The Gunner's Blog

Skip shooting is bouncing your shotgun pattern off of a hard-surfaced wall or street. It is of possible use for engaging an assailant peeking around a corner, or for passing some shot underneath a car to hit him in the feet and ankles. You aim ahead of the point you want to hit and let the shot skim along the wall or street to the target. The most frequent use in the past was to discourage rioting mobs by shooting at the street in front of them, with the result of many random leg wounds. Skip shooting is not a technique that is now often used, or useful. It is part of the lore of shotguns, though, and it knowing about it might conceivably come in handy. This old FBI training video will give you a clearer idea than any text description of what is going on in ricochets off walls and roads. The relevant portions are from 3:36 to 6:35. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ERs7VyRMETg#t=216 In skip shooting you produce intentional ricochets by firing at...

The key problem is to prevent the bang in the first place. That cannot be seen to in a law code; it must happen between the shooter's ears. Around the blogosphere, suspicious voices are asking whether Evolve, the group that is behind the engaging little founding fathers skit about not being a dumbass when it comes to guns, is acting from ulterior motives. Is Evolve's real plan to portray gun owners in general as dumbasses, whose rights deserve no respect, and who should be handed further legal restrictions? Or is it really only their intent to say that some people do dumbassedly dangerous things with guns and that these people should consider their ways? Time will tell. I support the second version of the message, not the first. Doubtless what Evolve intends to say will become clearer. I am, though, happy at this point that they are drumming up attention on the safety question. You see, my posts on gun safety are always among the least read posts on this blog. ...

Statement from the Ukrainian Gun Owners Association: Today every citizen of Ukraine understands why our country has hundreds of thousands of policemen. Last illusions were crushed when riot police used rubber batons and boots at the Independence Square on peaceful citizens. After such actions we realize that it is not enough to only adopt the Gun Law. As of today Ukrainian Gun Owners Association will start to work on the preparation of amendments to the Constitution, which will provide an unconditional right for Ukrainian citizens to bear arms. People should have the right to bear arms, which will be put in written into the Constitution. Authorities should not and will not be stronger than its people! Armed people are treated with respect! Suggestion from America: Make sure the wording is very clear, so that people cannot pretend to be confused about it in the future.

Long experience by military forces everywhere shows that an ensconced defender has a 3:1 advantage over those coming against him. What is an ensconced defender? He has a good fighting position that protects him from the enemy's weapons, he knows the lay of the land and is ready and waiting when the enemy arrives. A soldier who digs a properly situated hole and gets in it becomes as powerful as three soldiers in the open. That is a very useful thing to know in thinking about your personal defense plans. Whenever possible, have a plan to take cover. Another number: The shotgun firing buckshot has twice the hit probability, within its limited range, of a select fire military rifle--a real assault rifle, not the neutered look-alikes the liberal media loves to fret and moan about.  What of the submachine gun? Here the shotgun scores nearly half again better. That is what our military concluded after studying the matter . The shotgun has the best hit probability of all the personal we...

These South Korean officers get really in depth with their drills. http://www.businessinsider.com/the-craziest-maneuvers-by-south-korean-swat-2014-2 (Thanks to The Business Insider and LiveLeak. More clips at the link.) I see a lot of this as low percentile, by which I mean that you are unlikely ever to need to do most of this, but it does show an impressive level of familiarization with handling their weapons, which is probably a good thing in itself.            

Clever in its way, and it makes a point that, unfortunately, needs to be made over and over. The makers of the video invite you to visit their gun safety website, which is here: http://www.takeonthecode.com/index.html

In a previous post I mused about the old Russian unit of measurement called the arshin . It is a unit of length that is about equal to taking one step forward. I praised it as sensible. It is a unit anyone understands intuitively. It is easy and natural to estimate distances this way, and fairly accurate for short distances. Because the shotgun is used at short distances, and we want to figure things out fast, it makes sense if the shotgunner thinks of distance in terms of steps rather than yards or meters. If your shotgunning technique includes the use of distance guesstimations  to tell you when to think about switching to slugs, or switching to tight patterning shells such as FliteControl or VersaTite, or firing twice to double your pattern density on the target, then it is a touch faster to think in steps to the target. Here is a measurement converter: http://www.translatorscafe.com/cafe/EN/units-converter/length/47-75/yard-Russian_arshin/  You can use it to convert ...

This National Guard video, though dated, makes some essential points about combat use of the shotgun and includes a bit of history. The video is only a quick overview of the shotgun as a military weapon, and it does not go into the finer points. For one thing, it does not touch upon the very important question of reloading the shotgun. In all, though, it is a solid presentation of the how and why of the fighting shotgun. The contact information at the end of the film is outdated, by the way, so don't try to call.