Guns

World War II German 8.8 cm Flak 18/36/37 anti-aircraft and anti-tank gun

Italian Army personnel recovery operation using Agusta A129 Mangusta attack helicopter

Nose Gun

Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk

10th Cav trooper with Apache Scouts, 1885

Gunday Monday

RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) by front door

Saw this image on Bustednuckles and I'm thinking this is serious home defense. And then I noticed the rug on the floor.

Afghan War Rug

The Future is Here

Garmin Xero C1 Pro Chronograph $500

Tam writes about going to the gun range and mentions this device and tells us she can "sit there in the dry while making notes" about her shots. How does that even work? I remember chronographs having screens or antennas downrange from the firearm. How does the Garmin work? It has RADAR, that's how.

Chronograph and Shooter

Anit-Aircraft Guns

The Highest Altitude AA Guns Ever
SiegeMental

One of my favorite topics. Thought I had pretty well covered it, but he's got a lot of stuff I hadn't heard of.

I'm always amazed at how much heavy metal was produced during WW2. It doesn't seem like we are doing that anymore. We're probably spending more money on making stuff, but our money is only worth one percent of what it was back then, so that's not telling us much. We are building stuff like cars and trucks and trains, but I suspect it's mostly just to replace stuff that's worn out. We are building roads and buildings, but it seems like it's just incremental, we aren't engaged in any ginormous projects.

Giant Roller Bearing

Never Before Seen: 16" Gun Turret ROLLERS MOVING
Battleship USS IOWA Museum

What we have here is a 2,000 ton chunk on steel sitting on top of the some of the biggest Timken Tapered Roller Bearings in the world. 

It's one thing to see the ship floating in the water, sailing the seas, firing its guns, and then you start looking at drawings and animations and I'm thinking that's pretty cool. Then you go inside with these guys and you get an entirely different picture. It's kind of nuts.

These museum folks have a bunch more videos of the inner workings of the ship. However, the link listed just below the video is 404. Weird. Anyway, I just watched three of them. You need to be careful, you fall in, you might never find your way out.

Charlie Kirk Shooting

Utah Valley University

From The Guardian. Charlie Kirk was standing in the University Quad (lower right end of red line). Shooter was on the roof of the Losee Center (upper left end of the red line), 400 feet away.

I wrote this a couple of months ago, but I didn't really have anything to add that hadn't already been all over the net. so I didn't post it. Before this happened I had never heard of Charlie Kirk or Turning Point USA.

Then today I am skipping through the archives and found a four-year-old post that included a video from Turning Point USA. I guess I have heard of them.

School Shootings

School Shootings

Aljazeera is a weird outfit. They suffer from IDS - Israel Derangement Syndrome, very similar to TDS - Trump Derangement Syndrome - that Democrats suffer from. But for anything outside of that they seem to fairly rational and coherent.

Silencer on Semi-Auto Handguns

Nielsen Device: How it Works and Why it's Necessary
Forgotten Weapons

I've lost count of the number of times I have watched a scene in a movie or a TV show where the hero / villain is threading a suppressor onto a handgun, but it never occurred to me that there would be a problem with your typical 9mm or 1911.

Red Hot

NSV Utyos Soviet heavy machine gun

Guns

Why Civilians carry Weapons in the streets
Marcio Tour Guide Israel

I kinda think Israel has the right idea, I especially like the bit about how everyone is trained in the use of firearms. Don't think we could get away with making it mandatory here, but having firearms classes available in all high schools might be a good idea. Might have fewer fools shooting someone by accident.

Gun Men

The inventor of the AK-47, Mikhail Kalashnikov (right), meets the inventor of the M-16, Eugene Stoner (left) - Sgt Chris Lawson

On This Day (May 16, 1990) tells the story:

The AK-47 assault rifle is perhaps the most famous weapon in the world. Manufactured by the millions since its creation by Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1949, it has seen action in almost every conflict since. And it has often come into conflict with armies wielding the M16 assault rifle, also one of the most famous and produced weapons in the world.

The rifles were created by arch-enemies - the AK-47 by the Soviets and the M16 by the Americans. It would only be in 1990, the year before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, that their respective creators would meet.

Eugene Stoner and Mikhail Kalashnikov met in Washington D.C. Perhaps not so surprisingly the two men became friends, a shared bond with their unique stories, touring the city and visiting a hunting lodge.

Via a comment on Bustednuckles

Costco Carry

Costco Carry

Went to Costco two days ago and this guy was into front of us at the checkout line. I know you can get a permit for concealed-carry, but I'm not sure what the rules are for open carry. In any case, I don't know if anyone besides me noticed, and nobody made a fuss.

Do-It-Yourself Machine gun

Finnish belt fed .22LR machine gun

Dripper53:

An 80-year old man in Finland created a belt-fed .22 caliber machine gun out of an electric drill. The cam-driven weapon had a firing rate of 420 rpm (for comparison, the US M3 Grease Gun is 450 rpm). The man was not prosecuted, but he had to give up his creation.

 

44 Automag is Back

Dirty Harry: Sudden Impact - .44 Auto Mag Scene (1080p)
Vee XXL

This film came out in 1983 and lord, how I drooled over this gun. I was actually making money by then, so it was possibility, but while it was cool I was busy and I never pursued it. But now it's back. Ian makes me glad I didn't buy one back then.

Is the AutoMag Curse Over? The New Auto Mag 180-D
Forgotten Weapons

I'm glad to hear that the new company seems to have made it into a reliable weapon and might possibly stay in business. But I'm looking at it and I just don't like how complicated it is and how many small parts are there. I'm also a curmudgeon now, so I ain't spending $5,000 to buy anything, much less a gun. 

Munitions & Rules

The FAL in Cuba: Left Arm of the Communist World?
Forgotten Weapons

I'm a bit of a sucker for FAL automatic rifles. While I do like the way they look, I think I like them because they are exotic, as in I have never seen one in person.

At the end of the video Ian is going to demonstrate shooting one of these rifles in full-automatic mode, but he can't show us because of YouTube's rules. I would kind of like to see that because Ian is not a big guy and the FAL shoots a 308 cartridge, which is substantial.

Then we have this video by Demolition Ranch where he was demonstrating just what kind of things YouTube allowed regarding automatic weapons:

Youtube Legal Gun Content...
DemolitionRanch

Okay, YouTube has rules, the government has rules and your friends have their own rules. Rules change. I'm not too worried about the rules.

Anyway, the business about the freighter blowing up in Havana harbor piqued my interest. Another case where the CIA might have been sticking their fingers in. Nice thing about explosions, any evidence pretty much gets obliterated.

La Coubre explosion 4 March 1960

On the page with the image I found this block explaining the rules governing the inclusion of this photo. Awful lot of legalese.

Licensing

	This work was created in Cuba and is now in the public domain because its term of copyright has expired. According to Cuban law #14 and subsequent amendments, copyright terms in Cuba are the following:
Type of material Copyright has expired in Cuba if... Copyright has expired in the US if...¹ Photographs Used more than 25 years ago First published in Cuba without compliance with US copyright formalities and used in Cuba before February 20, 1972 Anonymous works (not photographs) Used more than 50 years ago First published in Cuba without compliance with US copyright formalities and used in Cuba before February 20, 1947 Corporate and government works Never (perpetual copyright) Published before 1929 (95 years ago) All other works More than 50 years has passed since the 1st of January following the death of the author a) Published in Cuba without compliance with US copyright formalities, author died before 1947 or b) Published before 1929 (95 years ago)
Note 1: For a file to be hosted on Wikimedia Commons, it must be in the public domain in both Cuba and the United States.
¹ For a work to be public domain in the United States, its copyright must have expired in Cuba before Cuba joined the Berne Convention on February 20, 1997.
Note 2: Notwithstanding the conditions set above, the state of Cuba may decide to transfer to the state the copyright on works when the copyright term for the creator of it has expired, as set by the 48º article of Cuban Copyright law. Such works would not be free of copyright, and may be deleted at any time. English ∙ Español ∙ 日本語 ∙ русский ∙ 中文（简体） ∙ 中文（繁體） ∙ +/−

Charles Cottar & the Savage .250-3000

1919 Savage Rifle Advertisement

Body of text:

CHARLES COTTAR'S SURPRISE AT THE .250-3000

Is anything much harder to kill than the rhinoceros? His temper is bad, his skin is inches thick, and he weighs close to a ton. He charges on sight, and he will hunt a man as a terrier does a rat.

    Mr. Cottar has killed a number of charging rhino with his little .250-3000 Savage rifle. He has learned to expect it to kill them.

    But when he killed one that ran away-killed it with one shot-striking in the ham and ranging clear forward through the lungs at 175 yards he was really surprised. He didn't think any rifle could do that. 

    Mr. Cottar has been killing leopard, lion, rhino, hippo and elephant with the 250-3000 Savage for four or five years. He has found it the most generally useful rifle for African hunting.

    It is a six-shot, seven-pound, lever-action take-down repeater, with checked extra-full pistol-grip stock and fore- arm and corrugated steel shot-gun butt-plate and trigger. It has the lines, beauty and feel of an expensive shot-gun. And it shoots a vicious little 87-grain Spitzer point bullet 3000 feet a second, straight enough to make possibles on

the 800-yard target and hard enough to penetrate 5/8" boiler-plate or Mr. Cottar's rhino. 

    Look at it and later on buy it at your dealer's, and write us for a detailed description.

SAVAGE ARMS CORPORATION

UTICA, N. Y.

Sharon, Pa.                          Detroit, Mich.

Executive and Export Offices

50 Church St., New York City

Manufacturers of Hi-Power and Small Calibre Sporting Rifles, Automatic pistols and Ammunition

Charles Cottar

Savage Arms Corporation 

Jerusalem

Everybody's packin' and nobody's freakin'. So okay, it is like on verge of becoming a war zone at any moment, but everyday life goes on including this old dude playing the guitar.

Ruger P85

Boring, Durable, Unsexy Bricks: The Remarkably Successful Ruger P85
Forgotten Weapons

I'm always interested in the business side of any business. How do they manage to survive? Well, 700,000 pistols, that'll pay a couple of bills. Call it a million pistols over a ten year run, just to make the math easy. That's a 100,000 pistols a year. If you make $10 profit off of each one that might be a pretty good return. Semi-auto pistols go for something like $500 to $1,000 dollars. Call it a $1,000, to make it easy. Figure half of that goes to the retailer, shipping, everything after it goes out the door. So that leaves $490 per pistol to pay for the rent on the building, depreciation on the machinery, wages, benefits, taxes and all the costs associated with running a business, like accountants and lawyers.

So if everything goes smoothly, you could be raking in the dough, but any kind of hiccup and the situation could easily turn sour. People go into business every day. Some of them will succeed, but some of them will fail.You gotta have some faith when you take a leap into the unknown.

Previous post about Ruger here.

Kalthoff 30-Shot Flintlock

Kalthoff 30-Shot Flintlock: The First Repeating Firearm Used in War (1659)
Forgotten Weapons

I had no idea something like this ever existed, and good Lord, is it complicated.

Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump

Mickey Mouse Club Intro (Color)
Dalton Barron
I was inundated this morning with people yammering about the shooting. It was all Trump, all the time, which led to the title, which led to the above tune. I'm surprised someone hasn't redone the tune with 

D-O-N, A-L-D  T-R-U-M-P replacing Mickey Mouse. I mean, they have the same number of letters. Disney would probably have a conniption fit.

So there was a lot of yammering but not much in the way of actual information. We do have this video. I got the link from daily timewaster.

The sniper was already watching the shooter. Why didn’t he shoot first! 🤔 pic.twitter.com/Ts72wqdG4t

— GentlemanJack (@xGentleManJack) July 14, 2024

We can hear 5 shots being fired in this video. After the first shot, the rooftop snipers don't seem to be aiming their weapons. Erik Prince posted this in a post on X:

Watching the newsreel one can hear how proximate the shooter is by the very short time lapse between the crack of arriving bullet (supersonic) to the boom of muzzle blast (sonic).  

I dunno about that, sounds like the action cycling on a semi-automatic rifle to me, and as those five shots came within four seconds, I think it very likely it was a semi-auto. 

Full Metal Jacket - Mickey Mouse song
BakotaNiN

This showed up while I was looking for the video at top. This one might be more appropriate.