When Disney Liked Guns

 history, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Nov 302013
 

A WWII training film for Canadian armed forces produced by Disney describing the Boys Anti-Tank Rifle. The Boys was a .55 caliber bolt action rifle somewhat akin to the modern Barret rifles. At the beginning of WWII, it was just sorta capable of taking out German armored vehicles. But as the war dragged on, the armor got thicker and more angled, and man-portable rifles became less and less capable of doing effective damage to them.

Still, the Boys looks like it was a beast. I’d bet that recoil was rather painful.

[youtube AlJD0pZp4eQ]

 Posted by at 2:42 am

A Tale of Two Cities…

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., I'm from the government, news, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Nov 272013
 

… that have gone ’round the bend.

First, from late last month, Manchester, England:

UK Police Seize 3D-Printed Gun Parts That Are Actually 3D Printer Parts

That’s what happens when  you spend generations training the populace to be irrationally terrified of guns: even the cops can’t recognize ’em.

And then there’s Philadelphia:

Philadelphia poised to become first city to ban 3D-printed guns

Because ridiculously expensive and fragile zip guns are *such* a problem.

Additionally: the Philly law would make it illegal to 3D print *any* component of a firearm. This would include the grips. I’d love to see the arguments they’d use in court to sustain that given that it wouldn’t be illegal for someone to carve grips out of chunks or wood or plastic.

 Posted by at 4:18 am

Brilliant Pebbles artwork

 art, blather, history, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft, weapons  1 Response »
Nov 222013
 

The smallest individual spacecraft concept proposed for the Strategic Defense Initiative was the “Brilliant Pebbles” system. Instead of vast, multi-hundred-ton battle platforms like the lasers and neutral particle beams and railguns, Brilliant Pebbles were *relatively* small rocket vehicle designed to intercept enemy missiles and warheads while in space. The system was composed of a rocket-powered kill vehicle (usually fueled by dense, easily storable propellants such as nitric acid and hydrazine), and a “cocoon.” The latter was a shroud that protected the kill vehicle while it waited out the years floating in space.

The kill vehicle, in order to do its job, had to be *extremely* high performance. It was composed of a series of thrusters, lightweight composite propellant tanks, optics to spot and track the target, a computer to run it, communication systems, batteries… and not much else. The Brilliant Pebbles (so named because they were derived from the concept of “smart rocks,” which was a jovial way to describe a hit-to-kill system: instead of taking out the target with a warhead, you actually ram the target with your vehicle) vehicles were said to have the propulsive capability of boosting themselves out of Earth orbit and doing a fast flyby of Mars. This performance was needed in order to be able to launch from wherever they happened to be and race to intercept enemy missiles.

Data, such as mass and dimensions, is sadly lacking. Guesstimate that the cocoon is about the size of a Volkswagen. Where the bigger systems such as lasers would require heavy lift launchers, Brilliant Pebbles could be launched by much smaller rockets… and a whole lot of them. *Thousands* of Brilliant Pebbles would be needed in low Earth orbit to provide basic coverage. For every Brilliant Pebble that would be in place to take on a Soviet missile, many more would not be. It was the need to launch vast flocks of these that the SDI program began studying reusable, low-cost launchers, leading to the Delta Clipper program.

 Posted by at 1:23 pm

Point ’em out, knock ’em out: BANG

 AARRRGH, blather, Crazy, dumbassery, Hmm..., news, Obamazombies, politics, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  4 Responses »
Nov 212013
 

Here’s an entertaining news story…

‘Point ’em out, knock ’em out’: Brutal game ends when assault victim fires his concealed handgun

In short: a dumbass in Lansing, Michigan, decided it would be a fun lark to pick out some random schmoe on the street and knock him out with a stun gun. But the stun gun fails when he jabs the feller. Who then pulls out a .40 Smith & Wesson semi-automatic and pops a cap in his ass. Literally, as it turns out.

This was apparently a variation on “the knoutout game,” where a thug picks a random victim and attempts to knock them unconscious in a single punch. The “game” has also been referred to as “polar bearing.” The news reports on this exciting new trend in youth hijinks have generally been pretty lean on certain details of these activities. However, it’s starting to get more press. Hopefully, more incidents like this will end up like the one in Lansing, with the perpetrator on the receiving end of a gunshot. The problem, of course, is that “the knockout game” comes out of nowhere, with no time for the intended victim to prepare.

 

 

 

 

[youtube gzptOuQ0M9U]

 Posted by at 8:58 pm

Terminal Weaponry

 awesomeness, blather, Hmm..., weapons, youtube  1 Response »
Nov 162013
 

Here’s a youtube video where the guy makes a small bomb using  stuff purchasable in airport terminals *beyond* the security checkpoint (however, he uses a few tools that would probably raise flags at the metal detector. The bomb is pretty simple: a lithium battery is pulled apart and wrapped around a tiny can of aerosol spray, and placed in a steel thermos mug; also placed in the mug is a condom partially filled with water and tied off. Shake, and the spraycan pops the condom; the water gets into the unwrapped battery and does an energetic little dance with the lithium, which burns through the aerosol can and ignites the contents… blammo. The mug, optionally, is wrapped with a magazine and dental floss; this adds *slightly* to the strength of the  mug, allowing pressure to build a bit more and make a bigger bang.

The video is age-restricted, so you might have to sign in to see it.

[youtube TZ5a4ycwsig]

The guy behind this has a website and a number of such videos, showing different weapons you can make using stuff you can buy inside the airport.

The value of such demonstrations is not to teach nuts and terrorists how to cause trouble. No, it’s to show that “security through obscurity” is a thing of the past. People will be able to cobble together deadly weapons *anywhere,* so it’s best to deal with the mindset and the person, not the tools. Someone will figure out how to MacGuyver Nerf into a high explosive with razor-sharp edges using nothing more than a packet of peanuts and a lukewarm half-can of Diet Coke.

 

Personally, I’m always impressed when someone demonstrated this sort of cleverness. Granted, the “fraggucino” grenade isn’t that big of a bang, almost certainly wouldn’t blow a hole in a jetliner fuselage… but it’d cause a hell of a ruckus. And someone else *will* be able to figure out how to take the ingredients and turn it into a *real* bomb.

 Posted by at 4:35 am

Not Newsworthy

 awesomeness, blather, politics, Utah, weapons  13 Responses »
Nov 132013
 

So today I went to get groceries. While out, it dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, so I decided to stop in a restaurant I’ve not eaten in before and have a burger. While eating my burger (surprisingly good, by the way), three fellers came in for lunch. Looked like a farmer and his two ~20 year-old sons. Not newsworthy. All three, however, were wearing semiautomatic pistols on their hips.

So: three guys walk into a restaurant, openly armed. Who freaked out? Nobody, that’s who. Who was bothered by it? Nobody, that’s who. Who even paid attention? Best as I could tell… me, and not much of anybody else. The waitress seemed unthreatened.

Utah’s awesome.

Compare and contrast to other examples around the nation of squidgy whiners freaking out at the presence of armed, law-abiding citizens:

The alarming rise of “open-carry” demonstrations.

Utah, of course, allows open carry of pistols, so long as that they are either one action away from firings (i.e. you need to pull the trigger) if you have a concealed carry license, or two actions away (you need to rack the slide, then pull the trigger) if you don’t have a license.

 Posted by at 3:18 pm

3D printed *real* guns are apparently *real*

 awesomeness, blather, news, science, weapons, youtube  16 Responses »
Nov 082013
 

Well, I’ll be. Not that long ago, people were going bugnuts because someone had printed a crappy single-shot all-plastic zip gun. Looked ugly, wasn’t reliable, couldn’t hit a damned thing with it, yet the hoplophobes in the media and  politics wet themselves in panic. So how are they going to handle THIS:

World’s First 3D Printed Metal Gun

The gun is a classic 1911, a model that is at once timeless and public domain. It functions beautifully: Our resident gun expert has fired 50 successful rounds and hit a few bull’s eyes at over 30 yards. The gun is composed of 30+ 3D Printed components with 17-4 Stainless Steel and Inconel 625 materials.

3D-Printed-Metal-Gun-Low-Res-Press-Photo-1024x638

This is fairly staggering, and far sooner than I expected. Importantly:

It’s rifled and the rifling was built directly into the part – or as we like to say, “grown” into the part – using 3D Printing. This gun has NOT BEEN MACHINED. We used hand tools for some post processing (our finishers are wonderful), but we did not machine this gun.

There is, however, a downside:

The industrial printer we used costs more than my college tuition (and I went to a private university)

So… no home-printed 3D gun for *you,* ‘ceptin’ that yer some kinda bajillionaire.

At least… not yet.

And according to a later posting, there’s some more bad news:

Should we decide to sell the gun, the cost of the 1911 would be in the five-figures.

Yikes. Ten grand is a *bit* much for a 1911.

A metal printed gun requires commercial equipment that costs anywhere from $400,000 to $1,000,000+.

Drat.

Now, something a little funny seems to be going on with the action, when the feller fires three rounds in sequence:

[youtube u7ZYKMBDm4M]

Their stated purpose in creating this pistol was to demonstrate the strength and practicality of 3D laser sintered metal components. This could, of course, have been accomplished with any of a number of different non-firearm projects… but by printing up a gun, they’ve gotten themselves some press. Had they made some other sort of widget, nobody would be talking about them. So… success!

Today it’s a million dollar machine. In ten years? Maybe ten grand, who knows… still too much for most of us, but well within the means of a proper gunsmithing business.

 Posted by at 8:38 pm

Anyone know this Tommygun???

 art, blather, history, weapons  4 Responses »
Oct 262013
 

*Many* years ago (maybe 20?) I read an article in a firearms magazine about a highly modified Thompson submachine gun. I was not in a position to copy the article or obtain the magazine, and I’ve been looking for the subject of the article ever since. Sadly, my memory is dim on the details.

IIRC, an industrial designer – or perhaps just an artist – sometime in the 1920’2 to 1940’s chopped the bejeebers out of a Thompson, turning it into a *true* pistol… just a few inches of barrel ahead of the drum magazine, and the receiver was shortened drastically so that it ended not much aft of the pistol grip. As memory serves, the gun was described as fully functional despite the massive changes. I recall it being nickel plated or some such, and barely recogizable as having once been a Tommygun. Familiar to anyone?

 Posted by at 11:31 pm
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