Category: Target Shooting & Marksmanship

Letter Re: Knob Creek After Action Report, Fall 2013

The weather at Knob Creek was great, the dust was minimal and the travel was above average.  The car ran fine, I didn’t die a fiery death and the CV joints only started making noise and going bad after I got home. Yeah! Best price I saw on .308 ammo was Military Shooters Supply, Inc. with PMC and Lake City (the 2 loose packed boxes I examined all had 2005 head stamps, (de-linked I imagine) for $340 per 500rd. They had PMC 55gr .223 $389/1000 and 68gr 5.56 $429/1000. Brown Bear 7.62×39  $119/500. Pat’s Reloading prices were not as good …


Pat’s Product Review: Black Hills Ammunition

I actually got started writing back in 1983, when I reviewed books for a Christian bookselling company. These were soon-to-be-released books. My “pay” for reviewing the books, was that, I got to keep the books. I built-up quite a library of Youth Ministry books over a couple years. I had help along the way, with my meager writing efforts, and I still don’t consider myself any sort of writer, per see – but I hopefully can communicate with my readers, so they understand what I’m trying to convey to them.   It was 1992, before I started writing firearms articles, …


Letter Re: Loading Your Own Ammunition

Dear Editor, I have some comments to follow up on the letter from Kent from Illinois. I specifically left out mentioning match primers, salvaging brass with swaged primer pockets, etc., as this article was on the basics, barely touching upon a few advanced techniques. As to touching the primers: My handloads suffered from maddening duds occasionally, until I tracked down the cause. An old timer told me about skin oils and primers. I, being a young know-it-all, could not find this old timer’s story mentioned anywhere (this was way before broad public use of the Internet), so I set off …


Letter Re: Loading Your Own Ammunition

Mr Rawles, I’m writing to make a few points about the article Ken in Montana wrote about reloading, as there are some issues I have with it. I’ve only been reloading since 1999, but . . . . First, Winchester primers are also brass in color, so anything other than silver doesn’t automatically mean they’re Remington. Additionally, people who are just getting into reloading should ask around about the reliability of the primers they’re going to use, as some primers have harder cups and don’t detonate reliably. I generally only use Winchester and CCI. I’d be interested to know where …


Loading Your Own Ammunition, by Ken in Montana

With the current shortage of ammunition and the consequent high prices, it makes more sense now than ever before to learn how to reload your own fired brass casings.  I even suspect that in the future, this may well be the only way for the ordinary citizen to obtain ammunition. It’s not at all difficult, it only requires a little understanding of the process, and the ability to follow directions. This will become very important later, as each caliber requires its own set of powders, charges, primers, and bullets. No one can learn them all, there are millions of potential …


Letter Re: Airsoft: Effective Firearm and Tactical Training for Adults and Children

James, Just wanted to amplify the recent contribution on Airsoft which focused mainly on Airsoft battle rifle emulations. Our concealed carry instructor had mention Airsoft handguns as CQB/indoor training and drill options. In particular he thought well of the “GreenGas” Blowback emulations of semi-auto handguns. I filed this under someday and didn’t begin to investigate Airsoft handguns until the recent spike in ammo prices.  The propellant, Green Gas, is propane with a bit of silicon oil added for a lubricant. Adapters are available so you may use larger (lantern and torch size) propane tanks which are more economical.You can purchase …


Airsoft: Effective Firearm and Tactical Training for Adults and Children, by So Ed

To many people, Airsoft is just a toy gun that annoying 12-year olds spray at each other with plastic pellets in the back yard.  But to the military and creative survivalists, it’s a training tool that saves lives. The Japanese invented Airsoft in the 1990s and militaries worldwide soon discovered that the inexpensive, safe Airsoft guns are a realistic method for training tactical movement, magazine change drills, building clearing, and much more. What is Airsoft? There are a myriad of different types and styles of Airsoft guns, but the common attractive feature is that they are modeled in size and …


Letter Re: Practice, Cub Scouts, BB Guns, and the Old Guy

Dear Jim and Readers, I want to start out with a little bit of pre-history. About five weeks ago I had my first heart attack, and the doc installed a stint. That was a wake-up call! Wow. Of course the subject by the doc was diet, lose the lard, get exercise. I started losing by cutting back, but I needed a bit more help. Work would be nice, it would help with my activity level plus I needed some extra finances to come in as some big bills were hitting all at once. So when all these things begin to …


Airsoft, Pellets, and BBs: Inexpensive M1911 Practice, by M.M.

With the continuing ammunition shortage, inexpensive firearms practice has become impossible.  .45ACP centerfire pistol ammo, when available, pushes a dollar a round.  I haven’t seen .22LR for a lot less than fifty cents a round either.  Ridiculous!  However, there are replica, 1:1 scale copies, air or gas powered guns and ammo that simulate the M1911 firearm shooting experience in every respect except the noise and recoil.  You can practice indoors, in any weather, without disturbing a sleeper in the same room with a “weapon” indistinguishable from the real thing at a price that isn’t just low but down right cheap!   Notice …


Air Guns as Long Term Survival Weapons, by M.D.W.

The term Air Gun brings to mind the classic Red Ryder BB gun to many. It is often met with the question “You mean Airsoft and BB guns?” Those are not what are being discussed here. We are talking about weapons that are capable of taking deer, bear, buffalo, and two legged predators. We are talking about weapons that can take squirrels from 50 yards with Hollywood like quite. We are talking about weapons that can make ammo from a tire weights, previously fired bullets, or any other source of lead. We are talking about weapons that you can shoot …


Michael Z. Williamson Re: Mass Versus Bullets (and Hail Stones and Gamma Radiation)

Dear Jim, I notice that 5.56 is again getting an unrealistically bad rap.  It’s not as powerful as many other rounds, but some online epithets seem to suggest you can hide behind a sheet of paper and be safe. As a reminder, I’d like to repost the following demonstrations from the fine folks at Box O’ Truth: 5.56 will go through four interior walls. It will shoot a hole into an engine block. A steel front door may stop shotgun pellets, but WILL NOT stop 5.56mm. Level IIIA body armor without plates will not stop 5.56mm. Car doors will not …


Three Letters Re: Studying Guerilla Warfare Tactics

Dear Captain Rawles, I would like to thank Al H. for his letter on the importance of studying Guerrilla Warfare tactics and also for his mention of one of my book, Contact!: A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival There were two purposes in writing ‘Contact’: firstly, to pass on tactical self-defense information to aid the survival of law abiding prepper folks in a post-SHTF situation. The second was to give information on how to tactically fight a resistance campaign, although at the time I left some of the reasons for the tactics a little unsaid. Its all in there, …


Letter Re: Selecting a Prepper’s Firearms

Jim: I’m writing in response to: Selecting a Prepper’s Firearms, by Frog. First I can say that I like the idea of adding a Bushnell red dot to a few of my ‘tools’ – I wanted to add one with out getting stuff that would fail, and have been unwilling to buy anything overly expensive due to today’s crazy market with it’s inflated prices.  Red dot scope for say a 10-22 with a folding stock would be perfect match. (and it’s around $100) – totally good call. I only see a few issues with selection of firearms like the glock …


Marksmanship and .308 Battle Rifles, by Ulysses in Montana

Like a lot of guys I did some shooting and hunting while growing up, only to set it aside in early adulthood as the frantic task of making it in life overcame interest in such ‘boyish’ pursuits.  When I returned to shooting later on it was with an emphasis on self-defense, particularly pistol shooting, which provided a fresh and stimulating way to ease back into it, as I had previously never fired a pistol.  I quickly settled on the Glock models in .45 ACP, keeping it simple and relatively inexpensive, and have kept at it steadily ever since, wanting above …


Two Letters Re: Knob Creek After Action Report

Jim, Sorry to be late on my Knob Creek roundup I was indecisive as to the interest level in the past, as it concerns those mostly east of the Mississippi.   Arrived Friday morning and was shocked at how sparse the crowd was compared to past events. It was still a good sized crowd but I could actually get around and wasn’t standing room only. I am guessing that a couple of rain fronts that came through in the week previous dampened enthusiasm, along with the economy and people have been on an ammo buying spree for over a year, …