imagined a two month-long volcanic eruption near Mangere Bridge, in which 435,000 residents would be forced from the area.
                       The paper, focusing on what would happen to Auckland's transport network, found most physical damage to road and rail transportation would happen from the volcanic eruption itself, destroying anything within a 0.5 to 2.5km radius, but with little impact from earthquakes leading up to the eruption.
                         In this scenario, Auckland Airport would not be directly affected by physical damage, but would have restricted access from evacuation zoning and airspace restrictions, forcing limited domestic and cargo flights to redirect to Whenuapai and Ardmore Aerodrome.
                           After the eruption itself, the researchers say that the most important factors for keeping the transportation network open are cleaning bottleneck areas like bridges of tephra, ensuring electricity supply for the trains, airport and traffic signals, as well as ensuring continued fuel supply.
                             The University of Canterbury, University of Auckland and GNS Science researchers behind the new study, published in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, said the most extensive service reduction across all transport networks would occur around six days before the eruption onset.
                               This was largely because of the evacuation zones that would be implemented, disrupting crucial north-south ground links through Auckland.
                                 In the main scenario, ash was deposited on parts of the road and rail network in Auckland, which would likely cause some disruption for over a month.

                           Other Stuff:
                                 South African Gunowners Association ( SAGA ) has been advised that South African Police Service ( SAPS ) in the Western Cape will be conducting an operation aimed at gunowners who have failed, for whatever reason, to timeously renew their licences in respect of specific guns.
                                   It appears that SAPS teams will be conducting ‘raids’ on targeted individuals mostly at their residences with a view to confiscating guns and ammunition.
                                     SAGA cannot at this stage speculate as to what SAPS intends to achieve by this action, nor what other steps may be taken by SAPS at the time of such visit.
                              The article has some advice for gun owners still using the older "green" licenses.
                                       Victims told IOM that after being detained by people smugglers or militia groups, they were taken to town squares or car parks to be sold.
                                         Migrants with skills like painting or tiling would fetch higher prices, the head of the IOM in Libya told the BBC.
                                           Libya has been in chaos since the 2011 Nato-backed ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.
                                    at

                                    2 comments:

                                    1. AnonymousApril 11, 2017 at 4:35 PM

                                      I don't understand why anybody is upset about slave markets in Libya. Slavery is legal under islam, and only an islamaphobe would object to muslims following the teachings of their religion.

                                      As a benefit, these slave markets might slow the flow of migrants flooding into Europe.

                                      ReplyDelete
                                      Replies
                                      1. DocentApril 12, 2017 at 9:59 AM

                                        People forget that the nearly world-wide abolition of slavery was solely a goal of the West, and only possible because of the dominance of Western Christian civilization.

                                        Delete