Airgunnery may now include a viable shotgun.

Need a quick bookmark for this idea, which I think is significant.  Via Tom Gaylord's excellent blog, which I have been following for a few years now, I now learn that there is a production air shotgun, and at least initially it looks pretty promising.

This new .50-caliber shotgun seems to be about half the payload of a .410, delivered at nearly the same velocity, for at least 3 shots in Foster-fill PCP format.

I'll want to learn more about the ability to home-roll the shot "shells", of course, but the idea of a 10-25 yard scattergun, quiet enough not to need hearing protection when shooting outside, that is not dependent on gunpowder or primers, is pretty appealing.

Gaylord saw, with #8 shot, nice, even patterning of 9-10" at 10 yards, 12" at 15 yards, and 16" at 20.  Check out his 15-yard paper:

Promising, indeed!  I'll be following this report with interest.

I got to thinking, too, about this "half a .410" idea.  For most of my life I'd have simply said "ho hum" to this entirely unsexy idea.  What's the point, right?  But I am really starting to think I've been shortsighted all this time.  Airguns are not firearms, and even now I'm not interested in trying to make them into something they are not, but what they are is, I do believe, something that can actually get a surprising amount of work done.

I've already concluded that in smallbore airguns, my .25 caliber TalonP is fully "half a .22 Long Rifle", and you know, that can cover pretty much all my pest-control needs and any small game I care to go after around here, with little fuss and noise.  (Going to the EscapeSS model, which is a bit longer than the TalonP but with sound suppression built in, is on my list.)

The newly exploding big-bore airgun market has PCP rifles delivering 2-6 shots of .357-.45 caliber cast bullets at a performance level that will take unexpectedly big critters at close range.   The AirForce Texan, a 2-shot .45 that is like a big brother to the TalonP, can launch a 405-grain .45/70 bullet at 750 f/s!  Or smaller bullets in the power range of the .45 ACP.  And the Benjamin Bulldog seems to be able to spit out 10 .357-caliber bullets at about 170fpe each before a refill.  Again, there is much that can be done with these ballistics.  Nobody is expecting these things to be stoppers, but they may be very effective hunters.

And so now there is the possibility of the air shotgun.  Half a .410, at close range, may wind up being an excellent off-grid tool.  I intend to keep my eyes out for how the new gun does in the field, and I admit I like the idea enough that I'm pulling for it to work famously.

Okay, I admit, I find this significant.

Recently, quite by accident, I ran across my first reference to the new Springfield XD-S 4-inch .45.

My first thought wasn't all that kind.  "Wait, they took an outstanding tiny .45 and made it bigger?  WTF?

But then my brain said "Hang on a moment, and take a fresh look at what we have here."  A 7+1 .45ACP, 5.4" high, 7" long with 4" barrel, 24.5 ounces, and only 0.9" wide.  Excellent ergonomics.  Quality short-reset trigger.  Good sights.  Multiple passive safety systems designed around the opening (safe) and closing (bang) of the human hand.

That's essentially a Colt Commander, in dimensions and concept.  (!!!)

And the promise goes farther.  The trigger guard is conspicuously more glove-friendly than the 1911's is.  The overall length is at least half an inch shorter than the Commander's, for those who rely on the length of the cover garment for concealment, but barrel length is still a service-length 4".  It's several ounces lighter than even the aluminum-framed 1911s.  It's flatter even than my deliberately "slim-lined" 1911 frames.  There are interchangeable backstraps to adjust for different hand sizes.  With a two-sided magazine release and no manual thumb safety, the gun itself is ambi-friendly right out of the box.  The feed system was designed from the beginning for high-performance hollowpoints.  Takedown is simpler.  And simply by changing magazines, the gun changes from 7+1 and 5.4" high, to 5+1 and 4.4" high, which makes a huge difference for concealed carry.

And it's cheaper than a good Commander.  Even before considering the idea of two-guns-in-one for the price of a magazine change.

Well now.  That does seem significant.

Cons?  Well, I admit I'm still a little leery of the idea of using the magazine as a grip length extender.  I would think that this must somehow affect the practice of magazine changes, but I have not run such a gun to see how it holds up in actual use, and who knows, maybe it's not a problem at all.  As well, as nice as the XD-S trigger is...it's just not the same as a good 1911, because nothing else is.

But really, that's about it. 

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that this might be the way to go for someone starting out.  A single gun that could serve both as a full-sized service sidearm and a very viable concealment piece (with one full-sized reload, one would have 13 rounds available).  Provided it runs (and I'll assume that with Springfield's reputation, it will), it's like a modernized Colt Lightweight Commander, but with some useful extras, and less expensive to boot.  The trigger is good enough to do nearly anything you'd want to do with such a weapon, and up here at least the glove-friendly trigger guard is not a trivial consideration.

And for someone who can afford a second piece as well, having both an XD-S 4" and the shorter XD-S 3.3" (for those times when another 3/4" shorter would make a difference), sharing the same magazines and leather, would represent quite an efficient overall system to cover all the bases.

Now I need to try one, to find out.  If the concept is viable, I'd want to recommend with confidence, and that would seem to be an important recommendation for noobs, who do tend to ask.

__________________
While I'm daydreaming, I do wonder how viable the XD-S system might be to a .460 Rowland conversion, which would add mid-level .44 Magnum power to the same platform.  :-)

Claire. Read.

America's UberGovernment.  And the rest of us.

But that goes only so far. Keep that up for a few years and one day you’ve got no friends left at all. And then you’re surrounded. By us. And by millions more who never thought they’d be at such a point in all their lifetimes.

But remember: you started it. We didn’t. We wouldn’t. We’re better than that. But once you’ve weakened yourself with your own voracious secret keeping, your gluttony for data, your excesses in the cause of Control — we will damn well finish you.

I understand the angst.  Hopefully enough people will "get it" in time that we can simply walk away from the dickheads...but I know that may not be the way to bet.  Some people are...committed to their fantasies.

For them, Claire.  And Vanderboegh.  And Larken:

Twenty years...

Hey there, Leviathan:

You are not forgiven.

That is all.

Gad, I love this.

Resistance lives.  Behold, the "Cuomo Mag", parts 1 and 2:

From the comments (I know, YouTube comments and all, but still, this was right there...):

Seriously, how can you not love these guys?


It actually makes me want to dig ARs (and AKs, for that matter) more than I do.  Sorta like I just want to have a reason to patronize Ronnie Barrett.

Keep going, fellas.  Every day it gets better, and people are watching.

I really wish I could disagree with ya, Claire...

...but no.  I can't.

You don’t spy on millions of people, militarize your police, encourage neighbor to rat out neighbor, define thousands of innocuous activities as “domestic terrorism["], conduct checkpoints and VIPR raids, lock people up without trials, kick down doors in the middle of the night, or arbitrarily deny people the freedom to travel if you’re looking for mere criminals.

Claire speaks the unadorned truth all the time--one of the reasons we love her--but sometimes it hits harder than others.  Here, she's exploring some frighteningly dark territory.

The U.S. federal government has (covertly of course, and gradually) declared war on its citizens. That’s the reality. We’re not mere criminal suspects. We’re enemies — and by their choice, not ours.

Sure, some of us may have philosophically fancied ourselves enemies of the state. Some of us prefer to be ignorers of the state. Most of us have learned to live, one way or another, peaceably in the shadow of the state. But I don’t know one of us who has ever violently attacked the state — or wanted to.

But no matter what we think, or how we live, or with what civility and decency we conduct ourselves, in the eye of Mordor-on-the-Potomac, we are all enemies. All despised. And above all — all subject to destruction at the whim of power.

How can one argue with this?  We see it every day, and it's accelerating.  Further, most "regular people" not only do not want to contemplate it at all, but they actively avoid even the possibility of accepting an awareness of it.  Yesterday marks another episode of being "unfriended" on Facebook, in apparent response to a challenge to just one of the hypocrisies the blood-dancers are indulging in to lie and deceive their way past inconvenient obstacles to the crusade (e.g., statutory restraints, lack of popular support in the absence of heavy marketing, and the moral vacancy of the very concept).  On one hand, of course, this is hardly something new in the world of internet discussion, but it nonetheless becomes viscerally depressing when it starts to show up in people you know in person, that you did not expect it from.  I know it shouldn't get to me, but it does.

Times are already interesting enough, but some people are hell-bent on making them interestinger.

I only mean that in the most 'reasonable' way.

Like many, I am weary--very weary--of the incessant use of the word "reasonable" as a cheap semantic attempt to excuse things that absolutely are not.  "Reasonable" is wielded like a literary or vocal talisman which somehow has the magic ability to...counteract whatever facile, disingenuous, or other morally unsupportable concept it is used with;  invariably something which, indefensible on its own, needs the help.  Lately, of course, the Mad Lib replacement noun is "guns" (as in "...reasonable restrictions on guns"), but it works with an ever-increasing set of both traditional "vices" (e.g., drugs, liquor, prostitution) and more modern Mencken-ian "hobgoblins" (e.g., fatty foods, raw milk, access to the Internet, free speech, privacy in general, and on and on...and on and on). 

It's often partnered with judicious use of the word "extreme" to describe anything that might cast doubt on the morally-untenable-on-its-own-but-a-surprise-winner-by-virtue-of-being-"reasonable" idea being pimped.  And for the credulous, this is apparently quite a one-two knockout punch of persuasion, because there are a whole lot of people who are so scared of appearing "extreme", and so desperate to appear "reasonable", that they just eat this shit up, and then go regurgitate it off to others, to demonstrate to be seen demonstrating their anti-extreme reasonableness.

I'll hand this to the ones who use the tactic deliberately:  right now, with the smell of the blood of those kids in the air, your efforts are working like a charm.  Congratulations.  Your ability to manipulate people's most primal fear, and steer it to the advancement of your own social goals, is not in question.  You will very likely get something you want out of this big push;  your machine may not be able to do fuckall about making anyone any safer (QED Sandy Hook, and all the other atrocities that seem to happen in "gun-free zones"), but then it's never really been about that, has it?  You've succeeded where it counts;  you sell deception and fraud like no other, and you've won friends and influenced people doing it.  A gold star for you.

Enjoy that, while it lasts.  One price of that success is that you now must either be willing to successfully maintain the illusion--indefinitely, all the time--or you must be prepared to confront the millions you have deceived when you slip and they figure out they've been had.  Now maybe you've thought about that, and maybe you haven't.  You certainly seem confident about it all, and that's probably good, given how much you have riding on the gamble.

All this brings me around to the original idea for this post.  (I'm sure others have thought of it before now, but it occurred to me just today.)  Those who pursue the "reasonable"/"extreme" tactic (or "big but" or other semantic equivalent) on purpose, also seem to be fond of dismissing certain individual-rights arguments on the idea that the individualist doesn't mean what he says;  specifically this seems very much in evidence with what might be called the "no" argument to forced disarmament.  Maybe this is just prima facie evidence of an inability to operate without projection, but given the deliberate deceptions of the disarmers, this just struck me as ironic and funny...and for whatever reason, today my brain just came up with a simple, pruriently in-kind response.

Imagine:

"Surely we can agree that we need reasonable restrictions on guns."
"No."
"But who really needs..."
"No."
"But high-capacity assault clips..."
"Molon labe."
"But assault weapons..."
"Cold dead hands."
"You can't be this extreme!"
"Oh, not at all.  I only mean 'no' in the most reasonable way."

Seems useful enough, and I just may have to try it out.  For a while now I've been fond of voicing the similar idea that once this whole "rule of law" thing stops protecting us from them, it also stops protecting them from us, too.  (Yes, I'm aware that humanity has advanced itself in spite of, and not because of, the rule of law in the first place, but this observation can be useful to someone who hasn't arrived in that place yet.)

Snark aside, it seems clear enough that the disarmament crowd fully intends to find out whether people do mean it or not. 

If they do push it, I suspect they will find out, one way or the other.

WANT

Hat tip to Mike Vanderboegh for this one.

Human powered pumps that look like they might really do the job when other conveniences fail, and useful supporting articles for context and details.

This one highlighted at Resilient Communities:

And via link-chasing, these covered at Resilient Design Institute:

Note the positioning right on the well cap.  Backup, indeed!

Bookmarks acquired, reading list updated.