How Would You Do In A Gun Fight?

Hey guys, new member here and happy to join!

I noticed there's about weapons this week, and there's definitely a lot of talk about guns. Just yesterday I came across this entertaining post on surviving a gun fight, which makes me think (since we're talking about weapons) how would you fare in a gun fight?

A lot of us have guns here it seems, so I am wondering, if you had to use them in a real gun fight, do you think you would be able to control yourself and think clearly?

For me, I'd probably crap myself. But that's just me.

 

I've spoken to some bad guys who were pathetic -- this with a gun in my hand behind my back. I constantly re-positioned myself so that if I had 100 msec I could have put lead into their pelvic region. More time and I could have put one in their upper chest.

In those situations and at that time, I had no fear.

I have little in the endurance realm -- even when young. I have lightning-quick reaction time however -- even at my age.

Were I up against monster psychotics or professionals, I'd be worried. But understand, I'm not big on going on living anymore. I do stuff that blanches other people. On a business trip a bus pulled right across my rental car's path and I was doing over 50 miles per hour. There were three other people in the car with me. My words were, "I wonder if we are going to be killed?" I spoke these words too calmly, I guess. I did manage to stop just short of hitting the bus. I was no longer allowed by the others to drive our rental car. Another fellow at work wouldn't ride with me ... ever. He said that I was too used-to being in bad wrecks / that I had lost my fear of death.

Were I a person who cared about going on living and the person who I was going up against had my firearms skills (my weapons are one with my body image; my firearm IS me), I would be experiencing blind terror. I have zero qualms about killing. I've killed things since childhood just to watch them die and I have more feelings for some animals than I do for people.

 

I've shot thousands and thousands of rounds. I have shot combat ranges and silhouette long range pistol ranges. I write and throw left handed but generally shoot right handed. That said, I probable shoot left handed way better than most right handed people. This is especially nice when you want to shoot from a left hand corner without exposing yourself.

I used to actually instruct on a range. All that said, I have never had to shoot someone or return fire when someone was shooting at me so I honestly can only say that I hope that if all else fails me muscle memory will carry me through.

 

Muscle memory carries people through.

 

Don't know...never wanted to get into a gun fight.

I have guns...mostly for target shooting and I like reloading...rolling my own ammo.


I am generally not a person of fear. I do know from experience..that fear , though natural, does not help one too often..but hinders....particularly if one has a dangerous/hazardous task to perform.

The one thing which scares me...is electricity. High voltage electricity. It is difficult to talk junk and smack to electricity.
And electricity can move much faster than any human gun reflex.

I have a healthy respect and fear of electricity.

I watch these guys cutting trees and limbs around those high tension lines...and I pucker up.

Same thing with that machine which grinds up tree limbs...puckers me right up.

But generally I don't lock up or frighten easily.


You learn to trust your disciplines ...your training...and not lock up in fear.


Maybe one day I will overcome my fear of electricity and or that tree limb grinding machine.....but won't hold my breath on that.


Welcome to the forum Prepper Mary.


Thanks,
Watcherchris

Not an Ishmaelite.

 

No way!! Your butt would be clenched so tight that you couldn't pull a needle out of it with a bulldozer. Just the fact that you are thinking about it now, before it happens, will change to way you will react. The loose bowels reaction is what happens when you are surprised and so without a plan you go directly to total panic. Whatever you are going to do, just having a plan that you have already considered keeps you from running in circles totally freaked out. This is why we have things like fire drills.

Also, welcome to the forum...

 

I've been shot twice in my life. It is my sincere hope that no one who's not been in a firefight, ever finds out what it's like. While training can help you survive it, there is nothing I am aware of that can prepare your mind for it.

 

I am Germanic
I am old and stone cold
I do what I need to do and move on
I do not like killing anything I just do what needs to be done
stone cold!

shot twice
stabbed once
bit by snake thrice
bit by shark once
poisoned by jellyfish
and the list go's on, I just do what I need to do to get through !

 

and the same person will react differently each time, I know I have.
as a teen it was oh fark I don't want to die to now
Fark you I just ain't going yet!

 

Being an old fart makes me a lot more likely to shoot you than I was when I was a young punk. Now days I'm just not up for wrassling a young guy that wants to fight. I will try to walk away but if you persue me and will just let you hit me and then kill you. In Texas that is totally legal. Once you hit me I have the legal right to use lethal force in my defence.

 

How Would You Do In A Gun Fight?

One thing is for sure, you're never going to learn the answer to that question until you're in a gun fight. Over my 30 years in law enforcement, I was involved in lethal force incidents. I worked Patrol, then Gangs-Narcotics in the most active district in a city of nearly 4 million people. It had its moments where it got interesting.

So, here are a couple of observations. I am still alive with no extra holes in my body. So, based on historical perspective, I did pretty well. I expect that if I am ever in another one, and I hope to God I never am, then I fully expect to do just as well.

I don't like telling, and I don't engage in telling war stories...but I will relate lessons learned.

Number One: Just because you own a gun, it does NOT mean you are mentally, physically, or emotionally prepared to effectively defend yourself. All it means is that you own a gun.

1a. You may get lucky and your attacker is just as inept as you are and you may prevail...or not...but counting on luck is not a sound strategy for critical incident survival.

1b. Personally, I believe luck is a fickle asshole, and I don't trust it.

Number Two: Anything you may have "learned on Youtube" is probably bullshit designed to sell a product designed by "tacticool doods" wearing all the cool tacticool clothing. They want to take your hard earned money to show you what kind of cool looking stuff they can do, and then sell you t-shirts and ball caps. You will come away with a notion that you are a highly trained tacticool operator dood like them, when in fact you have learned very little more than cool words and phrases that will impress your friends...but no real skills that will bring you home alive.

Number Three: If you sift it down to the most basic of fundamental skills and mental preparation, and you master those skills...you will me MUCH more prepared to effectively defend yourself than you will if you try to be a tacticool operator dood. I tell my students now that "I am no longer tactical. I am an old guy with a solid set of fundamental techniques and skills that will bring me home. That is what I am here to teach. I am not here to teach you how to shoot, I am here to teach you how to fight both with your gun and with your brain".

Number Four: Shooting static paper targets on a square range is not preparation to fight for your life. It is preparation to fight a piece of paper, and I have never been attacked by a piece of paper. So don't mistake target shooting for combative training. Use it as a fundamental marksmanship builder, but don't confuse being able to get a decent group into the X Ring as combative marksmanship.

Number Five: Self defense IS combat. It may be one on one combat, or one on several combat and even though there are no military uniforms involved, you are in a fight for your life. Interpersonal combat. Period.

Number Six: If you can't draw smoothly from concealment, get effective hits, reload, and handle potential malfunctions automatically while on the move to, or between cover...then you don't have the necessary skills to prevail without a lot of luck. Refer back to 1b.

Number Seven: Training is key. Getting real training is the key to learning how to fight. A CCW/CCP course is often (in the vast majority of cases) little more than a "gun safety seminar with live fire...or not". It is merely the state mandated minimum curriculum that reasonably assures you are competent enough with your gun not to shoot off your own foot. The relative cost of competent training is cheap compared to the relative value of your ass, or the asses of your family.

Number Eight: Your attitude and mental preparation for a fight will work hand in hand with the defensive skills you will learn in training. Prepare yourself mentally for the fight. Make the decision NOW that you will fight, you will not quit, and you will not be surprised. Learn about Jeff Cooper's Color Codes Of Mental Awareness. They are a foundation of modern defensive mindset. Learn about the seminal work of Sgt Dennis Tueller. Find and read "How Close Is Too Close?". It is available online as a PDF.

Watch Judicious Use Of Lethal Force by Massad Ayoob on Youtube. Yes, this seems to be contradictory to what I wrote earlier about Youtube, but this is not "tacticool dood" garbage. This is a lecture about justifiable use of force.

Set your ego aside and learn. Ask questions.

I have taught defensive tactics in two LE academies and have taught civilians as well for nearly 30 years. I take this subject seriously.

 

I truly and sincerely hope you never are. But don't forget to allow for the possibility that someone else will bring a gun/knife/sword/baseball bat/club fight to you.

I am a HUGE advocate of avoiding the stupidity of others. I don't expect to ever get into another gun fight or lethal force incident...but I do allow for the possibility. I know that being prepared for the possibility has kept me out of fights that could have come to me like a surprise party. I recognized a probable threat in time to simply cross the street. I am 6'4" and 280lbs. I don't carry myself like a victim with my face buried in my cellphone. I am erect, alert, and always scanning what is around me. BUT...I had recently had knee surgery and was using a cane for balance...so I looked a lot more like wounded buffalo than a bull...so they were sizing me up. I saw them, I simply crossed over to the other side of the street.

They recognized that I was not easily surprised, probably dangerous, and therefore a bad choice in potential victims and they wisely chose not to follow.

I consider that a major WIN. No one got hurt and I didn't have to explain why I shot one or all of them.

I tell my students it is a lot easier to explain how you avoided a fight than it is to explain how you got into one.

 

Well my opinion for what it is worth is

If one feels the need to go around armed one is either doing bad things or should consider moving somewhere better.

Where I am unless I involve myself with druggies/crims I have no need to go armed, maybe I just live in paradise.

Come to think of it I do live in paradise

 

I can go around armed because it is not against the law here.

Agree very much with Ken S LaTrans's well thought out post.


I have been trained to handle Asbestos, lead, and also nuclear radiation and contamination. I don't go around looking for it or trying to get in it's way...but sometimes I am tasked to handle it.

This means training and maintaining the training and readiness levels. Discipline ..not runaway emotions is the order of the day for me.


As far as the criminals .....the criminals today are highly mobile....and also innovative...some of them. They are expanding out their territories....

I was robbed at gun point in front of my home some time back....when riding my scooter home from work. I was unarmed.


In this instance ....I chose not to let these people know this was my home...and let them believe they had just stopped me running away from them and trying to escape as I had recognized that they had followed me on my scooter at night from a long ways down the road.

My lady friend sometimes comes to my home and brings her grandson....when I get off work.

I decided I could not let them get into the house should she be there with her grandson....nor know that it was in front of my home.

When these people took my money ....they then demanded my cell phone....and told me to walk away towards a row of bushes, I thought I might get shot in the back and was well aware of the possibility. I was relieved when the cars wheels screeched as they hurried away.

As a man you realize what is at stake here under certain conditions and I never know when she stops by as she has a key to my place.

As a man you realize there is often a bigger ...much much bigger picture than just you. This is what a man often does in his walk through this world and this life.

And our women and children seldom have a clue that this is going on....so much are they often under the spell of a television and movie education....rose colored glasses.

My lady friend never knew what had happened in front of my home until I called her to pick me up in front of the police station.



I do not like two legged wildlife in any form and have learned to recognize much of it even in highly educated leadership forms....

I also do not like to be "Herded" by anyone....though I do value the concept of education and training in this role....even team work.


I don't have a problem with people's quirks and idiosyncrasies provided they do not become two legged wildlife...or break the law.

I take serious risks for my monies working in shipbuilding....including handling nuclear fuel cells.

I don't want two legged wildlife around me...and will separate from such when I so recognize these conditions taking place.

In that I am in agreement with Ken S LaTrans.


I am not against alcohol...I am against stupidity.


I have never been in a gun fight...but have taken risks for my monies...many times.. both at work and here at home.

Having taken certain risks in earning my monies over the years...much of what is popular or entertaining among the people ...Americans...does not impress me.
It is often an ever changing trend and I am not interested in keeping up or so being "Herded" to get into my wallet.


I was with a group this week and we pooled our monies for a rental cottage out in the country. Four of us males and one of he females went around carrying conealed...because we can. We did and were not looking for trouble.

Only one of us has actually had any serious training in the Marine Corps in going through one of those live shooting houses with handgun and MP 5 machine gun...also with shotgun...as an entry team.


However...Ken S LaTrans's positions in their post are well noted and respected here on this end.


I belong to a gun club....and they teach moving and shooting at targets....drawing from the holster. But with the odd shifts I work taking advantage of such training is not possible.

I do like to shoot and reload....and reloading too is a discipline...no wildlife or alcohol need apply. That is one of my strict rules...I do not drink and handle firearms or gun powder/reloading.

I have made plenty of stupid mistakes stone cold sober...hurt myself too..stone cold sober.
I seldom ever drink....and particularly a no no with me when handling machinery and or gunpowder.

Been around too many drunks in my life. Same thing with drugs...and alcohol is a drug.

Don't like druggies....as well. They too with me are two legged wildlife.


OldGuy,

You think and believe what you want...it's is your responsibility. But I know from my work experience that Paradise can be a very transient and or changing condition/even deceptive...and a condition not to be taken for granted or believe entitled.



Well....nonetheless..I appreciate Ken S LaTrans for putting out here their views and understandings/knowledge/experience for us .


Thanks to all for their posts,


Watcherchris

Not an Ishmaelite.

 

The reloading I was referring to was reloading your defensive firearm on the move...not "reloading ammunition" via powder, projectiles, primers, and press.

 

watcherchris
I have been around a while now and I truly do live in paradise, I have no fear of being robbed or violated.
I have locks on my house but it has not been locked up for decades, the vehicle I drive is locked when out only because it is illegal not to lock it when away from it, it is not locked when in my driveway.

It must be a nasty place where you live to think you need to be armed, some sort of hell if you ask me.

By the way Paradise for me is Australia, where you only find trouble if you go looking for it.
And the weather is great, my place never gets below 10c ever and summer max's run around 35c, bit dry sometimes and a bit flood prone at others but paradise none the less.

 

Oh..I understood that in your post. No problem

I find I enjoy reloading my own ammunition as much as shooting...in getting the ammunition to do what I want of it.

My current project is working with a Thompson Contender single shot pistol in 7mm TCU calibration.
This is a .223 brass case necked up to 7mm or .284 diameter.

I carry factory ammo when out on the street but like reloads for practice.


Olde Guy...

Good for you if you believe you live in Paradise.

I don't go around looking for trouble..but trouble found me riding home on my scooter after work one night.

How you operate your home is your decision and your responsibility. No problem by me.


The woman I am seeing is an apartment manager and tells me stories about the two legged wildlife in our city.
The local constabulary often come by her apartment complex and brief her on the status of said two legged wildlife and the latest trends and happenings when they can. She has good relations with the local constabulary.

She has and needs a concealed carry permit much more than do I.


Oh...and my Dad is Hawaiian. Many people think that is paradise too. I do not.

For I know that most Americans think that the touristy places are Hawaii. I do not. I know that the average Hawaiian does not so live.

I do not like touristy places...canned and planned trips...amusement parks and such. Not for me thanks...to planned and canned for me.

Where the tourists are ....I try to stay away from these places.

I have worked in this shipyard on ocean liners. This cured me of ever wanting to take an ocean liner "Paradise " Cruise.

I understood too much of what I saw on Ocean Liners to ever want to take a cruise on a Paradise ship/ocean liner out on the high seas.

A local harbor cruise yes...but an Ocean Liner ...no thanks. That too is not my idea of Paradise.



It is an irony that I live on the sea coat of Virginia. Lots of tourists pay good monies to see the ocean/sea shore...Chesapeake Bay.

I often prefer to go the other way or to places people/tourists do not frequent. I like the mountains and will rent a cabin up there.

Not heavily trafficked by people and tourists is my definition of Paradise.

I can put up with a bit of four legged wildlife better than I can the two legged variety.
It is my way.


Again my thanks to all for their posts,
Watchercchris

Not an Ishmaelite.

 

My answer to this question is simple, I don't know how I would do in a gunfight..
I have greater technical skill than most ordinary people in the UK having been taught to use small arms at the police range at Canning place in Liverpool ( though not an LEO) but I also accept that there are a great many people who are much more skilled, with better reactions and more mentally prepared to kill than I will ever be.

 

The reality of it is this: A home invasion is a violent and tumultuous act. Period. Every man, woman, and child has the right to feel safe in their own home and to make such plans as are necessary to secure their home against the violent criminal acts of others. Sadly, some governments don't recognize this right. They claim "that's shy we have the police" or some other such nonsense.

As a police officer, I am the first to tell you that we can't and won't be at your house when a home invasion starts. The criminal is not going to attempt one if we are there. So, unless we are literally seconds away when the call comes in...we aren't going to be able to be there when it happens. That is reality. As much as we would like to be there for everyone in their exact moment of need...the practicality of that is about zero.

It is the same "on the street" or anywhere that is not your home. You are at the mercy of the criminal unless a cop happens to be standing next to you at the time of an attack. Self defense in the home, or self defense in the street...no other right trumps the right of the individual to defend their life. No government has the right to tell you that you don't, or that you are a de facto criminal if you do...yet some governments believe they have this right and power over you.

So, what are your options? Comply and remand yourself to the mercy of a violent criminal or gang of criminals? The truth is, home invasions are most often committed by more than one invader. The incidence of deadly assault, rape (not only of the adult and teen women, but young children is common and on the rise in many places)....oddly, these are most often in so-called "safe gun free zones" where gun ownership and the right to self defense is not recognized by allegedly benevolent governments and politicians.

Think about that. Your government is basically telling you that your life is worth less than the criminal and that their right to prey on you exists where your right to defend yourself does not.

Is that paradise? Is that anything but a de facto prison without bars?

Are you free men and women or subjects to the whim of people (politicians) who have armed police on duty to protect them 24/7/365?

"Well, I can use my karate/krav maga/BJJ/whatevr martial art is popular today to fight them off"...

Okay. Let me know how that works for you without years and years of hard training, or against multiple attackers who learned street violence at an early age and who have no compunction against killing you and raping your children for the ten dollars in your pocket and for the thrill of doing it.

I have seen black belts in so-called martial arts beaten nearly to death by a street hardened or prison trained predator. I have seen it far more often than not. Rarely does a victim prevail because they are conditioned to be victims and are no more familiar with immediate, overwhelming violence being committed upon them let alone committing that violence upon another in response to a deadly attack.

I have the absolute and unquestionable right as a free man to defend myself and my family against criminal predatory behavior. You have the absolute and unquestionable right as a free person to defend yourself and your family against criminal predatory behavior...but sadly, in most of the world, your government regards this as a privilege withheld from the citizen and claimed only by members of that government.

So...assuming that you don't truly live in "paradise", what do you do? Do you lie down and choose to be a victim? There is no nobility in being a victim. Or, do you choose to claim your right to self preservation in the face of criminal predatory behavior and choose the most efficient and effective means of self defense available?

Once you have made that choice, which is most often a fighting handgun in an effective caliber that has a track record of "stopping a fight", then you need to train. You need to get over the false idea that shooting holes into a paper target on a square range is "training" for anything other than shooting holes into a paper target. It is not learning to fight with your defensive sidearm. You have to commit to it, and commit to the decision to act in defense of your life and your family.

You must also develop the defensive mindset that says "I will not be a victim today", and decide well before you are forced to act in self defense that you WILL act. The time to have to make that decision is not while an attack is under way otherwise the last thought to cross your mind will me "My God, what is happening to me!?!?".

So you ask....How well will you do in a gun fight? The better question is How much do you want to survive and what are you willing to do to survive?

My signature reads: If you can't be safe, be dangerous.

This isn't hubris or hyperbole. This is a pure statement of reality. It does NOT mean "be dangerous to innocent people"...it means be dangerous to those who would commit criminal acts of violence upon you or your family, or other innocents whom you are legally or morally bound to protect.

The human predator recognizes another predator. They will always shy away from the man or woman who looks dangerous. This is not a look of overt hostility or confrontational attitude. It is a look of alertness and vigilance. It is a look that says "I see you, I am not going to be surprised".

The mountain lion does not attack the grizzly bear. The cost is too great. The mountain lion may break its teeth or claws...those things it needs to hunt and to survive. The bear doesn't attack the mountain lion unless it is threatened. The mountain lion will attack the weakest member of the herd and avoid the strongest. It recognizes both and it is the same with the human predator, so be the strongest member of the herd.

 

In any kind of fight, I'm just a brawler. Childhood on. Now, my lower skeleton is gone. I still have good upper body strength however and an above average reaction time. Actually, my reaction time used to be freaky good, now it is above average, but nothing to write home about.

For shooting practice, I like to have fun busting bottles. This is fun, however on the serious side, it trains the nervous system to engage multiple targets. It also may identify problems with your weapons and/or you. Put 2 liter bottles of drinkable water into your freezer. If you can afford a big chest freezer, go for it. These make great targets, plus these can be water sources when you're out wilderness way. If you can consistently hit 2 liter bottles at 100, at 200 yards, then you are better prepared for the coming SHTF events. Two liter frozen bottles are good placed at 50 yards for handgun practice. The frozen water 500 ml soft drink bottles are also good for 50 yards -- 100 yrds rifle. Take enough ammo to engage numerous bottles rapid fire.

Buy-up as large of capacity magazines as you can come by. One has no assurance that their area could be hit by swarms of looters / organized gangs. Anyone who sez, "I live too far away from any city," stands to be shocked to the core. Even as there are very organized rural gangs to tap drug trade opportunities, there will be gangs to tap food and fuel sources out away from urban areas. Many farms store diesel fuel, have food put back, and are near clean water sources -- which is to say, "Wow what a target!" Such areas may also see a sea of refugees moved there by military units emptying urban areas that have been devastated.

For home invasion preparations, identify potential entry points, identify where you have your weapons and the magazines for those weapons, identify points of cover and if you have no points of cover, build them. Cover stops bullets. Don't count on any refrigerator to stop a bullet. If you live in a frame house, store-up bricks, paving stones, sand bags, having a gravel driveway is a source of barrier material. Barriers you are going to need -- especially post-SHTF.

A thick steel safe can be a barrier. A brick wall interior to the house, such as a bar wall, can be a barrier. Stacking bricks can provide a barrier.

However you may wish to build a wall that will stop a bullet. Fill the space between two HEAVY/thick sections of plywood with paving bricks or gravel. Secure these plywood walls together at the width you deem necessary for you fill material. Of course around the perimeter with boards (maybe 2' x 4' sections), but also with bolts holding the interior section together at your chosen depth. Say you have two pressure-treated exterior 4' x 8' plywood sheets of 5/8ths thickness and you plan to fill the area between them with some outdoor paving bricks that are a bit over an inch thick. Use boards around the periphery to hold the two plywood sheets together -- short porch screws are fast to shoot in and provide more strength than nails. Filled with bricks, the center of these sheets will bow out and the bricks will fall down. How to prevent? As you are filling the internal area with the bricks or with gravel, begin placing bolts through both sheets and secure these bolts with nuts and washers to keep the chamber width the same as the periphery. You'll now have a wall that will stop most handgun rounds. Put two of these walls together and sandwich between them rotten blankets or an old mattress and this new barrier may very well stop an FMJ out of a military rifle. You want to yaw the bullet. Once the bullet has yawed, the energy can be dumped out of it into the next layer.

What am I going to do with such panels?! The dimensions are up to you, by the way -- they sure don't have to be 4' x 8'. You can put them under windows, behind book shelves, make them part of a wall that faces a door that could be breached by home invaders, ... . Wherever you are at risk of gunfire or wherever you wish to make a shooting position, place a bullet-proof barrier. Plywood and gravel is a barrier on the cheap -- think for yourself how to make bullet-proof barriers. There are loads of ideas out there. The walls I just described can be VERY heavy.

Here are other ideas that should be less heavy =>

Bullet-proof shielding using fiberglass and tiles:
http://mindtomachine.blogspot.com/2013/12/homemade-bulletproof-armor-ceramic.html

 

Forgot something. Probably forgot a lot. Good thing that this site is a group adventure -- no one human has the majority of the answers (translation: a fraction of the answers).

When someone is outside of your house trying to break in, you may have to shoot through the side of your house to take them out. You gotta have a high power rifle w/FMJs or a shotgun shooting slugs (these new brass sabot-ed slugs are dynamite out a shotgun rifled barrel) to shoot from the inside of your house through a wall or steel door. You see someone look in your window then scoot under or to the side of the window, then you shoot to where they went, i.e. put a high-powered round through the wall to make them go away ... forever.

Isn't that illegal?!!!! We're talking post SHTF boys and girls. If you let these thugs get by with their "lifestyle", their "career choice", you have 100% guaranteed that they will go on to kill, maim, rape, murder innocents in the not-too-distant future. We want to see peace on Earth in the future. Thugs, monsters, and mutants have no place on an Earth at peace. Kill them.

 

If we are talking about post-SHTF, then the act of crossing onto my well posted property is a forfeiture of the ability to keep breathing. I have no problem mounting heads on stakes on every fence as the French Foreign Legion did on the hills they defended in Korea. Oddly enough...the FFL were the least attacked positions during the Korean War. (In police work we call that a clue).

I am five miles from the nearest paved road, and a bit more than that from my small desert town. There is no reason for anyone to "stumble upon" my property. There are landmarks and decorative features all over my property at known distances. The guess work is taken out of range finding.

I don't have a "group". I have family and a couple of good friends. My son, who is 30 and a police officer and his fiance who is also a police officer. My best friend who is a police officer whom I trained before I retired. My daughter who is a Master class competitive shooter in USPSA, IDPA, and 3 Gun, as well as my wife who is a competitive shooter as well...but more importantly, she is an MD-FACS, trauma surgeon. There will always be someone on overwatch, as well as my dogs. You better be a freakin ninja to think you can sneak onto my property. As long as I have solar, and wind...I have power to the alarms and all the fences that surround my property are on solar batteries with shock boxes (mostly for the horses and to keep coyotes off the property).

The reality is....to "invade my home" you have to get to it. In order to get to it, you have to get through layered security.

 

Well Ken you just gave away a lot of information you had no need to, that's half way to failure right there.
Bragging about ones abilities is a sure way to get them negated.
If I was coming to your place I would do it in a massive armoured vehicle now I have the above information

Good thing I live in paradise half a world away ay!

 

How is stating facts "on topic" bragging, and moreover...without very specific information, vis a vis, where within 100 miles the location of my home might be going to "negate" anything? The short answer is...it won't.

You may consider living in a state of draconian subjugation as being "paradise"...but I call it being at the mercy of the whim of not only a government but of those who may, at any second, choose to make your "paradise" into a living version of your personal hell.

 

Olde Guy,

Good grief....

Same thing applies here about an armored car.

Are you sure you live in paradise with such thoughts. That is textbook leftist drama.

And drama queens with their heads up Paradise don't hack it here. That is how a woman thinks Olde Guy....Paradise provided someone else takes the Risk out of life for them...and or "Herds" others where they want them.


Are you sure you are worried about people like me and Ken S LaTrans with guns???

Let me clue you in here Olde Guy.


My day job is handling nuclear fuel cells to be put into reactors. We receive them , get them ready to install and then install them into a nuclear reactor which has been operating.

Are you sure you are worried about people like me or Ken S LaTranswith guns....or how we have been trained to handle them??

Armored vehicle...lol lol lol....drama drama drama....ok...Jerry Springer!!!


Again....


If I cannot be trusted with a gun ...I will never be trusted with a vote.

Oh..and on the 4th of July ..our Independence Day...I reloaded 42 rounds of 35 Remington Ammunition. I did not do any fireworks...or shoot off any guns...into the air or ground. To me that is a waste of good ammunition I could be shooting at the range.

Armored car....lol lol lol.

No laws have been broken in this posting.


Thanks,
Watcherchris

 

35 Remington? Nice. That's a great round. My cousin Donny uses a 35 Rem on mule deer. He's got an old Marlin 336 that he swears by. I bought dies so he could load it on one of my Dillon presses.

 

Wow !!! That is a great dedicated reloading room...you've thought it through well.

Holy Ground Highlander!!!

I don't have anything near as serious nor set up for such volume reloading...but nonetheless I load in 50 to 100 round batches...on 50 round trays.

I verily enjoy my time at the reloading bench and often listen to recorded lectures on history and philosophy while working the presses...etc etc.

And yes... .35 Remington is a very nice potent mid to close range round...capable of delivering serious energy within those ranges.

I too had a Marlin 336 in that calibration but sold it off to someone who did not want a 30-30...

I only have .35 Remington today in a Thompson Contender single shot pistol on which I have recently mounted a rail and a red dot sight. I've never used a red dot sight but will soon learn how well they work. Also if they can handle the stout recoil of the .35 Remington and I mean to tell you.....the .35 Remington is a mule on both ends in the Thompson Contender.

Plan to be stocking up on ammo for this calibration a box at a time....and also looking for once fired brass if I can find it.


I have two sets of dies for .35 Remington. One set is a standard reloading die set and the other a full length resizing die set.

I found out that the Marlin 336 does not have as precise a chamber dimension as does the Thompson Contender.

Loads done with a standard Non full length sizing die will work fine in the Marlin 336 rifle ...but they will not allow the action to close on the single shot Thompson Contender.

Using full length dies and good lube.....these cases work well in the Contender.

Thanks,
Watcherchris

 

I recently added a Dillon 1050 as well. I shoot 3 to 4 matches per week, plus my teaching and training schedule means I need to load in volume. I shoot 2000 rounds a week on average between all of that. That room is my reloading and gunsmithing room.

The reloading and 'smithing room is my peaceful place.

 

Amen on that one Ken S LaTrans ...Amen on the peaceful place.


Am I looking at that one correctly....wheel weights to the left of the Lyman lead ingots??

Thinking that I should get into casting my own lead bullets. Up to now I buy them in bulk.

Of recent I loaded some 41 magnum 250 grain cast bullets with gas checks on them. My first experience with gas checks. They seem to work well in preventing leading. I've put back several boxes of these heavy weight cast gas check bullets for heavy duty purposes in mind...two and four legged wildlife.

A bit of an irony to me that today with computer controlled bullet designs....that the olde cast bullet can still deliver great energy if properly loaded...and handled.
And so too many of the olde calibrations from the cast bullet days are making a come back.
Years ago I would never have thought that the .45 long colt would make a come back. So too the 45-70.


Thanks,
Watcherhris

 

Yes, those are straight wheel weight ingots. My best friend owns a tire shop and I get all of his take-off wheel weights. I cast them straight. Some people claim they lead barrels, but I have found that if you keep the velocity at 900fps or below, and use Lee Liquid Alox as a lube, then it is not an issue.

If I am casting for a higher velocity projectile need, I coat them.

If I want to harden them for use in a 30-30, or similar round...then I just do a lead/linotype mixture to get to a Brinnell hardness of 18. A small, local newspaper closed down about fifteen years ago and I bought 2500 pounds of used linotype from them for 25 cents a pound...that was a chore moving it, but honestly, I haven't used a fraction of it.

I cast all my own lead projectiles. I have 3 furnaces. Two of them are Lee 10lb bottom dumps that I use for 9mm and 38/357. With Lee 6-cavity production molds running 2 molds I can cast about 1200 projectiles an hour. I also have a Lee 20lb bottom dump furnace with a thermostat and I use that for 44 and 45 simply because it keeps enough lead at temperature for the same amount of projectile casting.

I have 2 sizers. One is a Star Lubrisizer which I use for sizing and lubing higher velocity rounds with a hot lube. The other is a simple Lee single stage press that I have inverted and use a push through sizing die after I have lubed the projectiles with Alox. I pay my daughter a penny each for the sizing and she can make as much as $20/hr sizing for me...so she likes it.

 

ahhhh...thanks . Great photos. And yes..I occasionally have youngsters over and I let them carefully seat the bullets.

I handle the powder charges and such ..priming...but let them seat the bullets. You find out quickly which children have an attention span ...past a cell phone.

Oh..by the way. I've been told that by people who cast their own bullets too...adjusting the mix for hardness.

Great on you having access to wheel weights...

Thanks for the photos.

Watcherchris

 

My daughter is 14 now, and she competes in IDPA, USPSA, and 3Gun, so I set her up with her own loading bench. She loads all her own match ammo now. She knows what she likes as far as bullet weight, powder, charge, etc...and she just does it. This is her own Dillon Square Deal B on her own bench.

 

Soft lead bullets & swaged bullets, use gas checks.

 

Generally, I agree...but I have found that for any application that I use cast bullets, gas checks have never been necessary. I don't cast lead for high velocity handgun usage. I keep 45ACP right around 850fps, and the same in 44Spl. 40S&W is optimal for match/practice/training right around 850 as well. 9mm for USPSA, IDPA, and 3Gun, I will push up to the 1100fps mark but then I simply coat them.

 

I used to push hard cast semi wadcutters to that 1100 FPS point and never had a problem with leading. If I went much over that I went to half jacketed bullets for defence and jacketed soft points for hunting and silhouette shooting. I never used gas checks on any of my cast bullets.

 

Ken &Chris
As usual americans just don't get Aussies, you guys missed the point by a barnyard or two!

Australia is a savage place but its people except for a few are not!
Legal or not we have no NEED to carry but I accept that you NEED to as you live in a savage place where the people are the savage danger you have a far greater chance of getting your rights violated than we do

Not a single person I know who has been minding their own business has ever had need to defend themselves, the only two that needed to defend themselves were dealing in illegal drugs and that was inhouse stuff.

I have guns, I have extensive training and skill, I have no need to carry!
If Paradise ever ceases while I live then I may have a need but to date it is still paradise and I do not look for trouble.
I actually prefer our restrictive gun laws here as it keeps most of those who should not have guns without guns.
It works quite well.

 

No shortage of aggressive folk here in the USA, however Americans of European descent have the same murder and violent crime rates as their cousins in Europe.

In the country of Sweden, they are having issues with hand grenade attacks.

https://www.thelocal.se/20180228/why-sweden-is-battling-hand-grenades-and-illegal-weapons

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/world/europe/sweden-crime-immigration-hand-grenades.html

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/02/violent-crime-in-sweden-is-soaring-when-will-politicians-act/

http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/10/sweden-has-a-problem-with-hand-grenades-and-here-s-why

"While a 2012 study led by Rostami found that 76% of gang members are either first- or second-generation immigrants, the ethnic makeup of gangs is heterogenous (hailing from 35 different countries) and 42% of the gang members are born in Sweden."

"... 42% of the gang members are born in Sweden" Meaning that 58% were not born in Sweden.

Firearm crimes in Sweden, particularly in Malmo
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20961790.2017.1314896

More about Malmo
https://www.politico.eu/article/swe...ty-undoing-peaceful-self-image-law-and-order/

And Great Britain:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/sep/18/police-officers-gun-grenade-attack

Then there are the knife attacks in London
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5251268/london-stabbings-2018-knife-crime-statistics-deaths/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/world/europe/london-murders-knife-attacks-stabbing.html

Banning firearms seems not to bring peace. The overwhelming presence of humans capable of moral behavior brings peace.

 

ahhhh....Olde Guy,

I was wondering when you would return to post.

I am glad for you that you believe Australia is as you state. I submit to you that this is a transient state. It will not last long.

Someone is going to import two legged wildlife while taking steps to restrict the rest of the population....just as they are trying to do in England and Canada as well as in Europe. Think Tommy Robinson here.

You like most of the world will be made to take second , third, and fourth place while paying for your own bondage...in particular economic bondage to support this new coming influx of two legged wildlife. Ishmaelite Bondage.

This is also what was supposed to happen here in America but Hillary Clinton did not win.


I will tell you what I learned about "Paradise." In this case traveling on Ocean liners....a type of fantasy, luxury man made artificial Paradise.

I worked on many of these ships...particularly in this shipyard getting them ready before the Thanksgiving and Christmas cruise season.

Observing what was happening down in the engine rooms...I observed many Orientals being given instructions by European engineers. The engineers would take a group of these Orientals and show them a valve...and tell them to remove it and bring it to their desk/work table. There they would be waiting with a new set of gaskets. The engineers would inspect the valves...and give the Orientals a new set of seals and tell them to put the valve back in. Sometimes they would have a new valve and set of seals...again telling the Orientals to reinstall the valve.

What became obvious after working several ocean liners... is that these Orientals know little to nothing about how that equipment works. They are just grease monkeys so to speak.

And with this awakening I began to ask myself...how about the person working to lower the lifeboats at the boat davits??

How much do they know about how that boat/ship operates??


And over time and several noted ocean liner emergencies over the years, events have proven me correct.

If they know little about how most of the equipment works....they will know even less at the critical time of an emergency.

It has been attempted to be covered up but on some ocean liners the crews were trying to get into and lower the lifeboats and get away before the passengers.

This became clearly illustrated when in Europe somewhere that ocean liner got beached on the rocks, turned on its side and the crew and captain were trying to get off before most of the passengers.

Or the ocean liners out there have had fires and again the crews were trying to get off before the passengers.
Some of these ocean liners have come into this shipyard for repairs and the stories have gotten out.

Now I reasoned this out for myself long before these events transpired ...about ocean liners and paradise...that I never wanted to travel on one....no matter how nicely they are advertised as a floating paradise.



Olde Guy ...you may feel that way now..but the coming generations will not have it as do you in their living standards....and it will happen in the bigger cities first....then spread out to the countryside....two legged wildlife...subsidized by your government.



By the way...and before I forget...

Alice Springs seems to be a very interesting area to observe by satellite. There appears to be a thousand yard shooting range outside of the city. Shorter distance ranges too. Skeet and trap ranges too.

Also outside Alice Springs there seems to be a very significant satellite tracking station ...installation. Now this one is quite significant and interesting.

This appears to be a more modern replacement than the Exmouth station way on the western side of Australia....the north western cape.

In like manner to what I am describing about time catching up ..and bringing on the two legged wildlife....Exmouth became somewhat obsolete...outdated with technology changes...time changes. Events did not remain Paradise in the intelligence community. The technology, know how , application changed.
And so too will it be with Paradise.....and in particular when controlled, regulated, managed by todays men of reason , logic, Illumination, Enlightenment.

Remember what today's leadership are pushing in getting along...

They are pushing that "All gods are the same god and all religions are the same religion."

I post this in case you have never heard that statement.


This is what they are pushing in our public schools here in America.

I believe they are heavily on that same treadmill in Europe and England.


I have great concerned for my cousins in the UK that soon enough the country of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Horatio Nelson, Francis Drake and his Golden Hind, and that English bulldog Winston Spencer Churchill will be no more....having fallen prey to political correctness...and ignorance about the nature of Paradise. That these names will even be deleted from public education and re written in what textbooks there are on them. PC education. PC History.

For this is exactly what is happening here in America with our school system and our children....and with the textbooks....even with dictionaries if one knows and has read older dictionaries.



Thanks to all for their posts,

Watcherchris,

Not an Ishmaelite

 

watcherchris
"I am glad for you that you believe Australia is as you state. I submit to you that this is a transient state. It will not last long."

No it may not last but we control our borders well so the rot is slow.

"Also outside Alice Springs there seems to be a very significant satellite tracking station ...installation. Now this one is quite significant and interesting."

Yes it is a US installation! you should know that.

I do not believe I live in paradise, I know it as a fact, neither is it an ocean liner or such. I would suggest that you come see for yourself but you would not like it here, not enough bad guys for the likes of you and there are too many here already who wont go home!

 

Wow Olde Guy,

LOL LOL LOL....England is an island too...you do know that????

Yes I do know that, having run into some people assigned to that area around Alice Springs.

What is of interest to me is who was running the Exmouth station in the olde days. Exmouth is certainly the correct location for such an monitoring station on the long wave bands..surrounded by water. Water makes for an excellent reflector/receiver for radio waves. If I want my radio in my truck to get out stronger and or receive better I go to a body of water and put the water between me and to whom/where I want to talk.
I recognized this about the Exmouth location the first time I saw it on Google Earth....it's very singular location.

But much of this can be done today by a satellite trailing a long wire antenna or a parabolic reflector/antenna. hence the Alice Springs station.

At one time I wanted to visit Australia...but no longer. When they had people turn in their guns...that did it for me

Da.....Tovarich!!??

I will say it again for those on these boards who have never heard or thought it through.

If your government will not trust your people to be armed....they will never trust you with a vote.

It is quickly getting this way here....with the left trying to insinuate that they are "Entitled" to this country...and everyone else needs shut up, get in line, and be properly "Herded" while working and paying for others to get it for free. Paying for heir lack of freedom and liberty. Working and paying twice for their own bondage while others get it for free.

I don't have any use for "Bad Guys" and many here are trying to pass themselves off as "Good Guys" when I know that they are not the product advertised.
They are counterfeits....bad guys trying to pass themselves off as good guys...and many of them are in government today.

I myself ...am not a Good Guy. I am just a fellow who wants mostly to be left alone...with for what it is I labor.


Thanks to all for their posts,

Watcherchris

Not an Ishmaelite

 

I wonder when it is that people may key in on that. The right...or the right minded...just want to be left alone. As long as I can navigate the rocks and shoals of life doing no harm to others...I want to be left alone to do it without a nanny telling me where to steer.

 

Until that moment you do.

You can rationalize yourself and your countrymen giving up and caving in to a government that stole, yes, stole one of your freedoms. I mean, that's really what it is.

You call America a "savage land"....how odd that you say that from a country where women are fifteen percent more likely to be raped than in this "savage land". Do women who are raped....or let me put it this way....do women who are far more likely to be raped than our so-called savage land not need to carry and have an immediate, effective means of self defense available? To your way of thinking...is rape not a crime that warrants lethal force to defend against?

How very euro-globalist-progressive of you to accept the red pill that says your government can determine who can have a gun, what kind of gun, and under what circumstances they may be used...but specify that they may NOT be used to protect yourself or your family.

You have guns...and you have "extensive training"? I am sorry, but I can't buy that as anything other than fiction, or at least what is fiction to someone who actually does have extensive training, and not only training in gun safety...but extensive training in defensive tactics and survival which is the yardstick by which gun skill and training must be measured. If you're not allowed by your government to own a gun for defense, then what would "extensive training" be? Not to shoot your foot off at a government sanctioned range or club where you are allowed to shoot? Possibly, extensive training in how to operate your single shot bolt action 22 that you may or may not be allowed to keep on your "farm" which is subject to "inspection" by police whenever they want to enter your home to "inspect" it?

How can you call that "paradise" or yourself a free man? How can you call it "paradise" when your government inasmuch tells you that your wife, daughter, grand daughter, or any woman is subject to the whim of any criminal who wants to rape them, and they are de facto supposed to submit to a rape? If they can't own anything with which to defend themselves, then that is what they are being told.

Paradise?

I supposed that being a subject changes one's outlook on what freedom and paradise is.

 

Ken S LaTrans and others,

Here here!!!..well spoken...well said!!



For some reason this makes me think of an olde saying ..I think it extends from somewhere in medicine.

"First do no harm!!"

The olde timers were not as dumb or ignorant as some of us like to think.

Certain concepts of which I have read from many of the olde thinkers and philosophers are quite profound and still applicable today.

Other philosophers....Wow!! They are out there in the ozone somewhere. Not for me thanks.


Yes....most of us who can still think in lieu of emoting... so popular today...just want to be left alone...not to be "Herded" by Ishmaelites with the rest of the two legged wildlife.


Thanks,
Watcherchris


Not an Ishmaelite

 

Wow Ken S LaTrans,

Don't candy coat it.....tell it straight!!!!

Great post....thanks for so doing.

I don't recommend that the Two Legged Wildlife of the European/African/Middle Eastern variety try rape and such around here. Many many more of the women around here are carrying concealed...today.

Just as many more of them than when I was coming up are driving trucks and motorcycles than in years past.

Now this....Wow!!

I am acutely aware of what it means when Prince Philip or Queen Elizabeth comes here to William and Mary College about 30 miles north west of me here in Virginia. Same thing with their going to Canada.

I am also historically aware of British interference in American affairs in our Civil War....France too. So too WW1 and WW2.
That certain of their more moneyed and influential leadership...above and below the table would like to have us back today under the British Commonwealth fold.

And British Commonwealth goals have today become Marxist....Herding.


As a Yank I have no interest in feudalism...royalty...a sovereign..or Marxism.

I do have an interest in history and in particular English History around their civil war and what it bode for us here in America as our founders were well aware of this history and what is meant for us here in the Americas....and our revolution against the sovereign. A concept, knowledge, and understanding totally avoided in our educations today.

And for good reason...we are never to know enough ..to think enough on our own to make this historical connection to what happened via our founders.

Well...enough of that .

Great post Ken S LaTrans Great Post!!

Thanks,
Watcherchris

Not an Ishmaelite