10 myths about shooting

Discussion in 'The Red Room' started by gturner, Sep 5, 2016.

  1. gturner

    gturner Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2014
    Messages:
    19,572
    Ratings:
    +3,648
  2. gturner

    gturner Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2014
    Messages:
    19,572
    Ratings:
    +3,648
    A lot of good stuff about the current "tactical" craze in the shooting community.

    Things like "No, you don't have to be all tattooed up to shoot well." "No, you don't have to dress like a SWAT team member to eat in a restaurant."

    And he debunks a lot of the crazes and fads, like "We shot that way three years ago, but now everybody has to shoot like this..." :brood:

    NutNFancy is a retired Air Force colonel who several years ago started doing product reviews for guns and camping equipment.
  3. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2004
    Messages:
    81,024
    Location:
    front and center
    Ratings:
    +29,953
    This guy is awesome! :lol: I'd like to be around him when he puts some of the "NO FEAR" douche bags to shame! :yes: Seriously though for people that aren't familiar with guns and wanted to learn how to shoot this guy would be the type of teacher you need, that's for sure.
  4. gturner

    gturner Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2014
    Messages:
    19,572
    Ratings:
    +3,648
    Yeah. He's quite entertaining and his channel has a ton of reviews. He also has a bunch of videos talking about what he did in the Air Force.
  5. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2004
    Messages:
    81,024
    Location:
    front and center
    Ratings:
    +29,953
    I have to check that out. Not knowing his background, about a minute into the video I thought this "this guy has his shit together - not a guy I would mess with".
  6. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2004
    Messages:
    50,154
    Location:
    Spacetime
    Ratings:
    +53,511
    My favorite gun channels on YouTube are:

    TheYankeeMarshal

    and

    Hickok45

    The Yankee Marshal's videos often have a lot of risque humor in them, and he's very sensible, especially where it comes to carrying or debunking gun myths. Hickok is like an old friend you hang out and shoot with, and he shares a lot about firearms history. I also like Jeff Quinn at GunBlast, though I'm not convinced his reviews are entirely unbiased.

    I do watch NutnFancy's videos pretty frequently, too. I've come around on him a little. At first, I thought he was just a guy out playing soldier, but his reviews are pretty solid.
    • Agree Agree x 1
  7. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2004
    Messages:
    81,024
    Location:
    front and center
    Ratings:
    +29,953
    Hickok did a review on the 9 mil my son bought a few years ago - he can shoot it way, way better than my son ever will - but it's still a great gun.
  8. TheBurgerKing

    TheBurgerKing The Monarch of Flavor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2009
    Messages:
    3,987
    Location:
    In a Baneblade
    Ratings:
    +2,618
    I really wish I had Hikock's private gun range.

    I've begun writing a book for beginning shooters that details the different firearms and how they operate, as well as basic ballistic knowledge and some basic shooting and maintenance tips. I've been wondering if I should include a chapter that debunks some of the dumber myths.
    • Agree Agree x 2
  9. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2004
    Messages:
    50,154
    Location:
    Spacetime
    Ratings:
    +53,511
    You should definitely do that. Include all the stuff that Hollywood shows that is total B.S.

    Some of my favorites:

    1. An automatic pistol going click, click when it's out of bullets, usually to the surprise of the person wielding it. Never happens because the slide on an automatic pistol locks open when the last round is fired, facilitating a quick reload. (Too many occurrences in the movie to count.)

    2. A gunshot (and especially a shotgun blast) picking someone up off their feet and flinging them across the room. Total bullshit, not even the biggest small arm flings that much momentum downrange. (My favorite sin: Antonio Banderas shooting a guy in mid-air with a couple of handguns and causing him to fly backwards in Desperado.)

    3. Guns firing from being dropped. Not for any gun made in the last half dozen decades; they all have drop safeties. (My favorite sin: a kid on Beverly Hills 90210 accidentally killing himself when he is shot by a dropped Glock, a pistol that has multiple safety mechanisms to prevent that from happening. Runner up: Jamie Lee Curtis dropping a MAC-10 down the stairs, causing it to fire, and inadvertently mowing down several terrorists in True Lies.)

    4. Handgun bullets going through multiple people. Not bloody likely. (Favorite sin: Indiana Jones blasting through four Nazis with a 9mm P38 in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.)

    5. Silenced revolvers. Not unless you've got an old Russian Nagant that seals its cylinder when it's fired.

    6. Silencers that turn gunshots into pew! pew! sounds. Nope. "Silencers" (properly called suppressors) reduce gunshots from so-loud-it-will-fuck-up-your-hearing to okay-still-pretty-loud. It *is* possible to suppress gunshots to very low levels--the action of the gun will be louder!--but this involves subsonic ammo and really big suppressors. That little tiny can that Bond screws onto his PPK isn't going to do it.

    7. Guys who miss with rifles at close range. The A-Team would've been dead 100 times over if the bad guys knew how to shoot their rifles.

    8. Guns that never run out of bullets, or that seem to hold implausibly large numbers of bullets. (Favorite sin: the main terrorist in True Lies who has an AKS that holds, at most, 30 rounds, who puts what looks like 100 holes in several bathroom stall doors with a single burst.)

    9. Machine guns that don't melt down. In real life, machine guns are built with quick-change barrels, because the barrel heats up VERY quickly under continuous firing. The heated barrel will begin to deform--throwing off accuracy--and, if firing is sustained, catastrophic failure of the gun will result. But 80s movies with Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Norris were notorious for disregarding physics.

    10. People making bullets arc in flight like in Wanted. No. Just...no.
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2016
  10. Man Afraid of his Shoes

    Man Afraid of his Shoes كافر

    Joined:
    Apr 1, 2004
    Messages:
    28,021
    Location:
    N.C.
    Ratings:
    +27,815
    I've got one. Hydrostatic Shock. True or hogwash? :bailey:
  11. OmIsLife

    OmIsLife Fresh Meat

    Joined:
    Sep 10, 2015
    Messages:
    269
    Location:
    United States
    Ratings:
    +133
    Wow great video! I played this while cleaning house thismorneng, he makes some good points.
  12. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2004
    Messages:
    50,154
    Location:
    Spacetime
    Ratings:
    +53,511
    In handgun calibers, hogwash.

    In rifle calibers, I'm not certain, but I lean toward hogwash.

    I'm coming around to the point of view that penetration is the dominant factor in terminal ballistics and that all else is pretty secondary.
    • Agree Agree x 1
  13. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2004
    Messages:
    81,024
    Location:
    front and center
    Ratings:
    +29,953
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_shock

    I do know this - more & more people are deer hunting with lightweight (but very fast moving) rounds these days, the .223 shot from an AR-15 platform being the most popular. It puts deer down with a quickness most of the time, assuming shot placement is perfect. Bear in mind deer are much, much tougher than a human of the same size and there are no psychological effects (fear, reaction to pain, indecision, pride, etc) on the deer like there would be to a human. Deer haul ass at full speed when they hear a gun shot whether they are hit or not.

    So it's really apples & oranges because if animals survive, we cannot interview them. The only way to test it would be to rig up similar sized humans (same weight, body composition, etc) with data gathering devices and shoot them with different rounds then perform an autopsy - or take readings if they survive. Twins who have the same body fat/muscle ratio would be perfect for accurate testing.
  14. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

    Joined:
    Nov 28, 2004
    Messages:
    81,024
    Location:
    front and center
    Ratings:
    +29,953
    Okay - let's say two different rounds have complete penetration in the same spot - let's say a "double lung" hit with complete "in-n-out" penetration with no ribs hit. Will the faster moving round put the animal/human down quicker?
  15. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2004
    Messages:
    50,154
    Location:
    Spacetime
    Ratings:
    +53,511
    I think the killing power of high velocity rounds like the 5.56mm/.223 is due to the very real fragmentation effect. But we've seen that these rounds are less effective when fired from shorter barrelled guns at longer rangers---because the velocity drops below that required for fragmentation. A 5.56mm below fragmentation velocity is little more than a .22 Magnum. Not nothing, but not reliable for dropping someone in their tracks.

    The subject is complex enough that it's difficult to say whether a round that zips through the body is more or less effective. It may be that the higher energy lets it pass through without transferring so much of its energy into tissue damage.

    Barring hyper-velocity phenomena like the fragmentation effect, a bullet only really damages that roughly cylindrical track it cuts through the body (or any bones it smashes that get in the way). If something vital is in that volume, it's effective. I put no stock--especially in handgun calibers--of shock waves disrupting organs throughout the body.

    I'm now wondering whether expanding ammo is really the way to go. Yes, logic says you want to cut a bigger track, but what if an extra inch of penetration does more than an extra .05 inches of wound diameter?

    I guess the test is this: does modern ammo outperform FMJ statistically? Apparently yes. But the FBI is now putting more stock in penetration, and the conventional wisdom Is shifting to the notion that--with modern ammo--there may not be much difference between 9mm, .40, and .45.
  16. shootER

    shootER Insubordinate...and churlish Administrator

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2004
    Messages:
    49,228
    Location:
    The Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue
    Ratings:
    +50,222
    It's been some years since I've spent much time around deer hunters, but I know that almost none used .223 because it wasn't a sure-stopper against even the moderately sized whitetail around here.

    Ironically, it seems that 5.56/.223 is the caliber of choice for wild hog hunters, though, which would seem to be a much harder critter to bring down. I suspect they like the volume of fire that AR15-type rifles offer whereas deer hunters tend to go for one shot, one kill.
  17. gturner

    gturner Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2014
    Messages:
    19,572
    Ratings:
    +3,648
    Well pretty obviously you're going to want very different ballistics depending on whether you're shooting red meat or white meat. Hogs would be in the squirrel/chicken/turkey family of firearms, whereas deer would be in the bison/elk/cow family. Then of course there's a whole other set of ballistic requirements for hunting vegetables, because you want a lot of expansion to make those watermelons, cantaloupes, and tomatoes visually explode, even though a 30-06 FMJ with good shot placement will stop most any melon even if it doesn't expand or tumble.
    • Agree Agree x 1
    • GFY GFY x 1
  18. OmIsLife

    OmIsLife Fresh Meat

    Joined:
    Sep 10, 2015
    Messages:
    269
    Location:
    United States
    Ratings:
    +133
  19. gturner

    gturner Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2014
    Messages:
    19,572
    Ratings:
    +3,648
    Another myth that shows up everywhere is that a bullet will kill you if you don't dig it out, but if you dig it out you'll probably be okay. Sorry, but the bullet is only a hazard if it's jagged and going to cut something as you move around. It it's pretty smooth it's no different than a metal implant that a person would get at a tattoo/piercing shop. Bullets don't kill, it's the big gaping wounds they make at high velocity that kills.

    But if I come across anybody who's wounded and who has any subcutaneous implants, I'm pulling out a knife and cutting those out so the person doesn't die.

    And pretty much every show does the same thing. "We have to get the bullet out!" And they go in with a crow bar, a pair of pliers, and a dagger to dig that sucker out, or say "You're very lucky! It went straight through so we don't have to dig it out (of the three inch diameter hole all the way through your chest)."
  20. Captain X

    Captain X Responsible cookie control

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2009
    Messages:
    15,318
    Location:
    The Land of Snow and Cold
    Ratings:
    +9,731
    Aside from possibly having sharp bits that might go on to damage something later on, I think that concern might stem more from the potential for infection from bacteria that might be present on the bullet, or pieces of clothing that might have been taken in with it.
    • Agree Agree x 1
  21. Lanzman

    Lanzman Vast, Cool and Unsympathetic Formerly Important

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2004
    Messages:
    35,140
    Location:
    Someplace high and cold
    Ratings:
    +36,592
    Master and Commander, of all movies, touches on that point. They go to great lengths to make sure they get all the pieces of uniform out of the wounded guy so that the wound won't (or is less likely) to turn septic.

    That one's covered by the Rule of Awesome, and also the Rule of Funny. :yes:
    • Agree Agree x 2
  22. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2004
    Messages:
    50,154
    Location:
    Spacetime
    Ratings:
    +53,511
    I stand corrected.
  23. Lanzman

    Lanzman Vast, Cool and Unsympathetic Formerly Important

    Joined:
    Mar 27, 2004
    Messages:
    35,140
    Location:
    Someplace high and cold
    Ratings:
    +36,592
    Wasn't it awfully convenient, tho, that that MAC-10 only fired when it was pointing at bad guys?
    • Agree Agree x 2
  24. gturner

    gturner Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2014
    Messages:
    19,572
    Ratings:
    +3,648
    It was designed to do that.
  25. TheBurgerKing

    TheBurgerKing The Monarch of Flavor

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2009
    Messages:
    3,987
    Location:
    In a Baneblade
    Ratings:
    +2,618
    I'm surprised that it fired for so long, at a little over 1,000 rounds a minute she should have run dry by the second step.