Official - Weapons Banter Thread

[JsARCLIGHT]

Well the good thing about firearms is they are like cars, after you buy them and use them they can be resold or traded in on other weapons. Try out that SPR and see how it handles on a trap range. If there comes a time when you want to upgrade to the 1100 just trade it in against one or sell it and turn the money around.

My own personal preference is for shorter shotguns and carbines as they are easier to manuver through doorways and overall easier to handle on a firing line... although they don't possess the range their longer siblings have. My home defense shotgun of choice is my trusty Rem 870 Marine Magnum, kept in the downstairs coat closet near the front door. I keep my G21 in the nightstand by my bed. I figure if a shotgun is needed it will be at the front door in the case of a home invasion... something like that requires artillery. But for a burglary I plan to lock my bedroom door and have my wife call 911 on her cell while I sit on the floor and aim at the door. I'm not going out into the house unless necessary... nothing is worth dying over except protecting my wife... and she has her M9 in her nightstand .

[Jemstone]

Yeah, I haven't had to worry about burglars. Just strange men trying to get thru my bolted front door while saying stupid things like "Open up so we can talk. I won't bite" or "Hey, what's your number?" while still trying to force their way in. I figured a good shotgun would suffice.

[Noriko Takaya]

Yeah, I haven't had to worry about burglars. Just strange men trying to get thru my bolted front door while saying stupid things like "Open up so we can talk. I won't bite" or "Hey, what's your number?" while still trying to force their way in. I figured a good shotgun would suffice.

376722[/snapback]

That brings up a memory of when I was 13 years old, growing up in Florida. My dad was a truck driver and was away most of the time earning his living, so that left me, my brother, and two sisters home with my mom. Well, one night when my dad was not home, my mom woke me up at about 2:00 am saying that there was someone at the front door. Well, it was not my dad, for he was in Oregon as my mom talked to him that very evening. It turned out to be someone breaking into the house. My mom grabbed the only rifle we had in the house, which was a Ruger 10/22. I had to load it for her as she did not know how to do it, but damed if she did not shoot the idiot outside right through the door. She gave ample warning of being armed, and the guy punched out one of the windows in the door fumbling for the lock. That was when my mom shot. Needless to say, mister robber was lying dead on the front doorstep with his arm still stuck in the door. After everything was cleared up with the police, my dad decided to quit truck driving across the country and get a local job. And to this very day, I consider my mom a hero because of what she did, even though she had nightmares about it for a while.

Edited March 5, 2006 by Noriko Takaya

[Noriko Takaya]

Okay, sorry for the story last night. However, it's time for a little gun pron. I went to a gun show up in Baltimore at the Pikesville National Guard Armory today, and I got me something. I do not know how most of you out there feel about these, but I purchased a Yugoslavian M59/66 SKS rifle. I settled on the Yugo made one since the Russian ones I saw were either too expensive or looked like crap. The one I bought was rebuilt, although the guy who sold it to me said it was unissued. I did some studying on SKS rifles and the serial number on the rifle I bought stated it was definitely rebuilt. For one thing, the grenade launcher is not ported, and there are tritium dots on the sights. The serial I have is dated to 1967, and they did not start adding tritium to the sights until the 80's. The barrel and the stock are also new. The rifling looks very sharp. However, the barrel is not chrome lined, so I had better find me some good ammo to shoot through this thing. But the rifle does have all of its matching numbers... I'm also going to have fun scraping and wiping off the copious amounts of cosmoline used to preserve the weapon. But oh well, it should be fun to shoot once it is cleaned up. The rifle was about $169, but the guy I bought it from knocked off about $50. I figured that was a bargain considering the prices I have seen these things go for. All in all, I think I got a pretty good rifle for the price I paid, and it is in very good condition. Down below is a picture. Can't wait to shoot it.

[Gaijin]

SKS's are great for the money.

[JsARCLIGHT]

People call me nuts but seeing as I had to get my C&R license to own a Class III in missouri I decided to just buy a rack of those yugo SKSes just to "try out my license". I think I paid about $100 each for four of them, all in "arsenal excellent condition" shipped in the crate. I guess they came four per crate because it looked like they had not been opened since the eastern bloc.

I took them all out, "de-cosmolined" them all in the backyard and finally got around to taking one out a few weeks ago. I only shot one, it was your typical loose comblock phone pole. About as accurate as any other wood and steel creation from that era. They sure do look impressive all in a row in on a floor rack though. I'm most likely going to take two of them and sell them at the next convention and give one to a friend... mostly to piss off his wife more than anything else.

Hey Noriko, does yours have the big "charging night sight" flip up grenade sight on it? I put that thing up at the range just to see how the range officer would react... I think he called me a retard.

Oh and all four of mine do not have ports on the launchers... and scarily enough they are all four totally different serial number strings but all look alike. Go figure.

[Noriko Takaya]

Hey Noriko, does yours have the big "charging night sight" flip up grenade sight on it? I put that thing up at the range just to see how the range officer would react... I think he called me a retard. 

Oh and all four of mine do not have ports on the launchers... and scarily enough they are all four totally different serial number strings but all look alike. Go figure.

376996[/snapback]

Yeah, I got the flip up grenade sight also, but they are tritium. They don't glow too well, though. A lot of the rifles came with night sights that were phosphorus, but they are shaped differently from the tritium ones. I found that if the rifles were unissued, they should have had a log book packaged with the rifle, stamped with the factory where they were made. I got no such book. My serial number is D-59449, which indicates it was made in 1967, but the box has another number which is stamped with an R and indicates it was rebuilt in 1986.

Did you get the funky oil can with leather case and the rope used to clean the bore? From what I gathered, cleaning rods were not to be used in cleaning the bore, hence the funny looking rope. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this weapon fires. I ought to take it out with my M1 Garand and see which shoots better, although my money is on the Garand.

Oh, someone once told me these things have a tendency to slam fire, but I figured if I can get some ammo with hardened military primers I should be okay. I had a problem with a slam fire on my M1A about a year ago and it cracked my rifle. Scared the shee-it out of me also. Had to order a new stock and a few other parts from Springfield to fix it.

Edited March 6, 2006 by Noriko Takaya

[bsu legato]

Those Yugo SKSs are built like a tank, and are arguably the best of the SKSs out there. I wish I'd gotten one before our supply of them here in Canada dried up. Noriko, you should look into getting one of those rear peep sights that mount on the backside of the dust cover. From what I've read, they're a great improvement over the regular sights. Like a dis:

In other gun news, I'm in love!

Edited March 6, 2006 by bsu legato

[Noriko Takaya]

In other gun news, I'm in love!

377010[/snapback]

Living in Canada, can you even own one of those? Not too sure how bad your gun laws have gotten.

[bsu legato]

I plan on ordering one on Monday. Does that answer your question?

Kidding aside, we just recently dodged a bullet (pun intended) up here when our Conservative party defeated the incumbent Liberals, who had made one of their election platforms the banning of all handguns, legally owned and otherwise. Now the CPC is setting about dismantling the hated and rediculously over budget long gun registry. But with a minority gov't it's not going to be easy. The hated Libs may be out of power, but they'll make things difficult for any other party who would "dare" replace them.

[bsu legato]

Well that didn't work out as well as I'd hoped it would. Cimarron apparently won't ship to Canadian dealers, probably because they're too cheap to spring for the export license. You'd think with all the profit they make on their upcharged Ubertis they'd have the money to spend. Oh well, I'm not beaten yet. Its entirely possible that Uberti themselves will offer the same piece, minus the "Man With No Name" nomenclature. Otherwise, I may have to go through one of the Canadian dealers who specialize in imports.

[JsARCLIGHT]

Did you get the funky oil can with leather case and the rope used to clean the bore?

Yeah I got four sets of them. Need one?

Oh, someone once told me these things have a tendency to slam fire, but I figured if I can get some ammo with hardened military primers I should be okay. I had a problem with a slam fire on my M1A about a year ago and it cracked my rifle. Scared the shee-it out of me also. Had to order a new stock and a few other parts from Springfield to fix it.

377009[/snapback]

Slam fires and runaways in SKSes are caused by putting the firing pin back in backwards when you reassemble the bolt. I've seen several SKSes reassembled wrong and cause runaways. One of my friends had a Norinco SKS that ran away all the time and he kept ignoring me telling him that the pin was in backwards. He finally sold it for parts. We used to call that Norc SKS "Uncle Mao's Wild Ride". It was a neat SKS, too... it had a green plastic stock with the short paratrooper barrel and an all grey parkerized finish. I have never seen one like it since.

[Kin]

Reloading the rounds using a stripclip seems difficult to me.

[JsARCLIGHT]

I loaded the one of mine that I tested by hand round by round. Stripper clips are a PITA no matter what weapon you have. Hence why my favorite weapons are magazine fed. This internal mag stripper clip loading stuff is for the birds.

[Zentrandude]

Reloading the rounds using a stripclip seems difficult to me.

377708[/snapback]

on a sks? you must be weak then, I never had problems pushing them into the mag.

My only problem is I need to get off my lazy butt and replace a couple ones with new ones since a couple clips don't hold the last and first round too well.

Edited March 7, 2006 by Zentrandude

[Noriko Takaya]

Ain't nothing like loading an M1. Just when I thought I had it down pat, the damn thing bit me and I got the old dreaded "M1 thumb". Let me tell you what word came out of my mouth...

[Kin]

I never touched one, but I'm curious if anyone modded the SKS for magazine loading from the bottom.

The SKS is old, but in some way I like it very much. If in good hands I'm sure it outrun other rifles.

Edited March 8, 2006 by Kin

[JsARCLIGHT]

It's super easy to mod an SKS to take detatchable magazines... you simply remove the internal mag assembly when taking it down for cleaning and replace it with one of the special aftermarket SKS detatchable mags you see people selling everywhere. The exsisting SKS internal mag release button now acts as a magazine release and the mags pop out and in from front to back just like an AK mag. If you have run an AK you can run an SKS with detatchable mags just as easy. The SKS detatchable magseven look like AK mags only they have this long nose on them that sticks into the frame where the internal mag spring corner assembly sat.

One big caveat to using them though: installing a detatchable magazine on your Yugo or other C&R qualified SKS instantly revokes it's C&R status and it is now an "Assault Weapon" with removable magazine according to several states that still have assault weapon laws in place. So do your homework if you live in a ban state before buying any detatchable SKS mags.

Edited March 8, 2006 by JsARCLIGHT

[Noriko Takaya]

Well, I finally finished cleaning out the cosmoline on my SKS Saturday night and took it to the range this afternoon. I also managed to buy some 7.62 x 39 ammo that was American made by Federal. I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the overall accuracy of the rifle. It sure gave my M1 a run for its money once all was said and done. And then comes the cleaning...

[Isamu Atreides 86]

Score! not one, but two Mosin Nagants this weekend! a 1926 1891/30 MN and a 1944 M44 Carbine. Can't wait to get them out to the range.

[CoryHolmes]

I admit, I'm becoming more and more interested to see if this is going to be available in Canuckistan. Looks like it'd be fun just to shoot, if not own outright.

[Graham]

Take The Gun Nut Test.

I scored NRA Member

You are 86% of a gun nut!

You have excellent skills in weapons handling. I could definetly trust you to cover my back. Matter of fact, you're probably packing right now!

Compared to other people of my age and gender I scored higher than 77% on knowledge.

Graham

[bsu legato]

NRA Member

You are 89% of a gun nut!

You have excellent skills in weapons handling. I could definetly trust you to cover my back. Matter of fact, you're probably packing right now!

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 91% on knowledge

I'm sure I botched that SA80 question. Pfft...like I'd want to use that POS anyway.

Edited March 17, 2006 by bsu legato

[Graham]

I botched the .22 magazine capacity and the Mosin-Nagant questions.

Yes you are correct, you do not want to go anywhere near the SA-80. It was a sad day for the British army when they had to give up their FN-FALs for that unreliable, breakage-prone piece of junk.

Graham

[Chowser]

Average Grunt

You are 75% of a gun nut!

You've been trained in the art of the rifle. When you're handed a firearm, you can generally use it competently. The local firing range knows you on a first-name basis.

[twich]

The PS90 that you have pictured up there is an awesome weapon...for a personal defense weapon, I dont think it can be beat( in my opinion) I mean you have the capability of 50 rd mag, you have ambidextrous controls and you have a light compact weapon which comes with non magnifying optics included in the package...plus so many people are making accessories for the PS90 like quad rails that mount over the barrel, and optic mounts that I think this weapon will turn out to be quite popular...

The only thing standing in the way is the numbers...FN has something like 16000 purchase orders for the PS90 that they intend to fill by the end of the year....so getting one now might be a bit rough, but if you do I think you will be happy.

Now all we need is for wolf to start making some ammo by the truck load and this will turn very popular indeed!

Sorry for the Fn rant...

Twich

[twich]

Scored average grunt 65%

Twich

[Graham]

No way I would ever use a P90 or FN Five-Seven pistol for self defence unless I was being attacked by rabid bunnies. A calibre with the equivalent ballistics of a .22mag rimfire round is not my idea of a good fight stopper.

The P90's got that Tacti-cool factor which wows a lot of people, but it's woefully underpowered for self-defence or CQB.

Graham

[Isamu Atreides 86]

82% baby.

[Guest Bromgrev]

79%, and I haven't touched a gun in 10 years. Man, I love multiple-choice questions, I had to guess at least half of them.

[JsARCLIGHT]

I only scored a 75%... most of the questions where too "old" and too foreign for my knowledge base. I only know US milspec well, everything else is shaky.

[twich]

Have you fired a Five Seven or a P90 Graham? I dont mean to be flippant, but that seems to be a pretty common misconception with people who have never fired the weapon. I own a Five Seven, and I traded in a Glock 21 with 13 rd Mags for it, and I think that it was the wisest decision for me to make. Granted that ammo is not as plentiful as say 9mm, but the round beats out a .22 in all regards...But I guess it is a personal preference and to each his own....

Not trying to start a fight, but it just gets tiresome when I hear that same thing over and over again.....

FN wesite that has a nice FQ with the ballistics of the 5.7mm round in all its incarnations

A personally owned Five Seven/PS90 website for owners of those weapons-good info source

Twich

Edited March 17, 2006 by twich

[JsARCLIGHT]

Graham does sort of speak the truth in a few ways Twitch. The main benefit of the 5.7 round is it's armor piercing capacity... which in the civilian variant is removed. The 5.7 round is first and foremost a jacket breaker designed to fight an opponent wearing a kevlar vest or other forms of body armor. The penetration statistics of the 5.7 are crafted as a "hot knife through butter" round, similair to the 5.56 NATO. When it comes to overall kenetic energy dump into the target the small caliber supersonic bullets don't really pass muster that well. Sure they will wound and kill targets with effectiveness but they will not "stop" targets. Small caliber high velocity bullets just blow right through, transferring very little if any of the kenetic energy into the target... the prime downfall of the 9mm round and the 5.56 round, no "stopping power".

The fact of the argument is that the FN 5.7 round is a purpose made ammo, designed to attack armored opponents. When it's armor piercing capacity is taken away from it the bullet looses almost all of it's strengths and it becomes simply another bizzare caliber off magnum round. Sure the neutered 5.7 can boast massive muzzle velocities and other performance data but when it comes to the core properties of a defensive round, kenetic energy transfer and stopping power, the round is quite poor. A .40 S&W beats it in ballistics at that point along with almost every other "classic" handgun round. But at the same time a kevlar vest will absorb a standard .40 S&W round but an AP 5.7 will blow through it like the wind.

Edit: Also you should take note that the performance of the restricted AP 5.7 round and the civilian legal 5.7 round are very, very different. The true beast, the AP round, is very effective but the neutered civilian version is quite tame. That steel core inside the AP round creates almost all of the bullet's effectiveness... take that steel core out and it literally becomes akin to a very hot .22 magnum both in ballistics and in performance.

Edited March 17, 2006 by JsARCLIGHT

[bsu legato]

Then again, most civvies don't need the armor piercing capabilities of the 5.7 anyway. Whatever is "lost" by using civilian legal ammo is all in the shooter's head.

[Chowser]

my favorite personal defense weapon is a shotgun

i don't think i can carry a p90 around the house that well.

i currently have a Benelli M1 Super 90 with a 14" barrel and a surefire light grip.

granted, it doesn't have the psychological factor of hearing a shotgun being pumped, but it's still the easiest one for my family to get used to.

don't get me wrong, i like the look and feel of the P90 and wish my dept. would get at least one just for the fun factor, but ammo costs would prohibit it. the chief is already getting on us for all the ammo we order now, this year, we are supposed to keep track of all the ammo that is bought, the cost of each case, etc., he's gonna flip when he sees how much .357 SIG ammo I just ordered, but i figured it evens out since we no longer allow revolvers, i don't have to order .38 or .357 magnum rounds, i can just order .357 SIG ammo. two gone balances out to the one. and we're getting rid of .380s as well soon.

we have more .223 ammo than we have anything else and we haven't even put the M16s in the cars yet, they've been sitting in the safe for over two years.

now if I try and push a new caliber with expensive ammo.

i never liked the fiveseven. i just didn't like the way it felt in my hand.

---

in case anyone's wondering: our dept:

issues Glock 22s and 23s.

issue ammo:

Federal .40 Hydrashok 180gr.

Federal .40 HiShokII (HST) 165gr.

Winchester .40 Ranger SXT 180gr.

-

Benelli M1 Super 90s, 12 ga. 5 rd mag, 14" barrel. (pushing pistol grips and ghost ring sights since that is what i have on my home gun)

Federal 12 ga. Low Recoil Rifled Slug

Winchester Super X 12ga. 00 buck

-

Colt AR-15/M16 military surplus .223 (pieces of garbage, but they were free)

Federal 55 gr. softtip HPs

---edit-backups--

for 2006, backups/offduty weapons allowed:

any semi-auto that is not single action only. (Chief prefers Glock 23s/27s, but he's not going to buy us guns, so we buy what we like; the original plan 3 years ago when we switched to Glocks were that the dept. would buy everyone a Glock 27, but of course, that money disappeared)

allowed calibers: 9mm, .40, .45, .357 SIG.

Edited March 17, 2006 by Chowser