Re: first line of defense

From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Oct 01 2001 - 18:34:03 MDT


Spike Jones wrote:
>
> John Grigg wrote:
>
> > And walking around in such garb with a rifle slung over my shoulder could give people reason to panic...
>
> It shouldn't. They would know why you were doing it, in the event of
> an attack. Most rifles are perfectly legal even in Taxifornia. Whenever
> there is a right-to-bear-arms demonstration around here, one often sees
> guys milling around with elephant guns slung over the shoulder, as there
> are never any laws against those. I assume anything up to but not
> including an M60 is legal here. Perhaps Mike Lorrey knows.

Anything that looks remotely 'military' is generally considered a 'bad
gun' in Taxifornia, but there is a list of various 'assault' features,
and any rifle must have three or less of these to be legal, unless they
were sold to the public prior to a particular date . For example, you
don't need a bayonet lug to defend against a crop duster (unless he is
flying REALLY low ;P)

Actually, if you wanna do well with a truly legal gun, you can't go
wrong with a ten guage shotgun chambered for a 3.5 inch magnum shell.
Mossberg makes these relatively cheaply, in pump and semi-auto versions,
with rifled barrels no less. They can be used for turkey or high flying
goose hunting. If you can hit a goose with a ten guage (which is the
standard), you should be able to hit a crop duster with it. Use magnum
loads with double ought buckshot.

You can also get the barrel of the ten guage with adjustable chokes. The
choke is the area at the muzzle of the barrel, which provides some
degree of constriction to help provide the desired pattern of shot. Full
choke provides the tightest pattern of shot, which you would use for the
longest range shots.

I've seen guys take down Canada geese flying so high they were just
specks in the air with a magnum chambered ten guage shotgun.

At several hundred yards, you should have a shot pattern a couple feet
across with each shot. A couple of those shots should do some definite
damage to a crop duster... it doesn't matter, see, that the shot is
moving very fast when it hits the plane. The plane is already moving
really fast, so it does its own damage by hitting the shot, even if the
shot is simply grabbing hang time at the top of its arc.

>
> I took a ride over to the local sporting goods store today and found
> that I can get a cheapy 30 aught six for about 250 bucks. There are
> plenty of WW2 vintage weapons available there for about 100, which
> look like they would serve this application perfectly. I didnt pick one
> out. I still wanna see if I can find tracers.

Tracers are decent. You might also look into other ammo, like exploding
rounds, smoke rounds, etc. There are also various types of tracer round,
designed for early and late flaring.

Now, shooting at planes is nothing new. When I was in the USAF stationed
in New Mexico, the F-111's I worked on had the number one airframe
problem being bullet holes from farmers pissed at their cattle being
spooked by low flying nape of the earth planes.... A rifle shoots a
single bullet, and most places you shoot at a plane will have little or
no effect on it. You put a bunch of shot at it, you are more likely to
cause some damage. The skin of a plane is rather thin, so any bullet is
not gonna do much expansion as it passes thru. Youv'e gotta hit a hard
solid metal part, one that performs an essential function, like fuel
supply, hydraulic power, power generation, controls actuation, or
propulsion (or the pilot), to cause significant damage.



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