September 2009 Archives

This has been around a while, but there's some good information on how your common pistol cartridges stop someone here.

Basically, they don't.

Physiologically, no caliber or bullet is certain to incapacitate any individual unless the brain is hit.

The much discussed "shock" of bullet impact is a fable and "knock down" power is a myth.

Having said that, it's not true that some cartridges aren't better than others.

Although no cartridge is certain to work all the time, surely some will work more often than others, and any edge is desirable in one's self defense. This is simple logic.

Ok, so what would give me that edge?

The critical element is penetration. The bullet must pass through the large, blood bearing organs and be of sufficient diameter to promote rapid bleeding.

Given desirable and reliable penetration, the only way to increase bullet effectiveness is to increase the severity of the wound by increasing the size of hole made by the bullet.

I'm not going to say you should always use this particular caliber or that caliber sucks, because for the most part there are only 3 pistol calibers to choose from and they all work about the same (not very well), but there may be some benefit to choosing the bigger caliber.

There are some cons to go along with a bigger caliber, so that needs to be considered too. (Cost, size of the gun that shoots them, fewer rounds, etc.)

What some say was John Browning's greatest design became known as the M1911, and eventually the M1911A1.

Here it is almost 2011, and nearly 25 years after the M9 became our official service pistol, and one branch of the Marine Corps is looking to procure some new parts for the venerable old 1911, according to the firearm blog.

I only have one problem with that ... they call it the M45! Sacrilege!

My guess as to why they are interested in it:

If I was limited to ball ammo like the military, I would very much prefer the .45ACP cartridge over 9mm NATO. While I agree that all pistol rounds suck, and shot placement is key, bigger holes inherently seem better to me.

Hsoi had an entry this weekend talking about buckshot. I thought it would be useful to add a visual reference. One thing to note is that there are two different sizes, lead and steel. These pics were gleaned from various sites and added here.

All shot sizes (I believe this is pretty close to scale)

Lead and steel size (not to scale)

Apparently it's whenever Obama says so.

Just for fun, I decided to throw in this clip of Harry Reid talking about our voluntary tax system.

Went to the gun show this morning to engage in some capitalism, but what I noticed is that things are dying down.

Demand appears to be tapering off, and with the exception of primers, it seems like you can get whatever you want. (My primer order has been on backorder for 6 months now.)

I don't know if this means that people have decided that the threat (real of imagined) is gone, or that they have enough, or prices are too high, or if the economy has finally impacted gun sales, or what.

I do know It was nice to have parking, not stand in line, and be able to move through the place though.

According to former president Jimmy Carter

I won't defend Joe Wilson, because I do hold to the notion that you respect the office, but I am seeing a disturbing trend that whenever those of us who disagree with Obama speak or demonstrate we are labeled as redneck racists.

Isn't that prejudiced too?

Also let's be fair ... why is it OK for Democrats to whoop and yell in favor of something, but not OK for Republicans to boo and yell against?

How about everyone be quiet and let him say his piece?

Although to be fair, every address I've seen has been full of that artificial cheering no matter which party is in power. Do they really think we are that stupid? Oh, everyone's cheering! He must have said something good, important, and/or true!

The first run after a break is really not fun.

I hadn't done any running, cardio, or lifting for almost a week, and it's amazing how fast you lose conditioning.

I did 2 miles this afternoon. Did I mention it wasn't fun? Because it wasn't.

You know you've drawn a bad partner when he says "I want to bite you!"

I'd say the chances are probably high that I'll run into him again given the smallish group of people in the area who are into self-defense, pistol training and competition.

I think said partner is probably a decent guy outside of a martial arts context, but that kind of physical contact can get the dander up.

But, the thing of it is, and what caused me to blog about it, is that sparring is sparring. It's not competition, and it's not fighting. I'd rather "lose" every sparring match and learn something than "win" and not learn anything. (I'm not even "into" martial arts in the first place.)

When I was doing the "billy goat" training with Hsoi, which is literally a head to head thing as the name implies, I wasn't trying to win. I wasn't trying to lose either, but I wanted to learn, and I did learn. I learned about leverage, keeping my hips square, footwork, balance, etc. I do a lot of leg work in the gym, so I felt like if I really wanted to I could dominate things, but I kept the pressure appropriate for the context, and I'm sure he learned too.

Due to height difference, the "biter" (I don't know his name) suggested the four of us change partners, and we did.

Southnarc would show us a move, but I couldn't even practice it because he was instantly fighting it. Yeah, it's good not to just be a practice dummy, but you have to learn the basic move first.

At one point after Southnarc showed us a move where you grab the back of the neck of your opponent. At his first opportunity my new partner yanked down on the back of my head (not neck) with full force bringing my chin into my chest. It didn't feel too good and I couldn't breathe. My neck is sore and I'm sure that is a big reason. (Since he didn't do it right, it didn't work either, I stayed up and pushed him off.)

Well needless to say, that changed the tone of things for me. He kept going hard and he landed on the ground a few times. I am bigger and stronger than he is to start with, and when he tried too hard he was unbalanced. Newsflash: when you are unbalanced, you fall.

At one point he fell right underneath me and I gave him 3 quick, light taps to his kidney. I was trying to let him know what a real opponent could have done, but I think it just made him mad and he lunged for my knees. I fell on top of him and was spinning around for mount (and like I said, I don't do MMA so I'm not sure where that came from, maybe TV) when Southnarc called "break!"

A couple of skirmishes after that is when he said he wanted to bite me. (WTF?) I asked for clarification and he repeated that he wanted to bite me. I told him not to with an implied "or else!"

I think not being able to beat me was really frustrating him, and again that's not the reason we spar, and furthermore the reason he was having such a hard time with me is because he was being a knucklehead.

Thankfully we took a 10 minute break soon after that and Hsoi had apparently been dealing with the same kind of thing from his partner and was quick to suggest we go back to the previous arrangement.

The funny thing is those two continued doing that stuff, and I saw "biter" fall several more times. I guess those two are just super competitive types, which is fine for them I guess but it was kind of a distraction from what was otherwise some very good instruction.

Update:

I got an email from Jay. He says what he said was "I am tempted to bite you", that he meant it as a joke, he points out I should have said something (which I should have), and it's not fair to call him "biter".

I appreciate him contacting me, and am not going to hold a grudge. It's contact training, stuff happens.

I'd go back and delete this just for the sake of putting it away for good, but that always bothers me when other people do it.

I'm beat, so I'm going to try and make this short.

One of the things I said yesterday was that we didn't shoot as much as I liked. We shot a lot more today. In fact, towards the end I think my hands and arms were getting tired and my shooting started getting worse.

Southnarc's class is a real asskicker, but I have to gloat a little bit and mention how much my training regimen helped today. I was still sucking wind from time to time, but I felt pretty good, and my strength was a huge advantage. (Actually, I think I'm probably relying too much on my strength, but when someone is "attacking" you, it's hard not to use it.)

I don't have any illusion of being a martial artist, but I learned a lot of stuff about what I shall call "street wrasslin'" for lack of a better term.

Southnarc is not a big guy, but watching him work is impressive. It all flows, and he's in position, not the other way around. (Granted, it's sparring and demonstration, but you can tell he learned this stuff the hard way, and learned it well.) If you ever get a chance to take a class from him, even if you're like me and not really into fighting, you should do it.

Injuries:

Bruises on both biceps
Sprained left index finger
Sore neck
Sore back
Couple of cuts to my lips
Sunburn
Big knot on my forehead

I can't wait until tomorrow.

Update: Tomorrow has come and two areas really stand out as being sore as hell. My forehead and my neck. Next time, which I doubt there will be, but you never know, I will add some neck stretches and exercises to the training.

Hsoi's got his write up here.

I think the day overall was pretty good. The weather didn't cooperate and we had some people who seemed a bit rusty out of the gate which held up the class a little bit.

So, it ended up that we didn't shoot as much as I hoped. I think I only shot 200 rounds today. I hope we get a chance to shoot a lot more tomorrow.

My EMP functioned pretty much flawlessly. I say "pretty much" because a couple of times the partially empty magazines didn't drop free during reloads. The magazines were falling in mud though, so I do think that was a contributing factor.

My shooting was good, not flawless, but I felt good about it nonetheless. The practice really made a difference as compared to the last class I took "cold".

Southnarc's stuff was pretty foreign to me. I learned a lot, but it's not the kind of thing you can do for a few hours in a classroom and be competent at. (Or at least I can't.)

I'm still having problems with something as seemingly simple as the "fence". It sounds real easy. Keep your hands here, but when someone is coming at you, your natural reaction is to extend those arms.

I signed up for the Combined Skills class offered by Tom Givens and Southnarc via KRTraining earlier this year.

In January I took Defensive Long Gun from KRTraining, and I was really out of shape. I had been working ridiculous hours on a project, and eating lots of junk food. (When I work like that, I crave candy and soft drinks.) I was the heaviest I had ever been, 282 lbs, and probably couldn't run a half mile to save my life.

I decided early on that a whole weekend of serious self-defense training would probably not be very fun, so I held off signing up for a while.

Well, things at work went from Bedlam, to mere insanity, and then to more than 40 hours but tolerable. I actually could go a whole weekend without working. Stress levels came down, and I needed to lose the weight, and decided this class could serve as motivation, so I signed up.

I've been lifting weight 5 days a week, doing cardio 3 days a week, and jogging 2 miles a couple times a week all summer. Along the way I lost 30 lbs of fat, and put on some muscle.

Anyway, long story short, I'm in tolerable shape and conditioning.

So, physical stuff out of the way, the last time I took a class, I hadn't even shot a pistol in a couple months. I didn't really feel like I was shooting worth a damn until the last 100 rounds of the class.

I still haven't shot as much as I would like, but I have been able to practice a lot more than last time, and have been able to practice some more intermediate stuff like drawing from concealment and shooting multiple targets. Also did some 25 yard shooting a couple of times.

Finally, I've been drying firing, and practicing my draw about an hour a night.

I had a bad habit of flicking my safety off at the top of my draw stroke with the muzzle pointed straight down that I think I have nixed. My trigger finger was indexed along the slide, so it really wasn't any different than drawing a gun with a DAO type trigger, but it was something that Karl harped on me about and it made sense to do it right. My trigger finger is still indexed on the slide, but two safeties are better than one.

I've also been trying the Todd Jarrett Kung Fu grip this week. I was inspired by watching my friend Hsoi the other day. Despite his bitching about the recoil of .45 ACP, he handled the recoil from my RIA Tactical better than I do. I tend to shoot really relaxed, and don't fight the recoil. I think it probably helped my trigger control early on, but after watching him I can really the see the benefit for follow up shots. (I probably triggered a rant now.) :)-~

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