CMP Update

The Civilian Marksmanship Program has dropped their price on M1917 Enfields from $1000 to $900. 

World War 1 British Bubba-ing?

Big Country is doing a series of Lee-Enfield restorations which are well worth your time if you (like me) love old Mil-Surp bolties.

By accident I ran across one of Ian McCollum's Forgotten Weapons vids about how the British Army did a mod of the SMLE to make it a semi-automatic rifle.  It's cool in a "hey, this really works!" kind of way.  Total kludge, but really cool. 

CMP Sales Update: 1911 pistols

The CMP is selling surplus 1911 pistols, starting at $1100.

CMP Update

The Civilian Marksmanship Program has a limited number of M1 Garand rifles chambered in 7.62 NATO.  They have both the Mod-0 version for $900 and the Mod-1 version for $1200.  

You probably don't want the Mod-0 because it doesn't do well with standard ammo, and in fact the CMP categorizes them as unservicable.  The value is all historical.

The Mod-1 versions are safe to use with 7.62 NATO.

CMP Update

Ever want to be an M1 Garand armorer?  The CMP might be able to help out:

Designed for those who wish to take their passion for the venerable M1 Garand to the next level, the Advanced Maintenance Class (AMC) held in Anniston, Alabama, offers students a unique opportunity to receive unparalleled training from our knowledgeable Custom Shop Staff and build their very own M1 Rifle.

RANDOM DRAWING ENTRY WINDOW AND PROCESS 

Due to limited spaces and high demand, CMP will hold a random drawing to select participants. Interested individuals may enter the Random Drawing between November 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024.

If this is your bag, baby, then get on over there.

 

CMP Sales Update: M1 Garand in 7.62 NATO

Starting at $900, which is a pretty darn good deal.  Yes, this rifle is Old School.  But every time I have mine at the range a bunch of guys shooting AR pattern rifles wander by to oogle it.

 No school like the Old School.

CMP Update

CMP is selling a limited number of M1917 Enfield rifles.  Now, I love my Enfield, but I don't love having to stock both .303 Brit and .30-06 ammo.  The nice thing about the M1917 is that it has the silky smooth Enfield action but is chambered in good old American .30-06 which you can find pretty much anywhere.

Both Field Grade and Service Grade are available, starting at $1000.

CMP Update - Krag-Jorgensen Rifles

Spendy, but pretty sweet.

I mean, who ever said "Civilize them with an AR"?  But expect to spend $1200+.

CMP Sales Update

People seem to like these posts so maybe I'll make them a regular feature.  CMP has limited quantities of two interesting rifles:

Enfield 1917.  This was essentially a rechambering of the WWI British Army Enfield rifle in .30-06 for the US Army.  Both Winchester and Remington produced these in quantity for the US Expeditionary Force.  Prices are high, but not bad for Enfields these days, starting at $1000.

Expert Grade M1 Garand in both .30-06 and 308 NATO.  This rifle needs no introduction other than Gen. Patton's statement that it was the finest battle implement ever devised.  The prices are better than I expected starting at $1150.

Man, I love my Garand, and am glad I got it before inflation goosed the price points.  I also love my Enfield, although it is a No. 4, rather than a 1917.

.303 at 3000 yards

ASM826 found this, about a fellow who used the Lee-Enfield WWI Volley Sights to shoot at a target at 3000 yards. Iron sights at 3000 yards.

Ahem.

Nice shooting, cobber.

Range Report - STEN gun

The summer of 1940 was a dark time for the British Empire.  The "Miracle of Dunkirk" had rescued 300,000 of their army troops from certain capture by the Wehrmacht, but they had to leave essentially all their equipment behind.  The British Army looked around for inexpensive and quick to produce weapons for the returned soldiers and new recruits.

They bought Thompson sub machine guns in as large a quantity as they could get (or afford), but it wasn't nearly enough.  In desperation, they turned to Maj. Reginald V. Shepherd and draftsman Harold Turpin, who designed this dandy little gun at the Royal Armory at Enfield.  Their initials (S and T) along with the first two from Enfield (EN) gave the gun its name.

It was the opposite of the Thompson, which was nose bleedingly expensive due to the extensive machining required in its manufacture.  With only 47 separate parts, Shepherd's and Turpin's gun was made out of stamped steel, with almost no machining required and only a little welding.  Basically any metal shop in the realm could knock the STEN out, and they were cheap as chips - the first ones only cost 15 shillings - maybe $10 in 1940s money.

As you'd imagine, it was butt ugly.  Nothing but stamped metal, a handgrip that's, well, unique (although not uncomfortable), and a pipe stock instead of the "shoulder thing that goes up".

But in the dark days after Dunkirk, it was an Ugly Duckling.

Nice shot by The Queen Of The World, catching multiple expended brass cartridges in the air.

This gun was not designed for long range, aimed fire: instead, it was purely a short range weapon for putting a lot of rounds down range.  It did this admirably.  The indoor range I shot at was 25 yards, but the STEN wasn't going to be accurate past 100 yards anyway.  I usually try to take pictures of the sight picture but here it was beside the point - a front post welded on the barrel and a peep rear sight probably wouldn't have been used in action anyway.  Certainly at close range it did the job:

Yeah, it's a Nazi Zombie.  80 rounds didn't take long at 500 rounds per minute.  And they probably didn't weigh much more than ten rounds of 12 gauge, although as T-Bolt says a shottie is the worst anti-zombie weapon ever.  For a swarm of zombies, you could do a lot worse than a STEN.  You see, it's a very easy gun to fire:

There is essentially no felt recoil, and there is no muzzle rise at all.  I wasn't even really braced like you normally would for hand held automatic fire, and I didn't need to be.   When it counts, the Ugly Duckling turns into a swan.  If I practiced with 500 - 1000 rounds then I expect I could keep all 80 rounds in a palm sized area at that range, and I'm not a particularly good shot.

And did I mention that they were cheap as chips to manufacture?  You could probably pick up everything you needed to make one at Home Depot, for $50.  The action is dead simple, firing from an open bolt - when you pull the trigger the bolt slides forward, stripping the next round from the magazine, chambering it, and firing it.  The recoil pushes the bolt back, ejecting the case, and driving the bolt back until it is stopped by the recoil spring.  Lather, rinse, and repeat until the rounds are all expended or you let off the trigger.

The "grip" is, well, unique.  It's a little stamped plate welded to the gun.  It's a lot more comfortable than it looks, and when I was shooting the gun I didn't even notice.  You can see the select fire lever (basically a thick wire) right above the trigger.  There's no safety, other than the safety that you keep stored between your ears.

The magazine loads from the left side which would be handy if you wanted to hit the dirt to avoid incoming fire.  The magazine itself fit pretty loosely and if you held onto it then you'd get a lot of failure to feed jams.  I held onto the 2 inch magazine insert port which is (again) stamped metal welded onto the gun.  The esthetics were nothing to write home about but it worked really well.

You can also see the rear peep sight and the front post.  In all honesty they probably could have left these off the gun for as useful as they would be.  It would no doubt have saved another shilling that way.

The Queen Of The World took me to shoot this at The Machinegun Nest in Frederick, MD.  I'm not usually a fan of automatic fire as there's really no hope for much accuracy and you have to pay for the ammo (well, unless you're at Uncle Sam's Summer Camp; Dad used to talk wistfully about shooting the M3 "Grease Gun" in his Army days).  But TQOTW paid for the ammo, so it was surprisingly guilt free. And with absolutely no muzzle rise, the accuracy made it even more guilt free.  It was a fabulous birthday present.

If you're in the area, I highly recommend The Machinegun Nest.  It's very well organized and there's a good selection of both automatic and semi automatic guns to rent.  The supervision was excellent to keep even novices out of trouble.  Also, they have Date Night on Fridays, so our young Gentlemen readers can take their young Lady friends to a unique experience.  Don't be afraid of trying the STEN, ladies - it looks like an Ugly Duckling but shoots like a swan.

The standard disclaimer:

I'm not any kind of gun or shooting expert. I like shooting, and shoot a fair number of different guns, but I'm really a dilettante. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, do not remove tag under penalty of law.

I don't do scientific, repeatable tests. There's no checklist, although that's not a bad idea. I write about what I like and don't like, but it's pretty much stream of consciousness. Opinion, we got opinion here. Step right up.

I'm not a shooting teacher, although I do like to introduce people to shooting.Maybe some day I'll take the NRA teaching class, but until then, you get a dilettante's view. You'll get opinion here, but if you get serious about shooting, you'll want to get someone who knows what he's doing to give you some pointers. It can help.

And oh yeah, shooting things is fun.

K9s for Warriors

Michael emails to point me to this very interesting article about a group that is fighting the war against PTSD with rescue dogs:

K9s For Warriors is a BBB accredited charity organization located in Ponte Vedra, Florida, that has been pairing rescue dogs with traumatized soldiers since 2011. The dogs are trained to be service dogs, specifically performing tasks to quiet the symptoms of war trauma disabilities in soldiers. 

“The skillsets our dogs learn help these warriors with anxiety, isolation, depression, and nightmares,” says Shari Duval, the founder of K9s For Warriors. “So, the warriors can function again in public.”

Specifically, the dogs are trained to deal with symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), or military sexual trauma (MST), as a result of military service on or after 9/11.

This is a long article that goes into some depth on the problems of PTSD.  The Queen Of The World tells a story about someone she knew who came back from Vietnam and couldn't sit with his back to a door.  The use of the service dog to address this problem is creative:

Many soldiers with PTSD do not like people coming up from behind them. In the field, soldiers say to one another,“I got your back” or “I got your 6.” The cover command does just that. The service dog literally becomes the warrior’s sixth sense, by sitting and facing the opposite way the warrior is facing. When someone approaches from behind, the dog wags its tail.

I quite like the fact that there are scientific studies under way that are validating the effectiveness of dogs as a non-pharmaceutical treatment:

K9s For Warriors recently partnered with Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine on a pilot study testing the effectiveness of service dogs as a complementary treatment for military members and veterans who suffer from PTSD. Dr. Maggie O'Haire, assistant professor of human-animal interaction, along with Kerri E. Rodriguez, research assistant, conducted the study and published the findings earlier this year.

The study had a total of 141 participants from the K9s For Warriors’ program or individuals on the program’s waiting list. Half of the program's participants had service dogs; the other half did not.

The study found that PTSD symptoms were significantly lower in veterans with service dogs, demonstrating that service dogs are associated with lower PTSD symptoms among war veterans. “The initial findings showed lower depression, lower PTSD symptoms, lower levels of anxiety, and lower absenteeism from work due to health issues,” says Dr. O'Haire.

... 

Dr. O’Haire is partnering again with K9s For Warriors on a more extensive study funded by NIH. The findings will be published in 2019.

The VA is also running a Congressionally-mandated PTSD service dog study that will be completed in 2019. A total of 180 veterans have received either a service dog or an emotional support dog as part of the study. According to a VA spokesperson, after peer reviews, the VA will submit the study and results to the National Academy of Sciences for review, as required by the authorizing legislation (Section 1077 of the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act).

While there is a place for medications, they seem to be a very blunt instrument for PTSD.  So far, this group has placed 850 dogs with 450 veterans.

Montgomery Gentry - Didn't I?

I usually get a little annoyed at the common feeling that Memorial Day is the start of the Summer barbecue season.  It's no such thing.  It's a holy day, made so by the blood of veterans.  It is a day of reverence, when we should think on their sacrifice and what our society would be like without that sacrifice.

That perhaps makes me a grumpy old fart, I guess.  Don't care.  They earned this day of remembrance, didn't they?

Heh

It's funny because it's true.  Still, I probably need to get one, just because.

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Is this the end of the Evil Black Rifle?

Marine Corps to modernize small arms, adding silencers to rifles among other things:

The Marine Corps’ Small Arms Modernization Strategyincludes some long-overdue elements: 

The Corps is considering allowing camouflage painted rifles for every Marine and suppressors for rifle squads, Woodburn said. It’s part of an effort to help Marines blend into their surroundings and communicate better.

My guess is that haters still gonna hate.

What's the effective range of your combat rifle?

40 to 100 yards.  Interesting.

The end of the Lee-Enfield era?

Aaron finds that the Canadian Rangers are fixin' to replace their Enfields.  It seems that this will be the end of that venerable rifle's use by combat units.

That's been a long, long run - it was the Rifle of Empire, serving in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.  Over 19 million were manufactured.  This is unsurprising, since it it not just supremely accurate but a pleasure to shoot as well.

Quote of the day: Battle rifles edition

Heh:

 Mosin-Nagant 91/30 or M44: Hello and/or duh. The only way you're going to get an actually military-issued surplus rifle cheaper than this is if one falls out of your Cheerios box tomorrow morning.

Her's is quite a good list, and includes the Lee-Enfield.  By a strange coincidence, someone found my Enfield Range Report from 4 years back and left a comment.  The Youtube video of the "Mad Minute" seems to have succumbed to Internet bitrot.

Tom cruise is a whiny little bitch

Point:

Cruise sat with lawyers this year for a deposition in his case against Bauer Publishing for stories two of its publications printed following his divorce from Katie Holmes, articles that stated he had "abandoned" his daughter Suri.

During the deposition, TMZ reported that a lawyer questioned Cruise about remarks his camp had made equating his work and subsequent inability to see his daughter Suri to fighting in Afghanistan.

"That's what it feels like. And certainly on this last movie, it was brutal. It was brutal," Cruise said in the deposition cited by TMZ

Counter-point:

Bundeswehr soldiers replying from Afghanistan.  Game.  Set.  Match.

The M1 Garand: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Interesting article that takes a clear eyed view of the M1.  I found this to be particularly interesting, and something that I had not heard before:

John Garand was a machinist with a passion for target shooting, and it is perhaps the result of his expertise on the factory floor that the Garand rifle enjoyed its most significant advantage over its stablemates. Where other selfloading rifle designers could not answer the question of how, exactly, their weapons could be produced in the quantities needed to arm a nation’s entire armed forces, Garand could. Garand’s designs of horizontal and vertical mill cutters enabled the Garand rifle to be produced in numbers large enough to arm every US Army rifleman.

I have always thought that the en-bloc clip was a good design: very inexpensive and light weight, it was also mechanically simpler than removable magazines.  This combination of light weight reliability would allow an infantryman to be supplied with and carry more ammunition.

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