I saw this story in the New York Times and was amazed that there was a prepper movement that I hadn’t heard of, that it appears to be centered on Central Florida, and also that a branch of the MSM would do a positive story about prepping.
I wonder how many Feds are associated with the two groups in the story. Remember, the Fed is the one urging you to do something illegal.
When it comes to the gun world, there are few things that cause disagreements more often than brand wars. I have said before, and I continue to say that there is no such thing as a brand that is perfect for everyone. There are, in my opinion, models or even brands that are too unreliable to be good for anyone.
The angle of a handgun’s grip to the plane of the barrel can vary from the 55 degrees of the Luger P08, to the 18 degrees of the 1911 and Smith and Wesson’s M&P autoloaders, or even 17 degrees of the old Ruger P95. Glocks have a grip angle of 22.5 degrees. Each person will have an opinion as to which one fits their and and shooting style.
Whichever grip angle is right for you will see the pistol pointing at the target without any conscious effort on your part. Here is how to check yours:
If all your pistols have about the same grip angle, you won’t have to adjust your aim when switching pistols. That is why all of my carry handguns are of the M&P line. You will get the same results if all of your carry pistols are Glocks, or Springfield, etc. As log as your grip angle is consistent, you can change handguns without a problem. If you change to a new grip angle, you can figure about 1,000 rounds to adjust to the new one. Pick a grip angle you are OK with and stick with it.
Another thing that matters is bore axis. The bore axis is the distance between the top of the shooter’s gripping hand and the center of the barrel. In a pistol with a hammer, this distance can be quite large.
Note that the line of where the gripping hand is is located quite a bit below the center of the barrel. This forms a lever, with the fulcrum being where the web of the thumb grips the backstrap of the pistol, and the force being applied down the center of the barrel. This force causes two types of recoil- backwards through the barrel, and a bit of muzzle flip. The larger the bore axis, the more pronounced the muzzle flip. The greater the muzzle flip, the more time it takes to get your sights back on the target for a follow up shot. For most people, this won’t really be noticeable beyond a perceived increase in recoil.
The bore axis for the following handguns is:
As a general rule, striker fired pistols will have a lower bore axis than do pistols with a hammer, because the fire control group of a striker fired pistol takes up less room.
I have large hands and a pretty good grip strength. That means I can handle full powered handguns and double stack magazines. Not everyone funds this comfortable. Make sure that the grip of the firearm fits your hand. and easy way to do that is see if you can push in the magazine release with your gripping hand’s thumb without shifting your grip. If you can’t, that particular handgun may be to fat for your hand.
Another consideration is grip length. If you are gripping the handgun and your pinky finger is hanging in the breeze, maybe your hand is too large for that pistol. One solution is an extended magazine with a boot on it, like the ones they have on the Taurus Millenium.
There is a lot that goes into handgun design- the grip angle, the bore axis, the size and power of the cartridge, the weight of the handgun, and many other factors go into the perceived recoil, accuracy, and the speed of follow up shots. Combine that with the ergonomics, style, and skill of each shooter, and the interplay makes a virtual unlimited number of possible combinations, making a determination of the “best” pistol impossible.
If you don’t yet have a handgun, find a gun range that rents firearms. See if a gun owning friend will take you to the range and let you shoot a few of his guns. In short, don’t let someone else tell you what gun you should buy. The only things that should matter are:
I have seen far too many gun store employees try to sell people guns that are obviously not right for them. For example, selling a small woman a tiny pink colored .357 magnum. Don’t let someone else tell you what you like and what you need. You are the only one who can determine that. Others can only guide you there, but at the end of the day, it is your decision to make.
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.
This is a great video of a police shooting from February 2023. Police responded to a local bar for a reported domestic violence incident as well as a hit and run. When the officer arrived, the female victim pointed out her assailant, who wound up being her boyfriend. I won’t describe what happened next, you can see it for yourself. I do marvel at how every shooting video seems to have a screaming woman in it. Righteous shoot, in my opinion.
The idiot tried drawing on a person who already had him at gunpoint. The cop dumped 10 rounds into him, moved to an area of semi-cover behind a vehicle, then executed a tactical reload, all while keeping the guy in his sight. Great tactics.
It’s Sunday, and I haven’t have a lot of time to research or write. It’s been a busy week at work, and the grandkids are spending the weekend. Take a look at this lesson on how to use a compass, which is a skill that many of us have either forgotten or never learned.
There are morons on the Internet who are claiming the shooting of the CEO of UnitedHealth was self defense, because it is violence to refuse to pay for medical expenses.
These morons are claiming that New York, the state that just tried to prosecute Daniel Penny for holding a man down, authorizes you to shoot someone in the back if they are in charge of a company that won’t pay for your health care.
The claim here is actually a scary one. The left wants to use force against anyone who does anything that they don’t like. Remember that they thing speech is violence. They thing refusing to use their preferred pronouns is violence. They think refusing to give them anything that they want is violence.
This is the attitude that makes a Civil War inevitable.
One of the questions we hear all of the time is “Why don’t you just carry a Taser? You don’t need a gun unless you want to kill someone.”
Today’s video is from Blount County, Tennessee. This happened in February of this year, and it is a video of a guy who was pulled over for DUI. You can see from the video that he was swerving all over the road, so a deputy initiated a traffic stop. He refused to get out of the car, claiming that the stop was only because he is black.
Once backup arrived, he continued to refuse to the point that a Taser was deployed several times. In the course of this, the primary deputy was shocked with the Taser. She stepped back, and with her out of the way, the suspect shot and killed the Deputy holding the Taser before getting away.
You can watch the video here, where it is cued up to the last Taser deployment. Because it contains a shooting with a fatality, Youtube will not allow it to be embedded.
Note that the Taser was being actively used and the critter managed to reach a firearm, shoot one deputy in the head and the other in the leg. This is the prime reason why Tasers are useless as self defense weapons. Carry a gun. Don’t bet your life on less lethal tools.
The fine young aspiring rapper who killed the cop was eventually caught after a massive manhunt and is now facing the death penalty. When he was arrested, he told the cop who was taking him to jail, “You black. You allowin’ this?” He is a convicted felon with a long history of committing violent crimes. As a result, he can’t legally possess a firearm or ammunition, but he does anyhow. Why? It’s his culture.
For too many blacks, it isn’t about right and wrong. It’s about race. If you are black, you can do no wrong. If you are white, you are evil. For them, it is a race war.
Look at the Change.org petition for him.
The charge is 1st Degree Murder, premeditated. There is an entire community of citizens that believe this charge is fueled by racism and hate…
It is unclear why Officers Eggers refuses this request of K9 and acts upon the excessive force of multiple taser deployments. Leading up to a firearm being discharged. He acted in self-defense, maybe even a state of shock and cannot be tried for first-degree murder/premeditated murder.
He is on video shooting two cops and killing one of them. It isn’t self defense. He was illegally carrying a firearm because he is a violent criminal.
He isn’t, as the petition claims, an upstanding member of the community. At 42 years old, he had already been in prison multiple times for aggravated assault, domestic violence, and a multitude of other violent crimes.
Today’s video is of a police involved shooting in Salmon Creek, Washington that occurred in April of this year. I can’t embed the video because it shows someone getting shot, and Youtube won’t allow it. Watch it here.
The guy is a suspect in at least two armed carjackings from the previous 24 hours. He and a female had robbed one man of his vehicle at gunpoint, and were also suspected of having done the same thing a couple of hours before.
I don’t think that they shot him soon enough. When they initially confronted him in the parking lot, they saw that he was armed with a handgun. After that, he ran into a crowded building. I believe that they should have shot him as soon as he brandished his handgun. The chances of a bystander getting hit in that crowded building were unacceptably high, in my opinion.
My second issue with this video is they were chasing a man that they knew to be armed, yet no one showed up with a long gun until the US Marshalls appear at the end of the video, more than 3 minutes after shots were fired.
The dead critter’s accomplice was arrested and is awaiting trial. She was caught after a homeowner found her in his garage. This is why I never investigate odd noises in my house unless I am armed.
Miguel posts over at his place that Tennessee is having trouble with Venezuelan gangs. It’s becoming more and more obvious that the left is allowing this because they are going to use the gangs as their foot soldiers. Remember that the left began turning illegal immigrants into police officers in 2023 or so.
This is right out of the CIA insurgency manual, which has been followed by the left since at least 2019. The plan is to make people distrust the government so that they can replace it with their own, alternative, government. You know, the alternative that they have created.
The police cannot, or perhaps will not, do anything to stop this. Things will eventually get sporty.
So we are left to begin planning our own counter. The only answer is obvious. Things are getting closer and closer to ‘going hot.’ Be prepared to setup sniper positions, where a pair of shooters can act as a sniper team to take out gang members from a couple of hundred yards away before departing the area. A shot from 300 yards away with a suppressed .308 should be enough to stymie them while giving you time to GTFO of Dodge. A .308 rifle zeroed for 200 yards will shoot 2.5 inches high at 100 yards, 9 inches low at 300 yards, and about 24 inches low at 400 yards. If you aim at the top of the forehead, you should reliably get ‘A zone’ hits out to 430 yards or so, when your drop is about 32 inches. With a suppressor, you lose a bit, call it 30 inches at 400 yards. Even the slowest .308 rounds are still moving at around 1300 fps at 300 yards, resulting in about 550 foot pounds of energy at that range. Of course, this is based on your particular ammo and your particular barrel, but the above is close enough for Kentucky windage.
Other tactics could include true camouflage. I am not talking about the idiotic dressing like a tree in the middle of an urban environment that SWAT teams do. That is some ridiculous shit. The entire idea of camo is to not be noticed. In an urban environment, blending into the background means looking like people who won’t be noticed, not like SEAL team 6. No, an ambush team that has a spotter dressed as a homeless bum would be better for blending in. Who even looks at, much less notices, a homeless druggie? Three people dressed as drug users with cheap Baofeng radios can act as lookouts on 3 of your 4 sides, leaving the ambush team to worry about the kill zone (your 4th side).
Start learning the basics of ambushes. Thing about how you will need to take the fight to the enemy. It’s coming. Plan for it now.
I don’t and never have worn a MAGA hat. However, if I ever DID decide to do so, and some lefty asshat decided to begin punching me in the mouth over his sudden attack of TDS, he would discover that I can and will ventilate his chest cavity multiple times.
A hat isn’t worth killing over, but it isn’t worth dying over, either. Remember that a blow to the head can, and frequently does, kill.