Category: Guns and Gear

Self-Adjusting Rifle Scope

The Firearm Blog has the lead one a new piece of fancy technology brought to us by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a self-adjusting rifle scope:

Military and police marksmen could see their rifle sights catch up with the 21st century with a fiber-optic laser-based sensor system that automatically corrects for even tiny barrel disruptions.

The system, developed by a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Slobodan Rajic, precisely measures the deflection of the barrel relative to the sight and then electronically makes the necessary corrections. The lifesaving results are lethal.

The only current downside is the technology only appears to work with fluted barrels:

The typical barrel of a high-power rifle has exterior grooves, called flutes, to reduce weight and create more surface area to enable the barrel to cool faster. The barrel heats up as a result of the hot expanding gases in the barrel and the friction from the bullets that are propelled by these hot gases along a helical path inside the barrel.

With the ORNL technology, glass optical fibers are placed into the flutes. These flutes are either produced by the barrel manufacturer or subsequently retrofit. The sensor system contains a laser diode that sends a signal beam into the optical fibers parallel to the bore axis of the barrel.

Still this technology looks fucking awesome and I believe it goes without saying that I want one.

The Gun Industry Seems to be Doing Well

Regardless of what Josh Sugarman if the Violence Policy Center claim it appears as though gun companies are doing well. As Sebastian points out Smith and Wesson may appear to not be doing so well but it isn’t due to firearms:

Now to be fair, it wasn’t Smith & Wesson’s firearms division that misfired. In fact, revenue from the company’s primary division climbed to $79.2 million from $74.7 million a year earlier. The drag on Smith came from its perimeter security division, which saw a 38% drop in revenue as businesses and the government spent less on its perimeter security systems.

Oh and Ruger appears to be pretty happy as well:

In the case of Sturm Ruger, makers of the Ruger brand pistols, rifles and shotguns, the company has hit the earnings bullseye. In February, it posted fourth-quarter earnings of 30 cents a share on strong sales of $64.1 million. Both top- and bottom-line numbers bested Wall Street expectations.

And here Josh Sugarman promised all this anti-gunner buddies that the firearms industry was failing.

The Difference Between Rifle and Pistol Powder

What’s the difference between pistol and rifle powder? It’s the difference between having a nice working AR-15 and one that is blown to Hell and back again. The shooter was lucky and ended up walking away from this with all his digits still firmly attached to his hands which are still firmly attached to his arms.

Reloading can be dangerous if you aren’t giving 100% of your attention to what you’re doing. It never hurts to triple check everything before you crank out some ammunition.

Watch the Anti-Gunners Complain About This

I’ve mentioned before about the rabidness of many anti-gunner’s zealous hatred of guns that lead to them being pissed off at DPMS and Smith and Wesson for donating money to the Cancer Research Center. I also made fun of one anti-gunner’s arguments because I’m an asshole like that. Now The Firearm Blog as brought up the fact that Federal has released pink shotgun shells. A portion of the proceeds from these shells are going donated to the cause of finding a cure for breast cancer.

So anti-gunners, are you readying your complains yet? Feel free to step up to the plate and explain why donating the cancer research is good unless gun companies do it.

Suppressed Ranch Hand

File this under things that are bad ass. Yes that is nothing less than a Rossi Ranch Hand (you know that really short lever-action rifle that’s legally a pistol) with an attached suppressor. Why would somebody do this? Why wouldn’t somebody do it is my question (unless they live in Minnesota then I know why they wouldn’t do it, stupid law banning suppressors)!