Knives, bullets and white lights
There are things that we never leave home without, our wallets and keys for the most part. If we are CCW holders, we always leave with our guns, a knife can come in more useful than your firearm at times and even more useful, is a white light. People seem to think that when you hear get a white light for your gun, it means mounting it, but there are other alternatives. Section 8 Tactical makes a nifty light holder called the Ultimate Retention Device. This device comes in real handy since it’s not weapon mounted and really doesn’t tie up your hand.
In the last few weeks, I’ve been in the car on camping trips and for fixing flat tires, but times I forgot to bring my flashlight with me. Recently I took a Streamlight Scorpion LED and tossed it in my car with a Section 8 TacPac stocked with batteries. With modern LED technology, battery life has been extended dramatically, but it’s good to always know you have backup batteries around for the just incase scenario. I personally see very little practical difference between Streamlight flashlights and Surefire flashlights. The Streamlight scorpion works well on a carbine or shotgun and it’s also small enough to fit in your pocket, but not too small to lose.
If you have ever taken a course at Thunder Ranch, one of the things you will hear from an instructor is to put a white light on your gun. I think there are valid arguments about how to use lasers and lights on a firearm, but there are mostly liabilities in not having a light available in defensive situations, especially in your own home. Why would anyone not put a light on a firearm in there house? Police are trained to move and turn lights off and on as they move white pretty much voids the argument that it gives the bad guys a place to aim, well, if the guy with the light spots the guy in the dark first, his gun is probable already pointed in the right direction.
When I shot my first Sig 229 in .357 Sig the thing that impressed me the most was the flat shooting trajectory. One of the biggest issues I’ve had shooting 45acp was the adjustments I had to make in bullet trajectory when shooting with my fixed 1911 sights. Bullet impact may not be something to worry about in close home situations for some people, but for my shooting styles, I want to know exactly where my bullets are going to go from 10-50yds. I know that bullet weights can make a difference, but I’ve always thought that 230gr FMJ was the proper thing to send downrange from a 1911. Although I love my 45acp guns, I don’t use them as defensive weapons. The .357 Sig always seemed to be a step up from the 45acp in certain aspects, like penetration and trajectory. For Law Enforcement, running into bad guns with body armor is become more and more common and the only thing around that these days is a more powerful firearm.
If you are thinking about buying your first gun for inside the home, there is no better option than a shotgun. Some rookie gun shopper may think a shotgun is too powerful, but the reality is there is no better defensive weapon that can be so versatile when it comes to projectile ballistics. The difference in bullet penetration between a shotgun slug and size 9 shot is tremendous. Both are incredible leathal at close ranges, but energy is lost very quickly which is an assett in close situations. Due to modern home construction, there is no better reasoning than to consider what happens to a bullet if it misses the target or if it happens to hit the target and still go on. There is a saying that there is a lawyer attached to every bullet that exits your gun if it is used in a defensive situation and this very true.
And the answer is no, we do not, so why do people expect us to be able to shoulder the same size rifles or grip the same size handguns comfortable? Even if you’re a guy, you’re not all built the same, and luckily the military has caught on to this. If I had a nickel for every WWII vet I know that made a comment on how big the Garand was and how many of them had trouble shooting one, I’d be rich. The M1 Garand is a very accurate and powerful rifle, but not everyone could hand them. If you field a rifle of the same caliber today, and allowed people to adjust the stock for their comfort, recoil issues go away.
There is another issue that I see come up when taking new students to the range. I usually bring various military style rifles with me to get people to adjust to recoil and realize the common military style weapons that exist in the world. Many of these individuals, after a day on the range tend to select the gun that fit them the best. When I first got into shooting rifles, I started out with all of the military surplus firearms that came into the Country in the early and mid 1990s. There may never be another time where Soviet style weapons are imported into this Country. The military warehouses got cleaned out after the fall of the Soviet Empire and American gun owners were the beneficieries.
After a few years of actually taking real fighting classes, one of the most common things every instructor told us was, “get a white light” on your fighting weapon. There are some handgun options where you can hold a flashlight while using a handgun and not have a fixed light on it which makes holster options very limited. The Section8 Tactical ultimate retention device is a good tool to use, but this isn’t recommended for using with a shotgun or carbine. I recenltly finished a training course where we used lasers for defensive purposes. The best tactical for using lasers is knowing when to turn them off. Yes, using a flashlight or laser is a giveaway, but spotlighting a threat and identifying it is paramount.
You might want to think about collapseable stocks or folding stocks. Guns can take up a lot of space depending on the optics and accessories you put on them. I’ve seen plenty of my friends go from 12 or 18 rifle safes to full size gun safes just because of the optics they had on rifles. One thing they never advertise when you are shopping for a gun safe is what kind of rifles it will hold. Cramming your guns in will only cause damage and make getting guns in and out a headache. Instead of worrying about having to find a new gun safe, you might want to think about spending a few hundred bucks on changing the stocks of your military style weapons to something that can fold or collapse.
Most of us probable got into the shooting world via a shotgun or 22lr rifle. Those seem to be some of the best instroductory firearms. You can learn the basics about shooting from a 22lr bolt action rifle and the shotgun is the most versatile firearm out there. Something like a Remingto 870 shotgun is normally available with an 18-28 barrel on it and can be found in 12 or 20 gauge. The shotgun can be used for pheasant hunting all the way up to deer just by altering the type of shot or using a slug. Depending on the sights you have on the gun, you may want to consider rifle sights if you plan on using slugs very often.
Back in the 1990s there was a lot of Eastern Com-Block guns coming into the Country. There were also a lot of MAK90s and SKS Rifles coming in from China. Not sure why there were so many Chinese guns coming in, but there must have been some house cleaning from the Militarys over there. You may be able to find a well made 7.62×39 rifle being made in the USA now, but they are pretty expensive and will cost you about the same as a new AR15 or more. Some of the nicest AKs are being by Arsenal Arms and they look and shoot great.