Gun & Prepping News #32

 Just some gun and prepping related links that I thought interesting or useful:

• Jon Low's May 15, 2025 Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter. The newsletter is broken into sections on general topics. If you go "Training" and scroll down just a bit, there is a long section of just text (no links) where Jon lays out some basic topics useful for running the handgun. Then go down to "Tactics" where he discusses various shooting positions. Then move on to "Techniques" which goes over grip and trigger control, presentation from the holster, and then holstering. And, on to "Aftermath" where Jon gives some advice about insurance. And there you have the topics and things to practice that would make a good first introduction class on using the handgun. There is, of course, lots more stuff, so be sure the check out the whole thing.
• A gun smithing article: "How to Time a Revolver"--Shooting Times. Even if you don't plan on making the repair yourself, this explains what is timing, what causes the timing to go bad, and makes you a more informed consumer if you need to take your revolver to a gun smith.
  
• Gun control in action: "Ex Aussie Cop Turned Illicit Machine gun Manufacturer"--Impro Guns. He was constructing and supplying submachine guns to criminal gangs. Another example of how gun control laws only serve to disarm the general public, not the criminal element. But this is so well understood by now that the only reasonable conclusion is that anyone pushing gun control is only doing it for the purpose of disarming the public. That is, gun control is the action of an authoritarian state, not a democratic republic. 
• A different type of gun control: "The VTAC 1-5 Drill | Dynamic Rifle Shooting"--Ammo Land. It only takes 15 rounds for each run. It uses three targets and a timer, and teaches transitioning between targets while firing under pressure (the timer). It also teaches using longer strings of fire as you work up to shooting 5 rounds in your last string. 
• "SDS Arms MAC 5 9mm and MAC 5K 9mm: Affordable Turkish Clones?"--Guns & Ammo. A look at a couple of MP5 clones with MSRPs of about $1,100.
• "Headstamp Publishing Announces New Cold War Battle Rifles Book"--The Firearm Blog.  Announcement of a new book by Ian McCollum and James Rupley covering the FN FAL, M14, HK G3, AR-10, and some other, more obscure, battle rifles. It's not cheap: "Prices for the new book start at $125.00 for the standard edition and range up to $215.00 for the signed slipcase edition." It is on pre-order status now, and is supposed to ship in November. 
• "A Brief History of Bulletproof Vests and Armor"--SOFREP.
  
• "Self-Defense Fitness Is Just as Important as Accuracy Training"--Athlon Outdoors. The author explains:

    During an attack, adrenaline jumps, providing strength and speed not typically available in everyday life. This is where one hears about people performing almost impossible feats. It also increases heart rate to push blood through the arteries and fuel the body. All this is natural and important to survival.

    However, this also puts the body under stress. Add in the potential of moving and fighting and one quickly realizes that shooters should probably consider putting in some time for fitness. Healthier individuals have more strength and speed. Besides, it doesn’t do much good to fight off an attack if you succumb to a heart attack shortly after.

• "Criticisms of the Military’s XM7 Rifle Spill Into the Open."--Instapundit. The article linked to by Instapundit is not all that enlightening, but the comments at Instapundit are quite interesting, including a long discussion of how the Army needs to devote more training to use of a tripod mounted general purpose/medium machine gun. From one of the comments:

    In Afghanistan, they identified this problem that they termed "overmatch". We were taking fires from distant machineguns, mostly former Soviet PKMs. We were unable to answer those fires effectively because "ROE". The Army traditionally has not fought in a small-arms centered fashion; there have always been copious supporting arms available from battalion mortars up to B52 strikes. In Afghanistan, we decided to step our troops back in time to before all those weapons were available, and we found ourselves in a situation wherein we were taking fire and were unable to answer it effectively.

    Why? Not because the individual weapons were inadequate, but because we had forgotten how to fight with just small arms. The way the real world works is that the individual weapon is mostly a close-in defense weapon, and an offensive weapon in the close-in attack. If you are using your individual riflemen to cope with targets much past 400m, you are an idiot and likely to get people killed. Anything past 400m is a machinegun target, or your organic mortars. Why? Because, my friends, whatever you see at those ranges is likely the literal tip of the tactical iceberg. Mahmud Taliban showing you his ass at 500m means that you need to heavily engage a squad- or platoon-sized piece of terrain around him, or you're wasting your time. Because, it's not a game of onesie-twosie: You need to slaughter the enemy in job lots, and the best way to do that is NOT with an individual weapon firing at one guy. Even if you manage to kill him, what's the point? You've just provided the enemy with a free lesson in "Why we don't show ourselves", and you've actually done quite a bit to improve the quality of the enemy by training them and eliminating their dumbasses.

    There's a problem with US machinegunnery: We refuse to acknowledge that we need a good, lightweight and adaptable tripod to carry with our guns at all times, and then work from there. When the average M240 gunner was in the field in Afghanistan, the tripod was back in the base camp, and the guns were fired off the shoulder and the bipod. What's max effective range on that weapon, from the bipod? 800m. With a tripod, you can be effective out to 1800m, easily. Why is that? Because it's a much more stable firing platform, not being 1/3 based on PFC Schmedlap's shoulder. You can also use it to effectively control fires, a lost art in today's military. With a tripod that's equipped with a T&E, you can call out (using your likely unissued binoculars-with-reticle...) corrections for fire that are fairly precise. As in "200mils left, 500mils up, troops in the open, fire for effect..." Without a tripod and T&E, you're reduced to "They're a little to the left and further out..."

    The entire premise of NGSW was based on a flawed understanding of how modern combat works, and a delusional approach to machinegunnery. I could have fixed 90% of the issues they identified with a better tripod, better training, and more ammo/field time for the gun crews. Most of whom haven't the slightest idea of how to use a tripod in the offense or at all dynamically.

• "Pepper Spray"--The Law Dog Files. Some basics on pepper spray: noting that you need training and definitely need to practice deploying and using it, recommendations that you get the stream type of spray and which manufacturers and products are best. An excerpt:

Do not buy boutique cans, even from good manufactures. For personal carry your pepper spray should come with a simple, push-button actuator, covered by a flip safety. Period. No twist actuator, no trigger, nothing fancy. Just a push-button. Outside of a Key Defender, I’ve never had good luck with the OC disguised as a pen, or lipstick, a whistle, or anything else. 

His recommendation is to stick to products from Sabre, ASP, and POM. And remember that you do need to replace it periodically as it can go "bad" (i.e., the effectiveness/strength declines over time).

• "How To Bag More Birds By Patterning Your Shotgun"--Shooting Times.  Also useful for self-defense shotguns. An excerpt:

Before getting into ways of correcting a gun that does not shoot where its owner is looking, I will touch on pattern-placement testing. I use a steel patterning plate, but for those who do not have access to one, white wrapping paper measuring 30 inches or so square is a good substitute, and in a pinch, the morning newspaper will do. Using a staple gun, attach a sheet of cardboard to a home-built stand I am about to describe, and then attach the paper to it. Use a black Magic Marker to add a 4.0-inch hold point to the center of the target. 

He describes how to construct a target stand to use, the process of checking the pattern (both from a rest and dynamically as you move), and different methods of correcting aim with a shotgun that only has a front bead sight.

• "Editorial: Budget Guns and Price Changes"--Guns & Ammo. I think the basic takeaway from this article is that real household income has not increased since 1975 (his starting point for comparing income and prices) while, adjusting for inflation, prices of handguns have dropped slightly, and prices of rifles have increased. 
  
• DEI in action: "Heart-stopping video shows moment Calif. cop screams, ‘Don’t shoot me’ after suspect stole her gun — before her partner opens fire"--New York Post.  (You can see the video of the incident here). Another female cop having to be rescued by a male partner. Not only did the suspect take her weapon, but was on the verge of stealing her car. Maybe if she had the physical presence not to have to draw a weapon on an unarmed man in the first place, or had spent more time learning weapon retention techniques than on grooming her nails, the situation would have turned out differently. As it was, she turned what would have probably been a simple apprehension of a mentally disturbed man into one that endangered her partner and the public, and resulted in her partner having to shoot and kill the suspect. 
• "The Benefits of the Alexapure Pro Water Filter"--Modern Survival Blog. This is a larger, gravity fed system that appears to be positioned to compete against the Berkey products, but at a lower price point.
• For those in the Boise area that archery hunt: ""It looks great': Boise 3D archery range reopens after Valley Fire damage"--KIVI TV.
  
• A different kind of retreat: "‘We Live on a Sailboat in the Caribbean—Here’s What Life on the High Seas Is Like’"--Realtor.com. This family bought a catamaran to live on. Several years ago I became interested in this topic--living on a boat--and after watching numerous videos of people that tried it, realized that the only way to get the necessary living space (unless you are so wealthy you can afford a huge yacht) was to get a catamaran.