(A Guest Post by blogless Peter, for Carnival of Cordite)

Let's face it, few of us can really afford to shoot enough to really get absolutely confident in our skill. It's not just the ammunition costs, either. Range time is expensive and with gas costs it's even expensive driving to the range. Then when we get there, we find there are all kinds of restrictions on how we can shoot. Some ranges don't allow rapid fire, most will go into hysterics if we try to work on a draw, and Lord help you if you need to practice engaging a threat from behind.

There is an answer, actually more than one. Primer powered wax, rubber and plastic bullets. Someone who is already a handloader is at least partially set up to use these handy little wonders. Someone who isn't will need some tools and some supplies. Some you have around the house already - a small hammer, a drill - some you'll have to buy, and there are other things that can speed the process up.

The first thing we need is modified cartridge cases. Unless you are already set up to handload, start with new, unprimed cases. Otherwise it's hard to find something that is thin enough to go through the factory flash hole yet strong enough to knock the spent primer out. Most outfits sell cartridge cases by the hundred. A little later on I'll tell you where to buy them and the priming tool you'll need.

The first thing we must do is drill the primer flash hole a little larger with a three-sixteenth inch drill bit. You'll need to hold the cartridge case with a pair of pliers and work the drill with the other hand...it's really a job for two people unless you have three hands. Hold the case as close to the rim as possible with those pliers, the metal is thicker down there and you won't be as likely to smoosh it and make it so it won't chamber. Whatever you do, do NOT omit this step. For technical reasons, a primer - fired with no powder behind a normal-weight bullet - will back out of the case and tie up a revolver. In an autoloader it might come completely out and get stuck in the works. Just trust me on this. I have the technical information and I'm not afraid to use it, it would only take about two pages to explain it.

Now, go to the hardware store and buy a package of nails that are long enough to fit from the casemouth to below the primer, with room for your fingers to hold the nail. There are fancier ways to get spent primers out of a case, but they are also more expensive. A tackhammer and a nail will do the trick. If you don't have a tackhammer, pick one up while you're at the hardware store. A hint - tap the nail point a little blunt.

Now we are ready to buy a priming tool and decide what kind of a projectile to use. If your shootin' iron is one of the 9 mm or .38/.357 chamberings, you are in luck. You are just as lucky if you have a .44 or .45, since X-Ring Rubber Bullets are easy to load. They can be re-used until you lose them and - at less than ten bucks per fifty - they're cheap enough to where the wax bullets are more trouble than they're worth. You can buy those from the same place you get the priming tool, I like Midway USA. They have a web site, but if you are a beginner, use their 800 number. Midway's customer service reps are first class and will keep a beginner out of trouble. The least expensive priming tool is the Lee Autoprime, don't forget to order the shellholder. This month the Autoprime is running $10.59, the shellholders are $2.69. Order the cartridge cases too, at this time. Just ask for the cheapest they have in your cartridge. More expensive is the RCBS hand priming tool at $23.49. although it's also sturdier. It uses a different kind of shell holder, and they run about five bucks.

Do yourself a favor, buy those rubber bullets a hundred at a time, that's how primers come so that's the way you'll be loading.

It's simplicity itself, the loading process. Start with an unprimed new case, stick the bullet in. Then, follow the instructions on your priming tool and prime the case.

Now you are ready to shoot. Find an old square of carpet or a floor mat from a junk car and hang it on the inside of a large cardboard box. Don't use a big bath towel, especially if it's one of your wife's favorites. I'm still hearing about that mistake. Tape your target on the opposite side of the box and start shooting. Those bullets will stay in the box, at least until you've shot it up so much that they bounce through the holes in the front. Then it's time to change boxes.

Now, pick those bullets out of the box and you're ready to go again.

Take the shellholder out of the priming tool and place the fired cartridge case in it. Stick that nail we talked about earlier in through the flash hole and whack it with the tackhammer. Do I need to say that we don't use the good furniture for this? At least not without padding. It won't take very long at all to get real quick at this. With a little practice it doesn't take fifteen minutes to make a hundred rounds.

If you happen to shoot a cartridge that the X-Ring bullets won't fit, the problem is easy to solve. Go to the supermarket and buy a few blocks of canning wax and an inexpensive baking pan. A fairly small one, 12 X 12 is plenty big. Prepare the cartridge cases exactly the same way. Then put enough wax in the pan to where when it melts it's a little shorter than your case, this will be trial and error but it won't take too many tries before you have it figured out. What we want is to be able to push the case through like a cookie cutter. You want the wax bullet to be as long as the length of your cartridge case will allow, the accuracy is better that way.

I've never tried using a microwave, it may or may not work, I just use an oven at low heat. By low I mean as low as will melt the wax, no more than 250 degrees F. A little lower won't hurt. Don't go higher. Get it too hot the wax will boil and the gas can catch fire leaving you with hours and hours of happy fun scrubbing the black smoke residue. A cousin of mine did that very thing - he was in a hurry and set the oven on high to melt the wax faster, then the phone rang. That was over forty years ago, Aunt Eleanor still clouts him over the head for that every time she thinks of it. 'Course, she's in her eighties now so her clouts aren't quite so authoritative anymore. It would be a lot funnier except that she always gives me a couple of whacks for laughing about it. I swear that is the last thing the old gal will forget. She can't hardly remember my name or where she put her teeth but she remembers that mess in the kitchen. At least now she's got a walker instead of a cane... Oops, sorry for the digression.... Set the pan on a flat surface and after it solidifies - but is still warm and fairly soft - just push the cases in like a cookie cutter. Do this before you prime them, otherwise the compression of the air in the primed case will push them back out.

Now we prime the cases and we're ready to shoot. As you might guess, the wax bullets can be re-melted and re-used. A trick to really speed the process up is that if you can find one of those hard plastic inserts that come in some boxes of cartridges, you can sand it down to about a quarter inch or so thick and push the cases through all at once. If you have access to a belt sander this takes less than a minute. Dig 'round the trash can at your shooting range.

The accuracy of these wax and plastic bullets is simply amazing out to about twenty-five or thirty feet. The noise level is low enough that if we turn the stereo about halfway to where a teenaged kid turns it down to the first time you yell, nobody outside the garage will ever hear it.

There is no recoil, so they shoot low to the sights. Usually the gun starts recoiling while the bullet is still in the barrel, pushing the point of impact higher. It's not something to get exercised about - just set a target to aim at high, and the one you want to hit low by trial and error.

These loads are useful for learning your trigger and sighting but they are most useful for learning to shoot from the draw and from weapon-retention positions. There used to be a lot of would-be gunfighters with bad limps from being slow on the draw and quick on the trigger. These loads sting bad enough that they'll teach somebody to never do that again, but there will be no permanent damage. How well do they shoot? The late Bill Jordan - the guy that taught me about these loads - had a routine when he gave shooting exhibitions. He'd line up aspirin tablets seven yards away and draw. Shooting from the hip, he'd blow them all off. Then he'd do the same thing with saccharine tablets. He could draw and fire and hit those tiny tablets in two tenths of a second. He'd shoot playing cards from the same distance, edgewise and cut them in half. From the Hip. At seven yards.

It should be obvious that these loads will not work the action of an autoloader, the X-Ring bullets do feed from most, but not all, magazines. Wax bullets don't from very many, they are a single load affair for the self stuffers.

A matter of safety...ALWAYS wear eye protection when priming cases and while you are shooting those primer powered loads because they can bounce. I don't know that a ricochet would put out an eye, but I have had them bounce off bare skin, and they smart a bit. Short barreled guns may be loud enough to require hearing protection. If you get the tiniest bit of ringing in your ears, STOP and put on ear protection. Wouldn't hurt to start with ear protection, for that matter.

Some may get an idea that these loads might work better with just a little pinch of gunpowder. Bad idea. If a reader cares that much about why it's a bad idea, leave an E-Mail addy in the comments and I'll bore you to tears with all the reasons why.

One more safety note. If you are a handloader DO NOT GET THE MODIFIED CASES MIXED UP WITH YOUR CASES FOR FULL-CHARGE LOADS! The larger flash hole will increase the pressure, perhaps to catastrophic levels.

Now, there are a lot of other places besides Midway USA to buy the cases and priming tools, I am telling you beginners to use Midway because I know their people on the telephone are knowledgeable enough to talk you through the process where you'll have everything you need. Other outfits may be just as good that way, I just don't know that. Midway USA: 1-800-243-3220. It's not that difficult, really, you need the cartridge cases, and the priming tool, plus shellholder and the X-Ring bullets if they're available for your shootin' iron.

Unless you live fifteen miles outside of Resume Speed, Montana, don't buy your primers by mail order or online. Each shipment of primers has a $20.00 HazMat Fee, kind of defeats the purpose of cheap practice. Do shop around, if you live in an area with a choice of places to buy primers, the markup really varies from place to place. The brand makes a difference on price, too. The price tags on the various primer boxes in my gunroom range from $12.99 per thousand to $34.00 per thou for my rifle match primers, which for some strange reason I don't use for powering these loads. Do buy those primers by the thousand. Not only are they cheaper that way but you'll be amazed at how addictive these loads are and how fast you'll burn 'em up. If you are stuck with online or mail order than call the folks at Graf and Sons and be sure and buy your primers at the case price. Handgun primers are running $65.99 per 5,000 for the Magtech brand, plus Hazmat of $20.00 and $4.95 for shipping to the lower 48.

Their phone #? 1-800-531-2666. Remember, there is more than one size of primer, be sure and double check, take a cartridge case with you the first time.

Give these loads a try, you won't believe how much fun you're having for so little money. There just aren't many things that are more fun that we can do fully dressed and zipped up.

Posted by: Harvey at 06:31 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Carnival of Cordite #9 is up at Resistance is Futile.

Posted by: Harvey at 09:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(A Guest Post by blogless Peter, for Carnival of Cordite)

We've done all we could, taken every precaution and now we're faced with the choice of using our gun or else. What now? What training program or practice can prepare us for using a gun on another human?

There is a dirty little secret among all the shooting schools and just about every book ever written on the subject of gunfighting. That secret is that they are for police and military types and of only tangential interest to the armed civilian. We civilians don't give a rat's patootie about taking Hill 363 B nor are we going to be arresting anyone. Our strategic goals are different, and so are the tactics and tools. The next time you see a Police Officer, take a look at that belt he's wearing. Count the items you won't have. You won't have that radio, nor a set of cuffs and it's real likely that you won't have two high capacity magazines in a convenient pouch. You aren't going to have a big can of Mace or Pepper Spray, nor a baton or four cell Mag Light. You aren't going to be wearing Kevlar, either.

Still, practice and planning are essential. Without a plan we've practiced, the natural thing for us to do is panic. This, by the way, has nothing to do with courage. The bravest fireman ever can panic in a gunfight just as the bravest Police Officer can panic in a fire.

The plans will be different for personal defense outside the home and inside.

Life threatening situations happen up close. The armed citizen outside the home will be within feet, not yards of the threat. Forget the idea of standing in the perfect Weaver Position and picking out what button to put the first bullet through. The odds are you'll have to shoot from a weapon-retention position. Most civilian gunfights happen within touching distance. If we hang the gun out at the end of one or both arms, odds are we'll never get a shot off. Learn the weapon-retention position. The gun hand will touch the short ribs with the body slightly angled away from the bad guy, the other hand balled in a fist across the chest. Assuming only one bad guy, fire the first shot, then punch the gun out hard into the upper chest and fire the next. A contact wound with any cartridge big enough to carry for defense ends the fight. That white hot, high-pressure powder gas will follow the bullet into the chest and just destroy the bad guy's clockworks.

Do not try learning to shoot from the weapon-retention position with live ammo. In a future Carnival we'll discuss the primer powered wax and plastic bullets and BB Pistols. Learning weapon-retention and 'fast draw' shooting with real ammo is a very good way to put orifices in ourselves that God didn't design.

Criminals rarely work alone, if you need your gun you'll probably be outnumbered. This is another problem with the shooting schools, they teach using a lot of ammo. Double taps and what is called the Mozambique Drill, two shots to the chest and one to the head. This works fine if you are only up against one bad guy, if you end up against two or three then the others will ventilate you while you are blasting the first one. There is also the little problem of the cartridge capacity of most concealed carry guns. The most popular are the five shot revolvers and the smaller autoloaders. Your tactics must take your ammo supply into account. You don't win a gunfight if you kill two and are killed by the third.

Don't forget that the bad guy gets to make the first move and it's very likely to be from behind. That's why I like those pocket holsters, I can have my hand casually in my pocket as I amble through the crowd and already have my hand on iron.

Keep an eye on who is around you as well as any available cover and concealment. Learn the difference between cover and concealment. A bush is concealment, an engine block of a car is cover. So is a wheel and tire. Learn to shoot from around cover.

Try your best to walk on the outside of the sidewalk. If I can duck between two parked cars I limit the directions they can come at me.

The best friend we have is distance. Criminals have to get close, if they have to shout to tell us we're being robbed, well that kind of defeats the purpose.

Speaking of distance, don't believe that crap about a guy so dumb he brings a knife to a gunfight. If a guy with a knife is close, you are going to get cut. The only practical way to deal with a determined knife man is to keep him busy with something unimportant like your off hand while you shoot the foo out of him with your gun hand. With a little luck, your knife man won't be that determined. Distance is our friend against knife or gun. The crook is a criminal, his weapon is illegal. That's your only advantage, you can spend time at a shooting range, he can't. Those jailhouse tattoos raise questions.

Remember, he has the advantage of the first move. Most of the time there are ways to take the initiative once he does. If he demands your wallet, give it to him, toss it to his feet, when he looks down, make your move.

Remember that a gun isn't a magic wand, a wave of a gun doesn't make people do your bidding. If you are up against an armed assailant, shoot. Don't stand there talking, pull the trigger. The wallet toss trick will gain you a half second to a second at the most, if you don't have a hole in the ten ring by then you're screwed. Practice until you can get that shot off and remember the maxim of the old west gunfighters. Speed is fine. Accuracy is fatal.

There are two schools of thought about multiple assailants. One school of thought is pick the leader and shoot until he's down before going on to the others. I'm not a big fan of that school - suppose I guess wrong or they're anarchists - I'm of the school that says one shot per bad guy and then shift fire to anyone still standing. If our weapon has the ammo capacity and we've practiced enough a double tap is almost as fast as a single shot each. The downsides to the double tap are that word 'almost' and the fact that to make those double taps that fast we must practice until they're almost automatic. In learning the double tap I had to practice it so much that a single shot became difficult. Then I'd put that five shot revolver in my pocket. See the problem?

My aim point is the upper chest. There is a box: the nipples are about the two sides, the top is about three inches above, the bottom two inches below. That's where the heart and upper lungs live, along with a lot of major blood vessels. My goal is to hit those on the way to breaking the spine. There are simply no wounding shots that are reliable enough to put an armed assailant down. Well, there are... trouble is they only work when the good guy is behind solid cover and out of range of the bad guy's weapon. If I were twenty yards away from a guy with a knife and had a car between me and him, then I could think about trying to break a hip. Of course a civilian would have a very uncomfortable time before the Grand Jury after taking such a shot.

Understand that I'll do almost anything to avoid a shooting scrape, especially with multiple assailants. I can make more money. I don't care what strangers think - if I can run away, I will. The only way I'm going to stand there like Marshall Dillon and shoot it out is if there is no other way.

If I'm unlucky enough to be in a business when an armed robbery goes down I'm going to stay out of it if at all possible. The money is probably insured.. Before buying into a play like an armed robbery, be aware that most professional robbers send a 'customer' in to hang in the background and shoot anyone who gets heroic. We're civilians, it's not our job to arrest robbers. Try to get out of the immediate line of fire and hunker down. If we start a shooting war in a crowded business the wrong people are going to get shot. Of course, if the bad guys start shooting, all bets are off.

Understand that if it gets to an armed confrontation, my only interest is my own survival, unless ensuring it means I must put innocent people in danger. I haven't the right to peg shots at a bad guy when there is a crowd of schoolchildren in the line of fire. And, of course, I'm old school enough that the survival of my family takes precedence over my own. If I have to play Horatio at the bridge to buy them time to get away, well that's my bad luck.

The inside the house defense is simpler, a single person or childless couple only have to defend the room they're in. Go to ground and wait for the cavalry to arrive. Children or other people in the house - your aged mother for instance - complicate the situation. Figure out a plan to get everyone you care about into one room and then defend that room. Keep your cell phone in the bedroom. Bad guys can cut the phone line from outside the house. Next to the phone and the bedside gun there needs to be a flashlight. A couple can divide the job. One on the (primary) gun, the other on the phone and flashlight.

There are a lot of techniques touted as the best for using a gun and flashlight together. My preferred is to hold the gun in my strong hand and the flashlight on the other shoulder. Yes, my aim is steadier with two hands on the gun. Still, with the light on my off shoulder and the gun in my strong hand I can see both sights. I'm more accurate with a good sight picture and a little more shake than I am with no sight picture and more steadiness. Your mileage may vary.

Women face additional challenges. Outside of penal institutions, there isn't a whole lot of man on man rape. We aren't going to worry about penal institutions, since it's pretty unlikely that we'd be using a gun for defense Inside, anyway.

Sisters, it's tempting to carry your shootin' iron in your purse. That's not the best idea. If you are attacked, the purse is the first thing they go for. A little acting ability can go a long way to buy you time to unlimber the artillery. Try blubbering something like 'don't hurt me, I'll do anything you want' and show some skin with one hand while drawing with the other. You can reclaim your dignity later when you spit on his grave, right? You are doubly behind the eight ball because - just like us hairylegs - you have to give the bad guy the first move, as well as the fact that the average man is bigger, heavier and has more muscle mass than the average woman. Not to mention that half the time y'all wear shoes that ya can't run in.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that rapists aren't the brightest of all God's little door prizes. If you keep your cool and use your heads you'll figure out a way to distract the sumbitch for long enough to ventilate him. Carry your purse in your offhand and chuck it in his face while you draw and fire with your gun hand. Get together with your girlfriends and brainstorm it. Think up ways to distract him if he's grabbed you from behind. All you need is the half second to a second that it takes to draw and fire. Do what you have to do to buy that time. You aren't just doing it for yourself. Rapists are almost invariably repeat offenders and they escalate the violence. In saving yourself there is no telling how many other women and girls you will save.

Don't fall for that tired old 'don't resist or he'll hurt you' crap. Too many graves are filled with women who believed that. Let me repeat. Rapists always repeat and they always escalate. Sure, a beginning rapist might not injure you too badly, but don't bet the farm that you're up against a beginner. The chances are you're going to be up against one that needs to kill to get off. Buy yourself that half second and put him down.

It's going to be very difficult to find a shooting range that will allow practicing real-life and real-death scenarios. A public range will not allow turning and engaging threats from behind. and almost none will allow draw and fire drills. The answer to this problem is the same as the answer to practicing firing from the weapon-retention position, primer-powered wax or plastic bullets. The average single car garage can become our shooting range with these. How does a one-time set up cost of about thirty dollars or so and then a practice ammo cost of less than twenty dollars per thousand rounds look?

I mentioned that most books and training classes offer little value for the armed citizen. There are two books that are good, both available from Amazon.Com and both by the same author. Look for Massad Ayoob's In Gravest Extreme and Stressfire Vol. One. Stressfire is a little police-centric but the insights on shooting under extreme stress are worthwhile. His courses are also great - again a bit police-centric - but if one can afford the class, it's worth it just to see the only living human that cusses more than the Emperor Misha, Jen Martinez and me...combined.

Posted by: Harvey at 09:16 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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(A Guest Post by blogless Peter, for Carnival of Cordite)

Now that we're all armed to the teeth and have practiced until we can shoot a housefly out of the sky at a hundred yards it's time to talk about how to win a gunfight. Here is the dirty little secret, the only way to be sure to win in a gunfight is to not get into one. No matter how good we are if we have to use a gun we've a good chance of having a Bad Day.

There are some simple, and relatively inexpensive ways to cut the odds way down that we'll ever need to use a gun to save our lives or those of family members. Make no mistake, the gun is plan B.

There are only two places in the whole world that we need to be prepared to defend ourselves. At home and away from home. Let's talk about home, first.
How are your doors? Are they solid wood with stout locks? How about the door jambs? Strong hinges? A peephole or small window to see who is there before you open the door? Is your door locked right now? No gun in the world is going to save my ass if the bad guys are on me before I can grab it. Fix your doors. Windows aren't as big a problem, it takes time and noise to get through a window.

A lot of people buy alarms so they get early warning of intruders. That's fine, a better option is a dog. It doesn't have to be a starving Rottweiller or constipated Doberman or even an angry German Shepherd. Since our big dog died our watchdog is a fat black Pug, spoiled rotten. He can still hear and smell a lot more keenly than any human. All he has to do is let us know that someone is coming up to the house, this he does and very well.

If I'm ready to repel boarders before they're inside, home defense is a piece of cake.

The vast majority of home invasions involve one or both of two situations, drugs or a significant other with a psycho Ex. If we can avoid those we stack the odds in our favor.

We stack the odds in our favor also by not showing considerably more wealth than the neighborhood. If the newest car in your neighborhood is an '87 Yugo don't drive an '05 Seven-series Beemer. Matter of fact if the newest car in your neighborhood is that Yugo and you can afford a Beemer, move.

Be careful when driving up to the house. Most folks relax the second they hit the driveway. Before shutting the engine off, look around. Is there someone close that doesn't belong? Don't be afraid to put that car back in gear and drive off. People coming home are at their most vulnerable, we almost always have at least one thing in our hands plus juggling keys. If the guy hanging around is six foot ten, and covered in muscle and prison tattoos then use your head and get the heck somewhere else.

Simple common-sense things that work every time they're tried. We've just eliminated 90% of the reasons people need to use a gun in defense of the home.

How about away from home? We can eliminate that same 90%. Start with a trip to the local library, ask the librarian for the most recent crime stats in your town. Pay attention to the neighborhoods. Crime, and criminals, tend to cluster in the same neighborhoods. Let's stay our of those neighborhoods. Pay attention to the TIMES of those crimes. Until we get well into our thirties it's usually hard to admit that Momma was right, nothing good happens after midnight.

If we strike out at the library, check with the Public Affairs Office of your local Police or Sheriff's Department.

Life threatening situations happen in bars, the streets in front of bars, the parking lots of bars and the alleys behind bars. Not just any bars, two kinds of bars, the ones in the neighborhoods where all those other crimes happen and those trendy ones where the hip young twenty-somethings hang out. Thugs have learned that hip young twenty-somethings have cash and jewelry and are easy marks when they're about half lit.

Do everything you can to avoid areas where there is a lot of drug and gang activity, avoid the 'Ho Strolls'. Avoid areas where there are a lot of young men hanging around outside. Areas where there is a lot of prostitution ALWAYS have all the other crimes. Guys, if you're that damned horny there's a better way. Work out, buff yourself up, get a tight haircut and a Fireman costume and show up at the next comment party. The Bad Example Women will show you why they're bad examples.

Traveling is a different story. If you don't know the area, watch where you get off the freeway. Look for upscale stores, eateries and hotels. Stop and fill the tank when you still have enough gas to get somewhere else. If you get off the freeway and see bars on the windows and doors of all the stores or lots of young men hanging around, get back on the freeway.

Everywhere you go, profile. Learn to spot gangster styles and jailhouse tattoos. If you are, for whatever reasons, in a marginal or 'bad' area learn to spot the signs that things are going wrong. If you're going about whatever business you have and suddenly all the women and kids are getting off the streets something bad is about to happen.

Gas stations are prime spots for carjackers. Pay attention. If possible have someone in the driver's seat while you're filling the tank. Use the pay at the pump whenever possible.

Speaking of carjackings, even at traffic lights, keep a little room around your car. With ten feet to work with he's not a carjacker, he's roadkill.

The most important defensive weapon you'll ever have is between your ears. Use that and we won't need the gun.

Next week, Plan B, when we do need the gun.

Posted by: Harvey at 07:18 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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