Long Range Tactical Rifle

Here's something I thought everyone might like to see: I recently finished my first custom sniper rifle build. This one has gone through lots of stages in the past two years, but finally ended up nailed down, albeit much differently than I had in mind from the start! It was originally going to be a wood stocked target gun, but it ended up a tactical rifle...And a great one at that!

Here's the specs:

Caliber: 30-06 Springfield
Action: FN Mauser 98, 1952 production
Barrel: Douglas Air Gauged Premium 26", 1-12" twist, No 7 contour
Bolt: VZ-24 Czech Mauser 98 with forged bent lever and tactical knob
Stock: Bell and Carlson tactical
Optics: Bushnell 4200 Elite 4-16x40mm with adjustible objective and Weaver QD rings
Finish: Walter Birdsong's Black T spray on coating and parkerizing

Lessons learned: Shoulda went with a 1-10" twist on the barrel (one complete turn of the grooves every 10 inches) to stabilize rounds heavier than the 175 grain range.

Special thanks:

Fritz Matti of Matti Fine Arms: Thanks for all the lessons, my friend. Benoit, if you are out there too, you're the man.

Mike Rescigno of Tac Ops: Mike put the awesome texture and paint on that stock for me, installed the bolt knob, and had Walter Birdsong apply his Black T finish, which is simply the best firearms finish I have ever seen anywhere. Big words, but true nonetheless. Mike's shop, Tac Ops, deals with 450 Law and Military organizations across North America, and makes the best tactical sniper rifles in the world. I'd put that claim up against anything else out there.

Mark Lammers of LOSOK Custom Arms: Mark is a police officer/sniper and owner of a custom rifle building company. I really couldn't have gotten this done without his help.

Mel Ewing of Sniper Central: Thanks for the info, advice, and smokin' price on optics, old bud.

Tokarev!

Hi gang!

My Type 54 pistol finally came in!

For those who ain't come across one yet, it is a Chinese copy of the Russian TT-33 Tokarev sidearm of the "Great Patriotic War"...And my impression of it so far is that it's the AK-47 of the pistol world.

You can kinda see from the pictures that it looks at least a little inspired from Browning guns, but there are some very Russian features. For one, the hammer assembly gets yanked out in one easy piece. For another, instead of having the feed lips positioned on it's magazine, they are machined permanantly into the breach of the pistol! So, damaged mags don't matter. It'll still feed like a champ.

Caliber is the venerable old 7.62x25mm Tokarev round. The only problem is, I can't afford it! The ammo is dirt cheap, but the dealer will only ship in bulk...Sooo, until I feel like throwing down $275 on pistol ammo or the local store comes through for me, I ain't gonna be shooting this piece.

I can still tell ya my impressions though. Skinny grip, and the angle is a little slanted, so it points higher than natural, but to me it feels pretty comfy in my hands. The sights are pure combat sights. Adjustible windage on the rear, fixed front sight. So you can adjust for left to right, but not up and down.

Then again, for sights designed to kill Germanski Soldat at close range, they must have worked just fine. For practical work of picking up on the centre of a human target at pistol fighting ranges of point blank to 12 yards, they are fast enough to pick up on for low end combat sights.

Trigger pull is a little gritty, but not bad at all for a Chinese arm.

The only safety on the pistol is a half cock notch on the hammer, so I would recommend against carrying this one with a round in the spout. If you practice though, you can chamber one right quickly as you draw it, which is how the Russians and later Chinese always managed.

It's dead easy to field strip and clean, and the parts as well as how they work together are very easy to figure out.

All in all, a very respectable adversary...and welcome addition to any collection!

As usual, here are the pics...click em to enlarge!

Man had right to defend home, family

SARASOTA -- John Coffin won't spend any more time in jail for beating up
two sheriff's deputies inside his house, striking one in the head with a
Taser gun he took from the other.

Circuit Judge Rick De Furia said at Coffin's trial Tuesday that he doesn't
condone the violence against the deputies. But Coffin, 56, had a right to
defend his family and property because the deputies had no right to be in
Coffin's house in the first place, De Furia said.

"Law enforcement was responsible for the chain of events here," De Furia
said. "I think in situations like this, officers become so frustrated they go
beyond what the law allows them to do."

The fight started when Coffin heard his wife screaming in pain, went into
the garage and saw two deputies arresting her on the floor. The deputies
were trying to serve Coffin with civil papers that had been given five days
earlier.

They had entered the garage even though they did not have a
search warrant or arrest warrant. And they arrested Coffin's wife, Cynthia,
50, on obstruction charges even though she had no obligation to follow
their orders to bring her husband outside.

"The most critical is the fact the officers broke the law by stopping the
garage door from going down," and then entering the garage, De Furia said.

A jury was picked for the trial Monday. But the judge granted a motion by
Coffin's attorneys, Derek Byrd and Brett McIntosh, and acquitted John Coffin
on five of six felony charges Tuesday morning. Coffin pleaded no contest to
the remaining charge of taking a Taser gun from one of the deputies during
the fight.

Before handing down the sentence, De Furia asked how long Coffin spent in
jail after his initial arrest. "You spent eight days in the Sarasota County
jail," De Furia said. "That's your sentence. No probation."

Relatives applauded, and Coffin walked out of the courthouse with only a
$358 bill for court costs. The sentence surprised even defense attorneys,
who had suggested De Furia sentence Coffin to probation.

Prosecutors had asked for more than a year of prison time because of
"the totality of the case" and the injuries to deputies James Lutz and
Stacy Ferris, whose name is now Stacy Brandau.

The two deputies testified about their injuries Tuesday -- three blows to the
head with the butt of the Taser gun knocked Lutz unconscious.

"I just ask that he doesn't get away with this," Brandau told the judge.

Assistant State Attorney Jeff Young told the judge the case "could have
been over in five seconds" if the Coffins "had simply come out and cooperated."

"That is a man who took it upon himself to beat up two police officers,"
Young said.

De Furia said that while he believed the deputies' mistakes were not
intentional, the Coffins had every right to lock doors, try to close their
garage door and not cooperate.

"What took place in the house was unfortunate," De Furia said, "but
Mr. Coffin ... had a right to resist."

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Those of you guys who know me probably know I am pro cop. In fact, I am willing to give these guys the benefit of the doubt and say it was a mistake or misunderstanding. I wasn't there, and I can't judge them.

You have to admit though, seeing a pair of deputies assault your wife in your own home has to get you fired up. Given that what the deputies were doing was illegal, I am happy the verdict of this case was in favour of Mr. Coffin.

As much as we need police giving us the service that they do, we need checks and balances. Whenever you have people in positions of authority over others, that authority is going to be abused, be it purposeful or not.

Another trouble point as of late has been the serving of "no knock" warrants in which officers breach entry into a house in the middle of the night or early morning. I support this tactic when it is needed, like if a suspect has a likelyhood of harming the officers. Lately though, it's been used on a very shaky basis, sometimes on faulty information and upon the wrong house.

If you put yourself in the position of a man or woman who is woken up at 4 AM to several men breaking down their front door and rushing into their home, you can see there's precious little time to figure out what is going on or what to do about it.

Hey all!

Finally got around to testing the terminal effects of the M1 Carbine. Unfortunately I don't have any FMJ military style ammo yet, but I thought it would be cool to see what it did with SP ammo in a self defense kinda role.

For our volunteer baddie I soaked some small pieces of printer paper in water for an hour and then firmly packed a hostile coffee can with it, until it was full to the top. Then I covered it with eight layers of denim to simulate clothing.

The results were a little surprising. I was expecting six, maybe eight inches of penetration, and to recover the bullet.

It exited the can. I only fired on it from 50 feet though, which is still a respectable self defense range, but I am lookin forward to trying some farther shots when the chance arises.

I fired two rounds at it, the first looking to strike rather high, so I compensated and fired the next one lower. It still hit high enough on the can.

Here's the thing. I am not sure if the first round popped the back end of the can open, because I didn't see it happen, and the can hardly reacted. It looks that way though. On the second hit, the lid of the can popped right off, paper spilled out, and blew out the back end of the can. It looked pretty nasty.

Here's the pics. Click on em to enlarge.



Our entry wound up there, along with the thickness of denim I used in the test.


There's a side view of our tango, with the full effect of the bulging and flap that blew open


Exit wound is about 1 inch in diameter.


The wound channel in the can. it is just shy of two inches in width and runs the length of the can.


There's a round, some of the paper showing denim that was blown into the can, and a piece of the jacket. Since blue jeans isn't a natual occurance in the human body, the surgeons would have some fun removing that. The copper piece of jacket says the round expanded violently, which explains the pressure signs and wound channel. It's impressive that it retained enough weight to completely penetrate the can!

Well...There's a quick and dirty non-scientific test if ever there was one. It sure doesn't look like using the 30 Carbine in combat is anything to worry about, with SP ammo anyway!

The Carbine is here!

Hi all,

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I've had a ton to do, and I've been neglecting the old blog. I know we have some new readers, so I'll be trying to keep the place interesting.

My M1 Carbine showed up today, so that's what I'll talk about. It doesn't hurt that I LOVE it. Great little gun. Light, handy, and easy to get on target fast.

The .30 Carbine round is a snappy little sucker, but it sure isn't a rifle's recoil. Getting back on track after the first shot is easy as pie.

Accuracy is very decent from a 60+ year old warhorse. I fired a few rounds this evening at mixed ranges from 30 to 100 yards, and scored plenty of hits. The little round seems potent when it impacts as well, with soft point ammo at least.

It's surprising just how compact the weapon is, at not even 36" long and weighing about 5.5 lbs.

The sights are a rear aperture and front post protected by two wings. The aperture slides front and back, with notches for 100, 200, 250, and 300 yards. It is also adjustible for windage.

So far my only complaint is that the sights are hard to pick up on in lower light...Happens with all apertures, but this one takes a little less than say, the Garand.

Anyway...Here's the pics!





The little carbine next to her big sister, the M1 Garand rifle.



Ammo comparison, from left to right: .30 Carbine, 7.62x39mm (SKS, AK-47, Etc) and 5.56x45mm Nato (M-16, Etc)

Ruger 10/22 "Tommy Gun"

Something I found on the CGN board...This was done in the US. It's a Ruger 10/22 with real Thompson parts grafted onto it. I don't know the details, but it would be Canada legal...

And I want one!!!