GMerlon

Popenker's photos from Enforcetac-2019 and IWA-2019

New Matebas
For "differently-sane" people
 
 

I've seen this abomination, and felt the need to share the pain.
 

It's not that .224 Valkyrie doesn't have issues. It's that it's been out for just over a year and the worst problems are that the Federal 90gr SMK factory load didn't shoot as good as we'd like for a while, and that some idiot manufacturer fucked up some chamber reamers. I guess people don't remember when 6.8 SPC blew up guns on release because the original factory chamber spec had impossible geometry? Or that there were two completely different and incompatible specs for 6.5 Grendel for years? Or that .300 Blackout to this day fits in .223 chambers, despite the fact that an extra forty five thou in the case could fix this problem? These issues lasted for years and I can come up with equivalents for almost all major rounds out today (remember how 6.5 Creed only had large rifle primer brass for 7 years after release? Remember how .308 only offered 1:12 twist for decades? Remember .30 T/C?). .224 Valkyrie's problems amount to really minor teething issues with a round that's the best design I've seen in years. It's exactly what the market needs and Federal did an amazing job, and people are bitching about problems just because the release was so solid. I've actually had people complain to me that .224 Valkyrie was too available on release so it won't survive these issues because everyone knows about them. Bullshit. Federal did a fantastic job, and I say that because I've never in my life seen a caliber release that was this well organized. They had 17 official partners and 33 total manufacturers on board at SHOT 2018, a year ago.You know why no one knows about .22 Nosler's issues? Because that cartridge is practically dead. Only Nosler offers it (no one else got on board), and it's 1 year older than .224 Valkyrie (and a far worse design).

Another interesting dump of firearm photos on imgur, mostly of prototype automatic weapons in the Royal Armories Collection. Here are some of the more interesting ones:
 

Another interesting dump of firearm photos on imgur, mostly of prototype automatic weapons in the Royal Armories Collection. Here are some of the more interesting ones:
 

Another interesting dump of firearm photos on imgur, mostly of prototype automatic weapons in the Royal Armories Collection. Here are some of the more interesting ones:
 

Interesting gallery of improvised (and likely illegal) guns. Some of them look like they're props, however, rather than real guns. In any case, here are some of the highlights:
 
For when a high-capacity magazine isn't just enough dakka.

 
For Dinosaur hunting:

Warhammer 40k Tacticool Bolter:

One shot, one kill (you hope, anyways):

Bit of a Rube Goldberg contraption:

 

There aren't enough drugs in Colombia for that to make sense.

It is in Russian, but man, footage speaks for itself. Video titled "The worst self-defence shotgun".
 
Magazine loading can be done with at least 3 hands  Rounds can move in magazine so they are needed to be hold in place Before loading magazine a special catch should be moved out of the way Follower inside of this mag can also move around and it is made out of wood material When magazine is inserted, shooter must press special pedal during operation in order to engage catch on a magazine with specail hook inside of this wonderful shotgun and same pedal is used for mag release All rounds left inside of mag will drop out if magazine will be pulled out/released During shooting a wooden button on pistol grip should be pressed Very long leight of pull on a trigger In videos made by creator of this weapon all people that were given his rifle to shoot were swearing  Gun can self-disasemble during shooting Can jam in "forward" and "rear" positions Stock will unfold anyway when you run the action, and there is no way to fix stock in folded position during shooting 50 made, number 14 on the video.  
 

Photos from here. Weapons captured in Syria.

 
 

Did you know that not only was the AK copied from the Stg, but the Mosin is actually just a Mauser?

1

This isn't new news, or really hard hitting news, but for Americans my age who watched TV, it's pretty weird.
 

 
 
I thought this was just some bullshit meme shit. 
 
But nope. He's got permanent memory loss.
 
 
 

U.S. MACHINE GUN T23E1 .30 SN# 1
SPRINGFIELD ARMORY
1943
Manufactured by Springfield Armory, Springfield, Ma. - Gas-operated, air-cooled, belt-fed, automatic weapon capable of delivering both a high and low rate of automatic fire as well as semi-automatic fire. 4-groove rifling, right hand twist. Fed by ammunition box capable of holding 100 rounds. Weapon weighs approximately 26.65 lbs. Evolved from T10 series. Improved T23 with addition of a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) type rate reducer enabling weapon to fire at slow rate. Equipped with flash hider, bipod, carrying handle.
Notes: Except for the machine guns aficionados, this weapon is virtually unknown. It evolved from the T10 series of weapons. The T10s were made in collaboration with Colt, High-Standard and Auto-Ordnance and it is believed that Bill Ruger worked on this project for awhile. The project laid dormant until Clarence Simpson of the Springfield Armory was ordered to pick it up in 1943. His version included a BAR type rate reducer enabling the weapon to fire at a slower rate.
While the weapon tested well, the project was never seriously considered for adoption since they could not get the weight of the weapon under 26 lbs.
http://ww3.rediscov.com/spring/VFPCGI.exe?IDCFile=/spring/DETAILS.IDC,SPECIFIC=11344,DATABASE=71375263
P.S.

On Facebook someone asked me why I didn't design a monolithic upper rail like the SCAR, ACR, MCX, and other noodlewaffe. I posted a pretty detailed reply, and figured I'd copy it over here too:
 
OK, so good question that has a fairly detail-centric answer. Like the SCAR and the Remington ACR, this rifle has a receiver that's intended to be made of an aluminum alloy extrusion, which for those unfamiliar is where you squeeze metal (or any other material for that matter - noodles are made this way for example) through a die into long shapes of regular cross-section. The shapes can then be cut into shorter lengths to make all manner of things. Beams, supports, building material, noodles, rifle receivers, and what have you.

This is potentially a very cheap way to make rifles that can have comparatively low startup costs, but it comes with a couple disadvantages. The first and most obvious disadvantage is that extruded shapes must be of regular cross section Whatever initial 2D shape you make the die is what you get. Rifle receivers are *mostly* uniform in cross section, but in many places (such as the barrel mounting area) they really, really do not want to be. The SCAR and all other rifles therefore need to bolt on features near the barrel and stock area (that's why they all have visible screws - mine would too IRL but for the sake of my PC's graphics unit I omitted them). This disadvantage is something pretty much all extruded receiver guns get to tackle, there's not really any getting around it.

The second disadvantage, though, is one the shorter receiver of my design addresses: Warpage. One of the big problems with shoving a bunch of heated metal through a die is that while you get an elongated uniform shape, it can be tricky to get it straight enough to be within tolerance. The longer your receiver, the worse this problem is. The receiver I am using is better production optimized in that respect than a SCAR's receiver, as it is some seven inches shorter and would therefore be significantly easier to make a bunch of segments within tolerance enough to be rifle receivers and there would be less waste. Not to mention you'd just get more receivers per foot, being shorter.

The third disadvantage is not something that was really evident when the SCAR was first designed (early 2000s). Today, there's a lot of value put in the ability to mount handguards of different lengths - and especially of longer lengths - to a rifle. Most SCAR owners who actually use their rifles don't just stick with the original 7" long rail, for example, they use aftermarket rails to extend the handguard to a more modern length. The SCAR was not really ever designed for this (and it shows), and adding a handguard of this type results in a lot of material overlap and excess weight (which is bad). Later I'll do an apples-to-apples comparison of the SCAR with this rifle and you'll see just how big a difference it can make, if we're talking rails of the same length.

Now, you could have a rail of a fixed length, say 7" like a SCAR, and then a low profile mounting point for additional sections of rail past that. However, you need a place to mount the barrel, and that feature has to be precision anyway. Adding a *second* precision feature to the front of the handguard (as those additional rail sections need to be rigid too, for laser mounting, etc) adds a lot of weight and cost to the gun. By making the front trunnion and barrel nut the central precision mounting point for everything in my gun, I'm economizing those factors to a large degree. The "bulkhead" design of my trunnion also allows me a lot more flexibility in how I approach the design of the gas system and other features, which allows further savings (my gas system is lighter than a SCAR's, for example).

The ACR and MCX also tackle this problem, but differently. Instead of using one extrusion as both a receiver and handguard like a SCAR does, they use two extrusions. One provides the receiver and an extended length upper rail for optics mounting, and the other provides all the side and bottom rail surfaces. Neat, right? This is a good idea, but like everything it comes with a compromise, which is that you need extrusions that are within tolerance for the total length of each finished component, so you effectively have increased your sensitivity to tolerance just like a SCAR's receiver would be, despite the fact that you're only retaining a small segment of upper rail forward of the front trunnion. This design also results in considerable wasted material, as you're cutting whole chunks off your extrusions. None of these things are a big deal, but in my estimation we already know how to make barrel nuts as precision rail mounting points that are just as suitable for mounting forward optical devices as monolithic rails so... Why not just do that?

So there you go. That's why I designed it that way! Hope it wasn't more than you bargained for! ;)

I'll have to take your word for it.  I have been avoiding this thread for the past few weeks, so I haven't read all the posts here.  
 
Anyhow, here are my observations thus far.  I don't think any of these are particularly controvertial or original:
 
1)  Trump continues to be a polarizing figure, driving up voter turnout both amongst his supporters and opponents.
 
2) The historical trend of Party holding the presidency losing seats in congress holds true, although the Republicans were able to avoid trouble in the Senate due to a very favorable election map (repubs were defending far fewer senate seats than dems).  
 
3) Holding onto the Senate allows the Republicans to continue dominating high court appointments, something that has been a priority for them, and will continue to cause Dems great consternation.
 
4) Gaining control of the House allows Dems to proceed with more investigations against Trump.  Whether this tactic will ultimately hurt or help them remains to be seen.
 
5) While I haven't seen detailed breakdowns of the voting demographics, it would appear that the electorate is becoming more polarized along rural/urban lines and race and gender.  Certainly the election rhetoric was some of the most highly charged that I have seen in my lifetime.
 
6) Republicans should probably be concerned that they lost so many House seats despite the strength of the economy.  They did not seem to be able to capitalize on the economy issue as much as one would expect, although its been a weird sort of recovery in which real wages for working people have not been going up as much as overall economic growth would suggest.  Trump seemed more interested in promoting divisive social issues than in running on the strength of the economy, which probably plays well with his base but less well with the middle.
 
7) Democrats still have yet to come up with a really compelling, unified vision.  They can't just run against Trump, they need to figure out a way to stop letting Trump take up all the oxygen in the room. They also need to make sure the Clintons go away, never to be heard from again.  
 
8) There is a lot of chatter that there may be a good deal of turnover in the Whitehouse following the midterm.  Personally, I hope General's Mattis and Kelly stay onboard, they seem to provide a stabilizing influence on President's Trumps somewhat mecurial and unpredictable tendencies.  
 
9) Be prepared for a couple years of congressional gridlock.  
 
10) I have no idea how the situation at the Justice Dept and the Mueller probe will eventually play out.  Does Trump try to clean house?  If so, does it turn into a modern "Saturday Night Massacre"?  Does Mueller actually have the goods to get more indictments?  What legal powers does he even have to pursue indictments against a sitting president?  Will Trump play the pardon card if push comes to shove?  There are so many x factors regarding this stuff that I could see it going in all sorts of different directions.  
 
It's going to be an interesting couple of years.  And by interesting, I mean my consumption of Alka-Seltzer will probably keep increasing.  What times we live in....
 
 
 
 

In next update Applesauce Bandit will be squatting, wearing Adidas and speaking Klingon!

https://politics.theonion.com/trump-administration-urges-saudis-to-stick-to-killing-r-1829713565

I think you two are seeing this thing from opposite ends.
 
For the individual it is of course better (in terms of being more self-sufficient, having more options etc) to live on a large plot of land out in the country. But from a top-down "we need to use the minimum amount of resources to sustain the maximum amount of people" point of view sticking all your people close together is just inherently more efficient.
 
I'd bring in a third issue, though: I think places like the UK, EU and Japan are already unsustainably overpopulated as it is, and rely on less overstretched ecologies (initially their colonies, then third-world agricultural zones and the US) to support them. I think importing the mojority of your calories and your population refusing to grow are clear signs of this. Worse yet, it is already known by agronomists that nearly all our agriculturally useful land is already under cultivation and that modern industrial farming eats up land over time through soil erosion, compaction, salt accumulation etc. We've reached the end of what fertilizer and bug spray can do, and GMOs are very limited both ITO what they're allowed to do and what they can accomplish on the more food for less input front (thermodynamics is a harsh mistress and all).
 
My prediction for the next 100 years of food is a slow decline in the amount of meat consumed per capita (as meat gets more expensive) and a slow relative increase in the consumption of carbohydrates and alternate/recycled protein sources. All our diets will basically become more peasant-ish thanks to brute economics. On the plus side, though, obesity will become a self-solving problem.
 
At the same time, I think that the levelling-off of population growth and concurrent development of compensatory technologies gives us a chance to enter a stable k-strategy eecological equilibrium over the next few centuries. This will be very difficult, but is infinitely preferable to a hard collapse scenario.
 
I don't see the development of other technologies affecting this too much, with the sole exception of some sort of cheap energy source (fusion on a flatbed, basically) allowing us to effectively make more farmland underground or in the ocean.

I ran across an interesting pistol today while browsing the web. One of those pretty guns that I wouldn't actually want to shoot.
 

PSN-V pistol

PV-17 pistol

And the Belarusian modification of the "Strike" pistol.
 

Hey, look at the handgun that was shown to Lukashenko during Belarusian-produced weapons expo:

 

More of trophies from Syria

 
 

Maybe at some point people will understand that intermittent and unpredictable renewable is both an economical and ecological non-sense :/
(Especially when they have a life cycle of a mere 20 years)
 
Want to produce electricity?
Use nuclear if you can afford to and hydro where you can (the potential in sub-Saharian Africa is particularly huge).
 
Want to reduce energy consumption on heating?
Renovate old building and improve thermal insulation.
Also cut the subsidy on electrical-solar and redirect them to thermal-solar: If we don't know how to store electricity we know damn well how to store heat in water.
 
Want to reduce pollution due to traffic?
Densify urban area and empty rural area.
People can get around inside a city using public transportation and between city by using large scale public transport (trains for mid distance and plane for long trips).
 
The last part however depend largely on peoples changing their habits and accepting to reduce their use of their personal car which is something you can only encourage and hope that people will follow.