The internet is a terrible place for information. It also has the potential to be the best place to acquire information. Like everything else in life – this should be no surprise – it’s simultaneously the worst and the best. The key is the user.
If you want to know what’s happening, they say, you have to consume the news. At the same time, if you do consume news media, the chances are superb that you’re reading/hearing misinformation, disinformation or outright propaganda.
It’s similar in enthusiast media – and has been as far back as I can remember. Doing readings in historic enthusiast media pieces, I can tell you it existed before I did – so don’t blame me.
Now we’re back on the “ballistics, “bull-is-tics” and caliber commandos” trope, courtesy of
P&S Modcast 308 – which is long-form podcasting that takes the proverbial deep dive on what happens when bullets hit stuff. It’s a grand panel with, among others, Mark Fricke, Chuck Haggard and Dr. Sherman House.
I’ll offer my take – but do yourself a favor and listen to it. It’s long and most people these days are “too long/didn’t listen,” but this is well worth the time.
I concluded that there was nothing to dissuade me from my baseline requirements for defense ammunition:
1. Ignition reliability;
2. Functional reliability;
3. Hits to the sights ….
After all that, we can play games with 4. Penetration and 5. Expansion … not before. In fact, the estimable law dog Chuck Haggard recited as much. Mr. Fricke (a personal friend) added – correctly – that the user has to be able to use that gun/caliber/load effectively, an outstanding point and one I wished I’d have added. The ‘one pound or less’ 357 Magnum revolvers are really not meant to be fired with 357 Magnum ammunition. You can do it, for as long as the joints, connective tissue and ibuprofen holds out, but what’s the point … to develop a permanent flinch?
When I selected a Ruger LCR-model as a backup gun to supplement the M&P340 guns, it wasn’t to shoot 357 – the 357 models weigh more than the 38 caliber guns, around 17 ounces. And I use 38s in the LCRx 357.
This modcast goes right to the point of defense firearms use. Don’t miss it.
Additionally, there are some equipment issues to be seen to. I alluded to those in Monday’s Shooting Wire.
For the ballistics stuff to work out operationally, you can’t afford to miss. That means you need sights you can see. Following the (previously published) advice of Claude Werner, the Tactical Professor, I got some appliance touch-up paint and sorted out the hard-to-see (and otherwise just fine) sights of the Taurus M942 rimfire trainer snub revolver. While my painting technique wins no prizes, I can now see the front sight against a darkly colored target. You can also find Claude’s work here.
For those still in the business of placing people into custody, you may want to take note of this fiasco: last week, in Oklahoma, a woman was taken into custody after a welfare check. Placed in the back of a patrol unit, the officer apparently got involved in receiving information from a citizen. Meanwhile, the car video recorded the suspect slipping a hand out of a handcuff, grabbing the officer’s rifle (!) and shooting at the officer and the citizen – striking both.
I know you’ve been told about the ‘high risk’ custodial search until you’re sick of hearing it – but let’s not forget about proper handcuffing and Rule Five – safe stowage of safety equipment. The involved agency reported to media that the perp was properly handcuffed and still slipped out of the cuffs. Not impossible -- nor terribly likely – so it could have happened just this way.
The cuffs have to be tight enough to prevent someone from slipping out and they need to be double-locked. Regardless, firearms shouldn’t be left accessible to anyone in the back of the car.
Enough of that –
Larger small guns? – It seems that the trend to smaller 9mm autos for concealed carry has bottomed out, causing a minor trend to “upsize” micro-compacts. The first I noticed was one I had an offer to try, the Springfield Armory Hellcat Pro. A decent fifteen-shot auto, it has the ‘footprint’ or profile – nearly enough – of a fifteen-shot service compact pistol.
Advantages? While there’s more to hang on to (and that’s not nothing), you have an increase in cartridge capacity while keeping the slimmest width of the micro-compact line. It’s 1911-esque in slimness, while keeping a double-stack capacity.
Now our friends at SIG have the P365X Macro – The P365 XL slide/barrel over a seventeen-shot magazine/receiver with the same width dimensions of the previous entry. Add the Macro’s shorter barrel with a ported longer slide for a compensator effect (LOUD!), you have G17 capacity in a very slim – and apparently very shootable – package. Perhaps a non-comp’ed Macro would be helpful in the defense context.
In any event, I’ll continue to follow this trend with interest.
-- Rich Grassi