What is an assault weapon? Part one

We are deluged by this term constantly.  Democrats hate them.  Republicans don't want to talk about it.  And most people have no clue what they even are.  Are they machine guns?  Are all semi-autos assault weapons?  What about pistol grips?

The term assault rifle actually goes back to WW2 and a guy we are all too familiar with; Adolph Hitler.  Yes, that guy.  When he learned of the new STG44 rifle, he christened it the Sturmgewehr; literally assault rifle.
That rifle was a departure from the traditional battle rifles of the period.  It was selective fire, meaning it could fire semi or fully automatic.  It had a pistol style grip.  A detachable magazine.  And, most importantly, it was chambered for a new intermediate cartridge.  This new cartridge was significantly shorter and less powerful than the standard 8mm Mauser ammo the Germans were using in their other rifles.

STG 44 ammo

standard 8mm mauser ammo used in Mauser 98 rifle

  This allowed the STG44 to fire full auto in a controllable manner.  Essentially, what they were trying to accomplish was the blending of the battle rifle with the submachine gun.  Although Germany lost the war, the assault rifle was here to stay.  Today there are many assault rifles in use by the militaries of the world.

By definition, an assault rifle is capable of automatic fire.  That makes it a machine gun in the eyes of the law.  Therefore, assault rifles are highly regulated under the 1934 national firearms act and are specifically banned by some states.

In other words, your neighbor's AR 15 is not an assault rifle.



So we know what an assault rifle is.  But what is an assault weapon?  Well, that is up to interpretation.  The 1994 crime bill stated:

`(B) a semiautomatic rifle that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of--

`(i) a folding or telescoping stock;

`(ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon;

`(iii) a bayonet mount;

`(iv) a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor; and

`(v) a grenade launcher;

`(C) a semiautomatic pistol that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of--

`(i) an ammunition magazine that attaches to the pistol outside of the pistol grip;

`(ii) a threaded barrel capable of accepting a barrel extender, flash suppressor, forward handgrip, or silencer;

`(iii) a shroud that is attached to, or partially or completely encircles, the barrel and that permits the shooter to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without being burned;

`(iv) a manufactured weight of 50 ounces or more when the pistol is unloaded; and

`(v) a semiautomatic version of an automatic firearm; and

`(D) a semiautomatic shotgun that has at least 2 of--

`(i) a folding or telescoping stock;

`(ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon;

`(iii) a fixed magazine capacity in excess of 5 rounds; and

`(iv) an ability to accept a detachable magazine.'.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c103:1:./temp/~c103bJveqQ:e644150:

Hard cast lead bullets

You know what a bullet is, but what is a hard cast bullet?

A hard cast bullet is simply a cast bullet that is made of a lead alloy that is harder than pure lead.  When metals like antimony are added to lead, the resulting alloy becomes harder.  Depending on the amount of antimony, tin, etc, it can be quite a bit harder than lead.

A pure lead bullet is really not suitable for most purposes.  It's just too soft. One solution is to cover the lead in a copper jacket.  Hence the jacketed bullets we all know.  The other solution is to harden the alloy by adding antimony and other metals.

If you take a hammer to a hard cast bullet, it will deform, but not much.  Take a hammer to a soft lead bullet, even a jacketed one, and it will deform quite a bit.  So, if you are looking for a bullet to mushroom, hard cast is not for you.  Hard cast bullets tend to shear off rather than mushroom when they hit a hard object or dry ground.

The bullet on the left was fired from my Makarov into moist dirt.  As you can see, it has not mushroomed, but instead has sheared off.


It did not hit a rock that I know of.  It simply stopped in he ground.









So, why use a hard cast bullet?  Usually, it's cost.  Hard cast bullets typically cost less than a jacketed bullet.  The bullet maker simply casts the bullet, sizes it, and lubricates it.  End of story.  In fact, many people cast their own bullets.  Jim Green does a good job demonstrating it on youtube

When bullets are cast, they are not the proper size to be shot. Most molds produce a bullet that is slightly larger than desired.  So cast bullets are passed thru a swaging die that brings them down to the desired size.

One example of a polymer coated bullet

Here is another

At that time, the bullets are also lubricated with a waxy lube.  This cuts down on or even eliminates leading of the barrel.  The blue lube you see in the grease grooves on the first picture was likely applied by a tool such as a Lyman 450 lubrisizer.  The other option is to tumble lube in a liquid alox lube.  It achieves the same purpose, but tumble lubing can be done quickly, in a pie plate. For those who don't want to invest in a sizing and lubing tool, Lee makes some nice kits with a sizing die and some alox lube that are reasonable.  Bullets are designed for a particular type of lube.  Those designed for tumble lube will have more grooves than one designed for traditional lube methods.

Lee liquid alox kit

There are also coated bullets.  This is a relatively new option.  The bullet is coated in a polymer that acts as a lubricant.  I have personally used some coated cci .22 lr.  The coating can be scraped off with your fingernail, but it must do its job.  We haven't noticed any odd fouling in the barrels.

Raw bullet on the left - liquid alox tumble lubed on the right

I do not cast my own bullets at this time because the state of Illinois has changed wheel weights from lead to zinc and I have been afraid to get into it, just to find myself without a steady source of metal.

I have been buying my hard cast bullets mostly from rim rock bullets. http://rimrockbullets.net/
 They are of good quality and consistent. They are almost always in stock too.  Some of the other manufacturers are out of stock on this or that and it gets frustrating.

For target shooting in pistols and slower speed rifle cartridges, hard cast is a great alternative to jacketed bullets.  Hunters also use hard cast bullets in situations where bullet expansion is not desired.

Semi-Automatic; what does that mean?

You hear gun control advocates rail against the evils of semi-automatic guns all the time.  They tell you we need to ban them and that they are inherently dangerous or that no one needs them.  To the average non-gun-owning citizen, these arguments sound pretty good.  Really, the way these anti-gun folks talk, you would think they are talking about a machine gun.

But, let's be clear, a semi-automatic firearm in NOT a machine gun.

"A semi-automatic, or self-loading, firearm is one that performs all steps necessary to prepare it to discharge again after firing—assuming cartridges remain in the firearm's feed device. Typically, this includes extracting and ejecting the spent cartridge case from the firing chamber, re-cocking the firing mechanism, and loading a new cartridge into the firing chamber. Although machine guns and selective-fire firearms do the same tasks, semi-automatic firearms do not automatically fire an additional round until the trigger is released and re-pressed by the person discharging it. That is, a semi-automatic firearm fires only one round (bullet) each time the trigger is pulled." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_firearm

So a semi-automatic gun does not "Spray" bullets.  They are not machine guns.  They do not fire a continuous stream of bullets as long as you pull the trigger.  They are also not inherently more powerful or more accurate that other firearm actions.

Do they offer an advantage to other firearm actions?  Yes.  They allow the shooter to make a follow up shot more quickly because he/she does not have to manually work any sort of lever or bolt.  That is an advantage in many situations.

The semi-automatic action is used in many different types of firearms.  Some have a military purpose and some don't.  Here are just a few examples.

The M1 Garand was the first semi-automatic rifle generally issued to any army.
 It allowed US troops to lay down more rounds of accurate fire than their Axis counterparts, who were mostly outfitted with slower to operate bolt action rifles.

Back in the year 1900, John M. Browning patented the operating system for his Auto-5 semi-automatic shotgun.   (Harold Murtz. Gun Digest Treasury (DBI Books, 1994), p.194)   


This Marlin Model 60 is a basic .22 caliber rifle used for target and small game shooting.  Hardly a hard-hitting, bullet-spraying menace to society.


And then there are handguns.  Many different calibers and purposes





All of the above guns share an operating principle. but have different uses. Millions of these guns are in American homes right now. Does anyone honestly think they can get people to give them up? Do they really think that a ban on these weapons will do anything to stop violence?



Even if you passed a confiscation law, which will not happen, you would have civil war trying to get millions upon millions of guns from their owners. And really, there are other gun action types that fire nearly as fast anyway.



A pump action gun is very quick. In the right hands they are basically as fast as a semi-auto. A lever action is nearly as fast as well. Double action revolvers are just as fast as their auto-loading counterparts, but are limited in capacity to 5-9 rounds of ammunition and are typically slower to reload than a magazine fed auto.



So, in my humble opinion, all this hate for the semi-auto is largely based in ignorance. When I hear this stuff, it's usually from people who have little or no experience with guns. We fear what we don't know, right?

GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE EXPLAINED

Some politicians say "Gun show loophole" about as often as they put their hands in your pocket.  They claim that people go to gun shows and buy guns without a background check.  The presumption is that people are buying firearms that they should not have because of this loophole.  Is that really true?  Is there a gun show loophole?

Well, not really.  Under federal law, all gun sales made through federally licensed dealers must go through a background check, weather that dealer is in his shop or at a gun show.  Federal law does not require background checks on private sales.  However, many states do.

So.........The gun show loophole is really a private sale loophole.  And that loophole exists only in states without a background check requirement on private sales.

So.........The idea is that non-dealer people get together at gun shows and sell guns to each other and that those sales don't get background checked.  That is true in states that don't require private sale checks.

It is also true that those same people can get together and sell guns to each other at their houses, in parking lots, or out in the woods somewhere if they want to.

So...........Really, gun shows have nothing to do with it.

Now, ask me if I have any objection to doing a simple, instant, background check on a private sale and I will tell you no.

So...........Let's pass a federal law requiring an instant background check on most, if not all, private sales.  Will it save lives?  Probably not.  Will it shut gun control advocates up?  Probably not.  But, why not do it anyway?  At least you can look people in the face and say, "There, now you have no gun show loophole to bitch about."

https://www.atf.gov/questions-and-answers/firearms-qas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_show_loophole

Can we change gun laws and preserve the 2nd amendment?

In the wake the latest mass killing, the talking heads have begun to scream for more "common sense" gun control.  While that kind of talk makes me nervous, it is becoming increasingly hard to simply say "it's not my problem and I refuse to do anything."  Now, I'm not saying we should reduce our second amendment rights in any way.  I believe that there are REAL common sense things that can be done to at least say, "there, we did it".

1.  Make a background check on every single gun sale.  Yes every single sale.

Here's the catch:  Make these checks instant and make them work!  In Illinois we have an instant background check system that we use to check the validity of a person's foid card when conducting a private sale.  I don't know that we necessarily need to issue foid cards to every gun owner in the USA, but I'm sure a similar thing could be done with a driver's license or state ID?  There would be a database of people, similar to the "no fly" list.  If you are clean, the system kicks back an approval number that the seller keeps.  If the person is barred from obtaining a gun for whatever reason, the system advises the seller to refuse the transaction.  Pretty simple

Of course, transactions made through dealers have always been background checked.  But, the fact that Dylan Roof got a pistol because the background system was screwed up is crazy.  The system needs to work, period.  If the system is down, you need to wait.  The current system where you get your gun even if the system hasn't run the check is stupid.



This is not registration, which I oppose.  It does not put any undue burden on the seller or buyer.  It simply makes sure that the person buying the gun is supposed to have one.  Really not a big deal.

  This would close the so-called gun show loop hole, which anti-gunners have screamed about for years, while imposing no burden on gun owners. I mean really, this is 2015.  You swipe your credit card and get an instant decision.  Why not an approval for a gun purchase?

2.  Eliminate/rethink gun free zones.  I understand that there need to be places where firearms are restricted.  Courthouses, jails, prisons, airport terminals.  Fine.  But, you better have a metal detector and you better have armed cops there to respond when someone storms in with a weapon.  The test should be, if you can't protect me, I should be able to protect me.  Simple.

I know that these shootings are not my fault, they are the fault of the people who pull the trigger.  But, why not fix the damned system and make instant background checks available to private sellers.  At the very least, it would shut people up about gun show loopholes.