New Weekend Knowledge Dump

 Greg Ellifritz has a new Weekend Knowledge Dump up at his website, Active Response Training.  And I think he has a really excellent selection of articles this week. 

• Starting at the top is a link to an article from Shooting Illustrated on the perils of carrying an unusual handgun. The author is talking about peculiarities in the operation of the handgun but trying to find accouterments and accessories. I had the same issue with a couple of my first handguns and have since tried to carry weapons that were more popular and, therefore, had more aftermarket support from holster makers and accessory makers. And by "popular" I don't necessarily mean sales, but popular among the key influencers and decision makers in the shooting world. For instance, back in 1993 or so, I decided to sell the 9mm handgun I started out with and purchase a Ruger P89. I figured that because it was a popular handgun, accessories should be widely available. I was wrong. While there were holsters available for it, the selection was limited; no one, at least that I could find at the time, offered night sights. A few years later, when I started looking at concealed carry firearms, I happened across a small handgun called the Grendel P12 which featured a 10-round magazine and seemed to hit most of the buttons I wanted in concealed carry handgun. However, no one--and I mean, no one--made a holster for it other than the manufacturer, who, of course, went belly up before I could buy one of their overpriced holsters. I learned my lesson and have generally been much more careful about buying firearms that will have at least some aftermarket support. Which is another reason to stick with the popular Glock models.
• Greg also links to an article from the tactical wire on the author's 9mm Journey, which is basically why ballistic testing, alone, cannot tell you which will be a good defensive round. Which is why, in addition to ballistic gel testing, I like to watch Paul Harrell's meat target testing. And which is also why real world performance data, if it is available, is so important.
• Another article which caught my eye was on the .30 Carbine and goes into the history of why it was so popular with troops in WWII, but fell out of favor in Korea--which is essentially a story of people pushing a weapon into a role for which it was not intended. In any event, I would note that the .30 Carbine performs slightly better than .357 Magnum out of a 16-inch barrel, so while it is no rifle round, it is more than capable at its intended role as a weapon for non-combat or support personnel ... or for home defense.
• Another article to check out is "Off-Centerline Tool Carry – Every-Day Carry (EDC)" by Chris Fry. This article discusses carrying a weapon at the 1-2 o'clock, or 10-11 o'clock positions and when it might work or not work for you. 
• There is a link to a gel test comparing Federal .22 Punch with CCI Minimag. The Punch penetrated farther into the gel block than the Minimag. Enough more to make a difference? Maybe. It is also notable that the video mentions some failure to feed issues with the Punch probably due to the bullet profile.
• One article that everyone reading this should check out is titled "Intervention, Vel Non". In it, the author illustrates why you need to be very careful about intervening in situations because you don't know all the facts. He illustrates this with a personal example where he and friend debated intervening in what appeared to be a guy hitting on a girl and getting physical, finally forcing her up against a bridge railing and holding her there. The author and his friend decided to get police rather than intervene directly and it turned out that the guy was the girl's boyfriend and was trying to stop her from committing suicide by jumping off the bridge. 

    Massad Ayoob, in one of his books, recounts a similar incident where a guy did intervene. The guy thought he was intervening in a rape, supported in fact by a woman screaming "rape" as a man had her pressed against a wall. Our hero shot the man, who turned out to be a vice cop attempting to arrest a prostitute.

• And another article, although not of a gun nature, is on the topic of "Why I Have A Potty Mouth." Greg writes in this regard: 

I regularly receive emails and comments urging me to reduce the relatively minimal level of profanity I use in my articles.  It’s not going to happen.  Mark Manson describes the wonderful utility that profane language provides in this excellent article.

Fortunately, Greg provides an excerpt from the article because it is behind a f***ing paywall. To be honest, I can't really remember any articles off the top of my head where Greg used profanity, which probably means that he is using it appropriately. On the other hand, one can go too far in using profanity. There are a series of books on using firearms and tactics by an author popular in the prepper/survivalist community who, as far as I can tell, can't go an entire sentence without using at least one foul expletive or another. That author has commented that he thinks anyone that doesn't like it is a p**** (or some s*** like that), but it is f****** distracting and makes it a f****** pain in the a** to read his G** d***** f****** books.