Pistol Caliber Carbines

 In the land between handguns and rifles, there is a unique little set of firearms that are larger than pistols, stocked, but smaller and lighter than rifles (usually) that are chambered in calibers traditionally used for pistols.  I call them Pistol Caliber Carbines, though they're known as PDWs, subguns, submachine guns, machine pistols, etc depending on who's doing the talking. 

My personal view on these guns:
They have a specialized niche where they are a fantastic choice.

When compared to other weapons, PCCs fall into an interesting little niche in my view.

They do not conceal or carry as easily as a pistol, but can make more reliable hits are further distances and some have higher capacity.

They do not hit as hard or at as long range as rifles, but are lighter and easier to conceal or carry.

Every weapon man has made has a specific purpose in mind. When used in that mode, it shines. When used outside of it, the weapon will normally lag behind other weapons specifically designed for that purpose. However, weapons can be adapted to better fill certain roles.

For example: A 28" barreled shotgun with birdshot is an ideal weapon to hunt bird. (its original, specific purpose. I know not all shotguns were designed this way, but for this argument I'm referring to the most commonly owned pump guns, 870s and 500s.) It doesn't do as well in a home defense scenario. That being said, a shotgun with buckshot or slugs and an 18" barrel is a much more desirable HD weapon. Not its original purpose, but adapted well to fit it.

Pistol Caliber Carbines (or SMGs or Machine Pistols) were originally designed as short range suppression weapons to be used primarily on full auto. Almost all military forces in the WW2 era used them for this purpose, to allow their bolt action or Garand equipped buddies the ability to maneuver, close with the enemy and destroy them. It was the house to house fighting towards the end of WW2 that really showed everyone involved how handy a man portable, intermediate cartridge automatic rifle would be handy in modern warfare, and thus the "assault weapons" were born.

So if we have rifles and pistols, what niche would a PCC fill in a civilian arsenal(especially one that isn't capable of automatic fire...)?

I will preface that to me, the ideal PCC to fit this role should be a high capacity Short Barreled Rifle (or SBR, requiring 200 dollars to Uncle Sam and some paperwork), preferably with a folding or collapsing stock. (thus more compact than a rifle). Common examples would be an SBR'd Uzi, or SBR's Sterling, H&K MP5 style weapon, UMP, etc.

To me, it fits 3 roles better than either pistols or rifles.
1) Home Defense in a suburban setting (I'll take a rifle in the country)
2) An in car weapon (not trunk gun)
3) A woman or child's primary weapon

1)Home Defense:
Like many of you, I live in a brick home, with neighbors nearby no matter which direction I look outside. Penetration in the suburbs matters, and I'd rather not wind up with holes in my neighbors house if I have to use a weapon. Certainly frangible rifle ammunition helps if you're only option is a rifle, but a PCC would be far LESS likely to over-penetrate. Carries more rounds than a shotgun or pistol (generally), and is lighter/easier to handle than rifle.

Advantages over a handgun:
Larger capacity magazines
A 2 handed weapon with a stock is far easier to make accurate hits with than a handgun

Advantages over a rifle:
Less likelihood of over-penetration
Lighter, easier to maneuver in the home

Advantages over a shotgun:
Higher capacity
Lighter, easier to maneuver in the home

2) an in car weapon.
This is kind of a unique role, but one I think is worth considering. Holstered pistols are hard to draw while seated in a car. Rifles are long and cumbersome inside a vehicle. The PCC balances this out nicely. In a a problem arises type situation where you must be worried about mobs or carjacking, or even a simple hurricane evacuation where traffic is jammed and tempers are short, throwing a towel over a PCC allows you as a driver or passenger to defend yourself in car. The advantages over our other common weapons are basically the same in this situation, so I see no need to spell it all out again.

3) A woman or childs primary weapon.
My wife is what most southern women would refer to as a "sweet little thing".  She's barely over 5 feet tall, weighs next to nothing, and isn't a gun nut like myself.  Pistols are to hard to manipulate, rifles are too heavy.  What's a girl to do?  She does like shooting my .357 lever gun.  Its light, handy, and doesn't kick much.  For those who are physically incapable of lugging around an AR, AK or shotgun, a PCC offers a lot of value as a home defense gun.  Enough rounds on board they hopefully won't have to worry about reloading, light, but still packs a good punch.  As well, it would be a good next step for a kid once they graduate from the .22 rifle to something with a little more "uumph", but not so recoil heavy or cumbersome as to turn them off shooting. 

A PCC has a valuable niche to fill in a civilian arsenal. While you can use other weapons for the scenarios I think it shines in, its hard to beat it in regards to those situations.

And if nothing else, there's something awfully cool about subguns. 

I'd love to hear others thoughts on why I'm right or way off base.

Garden Teaser

This is a teaser post that's going to kind of recap how BAD our backyard looked when we moved into this house, and what we've done to improve it.

So far, we've put in grass seed, raised garden beds, planted 2 bushes and a tree, dug up 2 dead bushes and a tree (all three died in the desert of a summer we had this last year), and put some mulch around our raised beds (detailed post on that to follow later this week). 

Plans this year include expanding our 10x10 concrete patio to a larger gravel patio with space for our outdoor patio furniture and a fire pit, and some sort of "bench feature" with hanging plants and a trellis at the rear right of the yard to offset the garden on the left.

All in all, I am very proud of how far we've come, and look forward to our continued backyard improvements. 

Some pictorial proof of my boasting....

When we signed papers on the house:

When we moved in (2010):

Last year:

Today, 3/25/2012:

And my dog enjoying the good weather and nice grass:

Stay tuned for another gun post tomorrow (a discussion of pistol caliber carbines), followed Tuesday by a detailed post on our mulch project around the garden beds.

Been a while

I know you're not supposed to "apologize" for being away from blogging, but since in the span of time I've been gone Germany could have conquered France a time or two, I feel my absence was long enough to merit an explanation.

Last summer, my paternal grandfather had a stroke.  I am quite fortunate compared to many in my peer group, because I was out of college before I lost a single grandparent on either side of the family.

We returned home to help out the family, and things seems to be improving slowly but surely by the time we returned to Temple.

During our month long trip, I set up a timer to keep the garden watered.  As anyone who was in Central Texas this last summer knows, it was HOT and DRY.  My drip was not sufficient, and we returned to a rather withered garden.  I started 2 new jobs shortly after returning from the panhandle, and with a dead garden, blogging just didn't get done.

My grandfather was improving, until he suffered a fall in the rehab center he was staying, and hit his head on the corner of a nightstand.  He passed away peacefully in his sleep in no pain on Christmas morning.

He is an incredibly hard man to summarize.  The son of a poor tenant farmer, he went on to attend Texas A&M before finishing a degree at Howard College.  Married to the same woman for 60 years, he survived polio, a broken neck, and many hard years of farming.  He spent money prudently when it was for his own benefit, gave generously and anonymously to others in need, and into his 70s was saying "I'll retire next year" for at least 5 or 6 years in a row, and left his family and everyone else around him better off than before they knew him.

In our modern society, many families are so scattered over the country that its hard to truly consider an extended family as close.  Our family, with my grandfather and grandmother as patriarch and matriarch, can almost more accurately be described as a clan than an extended family, primarily due to our wonderful grandparents who kept us all close in each others hearts and minds, if not geographically.

So I am back and ready to resume blogging.  Though I will be sticking primarily with my 3 Gs of guns, gardening and grilling, I will occasionally be adding random posts with my thoughts on gaming, politics, news, and any thing else that I feel like writing about.

In closing, I leave you with 2 pictures of my grandfather.  One as a freshman cadet at Texas A&M in 1946, and one of him with his favorite rifle, a Savage model 99 in .300savage.

This needs to be updated soon

I love this gif showing how far we've come along the march of freedom.  Once Walker signs Wisconsin's new Shall Issue law into effect, it will need to be updated again.

I'm going to paraphrase Ronald Reagan in an address to all of the freedom hating, nanny state-ist anti-rights people out there: "We win.  You lose."

HEB Grill give away

There is a fantastic site that details weapon related giveaways already that can be found here(clicky) but when I saw an ad talking about HEB's grilling giveaways, I thought it would be perfect for this blog.  You can enter to win grill related prizes at HEBs site here(clicky).

And if anyone sees this, enters and wins, I'm going to go ahead and reserve the right to crash your party when you break in your new grill, deal?  Good luck to all!

Treason

I try to keep all of my blog posts more firearm, food or garden related, but this needs to be shouted from every roof top until people realize the type of people we have in high offices in this country and their absolute disdain for our Constitution or individual rights.

I'll post a quick quote, but every American really needs to read this article and be aware of this scandal. 

"Gunwalker’s objective was never intended to be a “legitimate law enforcement interest.” Instead, it appears that ATF Acting Director Ken Melson and Department of Justice senior executives specifically created an operation that was designed from the outset to arm Mexican narco-terrorists and increase violence substantially along both sides of the Southwest border.
Success was measured not by the number of criminals being incarcerated, but by the number of weapons transiting the border and the violence those weapons caused. An ATF manager was “delighted” when Gunwalker guns started showing up at drug busts. It would be entirely consistent with this theory if DOJ communications reflected the approval of the ATF senior officials they were colluding with — but as we know, Holder’s Department of Justice refuses to cooperate."

Gunwalker Scandal

The only thing I can think of that arming Americas enemies in order to strip protected freedoms from its citizens can be called nothing other than TREASON. 

The Kalashnikov

Well, it has been far too long since I've posted...took a trip to Colorado to watch my sister graduate and get married.  So, for a "welcome back to blogging" gift to myself, I'm going to talk about my favorite rifle, the Avtomat Kalashnikova, model of 1947 commonly known as the AK-47. 

Here is my AK, a Russian Saiga converted back to its true form.

A comparison of cartridge size, the 7.62x39 for the AK and a .45ACP pistol round

With over 100 million variants produced worldwide, the AK-47 is one of the most popular rifles world wide, used by various military groups, revolutionaries, and terrorists. With that being said, there are several questions people not familiar with the rifle inevitably ask.

Is that thing legal?Yes, with some caveats.  In a FREE state like Texas, citizens who are not prohibited persons (ie convicted felons) are free to purchase and own AK-47 variants and other fine rifles like the FAL and AR-15.  Some states have outright bans on so called "assault rifles" (ASSAULT is an action, not a description, despite what the media says) while others ban certain features, like folding stocks or bayonet lugs.  (to save us from all those awful drive by bayonettings that kept happening before the bans)  Check your local and state laws regarding ownership. 

Isn't it just a bullet hose? All it does is spray bullets indiscriminately..
First things first, put down the TV remote.  Movies lie about automatic weapons.  Here is a video of a fully automatic AK variant emptying a magazine.  AK mag dump So, that took about 2 seconds.  Not the 1:30 of baby killing carnage you see on TV.  In addition, while there are legal full automatic AKs in the states, they are very expensive, require a tax stamp from the ATF, extensive background check, etc.  The majority of AKs you see in the USA are semi auto clones of the military AK-47.  What does this mean?  A semi automatic firearm is best explained by this simple phrase: 1 round fired for each time the trigger is pulled.  If you just pull back and hold down the trigger of a semi auto AK, it is going to fire exactly ONE bullet.  They're not going to spray everywhere. 

Now that the 2 biggest misconceptions are out of the way, I'd like to talk about my AK.  There are a ton of variants out there, and I may address that in another post.  My AK is a Russian Saiga.  They are imported into the United States looking more like this:

Al

As long as you follow federal law (specifically 922(r)) you can restore these sporting rifles into a more authentic AK form. Here is a good site to guide you through the process. 

My Saiga AK is reliable, accurate, and a great rifle.  One upgrade I consider mandatory for at least 1 AK you own is a folding stock of some kind, either a side folder like mine or an underfolder.  The ability to be compact and thus carried discretely is one of the big +1 points in the AK column regarding any AK vs AR debate.  The most compact is of course the underfolder, but I like the ACE sidefolder I have on mine, primarily because I can still get a good cheek weld with this stock.  Eventually, I would love to have some kind of red dot mounted on this gun, because AK sights are crude at best.  I've been eyeing the Texas Weapons Systems dogleg, which replaces the dust cover with a railed cover that can be tightened down to maintain a zero on any optics mounted on it. 

For those who don't know, the Sagias are not surplus weapons that have been used and abused then sold as parts kits, but brand new Russian AKs with chrome lined barrels.  A lot of people who have little experience with the AK are quick to deride the system as inaccurate.  You will certainly get no argument from me that an AR-15 style rifle can be set up and tuned to a much finer degree of accuracy than an AK, with even sub MOA accuracy possible from a quality AR.  That being said, my AK isn't a bulls-eye target rifle but I would argue it is "accurate enough"  to do whatever I need it to within 300 yards easily.  There are probably plenty of AKs out there that have surplus barrels that have been shot out, built to loose tolerances and aren't capable of reliably hitting the target.  The Russian Saigas are not in that category at all.


I'll go into further detail over why I prefer the AK to the AR platform, what it takes to get into AKs, and anything else I can think of to talk about regarding AKs in later posts.  Till next time!