A Geek With Guns

Since the release of the Gen4 Glock 17 there have been a great number of reliability complaints. I’ve seen some of this first hand with my Gen4 Glock 17. Although it functions flawlessly in my hands it’s a regular jam-o-matic when a smaller person tries to use it. After long last Glock has finally issued notice that they are swapping recoil springs free of charge.

It has been discovered that Chiappa is going to start adding radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips to their handguns for inventory and quality control purposes. RFID, like any technology, has good and bad uses. The Firearm Blog has a nice writeup on the whole situations including a press release from MKS Distributing which is rather snarky:

RFID Removal: For those still concerned you can simply remove the grip and remove the hot glued RFID from the frame in the grip area when (over a year from now) these begin to appear. Others may prefer to wrap the revolver and their head in aluminum foil, curl in a ball and watch reruns of Mel Gibson’s 1997 film, Conspiracy Theory. Well, that’s a plan too!

I smiled a little at the snarky remark and then shook my head as its obvious MKS Distributing doesn’t understand the very real concerns over implanting RFID chips into firearms. Although MKS Distributing claims the RFID chips can only be read a few inches a way that was proven to be completely incorrect at last year’s Defcon. RFID chips are very simple, thus they have no built-in security mechanisms meaning anybody with the right equipment can read them without your knowledge.

Combine this with the fact that obtaining RFID readers is pretty cheap these days and you can see a problem for people carrying concealed. Although I would rip these chips out the second I obtained a gun with embedded RFID chips, most people would not know to look for or pull out these blasted little identification chips. With simple equipment somebody would be able to read the RFID chip on your firearm and instantly know whether or not you were carrying a firearm. Part of the reason people carry concealed is because they don’t want anybody else to know they’re carrying. Often this is to make others feel more comfortable but another reason is to have the element of surprise should you ever have to pull it. Embedding RFID chips into firearms would give criminals a means of know whether or not you were armed and take appropriate actions.

Of course there is also the possibility of using the RFID chip to identify homes of gun owners (a person staking out your home could just drop an RFID reader in your area and see if they come across any hits). If a person has one gun (for instance if they’re carrying it out the door when leaving for work) it’s likely they have others which would make their home a desirable target for the would be thief. On top of that, if you left the reader in the area for a couple of weeks a potential thief could figure out when the homeowner is away so they could move in and rob the place without resistance.

Putting a passive remotely readable device into anything isn’t a great idea, but that idea becomes far worse when that object is a firearm. Personally I won’t support Chiappa as I feel that would be promoting this type of behavior but I also believe what MKS Distributing said is true, RFID chips will become far more prevalent in firearms down the line.

You’ve got a 25mm autocannon and you’re thinking to yourself, “What could I do to make this more awesome?” Explosive ammunition seems a bit dull, especially with that sweet tomahawk missile launcher next to the autocannon, you don’t want to pay the electric bill for that sweet rail gun, and honestly upgrading the targeting system for the autocannon is a bit dull. Finally it hits you, mount a frickin’ laser to the top of your frickin’ autocannon:

The Mk 38 Mod 2 Tactical Laser System couples a solid-state high-energy laser weapon module with the operational Mk 38 Machine Gun System. The addition of the laser weapon module brings high-precision accuracy against surface and air targets such as small boats and unmanned aerial vehicles. The system also provides the ability to deliver different levels of laser energy, depending on the target and mission objectives.

Lasers are always cool. Now that autocannon can pew pew enemies into non-existence. By the way if anybody from Boeing is reading this I would like you to know that I would be more than happy to test a review unit and post my findings on this very website. If you’re interested contact me via the e-mail address on the sidebar and we can set something up.

I understand that the AR-15 is a great rifle and producing one generates easy income. As I have this understanding I hold not ill-will towards companies that manufacture some kind of AR-15 pattern rifle, it’s good business, but I will also admit that it’s getting to be a complete non-issue when a new company introduces a new rifle. Why is it a complete non-issue now? Because every new rife announcement is yet another AR-15 pattern rifle and honestly it’s boring.

I’m saying this as Mossberg has introduced an AR-15. The fact that Mossberg has made this announcement isn’t the news item, the fact that they didn’t already have an AR-15 on the market is a news item. Every time another gun manufacturer announces that they’re producing an AR-15 I’m not shocked by the introduction, I’m shocked by the fact that a manufacturer still existed that didn’t have such a rifle on the market.

I love the AR-15 but honestly I’d like to see a new rifle announcement that isn’t yet another AR-15. How about a manufacturer drum up some hype about a new rifle they’re going to be introducing and actually introduce something completely new. I’m not talking about yet another AR-15 style rifle like the SCAR; No, I’m talking about something totally off the wall. I’m getting bored with all of these AR-15 announcements and damn it it’s the job of the gun industry to keep me entertained and excited.

Is your Glock simply too small? Do you want a larger more unwieldy gun? If so Command Arms Accessories has you covered with their RONI conversion kit:

The $350 kit allows two handed operation of the Glock, one hand on the pistol grip and one hand on the fore end, as well as a better mounting platform for optics on its 9.4″ picatinny rail.

So why would you want to make your compact handgun into a much bulkier handgun? For fun is the only good reason I can give. Unlike the RONI Carbine Kit, the RONI Recon does not turn the pistol into a Short Barrel Rifle and therefor is not subject to NFA rules and taxes.

In my book “just for gun” is a perfectly valid excuse to purchase a firearm or firearm accessory. I will admit that the conversion kit would be fun simply because it makes a standard Glock look like something from a science fiction movie (which always seem to believe small arms will become much bulkier in the future). It’s a completely ridiculous accessory and if it were much cheaper I’d probably get one for the sci-fi pew pew feel.

It should be noted that the RONI also has two side mounted Picatinny rails and one underneath the gun meaning you could mount three laser sights to it and get that whole Predator laser aiming affect. Or you know, go more practical by mounting three pistol bayonets to it.

The Firearm Blog points out something that is just wickedly cool:

The DSG Technology ammunition type DR is going to focus on in this article is DSG Multi-Environment Ammunition (MEA) Series Supercavitating Rifle Ammunition (underwater rifle ammo) round, that’s going to be an absolute game-changer for naval and Special Operations waterborne ops of various types, including, but not necessarily limited to, diver protection (defensive) and enemy diver neutralization (offensive) applications, VBSS/MIO (Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure/Maritime Interception Operations) and GOPLATS (Gasoline and Oil Platforms) boarding operations, speedboat interdiction and neutralization, anti-submarine warfare, anti-torpedo operations, and anti-piracy ops.

With DSG Technology’s MEA Supercavitating Rifle Ammo, you can fire at an underwater enemy target from above the water, an above-the-water enemy target from below the surface, or at an underwater target while you are also underwater.

The that the bullet works properly underwater is amazing in of itself, but that it works equally well above and below water is a rather spectacular feat of engineering. Not only does the bullet work above and below water but it’s capable of being fired into the water at very low angles:

The kicker is that DSG MEA supercavitating ammo also has a unique low-angle capability, allowing an operator/shooter to fire the ammo from above the surface into the water at a very low angle of attack, as low as two degrees in choppy water and 7 degrees into glass-smooth water without ricochet. After entering the water, the bullet will continue its true line of flight. There’s no bullet deflection whatsoever, so the operator only need deal with the aforementioned optical refraction of the water.

I’m not going to lie, if this bullet works as advertised it’s going to be freaking amazing. The limited factor of this technology would certainly be the launching platform as few firearms are built to operate reliably underwater (although some are). But as with any advancement in technology other devices will need to play catch up for a while.

I found a news story that demonstrates how girly St. Paul police must be:

The department is switching from .40-caliber Glocks to a choice of 9mm Glocks or Smith & Wessons.

Police Sgt. Cory Tell says the department’s current firearms aren’t necessarily outdated, but police want to make sure they’re using the most reliable equipment possible.

He says 9mm guns are easier to control than .40-caliber Glocks because they don’t have as much recoil.

I guess they’ll never be able to handle the manliness that is the .45 Auto. OK on a serious basis (if you’re a cop in St. Paul note that I wasn’t being serious when I said your department is girly) I can see justification for this move. Police receive inadequate firearms training, albeit very expensive inadequate training:

The guns, plus training, cost $137,000. The nonprofit St. Paul Police Foundation has raised about $80,000 toward the cost, and the department will get some money for trading in its old guns.

That’s a lot of money. Either way with less than adequate training I could see a 9mm being a better choice because the .40 does have pretty snappy recoil behind it. Personally though I think I would have taken the money going towards new firearms and used it to hire a good instructor and get the police department up to snuff with their current equipment. Changing out guns isn’t the only thing that will need to be done as ammunition and magazines will differ as well.

With some things in life more is generally better. One of these things is ammunition capacity, the more rounds you can hold the more fun you can have and California Competition Works is here to help with their PMAG coupler. Basically it’s a small device that allows you to take two PMAGs and couple them together to create a larger magazine thus you can get a 60-round magazine by coupling two 30-round PMAGs together.

A hat tip goes to Every Day, No Days Off for bringing this product to my attention.

The one thing everybody loves about the AR platform is the fact there are tons of places to put rails which also means there are tons of places to mount shit. If you’re fairly new to the AR world and haven’t quite figured out the different means available for mounting tons of heavy shit onto your rifle here is a very nice introduction to rails guide.

I don’t know what it is exactly about the Styer AUG but ever since I first laid eyes on one I’ve wanted it. Maybe it’s because the gun is fairly unique looking or perhaps I really want a rifle that doesn’t have a property trigger guard surrounding the band switch but either way I’ve always said I will buy myself one when I get a large surplus of cash to spend on some random pointless thing. Well it seems my hopes haven’t been totally dashed in acquiring one as Steyr have announced that they will continue importing their AUG rifles into the United States at some future date. What that future date is remains uncertain but either way this is good news in my opinion.