Every year I announce my firearms training schedule to the
people I work with. I’m often very
surprised by the people who want to know more but aren’t interested in actual
training. Most of the time all the
questions that could be resolved, or at least clarified, by a visit to the range
are asked after the northeast Ohio outdoor shooting season comes to a screeching
halt. This year’s Christmas party was no
different.
Sometimes you realize that all some people want is your
blessing to confirm what they want to do is tactically sound, practical and
will not land them in jail. These ideas,
in my experience, are seldom correct and often impossible to dispel. In some cases all I want to do is change the
subject as not to be connected with some scheme.
So when the conversation wound down to their proposed plan that
she would use a sawed off shotgun loaded with buck shot, I just wanted to
change the subject. I knew this wasn’t
the time to discuss stopping power or the legal and civil liability problems
with using an illegal weapon.
I took the coward’s way out and asked her if she thought she
could shoot someone. Several adult
beverages changed “I don’t know if I could shoot someone” to “I’ll shoot anyone
in my home who threatens me. I’ll empty
the gun into’ em.” This despite the fact
she wasn’t sure about how to load a revolver, which is how I got into this
wacky conversation. It was an
interesting and scary look into the mind of the untrained gun owner.
Last weekend also found me I with a table of knives at a gun
show and I overheard a transaction at the table next to mine. Table owner was selling an IverJohnson .32 caliber revolver to an older gentleman accompanied by his son. These guns can be over 100 years old and the
buyer was warned about shooting modern ammunition this gun.
I thought that was very nice of the seller. You can shoot these revolvers with thin wall
chambers from the late 1890s if:
- You’re crazy;
- You’re desperate;
- You’ve got the low pressure ammunition which was designed for that gun.
The son assured the seller that dad wasn’t going to shoot
the gun, but shortly after the two of them walked off dad slipped back and
asked the seller where he could by ammo for the gun. The seller smartly claimed ignorance.
As Cassius said, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves....”
I’ve
recently seen an abundance of SS109 both as reloading components and complete
cartridges. I’m surprised at this; many
ranges forbid the use of steel core SS109 penetrator rounds for several good
reasons. They can bounce back from hard
targets and injure the shooter or other people on the firing line. They also have the potential to damage steel
targets.
 |
| Stolen from AR15.com posted by PD shooter in 2006. The left, if I understood the notes is an impact from SS109 while the right is Wolf steel jacket I don't have any information on the actual steel.
So I
was wondering if the survivalists, doomsday prepers and followers of the Mayan
calendar were preparing to duke it out with post-apocalyptic Mad Max armored survivors. Never mind that they would be someone else’s
Mad Max armored survivors. Such a demand
for SS109s would be noticed by manufacturers, who would flood the market. It’s just simple demand and supply economics.
|
The big
ammo sellers report they haven’t seen an up-tick in SS109 sales. They did volunteer that bulk sales, in
general, are down. Their reasons fall
into two possible alternatives.
One. The bulk ammo market is saturated. Too many shooters are waking up and wondering
what to do with 50 thousand rounds of some caliber they don’t have a gun for.
Two. It's political, of course. Everyone is worried about what will happen in
January 2014 under Obamacare. As a
result, they are slipping that extra cash aside in case they have to purchase
health insurance. Uncertain times do
reduce unnecessary spending.
Is
there a tactical content here?
Probably
not.
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