The Small Arms Thread, Part 8: 2018; ICSR to be replaced by US Army with interim 15mm Revolver Cannon.

[Donward]

Dude, hogs make a ranch look like a World War I battlefield. They are incredibly destructive - and I mean incredibly.

Whether you eat them or not, they simply gotta die.

And the worst part: Even with Texans in helicopters and with machine guns, night vision, suppressors giving out tours to ruthlessly massacre these animals with what is - I admit - a fairly creepy amount of glee, their population is still growing rapidly.

The creepy glee is the most lip curling aspect for me. 

[Toxn]

The creepy glee is the most lip curling aspect for me. 

Seconded - gotta love when all the ethical hunting arguments go straight out the window in favour of inflicting cruelty for its own sake.

 

As for the increasing population, you have to remember that pigs are smart as fuck and omnivorous to boot. A smart generalist animal capable of breeding in litters is damn near impossible to remove from an area altogether so long as it doesn't face competition from another animal like itself.

[Brick Fight]

I think I retire from peep-sights that aren't raised in some fashion. Being right-handed but left-eye dominant is not good times with those. It's why I'm not particularly a fan of my Mauser's incredibly fine sights, either.

[Collimatrix]

Southwest USA has javelina.  I'm not sure how much they compete with the feral pigs.  They are quite a bit smaller, and it occurs to me that feral pigs might not have their full compliment of parasites, etc.

 

I do know that javelinas have some of the raddest looking dentition:

 

I love those interlocking canines.

[Toxn]

Southwest USA has javelina.  I'm not sure how much they compete with the feral pigs.  They are quite a bit smaller, and it occurs to me that feral pigs might not have their full compliment of parasites, etc.

 

I do know that javelinas have some of the raddest looking dentition:

 

I love those interlocking canines.

I think the larger pigs also get a better deal in terms of predation, as only apex predators can tackle them.

 

I would expect the real test to be in observing what happens when ranges overlap.

[Toxn]

Also, I should mention that the clear solution to the hog problem is to introduce spotted hyenas.

[Sturgeon]

Seconded - gotta love when all the ethical hunting arguments go straight out the window in favour of inflicting cruelty for its own sake.

As for the increasing population, you have to remember that pigs are smart as fuck and omnivorous to boot. A smart generalist animal capable of breeding in litters is damn near impossible to remove from an area altogether so long as it doesn't face competition from another animal like itself.

Erm, they are clearly doing it for population control reasons. And I challenge you to go up in a helo at night with a suppressed machine gun and shoot for an hour and not come back with a smile on your face.

Sure, having that much fun while killing animals is a tad creepy, but let's not get into "hunters are heartless sociopaths" territory, here.

[Toxn]

Erm, they are clearly doing it for population control reasons. And I challenge you to go up in a helo at night with a suppressed machine gun and shoot for an hour and not come back with a smile on your face.

Sure, having that much fun while killing animals is a tad creepy, but let's not get into "hunters are heartless sociopaths" territory, here.

They're not doing anything to help the brand, then. Because spraying down a bunch of animals from a helo falls pretty squarly into sociopathic territory as far as I'm concerned.

 

If they wanted to do animal control then there are a bunch of other ways to go about it - up to and including hiring full-time hunters to eliminate herds.

[Sturgeon]

...They ARE full-time hunters.

"Spraying down animals from a helo" is sociopathic? Where does it say that in the DSM?

If you mean because they enjoy it, well, congrats, you've literally described every hunter on Earth.

[Donward]

I.. I just wanted to know if they harvested the feral pig bacon...

[Toxn]

...They ARE full-time hunters.

"Spraying down animals from a helo" is sociopathic? Where does it say that in the DSM?

If you mean because they enjoy it, well, congrats, you've literally described every hunter on Earth.

Every hunter on earth enjoys indiscriminate slaughter? You're painting a pretty fucking sick picture here, dude.

[Sturgeon]

You don't have to be comfortable with it, but hunting is a kind of slaughter.

You want to whine about how horrible it is, how sociopathic hunters must be, then be my friggin guest.

Meanwhile, people have farms and ranches to protect out here, and they can't kill the pigs fast enough to protect them. If the folks in the field with rifles and such enjoy what they do, well, I don't have to like how gratuitous it may be, but I can respect their job and understand why.

[Toxn]

You don't have to be comfortable with it, but hunting is a kind of slaughter.

You want to whine about how horrible it is, how sociopathic hunters must be, then be my friggin guest.

Meanwhile, people have farms and ranches to protect out here, and they can't kill the pigs fast enough to protect them. If the folks in the field with rifles and such enjoy what they do, well, I don't have to like how gratuitous it may be, but I can respect their job and understand why.

 

Dude, flip your propaganda switch to the off position to a second and re-assess. I'm South African. Nearly every adult male I know hunts - either every once in a while or regularly. My country makes a goodly chunk of its money from farming and hunting, and I was trained by ecologists who advocate for commercial hunting as a means of preserving wildlife. So don't put words in my mouth regarding the ethics and utility of hunting (which is to say: fuck off). 

 

My problem with the specific scenario we're describing is that damn near all of the hunters I know would be aghast at it. It is unethical, because it wounds rather than kills. It is indiscriminate. It is unsporting. To these people (again, a large number of persons in my acquaintance) what you're describing would be viewed in the same light as a catholic priest detailing how he got into the business to diddle kids.

 

Even viewed as animal control it is inefficient, crude and inexact. And, again, would be viewed as unethical for all the reasons described above. Far better here to deploy traps, poison (carefully), biocontrol or damn near anything other than blazing away from the animals on high with weapons of insufficient killing power.

 

So, in short: get the fuck off your high horse about this, and stop pretending that I'm arguing with you because I don't understand the fundamental issues or something. This thing is retarded, and no regard for the need to control wildlife or secure farming livelyhoods is going to serve as a fig leaf for such stupidity and cruelty.

[LoooSeR]

 

Assault Knife "Sapyor" for Assault engineers. 

 

 

 

 

Engineers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://onepamop.livejournal.com/1140514.html

[Tied]

Dude, flip your propaganda switch to the off position to a second and re-assess. I'm South African. Nearly every adult male I know hunts - either every once in a while or regularly. My country makes a goodly chunk of its money from farming and hunting, and I was trained by ecologists who advocate for commercial hunting as a means of preserving wildlife. So don't put words in my mouth regarding the ethics and utility of hunting (which is to say: fuck off).

My problem with the specific scenario we're describing is that damn near all of the hunters I know would be aghast at it. It is unethical, because it wounds rather than kills. It is indiscriminate. It is unsporting. To these people (again, a large number of persons in my acquaintance) what you're describing would be viewed in the same light as a catholic priest detailing how he got into the business to diddle kids.

Even viewed as animal control it is inefficient, crude and inexact. And, again, would be viewed as unethical for all the reasons described above. Far better here to deploy traps, poison (carefully), biocontrol or damn near anything other than blazing away from the animals on high with weapons of insufficient killing power.

So, in short: get the fuck off your high horse about this, and stop pretending that I'm arguing with you because I don't understand the fundamental issues or something. This thing is retarded, and no regard for the need to control wildlife or secure farming livelyhoods is going to serve as a fig leaf for such stupidity and cruelty.

Toxn your a fag. Pigs are dicks. And guns are fun

[LoooSeR]

VHS-2 in Iraq

 

 

 

[LoooSeR]

 

 

French plumbers with Iphone NVG 

[LoooSeR]

 

TV report (2014) about shooting competition between SFs here, in St. Petersburg.

 

From 1:10:

"imported weapons are preferable as they are more relible and can be upgraded, although upgrades are for personal money of soldiers"

SF member (1:20): "It is hard to get avtomats made in USSR today, as now they are all Russian [Federation]-made and they frequently have problems with reliability. Legendary Soviet quality is gone, and, as i understand, they changed materials, which can't withstand loads" 

[Alex C.]

Fuck "ethics" and "sporting" when it comes to culling an invasive species. Kill them in the most efficient way possible as fast as possible. My personal favorite method has become setting a large trap. You can get 5-6 in there and then dispath them with a head shot. 308 vaporizes a hog head at 10 yards.

And yes you can eat them, however when you kill 25 or 30 you are only realistically going to bring back a few. Generally grab a sow that weighs under 100 pounds if you want good eating:

http://i68.tinypic.com/1679vs6.jpg'>http://i68.tinypic.com/1679vs6.jpg

[Sturgeon]

Dude, flip your propaganda switch to the off position to a second and re-assess. I'm South African. Nearly every adult male I know hunts - either every once in a while or regularly. My country makes a goodly chunk of its money from farming and hunting, and I was trained by ecologists who advocate for commercial hunting as a means of preserving wildlife. So don't put words in my mouth regarding the ethics and utility of hunting (which is to say: fuck off).

My problem with the specific scenario we're describing is that damn near all of the hunters I know would be aghast at it. It is unethical, because it wounds rather than kills. It is indiscriminate. It is unsporting. To these people (again, a large number of persons in my acquaintance) what you're describing would be viewed in the same light as a catholic priest detailing how he got into the business to diddle kids.

Even viewed as animal control it is inefficient, crude and inexact. And, again, would be viewed as unethical for all the reasons described above. Far better here to deploy traps, poison (carefully), biocontrol or damn near anything other than blazing away from the animals on high with weapons of insufficient killing power.

So, in short: get the fuck off your high horse about this, and stop pretending that I'm arguing with you because I don't understand the fundamental issues or something. This thing is retarded, and no regard for the need to control wildlife or secure farming livelyhoods is going to serve as a fig leaf for such stupidity and cruelty.

Which is it, Tox, is it cruel and unsporting, or is it efficient and indiscriminate? Seems like you can't make up your goddamn mind.

"It's unethical because it wounds rather than kills!" "They should be poisoning them instead!" This really proves to me that you've NEVER had to do animal control in your life. Poisoning is the fucking poster child of a culling method that's indiscriminate, cruel, and that wounds, not delivering a clean kill.

And guess what, genius: They CAN'T poison them because these are CATTLE RANCHES. You might as well slaughter all the cattle and roll up shop and move to Hawaii. Not to mention all the potential collateral wildlife damage from a poisoning campaign big enough to adequately cull hogs.

So get your head out of your ass, stop projecting, and stop acting like people who are solving problems you've got not even the slightest familiarity with are sociopaths.

[Brick Fight]

Which is it, Tox, is it cruel and unsporting, or is it efficient and indiscriminate? Seems like you can't make up your goddamn mind.

 

I don't understand what your reasoning is, here. He never said either of those things excluded each other, and has some reasonable points that different hunting methods are better than others.

 

I did some reading on this years ago when I first heard about it, and these are the methods I've read about specifically:

 

Snaring and trapping: Argued by the Texas Animal Damage Control Service as the most effective methods that account for over half of the culling of the boar population. At this point, it seems to be property owners' preferred method due to effectiveness.

 

Fencing: There's no way to measure effectiveness that I've seen carried out on this, but there are suggested fencing techniques that seem to work. This is one of those "Evidence of absense" cases until someone compares properly fenced property to non. This one obviously carried logistical nightmares due to terrain and land size, too. This has an added effect though of keeping farm hogs on farms, as one of the most common cited reasons for their stable-to-growing populations are escaped pigs (the other being illegally introducing them to new environments).

 

Aerial Hunting: Still debated on its usefulness. It's seen as a way of monitoring herds and being able to give chase, but killing an animal is really hard, and flying a plane/helicopter to allow for accurate shooting is really hard. The former requires a well-placed shot, and as any GC will tell you, there are animals that you can pump rounds into all day and not reduce their lifespan too much. Flying a plane carries the same restrictions as it always does vis a vis weather, lack of vision in dense terrain, and requiring ground parties to coordinate with. Then there's the issue of flying well enough to not freak out a pack or being able to give someone a good enough shot (which is why they seem to recommend things like shotgun slugs over any other kind of weaponry). The TADC puts this as much less effective than trapping and snaring, and more useful than traditional hunting or baying.

 

Poisoning: Currently, there are no approved methods of poisoning hogs. Some methods are being trialed while certain chemicals are being tested and developed. The most promising methods involve taking advantage of their digging instincts to poison things like potatoes to specifically target the hogs.

 

Hunting itself is apparently not helping the overall problem greatly. There's nothing to say it hasn't helped individuals protect their property by diverting the population, but what I've read says hunting needs to cull around 50-70 percent of the hog population per year to properly address the problem, but hunting has overall done around maybe 20% per year. It's not ineffective, but it's obviously not the single solution. There are low-cost, high-payout options in animal population control that can result in a better long-term solution. Hell, Kansas and Arkansas outlawed forms of hog hunting due to cases of people illegally introducing more of these hogs into the environment.

[Donward]

Since I started the ball rolling, the issue is using a belt-fed machine gun to hunt. It is something that is generally considered outside of the norm in regards to hunting. Another stunt that I see is people using bait around a bunch of Tannerite in order to make a bomb to blow up multiple little piggies.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhC3Ln1ITug

 

Toxn isn't supporting the pigs here and I certainly am not. They're invasive species and should be exterminated. I just don't think that this policy is aided by a bunch of rich guys cackling with glee because it is legal to use unusual means to kill wild pigs. 

[Sturgeon]

Great comparison of the different methods. Based on what the guys around here and more west that I've talked to have said, a combination of trapping and hunting (both aerial and ground) is really the only way to keep the populations in check. Hunting these critters isn't enough, but that's not exactly an argument against doing it!

 

I don't understand what your reasoning is, here. He never said either of those things excluded each other, and has some reasonable points that different hunting methods are better than others.

 

 

Seems to me that pointing a gun at an animal and pulling the trigger is as discriminate as it gets. Using an automatic weapon helps ensure a cleaner kill when shooting from a vehicle - which as you note is useful. As for cruelty, every hunt is cruel to some degree, and every hunter tries to mitigate the cruelty as much as possible. Those who don't probably don't get asked back. As for helicopter hog hunting being "unsporting", they likely don't give a damn about that. The hogs need to die, "sporting" doesn't really enter into it, except in a humane sense, and for it being efficient - that's the whole bloody point.

 

Why did I outline a dichotomy... I dunno, it was 4 in the morning. I think what I was getting at is, is this a ruthless, efficient killing method, or a laborious, cruel exercise in sociopathy? Maybe that's not the picture Tox thought he was painting, but he's sure used the word "sociopathic" enough to give me that impression. I guess what I'm saying is, slaughtering cattle with a captive piston gun is ruthless, efficient, unsporting (in the sense that it's easy), but it's also highly ethical and not at all cruel or unsporting (in the sense that it's disrespectful of man's relationship with animals/wildlife). Poisoning them would be cruel, and largely unethical (and Tox's suggestion of this kinda shows just how little he's familiar with animal control, I think - nobody who'd actually seen a poisoning would think it was a good solution for this problem, or particularly ethical and tasteful). 

[Sturgeon]

Since I started the ball rolling, the issue is using a belt-fed machine gun to hunt. It is something that is generally considered outside of the norm in regards to hunting. Another stunt that I see is people using bait around a bunch of Tannerite in order to make a bomb to blow up multiple little piggies.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhC3Ln1ITug

 

Toxn isn't supporting the pigs here and I certainly am not. They're invasive species and should be exterminated. I just don't think that this policy is aided by a bunch of rich guys cackling with glee because it is legal to use unusual means to kill wild pigs. 

 

The idea that a 7.62mm machine gun is somehow inadequate for pig hunting and causes unnecessary suffering is a bit beyond me.

 

Yeah, they're having fun with it... Literally every hunter does this, even native ones (actually, I reckon ESPECIALLY native ones, that whole "respect for mother earth" shtick Hollywood pushes is largely a fiction). I think it's funny that shooting pigs with an M240L is unethical and sociopathic according to Tox, but I reckon he'd think hunting cape buffalo with a $500,000 double gun was just peachy (it would be much more ethical - and more tastefully restrained for that matter - to hunt them with a 37mm AT gun).

[Tied]

With flechette rounds hopefully