Gear

10mm Research

In my continuing research of 10mm defense loads: Let me start this post by pointing out that pistols are a compromise, in that they all suck for self defense. We carry them because it is easier and gets you fewer sideways looks than does carrying a long gun. Better the handgun on your hip than the firearm at home in the safe.

The current 10mm that I have is a full sized M&P10mm and I am unlikely to carry it. I find that I don’t even carry any of my full sized handguns on a regular basis. What I find myself carrying most often is a J frame .38 or a Shield Plus in 9mm. Still, buying and shooting guns is fun, so what the hell?

Even though I won’t carry it much, I always keep plenty of magazines and ammo on hand for every firearm. Five magazines for every pistol is the minimum I am comfortable with. For ammo, the minimum is 500 rounds for semi auto handguns, 100 rounds for revolvers, and 1000 rounds for semi-auto rifles of “war shots” that I like to keep on hand. That doesn’t count whatever range ammo that I have.

Of course I am going to research this, because it’s what I do. See the months of research I did before going with solar as a backup power system.

In looking at defensive ammo, the most important criteria is that it functions well in my firearm. It needs to go bang every time I intend it to. I will accept no more than one failure for every 500 rounds. (That’s why I no longer carry and have sold most of my 1911’s. They jam far too often. See this post here about the suckage that was my experiment with that platform.) Going along with that, the ammo must also be somewhat accurate for my handgun. That means passing a 5×5 test- I have to be able to put 5 rounds into a 5 inch circle at 5 yards in 5 seconds or less while drawing from a holster. I would rather hit with a .22 than miss with a .44.

The next criteria is that it has solid performance. There is no point in reinventing the wheel- I use the FBI criteria that states a bullet should penetrate between 12 and 18 inches of ballistic gelatin and a bullet that expands to at least 1.5 times its diameter. With handguns being poor performers, I want to maximize what performance I *do* get, so I try to only buy and stock ammo that meets this standard. I expected that my research will find more full power 10mm that goes beyond the 18 inches than falls short.

In 1983, Whit Collins, John Adams, Irving Stone, and Jeff Cooper worked with Norma AB to design the 10mm Automatic cartridge. Their goal was to create the a handgun cartridge that fired a heavier and larger caliber bullet than the 9mm Luger at a higher velocity and magazine capacity than the .45 ACP. This would create a handgun cartridge that combined the best of both platforms.

They did this by cutting a .30 Remington case down and loading it with .40 caliber bullets from the .38-40 Winchester. they not only achieved that objective but exceeded it by a healthy margin. The original 10mm Auto load shot a 200 grain projectile at 1,200 feet per second for 640 ft-lbs of muzzle energy, which was a significant step up in performance compared to the 9mm Luger and the .45 ACP. The new round nearly doubled the energy of the 9mm Parabellum and off the shelf .45 ACP ammunition.

Dornaus & Dixon Enterprises worked in parallel with Jeff Cooper and the rest of the 10mm Auto team to build a handgun designed specifically to shoot the new cartridge: the Bren Ten pistol. Similar in appearance to the CZ-75, Sonny Crockett in the television show Miami Vice helped make the Bren Ten famous. For this reason, demand for the pistol and the cartridge exploded in the mid-1980s. Unfortunately, the Bren Ten was rushed into production and the pistol’s reputation suffered due to early issues with reliability, quality control, and a shortage of magazines. The company was never quite able to regain its footing after those initial missteps and declared bankruptcy in 1986 after only making 1500 of the pistols. Shortly after the passing of the Bren Ten, Colt rolled out a Model 1911 modified to use the cartridge that they named the Delta Elite. 

Then came a fateful day in US law enforcement. The 10mm Auto piqued the interest of the FBI during their search for a more powerful service round in the aftermath of the disastrous 1986 shootout with two bank robbers in Miami.

The FBI liked the 10mm and originally wanted to switch to that platform, but the fact that they had a lot of limp wristed agents who were recoil sensitive, they wanted something with less recoil. The FBI test report on the cartridge was apparently labeled:

CAUTION: Velocities, pressures and recoil are extreme, vary greatly, and damage weapons with extended use. Control for multiple shots extremely difficult.

They downloaded the 10mm to reduce power by about 30% and issued a request for handgun makers to bid on a new cartridge/handgun combination for FBI use. This loading became known as the “10mm FBI load.” This load was several hundred feet per second slower than the original 10mm Auto, but the FBI was still satisfied with its penetration and terminal performance.  The winner of this competition would get a lucrative contract to supply most of US law enforcement.

Enter Smith and Wesson. They developed a cartridge that was shorter than the 10mm and met the FBI standard, and the .40 S&W was born. Derisively, it is said that S&W in this case stands for “Short and Weak.” Many of the advantages of the powerful 10mm cartridge disappeared with this downloaded cartridge. Instead of getting all of the combined advantages of the 9mm and .45ACP, you got none of them. That’s why the .40S&W has largely fallen out of favor- there is no advantage of having it.

To be completely honest, I own several .40S&W pistols, but I can’t remember the last time I carried or even shot one of them. Less capacity and slower bullets than a 9mm, lighter bullets than a .45ACP. What’s nice is that I can swap a barrel and change my S&W40 to .357Sig or 9mm.

I don’t want to simply buy 10mm ammo that is loaded to 40 caliber specs. If I wanted to do that, I would just carry one of my 40 calibers. I was looking for an ammo manufacturer that was loading ammo that really took advantage of the 10mm cartridge. After some searching, I like Underwood ammo as well as Fenix ammunition. Both of them are loading to the full 10mm capabilities. Buffalo Bore does as well, but their bullets are overpenetrating and seem better for large animals than for self defense.

Fenix makes one self defense loading for 10mm, and that is a 180 grain JHP moving along at 1250 feet per second, giving us a muzzle energy of 624 foot pounds. They are currently out of stock, so let’s look at our next contestant.

Underwood has quite a few loadings for 10mm. I selected the Tools & Targets YouTube channel because the guy clearly loves his 10mm and does a decent job in testing the bullets he looks at. The loadings that I am most interested in:

200 grain XTP moving along at 1250 feet per second with 694 ft/lb of energy. This round got 1100 fps out of that 4.6 inch barrel, delivering 537 ft/lb. The bullet penetrated 24 inches. That velocity isn’t great, but it’s the overpenetration that concerns me. Any energy that the bullet has when it leaves the backside of your target is wasted energy.

180 grain XTP at 1300 feet per second and 676 ft/lb. This channel saw the ammo come in right at 1242 fps for 616 ft/lb from a 4.6 inch barrel. He got a full 16 inches of penetration with the bullets retaining 150-179 grains of their mass, even though they expanded to more than .640 inches in diameter. Impressive performance.

155 grain XTP at 1500 feet per second and 775 ft/lb. The guy in this video found that it hit 1500 fps from a 4.6 inch barrel, just like the box claimed. That means it was right about 800 foot pounds of energy. The bullet gave 12.5″ to 13″ of penetration, with or without the clothing barrier.

135 grain JHP at 1600 feet per second and 768 ft/lb. The guy here got an average of about 1450 feet per second out of a 4.6 inch barrel. The wound cavity looks great, but it is only penetrating to 12.25″ and I just don’t see me wanting to use this one. I think the combination of slower than advertised speed along with the Nosler hollow point means suboptimal performance.

Overall, it looks like I will be selecting the Underwood 180 grain XTP for our initial reliability testing. I will order some, and once the reflex sight comes in, we will take a couple of hundred rounds to the range and see how it works. At $1.25 a round, it is actually cheaper than Gold Dots ($1.75) or Hornady Critical Duty ammo ($1.50). I just ordered 500 rounds for testing. If that round doesn’t work out, I will try the 155gr loading.

The disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.

By Divemedic, ago

Drone

This prepping topic is on security. Being able to keep an eye on your surroundings is a great way to assist in the security of your area. Not only can you quickly determine if a threat to your physical security is approaching, you need to be able to scout in advance of any movement that you are making, look at areas that may be hazardous (like flooded areas) and other things you may want to see at a distance.

One of the keys to security is not letting opponents surprise you. A person who is prepared needs to be familiar with the area where they live, and be able to monitor that area for the appearance of those who would endanger their safety. You never want an opponent to surprise you. Watching events, it is becoming obvious that a drone is a huge multiplier by allowing you to keep an eye on large areas of the territory surrounding your shelter, so I decided to get one.

Apparently, a 20 year old was able to thwart the Secret Service by using a drone, while the SS drone was not able to fly because of “connectivity issues.”

The drone I selected is a DJI Mini 4k. There are more capable drones out there, but the large advantage with this drone is that , at less than 249g, the drone is light enough that it doesn’t need to be registered with the government in order to be legal, and we all know that I am not registering shit. I got it as a Prime day deal for less than $400. That deal included the drone, three batteries, and the charger.

It was easy to fly, and I took it up for its first flight after watching the below video. I am posting it here, cued up to some elevated footage, so you can see how clear the video is.

The only thing different with mine is that I have it set for Imperial instead of metric units, and the lower left corner is a Google maps kind of display that shows you where the drone is on a map. I have found the drone to be intuitive and easy to fly. I have been taking it easy because I don’t want to lose it, but on the two days I have flown it, it has gone as high as 250 feet and flown as far away as 1,000 yards. The drone reaches a top speed of 20 mph, and the battery gives about 30 minutes of flight time. Following the rule of thirds (one third to go out, one third to return, and a third for contingency) that means the drone has the endurance to go out about 3 miles. I’m not yet comfortable flying it that far.

It’s capable of operating in winds of up to 15 miles per hour, but I won’t fly it in winds that high.

I recommend that you find your own drone to keep an eye on the area.

The disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.

By Divemedic, ago

Hot Safe, Cold Safe, Caching, Staging

I recently modified my gun safe from a digital lock to a manual combination lock. This will ensure that no one has a back door code to get into my safe. The downside to this is that the mechanical lock is a great deal slower dial in than simply typing in a combination, and the lock is harder to manipulate in the dark, meaning it’s more difficult to enter my safe in a hurry. Additionally, my gun safe is quite large and won’t fit in my bedroom closet without the wife getting pissed at the loss of storage space.

We are moving to another house (under construction) within the next few months. Now is a great time to consider how to meet security storage needs. How can I store firearms to protect them from a diverse set of threats while still making firearms accessible for access in the event of a break-in?

I have been looking at my options, and I think that I have the answer. See the title above for that. My large gun safe will be the “cold safe” and is located on the other side of the house from the bedroom- in the man cave.

The “hot safe” will be in the master suite, and will contain loaded firearms available for fast access. It will likely be an electronic one with a fingerprint lock. I am looking at a Vaultek RS 500i for that. Fast access, and secure enough against most thieves. Even if it IS compromised with a backdoor, I won’t lose but a gun or two. The bonus is that it is only 14 inches wide, so it will not steal much room from the suite, but it can simultaneously hold a shotgun, a couple of ARs, and 2 or 3 pistols, all with magazines and ammo. This allows for EDC to be locked away and also means I won’t have far to go for heavier weapons than my bedside handgun.

For staging, I already have the means for securely keeping a handgun and a long gun in my truck, along with a couple of hundred rounds of ammo. All of it secure, unobtrusive, and out of sight, while still being readily accessible.

For caching, we all need to give thought into a weapons cache or two. Put a couple of off paper firearms in each cache. Say, a handgun, a cheap AR, some ammo and a few magazines. All sterilized of fingerprints and any other means of tracing back to you.

By Divemedic, ago

Gun Safes

So I have been looking into some solutions for quality gun safes. The good ones are not cheap, but I am sitting here trying to figure out what I want to do. Many of us keep things other than guns in our safe- things like PMs, documents, etc. Let’s say that you have 25 ounces of silver, 2 ounces of gold, 10 rifles, 2 shotguns, and 5 handguns. That means you easily have $15-40 thousand dollars worth of stuff locked in that safe- and that isn’t even a large collection. The PMs in such a case are worth almost $5,000, before you even begin talking about guns. A good safe is expensive, but can be a lifesaver.

I personally know someone who has far more in his safe than that. He owns a couple of machine guns, and we all know how much those are worth.

In my case, I have a shotgun that was owned by my great grandfather, and it has been in my family for over a century: A Parker Brothers Trojan 20 gauge shotgun, and that gun is worth quite a bit by itself, not to mention the sentimental value.

Since we are about to move, this is a good time to think about getting a new safe. With all of the news about data breaches, I just don’t trust companies to keep data safe. Imagine what a target a safe company’s data is: the get the company’s sales records, which include the safe model number, your name, email address, physical address, and the code/combo needed to open your safe. So any thief now knows that you have a safe, your address, and the combination. Sound like a problem to you? OR does it sound paranoid and far fetched? If a company like LastPass, Norton’s Life Lock, or a major bank can be compromised, so can a safe company. The fewer people who know what my combination is, the better off I am.

I will avoid Liberty for one basic reason- they have shown that they care more for making the government happy than they do about safeguarding their consumers’ confidential information. They sold out one owner, they will sell out others. That goes for any other company that is in possession of the combination for my safe.

I looked at lots of different websites for safes over the past few days. I had a few criteria:

  • Any safe that doesn’t come with a mechanical lock was eliminated. There is just no way to ensure that no one else had a backdoor code that could be compromised.
  • The mechanical lock had to be consumer changeable without voiding the warranty, to eliminate the possibility of a locksmith having the combination. Now I can be sure that my wife and I are the only ones with the combination.
  • There had to be a diamond steel drill plate, to make the safe resistant to drilling out the lock.
  • There had to be some sort of quality relocker, so tampering with the lock mechanism would lock the safe.
  • The locking bolts had to all be live bolts, meaning that they all move in and out to secure the door.
  • It had to have at least a 90 minute fire rating.
  • The manufacturer has to have a dealer within 100 miles of my house.

Those criteria eliminated all of the most common gun safes: Winchester, Liberty, Fort Knox, and all of the other ones that you commonly see in stores. There was one manufacturer that met all of my criteria, and that was the Champion Safe Company. Two of their product lines look good: Champion, and Superior. I’m really intrigued by the Champion Triumph line.

The 50 cubic foot model has dimensions of 42″ x 72.25″ x 30.5″ and the walls are made of 10 gauge steel on the outside and 12 gauge steel inside. It will hold up to 58 long guns, and will be difficult to steal once the 1200 pound safe is bolted to the floor with some hefty hardware. The downside is that this safe costs $6800. However, as I said before, it is cheaper than getting your valuables stolen.

No safe is impenetrable, but I want mine to be difficult enough to get into that it will prevent all but the most well equipped thieves to get into that safe. I am going to take a good, hard look at this safe for my next purchase.

Now, the disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.

By Divemedic, ago

Thanks to Big Country

He pointed me to the MTM tactical magazine cases. I got one as a test, and I can say that they are actually pretty good. It has a double latch, three holes for padlocking the case, and enough room to hold fifteen of the 30 round .223 magazines.

It fits Pmags and HexMags just fine. I will be getting more of them.

I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.

By Divemedic, ago

Magazine Storage

One of the big downsides to having a few firearms is that you tend to accumulate various items: holsters and magazines being the two that take up the most room. I literally have hundreds of magazines in the house, all for various firearm makes and models. Some are compatible with more than one firearm. (.40S&W magazines are compatible with .357Sig, S&P 9mm magazines are compatible 9mm Compact magazines, etc.)

I was keeping the unloaded ones in large Rubber Maid totes, but looking for the magazine you need is a large pain in the, well Rubber Maid tote. So I began looking for an answer, and it didn’t take me long to find one. I bought some foam rubber holders that fit into a .50cal ammo can for handgun magazines . I decided to try them out. Four of them cost me $62.

You number your mags too, right?

These holders allow you to store 24 magazines in each ammo can. That means I can have a can with just Smith and Wesson full sized 9mm magazines, another with .40 and .357 magazines, etc. Now four ammo cans take up the same amount of room as one Rubber Maid tote, and hold 96 magazines in a way that makes it easy to find the one you are looking for. The cans that I have are lockable, so that allows me an extra layer of security.

The downside is that the things aren’t as rugged as I would like, and lots of use will probably tear them up. Still, it’s better than what I had. If I didn’t already have the cans, I would look at buying cans that come with the pluck n’ pick foam already in them. It’s cheaper that way.

Now I need some storage for rifle magazines and for the large number of holsters that are sitting around here.

Now, the disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.

By Divemedic, ago

SB Tactical Gets Pwned

A company that makes pistol braces gets its customer database breached. There are four possibilities here:

  1. ATF was doing a little illegal sneak and peek so they know whose dogs to shoot
  2. ATF had one of their partner informants do it for them
  3. A freelance SJW is planning on outing everyone
  4. Criminals are just doing what they do

I am betting that the incident is either 2, above. Some lefty is going to anonymously notify the ATF that they have a list of lawbreaking owners of SBRs. Since the new rule outlawing unregistered pistol braces was published today, you have 120 days to register your (now) SBR or become a felon. Isn’t that a sweet little coincidence?

The miscreants got away with each user’s credit card number, expiration date, CCV code, cardholder name, address, phone number, and email address. If you have ever done business with SB tactical, you should consider all of that information as being compromised and in the possession of people who mean to steal your money, your life, or your freedom.

We know that the feds are now enlisting people in the private sector to do their unconstitutional dirty work. It can’t be too much longer before the informers are everywhere and people become vzyali.

On a side note, as of today I will no longer be in possession of a pistol brace equipped firearm. I am not registering shit.

By Divemedic, ago

Body Armor

I own several types and brands of body armor. Each has advantages and disadvantages. I will summarize them below.

Back in 2018, I bought some body armor for my wife and me. Since we were working as teachers, I got a set for each of us to keep in the classroom. The vests that I bought are made by Bulletsafe. The vests that I got are the Level IIIA vests, cost $300. I found them to be too bulky to wear concealed. With the trauma plates, the vests are upgraded to Level IV, but they are quite heavy when worn that way. My wife’s vest is still in her classroom. Since I no longer teach, my vest is next to the bed with the home defense gun and a set of electronic hearing protection. If I need to clear the house, having a Level IV vest on is a great idea, and the weight isn’t a concern since I won’t be wearing it for long. The company was OK, with the first vest and plate coming on time, but the plate for the second vest wasn’t delivered after two months. I originally cancelled the order, but the company made it right. It looks like they were just too successful and were having trouble filling the large numbers of orders they had. I’ve worn this set a couple of times to clear the house, and twice while I was teaching when we went on lockdown. Mine has a FAK and a couple of velcro tags on it that indicate my blood type and say “Paramedic” on them. One problem that I have with this product is that it covers the shoulder and makes shouldering a long gun kind of difficult.

Fast forward to 2020, and I placed orders for two more sets of armor. The first was a Testudo Gen2 carrier and a set of Level III+ steel plates from AR500. I also put a set of pouches on it that can hold five 30 round AR magazines, a full sized handgun with two magazines, a first aid kit, an accessory pouch, and another pouch that will hold two smoke grenades. (Yes, I have smoke grenades) Delivery was actually faster than the quoted 8 weeks and cost me about $500. One thing: I bought my own pouches elsewhere, as it was cheaper. Even so, at 25 pounds (with armor, handgun, and other gear) that loadout is as heavy as I can wear in Florida’s summer heat without being uncomfortable. Toss in an AR, and I am toting about 35 pounds of gear. I would recommend (if you have the cash) that you spend the extra for the lighter plates to reduce weight. That will save you about seven pounds, but will cost another $500 or so. This vest is my Antifa emergency loadout and I haven’t worn it other than to see how it fit and how heavy it felt. The good and bad of this setup is that it only covers the vital organs. This leaves the shoulders unprotected but allows long guns to be comfortably shouldered.

The last experience I had with armor was the most promising, but was the worst of them. The company was called Bulletproof Everyone. A concealable Level II vest, it looked interesting:

The product was less than ideal. It was just a sweatshirt with pockets for the soft plates sewn into it. It is obvious that it contains body armor. It smelled like chemical scented ass and took months to get delivered. Even though it was only $350, I expected a better product. The first vest I got didn’t fit even though I measured. After some complaints and a call to the company’s owner, I got one that fit properly, but as you can tell, I wasn’t impressed. I don’t think I have ever worn it other than to check fit.

So that is my experience with armor.

By Divemedic, ago

InReach

I just came across this handy little gadget, and I can’t believe I had not seen it sooner. We talked about emergency communications the other day, and this product line from Garmin looks pretty amazing. It is a GPS device with built in satellite communications. That is some Star Trek communicator shit right there.

The equipment allows you to send your location, an SOS, and even two way text messages via satellite. The only real drawback is cost. There is a monthly subscription fee that ranges from $15 up. The devices themselves cost between $300 and $600. Steep.

I’m telling you that if I regularly travelled far outside of cell range, this would be a sure thing. As it is, I am not sure I can justify the cost for my travel habits now, but if I were still doing the offshore boating or backcountry hiking thing, I would already have one.

I know this post reads like a commercial, but it isn’t. As usual, I accept no advertising. I just occasionally come across products that I think are interesting and would be of value to my readers. I have no relationship with Garmin or Amazon, other than being a customer. In this case, I don’t even own this product, although I am really thinking about it.

By Divemedic, ago

The Latest

The forecast seems to be changing every time there is another update, but this is what I know for now:

  • There is a 90 percent chance of 40 mile per hour sustained winds at my location.
  • Likewise, a 50 percent chance of 50 mile per hour winds
  • A 25% chance of 75 mile per hour winds
  • And a 10 percent chance of sustained winds of over 90 miles per hour
  • Gusts would be higher

Now all homes in Florida built in the past 25 years are supposed to be able to withstand winds of up to 110 miles per hour. I will say that I felt like the winds being reported by the NWS were grossly overstated, so I bought a personal weather station. I guess we will be getting a chance to test that out.

We are also being told to expect up to 14 inches of rain. We average 60 inches of rain in a year, so we are getting three months’ rain in three days. That means flooding. Our house is on high ground, so I think we should be OK.

My biggest concern is having the power be out for several days. I have an 8KW genny and a bunch of fuel, so I should be OK. We are working on building a new house about 30 minutes south of here, and it will have a 24KW propane or natural gas fueled backup, but for now 8KW gasoline is all I have.

The nasty weather is supposed to begin before lunchtime tomorrow. My checklist is complete with the exception of shutting down the NAS, buying some subs from Publix, and doing a final check on comms.

My mobile and handheld radios are all good, I just need to check the main radio set. It’s a nice one, a Yaesu FT-897 with an interface to allow digital and voice communication. I have two antennas mounted in the attic, a dual band for VHF, and the second is a G5RV wire antenna for HF. At 52 feet long, it stretches most of the way across the house, but this antenna allows me to transmit in all bands from 10 meters down to 40 meters.

As soon as the wife gets home from work, we will head out to dinner and Publix, then settle in for the night. I still don’t know for sure what my work schedule will be. For now, I am scheduled to work 9-9 tomorrow, but that may change.

It’s 1415 on 9/27, and it just began raining.

By Divemedic, ago