The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
Looks like we were down for a while. The MySQL database for the blog is stored on my MythTV DVR, and last night it looks like my friend shut it off because she couldn’t stand looking at the light the blue LED was producing while she was trying to sleep on my sofa. I have a perfectly good bed up in the guest room! No flashing and solid blue LEDs up there!
But yeah, in my household, you can take the blog down by turning off the TV :)
It’s a slow blogging day for me. Went to bed early last night, so I didn’t get anything queued up for the morning, and today I have to get some work done at work, so little posting until I get home later tonight. In the mean time, for those joining us, scroll back for Full Auto Day.
I never realized that blog articles could be queued. I hope that’ not revealing a big secret like that episode of The Simpsons where Homer becomes a truck driver and starts revealing the existence of the autodrive system ;)
This will be the concluding post for Full Auto Day. If there’s one thing that I’ve tried to feature in this series, it’s ordinary people having fun shooting machine guns and assault rifles, as happens in various locations around the United States every year. Why does anyone need a machine gun? Because machine guns are really friggin fun! I’ve never seen anyone who wasn’t intrinsically hoplophobic, or recoil shy, shoot a machine gun and not walk away with a big shit eating grin on their face. I’ve shot my friend Jason’s M11 dozens of times, and I still get a big smile on my face every time I send a mag full of 9mm downrange. When I first tried a suppressed H&K MP5 submachine gun, I briefly for a moment considered whether it might be a good idea to sell my car to buy one. Unfortunately, the MP5 wouldn’t be very good at getting me to work, so that idea was quickly abandoned.
So that brings me to the reason that machine gun shooting is becoming increasingly the domain of the privileged few because of the stratospheric prices on registered machine guns.; Congressman William J. Hughes, who, as I nicely added to his Wikipedia Entry, is responsible for banning civilian possession of machine guns not already lawfully registered prior to May 19, 1986, despite there being virtually no history of crime being committed with legally owned machine guns in the United States. Why’d he do it? Because he’s another gun hating asshole from New Jersey (I hope he googles his name and manages to read that too). If you want to see more information, take a look at Dave Hardy’s 1986 Cumberland Law Review article about the FOPA, or Gun Law News’ summary of the FOPA.
Because I’m really wanting to have way more full auto fun than I can currently have, I’m quite eager to be rid of the Hughes Amendment. Unfortunately, the NRA has largely given up on machine guns. As much as I wish they didn’t, the sad truth is current political climate isn’t conductive to accomplishing anything on this ground. Over the next few years we’ll be lucky just to fight off more semi-auto bans. We’re also probably not going to have much luck in the courts in this regard either. So what to do? Well, we have to keep chipping away bit by bit, until we change the political climate to the point where it’s feasible to get rid of it. In the mean time, I think it’s important that we figure out ways to present machine gun ownership and shooting in a positive light to the general public.
But if the Democrats want a fight, we can always do to them what they did to us. If those slippery bastards try to close the “gun show loophole” or other such crap, why not slip a repeal of the Hughes Amendment in right before debate closes, and pass it on a questionable voice vote. It’s a little low, sure, but what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If you can’t defeat a bill, adding a little “f*ck you” amendment is always a nice touch.
Well, I hope everyone liked today’s Full Auto Day. I’ll maybe do special interest features like this in the future. Stay tuned!
I don’t really like commies much, but I sure do love the guns they produced. The Russians learned very quickly at the hands of both the Finns and the Germans how deadly effective submachines guns could be in combat. The Russians needed to develop their own submachine gun pretty quickly, and of a simple enough pattern to be easily manufactured.  Luckily, George Shpagin was able to come up with a design that worked, and worked well.
The PPSh41 is a blowback operated submachine gun that fires from an open bolt. Chambered in 7.62x25mm. It accepts a 34 round box or 71 round drum magaine, and has a cyclic rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute. Earlier models had select fire capability, but later models were full auto only. The model here is showing with the drum mag. The Soviets discovered drum mags were too cumbersome to use, and not reliable enough under combat conditions, so in 1942 they developed a box magazine.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=S5v2x2jbKrU[/youtube]
That’s quite a burst. I believe there are a fair number of these that are transferrable out there.
Can’t find a real AK-47 here to shoot? Â Try Cambodia:
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=0rnFh8UMQIo[/youtube]
You can impress the dudes by already knowing how to handle a Kalashnikov. You can even shoot RPGs for the right price. Just don’t be a chode and blow up a cow, ok?
There hasn’t been a truly innovative 45 caliber submachine gun produced, that can think of, since the Thompson. The folks at Transformational Defense Industries (TDI), have come up with a really novel one, that I just must own, but can’t, thanks to the Hughes Amendment.
Here’s a video of it straight from SHOT 2007:
[googlevideo]-6654700044795906272[/googlevideo]
The Robinson Arms XCR rocking out on full auto:
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gv1-PYTaEIw[/youtube]
Damn you Congressman Hughes! Damn you!
If you only have a couple grand to spend, there are some choices out there for you. In this post I’m featuring my friend Jason’s Cobray M11 9mm machine pistol. He got his a few years ago for $1500 bucks, plus the $200 NFA tax. Prior to 1986, I believe these could be had for $400, plus the $200 NFA tax. Today they are going for more than 3 grand.
I’ve actually shot this particular machine pistol. Compared to an MP5, it’s a little rough to shoot, and difficult to control, but with a little practice you can get pretty decent with it. If you use the metal magazines, and use decent ammunition, it’ll function pretty reliably. With the metal mags inserted, the stock won’t go all the way in like it will with the plastic ones, but the plastic mags don’t tend to be as reliable. Like I mentioned, it’s also finicky about ammunition. We’ve had bad luck with Sellier and Bellot and Wolf. Domestic or quality import works well. The M11 has a high rate of fire, so it empties the magazine quickly. There are kids that can reduce the cyclic rate though, and also kits to convert it to .22LR for cheaper full-auto fun. Here’s Jason shooting the M11:
[googlevideo]-5915823085654945068[/googlevideo]
I have the CM11, which is a semi-auto carbine version of the M11 with a fixed stock. It’s not nearly as much fun to shoot though ;) The CM11 is pretty much the same, except it fires from a closed bolt. The ATF generally won’t approve open bolt designs for semi-autos because of the ease of conversion.
UPDATE: Sorry folks. I didn’t realize the video would autoplay. I changed it to a google video.
The Russian have developed a very novel replacement for the AK74 assault rifle, known as the AN94 Abakan. If there would be any rifle who’s existence makes me want to strangle Congressman Hugues (more about him later), it’s the AN94.
It’s chambered in the same 5.45x39mm round the AK74 fires, but it’s mechanics are totally different than the Kalashnikov. The operating system is called “blowback shifted pulse”. It uses a pulley mechanism, in addition to a standard gas system, to chamber and fire another cartridge for a single stroke of the piston. This allows the AN94 to have a selective rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute, or 1800 rounds per minute. It can also fire semi-automatic, or two shot burst. But the cool thing about the Abakan is that it puts the shots so close together, that the muzzle has no chance to climb before the second shot leaves the barrel. This puts the two rounds so close to each other, that it effectively strikes the same place twice, which is apparently quite effective at defeating body armor. The Abakan has not yet proven itself in combat yet, but just for sheer novelty of the design, I’d love to own one.
Here’s one in action with a Spetsnaz commando.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=9u5n0BSzVt0[/youtube]
On burst mode fire, you can barely distinguish the two shots, but I’m pretty sure this is burst mode fire, because it doesn’t quite sound clean enough for single shot.
No full auto day would be complete without talking about the rifle that set the pattern, giving meaning to the life of we Evil Black Rifle shooters. The Sturmgewehr 44:
The SG44 was the first assault rifle, and the concept was later adopted by the Soviets in the famous and ubiquitous AK-47. Unfortunately for the Germans, and fortunately for us, they weren’t able to produce them in large enough numbers to affect the outcome of the war. The SG44 was originally called the Maschinenpistol 43, but Hitler canceled the project, but the army wanted it badly enough that they saved it by renaming it Sturmgewehr, or “Assault Rifle”. The SG44 fires a medium power version of the German 8mm, the 7.92 ‘Kurz’ round.
Here’s some crappy video of a lucky bloke firing one.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=r1xVQg9suPA[/youtube]
I think if you ever have the opportunity to shoot a rarely encountered piece of history such as this, you should take care to get good video!