File this under "Do you understand?"

Sure, we've long known that the Establishment propagandizes for the Establishment.  But this Greenwald article does make the case in a way that should be digestible by a larger audience of fence-sitters than I'd ever be able to reach.

We’re bravely here to report that these two incidents perhaps coincidentally occurred at “about” the same time: There was a hospital that blew up, and then there was this other event where the U.S. carried out an airstrike. As the blogger Billmon wrote: “London 1940: Civilians throughout the city were killed at about the same time as a German air strike, CNN reports.”

The entire article is designed to obfuscate who carried out this atrocity. The headline states: “Air attacks kill at least 19 at Afghanistan hospital; U.S. investigating.” What’s the U.S. role in this incident? They’re the investigators: like Sherlock Holmes after an unsolved crime.

This, too, pretty much says it all:

Now, if only we could get more folks to remember how this all works when the subject is "Plebes with gunz, ZOMG!", or "Working within the system is the only way to get results."

(That includes you too, Glenn Greenwald.  You may be better than most, but you too have your blind spots.)

A metaphysical lament. When those who say they get it, don't.

As I was writing this, I had already been thinking about making it into a post of its own, because the topic seemed to be worth it. The following was inspired by one of Mama's insightful comments, and once Blogger told me it was too long to be a comment, it was reasonably easy to say, "okay, Blogger, fine...I'll make it into its own post."

As a "contextual continuity clue": the following relates to several posts I've got here at Rifleman Savant, in which something relating to a Jeff Cooper topic--scout rifles, Ching slings, gunhandling technique, etc.--struck me as so far off the mark of what Cooper actually said or intended, that I felt the need to vent about it. Mama's comment got me thinking about that, and I responded as follows:

Maybe it's just a normal phenomenon that accompanies middle age, but I am really starting to grasp the wistful frustration that I so often read as a younger man (without really understanding) in Jeff Cooper's work. Or, maybe it is a natural outgrowth of a long-cultivated appreciation of deliberate design. (And really, I suspect strongly those two things are quite related.) But whatever the reason, it seems like the "...how often they do very badly at it" observation comes frequently in recent years.

I'm certainly not without my own history of jumping in to something before fully understanding it, but I like to think that I am learning that it always--always, without exception--fails to achieve full value, or at least full synergistic value. Probably these days I go too far the other way, where the biggest risk is in missing the window of time for which the whole idea has currency.

With something like this [a "scout rifle" missing critical features or implementing others badly], or like my recent lament about misunderstanding the technique of the speed sling, I wonder if the bigger problem is less the people whose well-intentioned exuberance carries them into a place they do not understand, and more the problem of chest-thumpery among those who purport to know, but don't. How do the consciously ignorant know that they are not following the unconsciously or willfully ignorant?

The position I'm in myself is a real challenge, in this regard. Anent the observations and teachings of Jeff Cooper, I tend to minimize how much I actually know, since 1) it's kinda my personality in general (I like being underestimated), and 2) I don't have a CV of "official" credentials that say I know what I know. But know it I do, both because I have long paid really close attention to matters of design and the history of design, and because I have tested nearly all of it myself and understand why it works from that perspective. And so when something misses the mark, it jumps out at me like nails on chalkboard, and I can both quote chapter and verse, and then defend it extemporaneously.

But who am I, really, to speak with authority on it in the first place? I only met Col. Cooper, in person, once. I have never "been in a gunfight" (and am quite happy about that, no joke). I'm no sort of master marksman, nor particularly fast. I've never got into formal competition, and I get quite a bit less trigger time than it would require to impress a good number of people. And so I try, at least, to minimize my own authority, because I can't really argue that I have it. Shooting, for good or ill, seems to carry an expectation that "experience" equals "analysis".

On the flip side, I am reminded of how much I really do know, and at what level of explication and depth, pretty much every time I engage with someone else, even those with years of shooting experience. I couldn't even tell you the number of people I've met who know simply astonishing minutiae about how to wrest a tenth of an inch of group size from their precision fitted boltgun, at exactly 100 yards, from a bench--who have no idea how to use their own body, much less a shooting sling, to shoot from an unsupported field position with any stability; or how to zero their rifle to optimize a "maximum point-blank range" for what they will be most likely to encounter in the field; or how to manage their ammunition supply without looking at it; or even how to run the bolt from the shoulder... It's a little better for pistolcraft, but not a lot. There's been a depressing resurgence in the concept of unsighted pistol fire, usually declaring loudly a complete non-understanding of the flash sight picture. The "high-speed, low-drag" tactards have convinced far too many that "two to the chest, one to the head" is nothing but a speed drill, rather than the observation-and-problem-solving technique that it is. The "cold range" mentality, as understandable as it can seem, continues to retard any general improvement in safe field gunhandling. And so on.

It's hard to say simply that people need to be more observant, although that seems like an obvious part of the solution. "Try it yourself, before you believe or disbelieve" would seem to be another obvious one, as would "go to the source, after you hear it second-hand". But a really substantial part of the problem is also those who stand up and loudly say "Lookit me, I know!", and then don't. When it comes to things that Cooper taught (both the gold and the stuff that really does need re-thinking), I usually know, immediately, when someone is wrong. But does that make me right? I struggle with that, but I also don't want to see such an immense reservoir of knowledge and history simply forgotten, or worse, revisioned by people who didn't really understand it in the first place.

Sorry. Metaphysical lament.

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.

Apparently Mossberg has been busy.

I haven't paid hardly any attention to Mossberg in...a long time.  By complete accident today, I encountered a couple of items that seem quite interesting.

Scout Rifle

I never realized they had an entry in the "scout rifle" space, but lookee here:

Oh, I can immediately see problems.  It doesn't make weight.  The glass on the "with-glass" model seems to offer most of the problems of a conventional eye relief without delivering the value of a true intermediate eye relief.  The rail with integrated ghost-ring sight is indeed nice, but it ruins access to the loading/ejection port without offering anything of real value.  The bolt design appears to be push-feed, plunger-eject, and sliding-plate-extract--exactly what the Scout Conferences codified as the configuration of last choice*.  The LOP is too long, with no apparent means of adjustment.  And there is no stud for a Ching Sling.

But at least someone is trying, and there are a couple of nice features here.  The ability to use both AR10 and M14 magazines?  Yeah, that seems like a goodness thing--provided it turns out to be suitably rugged and reliable.  The trigger may be nice as well, but I've got no sense of field feedback on it yet.

All in all, from the look of it, this might yet be a decent platform for the concept.  It should be reasonably trivial to shorten the LOP and round the buttpad, cut out the rail space obstructing the objection port (or replace with a more suitable alternative), and add a middle stud for a Ching Sling.  Acquire a Leupold M8 2.5x Scout Scope and mount it as low as possible with QD rings, add the Ching Sling itself, and include some magazines, and--again, provided it runs--this might be a very nice little rifle.  It would have the magazine advantage over the Ruger, but require a bit more fiddling to get it close enough to spec to get the complete system synergy--and the Ruger's bolt is closer to the Scout Conference spec.  Hey, if nothing else, choice is good, and I'm happy to see it!

Lever Gun

I also--and again, accidentally--ran across this levergun, offered both as a 6-shot .30/30 and a 14-shot rimfire:

This struck me as a cross between "very encouraging" and "total facepalm".  On the "encouraging" side, I love the adjustable LOP idea, and a tang safety on a levergun is the right way to include what is arguably a not-strictly-necessary feature in the first place.  The front sight base seems reasonably sturdy, and the rear receiver ring should both permit a compact ghost-ring sight, and clear access to the ejection port.  Very nice.  I've got no idea how it runs or how the trigger is, but presumably any kinks could be worked out with some comparatively light gunsmithing.

Then I noticed the fore-end rail space.

Seriously, Mossberg?  You put rails on all sides except the top?  Okay, look, I admit I don't really speak tactard in the first place, but I think most of us would look for a top rail first, and then maybe--maybe--a bottom.  One of the principal attractions of the levergun in the first place is its luxurious flatness, and side rails would seem to be inherently counterproductive to that end.

Look, it's a levergun, not a plumbing main.  The more stuff you hang off those rails, the further away you get from what attracted you to the design in the first place.

Despite that irritation, though--a single rail on top would have permitted scout scope or dot sight options and still allowed a svelte fore-end--I like the idea of this piece, and hope I get to meet one some day.  May it sell well enough that Mossberg offers it in other calibers too--I'd love to see .45 Colt or .44 Mag, and even .357 is a worthy option for an iron-sight carbine.

Youth Boltgun

Finally, Mossberg also seems to offer a youth-scaled rimfire boltgun:

I'll have to look into this one some more, but I like the concept of the single-shot adapter/plug, plus the ability to take 10-round magazines as well.  Gives the kid something to grow into.  I've no idea about trigger or accuracy, but the safety seems well-located, the receiver sports a dovetail that should permit a good ghost-ring rear sight, it's light enough and looks amenable to some light gunsmithing should that prove necessary.  The fore-end looks a little short for a proper shooting sling, but I'd have to see it in a kid's hands to know if it was too short.  The LOP is just about right for adults (12.25") but should be shorter for kids;  since it's wood, this should not prove to be a daunting problem.

Again, I'd love to meet one and see how it feels in the hands.  

So, cool!  Mossberg has been busy.  Will have to cogitate, investigate, and see what if anything comes of it.  :-)

_____________________

* Once again, full disclosure is that even the Steyr Scout is not controlled-feed, nor inertial-eject.  The Scout Conferences were clear enough in their preference for controlled-feed, inertial-eject, full-claw-extract...but Cooper must not have thought it a deal-breaker for the production Scout, as I'm not sure he ever even mentioned the Steyr SBS's use of plunger-eject and Sako-style mini-claw extractor.  The Steyr also has restricted access to its ejection port, and (just barely) doesn't "make weight" either.  Clearly, this arrangement can run just fine despite being "out-of-spec", and I always try to apply a few grains of salt when evaluating another take on the concept.  :-)

Cognitive dissonance.

Via Claire, here's one for anyone you know who needs a working example of cognitive dissonance.

It seems that a former director of the Nobel Institute has now stated in a memoir that he regrets awarding Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.  Okay, plenty of ink has been spilled about that absurdity already, and justly so.  Here, I'm more wanting to call attention to the pluperfect cognitive dissonance that illustrates how Statist Beer Goggles* can produce such a shark-jumping result in the first place.

Behold, from the article:

According to Lundestad, the argument which swayed the committee was that the prize would help him [Obama] achieve his goals.

"Help him", roger that.  Scary enough just taken on its own, of course.  But then, later:

The Nobel committee, which fiercely guards its independence from the politics of power, ...

I know:  ha!  funny!  Sing it, cheese shop patron:

And yet, people still believe contradictory nonsense like this.  Or, if they don't, they nonetheless continue to give power over other people's lives to "leaders" that do believe it--which is not only worse in a practical sense, but it's also a fractal representation of the same cognitive dissonance problem in the first place!

Oh well.  At least this "revelation" was able to wait long enough for the desired effect to run its course...

Right?


__________________
* Because really, that's what this is, isn't it?  I find myself using that term more and more;  just like the battered-spouse analogy, it works.

Surprisingly, that was first blood for the Scout.

"Isn't this first blood for the Scout?" my father asked on the phone when I told him I'd just scored on a caribou just off the Denali Highway around Mile 13.

Well shut my mouth.  It is.  I've certainly carried the Scout afield a few times, but never actually got a shot with it until now.  Excellent!

I was very pleased with the "gunnie" part of it.  It was a quick stalk;  my hunting partner said he couldn't believe how fast I covered the half-mile distance from the road to the mound where I took the shot.  I do remember moving around a bit on the mound to avoid shooting in the direction of a distant someone on an ATV, skylighted on a ridgeline;  in the end I accepted an angle of convergence of about 135 degrees, which I still don't entirely like, but which was the best I was going to get.  The shot was at a little over 150 yards, rested on my pack to get above the willow, and the cow was mostly broadside.

I remember being surprised at how not-loud the shot was;  I am well aware that field shots for blood are never as loud as they seem at the range, but this was conspicuously soft;  I suspect that much of it is the acoustic absorption of that fantastic quantity of biomass in the tundra.  Anyway, she didn't move at all, so (having instantly run the bolt at the first shot) I hit her again, and saw her stagger, down into a shallow gully that got her out of sight.  As it happens I didn't need to do that, but I am a whole lot more into followup shots than I used to be, especially up here where sometimes a very big animal can get itself into a place you don't want to go.  I love the "one shot" philosophy, but I want a hit critter to go down even more.  Alaska is not a place for bushwhacking.

She only made it a few steps;  both shots landed within a couple inches of one another and completely scuttled her lungs.  The Barnes "VOR-TX" 165 grain load did exactly what it was supposed to do, and I'll be happy to use that on much bigger critters as necessary.  Excellent!

From there, things got nearly comically poetic.  I ran back out to get my partner;  we were at the very end of our available time and I figured we could both go back together and have this critter gutted and out in a single trip.  But on the way to turn the truck around, he spied his own 'bou and had it down within half an hour himself.  Great results, but the day just got...much longer.

A "quick extract" of his animal with the ATVs turned into a six-hour ordeal involving a broken frame, a real scare of a broken hunting partner, and some bona fide anxiety about attracting ursine attention at the kill site.  We got his bull out, though--on the wheelers, no less--and by the time we got back to the truck, it was getting dark.  Partner wasn't in the best shape by that point, and anyway he had lots of things to do to get the wheelers back on the trailer, etc.

And so I wound up walking back out to my kill site, alone, in the dark, to gut an animal laying in a small gully with no real visibility, entirely by headlamp--in an area famous for bears.  (In an area that another hunter had just told me he'd spotted a brownie that he was going to see if he could chase.)

Does that make me brave, or stupid?  I can see both arguments--and I now know just exactly how to avoid that problem going forward ('cos I got no problem not having to be brave).  But nonetheless, there I was, because she needed to be gutted to cool properly, even if we couldn't do a full packout until morning.

It certainly seems foolhardy in hindsight.  Yes, I had my Ruger Blackhawk with Buffalo Bore 325-grain loads as a last-ditch backup.  Yes, I had a bear flare.  Yes, I was listening carefully, and working quickly.  But still--moving over more than a half-mile of damp tundra and willow is neither fast nor sure-footed, even in the daylight, and the consequences of attracting a thousand pounds of nocturnal, carnivorous company are potentially severe.  Let's just say I was particularly on my guard.  And honestly, I was pretty efficient at getting her dressed and cooling, even slightly away from the gut pile.  It was most welcome to see the truck lights on my way back, and hear the sounds of partner's assembly of all our broken and unbroken gear.

It was only slightly less trepidatious the next morning, when we went to pack her out in the light.  On one hand, I had a partner, with extra eyes and his own sidearm and flare;  on the other hand, we were going into a kill site, invisible from view until you're right up on it, in which a gut pile in a bear area had been out overnight, with meat cooling nearby.  Nerve-wracking is the right word.  But to my intense relief, nothing had been in either the gut pile or the meat, and we got her packed up and out in one trip, moving slowly but surely.

Whew.  Felt a lot better after that!

Lots learned on this trip, in general.  The area is simply spectacular, and I'd be happy hunting it again with a little more time and no need to separate from partner.

Now that was more like it.

Got back to the zeroing range today.  After last week's frustrating attempt with handloads, and without the time to find and remedy the problem at home, I ponied up for some good factory loads, and today was...much better.

I was a bit paranoid--after all, maybe it was just me:  you know, my shooting.  So I brought some of that good old M80 ball to shoot first, just so I could see if I could hit anything, and see where my sights might have been left over after last week.  So, at the 100 yard line, I shot my first three.

Click to embiggenate.

Well hell, that's a lot more satisfactory than anything I did a week ago.  The aim point was the diamond to the lower left, so the group is about 2.5" high and 2" right.  And importantly, it's a useful group, at a bit over an inch in dispersion.

Okay then, that's where the 147-grain load hits.  Lovely.  How about the Barnes VOR-TX 165-grain load?

First shot at bottom, next three above that, next three at top.

The first shot is the lowest one.  Works for me!  Now to raise the point of impact to about 2" to 2.5", to give me a good "maximum point-blank range" for a 6-inch target diameter.  (Both moose and caribou are much bigger than that, of course, but I figure this gives me a margin of error in my own shooting.)  I moved the reticle adjustment up a bit and shot three, and you can see the next three shots right above and to the right of the first one.  Nice tight group, but not quite as high as I wanted, so I went a bit further--and as you can see it was a bit too far.  Not only that, but the point of impact moved to the left at the same time!  (This is why you never adjust both planes at the same time.  :-)

And by this point I was feeling much better about my shooting.  A 2.5x scout scope is not exactly made for benchresting, and lots of people pooh-pooh it as being "underpowered", but as you can see it certainly can work!  But 3.5" is a bit too high.  Okay, back it down just a bit and shoot three (new target).

Good enough to hunt with!  1/2" right and just over 2" high.

This should give me just over 250 yards of MPBR and about 9" of drop at 300.

Now we're talking.  Back over to the right, okay, but more importantly just about the right height.  Using JBM Ballistics, and presuming about 2600f/s of muzzle velocity from the Scout's 19-inch barrel (I didn't chrony today), the two points of intersection with the line of sight should occur at exactly 25 yards and exactly 200 yards, with a MPBR of just over 250 and about a 9" drop at 300.  If for some reason I'm seeing the full 2700fps claimed on the box (which I'd not expect, but that Mannlicher barrel is known to shoot a bit faster than its short length would suggest), the numbers are little different:  0.1" down at 25 yards, 0.4" up at 200, MPBR of 265, and a drop of 8" at 300.  If for some reason I shoot well enough in the field to notice that, I'll...well, I won't, so no matter.

What's important to me is that I know that trajectory already, and I'm confident to 300 for hits with it. (Actually, I'm reasonably confident to 400 with a good steady rest, but I'm also of the opinion that you have to apologize for shooting that far away, and at any rate the problem out past 300 isn't so much setting the holdover properly, as it is being accurate about range estimation.  On a wounded animal getting away, sure, but I won't go that far for a first shot.

Okay, so I'm happy now, with zero.  I figured I'd finish with a quick test of position skills.  Using the M80 ball, which I know shoots a bit high and right relative to the Barnes, I shot one round from each position at a pistol target at 100.  The first three positions (squat, sitting, prone) used the Ching Sling, into which I looped up while acquiring the position;  the fourth was bipod prone;  and the fifth was an offhand shot, completely unsupported.  Each shot was acquired and delivered as fast as I could get a good position, sight picture and compressed surprise break--this was supposed to be "under pressure".    Of course, I snapped the bolt at each shot as well, and quitted each position reloaded and on-safe.

Yes, I'm happy with this as a quick test.  About 8" total dispersion, including offhand.

The aim point was the orange center on the pistol target;  I did not make any attempt to "Kentucky windage" any of these shots, even though I knew the ball load would print a bit higher and more to the right than the one I'm using "for blood"--which itself is zeroed about 2.25" high at this distance.  The offhand shot is over on the far right, at the edge of my "wobble zone", but it was within the zone, and delivered within about three seconds--yeah, I'm happy with it.

The supported shots, again taken as fast as I could manage them, show a dispersion of under 5", with an apparent center about 1.5" right and a little over 5" high.  If the ball load really does print about 2.5" higher and 2" to the right of the Barnes load, this would seem to suggest a group center of...about 2.5" high and within half an inch of right on for windage...  Yeah, I realize that's at least a bit of academic reasoning there, but still, if the purpose is to instill confidence, I'll take it.

Now...for the problem of finding the critter at the right time, and getting close enough for a good shot.  I think I can say now that if I get such a shot and blow it, it's on me, not on the rifle or the ammunition.

Good.  That's the way I like it.