Guns 401: Rifles

Just in time for the end of hunting season; go me!!

We're approaching graduate-level studies in Gun-blog-ology here! Ironic, since sometimes i call them "riffles" just to sound under-educated. :)

Rifles are what most people think of when they think of "long guns." But just because it's a long gun doesn't mean it's a rifle. Shotguns are long too. The primary difference between them is that rifles fire a single projectile (a bullet) where shotguns almost always fire a shotshell, which is a bunch of little bullets all at once. I will get more into that when I post about shotguns, and it will be a long one since i *heart* shotguns the most of all of the guns.

Anyways, back to riffles.

Rifles come in LOTS of different actions. Generally speaking, rifles only have one firing pin, and one chamber that can actually fire a bullet, so there has to be some way of clearing the spent shell casing once a round has been fired. There are rifles with hammers like revolvers, that you have to cock to fire. Usually those rifles also involve some kind of lever-action (a la John Wayne) and you have to lever the old casing out and lever a new bullet in before you can fire again. There are semi-automatic rifles that fling the spent case out and chamber a new one just like semi-auto handguns. There are pump-action rifles that you *rack* just like in the movies, although usually in the movies it's a shotgun. There are break-action rifles that open up like a shotgun--these are usually single-shot and you have to put a new bullet in by hand every time you want to fire. Most hunting rifles are bolt-action, which means there is a goober that sticks out the side of the rifle and you have to physically lift the bolt handle (which is the goober's real name), pull it back towards you (which ejects the old shell case), push it back towards the end of the barrel (which chambers a new round) and fire again. It's not the fastest thing in the world, but it IS the most accurate, which is why it is usually the preferred action for hunting.

Rifles don't HAVE to have a scope, but the hunting-specific ones usually do since they are meant to shoot accurately to 100 yards and beyond. That's farther than i can see very well, and i have decent eyesight (so far). Scopes help you see that far, and they usually have cross-hairs or some other sort of markings in the lens that helps you figure out what you're aiming at and where to aim in order to reach out and touch something over that distance. You want to be as accurate as possible when firing a rifle. Since you are generally firing over longer distances, pesky things like "gravity" and "your heartbeat" come into play, and they all affect the accuracy of your shot. The ballistics of shooting at, um, anything pretty much dictate that once a projectile leaves your firearm, it will start dropping. Stupid gravity. How FAST your bullet falls, though, is dependent on the variables of your cartridge. Lighter projectiles with a larger powder charge are going to go farther than heavier projectiles with less powder pushing them. Here is an example:

The cartridge on the left is a .243 WSSM (Winchester Super Short Magnum). Winchester is the manufacturer of the cartridge, and no, you don't have to match the make of the cartridge to the make of your rifle. You just have to make sure you are shooting the right caliber. ;) Your Ruger firearm will shoot Winchester bullets, just like your Winchester rifle will shoot Remington bullets. What is TRULY annoying is that all guns have a bullet that they like the best, and shoot the best, and you have to try and FIND it. Annoying. It is like having a finicky cat. >:(

Anyways, the cartridge on the right is a standard .243. Oh, and a short explanation of caliber: a .243 bullet (not the whole cartridge, just the actual bullet, the pointy copper part) measures 24/100 of an inch in diameter. A .30-06 measures 30/100 of an inch in diameter. A .410 shotgun shell measures 41/100 of an inch across. Caliber is just a numeric measurement of diameter.

ANYWAYS, these cartridges (and "cartridge" refers to the whole shebang, with the powder and case and everything, where "bullet" literally just means the actual bullet) are the same bullet. But which one do you think goes faster, for longer? Right, the one with the bigger butt. :)

"Magnum" calibers (the bigger butt ones) have more powder. Also they are my favorites simply cuz us fat bottomed girls all have to stick together. :)

Here is a cool and illustrative pic i found online:

From left to right: .22LR (long rifle), .17HMR, .22-250, .25-06, .270 Winchester, .270 Winchester Short Magnum (or WSM), 7mm-08, .284Win., 30-30 Win., 30-06, .300 WSM, .303 British, .358 Win., .45 Colt.

The .22 and the .22-250, the third cartridge in from the left, have approximately the same diameter of bullet. But the .22-250 is the one that is travelling faster, farther, will be more quickly lethal and it will do its job over a greater distance. It should go without saying, but when you are hunting or shooting at a live target, you want to kill the animal as quickly and painlessly as possible. That's not the image of hunters that most people have in their heads, and of course there are slack-jawed loser exceptions to every rule, but that is how the vast majority of us feel.

So the bigger the bullet/the more powder you have, you decrease the animal's suffering. Irony alert!

So here are some pictures of riffles.


I know what you're thinking--

"Serena, these rifles aren't pink!"

"Yeah, I know."

"Well?! WTF?!!"

WTF is something that has been on my mind lately. You hear ALL THE TIME about someone doing something stupid with an "assault" rifle. They're "black" rifles. They're scary. They're bad. Someone should take them away from us. People don't need to have "assault" rifles.

So, can someone DEFINE "assault" rifle for me?

. . .

Exactly.

Usually it is just an aesthetic evaluation. It is black. Probably has a plastic stock. Might have a "pistol" grip instead of a standard rifle grip behind the trigger guard. Looks scary, like the ship in "Aliens." Has a hi-capacity magazine (bullet holder thing) sticking out from the bottom of it. May have a flash suppressor at the end of the barrel. May have a carry handle on top. May have a scope.

So i am putting these pictures up as a representation. The bottom ones are "assault" rifles, right?

Right???

Actually, all of these guns pictured are the SAME kind of gun. It is a Ruger 10-22, which is a .22 rifle. It is semi-automatic, so it chambers a new round every time you pull the trigger. Ruger 10-22s are cheap and plentiful. Seriously, you can get one for $75-$100 if you don't mind dings in the stock or a little bit of rust on the barrel. Brand new, they are less that $300, and they probably have more aftermarket crap that you can slap on them that any other gun out there. You can take the gun on top and buy a new stock and a heavy black barrel and all the scary acoutrements to make it into an "assault" rifle. So I guess i'm just trying to illustrate the fallacy behind banning a gun based on what it looks like. Although i'm hella tired so it probably isn't making too much sense.

(I had a note to myself here to put in a picture of own bad-ass 10-22. I was also going to explain what a "Mannlicher" stock and make obscene jokes about it. But that will have to be another post.)

My other pet peeve: the "high-powered" rifle. What the sam hell is a "high-powered" rifle? The power comes from the cartridge, not the rifle. So why do you hear "high-powered" rifle all the time? What does that even MEAN?? And, pray tell, is there a LOW-powered rifle out there?

Fleh.

I am pretty sure i have some pink rifle pictures but i have gone FAR too long in between posts so i'ma throw this one onto the interwebs right now.

Gun Safes!

So i have FIVE whole readers now! And i don't want them to break up with me, so I had better do a real post.

When we left off ages and ages ago (sorry, work has been kinda-sorta busy), i was promising to talk about gun safes. Because "proper gun storage" means a little more than hiding them under your bed. :) By which i mean MY bed.

So. Gun safes are like anything else--you can pick any size, any color (within reason; i canNOT find a picture of a pink one), any flavor, and someone somewhere will sell it to you. They are also one of those things where you DEFINITELY get what you pay for. You can spend thousands (literally) on the great big practically-walk-in super heavy-duty fireproof fancypants safes or you can spend $65 on the cheap crap tin cabinet from Wal-Mart that basically has a cam-lock and is SO break-innable that me and my trusty crowbar could have all your stuff vacated in like 16 seconds. That being said, a cheap crap tin cabinet is better than nothing. Most gun safes will accomplish their intended purposes for the most part:

1) keep thieving hands off your weapons

2) keep children's sticky little grubby gross boogery hands off your weapons

What is more difficult for the safe to accomplish, and ultimately more expensive, is to keep your weapons safe from fire. This makes a HUGE difference in price so it is important to figure out if it is something you require, or if you maybe just don't like your guns all that much and don't really mind if they melt. The cool thing about fire-resistant safes--ALL your important (non-living) stuff can go in there and be protected in the event of an emergency. Birth certificates, passports, car/truck/trailer titles, horse paperwork, grandma's chocolate chip cookie recipe, whatever. So that makes some level of fire-proofiness worth having, at least in my mind. Everyone thinks that having your house burn down for whatever reason is something that happens to "someone else." That's not very realistic. NO ONE expects bad things to happen, until they do. You are definitely best off being prepared for possible unpleasantness. Here is a link to a good article on fire ratings.

Anyways. Gun safes come in basically two approximate shapes--tall enough for rifles/shotguns (usually with shelving for handguns), and smallish square ones for handgun only. There is an obvious price difference on the sizes. What you purchase depends on you. Do you only own handguns? Are you never ever ever going to own a rifle or a shotgun? I can't imagine that, but then again i am CWAZY for clay pigeons, so i am not the best judge. It comes down to personal preference and affordability and the choice is yours.

Oh yeah, there is a third basic shape--long gun, horizontal. Some manufacturers make safes that replace the box-spring of your bed, or that fit nicely into the bed of your truck/SUV. However they might as well just make them shaped like dollar signs because they are not very affordable for the average Serena.


Safes come with lots of different locking mechanisms, also. Some have electronic keypads, some have a dial, some are keyed, some are a combination of these. Again, personal preference.

Make sure that, if you ARE in the market for a safe, you check eBay. They have quite a few varieties and some of the companies will even ship them. Make sure you know what "shipping" entails--some companies will set it up in your house, some will only get it inside your house, and some (most) will just leave it curbside. And it should go without saying, but safes are hella hella heavy. Quality ones especially, like in the 400-800 lb range for a "normal" sized one (20 guns or less).

I am NOT an expert on gun safes by any means, so definitely do more homework than just this post.

Oh, and a parting thought.

My parents had a pistol when we were growing up. They had rifles too but the rifles were always hidden, (although in actuality, nothing is "hidden" from a child, but we weren't twits enough to go looking for them). My dad kept the pistol, a .22 caliber Ruger Single Six, in a drawer in his nightstand. He thoughtfully installed a cam-lock on the wooden drawer, which any thief with an ounce of motivation could have ripped off of there, but admittedly the pawn-shop payoff for a Ruger Single Six (Possibly The World's Most Common Revolver!!) isn't that great. He NOT-so-thoughtfully stored the key for that drawer IN THE DRAWER UNDERNEATH IT. Now, I was not an idiot during my teen years. I mean, I was, we all were, but i wasn't enough of an idiot to ever get the gun out and play with it to impress my friends, having no idea if it was loaded or not. My SIBLINGS (and you know who you are) weren't blessed with the same amount of foresight. I work in public relations now, and we in the bizness call something like that an "eventual statistic." Works like this: If you have a ton of unsafe sex, eventually you are going to wake up with a disease. If you play with a loaded gun, eventually someone is going to get accidentally shot. Stuff like this happens ALL the TIME and it is a HUGE reason why people who are anti-gun think that all people are too dumb and irresponsible to own any firearms. Nothing bad happened to my family or their friends, but how easy would it have been? Safe and proper firearms storage is NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU SHOULD HALF-ASS. PERIOD. Seriously. Address safe and proper gun storage using your entire ass.

filler!

So i am doing a real post about gun safes, i swears.
Until i get it posted, check this out:

Women of Action

If i thought for one whole second that this channel was actually available here, i might have to rethink my "no-cable" stance.

Weirdest Conversation Ever

So i dropped out of the hemisphere for the first week of May and went and partied like a broke, ugly, talentless rock star in Sydney, Australia. My Marine Corps brother, Scotty, was granted two weeks of sweet sweet leave and his thought process went something like this:

a) spend 2 days of my 14-day leave getting back to the US. Spend not-enough time there, say goodbye to everyone--AGAIN--and spend 2 more days heading back into the war zone.

or

b) fly 6 hours to Sydney.

Um, yeah. So I, the hapless sister, got to spend two days in the air, which is fine because i am the Best Flyer Ever. Srsly, i can sleep anywhere. So we tore the barn doors off of Sydney, although my exploits are nothing compared to Stacey's adventures currently in progress in Korea. Scott and I had a grand old time and i took 1200 pictures (which is good because there are large portions of the evenings and some of the afternoons that I just plain don't remember). We mostly hit up the Irish pubs, which was funny because people actually THOUGHT we were Irish. Um. We're not. We would ask why and the Aussies would usually say it was because of our accents or because of our drink choices (Guinness and Guinness-like, mostly). We finally figured out that people thought we were Irish because we were loud, disorderly, drunk and apparently unemployed (buuuuuuurn!).

I'm just kidding, Ireland. You guys rule, seriously.

But anyways, during one drunken escapade at an Irish pub that was on the first floor of the hotel where we were staying, there was a band. And the band was AWESOME. They were called the Moonshiners and they were a haggly-looking old guy with an acoustic guitar and a younger, buffer guy with a fiddle. They ROCKED! I was singing along and semi-heckling the guitar guy from across the bar and apparently he liked that since he bought me a beer. Hooray!

So during an intermission, he comes over to chat. Over the course of the conversation, he mentions that he comes from a part of Australia that is heavily into mining, mostly cadmium, zinc and lead. So here we go:

Me: "Get the lead mining back in business, shotgun shells (which fire lead pellets, as an aside) are costing me too much money lately."

Him: "You Americans and your guns. We don't have guns in Australia. I don't see the need for them. I don't think anyone should own guns."

Me: *siiiiiiigh* "Yeah, i know. And your crime rates have risen as a RESULT of your gun laws growing more restrictive."

Him: "I don't think so."

Me: "I KNOW so! It is well-documented, and even more so in England. Banning legal ownership of guns leads to MORE crime, not less. You're sheep for the robbing!"

Him: "We don't really need guns here. It's ok if you want to shoot clay pigeons, but people don't need guns for home defence. There is too much personal liability--people really aren't responsible enough to be entrusted with weapons. But that's fine with us here; we're not paranoid like you Americans."

Me: "So what happens when someone actually DOES kick down your door? Then what? They're probably not there for tea time!" (remember i am drinking, which makes me even more rude than usual)

Him: "That doesn't happen often enough for us to worry about it."

Me: "Right, things like that only happen to OTHER PEOPLE. Sorry, but in the States we have tons of crackheads. It seems like everyone uses drugs."

Him: "Drugs aren't so bad."

Me: . . .

Him: "No, really."

Me: *blink*

Him: "Ecstasy is my favorite."

Me: . . . (finding voice) . . . "You think people are too IRRESPONSIBLE to own guns, but DRUGS ARE FINE!??"

Him: "Basically, yes."

He then proceeded to tell me WHY Ecstasy is awesome, how cheap it is, where to get it, HOW to use it, how much fun it could be if i used it with my partner, etc. I was looking around like, dude, i am in the Twilight Zone. Is this conversation really happening? Scott was making friends with a guy from England so i was totally alone to deal with the strange-ity of the whole thing.

It was positively surreal. I guess it is all in how you are raised, but i am SO glad i live out West, where (armed) life is best.

Moral: Australians are weird.

Exactly.

PROPER GUN STORAGE

One thing that you can never ever ever cut corners on, ever, ever ever, is proper gun storage. Guns need to be able to be securely stored in an area INACCESSIBLE to children/thieves/nitwits. You, as a gun owner, carry this heavy burden squarely on your awesome gun-owning shoulders.

That being said, I don't own a gun safe. Yet.

My rationale has traditionally been this:

1) I will never ever have kids, mostly because I can't stand children. I know i'm going to alienate all three of my readers with that revelation, but it's true. I have no maternal instinct whatsoever. I've seriously never even had a child as a visitor in any place I have ever lived. My sister who does have kids has to be pretty damn desperate to ask me to baby-sit, because she knows I will completely half-ass any attempts at child care (example: I do NOT change diapers. Period.) So the safety issue is pretty much nil because my house is more likely to be invaded by elephants than it is by anyone under the age of 21. However, my home IS invaded by nitwits fairly regularly. I call them my "friends." So i guess this excuse doesn't really hold water.

2) I have never owned a home. Home ownership is the time for large, immobile furniture. Home RENTERSHIP is not. Gun safes weigh, like, a trillion pounds. I am simply NOT dragging that from apartment to apartment.

So, you know where this is going. Our new president made the (totally awesome) decision to give me back a bunch of my own tax dollars to buy a house. $8,000? I'm on it! Thanks, Mr. President! I've been waiting 30 years for someone to incent me to be a grown-up and buy a house. So I did. I bought a sweet sweet condo. It is SECOND-FLOOR, so totally defensible against zombie attacks since I only have one point of access.

Problem: I have a home now. It's time to get The Gun Safe.

Bigger Problem: Second floor. A flight of stairs is going to be involved.

Somewhat Similarly-Sized Problem: These fookers are EXPENSIVE. And, like anything else, you get what you pay for.

Guh.

So a couple of years ago, I wheedled a promise of some moolah out of my parents specifically for The Gun Safe once I got a proper place. Moolah has been granted. So it is time to go shopping.

I will keep you posted on what I look at, what i like, and what i dislike. Good times, yeeuh. :D

CWP. or CPP. or CCP. Or whatever.

People call them lots of things, depending on the state that you're in, but whether it's a Concealed Weapons Permit, a Concealed Pistol Permit, a Concealed Carry Permit, a carry card, whut-EVER, it allows you to have a loaded firearm on your person, in your purse, in your car, etc. They are all issued separately for whatever state you live in, usually by either the statewide police agency or your county sheriff's department. Not every state allows concealed carry (cough coughIllinoiscough), which is bad. How are you supposed to be able to defend yourself against muggers/dogs/bears/zombies/whatever if carrying a TOOL to defend yourself is against the law? In Illinois, you have to apply for a card/permit to even PURCHASE a firearm. >:( I am not going all NRA-crazy here, but that sounds suspiciously like "infringing" my "right" to "keep" and "bear" arms, if you ask me.

And i guess i am a little stymied as to how something like that would even purport to work. I mean, me, Law-Abiding Lucy, has to fill out a bunch of forms and pay a bunch of money to purchase a firearm. Great. Fan-freaking-tastic. Does that inconvenience to ME stop Criminal Carl from buying a used gun from some crackhead and mugging people with it? NO. Gun laws like this are well-intentioned but they do NOT stop guns from getting into the hands of people who are going to do something stupid and give guns a bad name. Laws don't stop criminals from doing anything. These people don't follow laws. THAT'S WHY THEY ARE CRIMINALS. Gun laws just get in my way and piss me off. grrr.

Anyways, on to more awesome things.

Some states allow OPEN carry, which is cool. Meaning, if I want to have a gun on my hip, covered by a Carhartt jacket, that is considered "concealed" and i need a permit. But if the state allows open carry, i can have that same gun on my hip NOT covered by a Carhartt jacket, and go swaggering down the street nice and legal. Awesome. Wisconsin is an example of this. They do not issue concealed carry permits but open carry has to be specifically prohibited by the building or place of business.

I got a . . . checking . . . Concealed Weapons LICENSE (whatEVER) when I moved to Idaho because I have guns in my car on a regular basis, and while that alone is perfectly legal, it makes things easier if i were to, for example, get pulled over with three shotguns in the backseat.* John Law likes to see the license because it means that I am not only a law-abiding citizen, but also that I have been photographed, fingerprinted, paid a license fee, and been subjected to a national FBI and local background check to make sure I'm not a felon. Felons in the United States lose their right to keep and bear arms. So don't do crime, kids; it's not worth losing a chance to (legally) play with sweet sweet guns.

*-This is actully pretty likely to happen if I am headed to the gun club. ;)

Here is a kick-ass website that has all the info on what your state issues, along with your state's reciprocity information. Meaning, does your state honor carry permits from OTHER states? Not all of them do, folks! It is one of the vagaries of this wacky nation. There have been legislative attempts to standardize carry laws across state lines, but they are usually fought by most gun-rights organizations for a couple of reasons. 1) Because nationwide standards start us all down a slippery slope to standardized firearm licensing requirements, which are bad, and 2) a nationwide standard has to be voted on by Congress, and the vast majority of Congresspeople come from heavily populated, urban areas. They have generally grown up thinking that guns are bad, and no one has ever taken the time to teach them to shoot and demonstrated that guns are nothing but tools. So who is to say that Congress wouldn't decide to enact a nationwide standard based on, say, Illinois' dumbass position? Nobody, either pro- or anti-gun, wants to fight that fight, and that's why everyone is happy to leave that as it is, as a states' rights issue.

Anyways. Concealed weapons permits! Go get one!

And yes, i am still working on Rifle Post. FEVERISHLY working. Well, not really. But you can pretend.

I WANT THIS SHIRT.

I'm sorry, this is a filler post so people don't get bored of my blog and wander off.

I am writing a post about rifles but it is taking me FOREVER. Coming soon though, i promise!