Guns – Page 1130 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Windex Is Better

I’ve always heard for shooting corrosive ammo, the best thing to use for cleaning is soap and water. Straightarrow suggested ammonia solutions. Others have suggested Windex. After shooting the AK-74 in Texas, I tried Windex, and had no rust spots on the firearm. A few days ago I tried soapy water, and found the results to be less than pleasing, with rust splotches on the flash hider and in the gas tube. Windex would seem to win hands down.

But I doubt Windex is effective because of the ammonia. I think it has more to do with the fact that Windex has much more effective surfactants in it than plain soapy water. The ammonia is immaterial, other than its power as a detergent, which can be explained by the chemistry in the primers.

Corrosive primers contain mercury fulminate, which is strike sensitive, and an amalgam of potassium chlorate as an oxidizing agent, and rosin as a binding agent and fuel. The mercury fulminate gets the reaction going when the primer is struck by the firing pin, and gets hammered against the “anvil”. The potassium chlorate and rosin begin reacting violently to create a jet of hot, burning gas which then ignites the main powder charge. The problem with this reaction is that one of the byproducts is potassium chloride, which ends up on metal surfaces and attracts moisture, which quickly starts the corrosion process. The purpose of using warm water is to dissolve the potassium chloride, and wash it off of the gun. I suspect Windex works well because it has surfactants that will dig into the powder residue, get to the surfaces, and help wash away more of the potassium salt.

Another by product of of the primer reaction is elemental mercury, which can form amalgams with brass. If you ever wondered why the Soviets use steel cased ammo, this is one of the reasons. Over time, mercuric primers can leech enough mercury into the casing to weaken the brass, increasing the risk of rupture when it’s fires. Using steel casings minimizes this risk, even with very old ammunition.

Modern non-corrosive primers use lead syphnate, which doesn’t leave moisture attracting salts. The lead syphnate is bound up with ground glass as a frictionator, tetracene as a sensitizer, along with an oxidizing compound, typically barium nitrate, and a fuel source, such as antimony sulfide.

Non-corrosive primers are more prone to degradation than corrosive primers, in large part because tetracene makes the primer a lot more heat sensitive. There have been a lot of advancements in primer technology lately, particularly with non-toxic primers, and I won’t pretend to be an expert on this.

But I will say that Windex is definitely your friend if you shoot corrosive primed surplus ammunition out of your firearms. It seems to get the job done better than soapy water.

Ed Rendell at It Again

Ed Rendell is crapping all over Keystone State gun collectors again:

Speaking on a day when Philadelphia recorded its third gun killing in 24 hours, Rendell said that if lawmakers’ terms were limited, they might be less fearful of the gun lobby and more likely to support a long-stalled proposal to limit handgun purchases to one a month.

“That law should be passed,” Rendell said. “No one who is sane and rational would vote against one handgun a month.”

I guess I’m crazy them, because as a collector, this law will affect me. And I still ask “How is this going to help things?”. They’ve been completely unable to demonstrate that this kind of straw purchasing is a major source of crime guns. Straw purchasing is already illegal, and multiple gun sales are tracked by the ATF and County Sheriffs. If we’re not going after these types of gun traffickers now, how is adding an extra law going to help anything?

I should also point out that term limits will ensure that Ed Rendell does not serve a second term as Pennsylvania’s governor. I guess they are useful for something then.

h/t: Jeff Soyer

Some Advice for Jim Webb

So it looks like the good Senator from Virginia had three loaded magazines worth of ammo snatched off his staffer. My main question for Senator Webb is: are you expecting that much trouble? If you are, them I might suggest you reconsider throwing a handgun in your bag, as we all know that handguns are really weapons of last resort.

For Senators who might be involved in a last ditch shootout with potential attackers, after the attackers have made their way through all the Capitol Police, I think we can all agree that this firearm is an excellent compromise between a pistol and a full sized rifle:

Of course, it’s a short barreled rifle, but you should have no problem with the NFA process as a Senator. (After all, it appears you have no problem getting around bans in federal buildings and in the District that apply to the rest of us peons.) It’s small, compact, and will even fit in a duffel bag, much like the one negligently handed off to your staffer.

I don’t want to discourage you from your gun nuttery, Senator, but if you’re figuring on two extra magazine’s worth of trouble, why not really be prepared? Besides, I’d be a lot more impressed if your staffer got caught with a P90 in you duffel bag going through the x-ray machine. We gun nuts are watching, Senator, and we don’t want you to let us down. If you’re going to get your staffers in trouble with the law by being careless about where you put your guns, at least make sure the gun is worth it!

Because He Was Just a Staffer

From Instapundit, we discover that Congressmen’s lives are apparently more valuable than their lowly staffers.

Thompson was booked for carrying a pistol without a license (CPWL) and for possessing unregistered ammunition. According to congressional rules, congressmen and senators, not staff, are allowed to have a gun on federal property.

If I can’t carry a gun on federal property, Congressworms shouldn’t be allowed to either.

Why We Say “No” to Licensing

Armed Canadian has a good screed on why gun owners need to fight licensing:

Personally, I find the idea of a license to possess a gun to be a bad idea. Solely for the prospect of abuse over time. Licensing a gun owner for the carry of a concealed weapon and licensing a gun owner for mere possession are the same thing to me. Both depend on the benevolence of the government and require absolute care in crafting such licensing rules to ensure they do not get cut off or be used to create a defacto denial of rights in the future.

The first problem with licensing is the tie to competency. Many people proposing such a scheme want owners to show they are competent. Ok, who makes the rules for competency? Who gets to evaluate them? Who has the authority to change them?

Read the whole thing.

Interesting Observations from Bitter

Bitter noted to me that, despite her predisposition toward dating gun nuts, she has done more shooting with me in a few short months than all the previous Bitter Boys combined.

This is a trend I intend to continue, because I love to shoot, and get unhappy if I’m not shooting enough. Â If anyone from Remington and Federal are reading this, I expect Christmas cards this year ;)

Day 2 – Kalashnikov Moments

Sometimes when you’re in West Texas with a lot of guns and ammo, you just have to get a few pictures of some Kalashnikov moments:

Continue reading “Day 2 – Kalashnikov Moments”

Uses of Ovens

You know you’re a gun nut when, for the first time in a few months, you use your oven, not a cook a roast or a turkey, but to heat up some parts from your AK-74 so they’ll dry out after you gave it a nice bath in warm soapy water to wash out all the corrosive primer residue that built up on it after a day’s shooting.

I’m about 1/3rd through my batch of the corrosive stuff.Â I might take the other tin that was in the crate and reserve it, and bring it out sometime when I’m either short of 5.45×39 or nostalgic.Â The good thing about corrosive primed ammo is that it lasts forever.Â Non-corrosive primers have a shorter shelf life.

Making Political Hay

The Citizens Committe for the Right to Keep and Bears Arms is calling out the Democrats for their recent vote on DC Voting Rights, which was voted down because of the addition of an amendment that would have repealed the Washington D.C. gun ban:

Congressional Democrats claim at every turn they â€œsupport the Secon d Amendment,â€ but the truth came out Thursday when they pulled a coveted District of Columbia voting rights bill because of an amendment that would have ended the long-standing handgun ban.

â€œThis shows the true colors of the Democrat leadership,â€ Alan M. Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms stated. â€œIt should have been easy for the Democrat caucus to agree to the Republican-sponsored amendment, because of the recent federal appeals court ruling that declared the handgun ban unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

â€œInstead,â€ Gottlieb said, â€œDemocrats proved once again that all their avowed support for the Second Amendment is nothing but empty rhetoric. House Democrats had a chance to stand up and be counted, but instead they ran for cover, afraid to have a recorded vote prove that, as a party and as individuals, they remain as anti-gun as ever.â€

I can’t honestly say I’m all that displeased with the outcome, to be honest, because it would have removed standing for the Parker plaintiffs if they go before The Supreme Court.Â But this move was purely political: to get the Democrats on record as being in favor of handgun bans, so much so that they were willing to sacrifice a coveted bill in maintain it.Â The politics of this is prettyÂ smart for the Republicans, as polls show that most Americans do not favor making handguns illegal.Â This puts the Democrats on record as being pretty extreme on the gun issue when compared to most Americans.

But the Democrats could be playing it smart too, in a way.Â Parker is a win-win case for them, and I could see that they might think twice before they would derail it.

If Parker prevails, it will essentially give the Democrats the political cover they need to back further away from gun control as one of their issues.Â The Democrats seem to have accepted that this issue has been a killer for them in national elections, and is in no large part responsible for them being reduced to strips along the Northeast Corridor, parts of the Midwest around Chicago, and the West Coast.Â In 2006, they won on the backs of some pretty pro-gun Democrats like Jim Webb, Bob Casey, John Tester, and the like.Â Parker changes the political landscape a bit, and might give some politicians with less then stellar records on guns, to back away from the issue without making it look like flip-flopping.

If Parker loses, then the Supreme Court would be emboldening anti-gun forces within the Democratic Party, and offering political cover for some more moderate Democrats to move more to the anti-second amendment position.Â The folks in Congress like Carolyn McCarthy and Charles Schumer would love to have a Supreme Court ruling that definitively said that the second amendment is no obstacle to gun control in order to beat pro-gun or moderately pro-gun democrats over the head with.

The real losers in the Parker case would be the Republicans, who would not like to see the gun constituency split between the parties.Â We’ve been a good voting block for the Republicans, so I can see why they’d want to get this issue away from the courts and back into the legislative arena where it can help them more.Â If gun owners feel secure in their gun rights, they might just be tempted to vote Democrat.Â If we go down to defeat in Parker, it could convince a lot of gun owners that the system is stacked against them, and stop participating in political activism altogether.

I think looking carefully at each parties interest can explain the vote on the issue. Â I don’t think it means the Democrats will head back to their gun control roots; they will stay away from the issue until after the 2008 elections.Â Both parties are using this particular vote as part of a larger political game, and getting rid of the DC gun ban at this point isn’t in the Democrats political interests, even if a lot of party members would like to move away from an anti-gun position.

Of course, I could be wrong about this, and the Democrats are just being stupid.

Why Pat Murphy Rocks

[UPDATE: It should be noted that we have been deceived by Congressman Murphy in the intervening years, as he signed onto the semi-automatic ban I wrote to him in reference to below.Â See Congressman Murphy’s Anti-Gun record here.]

I had been wondering what my new Congress Critter’s stance on the gun issue was. I had planned to write about HR 1022 shortly, but hadn’t completed my thoughts yet. I was quite pleased when perusing the Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Association to find a copy of a letter received from Congressman Patrick Murphy on the same subject. I’ll post the good bit:

Thank you for contacting me in support of maintaining the rights of gun owners. As you probably know, I personally hold a concealed-carry permit and I am a strong supporter of upholding the 2nd amendment. You can rest assured that when legislation involving gun-owner rights comes up before Congress, I will keep your thoughts in mind.

A Democratic Congressman who admits he holds a PA LTC? Congressman Murphy has overcome a big hurdle toward getting my vote. If the Republicans run a bonehead, as they are wont to do, there’s a strong likelihood I’ll be in his court come election day.