May 18, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"7.62x39mm gel test: TulAmmo 124 gr 8M3"--The Chopping Block (6 min.)

As far as I know, the only source for the 8M3 ammunition is SG Ammo (Note: I've had very good luck with ordering from SG Ammo).

• TGIF: This week's Weekend Knowledge Dump from Active Response Training. If you don't read anything else, check out the article on pre-attack indicators from Police Magazine.
• "Ten killed in Texas school shooting: Student, 17, yells 'Surprise!' as he bursts into art class with assault rifle, shotgun and pistol and opens fire before being taken alive - as police find explosives in multiple locations"--Daily Mail. No word on whether any of the assailant's pipe bombs and pressure cooker bombs detonated. Also, I have not found anything about the shooter except an age and that he was believed to be a student at the school. 

• Update (5/18/2018):  The weapons used were a shotgun and revolver belonging to the student's father. No AR15. The student has been identified as Dimitrios 'Dimitri' Pagourtzis, 17. One of the photos the perp had put on Facebook showed a black shirt with a Soviet/Communist symbol, a German Iron Cross medal, and an octopus, Leviathan or Kraken logo pin (the article states that it is a depiction of the idol Baphomet, but that is incorrect, because that is a goat headed man).

• "Living with Guns"--Defense Training International (h/t Tactical Professor).  In this 2007 post from John Farnam, he noted that while the military trained soldiers how to use guns (and, especially, how to use them safely), it did not train soldiers how to live with loaded firearms around them constantly, with the result that negligent discharges were fairly common. He continues:

        In short, incompetent small-arms training was, and still is, “condition-based.” It is predicated on the false notion that unloaded guns are safe, and loaded guns are dangerous. Within this mendacious system of thinking, “safe” guns are routinely handled carelessly (no matter what you try to say to the contrary), and “dangerous” guns (on those rare occasions when they are actually handled at all), are apprehensively treated as if they were coated with poison. The rest of the time, we carry sterile guns and pretend to be armed.

        Conversely, competent small-arms training is “system-based.” There is only one system for handling guns, as all guns are considered dangerous, all the time. All guns are handled the same way, regardless of their ostensible condition. In other words, a gun’s suppositional “condition” has no bearing on the way it is handled. We have no safe guns! We carry loaded guns on our person at every opportunity, taking full advantage of every chance to experience “being armed” (not just pretending).

• This is a long, but interesting read: "The Long Way Round: The Plane that Accidentally Circumnavigated the World"--Medium. Some of you history buffs probably know that the United States Navy had been preparing for war with Japan since the early 1920s. Thus, as relations with Japan worsened prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, certain contingencies had been put into place in the event of war breaking out. One of these were evacuation plans for Pan Am's fleet of Clipper aircraft (these were the large float planes that flew the trans-Pacific routes) should they find themselves en route when war broke out. These plans, carried in sealed envelopes on each aircraft, gave a route that the plane would take to avoid capture and return safely to the United States. In this case, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Pan Am flight 18602 began a journey that would take it to New Zealand and then west until it finally reached New York. (Parts 2 and 3).
• "INITIAL IMPRESSIONS: THE G-SIGHT LASER TRAINING CARTRIDGE (GEN 2)"--Civilian Gunfighter. This is a dry fire system using a cartridge shaped laser that feeds into the chamber, and then activates when the firing pin strikes a switch on the back of the laser unit. Apparently it does not have extractor cuts so that it doesn't get ejected each time you rack the slide. There is also a smart phone app that works with the system to better record your accuracy.
• ".38 Special: What I’ve Learned After 20,000 Rounds"--The Truth About Guns. The author has hand loaded and shot over 20,000 rounds of .38 Special, and outlines some of the characteristics that make it such an easy cartridge to reload and shoot. One point: 

Over 20,000 rounds, I’ve found that there’s rarely a wrong way to do .38 SPL. I have used everything from simple lead to the most advanced machined copper bullets and found them all to be extraordinarily easy to load and shoot. When I say that there’s rarely a wrong way to do it, I really mean it. If you can follow simple instructions, you can safely load this cartridge.

• Related: "Handloading the .38 Special for Snubnose Revolvers"--Shooting Times. From the article: 

As you can see in the accompanying chart, several of the handloads I prepared maximize ballistic performance in a short-barreled S&W Model 637 revolver. In most cases, they feature light-for-caliber bullets constructed to expand at minimum velocities. Light jackets and generous hollowpoints with augmented expansion design features are the norm. I also included a heavy but soft, swaged lead hollowpoint bullet for comparison purposes.

• "Guest Post: The Pirate Radio, by Henry Bowman"--Brushbeater. The author mostly skips over the legality of running a pirate radio station and instead, in his own words, discusses the "How, When, Where, What and Why, in my humble opinion, to fire up my 1-7w FM transmitter and broadcast."

Sorry, I couldn't resist:

"Sealab 2021 Radio Free Sealab Pilot 1" (12 min.)

• "Oklahoma woman killed by pack of 7 small dogs"--SF Gate. All but one were believed to be a dachshund-terrier mix.
• "700,000-Year-Old Stone Tools Point to Mysterious Human Relative"--National Geographic. The article begins by noting that "[s]tone tools found in the Philippines predate the arrival of modern humans to the islands by roughly 600,000 years—but researchers aren’t sure who made them." The article continues:

The list of possible toolmakers includes the Denisovans, a ghost lineage of hominins known from DNA and a handful of Siberian fossils. The leading candidate, though, is the early hominin Homo erectus, since it definitely made its way into southeast Asia. The Indonesian island of Java has H. erectus fossils that are more than 700,000 years old.

• A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "Block 5 rocket launch marks the end of the beginning for SpaceX"--Ars Technica.  The latest iteration of the Falcon 9 booster seems to have satisfied Elon Musk, and so Space X will turn its research and development to other matters. From the article:

       ... By regularly upgrading the Merlin engines, shedding weight with lighter materials, and using super-chilled rocket fuel to maximize density, the Falcon 9 rocket now is about twice as powerful as it was during its initial flight. Rarely during its more than 50 launches since June 2010 has a Falcon 9 rocket not had a handful or more changes from the previous edition.

         All the while, SpaceX has had a singular goal for the Falcon 9 rocket: to build the most perfect and efficient orbital rocket it could. Now, finally, the company seems close to taking a final step toward that goal by closing the loop on first-stage reusability. As soon as next Monday, but more likely a bit later this month, SpaceX intends to launch the “Block 5” variant of the Falcon 9 rocket for the first time. Musk has said this fifth revision of the Falcon 9 should mark the final major change for the booster.