Jonnin

I was going for, squish the bullet, let the accuracy be knocked around a little, and it would still make a few rounds of acceptable short range anti-bear ammo. I agree with your assessment though -- the ammo without reaming is at best going to be substandard quality.

And, of course, what does a person who had THC in them want? Sugar. Skittles, tater chips, carbs or pure sugar, capt'n crunch, the sterotypical stuff. Why? THC sucks the sugar out of the blood and that is the root cause of the "high". The story of what really happened that day is starting to come clear. Kid is off from school, suspended (??) for (??? possibly drug related ????) reasons. Kid, having learned nothing, rolls a fatty and burns it on down. This leads to an epic case of the munchies, but hey, there is a store just up the street....

Yea we had an aerospace guy here (sadly he passed a year or so ago) who was in flight school with neal armstrong. He worked on several planes including the xsomething valkarie. He *hated* the sr71 because of its fuel leaking and overall design. He said they got it down to a science about putting in just enough fuel to get it up and expanded, then did a refuel in the air. He said something about it gettting to high speeds with brute force engineering, rather than problem solving. I don't know nothin' bout that, I just think it was a pretty looking design.

sportsman's warehouse carries buffalo bore and often in a randomized mix of strange calibers alongside the mainstream stuff. I will look next time I am over there. A bit of a drive for you, though, unless you guys have one as well (probably not?). Making brass is something I think every reloader should do once. After which you appreciate what you can get free or easily a heck of a lot more. If you end up going that route, a plumber's tube cutter and a case trimmer will get you there. I doubt you *have* to ream the inside of the case down, you can probably force the bullets in and if it shaves them slightly, so be it. You could probably go from a bag of 308 to a box of 50 rounds in one good day's work, and if you recover the brass, it should last you quite a few uses.

Doh, thats right, I had in mind that it was the "colt army" type pistols that fired 38 S&W which is why I said it was a bit weak.

Mcurrier: the F15 used a 20mm gatling gun with just a few rounds of ammo. It was not really for dogfighting, it was for ground targets. Not sure what the f18 and f22 have. there is more to it than all this. There have been cases of jet fighters, which are much slower than an SR71, running into their own machine gun fire. The bullets lose velocity fast, the plane is still booking it, and they impact out in the distance. For this reason, IIRC, the machine guns on modern fighters are locked out from use at high speeds and are only useful really for a low speed (relatively) "strafing run". There have also been reports of being in a dive, firing at the ground, and hitting their own shots as the dive increased the plane's speed ....!!! It is hard to tell where fact and fiction mingle in the above. The internet being what it is, the stories of such things could be total BS. Maybe someone here knows for sure.

Over nearly 150 years, yea the military has changed its mind a few times and made a few mistakes (the weak .38 round was not too bright even for the times it was used). Also, the military does not really stress handguns as a major category of weapons. While it is useful to know what they are using and why, I would not choose my self defense weapon based off what the army uses. If I did that, I would have a massive brick of a pistol that would be difficult to conceal loaded up with ball ammo. The military should not be a role model when picking a CCW. The police also tend to use large guns, but at least they use pistols as a primary weapon. But the police use 6 or 7 calibers and some 50+ models of pistols across the USA. Good role models, but .... no consensus on the "best" weapon or caliber is to be found from looking at them. Which leads back to, as you said, carry what works for you.

test 10 or so rounds the first time. If it seems to be what you want, you can make more, but if it is horrible, you do not have to pull apart or discard or shoot it out, wasting time and components.

^^^^ that. 2nd degree murder does not fit the data. Prosecution went for too rich a conviction, hoping to play off a media biased jury.

there are a lot of pics of Obama givin the finger at people who he disagrees with. Its a nonstop thing with him.

they said the doctors at the autopsy use an odd scale ---- contact (gun is touching, or nearly), intermediate (1-18 as noted) and something else for farther than that. Its just jargon for their field, and not related to guns directly. So he is high, has an injured hand, and was shot within melee range. This isnt looking good for that 8 year old at all!

cool, didnt know its history. I have something called a 25-06 that I rarely see ammo for too. I have not shot that one, finnbear safe queen.

the change in pressure from seating 9mm deeper is kinda scary. Even here its 2% pressure to get very small gains.

308 is uber common: its a nato round (well, the nearly identical civ version of it) and nearly every country makes ammo for it. You can get surplus ammo cheap. Make sure you gun is rated for both the military and 308 rounds (nato calls it 7.62 X 51 mm). All the 7-8 mm or 30-32 caliber guns perform very, very well in rifles. The 30-06 was designed in, well, 1906. Before that, the mosin and mauser rounds date back to the early 1890s. The 303 british is quite aged as well. All these rounds can perform as well as the 308 and there are a good 30, maybe even 50 cartridges in the family. In the right guns, with optics and all, they can all hit a man at 1k yards easily. But if you do not reload, antique calibers that cost $2 per shot are not a good idea --- stick to the 308 if you want this type of caliber. The 308 has a great reputation but its just the latest version of the same old thing... do not buy into it being "more accurate". I will put my 7.65 mauser up against any $500 or less bolt action any day of the week. The 30-06 would not be a go-to hunting caliber if it were not accurate and powerful --- more than 100 years later. The 7-8 mm family are mostly shoulder thumpers in a bolt gun. A 308 is tamed in an AR or modern military gun, but in a bolt gun I cannot fire more than 20 or so shots without a bruised shoulder. They are not suitable for extended target practice sessions of 100+ rounds a day. 270 --- I have not see a lot of this caliber for sale in either guns or ammo. I would avoid it if that is an issue. 243 ---- very popular, not hard to find guns or ammo. the 700 and savage are proven guns. I strongly advise handloading. In the long run, it saves you money, lets you shoot higher quality ammo that is tailored to your rifle, and lets you download to reduce recoil.

I have no experience here, but my advice is to do the same thing anyone would do when making anything for the first time with no clue how to proceed. Asking is a great first step --- so that is out of the way now. If I were going to do this, I would try some of these ideas. 1) google it, to see if someone else has done it already. At the least, you might get to see a video of some idiot blowing themself up and learn some important safety tips. 2) check out the free gun manuals pages online. A lot of older guns have everything shy of a 3-d cad drawing of the design. Modern folks are more protective of their designs, but you might find a parts list and total blown up diagram of exactly what you want to make. 3) expensive, maybe, but hit a gunshow and buy an example to tear up. This gets you 2 things: you can probably steal the barrel, and you can take it apart to see how things are made and why each part is where it is. You can learn a LOT from taking things apart if you go slowly and try to understand what you have. Put together, take it apart, a few times. 4) From here, design your own. Consider stealing the barrel, and possibly other parts as you see fit. If you plan to exactly copy this design, you could even make one part at a time and replace them in the original until it is a new gun. 5) don't forget to figure out whatever you must do legally for making a handgun (this may be an issue!). 6) When you fire it, consider doing so with a string from a goodly ways back. Even a lowly 22 short has plenty of danger in that little case. Good luck with it. You probably knew all this, but hey, sometimes its hard to get started on something and a list helps...

Hmm. Lester, they fly themselves. I can click in a route, punch go, and go take a nap. The plane will fly the route and do whatever next (repeat it, keep going straight, or more). The only thing they are not good at is landing and takeoff without a human pilot to help out. That is in progress. However, most of the ones I know about will go into a panic mode if signal is lost. This varies, but if signal is lost for too long some will crash down, some will keep going, some will turn around and go back to seek home base, etc. It depends on what the desired response to this event is for the specific mission and the capability of the craft. The best way I can think of to kill one with jamming would be to mess up its gps signal. Once it is "lost" for a few min, the vehicle is toast. I think a home-made emp would do more damage to your own equipment and home and car and so on than it would the plane. Bubba would be in for a shock --- literally--- and if wearing metal, well, you know what happens if you wear metal in an MRI machine?? Cutting lasers require hitting the same spot on the surface of the vehicle for a period of time. While the period of time is short, its long enough to be a very, very, very difficult problem. It is feasible on land. On water, the bobbing at random is intractable. In the air, maybe, if the target were just going straight at a fixed velocity with no turbulance or anything, but no wai for a target that is moving to avoid being hit. The IED shotgun might work with buckshot. I wonder how high up that would go.....

If you want really cheap, consider a military surplus rifle. If you choose carefully, you can get a really accurate gun for $200 or so. Also, the cut up versions of the same (people made deer rifles from them after wwII) are often excellent shooters. My mauser will hold its own with anything you can get for $500 or less and is almost identical to a 308 ballistically. If I wanted along range target gun, I would get a 243 for the caliber if I could. The milsurp stuff does not come in this caliber, but if you buy new, it is an excellent choice. Its a necked down 308, so it moves a little faster, shoots a little flatter. It is a commonly found, fairly inexpensive round. I would look at a used gun, to cut the price down, and divide my funds between the rifle and scope if you plan to get a scope. Try a good savage, perhaps? There are many, many, many used deer rifles on the market for not too much money. Most have been rough treated in the woods but shot hardly at all. You could get an amazing shooter for a low price this way.

Check into it, having livestock may change your property to "farmland" which may give a tax break of some sort, which could be profitable in some circumstances. I have not looked at that in 20+ years so I have no useful info on it, just a vague memory of reducing taxes while making a little money from it.... this was our neighbor, so its all third hand now...

all I got is online law sources. Handgunlaw.us could find no restrictions in Tennessee Law concerning Chemical Sprays, Stun Guns Or Higher Capacity Magazine Bans. http://www.ehow.com/list_6455576_taser-gun-laws-tennessee.html says much the same thing with more words. Its hard to point to a lack of a restriction. I can point to the various weapon offense sections at tn.gov but there is nothing there about tasers to see, at least that I was able to find.

I think anyone can use one or own one and carry it. However, 2 things come to mind: 1) some places ban them. Mostly, that would be universities. 2) they can kill people. Rare, but it happens. Not really a good idea on anyone with a pacemaker for sure. 3) killed or not, you could still be sued for using it, and lose, even if you were in the right. Kinda like guns--- there is the criminal part and the civil part.

I can think of many a use for it. Mostly, not all that nice, but I can certainly think up uses.

Trying to get inside the head of a thug is pointless. If you just assert that the thug was mean and hellbent on robbing someone, then the scenario develops... he is armed, you want to rob him, best solution to problem: kill him from behind to acquire his gun and money. It is perfectly logical once you discard morals and ethics from the equation. Plenty of folks have no problem discarding morals and ethics. Half of them are elected to government. The other half are why we carry guns.

in an unmodified, stock .45, I would argue that ANY ammo you select that cycles the action and feeds reliably is capable and worthy of carry for self defense. A FMJ .45 should do very similar damage to the best 9mm JHP defense loads to a bad guy, in other words, and the 9mm is considered sufficient by many. I would also argue that quality hollow points are better in the .45 --- but better and sufficient are 2 different concepts. As I see it, you have a few options. -you can buy a case of defense ammo and cry at the price. -You can buy a bunch of cheap ball ammo and it will work for defense, and you can be happy that you practiced with the same stuff. - you can buy practice and defense ammo, test a small sample of the defense ammo, and hope that your practice ammo is close enough and that the defense testing was sufficient. Many people do this --- few can afford to buy tons of the defense ammo for practice. - you can buy an inexpensive hollow point round and do the same thing as the cheap ball ammo. While harder to find, there are often boxes of 50 JHP rounds in various calibers out there that cost very little. They are not hot loads, or low flash powder, or match grade consistency, or the top of the line bullet design, but they do go bang, and they do expand. IMHO better idea than ball ammo, but not by much. - you can load your own for very low costs, to meet whatever specificiations you like. While internet rumors abound about not loading your own defense ammo to carry, no one has ever provided a case where normal handloaded ammo used in a clean defensive shoot was the one factor that got the shooter into trouble. There is one case that is cited a lot but the ammo really was not the issue in it, it was simple mentioned as a side note. You will have to make your own decisions here. I have no problem defending my handloads in court if someone wants to play that game --- and will be happy to do so, since it means my loads worked and I survived the assault. -- you can load your own "defense" practice ammo to match your bought defense rounds. It is not hard to match the defense loads -- they give you the bullet weight and velocity or energy on the box. A side note: in a full sized 45, esp a 1911, the difference in recoil of a 180 or a 230 grain round is minimal. Point of impact out yonder may change, but at defense distance, that also is moot. In this caliber and this type of gun, my opinion is that ANY practice ammo is sufficient to train for ANY defense loadout. So, one of those options should work for your needs. I have no opinion on which one is best.

Bah, this has happened since the dawn of time. We just have faster, better media coverage and spreading of the word these days so such cases are more widely heard about. Billy the kid was under 18 for much of his spree, IIRC. There have been plenty more since then, and probably a few earlier ones as well. Go back much farther and you have to look at swords and knives instead, but there were plenty of young thugs with those as well.... lot of pirates were not all that old...

I like this place : http://www.missouribullet.com/ But, I have not tried their .45s. I have used 6 or 7 of their other calibers and had no real leading problem --- the barrel, after 100 rounds or more, has at most a see-thru-thin smear of soot and possibly lead, possibly lube, possibly soot-lead-lube but whatever it is very mild. Copper leaves shavings in the rifleing and soot, not a lot of difference at cleaning time. I have yet to cook up a load that melts the lead and shoots streamers out or anything else that I have heard about from others. Apparently, their hardness additives work well enough. Soon as I run out of plated 45s, I plan to try them. I just bought way too many plated when I first started.