Chicken Little?

17 Sept 08

Chicken Little? This from a friend in IL:

"Where I live, Interstates 80/94 and 65 are closed, due to flooding. They have been so for the last three days! You can't get anywhere. It's one, big parking lot. Expecting UPS to make deliveries, or expecting that you can even get out to buy essentials during a crisis like this is wishful thinking in the extreme!"

Comment: Operators need to always be ready. Don't put off until tomorrow preparations that need to be made today!

Who haven't thought adequately about self-preparation, garnering gear and essentials, need to look around! Aside from the weather, national fiscal weakness, as exemplified by one financial crisis after another at the federal level, and in the majority of statehouses, means, for the foreseeable future, less and less in the form of emergency aid and "essential services" are going to be forthcoming from governments, at all levels.

As a nation, we're voraciously eating our seed corn! As individuals, we need to prepare as best we can.

/John

6.5mm Grendel

17 Sept 08

6.5mm Grendel

I had an opportunity last weekend to shoot a rifle chambered for 6.5mm Grendel. The 6.5G is a 300+ meter round that is flat-shooting, stable, and accurate, owing to its long, skinny bullet. Unfortunately, the cartridge is too big to legitimately fit into the existing AR-15 Platform, as noted previously.

Right now, 6.5G ammunition is hard to find and expensive, more so than the 6.8SPC, and much more so than 5.56X45 (223) and 7.62X39 (30/Soviet). The 6.5G technically outperforms the 6.8SPC, but not significantly, and the 6.8SPC has the advantage of comfortably fitting into the existing AR-15 System, both the rifle itself and existing magazines (the 6.8SPC requires only a different follower).

I shot last weekend's Urban Rifle Course with my copy of the RA/XCRin 7.62X39. Again, this is a legitimate 300-meter rifle with real penetration. Combined with a forward-mounted Micro/Aimpoint, it makes an ideal car-gun. With its folding-stock, it travels nicely in a fabric viola-case and quietly goes in and out of hotels with scant notice from anyone! Ammunition is still relatively reasonable and plentiful.

There may be a future for the 6.5G, and the 6.8SPC too, or both may wither on the vine. Personally, I believe the 6.8SPC, even with faded interest from the Pentagon, has now sufficiently caught on to insure at least a small, and growing, following. The 6.5 is not there yet.

In 2009, we'll see an XCR in 7.62X51 (308), and it will be, I'm confident, right up there with the legendary DSA/FAL. However, in this election year, my advice is to equip yourself early and thoroughly, and then get yourself trained, with us or another competent instructor. Personal preparation is more important now than at any moment in my lifetime. Don't put it off!

"Willingness is a state of mind. Readiness is a statement of fact!"

/John