Saturday 18 November 2017

Re-Entering 3-Gun (Fitness)

After a long 3 year break, I plan to re-enter the 3-gun world once again.

I feel it is necessary for me to maintain and prove my skills in order to maintain my legitimacy as a competent ‘advice giver’ on tactical topics.
After all, would you trust an overweight running coach or a Call of Duty champion to lecture you on war?  Or worse yet some self-proclaimed internet firearms journalist with no legitimate firearms experience (there are a lot of those).

I plan to post periodically about my training regimen and events that I enter.

So I have started training for 3 gun about a month ago and I have yet to even head to the range or even pick up a firearm.  A fundamental that is
overlooked is fitness.  That is where I have started.

I have always been fairly good at medium to long distance running but that is not what 3-gun requires.  3-gun requires explosive short term energy
where you are constantly starting and stopping, getting down and up, possibly crawling and bending.  It is less an aerobic exercise and more an
anaerobic exercise.  What I mean is one primarily strengthens your heart so it can work harder longer and the other strengthens your body’s ability
to metabolize and hold oxygen as well as building up Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP).  It is long term power versus short term power.  3-Gun needs the intense, short term power.

3 times per week I do a shuttle run.
I sprint 55 meters stop abruptly turn around and run 50 meters back to the start line.  I stop, turn around and run back 45 meters. Then back to the
start line.  I repeat this at distances 30m, 24m and 16m.  Note how each leg of my trip gets shorter and shorter before I have to reverse direction.  The most difficult part of this exercise is changing direction.  In total this run is only 340m and I can run 2km easily but when I first did this I found myself gasping for air.  I simply could not breathe in enough oxygen.  After only a few sessions I was fine and now I have moved to the next step, you see, this is not about running; it is about improving my body’s ability to hold oxygen.  So my next step is to do this run with my CF gas mask… first without the filter (where I am right now), then with the filter attached.  Finally I will add body armor.

So why is Oxygen so important?  The more my heart pounds and the more Oxygen starved my body becomes, the more my body will tremble with every heart beat and breath, making aiming quickly and accurately harder.

My skill on the 3-gun feild will always be limited by my fitness level; that is why I am starting here.



Running The Lever Action – A Radical Departure from the Conventional


In the gunfighter program we are taught to keep our control hand on the rifle and conduct all our manipulations with the support hand.  To make this easy we will raise the rifle and rest the buttstock on our bicep pointing the barrel up.  The magazine will naturally point to our centerline and allows us to do our manipulations while watching what is ahead of us simultaneously.

From a kinematics standpoint we only rotate joints no more than 90 degrees and along the arc of greatest mobility. The arc of greatest mobility is the wrist rotation that allows you to rotate further away from its natural “zero” position then the other direction.  On your right hand this is clockwise (CCW on the left). 
Your maximum range of motion should be 100 degrees clockwise on the right hand compared to about 90 degrees counter clockwise. (If you rotate your forearm too, these angles increase)
Because one direction has a larger travel range, it is faster and more comfortable to go to 90 degrees in that larger travel range.

In cowboy action shooting, the lever action is the go-to for riflemen.
The typical lever action has a loading gate on the right side. Traditionally, a rifleman employing a lever action will have the rifle in his left hand and twist counter clockwise (short arc) to expose the
loading gate.  He then grips the forend with his support hand and releases his control hand to load more rounds into the loading gate which necessitates a counter clockwise wrist rotation to push the rounds down into the gate.  Once loaded he re-positions his hands and twists the rifle back into a shooting position.  Unless he is super-practiced and has a good means of carrying his rounds, he will need to look down at what he is doing taking his attention away from what is ahead of him.

What I propose for the lever action manual of arms is aimed at people who are right handed but cross eye dominant, someone who is left handed or ambidextrous*.  All sets of people will quickly come to appreciate this new method of employing the lever rifle.

The rifle is held in the left hand.  Upon needing to reload, the user puts the buttstock onto his bicep.  This has his rifle pointing up and in his view while he watches the terrain in front of him (ideally to move safely to cover). 
His support hand loads the rounds into the exposed loading gate which naturally sits facing the user.  When finished reloading, the rifle drops naturally back into position and because the all-important control hand has never been moved, it does not need to be re-positioned.  Situational awareness and speed are vastly improved.

For those who have run the lever for years, this will be a difficult transition but one that I feel will be worth it in the evolution of firearms as a martial art.




* All gun fighters should practice with both hands to be gun-ambidextrous.

Sunday 27 August 2017

Stocks - Learned Something New


My expertise lies in modern sporting arms and military surplus. I have an interest in firearms that are appropriate for 3-gun or surviving SHTF.  I am no expert on long range shooting.  When I say that, I mean anything past 600 meters.

I was invited out by a friend who wanted to show me his newest load for his Remington 700…. Or maybe it was a 783… I can’t remember.  He was really proud of his rifle and happily gushed over his carbon fiber stock, his Leopould scope, his custom muzzle break and most of all, his newest reloading formula.

He invited me to shoot.  I did.  With his help on how many ‘clicks’ to set his scope for various distances, I was pleased to see that I could hit what I shot at.  Previous to this, the farthest I had (successfully) shot was at the 500 meter mark with the C7 running PWT2 in the military (And yes, I know PWT2 is not shot at 500 meters; we were fucking around to see who could do it).

I have an eye for detail and as I stood up I noticed something off about his rifle.  He was so proud of it, I was really afraid to tell him… his buttstock was bent.  Not a large amount, it was barely visible, perhaps offset about 3/16” to 1/4" to the side.

“I think your stock is defective” I mentioned and showed him that it bent slightly to the side.  I expected anger.  What I got instead was a lesson on how the slight bend allowed it to fit better in the shoulder.  I accepted his answer but I did not really believe it.*
I looked into what he had to say and found that people wiser than me agreed – The offset buttstock (known as cast off) was a help in rapidly shouldering the rifle.

I wanted to include this link because it is a good reference article about the fit of guns.  It is more imformative on the subject then I could ever be:

http://home.insightbb.com/~bspen/fit.html




*Hey… you know who you are… sorry for doubting you; it just sounded really odd.



Wednesday 16 August 2017

Is CBC Capable of Informed Journalism?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/canada-far-right-extremism-csis-1.4248183


Short answer - no.  But that would be a dull blog entry.

CBC's published article suggests that Canada's intelligence community has been concentrating on preventing Islamic terrorism when they should devote more of those resources to fighting far-right movements.

The search has been on for a non-Islamic bad guy for quite some time (as early as 2013).  The article even says that a former CSIS analyst does not believe far-right activities require the resources to combat because they don't need to.  Their crimes tend to be minor in nature and unworthy of attention at the national level.  I (as a former analyst) agree.

As I have mentioned, groups like Freemen on the Land don't go around murdering people as part of their core ideology.  The article even admits that.

CBC clearly does not heed the words of experts. Instead, after stating the facts from someone who is trained to know better, they dragged up a person whose only qualification was as a former white-supremacist to make the case that the far right was dangerous.  They minus well of grabbed my 4- year old son to explain the terror that crocodile-ghosts can inflict on the population.
Why isn't CSIS going after crocodile-ghosts?  That actually sounds really scary.

And what prompted this article?  Why the Virginia protests, where neo-Nazis clashed with Antifa Terrorists.  National Socialists (Nazis) (which have left wing beliefs combined with a racial belief in white superiority) were against Marxist Socialists (which have left wing beliefs combined with racist policies towards whites).
Both are racists and both are left wing.  And I have learned that when anything is left wing, it is always, violent, immoral and covetous to the core.

So I'm still waiting for someone to come up with something credible to suggest that right wing movements like Freemen on the Land or the 3 percenters are dangerous when all the violence is being perpetrated by the left.
You can't convince me that 3 percenters are equivalent to white supremacist protesters when people of all colors make up their ranks.
You can't convince me that Freemen on the Land are plotting and organizing against the government when by their very nature, they are isolationists who want to be ignored.
You can't convince me that libertarians are evil for getting upset at the loss of thier freedom of speech.


CBC needs to inject some common sense into their reporting.  It might make up for their lack of facts and obvious bias.


Sunday 6 August 2017

Sig... You were so close

Despite over 4 decades of "experts" declaring the death of the SMG it is still going strong in militaries and police forces through the world.

Sig Sauer set about to make the next generation of SMG called the MPX.  Its name harkens back the venerable MP5 which is considered to be the "gold standard" for SMGs.  I had a chance to handle the MPX the other day and I found myself lukewarm to the platform.

They used advanced polymers to reduce weight and decrease production costs - something that both militaries and civilian buyers can appreciate.  They kept the capability for the telescoping stock and offered KeyMod handguards to allow for mission customization with reduced weight.  Probably the best improvement was the full rail across the top.

But Sig made a tragic error.  They moved the German style cocking handle from the forend and moved it to the ridiculously placed position above the receiver just like the AR15.
I never have been a fan of this system because to use the cocking handle you need to break your line of sight or hit yourself in the face as you pull it back.  Both are unacceptable to me.
Bushmaster built a 9mm AR years ago.  Both the Bushmaster and the MPX are restricted firearms that essentially have the same features and manual of arms.  It makes me wonder why Sig even tried with an established, nearly identical, product on the market already.

Removing the famous HK diopter sights was also a mistake.  This forces the end user to buy their own sights and I will explain why this is bad.  All aftermarket sights (with the exception of Centurion Arms) are designed for a rifle.  The round HK sights are designed to use the brain's natural ability to line up circles quickly.  The HK sight is by far the fastest sighting iron sight out there and it may not be as practical as a rifle sight for distance but we are dealing with a pistol caliber round which will not get any measurable performance past 100 meters.  Perhaps in this day and age iron sights are not important and they assumed that everyone would use an optic.  I might be old school but I personally like to have iron sights, even on an optic equipped rifle.  If I purchase the MPX (which I doubt I will), the first thing I am going to do is machine some diopter sights.

The MPX is ok but it is not special by any stretch of the imagination.  To me, it is nothing more than a re-imagined AR15 with a lot of LCF (look cool factor).

Sunday 2 July 2017

The Link Between Un-Filtered Immigration and Gun Control

The topic of immigration has been in the news a lot lately.

Gun and violent crime are on the decrease. The exact opposite of what liberal crybabies said would happen with the demise of the long gun registry.  The fear based irrational arguments posed by the political left can not be validated by even the most creative statistician

The left would have you believe that violence stems from socio-economic conditions and not from culture. Why then do the people who immigrate from violent parts of the world remain violent even when,by moving and improving their socio economic conditions, remain violent?
The answer is simple, systemic violence stems from culture.  You can't import people with a violent culture and expect crime stats to remain favorable.

And I am starting to think that's the point. Gun control in Canada is part of the overarching theme of control. They have taken our freedom of speech. They have taken our right to privacy and if they can get rid of guns....all guns...they will taken away our ability to be independent of the government control grid.  Let's face it, cooling crime stats will not allow for more gun bans without political backlash so they need violence to go up.

So here come the violent immigrants.  They don't want people from Poland or Ukraine or India or South Africa or anywhere where violence is not part of the culture*.  They want it bred into the culture and religion as to be in inseparable. They want the bad apples so they can create the situations needed to push their totalitarian agenda; which right now happens to be gun control.

Liberal politicians love to exploit tragedies and dance on the graves of the dead; they are heartless monsters who like to portray those who disagree with them as heartless monsters.  They ignore the fact that the greatest gun tragedy in Canada was perpetrated by the son of an Algerian immigrant who's native culture taught a hatred of women. That tragedy was used to push more gun control and the irony was that the gun used in that shooting, remained non-restricted while a plethora of firearms were prohibited overnight.  If we are talking safety, like the Liberals suggest, then it makes no sense.  If we frame this in terms of pushing a totalitarian ideology, it suddenly makes perfect sense.  They were delighted with Gamil Gharbi (Marc Lepine) and his work to further the Liberal cause.  They celebrate him every year on Quebec Grave Dancing Day (Dec 6). They need a new Gharbi; and they will import lots of him to get what they want.

We need immigration but we need to have it based on people who share democratic, peaceful ideals with the thought to building our society with valued individuals.  Immigration needs to stop being used to deliberately create problems and undermine our freedoms.



* I'm not suggesting violence does not exist in these places, but in these places violence is a temporary condition and not a way of life.

Thursday 4 May 2017

No Money for SHTF?

A question was posed to the internet world; How do I prepare for SHTF with no money.  I thought about this for a while and here are the 4 things that you can do.


1) Exercise.  Think about some of the tasks you would need to do.  I'm not talking about fighting zombies but rather the mundane.  You will need to lift, carry and walk long distances and being out of shape increases the chance of injury.   It increases how far you can push yourself and in SHTF, your next meal will, at some point, come down to the man who can push himself a bit farther than the other guy to get it.
And if we do want to discuss fighting let me say that you never rise to your expectations; you fall to your level of training.  When I do tactical firearms training, I have people sprint 50 meters to the line and then take aimed shots to show them how hard it is to do anything when their heart is pounding.  This effect is reduced the more a person is in shape.

2) Plan/Learn.  In Military Intelligence we looked at 3 main factors over and over again; Weather, Enemy and Terrain.  Try to decide where you would go.  What are the challenges and routes to get there and what environmental conditions will you have to endure.  How will you get water?  What vegetation is in the area that can be used for medicine, poison or food?  What is the population density?  These things are all free to research and will give you a huge advantage over a guy who has lots of gear.  Gear is only good if you can employ it effectively.
The library is free.  Sit down on a cozy couch with your notebook and start reading about wilderness survival, land navigation, homesteading, small unit tactics, husbandry, home remedies and gardening.
Try travelling the route you plan to take or visit where you plan to go.  A time spent on recce is never wasted.

3) Network.  No man can survive alone.  You might have no money but having a group of friends can pay off.  The average gun owner (stats are outdated) owns 7 firearms.  In SHTF, like thinking friends can loan you what they are not using.  At the time of writing this, Specter Arms has 23 thousand dollars worth of firearms in inventory not including ammo or accessories.  You can bet that if a friend came to me during a collapse, I would gladly loan him stuff.

4) Re-purpose and Recycle.  I know a business owner that started out his business with $10,000 and collecting vital materials through the unglamorous art of dumpster diving.  He got desks, countertops, displays, file cabinets, shelving and furniture.  Even I have managed to get large sheets of lexan by not being afraid to walk over and grab it.  I have not needed, but have seen a lot of things that could help a survivalist out from backpacks, glass jugs, wood and metal. Old 2x4s make great firewood and they are easy to stack.
Try to fix broken things yourself.  I am not a mechanic but I managed to save about $600 by researching and changing my car starter on my own.  I have learned to sew up damaged garments. I managed to get a glut of MDF from a wood shop and I built my own shelves.  Yes, shelves, car starters and lexan don't help for survival but it teaches you to be practical and a creator rather than a consumer who is stuck in the work-buy consumption cycle.

These 4 things cost nothing and they will get you ready far beyond the person who "buys" thier sense of security.

Tuesday 18 April 2017

Election Sign Defaced with Swastika




Let's face it, under national socialism (Nazis), everything that those in power disagreed with, was violently outlawed with draconian laws.  Fast forward to modern day liberalism.  Now everything that does not fit the liberal party ideology is violently outlawed.

Now, when I saw violently outlawed, I mean that the punishment is far more severe then what a reasonable, moral person would rate. 

Case law says that if you kill someone* you are likely to get one month in jail or 8 months house arrest.  But if you don't lock your guns in a safe? 18 months and years of a firearms prohibition.  Arguably a punishment that lasts for years beyond the person who kills.
No one was hurt in the second example but in the first one, a person is dead and  a family is mourning.  But to a liberal (or a Nazi) social engineering is more important.  Morality is irrelevant and replaced with a fanatical ideology.

If I have an unregistered handgun, it is automatically 3 years minimum in jail.  This is spelled out in the criminal code.  If someone rapes a child, there is no minimum sentence and typically punishments average at about 2 years.  Again, one crime has no victim the other ruins lives forever. 

The Liberal party, much like the National Socialists (Nazi) are anti-gun.  Alan Rock said "I came to Ottawa with the firm belief that the only people who should have guns are the police and military".  Compare that to Heinrich Himmler (Hitler's right hand man and main driver in the 'Final Solution') who said "Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA, ordinary citizens don't need guns".

What about thought crimes?  The Liberals set up Human right Tribunals which are used to attack those who have a different perspective then the Liberal party.  The punishment?  Often severe to the extreme with punishments of around $5000.  The Nazi's would put you in a concentration camp for disagreeing with their ideology.  But really, who has $5000 lying around to pay that fine?  Non-payment is not an option so you probably would face wage garnishes and in extreme cases, jail time.  How is that different from the Nazis?

Liberals champion diversity as long as that diversity is exactly like them.  They are the most bigoted, myopic, hateful, violent people ever because they do what they do with the blessing of their own conscience.
Ayn Rand said "The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities."

The Nazi party hated the Jews. The leader of the Nazi party, Adolph Hitler, made no secret of this while the current leader of the Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau, has openly said that "Evangelical Christians are the worst Canadians".  Much like the Nazis made the lives of the Jews a nightmare, Justin's Human right tribunals are making it a nightmare to be a Christian who is vocal of his faith, ideals and morals.  It is not as bad as it was in Germany.... yet.

So, to sum up; does this person deserve a swastika on her sign? you are damn right she does because that is the ideology she supports.  It is the ideology of every liberal with their freedom hating, pretend- diversity, arrogant 'i-know-best' mentality.



* In Edmonton a drunk driver careened off the road killing a 2 year on the patio of a restaurant.  He got one month in jail as a punishment.


*In Manitoba, a drunk driver killed a pedestrian and got 8 months house arrest as a punishment.

Wednesday 8 March 2017

Single Shot Wilderness Guns - A Recipe for Death

There are a lot of single shot, folding, break-action wilderness shotguns on the market.  They appeal to people because they they typically sell for less than $200.

These guns are a terrible idea.  They instill a false sense of security which in turn encourages people to take more risk in the wilderness.

When a person is under stress their heart rate goes up.  Their vision becomes narrow and they lose fine motor control.  To simulate how well you would actually shoot in a life or death situation, sprint as hard as you can for 50 meters to get your heart rate up and then shoot.  You'll feel like a Star Wars Imperial Storm Trooper with shots going all over the place.

It is arrogant to assume that when you are under stress being charged by a dangerous animal that you will hit on the first (and only shot).  And if you do hit, you are making the gross assumption that it will stop it;  it may not.

The only intelligent thing to do is twofold:
1) Train.  You NEVER rise to your expectations.  You only fall to your level of training.
2) Get the right tools.  Here is my suggestions:

AS41

AS44/41



Fake News

This is not a firearms or survival related post so it is a bit out of the ordinary for me but I'd like to address "Fake News".

A lot of people have been using this term to describe things that they don't like.  In the gun world CBC is defined as Fakes News but that is not really true,  Heavily biased and poorly researched yes but not really Fake News.

Fake news can be identified by using the following checklist:

1) Is the page predominately advertising?
Web pages will create fake news stories and pay for it to be disseminated on facebook,  The ads give the page owner money each time someone opens it.  As people share it, the page owner is rewarded for his false news

2) Is the page something that is designed to evoke a strong emotion or to confirm a bias?
People are more likely to share something that they feel is unjust, confirms a strong world view or has shock value.  Any story that threatens or strongly affirms a persons money, ideology conscience or ego is more likely to be shared.

3) Do you need to click "next" a whole bunch of times to get the entire story?
Again, each time a page with ads is visited, the page owner makes money.  Clicking 'next' multiples revenue for the page owner.

4) Have you heard of this website or organization disseminating the news?
There are alternative news sites you may not of heard of but if #1-3 is true, it is probably not an alternative news site but a fake news one.


Thursday 12 January 2017

Another Thief

I am tired of rip off artists who steal the hard work and innovation of others and market it as thier own.  Its one thing to take an idea and make it unique or better; that's innovation.  But to openly steal a concept is morally reprehensible.

The main victim of this thievery is a fellow in Texas who innovated the SKS magazine adapter... something that is interesting but not a game changer in the USA but is very valuable in Canada where our laws require clever loop holes to enjoy our sport.  His idea was ripped off by no less than 3 people.  Finally a Canadian company sought permission to use the design and produced their version of the magazine adapter.  In a feat of intellectual honesty, they credit the inventor.  When I am asked to do magazine conversions for the SKS, I only buy the authorized, honest version to do those modifications.

Now both the fellow in Texas and myself have been victims again.  Specter Arms has existed since 2008.  We are located in Edmonton.  Right next door to my city is a place called Sherwood Park.  A new business has started there and has taken a name that is almost the same as my company.  Maybe it was an honest mistake?  A google search and a bit of due diligence would of revealed this problem.  Lazy or deliberate?  Take your pick.  As far as I am concerned it does not matter which; both show a negative quality in this company.

But I'm inclined to go with deliberate.  You see they also have been stealing designs including the SKS duckbilless adapter.  Developed by, the innovative but often victimized, guy from Texas.  I hope he sues.

I've been working on a project called the S7 for about 2 years now.  It is a low priority project but last month, someone beat me to getting their version of the S7 out to the public.  Not wanting to seem like a copy-cat, I altered my features so I don't compete with the same demographic or appear to commit the sin of being a thief of intellectual property.  That is integrity, something that name-thieves and product-thieves can not hope to match.

I have been careful not to make enemies in this business, but this thievery has to stop.  I call upon everyone to take the moral high ground and not do business with those who have no business ethics.

Are you with me?