Slide Fire

 awesomeness, blather, politics, weapons, youtube  11 Responses »
Jun 062012
 

It has been illegal for your average American to own a fully automatic weapon since the 1930’s, due to the manifestly unConstitutional National Firearms Act. There are only two legal ways around this:

1) Getting a federal firearms license, which is not only expensive but it also deletes your 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure

2) “Bump Fire” tricks.

“Bump Fire” refers to techniques or gadgets that let you simulate high cyclic rate full-auto firing. You still only get a single round fired per trigger pull, but the trick is that the gun rocks as you fire, and the result is that it slams back and forth in your hand and thus your finger functions the trigger quickly. This can be accomplished – sometimes – by simply holding the gun loosely. There are small spring loaded widgets that you can buy that fit up against the trigger to help you do this. Sadly, bump firing might be a dandy way to blow through a whole lot of ammo in a hurry, but it’s not been a good way to fire “full auto” while actually aiming at a target. In order for bump firing to work, you pretty much have to fire from the hip; makes for entertaining Hollywood movie-crap, but it’s a terrible way to do anything productive.

But it seems this problem may have been solved. The “Slide Fire” replaces the buttstock of an AR-15 or an AK-47; the weapon can slide back and forth within the stock. When the trigger is pulled, the gun slides back due to recoil; the hand holding onto the forestock pulls the gun forward, which brings the trigger back up against the trigger… rinse and repeat. You control rate of fire, and number of rounds fired, by controlling the forestock.

It sounds dodgy, but from the looks of it, it seems to work. It’s not as good as an optimized fully automatic weapon, but since it’s only a $370 or so additional cost to a $700 or so gun, and a fully automatic AR-15 would run you well over ten grand *and* cost you your soul, if you really feel the need to throw a hell of a lot of lead downrange in a hurry, this seems like a decent way to go about it.

[youtube wMQe3zBuNRY]

Obviously this would seem to be the sort of product that the BATF would love to ban, but their basis for doing so would be dubious since the firearm operates on the basis of one shot per trigger pull. It’s just lets you pull the trigger *really* fast.

 Posted by at 8:43 pm

U-Boat launched V-1s

 aircraft, blather, history, news, weapons  12 Responses »
May 282012
 

An interesting article from USA Today about Andy Rooney hearing rumors and reports that a German U-Boat fired a V-1 “Buzz Bomb” at New York City. Nothing here is remotely definable as hard evidence of such a launch, but rumors of such efforts on the Germans part have been floating about since late 1944. The concept is reasonable enough… basically an early version of the “Regulus” system. But so far as I’m aware, no verifiable hardware, drawings or even artists concepts from the war years have come to light to support the idea that the Germans were seriously developing a sub-launched V-1.

Did Andy Rooney miss big WWII scoop?

The reported reactions of the military officials Rooney talked to certainly seem like the reactions of military types trying to stamp out a story. There are two obvious reasons for this:

1) The Germans really did launch a V-1 (that either crashed or was shot down), and the military wanted to keep it secret to prevent a panic

2) The Germans didn’t launch a V-1, and the military wanted to prevent false rumors from leading to a panic.

 Posted by at 11:14 am

Homing Overlay Experiment

 art, history, nukes, rockets, weapons  14 Responses »
May 112012
 

A bit of artwork from Lockheed Horizons magazine depicting the “Homing Overlay Experiment”. This was the first hit-to-kill ballistic missile interceptor… rather than relying on putting a warhead near the incoming missile and blasting it to flinders with shrapnel or radiation, the HOE was designed to actually smack directly into the target. To aid in the obviously difficult chore of hitting a bullet with a bullet, the HOE unfurled a series of “blades” to increase the frontal area and the chances of impact. This feature has not been carried forward to present systems.

The HOE demonstrated a successful hit-to-kill in 1984.

 Posted by at 3:56 pm

I never find stuff like this in the trash

 blather, news, weapons  No Responses »
Apr 202012
 

Used rocket launcher left for trash pickup causes Kingwood-area scare

The story is completely lacking in details other than it was stuffed full of dust bunnies and cobwebs. My guess: an old bazooka or LAW tube (at a described length of 3 feet, my bet is a LAW) was left in somebodies basement or attic, and someone who didn’t really know – or care – what it was simply threw it out.

 Posted by at 3:20 pm

Agni-V missile test: Maximum Trolling

 news, nukes, rockets, weapons  7 Responses »
Apr 192012
 

India has just successfully test launched a modern ICBM, the solid fueled Agni-V. Who would India be building this missile to defend themselves from? Well…….

India test-fires ‘China killer’ missile capable of reaching Beijing, Europe

I suspect India is not really in the market for nuking Europe. But then…

the missile had been dubbed the “China killer” by the Indian press.


[youtube oymhMFbZ1bY]

 Posted by at 1:10 pm

Augmented reality

 blather, science, science fiction, weapons  1 Response »
Apr 162012
 

A few things:

1) From 2010: put on the glasses, and you can see Matchbox/Hot Wheels-sized computer generated cars roll around on your desktop. The company behind this uses a Microsoft Kinect mounted above the desk looking down; the system analyses the view, figures out the geometry, and animates accordingly, adjusting the view for the position of the glasses so that what you see looks like the cars are actually interacting with the physical world.

[youtube S7qbjGNyi88]

2) Do you have arachnophobia? Do you want to get rid of it? Then apparently one of the best therapies is to get a bucketload of spiders  to crawl all over you. If you don’t have access to a Kentucky Fried Horrormonster Family-sized Spiderbucket, you can always try augmented reality spiders. The same company presents this impressive bit of high-tech nightmaresauce:

[youtube 7FLyDEdQ_vk]

Article:

Virtual spiders creep and crawl their way toward phobia treatment

3) And once you’re done having computer generated arachnids harrow your very soul, finish it off by hooking up a toy to your radio, TV, or iProduct and have it talk at you. A commercial I saw on the tube a few days ago showed that you could also plug it into your in-automobile GPS system so that you could have a dancing, talking plush lion on your dashboard giving you directions. Because sure, why not.

[youtube pnpMmx8LCio]

Someone has got to get one of these and post a YouTube vid showing an Obama speech as filtered through this modernized Teddy Ruxpin.

4) And then fire up the idiot box and watch the forthcoming “Tron: Uprising” animated series, set between the two movies. looks like it might be good.

[youtube 1JqpoLZJkx0]

 Posted by at 4:01 pm

6 Stupid Gun Myths Everyone Believes

 humor, weapons  5 Responses »
Apr 162012
 

Cracked.com has a pretty good article about how Hollywood has turned most people into *mo-rons* when it comes to basic knowledge of firearms.

Dropped guns go off

Ceramic guns are a thing

Bullets make everything spark

Shotguns are room-clearing murder factories

Deadly on the gun range = deadly in real life

Bullets turn people into pulp

 Posted by at 9:56 am
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