98Z5V

They are one BADASS aircraft!...

FPC was mobbed by phonecalls and emails, after the first case/injunction dropped, and they sent this email to all their members:

This is good. First FPC Members are covered, nation-wide. Then, SAF Members are covered, nation-wide. Now, with the 3rd Injunction, GOA Members are covered, nation-wide, and the entire state of Texas is covered. Now, in my mind, I can't see how the BATFE wins this. No Way. You can't have an entire state, and members of 3 organizations, that you can't apply this to, but you can apply it to everyone else. That's neither fair or equitable, to the citizens of the United States, and will never survive the litlgation. This pistol brace bullshiit is getting smashed. Hard, too.

I love the C-17. It's the most perfectly designed heavy lift aircraft ever developed, and they developed it with jumping out of it - foremost. Paratroopers. The way the body tapers at the back of the main fuselage, and the paratroop door positions designed with a 45* backsweep... It's the sweetest aircraft to jump out of from a door position. Very low turbulence, you fall right into the slipstreap of the airframe, and it's an amazing jump. Static lines on military parachutes are 15 feet long. For the C-17, 15 ft wasn't enough, and they had to design a quick-to-rig 5 foot extension, if you were jumping the 17. I was part of the initial tests of this "static line extension" and went TDY to Airborne Test Force at Yuma Proving Grounds to run this system. Everybody that was selected was a Master Parachutist, and a current/qualified SOF Static Line Jumpmaster. Hell, everyone that went was a current unit Jumpmaster Instructor, that's what we did, and who we sent. We went through the class of the conversion, got into the planes, went up - fucking CAMERAS EVERYWHERE... They had their own Jumpmasters putting us out, and I was the door jumper on the first jump... Jumpmaster, right before the green light, yells at me, "If you eat a D-Bag, make sure you let the DZSO know when you touch down!!!..." Fuckin' asswhole... D-Bags are the Deployment Bags that house the parachute, and get yanked out of the parachute pack tray when you get to the end of the static line - after leaving the aircraft. The DZSO is the Drop Zone Safety Officer - the dude that actually controls and runs the Drop Zone, from the ground. Right before that green light came on, I yelled back, "If I eat a D-Bag, I'm pretty sure the DZSO is gonna see the thread stitching marks in my fucking FACE!!!..." GO!!! Best exit, and softest landing I ever had... Paratroopers LOVE them some C-17 action...

This is exactly what I deserve, for starting this topic, before working it all the way through in my head, in order to make the entire topic coherent in the first place, with the first post, right off the bat. That's my fault, apologies offered. From my own experience, I'm still a bigger fan of the Barnes TSX and TTSX projectiles, though. 99% weight retention on those bad boys. Yes, I admit I'm a Barnes fan-boi for that stuff. DRT. That's what they deliver. In it's own tracks, drops where it was standing.

^^^ I fucked this up. Those ABLRs are good down to 1300 fps, which is just crazy. That's barely above the subsonic range, and they still do their job, that low. Here's the info on the big ones, right from Nosler: With ideal performance velocities between 3200 fps down to 1300 fps, the Nosler ABLR’s are able to keep weight retention up to give needed penetration to the vitals for hunters via its proprietary jacket shape while simultaneously preventing the bullet from coming apart when contacting heavy bone at high velocities at closer distances. https://www.americanhunter.org/content/nosler-unveils-ablr-line-extension/

Here's a more graphic example of what I'm trying to get across - I'm not doing well getting the information out, like I intended. I can kill ALOT of squirrels and rabbits with a .22LR rifle. I can also turn both of those critters into a pink mist with a .204 Ruger projectile going pretty close to 4000 fps. If I shoot them with a .22LR, there's something there that I can stew up, if that's the goal. If I shoot them with that .204 Ruger hot load, I can't even pick up pieces with q-tips and tweezers... Comes down to the intended purpose, again. I switched out my long distance .308 Win load from the Hornady 178gr HPBT (used that for many, many years) to the Hornady 178gr ELD-X projectile. There were two reasons for that. #1, the 178 ELD-X BC is the best .308 Win-type projectile that Hornady has ever developed, highest BC in all the common .308 Win based projectiles that will fit into a 2.800" COL, magazine length for gas guns. So, it's gonna be the most accurate projectile to put through a .308 Win gas gun. #2, it's the ELD-X projectile - the expanding projectile. I win, both ways, because I've got the best hunting load that I could ever develop for a .308 Win gas gun, and I've got the most accurate projectile I could develop for a .308 Win gas gun for target practice - which comes back to hunting. There's no downside to that hand load, no matter which way I take the shooting, target or hunting. The only true downside is those ELD-Xs cost me more then the HPBTs - but I only have one load, that does everything for me. That's worth the cost of the projectiles, to me. I hope I'm making more sense as I ramble through this topic-from-hell that I created. I'm trying.

Doesn't matter what the cartridge is. .243 Win, .260 Rem or a 6.5 Creedmoor, 7mm-08, .308 Win. Or more, .338 Fed, .358 Win. Whatever, anything in between. Steel and paper, or hunting, those two things matter, and only because of the projectile selection, and the intended purpose. That's what I'm trying to get at. All the 5.56 stuff is just the vehicle for the information, simply because there's so much more information out there now on it, after 2 straight decades of war with it. For hunting, if you can keep the cartridge of choice inside your MPBR circle, then you only have to aim once, if that thing is within your MPBR. You'll get it, if the shot is true. For distances beyond that - then we'll be doing a math problem, and solving it quick. If that's a "longer range" hunting issue, outside your MPBR, then the projectile selection needs to be up to the task for the job. If it's steel or paper - it just needs to be an accurate gun. Lots of things to consider, depending on what you're doing. That's why there always the questions to people here, trying to figure out their gun. "What's the indended purpose, and max range that you'll be shooting at?" We ask that of people all the time, when they're talking about some crazy build here.

I think I just fell in love...

I'm trying to find the reference right now, but the Nosler Accubond Long Range (ABLR) projectiles have been listed before as fragmenting down to 1700 fps. What I remember about that is the 6.5mm 129gr ABLR - usable in Grendel, for hunting. That's SLOW, for a projectile to fragment - but that's why it's their "Long Range" design in the first place. They figured that shiit out, somehow.

Here's a metric shiit-ton of data on 5.56 fragmentation, speeds, and different projectiles. The same thing applies to any cartridge, no matter what the caliber, and that's based on projectile selection for the intended purpose. http://www.mlefiaa.org/files/ERPR/Terminal_Ballistic_Performance.pdf ***NOTE - notice in that article that they start talking about the Barnes 70 TSX for the 5.56 loads. That is one badass projectile for a 5.56 gas gun. It beats the Hornady 75gr BPBT and 77gr Sierra OTM projectiles for terminal performance, long term and short term, it's a smidge lighter then both so it can be driven faster, given chamber pressure max for the platform, and since it's solid copper, it's longer than both of those projectiles listed above, which gives it a slightly better BC. Militarily, it was loaded, and used, and had a brown tip color, to distinguish it from other loaded ammo. It was the "Optimized Brown Tip" ammo, in military circles. That's something that can be researched, but it's gonna lead you down a rabbit hole, I'm telling you now...

Thank you, brother. I guess I wasn't clear initially, the more I think about it, with the layout of this thread. This is about the use of the (whatever) cartridge for the two disciplines, and something to think about. Target shooting at paper and steel, then using the cartridge for hunting. Two completely different animals, those two. Different games. Target shooting - if it's an accurate gun, you'll hit your target at whatever distance, if you have the math, know the math. That's easy, and really just a calculation for drop, wind reading and (#1) target range estimation, if it's an unknown distance target. That's just all a math problem. For that, I don't care if the projectile fragments inside tissue, because it just needs to leave a mark on steel, or a hole in paper... For the other part, and again, only using 5.56 as the example here, just based on the sheer amount of data on hunting people with 5.56 guns ( Dr. Gary K Roberts, and all his tremendous data on combat applications), hunting comes down to MPBR - Maximum Point Blank Range - and it comes down to the frag distance of the specific projectile. The shorter the barrel, the less muzzle velocity, the less distance you get for that frag range, barring specialty ammo. That's the only thing that makes these gas guns work, for hunting. Long Range Hunting is a different game, altogether, but I'm sure we'll get into that over time here. Here's an example of Dr Roberts work, and his background: https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2008/Intl/Roberts.pdf

Here's kind of a "follow-up" and a way to drive the point home a little. Good vids.

Here's an update / opinion from today - it's pretty good...

Gas gun shiit. If you have an accurate gun, well then, you have an accurate gun. Period. It'll do magic for you, to the extent of the projectile design, AND your intended purpose for the gun. I'll get into that in a minute, after the vid. What triggered me on this subject was this vid I stumbled upon... right here... Just like real life, IMHO, length does matter... But it's to a certain extent, and for an intended purpose. Banging steel, running a cartridge to it's MAX range from a SMALL barrel... Well, an accurate gun is an accurate gun. Period, end of story, dial your dope and run that thing out there to it's supersonic max range - and it's still gonna be that same accurate gun. Run that fukker PAST it's supersonic range, get into the transonic tumble, and all that - and it's on you. Bullet (projectile) selection is the only thing that will "extend you" a little bit past that. Once you're subsonic on your projectile, the thing has a glide ratio of a brick... and it drops like a brick. It's all luck, witchcraft, voodoo, and black magic - from that distance on... I'll get more into this, and I'm making if 5.56 specific for examples, just because that's the cartridge that I've done the most research on, and there's the most data out there. As far as barrel length goes, velocity per inch of barrel, on 5.56, there's a pretty graduated drop from a 20" barrel down to the 11.5" barrel - you can -retty much call that "per inch" in velocity drop. You go down to a 10.5 " barrel from the 11.5" barrel, and there's a MASSIVE drop in muzzle velocity. Just between those two lengths. One more tidbit. 55gr 5.56, and what makes it work - fragmentation of the projectile. THAT is what makes the 5.56 cartridge what it is. Frag. Upon impact. I ran the numbers a really long time ago, and I'll try to find them, but if you run the 11.5" barrel, loaded down with 55gr M193 ammo, your max frag distance is 175 yards. After that distance, you're just shooting an icepick at someone, that's gonna leave a neat, small, little hole all the way through, and the projectile will not frag in a meat-and-bone-based body. Deer, elk, whatever you're hunting with it. No matter how many legs it has... I'll get more into this, but watch that vid above. It's pretty good. A team of dudes from 5th SFG(A) showed up to a DMR course with their Mk18s, with 10.3" barrels. They crushed it to the 600 yard distance of the DMR course. I've personally watched @JBMatt in matches, shoot 700-ish yard targets with his 13.9" barrel. Just last weekend, he dialed up his dope for the 780 yard oxy tank buried in the hills, and hit it, right after he dialed up his dope for the 712 yard 12" plate, and hit that one. Short guns aren't magic - but they need to be accurate guns, to start with. And the hand load needs to be there to make that happen. Accurate guns are just accurate guns. We'll get into this further. Please discuss.

Just illuminating the terrain on which we are currently deployed... Here's today, Day 1 of Felon-City, for a bunch of people that the BATFE doesn't like now...

I hope some of you heeded this advice ^^^ ... Here's some info on what I was sayin'... If you didn't heed what I stated, last Friday night, then it's already too late, today. Doom on You. Should'a listened.

That thing is badass, brother. The renovation you did is amazing. You gotta put up some pics of that camper. I love that thing.

GREAT NEWS! I was only asking, trying to see where he landed for an operational gas gun, just to backstop the voodoo math I've come up with, to calculate all this craziness. So, really - it's keeping me straight... Well, as much as possible, in that regard... FINE work on that gun. I'm happy with that...

There's still shiit going on. GOA, SAF, if you're a member, the ban can't be enforced on you. Yep, another injunction. Already stated, if you're a member of FPC, the ban doesn't apply, you are safe and protected. That injunction was the first one that dropped. Here's a good summary on all this, from IV8888...

Here's some of the food from last weekend. Kelly (you Fall Shoot guys remember him) made 5lbs of shredded Prime Chuck, and we went after it with the sandwiches. Kenny and Shawn provided all the sides. Lunch that wanted to put you to sleep. Kelly even made his home made apple pies, which rival his cheese cakes, as far as "badass Chef" goes... The fixin's... The "Food Tent..." Here's the apple pie - even with ice cream, in the desert... Sunday night, I fired up the Arkansas Beef Casserole in the 14: dutch oven. @JBMatt lovingly calls this the "Alabama Possum Stew..."

Computer, internet, spyware protection, anti-virus protection, secured connection through a VPN... What's to worry about?... I wouldn't hit that shiit on a smart phone in no way whatsoever... THAT THING is the crutch...

I love the fact that he's a Master Parachutist, and had Foreign Wings too. Neither one of those things are easy to accomplish. Fuk YEAH! I love this crazy motherfucker...

Reacher is a badass series -fukkin' LOVED IT! They say there will be more, and I hope so. That is one giant bastard in that flick. Fukin' monster.

Gladly...