Guncotton, or nitrocellulose, made by dipping cotton in a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids, was patented in 1846 by a Swiss chemist by the name of Christian Friedrich Schönbein, based on earlier work by French chemists Henry Braconnot and Théophile-Jules Pelouze.
Guncotton is highly flammable and chemically unstable, so early efforts to utilize it as a gunpowder ingredient or explosive caused some serious disasters.
But in 1884 the French chemist Paul Marie Eugène Vieille found a way to stabilize it. He called his invention poudre blanche, or white powder, to distinguish it from traditional black gunpowder.
It burns much faster than black powder and produces comparatively little smoke, so it quickly became known as “smokeless” powder.
A number of attempts to create a self-loading (automatic) weapon were made prior to the invention of smokeless powder, including a gas-operated revolver made by Orbea Hermanos of Eibar, Spain as early as 1863.
None of these efforts were ultimately viable because of the heavy residues left by black powder, which inhibits mechanical functioning very quickly.
But immediately after the invention of smokeless powder, a number of people began serious work on designs for self-loading guns.
The most significant successful designs (other than John Browning’s) were those by Mannlicher, Bergmann, and Mauser. Most of these early self-loading pistols had limited sales and/or were intended primarily for military use.
John Moses Browning (1855-1926) grew up in his father’s gun shop and learned to repair guns before he learned to read and write.
He filed his first firearm patent in 1879 at the age of 24. Browning began experimenting with self-loading weapon designs around 1889.
He filed a patent on a gas-operated machine gun on 6 January 1890, and followed it with another dozen or so patents over the next decade on various types of self-loading weapons, both gas and recoil operated.
By 1894 Browning had completed his first prototype automatic pistol. In 1895 the Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company began producing Browning’s machine gun, which marked the beginning of a long collaboration between John Browning and the Colt’s Company.
On 24 July 1896 Browning signed a contract giving Colt’s the right to manufacture four of his automatic pistol designs for distribution in the U.S. and Canada. However, Colt’s was almost certainly acquiring the rights in order to protect sales of their revolvers.
There was, as yet, no established market for self-loading pistols in the U.S.
An early Model 1900 FN Browning Pistol Photograph courtesy of John-Paul Attwood
Browning’s first pistol patent was filed on 14 September 1895 and was followed just over a year later by three pistol patents filed on 31 October 1896. All four U.S. patents were granted on 20 April 1897 and given successive numbers:
580,923, for a gas-operated automatic pistol that was never manufactured, but various elements of which appeared in later Browning pistols–particularly the disconnector;
580,924, for a recoil-operated locked-breech design which became the Colt Automatic Pistol of 1900;
580,925, for a gas-operated automatic pistol with a rotating barrel locked-breech design and a grip safety, which was never manufactured;
580,926, for a recoil-operated blowback design which was an early prototype for the 1899/1900 FN Browning.
Browning was granted U.S. patent 621,747 on 21 March 1899, covering the final design for the 1899/1900 FN Browning.
Connecticut had been an early center for the manufacture of brass hardware, clocks, and firearms–and later of machine tools, gauges, bicycles, sewing machines, and all manner of precision mechanical devices.
Firearms manufacture was particularly centered in Hartford and New Haven, which both had rivers to provide power for machinery.
In the late nineteenth century Connecticut, and the Colt’s factory at Hartford in particular, was a major center for the dissemination of information and knowhow on the manufacture of interchangeable parts, which had become known in Europe as “the American System” of manufacture.
So it was that in 1897 Fabrique Nationale of Liège, Belgium sent their Director of External Affairs, Hart O. Berg, to his hometown of Hartford, Connecticut to investigate the latest U.S. techniques of bicycle manufacture.
FN had a large factory full of machine tools and skilled workers, but due to a change in ownership most of their military contracts had been lost to German concerns, so the company was looking for new products to keep them afloat.
John M. Browning was in Hartford at the same time to visit Colt’s. Exactly how the two men met is probably unknown.
It may have been a chance encounter, or perhaps they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance. But somehow Berg and Browning struck up a friendship, and Browning showed Berg his prototype for a .32 caliber self-loading pistol. Colt’s had contracted the previous year to manufacture Browning’s handgun designs in the U.S., but actual production was still a long way off, and in any case Colt’s had not purchased Browning’s blowback-operated designs, preferring instead to concentrate on locked-breech guns that would be suitable for military applications.
Browning must have leapt at the opportunity to have his gun manufactured in Europe, while Berg’s mission to Connecticut achieved its goal of finding a viable product for his company to produce.
Browning’s prototype gun, and the ammunition for it, went to Belgium with Berg, and he and the FN engineers were astonished when it fired 500 rounds without a single failure to feed or eject.
There probably wasn’t another self-loading pistol in the world as reliable as John Browning’s. Browning signed a contract with FN on 17 July 1897 to manufacture and sell the pistol in most of Europe.
The contract specifically forbade the sale of the gun in the U.S. and Canada, where Colt’s had the right to sell Browning’s designs, which is probably the main reason these guns are relatively scarce in the U.S. today, especially the Model 1899.
Hart Berg travelled to Ogden, Utah in January of 1898 to try to convice John Browning to come to Belgium and supervise the tooling-up process for manufacturing the pistol.
But Browning was in the most creative phase of his life and had other priorities. Instead, he gave Berg his recommendations on how he thought the pistol could be most efficiently produced.*
FN began tooling up immediately, and the first prototypes were ready for testing by July. The first production guns went on sale in January of 1899. The 7.65mm Browning Cartridge
According to W.H.B. Smith, the 7.65mm Browning (.32 auto) cartridge was developed from the 8mm Bergmann Simplex cartridge, however this seems unlikely since the Simplex probably didn’t appear until at least 1900.
Hogg & Walter state it didn’t appear until 1902, in which case the Simplex cartridge might just as well be based on the Browning.
The Bergmann cartridge had a slightly tapered case that was about 5 thousandths of an inch longer than the Browning, and a bullet of nearly identical weight, though the Simplex cartridge generated a lower muzzle velocity. Both guns were blowback-operated.
The Ammo Encyclopedia says the .32 auto cartridge was developed in 1897, the year of the initial patent.
Henry White and Burton Munhall in their book Pistol and Revolver Cartridges state: “Recent research leads us to believe that the cartridge may have been developed experimentally in this country, although it was first introduced in Belgium in 1900 [sic] by Fabrique Nationale with the advent of the Browning Automatic Pistol.
We know that Browning patented his gun in 1897 and that for the next few years considerable work was done by various American companies on cartridges for his weapon.”
They cite a .32 Browning Automatic cartridge that was listed in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company catalog for August 1899. They examined one of these cartridges which was headstamped “W.R.A.Co. .32 B.A.” and had a soft lead bullet.
John Malloy, in his article “Early Auto Pistol Cartridges,” doubts that Browning ever had the opportunity to examine a Bergmann Simplex cartridge. He establishes that Browning had a longstanding relationship with Winchester, that the Browning brothers’ store carried Winchester cartridges, a number of which were in .32 caliber, and that Browning’s machine guns were all made to shoot existing rimmed rifle cartridges.
Malloy believes that Browning started with an existing .32 cartridge: “It seems plausible that Browning shortened some of these [cartridges] to a case length he felt to be suitable for a magazine inside the grip.
He would then have reduced the rim until the cartridges fed smoothly over each other, leaving a slight flange to position the round in the chamber. The semi-rimmed pistol cartridge was probably born in this manner.” Anthony Vanderlinden, in FN Browning Pistols, Sidearms that Shaped World History, reproduces a photograph of a box of 7.65mm FN cartridges that clearly shows a drawing of a Model 1899 pistol on the label. FN 7.65mm cartridges were available for sale when the pistol went on the market in January of 1899.
The Model of 1899
Model 1899, s/n 156 Photograph courtesy of Bob Adams
The original FN Browning pistol was simply known as le Pistolet Browning, or the Browning Pistol. When the Model 1900 appeared, the 1899 version was referred to by FN as the modèle de pré-série, or pre- series model. When the 1910 FN Browning appeared, the Models 1899/1900 were often referred to as the “old model Browning.” Only much later, as John M. Browning produced more and more designs, did year model designations become commonplace. According to Vanderlinden, the Model 1899 has an overall length of 158mm (6.2 inches) and a barrel length of 100mm (3.9 inches). It’s height is approximately 112mm (4.4 inches). The magazine holds seven rounds.The Model 1899 is a striker-fired weapon which consists of a frame with a barrel screwed into it, a slide, and a separate breech block. It was the first pistol ever to have a reciprocating slide as opposed to a reciprocating breech block or bolt. The slide fits onto the frame from the front, while the breech block is inserted from the rear; the two are joined by two large screws. The lower front portion of the slide completely surrounds the barrel, behind which is the attached breech block, slotted into the rear of the frame. The upper portion of the slide consists of a tunnel enclosing the recoil spring, which does double duty as the striker spring. There is an ejection port on the right side of the frame. The extractor is a piece of spring steel with a hook on the end.
The gun features a stirrup-shaped connector bar, the two sides of which run from the trigger to the sear on either side of the magazine. The sear is tensioned by a leaf spring in the grip of the gun, behind the magazine. The manual safety blocks the sear and locks the trigger. There is no provision for locking the slide open for cleaning. Due to the weight of the slide and breech block, the gun has remarkably little felt recoil. Its fixed barrel and precision manufacture (à la FN) make it extremely accurate.
Patent Drawing – U.S. Patent 621,747
By today’s standards the spring-above-the-barrel design is unusual. However, the gun was the first truly successful commercial self-loading pistol, and as such its design was widely emulated in its day (e.g., the Pieper Bayard, the Clement, the Frommer Stop, the 1911 Melior, the Langenhan, the Owa, the 1908 Steyr Pieper, the Helfricht, the 1913 Smith & Wesson .35, and much later the .22 caliber Smith & Wesson Escort). The ejector and ejection port were also widely copied. John Browning already had simpler designs in his head, but he clearly wanted someone to make this one, probably because it worked so well.In 1899 the Belgian army was looking for a self-loading pistol. They tested all the pistols of the era: the Mauser, the Bergmann, the Roth (I presume this was a prototype Roth-Steyr), the Mannlicher, the Borchardt, and the Borchardt-Luger. Probably immediately after the first Belgian army pistol trials FN decided to make a larger version of the M1899. I’m guessing the little pistol looked positively diminutive next to the other guns in the trials, and FN thought it might be better received if it were larger. The larger version had an extended grip, frame, and slide. According to Vanderlinden, its overall length was 184mm (7 .25 inches), its barrel length was 122mm (4.8 inches), and it held 8 rounds instead of 7. Only a very small number of these large models were made. Gangarosa incorrectly gives the measurements and capacity of the large test model in place of those for the Model 1899. The large gun was entered into subsequent Belgian military trials toward the middle of 1899. The standard model and the large model were both entered in the British military trials in December of 1900, but were rejected due to the inadequate power of the 7.65mm Browning cartridge.
Model 1899, s/n 156 Photograph courtesy of Bob Adams
The smaller Browning was ultimately chosen as the standard pistol for the Belgian military. However, a number of changes were requested for the military contract. When these changes were incorporated the new gun became what we call today the Model 1900 FN Browning. Initially FN thought they would continue to produce the Model 1899 for commercial sale, making the Model 1900 for military use only, and indeed virtually all of the first year’s production of the Model 1900 went toward fulfilling the military contract. But FN quickly realized it was much more efficient to produce a single model, so the Model 1899 was phased out before the end of 1901. Over 14,400 Model 1899 pistols are estimated to have been produced between 1899 and 1901. They are rarely seen in the U.S.One of the distinctive features of these pistols is the reinforced area of the frame above the trigger guard, which is made of thicker steel than the rest of the frame. On the Model 1899, this area extends just beyond the middle of the trigger guard (to the top front of the trigger itself), and the rear line of this reinforced area slants toward the front of the gun. This reinforced area of the frame is marked on the left side Breveté S.G.D.G. (indicating the gun is patented), and is stamped with an oval cartouche featuring an image of the gun with a small FN monogram beneath it. Some early safety levers have a round grip area with three concentric circles, while others are checkered. There are no markings to indicate which position is ‘Fire’ and which is ‘Safe.’
The hard rubber grip plates feature an oval cartouche at the top with a picture of the gun and the FN monogram. Beneath the oval, the grip plates are checkered. The grip plates are quite thin and small, leaving several millimeters of steel grip area on the sides. There is 4 or 5 millimeters of metal grip uncovered beneath the bottom of the grip plates. The grip plates are held on by a large round plate in the rear with a threaded stud protruding through the grip plate onto which is screwed a slotted nut. Slide legends are roll stamped on the left side. There are two legends found: FABRIQUE NATIONALE HERSTAL LIEGE and FABRIQUE NATIONALE HERSTAL LIEGE (BROWNING’S PATENT). Apparently, these were interchangeable and both legends appear throughout production of the gun. The slides, frames, and breech blocks are all proofed with the Liege Perron and an inspector’s proof, typically a star over a letter. Serial numbers are stamped on the right side of the frame, just in front of the ejection port, and are also stamped on the right side of the slide and breech block. Serial numbers started at 1 and ran to 9999, after which they ran from A1 to A4500 (approximately).
The finish was rust blue, with a fire blued trigger. Nickel plating was an option, but few specimens are known with factory nickel. No engraving was offered for the M1899. Only a single fancy engraved model is known from the production era–a gun presented by FN to Theodore Roosevelt. The Model of 1900
Model 1900 FN Browning with non-original grips
The Belgian Military requested that their gun have its frame more heavily reinforced than the Model 1899, be provided with larger, thicker grip plates, and have a lanyard at the base of the grip. They also insisted that the safety positions be marked ‘Sur’ and ‘Feu’ (On and Fire). Markings in German and English were available by special order for sale in other countries. A cocking indicator was added by extending the top of the cocking lever so that it blocks the sight picture when the gun is not cocked. Hence, it is possible to determine visually, or by feel, if the gun is cocked. According to Vanderlinden, the Model 1900 is 164mm in length (though I measure mine at 162mm), and the barrel is 102mm long (though I measure mine at 100mm). The frames were hand ground by machinists, and so may vary slightly in shape and length. The reinforced portion of the frame above the trigger guard extends all the way to the rear of the trigger guard, and all the way to the ejection port on the right side; this area was also made several thousandths of an inch thicker on the Model 1899. The rear line of the reinforced area is at right angles to the top of the frame. The shape of the grip tang is slightly altered, as is the top of the breech block that forms the rear sight. The circular grip area on the safety lever is checkered. The safety lever also serves to lock the slide open if engaged when the slide is all the way to the rear.The grip plates are thicker than those on the M1899 and extend almost to the edges of the grip frame. Some early military contract guns were delivered with plain checkered grip plates that did not feature the oval cartouche at the top–these are quite scarce today. Many of these grips were later replaced by plain checkered wooden grips, which are also quite scarce today. The commercial grip plates continued to have the oval cartouche at the top with a picture of the gun and the FN monogram until 1905. The left grip plate has a cutout on one corner where it abuts the lanyard. At around serial number 200,000 the grip design was changed–the grips were slightly smaller (leaving a couple of millimeters of grip frame showing around their edges) and the oval cartouche contained only the large FN monogram. The grip plates are retained by a rectangular backplate that fits across the grip frame behind them, and are held in place by a screw..
The gun continued to be referred to as le Pistolet Browning. Markings were as follows:
Guns made prior to 1907 were marked, on the left side of the slide, FABRIQUE NATIONALE HERSTAL LIEGE (BROWNING’S PATENT) in sans-serif characters or FABRIQUE-NATIONALE HERSTAL LIEGE (BROWNING’S PATENT) in serif characters. The reinforced area of the frame above the trigger guard was marked on the left side with the roll-stamped cartouche containing a picture of the gun with the FN monogram beneath it and either BREVETE S.G.D.G. or BREVETÉ-S.G.D.G.–the characters on the frame matching those on the slide. The frame, slide, and breech block were proofed with the Liege Perron and an inspector’s proof, consisting of a star over a letter. Later the smokeless powder proof, a lion over the letters ‘PV’ was added. A crown with two letters may appear on some guns–these are state arsenal acceptance proofs. The serial number was stamped on the right side of the frame, slide, and breech block.
After May of 1907 guns were marked in serif letters on the left side of the slide FABRIQUE-NATIONALE- D’ARMESdeGUERRE. HERSTAL-BELGIQUE. We have also observed examples with the same inscription in sans-serif characters. The reinforced area of the frame above the trigger guard featured the oval cartouche, as above, and was marked BROWNING’S PATENT over BREVETTE S.G.D.G. The proofs were applied as above, as were serial numbers.
For details on serial numbers, please refer to Anthony Vanderlinden’s book. He states that: “Production of the first commercial pistols was erratic and large gaps exist in the early serial number ranges.” Serial numbers began at 1, but many early pistols failed proof testing and were never completed. A total of approximately 724,550 M1900 pistols were manufactured. Production ended at the beginning of World War I in 1914, though sales had been considerably reduced by the introduction of the Model 1910, which went into production in 1912. The success of the M1899/1900 may have forced the Colt’s company to begin the manufacture of the first Colt Automatic Pistol in 1900.
The finish of the M1900 was in rust blue or nickel plate. Early pistols had fire blued triggers like those on the Model 1899. Six different levels of engraving and gold inlay were available, as were mother-of-pearl and ivory grip plates. Nickeled pistols were given a black undercoat before plating, and the trigger, safety, and screws were left with this black finish. If the plating is worn off, the black undercoat should show through beneath it.
For many years almost every article you read about the Model 1900 stated that it had been the gun used to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, starting World War I. The actual gun used was a Model 1910 FN Browning, but at the time the Model 1910 had only been out for 2 years and year model designations had not yet been adopted. The press reported that the assassination was performed with a Browning pistol, and the M1900 was the Browning pistol most of the world was familiar with, so it was simply assumed to have been the gun used and the error was perpetuated for decades.
The Model 1900 saw wide distribution throughout Europe. The Belgian war ministry placed an order for 10,000 guns in 1900, and it served as the standard sidearm for the Belgian military through World War I. The Austro-Hungarian empire also purchased the weapon; the exact quantity purchased is not known, but Vanderlinden states that 770 were in the military inventory of 1914. The gun was also widely used by German police. Don Maus has documented at least 62 Model 1900 FN pistols with German police markings. Many of these guns have safety markings in German, indicating that they were purchased under contract. The Model 1900 also saw use by police in Finland, as well as during various wars up to 1945. See Vanderlinden for details. Disassembly
Model 1900 FN Browning disassembled
I call this section “Disassembly” rather than “Field Stripping” because the M1899 and M1900 require a screwdriver to disassemble, so the procedure is not normally done in the field. Nevertheless, it is relatively simple.
Remove the magazine.
Draw the slide back and make sure the chamber is empty.
Draw the slide forward off the frame. (Note: These guns are very tightly fitted. The slide and breech block may not separate easily. If this is the case, draw the slide back and lock it open with the manual safety latch. Then release the safety, while holding your hand in front of the gun to catch the slide as it is propelled off the frame.)
Remove the breech block (with attached spring and guide) from the rear of the frame.
When reinserting the breech block into the frame, pull the trigger to lower the sear. Field Test
I finally found a Model 1900 FN Browning at a reasonable price–it has been reblued and doesn’t have the original grips, but the serial numbers match and it is fully functional. For a few years I had only seen them in pictures, and the actual gun was smaller than I had imagined from seeing them in photographs. The angle of the grip to the slide is about 10 degrees greater than perpendicular. Most modern guns have a grip angled a little more–about 15 degrees greater than perpendicular–which enables them to be pointed more naturally. Nevertheless, the M1900 feels good in my hand. I can get two fingers around the grip strap and my little finger wraps around the bottom of the grip quite naturally.
I was astonished when four of the bullets from my first magazine went into the same hole (at about 25 feet)–if I were a better shot I believe I could shoot out the bullseye with this gun. The M1900 digested every kind of ammunition I put through it and never once failed to feed or eject. It is no wonder that it was an immediate success.
* Berg resigned from FN on 28 April 1898, not long after his trip to Utah. He later worked for Flint & Company in Europe and also served as the business agent for the Wright brothers. According to Vanderlinden, he was still alive and living in Paris after World War II.
Copyright 2009 by Ed Buffaloe. All rights reserved.
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BY MASON DIXON TACTICAL In the real world with real bad guys, practical accuracy is the only accuracy.
____________________________________________________________________________________________ There’s a lot of confusion even among longtime shooters between what a rifle is capable of doing off the bench on a nice controlled square range and what’s actually practical for a serviceable combat weapon.
The two really aren’t the same. While tight groups are definitely a plus and a goal to be attained, having a precision weapon in the general purpose role is not always completely necessary to make one combat effective.
There’s a happy medium to be found, and getting there is not always hard or expensive. Above all else, it’s the fundamentals of the shooter that make a weapon deadly, no matter what.
One of the really neat things about the past couple decades, firearms-wise, is the real renaissance we’ve seen in weapons development and maximization of potential.
Most visibly is this phenomena with the proliferation of the AR-15 platform, but really among all classes of weapons. One can pick up even a lower-tier carbine and have a decent action capable of making solid hits at further distances than many shoot on average. That is, if the shooter is capable. Some of this has to do with the plethora of modern ammo choices out there, some with the advent and precision of CNC machines, and some with the proliferation of free-floated handguards.
While the Colt M4A1 series has a mil-spec tolerance of 4 MOA, or a ~4 inch group at 100 meters, and usually easily exceeding this your common off the shelf AR-15 can expect much better than that on average. It begins, however, with the skill of the man behind the trigger.
The same can be said for the huge boom in the Long Range hobby. Lots of people are getting into it and it can be a lot of fun putting steel on target from 500m or more.
The ability to squeeze every last fraction of capability is definitely nice. And usually the underlying question, whether plinking, running 3 gun or Long Range type stuff, is ultimately protection of hearth and home.
But the question that comes to my mind is do you really need all of that to make an effective rifleman? The answer is largely determined by the rifleman’s purpose.
For a combat weapon, even a designated marksman’s role, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a .5 MOA rifle or even one that really impresses at the range.
Gasping for air, I know. Practical accuracy is a different animal from mechanical accuracy. But let’s look at some reasons why. 1. What is the median distance you plan to engage?
For my operating environment, I live in mostly dense forest with rolling hills. The long distance stretches are either pastures, power lines, or highways.
From a light fighter’s standpoint, these three amount to the cardinal rule of never walking in the open or crossing a linear danger area with no overwatch.
Overwatch, by the way, is not some fancy buzzword to sell you junk but actually is someone on your team hidden watching for muzzle flashes in case you get shot…while you’re crossing in the open or across linear danger areas. They watch over you.
That said, my average engagement distance here is under 100m. Are you accurate enough to be lethal within 100m? How about 200m? How about 300m?
Do you really need to shoot further than that? Maybe, maybe not. What are the intermediate barriers, i.e. potential cover (rocks, deadfall, etc) between you and where an adversary may fire from? Are you capable of shooting over those same open areas that they may cross?
Average backwoods of NC.
A good way to put this into context is to think of the average shot a deer hunter will make in a given area. Around here, between thick Carolina conifer and hardwood stands, shotguns do just fine for 99% of putting meat in the freezer.
Rifles are nice for shooting across cutovers or fire breaks- those open areas requiring a little more range I just warned you about.
And how accurate is that Remington 770 or 742 with meat ammo versus a heavyweight barreled Remington 700 5R and precision handloads?
Mechanically it wouldn’t make much difference in the woods over relatively short distances. But the weight sure as heck will, regardless of whether you’re a twenty something stud out shootin’ n’ lootin’ or a mid 50s patriarch looking to protect his home.
Doesn’t mean that any of these are my personal choice for anything other than hunting game, but the concept is basically the same. Which bring my next point. 2. What is your Weight Threshold?
I knew a guy a while back who had a uber-high end semi-auto AR-10, decked out to the nines, with every cool guy thing you can imagine and a giant NightForce 56mm celestial telescope on top.
Beautiful rifle, crisp glass. Weighed 18lbs empty and carried like a 4×4 in the hands. And there’s nothing wrong with that, if you want a high end benchrest-type gun.
But that’s a ridiculous and unnecessary amount of weight for a general purpose weapon. For him, making tiny groups at a given distance was a lot of fun. But when it came time to carry it, you’d see him ditch that for his handy WASR-10 that weighs half as much loaded and accomplishes the same task within 100m.
The point is that what feels heavy but tolerable in your hands at the gunstore becomes a boat anchor after carrying it over distances with supporting equipment.
Common knowledge usually dictates weight equates superior accuracy, but too much becomes self-defeating. That lightweight AR-15 with a pencil barrel can get heavy too.
After a four day cave clearing mission in Afghanistan my M4 felt like a cinderblock. And aside from a PEQ-15, it wasn’t too far removed from the AR-type carbine pictured above.
Granted, I was carrying a lot of other equipment including a SMAW-D and several days worth of 5590 batteries (which is like toting aroundbricks), but the point is that a carbine I intend to fight with needs to remain lightweight to keep me unencumbered.
There’s a reason the broad shouldered bubbas get picked to hump the M-240B; it’s big and heavy, and the small guys can’t handle and effectively employ it over long distances.
Even the meat eaters get tired though, and shaving a few ounces here and there makes a world of difference when you’re gassed. 3. Remaining Combat Effective- Remember BRAS
The reality of fighting in armed groups is that it is nothing like sitting at a range plinking targets. That’s nice for basic rifle marksmanship, and it’s really important to work on fundamentals.
It’s purpose is to confirm zero & dope (Data Of Previous Engagement- a record of ballistic data for that weapon and specific ammo load) and make sure you can hit a target at a given specific distance, hence why most square ranges are referred to as Known-Distance or KD ranges.
Square range time is critical, and should be at least a monthly training event for you and your group. But understand it is not the end-all-be-all; its just a foundation for Basic Rifle Marksmanship consisting of BRAS- Breathe, Relax, Aim, Squeeze. For creating and maintaining proficiency this is the proper cadence for trigger control.
It’s easy to get right when relaxed and very easy to get wrong any other time. Only training on a 100m square range is a dangerously false sense of security.
Only shooting from a bench and calling it good is preparing you for nothing except shooting off a bench. Getting out and humping that safe queen through the woods for a bit is critically more important than making tiny groups from the bench or even shooting fast at stationary targets in the 3-gun stall.
You learn the ins and outs of that weapon on a patrol and get to make it better.
You may very well learn that what you can do with a 12lb rifle you can also do with an 8lb rifle, and that 4lb weight saving could make a big difference.
If I’m running a .5 MOA rifle but it’s a beast to carry with that 20in bull barrel, I may end up being so exhausted after a movement or a quick react to contact that I can’t hit anything with it because I can’t settle down behind the gun. Under duress this will happen to you.
If you’re out of shape this will be you. And at that point the rifle’s accuracy is irrelevant. Shooting a half inch at 100m now becomes not even being able to acquire a target in that 14x zoom lens, because you’re spent and can’t think through your situation. Believe me, it will happen to you. 4. “If you can’t do it with irons, don’t bother with optics”
I was talking recently with an old-hand Sniper Instructor who told me this. It may come as a shock to some of you but I agree wholeheartedly for making new riflemen.
The optics themselves make life easy, especially today in the world of precision machining and glass manufacturing that makes even lesser-expensive options fairly high quality. And it can produce marksmen in a shorter amount of time because the process of sight-aquire-fire now becomes streamlined.
But- and this is a big objection- without the fundamentals of proper marksmanship, an optic of any type does you little good and in some cases might make you worse.
If I’m running way more glass than necessary, such as putting a 16×50 on an M4 because it helps me shoot tiny groups off a bench or in the prone, I’m not effective anywhere but in that one scenario.
I may very well lose my target if something throws me off kilter as usually happens in a dynamic environment and I may also have trouble getting on target with any amount of speed.
If I back the zoom off but have a second focal plane scope, now my reticle is worthless for any sort of bullet drop or ranging measurements.
His logic is that if I can do it with iron sights, then I have zero problem with optics. The fundamentals are there, along with my confidence.
The foundation is laid. Optics of any type are a tool to enhance one’s capability, not a shortcut in training. If Joe knows he can ring steel with irons on his weapon at an average engagement distance, then an optic of any type enhances his capability.
He now has confidence in himself and his weapon. And confidence is the difference maker above any piece of kit. So with that said, anyone getting started in rifle marksmanship should begin with iron sights and graduate to implementing optics down the road. Simplicity equals success.
Keep in mind this is for basic training purposes; a standard for those new or inexperienced. Additionally, for those simply thinking optics always equate accuracy, buying airsoft-grade trash or even decent glass but a skimpy or improper mounting solution is a recipe for problems in the long run.
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. If you genuinely don’t know, swallow that pride and get some instruction- I promise, it will be worth it. Mechanical vs. Practical
Mechanical accuracy definitely plays a large role in practical accuracy, but if your fundamentals are trash nothing is going to make you a good shooter.
While you’ve read up until now that pinpoint accuracy is not a central requirement in a primary fighting carbine or rifle, good mechanical accuracy is definitely a desirable asset.
If my weapon shoots 2 MOA, or a 2 inch group at 100 yards, that means on an average man-sized target at any given distance I have some margin of error to still make solid hits, all things being equal. Anything up to 4 MOA for a general purpose carbine then becomes perfectly acceptable.
Even out to 600m this gives us, in theory at least, 24 inches of spread but still perfectly capable of a solid hit if you do your part. But you have to know how to do your part, and that only comes from solid training.
But will you need to shoot that far? Probably not in most cases- and only your own situation can determine this. Most often our expectations should be half that distance at the most, but if everyone in your group can make those kinds of shots, then they’ll have no problems engaging closer than that.
Practical accuracy comes from the individual rifleman; riflemen are only produced and maintained through quality training. The tactics of the Team of Riflemen are the real difference maker. You should be seeking out training outside the square range on a regular basis.
My friend JC Dodge has an upcoming class which will go beyond the typical comfort zone of most, pushing both the student and his equipment.
In addition, I’m available for those seeking private instruction on both making the shot and proper field techniques, along with other small units skills such as off-grid communications, Recon & Surveillance, and Combat Casualty Care.
We’re not the only ones who can teach this stuff; there’s many others. But I highly implore the reader to get that training along with all the other skills to give you the tactical edge in setting up a secure retreat, even if you think you’re the ‘expert’. And with that, I’ll leave you with a quote from the late, great Peter Kokalis:
To train others in the art of war, you must both know war from the trenches and undergo constant training from others, both to keep the sharp edge and be exposed to the ever-evolving tactical concepts of combat at the down and dirty level.
Several have asked why an “expert” (God how I loathe that word) like me would need to participate in training at a firearms school. The answer is simple: for the same reason tennis and golf pros constantly train under other tennis and golf pros.
You cannot observe yourself while shooting, but the professional firearms instructors under whom I train can constantly detect slight nuances of incorrect movement that need to be reprogrammed.
-From Weapon Tests and Evaluations, The Best of Soldier of Fortune
A semi-automatic pistol is a type of handgun which utilizes the energy of the fired cartridge to cycle the action of the gun and advance the next available cartridge into position for firing.
One round is fired each time the trigger of a semi-automatic pistol is pulled. (The following list table is sortable.)
Last week a congressman embarrassed himself on Twitter. He got into a debate about gun control, suggested a mandatory buyback—which is basically confiscation with a happy face sticker on it—and when someone told him that they would resist, he said resistance was futile because the government has nukes.
And everybody was like, wait, what?
Of course the congressman is now saying that using nuclear weapons on American gun owners was an exaggeration, he just wanted to rhetorically demonstrate that the all-powerful government could crush us peasants like bugs, they hold our pathetic lives in their iron hand, and he’d never ever advocate for the use of nuclear weapons on American soil (that would be bad for the environment!), and instead he merely wants to send a SWAT team to your house to shoot you in the face if you don’t comply.
See? That’s way better.
But this post isn’t about that particular line from one foolish congressman. It’s about all of the silly left wing memes that have popped up since, trying to justify the congressman’s basic premise that the 2nd Amendment is obsolete for resisting tyranny, and the government would obliterate anyone who failed to comply. Like this one:
I’ve seen a slew of these over the last few days. Nukes kicked it off, but I’ve seen it before with drones, or tanks, or cruise missiles. Sadly, this is one of the better ones, but that’s because the left can’t meme. Basically they all boil down to the same fundamental premise. The federal government has access to advanced weapon systems, and thus anyone who resisted gun confiscation would be effortlessly destroyed by these advanced weapon systems, ergo gun control has already won, forgone conclusion, and they declare victory.
Like most political memes, they’re taking an extremely complex situation, and providing a cartoonish, simplistic answer, which makes them look like complete dipshits to anybody with a clue, but scores them lots of Virtue Signal Points to their likewise ignorant but posturing friends. To my people, this is really goofy stuff. I mean, if you have even a basic knowledge of this topic these memes are about as clever as the ones from the vaccines cause autism morons and the flat earth society.
We are so divided it’s like we are speaking two different languages. Hell, on this topic we are on two different planets. And it is usually framed with a sanctimonious left versus right, enlightened being versus racist hillbilly, unfailing arrow of history versus the knuckle dragging past sort of vibe.
But basically it boils down to one side making the argument: The idea of the 2nd Amendment resisting a tyrannical government is obsolete, because the federal government is too overwhelmingly powerful, and has too many advanced technologies.
So today I’m writing this for my left leaning friends and readers, in the hopes that I can break down the flaws in this argument. I’m going to try not to be too insulting. Accent on try… But I’ll probably fail because this is a really stupid argument.
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a novelist now, but I retired from the Evil Military Industrial Complex, where I helped maintain those various advanced weapon systems you expect to bomb me with. Before that I was a gun dealer and firearms instructor. So basically I sold guns to the people you expect the people I trained to take them from.
On that note, I don’t think you fully comprehend the nature of the individuals you expect to do your dirty work, but I’ll come back around to that later.
First, let’s talk about the basic premise that an irregular force primarily armed with rifles would be helpless against a powerful army that has things like drones and attack helicopters.
This is a deeply ironic argument to make, considering that the most technologically advanced military coalition in history has spent the better part of the last two decades fighting goat herders with AKs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Seriously, it’s like you guys only pay attention to American casualties when there’s a republican in office and an election coming up.
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama launched over five hundred drone strikes during his eight years in office. We’ve used Apaches (that’s the scary looking helicopter in the picture for my peacenik liberal friends), smart bombs, tanks, I don’t know how many thousand s of raids on houses and compounds, all the stuff that the lefty memes say they’re willing to do to crush the gun nut right, and we’ve spent something like 6 trillion dollars on the global war on terror so far.
And yet they’re still fighting.
So yes, groups of irregular locals can be a real pain in the ass to a technologically superior military force. That’s pretty obvious.
Now here is the interesting part. Best estimates are that any given time in Iraq we’ve been fighting about 20,000 insurgents at most. Keep that number in mind, because now we’re going to talk about the scope of this hypothetical fight over gun control.
Nobody really knows how many people in America own guns, or how many guns are here. The estimates range wildly. I’ve noticed a trend over recent years of the news media trying to minimize that number, to make it seem like it’s actually a very low percentage of Americans who own firearms, a fading cultural anomaly if you will, and to explain the one to two million new backgrounds checks done every month for new purchases, a handful of us just own a few hundred guns each.
Uh huh…. Sure.
While trying to make gun ownership seem like an oddball thing, I’ve seen the media come up with some truly silly estimates about the total number of guns in this country. The one that was going around earlier this year was really easy to debunk, because they used the number of NICS checks… Problem is, it didn’t take into account the millions guns sold before that (and they never really wear out), the fact that one NICS check can be used to buy multiples at a time, and that many US states (including the gun nuttiest) use their own state background check system, and don’t report to that federal number. Oh yeah, with advances in cheap machining, making your own guns at home has become increasingly popular.
When pollsters call to ask us if and how many guns we own—we think about things like a congressmen talking about nuking us—and immediately lie our asses off. The biggest recurring joke in the gun community is that I don’t own any guns, because I lost them all in a freak canoe accident.
So nobody really knows how many guns there are here, or how many of us own them. But the answer is A LOT.
Recently the WaPo ran an article called Americans Vastly Overestimate the Number of Gun Owners. As with most WaPo articles, it was about 90% bullshit, but they are claiming that only 20 to 30 percent of Americans own guns. That may sound plausible if you live in Manhattan, but out here in flyover country, that’s downright laughable, but anyways, to make the idea of mass gun confiscation as plausible as possible, let’s run with that rosy figure. We’ll even take the lower one of 20%. (snort)
Too bad America has over a third of a billion people, because even the unrealistic figure of 20% of 325 million is still a whopping 65 MILLION people. That’s about the same as the entire population of France. That’s about the same as the population of Great Britain, only with 500 times the firepower. Good thing we didn’t go with that 30%, because now the number is way bigger than the population of Germany (and you know what a pain beating them last time was!). Or ironically, about three times the population of Iraq.
It’s kind of funny, when it comes to us adopting social or economic programs, the left is always comparing the US to Denmark, which has the population of LA county, and that’s totally not apples and oranges, but declaring war on a percentage of the American population bigger than most nation states? That’s no biggie.
But I digress…
Okay, so let’s say Congressman Swalwell gets his wish, and the government says turn them in or else. And even though the government has become tyrannical enough to send SWAT teams door to door and threaten citizens with drones and attack helicopters, rather than half the states saying fuck you, this means Civil War 2, instead we’ll stick to the rosiest of all possible outcomes, and say that most gun owners comply.
In fact, let’s be super kind. Rather than a realistic number, like half or a third of those people getting really, really pissed off and hoisting the black flag, let’s say that 99% of them decide to totally put all their faith into the government, and that the all-powerful entity which just threatened to kill their entire family will never ever turn tyrannical from now on, pinky swear, so what do they have to lose? And a whopping 90% of gun owners go along peacefully.
That means you are only dealing with six and a half MILLION insurgents. The entire active US military is about 1.3 million, with about 800,000 reserve. Which is also assuming that those two Venn diagrams don’t overlap, which is just plain idiotic, but I’ll get to that too.
Let’s be super generous. I’m talking absurdly generous, and say that a full 99% of US gun owners say won’t somebody think of the children and all hold hands and sing kumbaya, so that then you are only dealing with the angriest, listless malcontents who hate progress… These are those crazy, knuckle dragging bastards who you will have to put in the ground.
And there are 650,000 of them.
To put that into perspective, we were fighting 22,000 insurgents in Iraq, a country which would fit comfortably inside Texas with plenty of room to spare. This would be almost 30 times as many fighters, spread across 22 times the area.
And that estimated number is pathetically, laughably low.
In one of the bluest states in America, the New York SAFE Act only has like a 4% compliance rate. And that’s mostly just people choosing to ignore an onerous law. Because the further you get away from the major cities, the more people just don’t give a crap about your utopian foolishness. Its benign neglect, and most Americans are happy to ignore you until you mess with them. You start dropping Hellfire missiles on Indiana? Fuck you, its game on. And that 1% is going to turn into 50% damn quick.
So just by the numbers, it’s an insurmountable problem, but we’re just getting started with how stupid this idea is.
Let’s talk about the logistical challenges of this holy crusade to free the country of icky guns and murder everybody who thinks differently than you do.
In Iraq, our troops operated out of a few secure bases. Those were the big areas where we could do things like store supplies, airlift things in or out, repair vehicles, have field hospitals, a Burger King, etc. And then there were Forward Operating Bases. These are the little camps troops could stage out of to operate in a given area. The hard part was keeping those places supplied, and I believe most of America’s causalities came from convoys getting hit while trying to supply things like ammo, food, and fuel, because when you’re moving around, you’re a big target. All of these places were secured, and if you got too close, or they thought you were going to try and drive a car bomb through the gate, they’d light you up.
Now, imagine trying to conduct operations in a place with twenty times the bad guys, and there are no “safe zones”. Most of our military bases aren’t out in the desert by themselves. They’ve had a town grow up around them, and the only thing separating the jets from the people you expect them to be bombing is a chain link fence.
The confiscators don’t live on base. They live in apartment complexes and houses in the suburbs next door to the people you expect them to murder. Every time they go out to kick in some redneck’s door, their convoy is moving through an area with lots of angry people who shoot small animals from far away for fun, and the only thing they remember about chemistry is the formula for Tannerite.
In something that I find profoundly troubling, when I’ve had this discussion before, I’ve had a Caring Liberal tell me that the example of Iraq doesn’t apply, because “we kept the gloves on”, whereas fighting America’s gun nuts would be a righteous total war with nothing held back… Holy shit, I’ve got to wonder about the mentality of people who demand rigorous ROEs to prevent civilian casualties in a foreign country, are blood thirsty enough to carpet bomb Texas.
You really hate us, and then act confused why we want to keep our guns? But I don’t think unrelenting total war against everyone who has ever disagreed with you on Facebook is going to be quite as clean as you expect.
There will be no secure delivery of ammo, food, and fuel, because the guys who build that, grow that, and ship that, well, you just dropped a Hellfire on his cousin Bill because he wouldn’t turn over his SKS. Fuck you. Starve. And that’s assuming they don’t still make the delivery but the gas is tainted and food is poisoned.
Oh wait… Poison? That would be unsportsmanlike! Really? Because your guy just brought up nuclear weapons. What? You think that you’re going to declare war on half of America, with rules of engagement that would make Genghis Khan blush, and my side would keep using Marquis of Queensbury rules?
Oh hell no.
A friend of mine who is a political activist said something interesting the other day, and that was for most people on the left political violence is a knob, and they can turn the heat up and down, with things like protests, and riots, all the way up to destruction of property, and sometimes murder… But for the vast majority of folks on the right, it’s an off and on switch. And the settings are Vote or Shoot Fucking Everybody. And believe me, you really don’t want that switch to get flipped, because Civil War 2.0 would make Bosnia look like a trip to Disneyworld.
Speaking of ugly, do you really honestly think that you’re going to be able to kill people because they disagree with you, and they won’t hit you back where it hurts? While you’re drone striking Omaha Nebraska you really think that the people who live where all the food is grown, the electricity is generated, and all the freeways and rail lines run through, that some of them aren’t going to take it personal? And that they’re not going to use their location and access to make life extremely uncomfortable for you?
The scariest single conversation I’ve ever heard in my life was five Special Forces guys having a fun thought exercise about how they would bring a major American city to its knees. They picked Chicago, because it was a place they’d all been. It was fascinating, and utterly terrifying. And I’ll never ever put any of it in a book, because I don’t want to give crazy people any ideas. Give it about a week and people would be eating each other (and gee whiz, take one wild guess what the political leanings of most Green Berets are?).
Similar dinner conversation once, with a bunch of SWAT cops from a major American city, talking about how incredibly easy it would be to entirely shut down and utterly ruin their city, with only a small crew of dedicated individuals and about forty eight hours of mayhem and fuckery. (And guess what their political leanings were? Hint, most of them were eager to retire because they’d been treated like shit by their liberal mayors, and take their pension to someplace like Arkansas)
So yeah, let’s talk about those people you think are going to be unfeeling automatons who will have no problem killing their friends and neighbors on your behalf…
They are us.
Above I mentioned a Venn diagram of obstinate gun owners and the military, but you can change that to cops and it’s going to be pretty similar. Those diagrams overlap a lot, and depending on the particular department or unit, they make one big happy circle.
Back when I owned a gun store, we were located one block from Utah Army National Guard Headquarters. Every drill weekend my building was a sea of ACU (and the fact that very few of my liberal readers know what that abbreviation means just shows goes to show how incredibly out of touch they are, but I mean that ugly sage grey digital camouflage). It was just a bunch of guys hanging out, talking shit, and BUYING GUNS.
Lots and lots of guns. And I know most of my left wing readers can’t tell them apart, but they were specifically buying the scary ones that you want to ban the most. Thousands of them. And cops… Holy moly I sold a lot of guns to cops. Not department guns, though we supplied a few of those, but personal guns.
Having worked with a lot of police departments, guess what? The guys who actually know how to shoot? The ones who run the training programs? Usually they’re my people too. The gun nuts gravitate toward that position because A. more taxpayer funded ammo, and B. they actually give a shit about the subject, so they learn on their own, and then try to pass those skills onto their coworkers to better keep them alive.
Whenever I see one of these dipshit memes produced by some Gender Studies Major, it just demonstrates how incredibly sheltered and out of touch they are. They don’t know fuck all about these people. Usually if they’re talking about soldiers, it’s about how they’re evil baby killers, or time bombs of PTSD rage, or poor deluded fools who joined the military because they couldn’t get a real job…. And cops, it’s about how they’re just a bunch of trigger happy racists just itching for an excuse to execute everybody who looks different than they do.
But don’t worry, despite all those years of abuse, when you ask them to go door to door in their hometown to systematically attack people they’ve known their whole lives, friends and family who’ve done nothing wrong, and maybe get shot or blown up, and when it’s over then turn in their own personal guns, all because some moron in a big city a thousand miles away said so, I’m sure they’ll hop right to it.
See, one of the things you guys on the left don’t realize is that there’s that whole “Othering” thing. You do it all the time without thinking about it. Where you just ascribe increasingly terrible things to people, like all gun owners are murderous, racist, kill crazy, redneck, dumb ass peckerwoods who want children to die, to the point that to you, we’re this unimaginable, evil, Other, so it’s okay to threaten to murder us, and feel good about yourself. Because we’re bad, and you’re the good guy, and thus totally justified in all you do.
Yet you assume that the people who gravitate toward the career fields you’ll need to wage war on us will feel the same way you do. When in reality most of them think you’re posturing, elitist, ignoramuses who don’t know the first thing about guns, crime, violence, or America.
Now this is where I’ll part ways with most of my libertarian brethren, because they are quick to point out that there are plenty of places where cops enforce existing gun or drug laws. The part they’re missing is that most people are complicated, and they’ve got lines they won’t cross.
In this case, the target isn’t some Other, it’s not just their people, it’s them. And an active shooting war between the government and half the population? That’s a pretty big fucking line. And we’re not talking about people they are already inclined not to like, but rather they’re supposed to go shoot their doctor and their mechanic for doing something that up until a few days ago was legal and they were doing themselves. A small percentage will be happy to put on the jack boots and start loading people into cattle cars. But a larger percentage will say nope, I’m calling in sick, don’t feel like getting blown up today.
And another big chunk will actively help the insurgents, because they fucking hate you and everything you stand for. Like seriously, out of touch liberals, how many small town sheriff’s deputies do you think would describe themselves as “progressive”?
Now this will vary wildly depending on jurisdiction. Some places, no problem. People will comply. Others because of the culture, they won’t. Yet, in the places where they are the least likely to comply, those are the places where you are the most likely to have the local authorities be actively on the side of the insurgents. (this is kind of a no brainer to anybody who has ever looked at any guerilla war ever in history). Which means that the occupiers then have to import outsiders to do the deed, but then the presence of outsiders piss off the rest of the local fence sitters, and now everybody is getting blown up.
The problem with all those advanced weapons systems you don’t understand, but keep sticking onto memes, is guess who builds them, maintains them, and drives them? When I first saw this idiotic Apache meme my comment was that sadly Freedom Eagle’s day job was as a contractor doing helicopter engine maintenance.
Those drones you guys like to go on about, and barely understand? One of the contracts I worked on was maintaining the servers for them. Guess which way most military contractors vote? Duh. Though honestly, if I was still in my Evil Military Industrial Complex job when this went down, I’d just quietly embezzle and funnel millions of DOD dollars to the rebels. Because fuck you is why.
So you’ve got an insurmountable challenge, that’s logistically impossible, and a big chunk of the people you expect to fight on your behalf being actively against you. Your side would need an incredible amount of will, especially after they turned off your electricity and water, and there’s no more food on the shelves.
This is why smart progressives prefer to boil the frog slowly.
To pull off confiscation now you’d have to be willing to kill millions of people. The congressman’s suggestion was incredibly stupid, but it was nice to see one of you guys being honest about it for once. In order to maybe, hypothetically save thousands, you’d be willing to slaughter millions. Either you really suck at math, or the ugly truth is that you just hate the other side so much that you think killing millions of people is worth it to make them fall in line. And if that’s the case, you’re a sick bastard, and a great example of why the rest of us aren’t ever going to give up our guns.
Slide legends are roll stamped on the left side. There are two legends found: 
There’s a lot of confusion even among longtime shooters between what a rifle is capable of doing off the bench on a nice controlled square range and what’s actually practical for a serviceable combat weapon.
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Words fail me on how to express my admiration for this guys guts and courage! Grumpy