Category Archives: Shooting in General

New Gun Owners: You’re Not Safe Yet – Read This

October 5, 2020 RoninsGrips

According to statistics, there almost 5 million new gun owners in 2020. I think there are a ton of reasons and certainly concerns over the safety of one’s self and loved ones is in the minds of a lot of people these days. With that said, there are a few things I want to pass along and will do so in a series of blog posts. We’ll kick things off with some comments on safety and getting your new firearm ready.

Learn About Your Firearm & How To Use It

Please take the time to learn about your firearm and how to use it. I can’t stress this enough – take a class on firearms and self-defense. Ask around and odds are any number of groups in your area holds classes and you need to find a good one. Like any subject matter, there are good teachers and ones who candidly suck so ask around. If you have no idea where to start, ask your dealer, local sportsman’s club, shooting ranges, friends, etc.

My Short List of Safety Rules

I’ve been shooting since I was so little that my dad had to hold the rifle and help me so literally almost fifty years. I’ve shot with a lot of great guys and one thing they all stressed was the need for safety. Here’s my list of key safety practices that you can always add more to:

Treat every firearm as loaded and pointed in a safe direction. Assume nothing – verify the state of your weapon. Tons of accidents have happened because of an accidental discharge.
Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire. It is very easy to trip or be startled and accidentally squeeze the trigger. You can avoid this by keeping your trigger finger flat against the trigger guard or side of your weapon and off the trigger!
Be certain of your target and what lies beyond it. There are two safety point here – make sure of what you are shooting at or you risk making a mistake – potentially a horrible mistake. Second, bullets do not necessarily stop in the target or you may miss the target. What lies around and behind the target?
Your firearm’s biggest safety is you. Don’t rely on a firearm’s safety to prevent a mistake. Think. Anticipate. Your mind is your biggest safety. Think safe, be safe.
Know your weapon. An awful lot of tragic mistakes have been made as people fumbled with a firearm they did not understand and had not sufficiently practiced with. A crisis is not the place to try and figure out what to do or not do. When the adrenaline is flowing, you will forget a lot of academic details and stand better odds of remembering what you have physically practiced.
Take care of your weapon and it will take care of you. Make sure it is cleaned, lubricated, using proven magazines (if it uses them) and proven ammunition.

New Guns Aren’t Good to Go

Let’s expand on the last point above. Something that I think is often overlooked and not sufficiently explained to new owners is that most firearms will not reliably work out of the box. I’m not saying something bad about a given maker or model. The fact is that there are a ton of things that may cause your firearm to not work right when you need it most:

Many firearms do not arrive sufficiently clean. You need to run a patch or bore snake down the barrel to remove any contaminants that have accumulated. I’ve seen new firearms with filthy bores, pristine bores and all points between. Read the manual to understand what cleaners are safe with your firearm. For example, some strong solvents can harm polymer receivers.
Normally a person cleans and lubricates a new purchase at the same time. Read the manual on instructions for how to lubricate your new purchase. It’s not as simple as pouring on the oil. Indeed, too much lubricate can impair the operation of certain firearms. Note, not all lubricants are recommended on all firearms either. For example, penetrating oil can harm some polymer receivers.
Just to reinforce the point – Read the manual for your pistol, rifle or shotgun. You need to understand how to operate the weapon as well as how to clean and lubricate it. Most manufacturers have websites with manual that you can download. There are often videos showing details. You can also ask your gun dealer if he/she can explain the details of your weapon to you.
If your weapon uses magazines, test them at the range with the ammo that you plan on using. You may be surprised but some combinations of magazines and ammunition may work horribly in one firearm and perfectly fine in another. I can’t stress this enough – shoot at least 30 rounds (and the more the better) before you rely on a given combination of weapon and ammunition. By the way, you read and hear people recommend 50, 100, 200+ rounds before you rely on something and they are all right – the more you shoot something, the better your odds are plus practice is good.
Speaking of practice, don’t just take a firearm to the range once, have a great session and declare victory. You need to also practice loading, unloading, recovering from a jam, etc. Don’t wait for an emergency as I mentioned earlier. The best firearm in the world will not help you if you forget how to do something during a time of need.

More Gun Safety Resources

There are tons of videos and web pages about gun safety. I’d recommend that you spend the time to learn how to be safe so here are a few more pages for you:

Conclusion

I hope this post helped you out. Whatever you do, don’t just buy a firearm and ammunition and do nothing until something happens and you need it. Shooting is actually a fun sport – it doesn’t need to be all doom and gloom. Spending the time to learn about safety, learn about your weapon and practice using it — these are all worth your time.

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ARBuilds, Shooting in General, Uncategorized

What is the 12.7x42mm cartridge? Is it the same as .50 Beowulf?

September 5, 2020 RoninsGrips

The short answer is that they are the same thing. The bullet’s diameter is 0.50″ which is 12.7mm and the case length is 1.65″ or 42mm. The reason you see some vendors say they have something to sell in 12.7x42mm is they are trying to avoid a trademark problem with Alexander Arms.

Bill Alexander, of Alexander Arms, did all the engineering to bring to life both the round and the AR components to use it. He also trademarked the term “.50 Beowulf”. As such, anybody who wants to sell something and refers to it as being for .50 Beowulf would need to get the permission and/or license the use of the term “.50 Beowulf” to avoid legal problems. So, a lot of vendors use the generic metric designation of 12.7×42 to avoid legal hassles.

With that said, bear in mind that not all engineering is equal. I have never had a problem with Alexander Arms parts but myself and others have had plenty of headaches with 12.7×42 components from budget AR vendors who haven’t done the engineering. In my case, it was poor extraction with a Radical Arms bolt and extractor. So, buyer beware and research a vendor and their offering before you buy plus make sure they are reputable in general in case you need support. For example, Satern worked great for me and I wrote a blog post about the build.

Conclusion

So, short post this time. 12.7×42 and .50 Beowulf are the same round with different descriptions but be cautious to check out vendors selling parts using the metric designation. Some of them are selling junk so search for current reviews of products before you buy them.

Ammunition, Pistols, Shooting in General

Yes, Sellier & Bellot (S&B) Makes Good Ammo

August 4, 2020 RoninsGrips

Many folks are new to firearms these days or they are experienced and scrambling to find ammo. This means they are encountering brands they may never of heard of and Sellier & Bellot (S&B) is one such example. I get asked regularly if they make good ammo and if I would recommend their pistol or rifle and the answer is a definite YES.

First off, S&B is a Czech company that was founded in 1825. The Czechs produce some excellent small arms, such as the cz.75 pistol, and S&B turns out some great ammo. My point is that they know their stuff.

I have been using S&B ammo for years including 12ga shot shells, 8mm Mauser, .308, 9mm 115 grain and 124 grain full metal jacket (FMJ) plus 10mm 180 grain FMJ rounds. I use it for firearm testing and shooting at the range and have shot thousands of rounds with not one failure that I could attribute to the ammo – bear in mind I am using it often to test and break in guns. For example, the recoil impulse of the 9mm 124 grain ammo is great for breaking in pistol caliber carbines (PCCs) as well as newly built Polymer80 pistols.

I’ll keep this post short, S&B ammo is good to go. Below are some vendors with S&B offerings:

Air & C02 Rifles and Pistols, Shooting in General

Airgun Depot Has a Ton of Hatsan Airgun Models Ready to Ship Including Gladius Bullpups

July 1, 2020 RoninsGrips

Folks, I am very impressed by my Hatsan airguns and have no problem recommending them. I’m rally a fan on the pre-charged pneumatic (PCP) guns that have an onboard air tank and can fire 10-20 rounds for hunting plus if you get one if their models with the Quiet Energy (QE) baffle system, they are on the discrete side for pest control.

Airgun Depot has a ton of models in stock right now including the Hatsan Gladius that I have bagged tons of squirrels, rabbits and even a raccoon cleanly with. I have the Gladius Long model in .22 and it seriously takes out pests with JSB Jumbo Diablo 18.13 grain pellets.

This is my Gladius Long in .22 and I use it all the time for pest control. Probably over 1,000 if not 1,500 pellets have been shot through that airgun now.

The Gladius .22 has a 10 round magazine and is a bolt action repeater. It carries three spare magazines at the rear under the stock and they come in handy when you need to rapidly reload. It does happen with pest control actually.

The Gladius comes with four magazines. I have one loaded in the receiver, two ready to go securely clicked into their storage bays and you can see I already have one magazine that needs to be reloaded.

So, check out Airgun Depot. They have very good prices and availability right now. Click here for Hatsan in general or here for the Gladius specifically. If you are interested, click here for my other blog posts about my Hatsan airguns.

DIY - Do It Yourself, Shooting in General

Print Your Own Targets At Home Using These PDF Files And Your Printer

April 26, 2020 RoninsGrips

Sometimes you need targets and don’t have any handy. This happened to me the other day when I needed to sight in two rifles. Since I needed them right away, I whipped up some targets that I then printed and used. It dawned on me that maybe others could benefit from them as well so I created this post with links to PDF files you can use. A PDF file can be opened by most browsers as well as a number of different viewer apps such as Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Please note that the below are just thumbnail graphics. Click on each to open the actual PDF file so you can have sharper image to print and so forth.

One Big Bullseye With Crosshairs

Five Circles With Crosshairs

This is the style shown in the top graphic for this post.

I hope this helps you out!

Glock, Pistols, Shooting in General

Are you having challenges Finding 9x19mm / 9mm Luger ammo?

March 22, 2020 RoninsGrips

I’ve read a few guys asking about where to buy ammo so I did a quick dig on availability and assembled the below ammunition listings from my sponsors.

Also, so you are aware of what’s moving, I get a feed from Brownells of their current Top Sellers:

I hope this helps you out some.

DIY - Do It Yourself, Shooting in General

You Can Make Black Powder!

March 14, 2020 RoninsGrips

Let me open with telling you that I am providing the following information for educational purposes only. I find chemistry fascinating as you can tell by my various posts on parkerizing, acid etching (with apple cider vinegar and with ferric chloride), epoxies and more. So, I’ve seen various posts over the years about making your own black powder and usually filed them away for future reference. What changed was that Youtube actually recommended a video on making black powder and then that led to another and another. I took the three videos I liked the most and decided to share them.

Please, if you try anything, do so safely. Research first, pick safe location and be careful. You accept all liability – I am providing these resources for reference purposes only!!

Starting Basic: The King of Random

The back story is that this guy loved experimenting and posted his projects on YouTube. The genuine tragedy is that he recently passed away in a paragliding accident. This is a very interesting video and sets the stage for do-it-yourself black powder.

The three ingredients from left to right: Sulfur from plant fungicide.home made charcoal and potassium nitrate from stump remover.

In this post, the presenter shows you how to make a basic unrefined black powder with charcoal and then powdered potassium nitrate from stump remover and powdered sulfur from plant fungicide. Note, these are all available at your local hardware store – you need powders and not liquids by the way. It’s a basic process and creates a “green” or unrefined black powder.

A More Refined Approach From the Science Pirate

This fellow is a chemist and really good at explaining what is going on and how to do it. He shows how he goes about processing the 75% Potassium Nitrate, 15% charcoal and 10% sulfur into black powder.

Here he’s screening the charcoal. Instead of expedient materials, he is using lab grade chemicals and supplies as you can see.

The Best Video: GhoolerHunter Covers An Old Military Method

He’s getting ready to strain his solution.

This fellow really goes into detail behind a process for producing a more refined black powder. He does point out to beware of static electricity if you are using metal trays like he is.

Some Charcoals Are Better Than Others

Interesting enough, having the right charcoal is really important. Some woods are way better than others and I think you’ll find that you will either need to make your own charcoal or will need to do some hunting to find very specific charcoal for good results.

For example, woods to use include certain species of Alder, Balsa, Buckthorn (both alder and carolina), Cottonwood (narrow leaf), Dogwood (cornus florida), Maple, Paulownia, Plum (prunus domestica), and Willow (Black, white, weeping and pacific but not Rocky mountain). To learn more, please see:

Other Black Powder Resources

Here are some other resources if you want to read more:

Again, this is all provided for reference purposes only. If you decide to try anything, please research first and put safety before everything else. Also, be sure to comply with all laws and regulations that apply to you.

Sorry to sound like a lawyer but these days, it needs to be said. I hope the info helps you out.

Please note that all images were extracted from the video and are the property of their respective owner.

Shooting in General

Second Amendment Shirts – Order One and Show Your Support

June 29, 2019 RoninsGrips

Here are our favorite pro Second Amendment shirts and now is a great time to show how you feel about protecting your right to bear arms. Click on any of the photos below to go to Amazon, learn more about a given shirt and order it.

“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.“