Mega Rad Gun Thread

[DavidS877]

Pray tell, how do you make an encased Mosin not look like a firearms case?

Bass Guitar case, ski case, lighting tripod case. Pretty much anything that avoids screaming "this is a rifle" Better on things with an easily removable stock, obviously.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

I had one shipped intra-state to me once and they wrapped it in about a mile of bubba wrap and stuck it in a really big rectangular box filled with packing foam.

Could do the expanding-foam trick, like they do with heavy/sensitive car parts.

 

[Club Sandwich]

There is never carry-on for firearms for normal people

shows how long its been since i flew with a gun. but yeah @POWER IN MISERY a decent hard case with an abloy or assa lock(s) is very handy and useful for more than just firearms, as well as useful for more than one firearm. cheap hardigg, pelican, or seahorse cases are around, and even plano has nice models available. in a pinch you can use a case designed for musical instruments like keyboards or something for similar objects like fishing rods and just pad it out a bit. the goal is to prevent damage from crushing and theft from something flimsy or unsecure.

example (add expanding PU foam or sufficient cardboard packing material):

the instructions i give to customers that want to ship me a rifle is the original box and packaging material, or a lockable hard case with glued together (laminated) "blocks" of cardboard from a cut up box that has holes or notches that can suspend the rifle inside the case so it doesn't touch the sides. thus "floating" the rifle and adding some rigidity if the voids are additionally filled with cardboard or foam or newspaper balls or something. the box is then taped shut with packing tape in two locations and then sleeved in a box which is also packed with paper or something with the outer box having no "this is a firearm" markings or hints. this is then ground shipped. with UPS or something.

you can modify the above to meet your needs, i'm sure.

 

[HumptiDouji]

.44 AMP could've been a contender with Callahan's endorsement by itself; if only more stuff had been chambered for it, even if was limited to carbines/rifles

I think the problem is that the Auto Mag pistol was never not a shitshow in its day, and it didn't help that ammunition available wasn't much better. Cutting down .308 Winchester cases to make .44 AMP ones was typical, but this was done pretty sloppily a lot of the time, you could go look at a box of some of the factory ammo from its day and the length of cases could actually vary some within one box. Compare to early American market production 9mm Luger ammo, which could exhibit the same problem at times, it's no good.

.45 Winchester Magnum does basically the same thing but has remained easier to find (comparatively), and is available in more pistols, such as the Grizzly and Wildey, which were far better put together.

.454 Casull could've been more of a thing too; but I never saw it used by anyone other than Taurus, Ruger & a few bespoke wheel-gunsmiths.

I see it here and there, it's no widespread staple but it's far from dead. .454 Casull not as popular as .44 Magnum because it's a lot more gun to handle, .44 has kick but not so much that it's tough to get used to, while .454 has the kind where depending on your grip, you can feel the recoil slap the palm of your hand with each shot. There's a reason the Ruger Blackhawk, Freedom Arms Model 83, BFR, and other single-action revolvers in .454 Casull always have a Bisley style grip, because most people would not enjoy the feel of it when recoiling with the traditional Colt plow grip (especially when it rolls in your hand). Similarly, the Ruger Redhawk and Taurus Raging Bull have rubber grips with finger steps to give you a solid grip and to cushion the palm of your hand.

Even this way, these guns aren't enjoyable to shoot for many people, and that's before you get into the cost of .454 Casull, or it's .45 Colt as "Specials"

IIRC it was the guy in Texas charged with murder, after he had to shoot someone with a serious case of trail-rage; the prosecutors tried nailing him based on his choice of cartridge, the 10mm. (I can't remember his name now for the life of me, but it was a pretty big deal back then).

Yeah, Harold Fish. I've seen people repeatedly use it as an argument as to why it's bad to carry 10mm because the prosecutor used the caliber as an argument, but the reality is that the judge was an absolute fucking retard and the entire trial was fucked up from top to bottom, and in that circumstance you could have been carrying a J-Frame with wadcutters or some .32 pocket auto and it wouldn't save you.
There's a reason that this ruling was eventually overturned and it ruled a mistrial, but not before the poor guy spent some years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit, and he would pass away a few years after being released.

One of the big reasons why I like 10mm is that is is the most powerful "popular" handgun cartridge that is available in a handgun that is even vaguely concealable. If I could CC a .44 Mag Revolver, or a S&W 500 I would. However, due to the fact that most anything more powerful than 10mm is relegated to massive big bore revolvers, even shoulder holsters under a suit jacket can't conceal them (and I have tried).

Depends a lot on how you dress of course. Smith & Wesson makes the Model 69, which is a five shot revolver in .44 Magnum, and it's a decent bit smaller than the classic Dirty Harry issue. Less long, less tall, less wide.

IIRC the Taurus Tracker was similar in concept, a smaller five shot .44 revolver. Being five shot, the cylinder notches of course fit between the chambers, so there's a certain added strength in that sense, compare to how Ruger offsets the notches on the cylinders of their revolvers to add some strength to their chambers.
For the typical .38 snub that's just a piece of trivia, but for a more compact .44 it may be reassuring, as there's some people who would insist on shit like those +P+ 340gr loads which Buffalo Bore sells, presumably because they got possessed by the holy spirit of Elmer Keith. The gun being lighter would factor for recoil, so you would probably want to get the muzzle ported if you were gonna do that kind of shit.

I'll never forget when some boomer told me a story about a guy who got shot with a 22lr and ran away only to die a few days later cause the bullet got into an artery and slowly made it up to his heart and killed him.

I've heard some bullshit about the .22LR in my life, but that's one which is new to me lmao. Seemingly the mythical rimfire cartridge is not restrained by something as mundane as the laws of physics.

Wasn't there some super-tacticool 10mm pistol shilled by Jeff Cooper that turned out to be a lemon?

Dornaus & Dixon's Bren Ten, as said. The action worked, but they had insisted that the gun be readily convertible to .45 Auto so you can practice with if for cheaper, and their approach to this was to design a magazine which would be for both 10mm Auto and .45 Auto at the same time, and this was something they just never managed to achieve.
They did deliver on preordered guns and all that, but mostly they remained unusable, and they attempted to ameliorate that by providing customers with new and more functional .45 Auto magazines to use with the conversion barrel, but it was too little too late, and the company just kind of fell apart from continued expenses and lack of revenue.

Famously featured in Miami Vice, Sonny Crockett's pistol was actually set up for .45 Auto, which is notable especially because .45 Auto movie blanks could be pretty temperamental in those days, hence why a lot of 1911s in older movies and series were built or caliber converted to 9mm Luger (like in Terminator 2) or outright Spanish Star pistols (like in Pulp Fiction and Magnum P.I).
Presumably Michael Mann decided it was easier to try to deal with .45 blanks that than trying to run 10mm blanks in a pistol which just didn't want to cycle no matter what. They did eventually replace it though.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Yeah @HumptiDouji, 44 Magnum and it's derivatives are quite a interesting tale, people always chasing after that sort of power I'm an autoloader, with it becoming either too big to handle like the DE, or it being less powerful Ala 10mm. In the end it circles back to the revolver; lighter than a desert eagle in 429 DE or straight up 44 Magnum, but more powerful than 10mm. Still 10mm has a place no doubt; it's rapid fire, and in its original loading, with enough rounds, you can stop a wild bear or moose. It really just comes down to if you want more lead or a one shot stop. Personally that Model 69 looks sexy, but I'd also want a model 29, for old times sake.

 

[HumptiDouji]

You also had the 1076 but I’m not sure if S&W sold them to the public.

Pretty sure they did, I've seen online listings for the 1006 and 1076.

The problem with 10mm is that technological advances in self defense ammo along with +P have made it redundant compared to 9mm. In 1980 your choice was many rounds of 9mm JHP which wouldn’t penetrate deep enough to stop a threat, 8 rounds of 45 which wasn’t much better, or 6 rounds of 357 Mag or 44 Rem Mag.

9mm Hollowpoints weren't great in 1980, no, but .45 Auto, ball or hollow, did pretty decently even with the tech at the time, the higher weight and energy makes a difference versus the lighter 9mm bullet which struggled with expansion out of pistol barrels.
Stuff like Commander 1911s (and that almost gimpy subcompact 1911 by Detonics), along with lower cost options such as Star PDs and the Charter Arms Bulldog were relatively popular at the time, because enough people wanted something with more energy than 9mm Luger or .38 Special from a small gun.

That said, for smaller bore non-Magnum guns, .38 Super was a stronger option to 9mm Luger in all ways but capacity in those days, and even a 2" .38 Special revolver would do better with some soft SWCHPs, which wouldn't even need to expand much to do better than just ball.

With the government not dictating specs the industry has been going back to what the original goal was, a 200gr bullet going over 1,000 fps at 50 yds.

Lots of 10mm ammo around is still loaded very light though.

Speaking of, and being 1911-adjacent...
now & then I still see .38 Super conversion/barrels being sold for the TT-33, which is what I eventually picked up for a stainless Model 213 (originally in 9mm).
View attachment 4142952
View attachment 4142940

Marstar had them for a while years back & a few other places, but it's been a long time since I've seen any being sold from an online storefront.

That's pretty neat. I've heard of .38 Super barrels for Tokarev pistols but never seen one. How well does it work, do you need a special magazine or will it work in the 7.62mm/9mm ones?

Even less common are 9x23 barrels, which is what I've always wanted to get my hands on.

Which 9x23mm? Largo? Steyr?

In the end it circles back to the revolver; lighter than a desert eagle in 429 DE or straight up 44 Magnum, but more powerful than 10mm.

I've always wondered if .41 Magnum could have done better if there were some inbetween sized frames to put it in. Putting it in an N-Frame because it was the only size which fit six, so that the gun is as big as a .44 or .45 anyway kills some of the appeal.
It'd be a more expensive product, but the gun not being as huge probably would have made a stronger point out of the cartrige fitting between .357 and .44, and likely made a stronger appeal to those who were more interested in the ".41 Police" interpretation.
Though the Colt Delta Elite basically fits that application, so it's moot now.

Still 10mm has a place no doubt; it's rapid fire, and in its original loading, with enough rounds, you can stop a wild bear or moose. It really just comes down to if you want more lead or a one shot stop.

Oh yeah, I think it's a great cartridge, not just as a woods gun, but I genuinely get why some people like the idea of a normal sized auto which can hit about as well as a .357,

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

That's pretty neat. I've heard of .38 Super barrels for Tokarev pistols but never seen one. How well does it work, do you need a special magazine or will it work in the 7.62mm/9mm ones?

Works fine with plain 7.62x25 magazines, but FMJ only; normal JHPs tended to bounce off the feed ramp & jam against the top of the chamber, although something from Hornady or Lehigh might work. I could've tried to work the feed ramp or follower, but those Model 213s are fairly scarce in case I fucked it up, and replacement parts were getting hard to come by even back then.

For the Model 213 I also had to remove the mag-well spacer which is required for the 9mm magazines, as 7.62x25 are quite a bit longer; the .38 barrel came with a recoil spring as well.

Which 9x23mm? Largo? Steyr?

Even better (worse?): 9x23 Winchester (IIRC, it's been long time).

I first found out about them because after I picked up the .38 Super barrel, Marstar also had a placeholder listing for the 9x23, but they never showed up in stock & I was never emailed if they did. There was also another retailer (Atlantic IIRC) that had a few for maybe a week, but by the time I noticed they'd already sold out.

Since then (circa 2009) I've only seen two more come up for sale in separate auctions, one barrel & one in a Romanian TT; but both eventually went for far more than I was willing to pay. Sad, because I really wanted to use that compensator to make a combloc IPSC pistol; like something a competitor fresh from behind the Iron Curtain might've done.

 

[HumptiDouji]

Well I wanted to tweak that previous post on the Smith & Wesson M69, but either the troon DDOS is still having the place act out, or the post is too long and autistic for the server to take me submitting the edits, so I'll just jot it down here (sans some spelling corrections):

It occurred to me that the M69 actually has a slightly shorter cylinder than the M629, because 300gr projectiles might not always want to fit depending on how they're loaded in their case, so maybe those Buffalo Bore torpedoes are a non-starter. I'd still probably want to port the barrel on a gun like that though, and speaking of recoil, I think that gun more than any other S&W would call for you to remove the key lock mechanism, as it has the rare chance to engage with lightweight and high recoiling revolvers.

Even better (worse?): 9x23 Winchester (IIRC, it's been long time).

Oh, right. I guess I get why they're so rare.

Sad, because I really wanted to use that compensator to make a combloc IPSC pistol; like something a competitor fresh from behind the Iron Curtain might've done.

There's always the 7.62mm compensator, and the 9mm one might work with .38 Super

 

[WelperHelper99]

Well I wanted to tweak that previous post on the Smith & Wesson M69, but either the troon DDOS is still having the place act out, or the post is too long and autistic for the server to take me submitting the edits, so I'll just jot it down here (sans some spelling corrections):

It occurred to me that the M69 actually has a slightly shorter cylinder than the M629, because 300gr projectiles might not always want to fit depending on how they're loaded in their case, so maybe those Buffalo Bore torpedoes are a non-starter. I'd still probably want to port the barrel on a gun like that though, and speaking of recoil, I think that gun more than any other S&W would call for you to remove the key lock mechanism, as it has the rare chance to engage with lightweight and high recoiling revolvers.


Oh, right. I guess I get why they're so rare.


There's always the 7.62mm compensator, and the 9mm one might work with .38 Super

Starting with 38 super, it  should be the same diameter as regular as 9mm, but double check.

As for revolvers, porting that short boi .44 is a must- ive seen video of short barrel 44 being fired, it's not fun, take every advantage you can get. On a revolver related Christmas note, bought myself some Remington 158 grain LRN .38 special as a personal Christmas gift, of which I found myself reimbursed from some Christmas money this morning.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

Oh, right. I guess I get why they're so rare.

Back when I first learned of the 9x23 Winchester's existence, I actually did see it in the hunting megamarts, but it permanently vanished off shelves during the first Obama ammo panic.

But since 9x21 Russian is a thing now & I might be able to find source non-AP 7N28 after the war is done, my new unobtainable dream-pistol is a Tokarev chambered for it.

There's always the 7.62mm compensator, and the 9mm one might work with .38 Super

The compensator on my Polish TT is the 7.62x25 version, but I have no idea who made them; never saw any for 9mm.

 

[WelperHelper99]

More of a open question, what has your expierence been with Remington in its guns and ammo, both before and after the bankruptcy? Personally what i've shot of Remington has worked ammo wise, but it doesn't have the fanciest projectiles either, at least none that commonly make it to shelves.

 

[Smoke Manmuscle]

More of a open question, what has your expierence been with Remington in its guns and ammo, both before and after the bankruptcy? Personally what i've shot of Remington has worked ammo wise, but it doesn't have the fanciest projectiles either, at least none that commonly make it to shelves.

I’ve got a few Model 11 shotguns from the 30s. They are great and Remington made a few changes to Browning’s design that actually made it better in my opinion. Can’t speak to modern stuff.

 

[HarblMcDavid]

Just as an FYI in case anyone is interested in Trijicon VCOGs: be aware that according to Trijicon they cannot change the reticle in those without basically re-manufacturing the scope to the tune of what it would cost to just buy another one. This might not be common knowledge, but it is an important gotcha to remember if you're thinking about getting one.

I think this mostly applies to 1-8x28 early adopters who are getting screwed by the release of the SCO model which probably isn't many people, so just remember if you're thinking about a 1-8 that it's worth waiting for SCOs to be in stock rather than picking up a base model and trying to get the christmas tree reticle installed, because that shit ain't a thing.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

More of a open question, what has your expierence been with Remington in its guns and ammo, both before and after the bankruptcy? Personally what i've shot of Remington has worked ammo wise, but it doesn't have the fanciest projectiles either, at least none that commonly make it to shelves.

Pre-bankruptcy Remington ammunition works but was absolutely filthy and smoky. I shelved my last few boxes of Core-Lokt because of it.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Pre-bankruptcy Remington ammunition works but was absolutely filthy and smoky. I shelved my last few boxes of Core-Lokt because of it.

The Remington FBI loads I have are smokey, but they go bang and are pretty reliable.

 

[Pocket Dragoon]

Pre-bankruptcy Remington ammunition works but was absolutely filthy and smoky. I shelved my last few boxes of Core-Lokt because of it.

The Remington FBI loads I have are smokey, but they go bang and are pretty reliable.

And here I thought all my old ammo from big green had gotten moist or something, so I stopped using it; that stuff made smokepole-tier clouds, especially the .22, but my hoarding autism never let me get rid of it.

 

[Falcos_Commisar]

It's a Heritage Roughrider, but better.

If any of you get one, I would say keep it in a sock or a holster when storing it in your safe. Mine is black, and the finish got all scuffed up from my other pistols.

Ehh I actually like the Roughrider better as it has a clicky cylinder vs the free spinning one on the Ruger Wrangler.

Oh and it's cheaper

 

[WhatInTheActualFuck]

Front post is all good. I think I'll just move straight to a prism. Something about gun culture makes everyone into these really guarded dickheads with absolutist views on everything. It's difficult being self taught because of all the shitty info I've seen tossed around. I wasted most of this year practicing trigger control on the pad of my finger, when the first crook has been instantly superior for me. I've had to virtually relearn my trigger pull in the past 6 weeks. Getting a dot makes it much much easier to see what's really happening too. The idea that new shooters should languish in the dark because optics are just a newfangled toy and one more point of failure is huge bullshit. The moment I put a holosun on my striker, it was like Helen Keller learning to say water. Every minute detail of the pull was visible.

I have had a very good experience with the Attero Arms Bravo mount mated to a cheap as hell Holosun red dot. The mount replaces the rear sight leaf, which was complete trash on my RH-10 anyway.

 

[Local Target Tard]

The wins we've had this year is nuts, gun sales to first timers have been high still despite slowing- Smith and Wesson is still swimming in fresh cash- the courts now have permission to take the gloves off due to Bruen, and we're reaping the benefits of the industry being called upon to innovate due to 2020. I mean we got funny things such as Ruger's new 15 round 380 pistol that I now want before I get a 9mm or a 40 lol.
EDIT: picture of the Ruger, the Security 380
View attachment 4117419

Every time I try to broaden my horizons Ruger pulls me back.
If you do get it let me know how it handles. I have a few Rugers and so far they've been good to me.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Weird question, but does anyone have any experience with Federal Syntech ammo, specifically for range use? Is it actually worth it to reduce wear on your gun, or is it just a gimmick?