Indians For Guns

It was another beautiful, clear, fall day in Minnesota. Warm, without a hint of any bugs, this last weekend in August 2012 was just perfect. My friends, Chuck, Jim, Shaun, Mark and I decided to visit Ahlman’s (a local gun store). They were once again hosting a customer appreciation weekend (Last years post on customer appreciation weekend was posted HERE) to say Thank You to their customers.


We saw this welcoming sign as soon as we entered the area


Ahlman’s store is out in the countryside and they are by far the largest gun store in the area. They have over 5000 new and used guns on the premises. The grounds surrounding the store has a gun club and numerous pistol, rifle and shotgun ranges. All the major manufacturers have booths on the grounds displaying their wares. There are trails that wind through the woods which lead to numerous booths. All these booths are backed by ranges and you can try out the guns if you want to. For example, you go up to the Ruger booth, pick a gun, give them your drivers license and you can shoot the gun right behind the booth. When you give the gun back, they will give you your drivers license back. The shotgun companies have traps setup and you can try out the shotguns on clay pigeons right behind each booth.


The Springfield Armory booth. Which one do you want to shoot?


The Mossberg booth


Shaun handles the Mossberg “Chainsaw”, a pistol gripped pump action shotgun.meant to be shot from the hip. This one has a door breaching muzzle brake.

Here is FPS Russia explaining how the Chainsaw should be used.
[youtube][/youtube]

Then we moved over to the reenactment area.


The venerable Ma Duece (.50 cal. Browning)


The M249 SAW (Squad automatic weapon)


Shaun making like Bruce Willis with a bazooka


Shaun with the incredible WW2 MG34 MG



A WW2 vintage M2 half Track


A Daimler Ferret Scout Car


A Vietnam era M60 MG


some Jeeps on display


Shaun doing his “Dr Strangelove” imitation.

We passed by the civil war reenactment area where they had a small tent camp setup inside “Fort Ahlman”, a replica of a frontier fort.


The civil War reenactment area had this 6 pounder cannon. It was absolutely pristine and they fired it about once every two hours.


A medallion honoring Saint Barbara, patron saint of Artillerymen, is embedded in the axle of the cannon. I think Nagarifle worships at her altar.

We continued on to some of the other arms manufacturers booths. Arrested by some really good looking AR type rifles we stopped at the JP Enterprises booth. I was in for a real treat as I tried out a JP Enterprises .308 rifle.


Shooting a JP Enterprises rifle in .308. An absolutely gorgeous gun, machined from billet and it has an adjustable gas system. Recoil was about on par with a normal .223 AR 15. As you can see, the cartridge casing has ejected but my shoulder is still forward and I still have a cheek weld. An incredibly soft shooting rifle but at $3500, there won’t be one in my gun safe anytime soon.


Mark shooting a JP Enterprises short barreled 9mm AR


Discussing the merits of various AR type rifles. I shot one that was all “Magpulled” out. A very nice rifle!

The MG Area
This was what I was waiting for all day. They had a show special. Four guns - 120 rounds for $50. How could anyone resist? These are full auto guns.


Here is the guy who was ahead of us, firing the M249


The guns I fired were The AK74,


The M4A1 (short barreled)


The AK74U (don't know why but it is called the "Krinkov" in the US)


and finally a regular M4A1.

Here is some video of me shooting my four rifles:
[youtube][/youtube]

We then went over the watch the Benelli professional trick shooter. An amazing demonstration! He demonstrated and shot many shotguns in the Benelli line; between his legs, upside down, over his head, etc and hit the target every time.


Tim Bradley destroying multiple clay pigeons with the shotgun held upside down.


Boom! The grand finale where Tim Bradley shot a flammable target.

After that we pigged out on hamburgers and a Dairy Queen Blizzard and drove home full and happy.

Nice. Will have to stop at Ahlman's the next time I am in Minnesota. But it's an MG34, not a 42. "Daimler"

Corrections made sir.
Let me know the next time you are here. I would love to meet up with you.

Thanks for sharing xl .

best,
Rp.

WOW....

Great pics and videos XL... thanks for sharing...

Cheers

TC

PS : Simply love the JP enterprise rifle

Just brilliant,XL. Loved it all. Thank you for sharing.


Best-
Vikram

Hi XL,

Fished out this excellent article by Peter Kokalis on the "Krinov" crisis and some real good AK variations. Makes good read.

http://www.arsenalinc.com/usa/imgs/articles/krinkov.pdf

Cheers

TC

TC wrote:Hi XL,

Fished out this excellent article by Peter Kokalis on the "Krinov" crisis and some real good AK variations. Makes good read.

http://www.arsenalinc.com/usa/imgs/articles/krinkov.pdf

Cheers

TC

Very Interesting article, TC.
Thanks!

I don't know how i miss this XL, but this is excellent pics and videos.i wish if i am with you.


Thank's
Baljit

Holy cow xl you have a paradise right in your city

Shooting full auto, man I envy you. This is something that I cannot do in state of wa.

Very nice videos, thank you for posting.

XL: Looks great! I sure wish I could get the time to spend up there for awhile! As you know, my Mom and Brother are not too far away. Things just keep happening to prevent a long enough visit up there...

I loved the pictures and wanted to comment on one: the 6 pdr cannon.

That one in the picture is a Parrott Rifle. I wan't aware that they made them as small as 6 pdr, but the largest were 300 pdrs. These were my first interest in cannons as a little kid, when Popular Science magazine ran an article on cannons.

These cannons were made in the day that "shell guns" were being developed, where instead of firing a simple cannon ball, they fired a more recognizable "bullet shape" projectile with a bursting charge and a fuze. It was the development of the shell gun that put an end to navies with "wooden walls."

One very famous cannon design was John Dahlgren's a Swedish-American. His guns, rather than having the traditional straight sided "pipe" look, were shaped more like a coke bottle, being very thick over the chamber and tapering to a small muzzle. Dahlgren correctly reasoned that thickness and strength needed to be concentrated over the area of highest pressure. (Note that, during the time of the Civil War, Dahlgren and John Ericsson, designer of the "Monitor," were famous names in America and Sweden both. They are highly honored on both nations.)

Another development was the rifled bore. Rifling was known, but implementing it was the issue. The problems of implementing a rifled cannot began to be solved in the period leading up to the Civil War.

As we all know, the Frenchman, Minie, developed his famous conical "Minie Ball" conical bullet that was used with such deadly results in the Civil War, making mass infantry charges obsolete. The hollow base would be upset in the lead bullet to grip the rifling, and the bullet before this was smaller than the bore, making it able to be loaded into muzzleloading weapons without a patch. This allowed it to be loaded as quickly as the older smoothbore muskets.

But lead rounds are not used in cannon! Parrott's answer was to use a copper "driving band" around the base of the shell. The band was undercut on the side oriented toward the base of the shell, allowing the expanding gasses of firing to upset the copper band, making it grip the rifling of the bore.

But, as you can see in the picture, it was the design of the tube itself that was the most obvious and famous aspect of the Parrott Rifle design. Muzzle loading cannons were always difficult and expensive to cast, whether they were the old ones of brass or the later ones of cast iron. Making them was an art form, working with an expensive medium.

Essentially, a hole was dug in the ground and lined with clay, and a plug was made out of special clay for the bore. (I'm leaving a lot of detail out of this description!) This core was centered in the outer mould by iron rods which supported it, and became embedded in the tube when the metal solidified.

Parrott avoided the difficulty and expense of the Dahlgren coke bottle shape, by casting a simple, straight-sided tube. To get the strength for heavy charges which were needed to push the heavy shell projectiles, Parrott used a shrink-fitted wrought iron band around the chamber. The band was made with an interference fit, and then heated to expand it. In that state, it was shrink fitted over the tube. The compression of the band's shrinking on the tube held it securely and added the necessary strength to the barrel.

This made the Parrott cheaper to make, because it required a lot less iron for its size, and it was also lighter than a Dahlgren. You can see all different sizes in old Civil War pictures, especially naval ones.

The Parrott didn't always work well -- they were known for bursting. The process of shrink-fitting the band was not perfected, but it did show the way forward in the art and later science of cannon making, as later large artillery and naval rifles were all built using one or another principle of built-up construction. The Parrott heralded the end of the single, one piece construction of large cannon barrels.

I love this kind of stuff!

amazing pics xl_target... How was it lifting the SAW??? Is it really heavy...

god bless america. envy ENVY.

Nice one XL will review them with proper wifi connection I am on road..

I will check the movie clips etc out..when I lived in MN Cabela was it for me
Daimler ferret scout car - its a german designed but used by British and India ..rather a squadron of these was instrumental in saving Srinagar during 1948 war

Some more tanks
http://home.comcast.net/~szee1a/Bovingt ... Tanks.html
Cheers

lucky man and great photos.....finally its wow......