October 10, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around The Web

"45 ACP for Couger and Bear Defense"--Paul Harrell (24 min.)

Harrell tries some different loads, including a variety of hollow point and FMJ, to test for both velocity and expansion in his meat target. Except, he has beefed up his meat target, literally, by adding an additional layer of coat leather material and replacing the pork ribs with beef ribs to mimic shooting larger, thicker game. Short story is that the 230 grain loads seemed to perform better than the 185 grain, but Harrell believed that overall performance was inferior to what you would probably see from .357 Magnum. A few things I would note. First, the testing here was shooting through beef ribs, but if you actually had to shoot a bear or cougar, it would likely be a frontal shot requiring penetration of heavier bone and muscle. Second, for defense against dangerous game, penetration trumps expansion, and as I have discussed, penetration into a soft target is primarily a factor of momentum, so a heavy FMJ or hard cast lead bullet is, in most cases, going to be better than a a hollowpoint--particularly a hollowpoint designed for self-defense against a human. Finally, I recently some some testing comparing 10 mm against .45 ACP +P loads, and the .45 did better on both penetration and expansion. So, if you have a .45 pistol that can handle the +P loads, you might want to consider that.

• This week's Hump Day Reading List from Grant Cunningham. One of the articles he includes is on picking a good holster. I frankly do not believe that this point--and its related point of buying a good belt--cannot be emphasized enough. A good holster protects the gun both damage and from falling out, will be more comfortable to wear for extended periods of time, and ease access to the firearm. While you can find good holsters for lower prices, it is rare. You generally get what you pay for; although, like a good scope, there is a point when your returns decline relative to your investment. If you are simply buying a holster for carrying around at the range, an inexpensive Uncle Mike's is probably adequate, but for concealed carry you generally are going to need to spend more money to get something worthwhile. And if you open carry, you definitely need a holster offering good retention capabilities against someone just grabbing your weapon.
• "Calibers for Beginners: .450 Bushmaster"--The Truth About Guns. There have been several large bore calibers developed for the AR15 platform: .500 Beowulf, .458 SOCOM, and .450 Bushmaster being the three most well known. All of these loadings have issues, besides cost and availability. My own research on the topic, back when I was thinking of building a "thumper" AR upper, convinced me that the .458 SOCOM was the best of the three based on reliability when feeding and the number of bullets available to the reloader (it uses the same bullets as the .45-70). But victory does not always go to the most deserving, and that seems to be the case here. As the article explains, a quirk of state law in several mid-western states allows deer hunting with straight wall cartridges below a certain length in areas that were formally only open to shotgun. And the .450 Bushmaster happens to have a straight walled case that fits the parameters. Consequently, the popularity and availability of both the cartridge and weapons to shoot it have increased. It still isn't a very good cartridge out of an AR (mostly because of issues with feeding from the magazines), but small bolt action rifles shooting the cartridge have become popular.
• "1LT Waverly Wray and His M1 Rifle: There Can Be Only One M1"--Guns America.

       Immediately after jumping into Normandy with the 82d Airborne, 1LT Wray set out on a one-man reconnaissance at the behest of his Battalion Commander. Wray’s mission was to assess the state of German forces planning a counterattack against the weakly held American positions outside Ste.-Mere-Eglise. Wray struck out armed with his M1 rifle, a Colt 1911A1 .45, half a dozen grenades, and a silver-plated .38 revolver tucked into his jump boot. Hearing German voices on the other side of a French hedgerow, Wray burst through the brush and shouted, “Hande Hoch!” Confronting him were eight German officers huddled around a radio.

       For a pregnant moment, nobody moved. Then seven pairs of hands went up. The eighth German officer reached for his sidearm. 1LT Wray shot the man between the eyes with his M1.

       A pair of German soldiers about 100 meters away opened up on Wray with MP40 submachine guns. 9mm bullets cut through his combat jacket and shot away one of his earlobes. All the while Wray methodically engaged each of the seven remaining Germans as they struggled to escape, reloading his M1 when it ran dry. Once he had killed all eight German officers he dropped into a nearby ditch, took careful aim, and killed the two distant Wehrmacht soldiers with the MP40’s.

       Wray fought his way back to his company area to report what he had found, blood soaking his ventilated jump jacket. His first question was to ask where he could replenish his supply of grenades. When American forces eventually took the field where Wray had waged his one-man war against the leadership of the 1st Battalion, 158th Grenadier Regiment, they found all ten German soldiers dead with a single round each to the head. Wray had completely decapitated the enemy battalion’s leadership singlehandedly. 

• "Product Review: MagGuts Ruger LCP +1 Magazine Follower"--Misfires and Light Strikes. Short take: don't buy it.
• "Breathing: It's Not Just For Living Anymore"--LDS Gunsite. The author relates: "Tactical breathing is a way to control adrenaline, stress, and anxiety caused by situations out of the norm." He further explains:

Basically it works like this:

• Breath in through your nose filling up your lungs and stomach for 4 seconds

• Hold for 4 seconds

• Exhale through your mouth for 4 seconds

• Hold for 4 seconds

• Repeat x 4

• "6.5 Grendel vs 6.8 SPC: A Different Perspective"--Abe's Gun Cave. The author explains some of the critical ballistic differences between the cartridges, but basically it is this: the 6.8 SPC starts out with higher velocity, but because the 6.5 Grendel projectiles are more aerodynamic, it catches up within 250 yards; the 6.8 works better out of a shorter (16-inch barrel), but doesn't gain from a longer barrel, whereas the 6.5 has better performance with a longer barrel; within hunting distances, the two are almost identical and work equally well.

"Rome: Powerful Empire to 'Migrant' Slums - Ilenia Contessa"--Red Ice TV (47 min.)

•  Diversity is our strength: "'Whoever's not Armenian we're gonna shoot': Students suspended from California high school over brawl caused by racial tension on campus"--Daily Mail. The ethnic makeup of the school has suddenly changed because of the influx of Armenians, which has upset the black and Latino students.
• The tolerant left: "Owner claims anti-Trump vandals set his pick up truck on FIRE because he had two bumper stickers supporting the President"--Daily Mail. The incident occurred in Vancouver, Washington, which is just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon.
• "Anarchy! Portland residents' fury at mayor for allowing Antifa activists to take over street, direct traffic, abuse motorists and attack driver during march over police shooting of a black man"--Daily Mail. For those of you that think this is just a liberal versus conservative matter, consider this from the article:

Activists were filmed shouting 'white supremacist' and 'whitey' at one driver, before another video showed marchers attacking a man's car as he tried to make his way through a crowd of people in the road.  

• Busy replacing the electorate: "Shock report: US paying more for illegal immigrant births than Trump’s wall"--Washington Examiner. Oh, who am I kidding. This isn't as much about votes, as evidenced by the GOP's refusal to fund a wall, as it is a program to increase the labor supply and keep down costs of labor. That's something on which the elites on both the left and the right can agree.
• I've had my suspicions of whether Kavanaugh would actually be a good choice for the Supreme Court because, as I understand it, his name had been floated as a possible pick if Romney had won the election in 2012. My hope is that Kavanaugh would have learned something from this incident regarding liberals and liberal causes. He does not appear to have done so: "Brett Kavanaugh just hired the Supreme Court's first all-women law clerk team"--The Week.
• Believe all women: "Five Teenage ‘Mean Girls’ Falsely Accused A Boy Of Sexual Assault. They Weren’t Punished."--The Daily Wire. There were multiple accusations of separate assaults and attempted rape, that led to multiple criminal complaints, jail time, and probation for the boy. The reason the girls gave for destroying this boy's life? Because they didn't like him.
• It fascinates me that when AIs are left to learn on their own, they invariably head Alt-Right: "Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that 'didn't like women'"--Daily Mail. It's not that it didn't like women--it hasn't any feelings, after all--but that it was designed to pick out the best candidates for jobs; and in learning what makes the best candidates, it's suggestions favored men.
• This is how a government loses legitimacy: "Video from Germany: Muslim migrant beheads 1-year-old girl, Merkel bans media reporting"--Jihad Watch. From the article: "German media has been allowed by the government to report on the murder of the mother, but Angela Merkel’s pro-migrant government banned German media outlets from reporting on the decapitated baby." (H/t Anonymous Conservative).
• "THE WHOLE WORLD GROANS"--Michael Hanby at First Things. Hanby's article discusses how the implicit acceptance of homosexual and transgender world view--that is, that sexual attraction and gender is a matter of one's sexual "orientation" rather than biological realities--erases the distinction between man and woman. As the author reasons:

Yet if “gender,” like “orientation,” is merely a function of a self-appropriated identity distinct from one’s sexually differentiated body (now relegated to the realm of “mere biology”), then in fact there is no longer any such thing as man or woman as heretofore understood. We are all transgender now, even if gender and sexual identity accidentally coincide in the great majority of instances.

And, quoting Pope Benedict XVI:

The words of the creation account, “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27), no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: It was not God who created them male and female—hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defense of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.

(H/t Rod Dreher).

• Anything goes: "MI5 agents authorised to commit serious crimes on British soil"--Scottish Legal News. More precisely, according to the article, agents for Britain’s security service are authorized to commit serious crimes, including rape, murder and torture, without informing prosecutors.
• A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "Prosthetic Skin to Sense Wind, Rain, and Ants"--IEEE Spectrum.